Rambles in the heat

Friday, 4 September

It has got hot again. I am lying here on the sofa down stairs at the beach house in New Jersey, hammering away at the trusty old iBook, and I have no clothes on. Jessy, Josie and I got here early this afternoon, after our Ferry ride and after checking on the house, and we were able to avoid the worst of the traffic. The guy on the local radio station said the Causeway was jammed about 11 miles. [sigh] Thank God for not having school yet; else would never have got here in time for our shift at the shop.

We put Josie in one of Jessy's outfits, the cute dark-green paisley bodice with stays and a pretty pale-grey skirt. Dottie put her to work in the verandah (the screened porch that goes round three sides of the place). She had never worked as a waitress before and made $18 in tips tonight. The place was really pumping all evening. We walked down the street in our Colonial outfits and by then it was beastly hot. Those two are up stairs... looking over their FaceBooks I am sure. Josie tends to devote a lot of time to Twitter. I don't see the point and have never done more than glance at it. I have updated my FaceBook with the best pics from our 'underwear glamour show' last weekend and that's enough for me, for now.

Yesterday we three had a delightful day, driving up to Chincoteague in the morning and spending most of the day on the beach there. We all wore swimsuits under shorts and shirts and were able to go out to supper later. All of us went in the water-- it was lovely. We lay on towels near a very nice family and ended up playing with some of the children. There were 4-year-old twin girls and two boys. We made a sandcastle and talked with the mother, who is a Christian from Maryland, a little north of the beach road. They have a vegetable farm and a stand on the road, and they have raised sheepdogs... so I told them about Stephen who has worked at the animal rescue shelter and is now going to UMES. Later some boys our age happened by and struck up a conversation. Jessy and Josie soaked up-- as you may well imagine-- and I just sat and talked with the mother next to us, till the guys had got their eyefuls of Jessy and Josie in bikinis and wandered off. Then the mother said to me, 'Am I keeping you from anything more social?'

I just laughed. 'No. Believe me. I'm fine.'

'Your sister seems to be interested,' she said.

'I'm sure she is.'

'You're not? Pretty girl like you?'

I shrugged, still kneeling in the sand, moulding the sandcastle with both hands for the boys. 'There are two of them. Let them have their fun.'

She laughed. 'All right,' she said.

Later I got up and wandered down to the water by myself. There was a whole row of people standing with ankles in the water, older and younger, and dozens of squealing happy children darting round us all. I stood with my arms folded over my tummy and watched them all or stared out at the horizon. Soon a guy came up and stood beside me. I don't think he was there just because of me-- it was just coincidence that he found that place clear enough to stand and take the shorebreak as it rolled in. He was older than me, maybe 25 or so. You know how it is-- you get the sensation people are looking at you before you actually know for sure that they are. I would think it was conceited of me to assume that, except that it's so often true.

'Hello,' he said to me, his eyes going down where any guy's would have, and then he looked me face-to-face. 'How are you doing, there?'

I shrugged and looked out at the ocean. 'I'm fine,' I said.

One of the little boys from beside our towels ran by and smiled up at me. I waved. 'That's cute,' the man said. 'I mean that he waved at you.'

'Oh,' I said. 'Well, I was just playing with him earlier.'

'Oh,' he said. He hadn't expected that. They never do, you know. Most men want to assume you are wholly unconnected to anyone else. I suppose it makes it easier for them. 'So,' he said, 'last weekend of vacation before classes start?'

I nodded. 'Something like that.'

'I'm from DC,' he told me.

I looked him over then-- clean-cut, short hair, decent shape, dull-looking khaki shorts that were too long, mild tan. Obviously a white-collar type from the city. I nodded then. 'Oh,' I said.

'And where are you from?'

I shrugged again. 'A little south of here,' I said.

'Oh.... Local, huh? I bet this is a nice place to be from.'

'I guess.' I turned then and looked back at Josie and Jessy who were flat on their backs and had not noticed this guy trying to chat me up. I wondered what he would do when he found out how old I was. Then I wondered if he suspected I were safely over 18 or if he would prefer I were not. Then I decided I didn't care to know that much about him, because this wasn't going anywhere other than a friendly chat on the beach.

The man allowed me to stand there on my own for a bit and then turned right to me and asked, 'So, what's your name?'

I shivered a little. Now he was asking for personal information. 'Um,' I said, and then glanced back at the other two. 'Excuse me, please.' And I turned to go back.

'No need to be afraid,' he said, with that patronising look they all get when they like to assume they are in control and you are being 'typically feminine' and feeling intimidated by a man who 'knows what he wants'.

I looked right at him then, still with my arms folded over my tummy. 'I'm not afraid of anything,' I said.

He smirked now at me. 'Then stay here and tell me your name.'

I nodded. 'Please excuse me now.' And I turned to go.

'No excuse for being rude,' he said after me. And I would ignore that.

After I had take a place on the blanket beside Jessy I told them both about him. Sure enough, the both sat up to look. He paid us no mind at all-- then, but later we saw him strolling the beach and he happened to look up our way at us. I saw that smirk again-- but I'm pretty sure he recognised that Jessy and Josie looked younger than I am and that probably made him realise we were all a little too young for him to be expecting tit for tat... or whatever he'd want to call it.

The first rule of being a gentleman is to never importune a lady. Never make her feel uncomfortable, never demand information or favours from her, never treat her like she owes you anything, never do anything that you believe she has to repay. Any man who can't be polite to a lady just for the sake of being polite, period, is no gentleman.

The man on the beach ought to have known I knew more about his age than he assumed about mine, and that I had already decided it was an ineligible match. Sure, I go to the beach to meet nice guys. I usually don't care if they are a little older than I am. I sort of expect it. And yes, it is sometimes flattering. But I don't care for being expected to give out information. And I always find it more charming when the lady introduces herself first. Then she has the choice of offering her hand-- a gentleman should never offer his hand to a lady first, because it's a form of requiring her to do something, in this case to take it. And when I first said 'excuse me' he should have realised he had just required something from me and said, 'I'm sorry'. But, instead, he behaved as most men do and defended his choice to be impertinent. He didn't care about my feelings or anything about me. He only cared about what he wanted-- which may have been just a friendly kind of chat on the beach with a girl in a bikini. But because he didn't care about me at all, he didn't get that.

I e-mailed one of my friends from HOH about it last night and she came back this afternoon telling me I did well. I had been afraid I was only being characteristically snobby and stuck-up, and she was like, 'What did he want? Where did he come from? Why did he chat up you? How long was he looking at you before?' And I got the impression from what she made me think about and how the so-called conversation had gone that he probably had chosen me to stop beside and speak to. That's a little creepy. And so I am glad I went back to the others and ended an already-awkward exchange.

We went back to the car without getting dressed and stopped at McDonald's for drive-through. By then those two had shimmied into their shorts at least-- I had not because I was driving. The guy in the drive-through window looked straight down at me. I didn't mind-- I am sure he sees girls in swimsuits all the time. So it was only at the Dollar General that I pulled on the shorts to get out of the car.

I am grateful for Josie because she shares our sense of self-respect and modesty. I know she likes to flirt a little-- she is, of course, a Gemini!! --but she is a very decent sort of girl and no one can fault her too much for appreciating a certain level of attention. With Jessy and me she is always a perfect lady.

Today we drove up Rt 13 in our swimsuits in the car, and when we got on the Ferry we went up to the top deck and sat out in the sun. People laughed-- but we were hardly the first people do to such a thing. Mother admitted she had done it when she was my age here too. A couple of people stared at us like we were nuts-- but really the day was perfect for it, and who could blame us? When we got to the house we had time to stroll the beach a bit before returning to dress in the Colonial outfits for the shop. Josie was actually embarrassed when Jessy and I told her we don't wear anything under the skirts. 'Really?'

We both laughed. 'Josie,' I said, 'you mean you never heard that?' I was naked and pulling on the shift then. 'Panties aren't old-fashioned, love.'

And we helped her get dressed, lacing up the bodice and the top of the shift and so on. Suddenly she was excited. And as we walked up the street to the shop people waved and hooted horns at us, as we do, and she finally leaned over and whispered, 'I feel so hot.'

'Hot?' I teased. 'I would have thought it'd been cooler than you're used to.'

But then she surprised me. 'After half a summer with you two? No, I'm very comfortable without, Janine.' And we all laughed.

Now it is very late and this laptop in my lap is making me feel feverish from its own heat. I shall go now. More later--

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