Friday 11 September 2009
There was an announcement at school today during second period in observance of the 2001 tragedy, asking us to take our one minute of silence in remembrance. we did this last year too. At HOH in England we did not, but it was often discussed. Many Americans do not know how much solidarity the British feel towards Americans in their times of struggle and conflict. They really are America's staunchest ally. I just wish people would remember that.
In European history we began talking about the Angles and Jutes and Saxons. The class will skip all over, but it begins with Britain, moves round Europe, and ends with the 1939-1945 War ('World War II' to you Americans!). Remembering the 9/11 discussions at HOH I think about how little Americans really know about history beyond their own borders. It's a shame really. I have read 'Finest Hour', written when Mr Churchill was resigning from public office and thought he had no more political career ahead of him. He was the sort of man who would not have written a book like that if he had not believed he could have been objective about it. His true story establishes very clearly that Britain fought singlehanded against the Japanese, the Vichy French, the Fascist Italians and the Nazi Germans on five fronts for two and a half years before ANY appreciable aid came from America. And all through his book Mr Churchill pleaded with Mr Roosevelt for any help at all, and when it doe snot come he cautions the American president that when England falls, the Nazis will be at Boston and New York. He makes plans to take the king and Parliament to Australia as an exile government, fully anticipating that Britain could not hold out against such an enemy indefinitely. The surprising part was that, even though Britain was depleting resources, they were still holding off the enemy threat when the Americans did arrive. It is an amazing TRUE story that, I am sad to say, most Americans either don't know, don't care about, or don't want to believe. And sadder still is that so many Americans don't appreciate the support Britain has give them over the years.
I honestly do not know where to fit myself in this debate any more. I consider myself both British and American now, for my heritage and education (and preferences) include both places equally influential on my feelings and thoughts. I feel appalled that so many in America support 'multiculturalism' and 'diversity', but let an English person step into their group, or let someone suggest that being English is also an 'ethnic group', and he is shut up straight away. If every opinion is valid, if America is truly tolerant and relativist and liberal, why then are the English the only group that it's permissible to bash? --actually, they are the only group you are supposed to bash. It's never considered bad taste to insult the British-- why is that? What if that happens to be someone's family heritage? I suppose it means I am just another conservative white Anglo-Saxon Protestant-- the least privileged subculture group in America. I don't deserve any special rights like everyone else has. Supposedly I am the enemy of equal rights.
Yes I will probably end up at Delaware... but issues like this one make me long for UEA even more.
...
13 September 2009
First day of school (again)
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
I got up early and put on the skirt I bought in Chelsea, which is a mottled grey, almost like moleskin, kind of short, really nice-- and it was marked down. I wore that with plain white tights (it was chilly) and a dark-green sleeveless top and a white shirt on like a cover-up (meaning not closed). Roger would drive us in together in the Cadillac.
Of course at the school there were oodles of people milling round the place, all catching up on what happened in the summer and son on. Josie was there and hurried up to us as we arrived. Her mother had driven her in (she doesn't have a car yet). She had asked us to pick her up, but of course that was not feasible since she lives on the other side of the high school from us, you know. So as we stepped out of the car and thanked Roger for holding the door we already had a sort of audience.
I am sure the new freshmen were the ones who stared at us. They do not know us yet. I hope they will make the effort-- we surely will try to befriend them too. The girls' club will need a couple of new members when Becky and I graduate! Josie fawned over the skirt (she's seen it before) and Jessy's whole ensemble, a cute dress in dark gold and navy with navy tights and her gold (so they look) shoes. The one good thing about the first day is that no one will be dressing for PE, so it's all right to get a little fancied up, you know. I mean-- Jessy and I had both done our this morning.
We walked in to the building with Josie, and then Paula and Rita, and then Becky, so we were like a posse. These cliques are something I always hated-- till I found myself in one! But, as I have said before, if we are a clique at least we try to be a happy and well-dressed one, you know-- and we do make friends. It's part of the club code.
My schedule this year is terrible and I have already decided to see guidance about changing it. First of all, I do not need physics-- I had enough science at HOH and the counsellor here did not consider that when she wrote my schedule. Second, I am stuck with the dreaded 6th-period lunch, normally the rowdiest period to have it because it is most common. 4th and 7th are nearly empty and my sister and most of our friends are in 5th again. So I will ask to drop physics and take something-- anything-- that's 6th period so she will change my lunch. Then, if I hate it, I will adopt a 6th-period study hall and keep the 5th-period lunch... because they won't let me change my lunch just to be with people I prefer.
I have British literature 1st, PE 2nd, art 3rd (which I suppose is lucky since I can arrive at less than my best, even a little late if needs be, and have all of 3rd to clean up for the day, you know), calculus 4th, choir 7th and European history 8th. In both European history and British lit I am signed up for AP. Daddy calls this 'appropriate cheating' --since I have had both these courses at high-school level before, because of where I went during 9th and 10th grade. This school did not want me to stick me into 10th-grade English just for the sake of having world lit, especially when my schedule also called for European history, which satisfies the core requirement for a 'multicultural' class. So knowing this material at least adequately will put me in a good place to have the AP test in May. I am actually looking forward to it already.
Speaking of college credit I am probably going to Delaware. I contacted them last week and indicated my preference, which puts me in the candidate queue, and they have already conditionally accepted me. I will see how my SAT scores from October 10th help me and then make my final decision in time for the typical November cutoffs.
At lunch we all sat at the same table we had last year. This is pretty typical here. A few people came round and asked, 'How does it feel to be a senior?' I never know how to answer that and really didn't say anything to it at all. Some people asked me why I sat with 'all the juniors'. But these are my friends as well as my sister's. This year we have Becky, me, Rita, Josie, Jessy and Paula all in 5th-period lunch again. Two other girls who are seniors have already enquired about joining the club. We will let them in, of course, but they will not be what we have been called 'growth members' because they'll get stuck with seniors' disease after about February and be of little help. I have pledged to keep the club a priority and Becky has too, but though we will not turn down eligible members we are not counting on recruiting seniors. The weight of the club's future success rests with Jessy and her classmates and the ones who are younger.
After school we all went in to Onancock and met for ice cream. It was a pleasant outing-- most of us were nicely dressed. Roger took us, with Rita and Josie, in the big car. The other girls of the club were there too. Whilst we sat there under the umbrella some guys walked by, saw the car sitting at the kerb, and sort of ogled us. I suppose this is to be expected. I was happy with the skirt and got plenty of nice comments on it all day.
The other girls are sort of jealous of our friendship with Lady B. Jessy and I had been reporting on our summer and had mentioned her. 'Do you mean she is a real lady?' Becky asked. 'Like, "her ladyship" and all that?'
I smiled at that. 'Yes, she married a baron. Although she was "the honourable" before that.'
'What's that?' Becky asked.
'It's another title. Her father was a baron too.'
'Ohhh. How do you get to meet someone like that?'
'She's an old friend of Daddy's,' I told her. 'She invested in a project of his a long time ago.'
They were impressed by this. But really to Jessy and me she is just a friend, almost like a fairy godmother really, for she has no children of her own and sort of dotes on us whenever we are over there. The girls at HOH were impressed when she drew up in her Roller (yes, a real Roller) and met us at school one afternoon. As wealthy as some of those girls are, not all of their parents have drivers for their Rollers, you know. But Lady B never makes an issue of any of that.
'She approved of this skirt,' I said. 'She's very hip, like that.' And she is.
When we finally got home it was nearly 5.00. Jessy got undressed and flopped onto her bed with the laptop to fill in her FaceBook blog and iChat with people. I dove into the pool and did my (belated) 25 laps. Then-- as you would know it-- I started on my homework.
Calculus. I've got to hate it.
...
I got up early and put on the skirt I bought in Chelsea, which is a mottled grey, almost like moleskin, kind of short, really nice-- and it was marked down. I wore that with plain white tights (it was chilly) and a dark-green sleeveless top and a white shirt on like a cover-up (meaning not closed). Roger would drive us in together in the Cadillac.
Of course at the school there were oodles of people milling round the place, all catching up on what happened in the summer and son on. Josie was there and hurried up to us as we arrived. Her mother had driven her in (she doesn't have a car yet). She had asked us to pick her up, but of course that was not feasible since she lives on the other side of the high school from us, you know. So as we stepped out of the car and thanked Roger for holding the door we already had a sort of audience.
I am sure the new freshmen were the ones who stared at us. They do not know us yet. I hope they will make the effort-- we surely will try to befriend them too. The girls' club will need a couple of new members when Becky and I graduate! Josie fawned over the skirt (she's seen it before) and Jessy's whole ensemble, a cute dress in dark gold and navy with navy tights and her gold (so they look) shoes. The one good thing about the first day is that no one will be dressing for PE, so it's all right to get a little fancied up, you know. I mean-- Jessy and I had both done our this morning.
We walked in to the building with Josie, and then Paula and Rita, and then Becky, so we were like a posse. These cliques are something I always hated-- till I found myself in one! But, as I have said before, if we are a clique at least we try to be a happy and well-dressed one, you know-- and we do make friends. It's part of the club code.
My schedule this year is terrible and I have already decided to see guidance about changing it. First of all, I do not need physics-- I had enough science at HOH and the counsellor here did not consider that when she wrote my schedule. Second, I am stuck with the dreaded 6th-period lunch, normally the rowdiest period to have it because it is most common. 4th and 7th are nearly empty and my sister and most of our friends are in 5th again. So I will ask to drop physics and take something-- anything-- that's 6th period so she will change my lunch. Then, if I hate it, I will adopt a 6th-period study hall and keep the 5th-period lunch... because they won't let me change my lunch just to be with people I prefer.
I have British literature 1st, PE 2nd, art 3rd (which I suppose is lucky since I can arrive at less than my best, even a little late if needs be, and have all of 3rd to clean up for the day, you know), calculus 4th, choir 7th and European history 8th. In both European history and British lit I am signed up for AP. Daddy calls this 'appropriate cheating' --since I have had both these courses at high-school level before, because of where I went during 9th and 10th grade. This school did not want me to stick me into 10th-grade English just for the sake of having world lit, especially when my schedule also called for European history, which satisfies the core requirement for a 'multicultural' class. So knowing this material at least adequately will put me in a good place to have the AP test in May. I am actually looking forward to it already.
Speaking of college credit I am probably going to Delaware. I contacted them last week and indicated my preference, which puts me in the candidate queue, and they have already conditionally accepted me. I will see how my SAT scores from October 10th help me and then make my final decision in time for the typical November cutoffs.
At lunch we all sat at the same table we had last year. This is pretty typical here. A few people came round and asked, 'How does it feel to be a senior?' I never know how to answer that and really didn't say anything to it at all. Some people asked me why I sat with 'all the juniors'. But these are my friends as well as my sister's. This year we have Becky, me, Rita, Josie, Jessy and Paula all in 5th-period lunch again. Two other girls who are seniors have already enquired about joining the club. We will let them in, of course, but they will not be what we have been called 'growth members' because they'll get stuck with seniors' disease after about February and be of little help. I have pledged to keep the club a priority and Becky has too, but though we will not turn down eligible members we are not counting on recruiting seniors. The weight of the club's future success rests with Jessy and her classmates and the ones who are younger.
After school we all went in to Onancock and met for ice cream. It was a pleasant outing-- most of us were nicely dressed. Roger took us, with Rita and Josie, in the big car. The other girls of the club were there too. Whilst we sat there under the umbrella some guys walked by, saw the car sitting at the kerb, and sort of ogled us. I suppose this is to be expected. I was happy with the skirt and got plenty of nice comments on it all day.
The other girls are sort of jealous of our friendship with Lady B. Jessy and I had been reporting on our summer and had mentioned her. 'Do you mean she is a real lady?' Becky asked. 'Like, "her ladyship" and all that?'
I smiled at that. 'Yes, she married a baron. Although she was "the honourable" before that.'
'What's that?' Becky asked.
'It's another title. Her father was a baron too.'
'Ohhh. How do you get to meet someone like that?'
'She's an old friend of Daddy's,' I told her. 'She invested in a project of his a long time ago.'
They were impressed by this. But really to Jessy and me she is just a friend, almost like a fairy godmother really, for she has no children of her own and sort of dotes on us whenever we are over there. The girls at HOH were impressed when she drew up in her Roller (yes, a real Roller) and met us at school one afternoon. As wealthy as some of those girls are, not all of their parents have drivers for their Rollers, you know. But Lady B never makes an issue of any of that.
'She approved of this skirt,' I said. 'She's very hip, like that.' And she is.
When we finally got home it was nearly 5.00. Jessy got undressed and flopped onto her bed with the laptop to fill in her FaceBook blog and iChat with people. I dove into the pool and did my (belated) 25 laps. Then-- as you would know it-- I started on my homework.
Calculus. I've got to hate it.
...
08 September 2009
Labor Day weekend at the Shore
5-6 September
I always have three problems (let's call them 'issues') with this weekend. The first is that, having spent two years in England, I feel like I never know how to spell it. (That's easy. I spell it like it is observed. It's not an English holiday.) The second is that I don't really know what it's for. If America really wanted to honour the working person, they would levy lower taxes on him and enable him to keep more of his own money for retirement or the costs of living... but maybe I digress. The third reason is that it's a sad observance of the end of summer vacation.
Jessy, Josie and I have been very dutiful about getting up and going off to work these three mornings in our cute Colonial outfits. Josie has got used to the routine already-- walking down the street at 6.30 am with fishermen and joggers saying hello and then serving breakfast in the quaint little building all morning. Our menu is very abbreviated-- you can get eggs, of course, bangers (sausage) usually, pancakes or waffles always. We add or subtract to it to lend the flavour of a real 1750s-era establishment-- on Sunday we imposed a ruse that we were out of orange juice. It was my idea this time-- but we do it a lot. If you think about it, how would a small breakfast shop in New Jersey in 1750 have got orange juice anyway? It would have to have come up in the form of fresh oranges from His Majesty's colony of Georgia, and by ship, which would have been fastest, and so all you'd need is one bad storm or a few desperate pirates and that ship was not going to arrive. Any citrus product would otherwise have been impossible to have here, then. And so I went out as acting hostess and explained to people.
'Terribly sorry, Ma'am, truly I am; but our ship has not got in, and what with the traffic yesterday,and the day before, and we have all but run out of the orange fruit. Might I suggest the tomato? --for we have got plenty of it; and we know not when we shall see another shipment of the orange, if we are to see it at all this season.'
This is usually met with groans and whines, not amusement. One man said-- not respectfully-- 'You could go across the street and buy some!'
To which I replied, 'Oh, but surely we would not get any bargain on it now, this late in the season; and if he should see our situation for what it is, I am sure he would only take us for it. And we have got the tomato-- grown right here in our own territory, Sir-- why not a cheery glass of that instead?'
The man groaned and waved me off like a pesky gnat then. I am used to it. And obviously, in New York he is used to getting anything he wants when he wants it-- why then did he come to an old-fashioned place noted for old-fashioned service?
The truth was that we only had half of one half-gallon of orange juice left in the refrigerator-- details that will NOT go along with our 1750s-period act!
After cleaning up we find ourselves walking down the busiest street at the busiest time of day, sometimes in the costumes. On Saturday we changed into swimsuits at the shop and walked up to the beach directly. It was a lovely day, sunny and not too hot, and we frolicked in the water and lay on our towels and had a very pleasant afternoon. We were not besieged by any impertinent older men and in fact met some nice boys whilst we were out in the water. They had a ball and started this three-way catch game in which they had to throw it very close to the three blonde girls from Virginia in order that they might have a closer look at them-- but the girls from Virginia retaliated, seizing the ball at the first opportunity and playing keep-away-from-the-boys as long as they could... so there. They asked us to a party for the evening but we said we had to work, and then they did not believe that we all worked at the same place and that we were only trying to be rid of them. We did not tell them where we worked-- that would have invited disaster. There is nothing worse than when some guy comes in to the shop when we are in costume and serving 'in period' and tries to pick us up. The worst, according to me stepmother who worked there when she was young, was when they would linger outside after closing, lying in wait as it were for when she would emerge. For at least the first season she stayed in the little apartment up stairs and so did not come out at night, which frustrated them. One older man who stalked her that summer walked circles round the building between 11.30 and midnight, insisting to himself that she must have got away from him. That was the guy who became a problem for her later.
We had no such problems because Dottie, our manager, insisted on driving us home both nights.
On Sunday we left the place at 11.30 in the morning, in our costumes, and Josie wanted to play mini golf, so we did-- just like that. Of course being so dressed we always run into people who stare at us like we're Mennonites or just weird, or else recognise us from the shop. For the interested we always carry with us coupon cards to pass out, offering half-price on a sundae for the evening (you don't want to give too much away, and we give out a lot of those cards. It keeps the place full). All three of us were barefoot-- the booties are usually awkward to walk fast in and also too hot. The guy at the mini golf place knows Jessy and me and was happy to watch us play through in our long skirts and cute bodices and hair up under bonnets. (Fortunately the skirts are long enough that we can bend over to retrieve the coloured ball and not worry about having on no underwear!) We played just ahead of a mother with two little girls who just gazed up at us like we were real-life Disney princesses. We gave them each a coupon card (the mother included). They promised to show up that evening.
It rained a little on Sunday afternoon, clearing up just long enough for us to run (barefoot) back to the shop and open for the evening. Daddy showed up by himself, having just got in, checked up on things in the kitchen, offered to take the deposit and then just hung round outside, shaking hands and so on. People recognise him, so he's kind of an asset even though he doesn't always buy something. I think he got a sundae eventually. I was behind the counter most of the evening, but the mother and two little girls from the golf place showed up at the window round 8.00 and I made sure to remember them, you know. They sat outside. Jessy tended tables out there and once I saw her showing the little girls the costume, letting them feel the natural fibres and explaining to them how the bonnet ties and all. They were fascinated by her. Josie worked the verandah with one of our other girls and we had another, and sometimes Jessy, in the main room. At at least two different times the whole place was full-- even outside. And we had a queue almost to the street at the window a few times. Normally we count on almost two thousand a night, including takeaway. Tonight we were well over that. Dottie said it was due to we girls working so hard. I said it was due to a winning business strategy that, yes, includes girls in cute costumes who work so hard. And this income was made in spite of imposing an 'embargo' (as it is called within doors) on strawberry ice cream ('out of season'), bananas (we don't do that much in banana splits anyway, and it's a foreign fruit) and ginger ale, which we were really just about out of and so had to push root beer, the only other soda we serve here. The contrived shortages add to the colour of the place and remind modern people that, once upon a time, a place like this was on the very fringe of survival because of its location and its chosen trade. No shop of this size, on a barrier island in New Jersey, would have been able to sell as much ice cream as we do in 1750-- that's a suspension of disbelief for every customer thinks he is the only one to be so well treated. We don't have to tell them we made over three thousand dollars tonight.
Daddy, Mother, Lisa and J.J. are here for the night but it was very late when we got in from walking up the beach in our costumes and bare feet. My good linen skirt is soggy and sandy and nearly fraying round the hem, but I will leave it like that for tomorrow because, after all, it's only in period. Then I will collect all my things out of the locker at the shop-- three skirts, four bodices, four shifts, two or three bonnets, a bedjacket (short cover-up) and about six pairs of cotton/wool stockings, plus the booties and slippers, and take my things home for the season. I will mend what I have to, undoubtedly make a few new things for myself, and use them for reenactments at Williamsburg and other places till the shop opens next year. Tuesday we drive home, after a day at the beach. Wednesday we start school.
[sigh] I wish summer would last longer.
...
I always have three problems (let's call them 'issues') with this weekend. The first is that, having spent two years in England, I feel like I never know how to spell it. (That's easy. I spell it like it is observed. It's not an English holiday.) The second is that I don't really know what it's for. If America really wanted to honour the working person, they would levy lower taxes on him and enable him to keep more of his own money for retirement or the costs of living... but maybe I digress. The third reason is that it's a sad observance of the end of summer vacation.
Jessy, Josie and I have been very dutiful about getting up and going off to work these three mornings in our cute Colonial outfits. Josie has got used to the routine already-- walking down the street at 6.30 am with fishermen and joggers saying hello and then serving breakfast in the quaint little building all morning. Our menu is very abbreviated-- you can get eggs, of course, bangers (sausage) usually, pancakes or waffles always. We add or subtract to it to lend the flavour of a real 1750s-era establishment-- on Sunday we imposed a ruse that we were out of orange juice. It was my idea this time-- but we do it a lot. If you think about it, how would a small breakfast shop in New Jersey in 1750 have got orange juice anyway? It would have to have come up in the form of fresh oranges from His Majesty's colony of Georgia, and by ship, which would have been fastest, and so all you'd need is one bad storm or a few desperate pirates and that ship was not going to arrive. Any citrus product would otherwise have been impossible to have here, then. And so I went out as acting hostess and explained to people.
'Terribly sorry, Ma'am, truly I am; but our ship has not got in, and what with the traffic yesterday,and the day before, and we have all but run out of the orange fruit. Might I suggest the tomato? --for we have got plenty of it; and we know not when we shall see another shipment of the orange, if we are to see it at all this season.'
This is usually met with groans and whines, not amusement. One man said-- not respectfully-- 'You could go across the street and buy some!'
To which I replied, 'Oh, but surely we would not get any bargain on it now, this late in the season; and if he should see our situation for what it is, I am sure he would only take us for it. And we have got the tomato-- grown right here in our own territory, Sir-- why not a cheery glass of that instead?'
The man groaned and waved me off like a pesky gnat then. I am used to it. And obviously, in New York he is used to getting anything he wants when he wants it-- why then did he come to an old-fashioned place noted for old-fashioned service?
The truth was that we only had half of one half-gallon of orange juice left in the refrigerator-- details that will NOT go along with our 1750s-period act!
After cleaning up we find ourselves walking down the busiest street at the busiest time of day, sometimes in the costumes. On Saturday we changed into swimsuits at the shop and walked up to the beach directly. It was a lovely day, sunny and not too hot, and we frolicked in the water and lay on our towels and had a very pleasant afternoon. We were not besieged by any impertinent older men and in fact met some nice boys whilst we were out in the water. They had a ball and started this three-way catch game in which they had to throw it very close to the three blonde girls from Virginia in order that they might have a closer look at them-- but the girls from Virginia retaliated, seizing the ball at the first opportunity and playing keep-away-from-the-boys as long as they could... so there. They asked us to a party for the evening but we said we had to work, and then they did not believe that we all worked at the same place and that we were only trying to be rid of them. We did not tell them where we worked-- that would have invited disaster. There is nothing worse than when some guy comes in to the shop when we are in costume and serving 'in period' and tries to pick us up. The worst, according to me stepmother who worked there when she was young, was when they would linger outside after closing, lying in wait as it were for when she would emerge. For at least the first season she stayed in the little apartment up stairs and so did not come out at night, which frustrated them. One older man who stalked her that summer walked circles round the building between 11.30 and midnight, insisting to himself that she must have got away from him. That was the guy who became a problem for her later.
We had no such problems because Dottie, our manager, insisted on driving us home both nights.
On Sunday we left the place at 11.30 in the morning, in our costumes, and Josie wanted to play mini golf, so we did-- just like that. Of course being so dressed we always run into people who stare at us like we're Mennonites or just weird, or else recognise us from the shop. For the interested we always carry with us coupon cards to pass out, offering half-price on a sundae for the evening (you don't want to give too much away, and we give out a lot of those cards. It keeps the place full). All three of us were barefoot-- the booties are usually awkward to walk fast in and also too hot. The guy at the mini golf place knows Jessy and me and was happy to watch us play through in our long skirts and cute bodices and hair up under bonnets. (Fortunately the skirts are long enough that we can bend over to retrieve the coloured ball and not worry about having on no underwear!) We played just ahead of a mother with two little girls who just gazed up at us like we were real-life Disney princesses. We gave them each a coupon card (the mother included). They promised to show up that evening.
It rained a little on Sunday afternoon, clearing up just long enough for us to run (barefoot) back to the shop and open for the evening. Daddy showed up by himself, having just got in, checked up on things in the kitchen, offered to take the deposit and then just hung round outside, shaking hands and so on. People recognise him, so he's kind of an asset even though he doesn't always buy something. I think he got a sundae eventually. I was behind the counter most of the evening, but the mother and two little girls from the golf place showed up at the window round 8.00 and I made sure to remember them, you know. They sat outside. Jessy tended tables out there and once I saw her showing the little girls the costume, letting them feel the natural fibres and explaining to them how the bonnet ties and all. They were fascinated by her. Josie worked the verandah with one of our other girls and we had another, and sometimes Jessy, in the main room. At at least two different times the whole place was full-- even outside. And we had a queue almost to the street at the window a few times. Normally we count on almost two thousand a night, including takeaway. Tonight we were well over that. Dottie said it was due to we girls working so hard. I said it was due to a winning business strategy that, yes, includes girls in cute costumes who work so hard. And this income was made in spite of imposing an 'embargo' (as it is called within doors) on strawberry ice cream ('out of season'), bananas (we don't do that much in banana splits anyway, and it's a foreign fruit) and ginger ale, which we were really just about out of and so had to push root beer, the only other soda we serve here. The contrived shortages add to the colour of the place and remind modern people that, once upon a time, a place like this was on the very fringe of survival because of its location and its chosen trade. No shop of this size, on a barrier island in New Jersey, would have been able to sell as much ice cream as we do in 1750-- that's a suspension of disbelief for every customer thinks he is the only one to be so well treated. We don't have to tell them we made over three thousand dollars tonight.
Daddy, Mother, Lisa and J.J. are here for the night but it was very late when we got in from walking up the beach in our costumes and bare feet. My good linen skirt is soggy and sandy and nearly fraying round the hem, but I will leave it like that for tomorrow because, after all, it's only in period. Then I will collect all my things out of the locker at the shop-- three skirts, four bodices, four shifts, two or three bonnets, a bedjacket (short cover-up) and about six pairs of cotton/wool stockings, plus the booties and slippers, and take my things home for the season. I will mend what I have to, undoubtedly make a few new things for myself, and use them for reenactments at Williamsburg and other places till the shop opens next year. Tuesday we drive home, after a day at the beach. Wednesday we start school.
[sigh] I wish summer would last longer.
...
05 September 2009
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--
...
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--
...
02 September 2009
Windows and the soul
Tuesday 1 September 2009
We have beautiful windows in this house. Daddy, the architectural purist, got them from a place that does traditional-house restorations. They are true early-1700s-style, with the correct flat 1-inch-wide mullions. They are not 'double-hung'-- only the bottom sash slides up. They are single-glazed (one piece of glass per pane), not double, so we rely on real inside shutters for added insulation against the cold (and for security). All the panes are the same size-- in the Colonial period the carpenters orded glass panes from England and made the windows to fit them. And they do not have regular full-sized screens.
All three of our houses, the one in New Jersey, the one in Delaware, and Terncote here, have the same kind of windows. When he was building the beach house in New Jersey, which was the first one, Daddy devised a system by which the screen only covers the bottom sash and the sash slides down outside it. The sash has pins that you slide into the frame to lock the window in place. The screen has pins you can slide back to remove it. I usually leave my windows locked up at the first notch (about 12 inches). My room is up stairs so no one can get in and there's just enough of the sea air to make the room very pleasant day and night.
It was very late when I went to bed (actually early this morning-- I won't say what hour!). I had left the door to the side gallery open as usual and the windows at the first notch, and the room was cool but not chilly. At about 6.00 am I found myself incomprehensibly awake. The dawn sunlight beamed in from above the ocean in a brilliant white light. Outside, birds were chirping. Trees in the side yards hissed in the breeze. The bay lapped patiently at the bulkhead. Far out across the channel and the island, the surf along the beach was the incessant white noise that is a background to everything you hear here. And I lay on my back in the bed, sleepy but alert, my legs apart under the sheet draped lightly over my naked body. I was intensely comfortable.
The inevitable came over me and I soon found myself massaging gently, with the sheet pushed down past where my hand needed to be. It got very powerful very fast and soon I was pushing harder and harder and getting anxious. I whined a few times-- I had not thought I could have been too loud till I realised Jessy was looking in from the door. Seeing me so engaged she whispered, 'Are you all right?'
I only murmurred impatiently, still going.
She nodded and tiptoed into the room, looking round for a moment. I usually sleep on my back with the empty pillow to my left, and she sat there on the edge of the bed and kind of watched me go on. Oh, she knows what I look like doing this, especially what my hand was doing. She looked down on my face with a sweet expression half of sympathy and half of devotion, the kind of devotion only a sister can have. I went on, holding my left arm up over my head, holding back my hair I guess, and wriggled a little to give my other hand more room. I think I whined again-- it was so slow in coming!
'Do you want me to help you?' she whispered, looking down into my eyes.
That gave me a start. 'Help me?' What did she mean?
She nodded and reached up and took my free hand, pressing it tenderly between her palms. 'Just relax. You're doing fine.' And she smiled a little.
I nodded, nearly breathless, and slowed down just a little. That did help. I had been too impatient.
'There, there,' she said, squeezing my hand.
'Oh, Jessy....' I sighed very deeply, relaxing, and it came.
She held me for the whole thing, till I was done trying and had no strength left to fight back the aftermath. When I had given it over she turned round and looked about the room, at the windows standing open, at the morning sun streaming in, at my pretty light-blue sheets pushed down till they covered my thighs and no higher, and at my hand still in place, my palm covering myself as though I were trying to be modest. And she looked back down at me and smiled. 'If you need for me to bring you anything, I will.'
I smiled up at her with a happy sigh. 'No. You don't have to. I'm fine.'
She leaned down and kissed my forehead, patted my hand and then let go, turning on her bare bottom and getting to her feet. 'I'll bring this closed, just a little, then... if you want.'
I nodded. 'Thank you, sweetie.' We met eyes then. 'I love you.'
She responded to that immediately. 'I love you too.' And then she tiptoed out, like an angel, as silently as she had come in, leaving me grateful for my afterglow.
...
We have beautiful windows in this house. Daddy, the architectural purist, got them from a place that does traditional-house restorations. They are true early-1700s-style, with the correct flat 1-inch-wide mullions. They are not 'double-hung'-- only the bottom sash slides up. They are single-glazed (one piece of glass per pane), not double, so we rely on real inside shutters for added insulation against the cold (and for security). All the panes are the same size-- in the Colonial period the carpenters orded glass panes from England and made the windows to fit them. And they do not have regular full-sized screens.
All three of our houses, the one in New Jersey, the one in Delaware, and Terncote here, have the same kind of windows. When he was building the beach house in New Jersey, which was the first one, Daddy devised a system by which the screen only covers the bottom sash and the sash slides down outside it. The sash has pins that you slide into the frame to lock the window in place. The screen has pins you can slide back to remove it. I usually leave my windows locked up at the first notch (about 12 inches). My room is up stairs so no one can get in and there's just enough of the sea air to make the room very pleasant day and night.
It was very late when I went to bed (actually early this morning-- I won't say what hour!). I had left the door to the side gallery open as usual and the windows at the first notch, and the room was cool but not chilly. At about 6.00 am I found myself incomprehensibly awake. The dawn sunlight beamed in from above the ocean in a brilliant white light. Outside, birds were chirping. Trees in the side yards hissed in the breeze. The bay lapped patiently at the bulkhead. Far out across the channel and the island, the surf along the beach was the incessant white noise that is a background to everything you hear here. And I lay on my back in the bed, sleepy but alert, my legs apart under the sheet draped lightly over my naked body. I was intensely comfortable.
The inevitable came over me and I soon found myself massaging gently, with the sheet pushed down past where my hand needed to be. It got very powerful very fast and soon I was pushing harder and harder and getting anxious. I whined a few times-- I had not thought I could have been too loud till I realised Jessy was looking in from the door. Seeing me so engaged she whispered, 'Are you all right?'
I only murmurred impatiently, still going.
She nodded and tiptoed into the room, looking round for a moment. I usually sleep on my back with the empty pillow to my left, and she sat there on the edge of the bed and kind of watched me go on. Oh, she knows what I look like doing this, especially what my hand was doing. She looked down on my face with a sweet expression half of sympathy and half of devotion, the kind of devotion only a sister can have. I went on, holding my left arm up over my head, holding back my hair I guess, and wriggled a little to give my other hand more room. I think I whined again-- it was so slow in coming!
'Do you want me to help you?' she whispered, looking down into my eyes.
That gave me a start. 'Help me?' What did she mean?
She nodded and reached up and took my free hand, pressing it tenderly between her palms. 'Just relax. You're doing fine.' And she smiled a little.
I nodded, nearly breathless, and slowed down just a little. That did help. I had been too impatient.
'There, there,' she said, squeezing my hand.
'Oh, Jessy....' I sighed very deeply, relaxing, and it came.
She held me for the whole thing, till I was done trying and had no strength left to fight back the aftermath. When I had given it over she turned round and looked about the room, at the windows standing open, at the morning sun streaming in, at my pretty light-blue sheets pushed down till they covered my thighs and no higher, and at my hand still in place, my palm covering myself as though I were trying to be modest. And she looked back down at me and smiled. 'If you need for me to bring you anything, I will.'
I smiled up at her with a happy sigh. 'No. You don't have to. I'm fine.'
She leaned down and kissed my forehead, patted my hand and then let go, turning on her bare bottom and getting to her feet. 'I'll bring this closed, just a little, then... if you want.'
I nodded. 'Thank you, sweetie.' We met eyes then. 'I love you.'
She responded to that immediately. 'I love you too.' And then she tiptoed out, like an angel, as silently as she had come in, leaving me grateful for my afterglow.
...
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