There were a bunch of things on my shopping list, including—drumroll, please—a real bikini. It was way too hot in the clothes I’d been wearing. And I had to admit, I was kind of looking forward to a change. I was starting to get tan…and it was kind of hard to keep the whole Goth thing up after that.
Plus, I had to find the perfect souvenirs for Mina and Liza. And there was one more very important thing that I needed badly. Something I was craving and couldn’t live without. Sugar!
My mom made me wait until the next afternoon, but then she took me to a surf shop down the road that Karen said was good. Surprisingly, it was—and it was air-conditioned, too! It was so good, in fact, that I didn’t know where to start looking. There were racks and racks of bathing suits. And just when I thought I’d seen them all, there were a few racks more. Finding a two-piece should not have been a problem.
Except that it totally was.
“You’re looking at bikinis?” said my mom, looking stunned. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I replied calmly.
I grabbed a dark green one and a light green one, just to prove that I was totally serious and not at all hesitant about the bikini thing. Then I put back the dark green one (it had weird buckles), and quickly reached for a plaid one that looked kind of nice.
But I wasn’t so sure.
I put it back…then picked it up…then put it back…then picked it up again.
All my waffling was worth it, though, because suddenly I spotted another bikini that was just right! It was black, and covered with tiny purple and green skulls. A bikini and kind of Goth? Done!
“Found it!” I told my mother.
“Great,” she said. She was browsing in the old-lady sizes. “You know, you’ve inspired me. I think I’ll get one, too.”
“Are you sure?” I asked her. She couldn’t be serious, right?
“Why not?” she said. She held up the same green one with buckles that I’d rejected (only bigger). “What do you think?”
I knew she didn’t want to hear my answer.
“Absolutely not,” I told her anyway. “I’ll meet you up front.”
“Wait,” she called. “Don’t you want to try that suit on?”
“Nope,” I said. Taking off all your clothes in a dressing room is way too much work. Besides, the suit was meant for me!
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I really think you should.”
“Mom,” I groaned.
What I wanted to do was find some flip-flops. I’d had enough of sand-filled boots, and enough of bare feet on sand so hot that it could melt into glass at any moment.
There were whole bins full of flip-flops on the other side of the store. I found the bin labeled SIZE SEVEN and began to check them out. I spotted some green ones right away, but then I saw a black pair. I held them up next to my new bathing suit. Perfect!
Maybe I could get both. Or even better, I could get both and mix them up…and send the other mismatched pair to Mina or Liza. Fun! I thought for a second and decided they’d be perfect for Liza. (Mina wasn’t too crazy about black or green, after all.)
But Mina was crazy about purple—she had been forever—and there was the cutest pair of purple sunglasses on a rack near the front of the store. I picked them up and tried them on. Mina would love them, but they weren’t exactly me.
Then I tried on another pair that was big and round. They were a lot like the sunglasses that Jackie and Juliette wore. I looked at myself in the tiny mirror built into the top of the rack. They covered up half of my face, at least. Awesome!
What else would be fun to send to Mina and Liza? I gazed around the store. A towel with a picture of a lighthouse on it? Boring. Shorts with the words SURF’S UP written across the back? Cute! I checked the price tag. Not that cute. (Though I did find a cute pair of surf shorts like Juliette’s for myself.)
Maybe a T-shirt? There were lots to choose from, but only one that really worked. It had a hang ten sign in one corner on the front, and I’D RATHER BE SURFING IN SALT ISLE written across the back. Little did Mina and Liza know that they were much better off wherever they were at the moment, and that I was neither surfing, nor exactly happy. But the shirts came in cool colors, and they were fun.
I added them to the pile in my arms as I heard my mom’s voice call across the store. “Sam?”
I didn’t say anything. How else was she going to learn?
“Sa-am,” she called out again. After a pause, she added, “Antha?”
Close enough.
“Over here.” I waved to her.
“Oh! There you are. I didn’t recognize you in those funny glasses. Ready to go?” my mom asked.
“I guess…” I looked at my reflection in the mirror. The sunglasses were not funny at all! I walked over to the register and I laid out my finds on the counter. I had two things for both Mina and Liza—but was it enough?
Definitely not. Not when there was a whole rack of shell necklaces to choose from!
“Ooh!” I said, reaching for one with a tiny dolphin in the middle, and another with a tiny yin-yang sign made out of mother-of-pearl. “For Liza and Mina,” I told my mom. “They’ll love them, don’t you think?”
“They’re great,” said my mom with a nod of approval. “Did you want to send some postcards, too?”
Postcards! I hated to admit it, but my mom had pretty good ideas sometimes.
I picked out two with pretty beach scenes on them. But since those were kind of boring (and since I can never fit all that I want to say onto just one card), I picked out two more that showed a guy lying on the sand with his head covered up, and another guy’s head sticking out of the sand beneath his arm. It looked like the first guy’s head had fallen off and he was holding it! I so had to try that on the beach with someone—even Kiki—sometime.
I put the postcards on the counter with everything else.
“You’re sure you don’t want to try on that suit, Samantha?” said my mother. She laid the questionable bikini she’d picked out for herself on the counter next to mine. “It’s always a good idea, you know.”
“Final sale,” said the clerk cheerfully.
“I’m sure,” I told my mom. “It’s perfect for me. I know it.”
As soon as we left the store, the heat outside took my breath away. I suddenly appreciated how much cooler it was by the ocean. I wasn’t ready to go back to the house yet, though.
I grabbed my mom’s hand and dragged her next door. “I. Need. Real. Food.”
“I’m not sure saltwater taffy’s actually ‘real food,’” my mom said, reading the sign in the store window. “But after you.”
We walked in, and the combination of cool air and the smell of sugar made me instantly think of heaven. I mean, that’s how it has to be. I’ll bet anything the angels all look like the lady in the pink apron behind the store counter, too.
“What can I get you today?” she said brightly.
There were goose bumps on my arms—and not just from the temperature. I stared at the case full of fudge and taffy. How about everything?
“I don’t know,” I said. Then I had to swallow, since my mouth had gotten droolly. “How about a box of taffy, and a pound of fudge.”
“Taffy and fudge?” my mom said, raising her eyebrows.
I gave her one of those “pretty please” looks that Kiki always gave me.
“Okay,” she sighed.
“Which kind, dear?” asked the woman.
“Um…rocky road, please.”
“Doesn’t that have nuts?” asked my mom. “Don’t forget, Josh can’t eat them.”
I grinned and nodded to the woman. “Rocky road, definitely. Besides,” I told my mom, “Josh and Brian are always together. It wouldn’t be fair for Josh to have fudge if Brian can’t eat sugar.”
“Hmph,” said my mom. She turned back to the counter. “We’ll take a quarter pound of plain, too.”
I’m glad I didn’t wait until we got home to eat most of that fudge. After five minutes in the hot beach house, it was a puddle of molten goo. And I’d been planning to offer some to Juliette after dinner!
Oh, well. All in all, that was just a minor disaster, compared to the colossal bikini-debut disaster the next morning.
Okay, fine. Maybe I should have tried the bathing suit on at the store. Then maybe I would have realized that the top and bottom were both a little big. Then again, who knows? Maybe I would have felt like I did when I put the suit on in the morning. Big deal, so it’s roomy. It still makes me look more grown-up.
Plus, at first I was much more concerned about my mom’s new bikini than my own.
I could hardly believe it when we all went out to the beach and she actually had it on.
“You look fantastic, Suzanne!” said Karen and Jackie.
You look ridiculous! I thought.
“Mom, you need a cover-up,” I dutifully informed her. She had children, after all.
But instead of listening to me, she smiled and went off for a walk.
I couldn’t watch! I decided to go for a swim instead…And that was when I learned this valuable lesson: When a bathing suit that’s too big gets wet, it will try its best to fall off. In fact, this is probably a law of physics or something that they teach you one day in high school. And if they don’t, they should.
Oh, and here’s something else I learned, although it isn’t that surprising: If you think your brother and his friend are acting totally immature about your wearing a bikini to begin with, just wait until it gets wet and your towel is about a thousand yards up the beach.
I was glad, at least, that the cute lifeguard was not on duty that morning. And that Juliette was still in the beach house, sleeping soundly away.
Thank goodness for man’s best friend, Emery, who fetched my towel as soon as I asked her to!