CHAPTER 33

 

Our eyes meet.

Schuyler winks.

I give him Mom’s Look. It says, in no uncertain terms, Put. It. Back!

Stealing is wrong. Plus, I don’t want Victoria getting blamed for the theft because she was too busy falling in love with Jeff Cohen to notice it.

Schuyler gives me another cocky wink.

This time, I don’t just do the Look. I mouth out the words: “Put. It. Back.”

Now he gives me a look like I’m some kind of a wimp. But he does put the wax-paper-wrapped tubes back where he found them.

“Ewww, gross,” says a kid, watching Schuyler pull gummy candy out of his pocket. “That taffy is all warm and squishy now.”

Victoria snaps out of her love trance.

“No put-backs,” she says. “You touch it, you bought it.”

I scoop the taffy Schuyler just dumped back into the bin into a clear plastic bag.

“My treat!” I say.

And that’s how I spent the allowance part of my salary that week. Why? Because I’m not big on confrontations. I’m more of a laugh-and-leave-it-alone kind of gal. Or at least I was back in 1991.

“Let’s go, you guys,” I say. “Victoria needs to take care of her other customers.”

“It’s true,” she says, snapping back to her normal self. “Customer service is a hallmark of Willy B. Williams’s Taffy Shoppe. Like Mr. Williams always says, ‘Good service is good business!’”

“I know I’ll be back,” says Jeff. “I love the service in this shop. No, I lurve it, which is even better than love.…”

“Come on, you guys.…”

I nudge everybody out the door and pass around the taffy I bought because Schuyler was trying to steal it.

“So, Jacky,” says Jeff. “Is your sister dating anybody?”

“Victoria? Nope. In fact, I don’t think she’s ever been on a date.…”

“Awesome! That means she won’t have any boys to compare me to. I have a shot! Woo-hoo! Catch you guys later. I have to get moo-ving. I’m late for work.”

Later, after everybody else has peeled off and headed to their jobs or homes, Schuyler and I are alone on the boardwalk.

“I was just goofing around,” he tells me.

“No,” I say. “You were shoplifting.”

“You’re right,” he says. “I am a sodden-witted lord that hath no more brain than I have in mine elbows.”

“Shakespeare?”

“Sort of. I, you know, changed it around a little.”

I shake my head. “See you tomorrow, Schuyler.”

“‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.…’”

“What’s that from?”

“Macbeth. Shakespeare wrote that one, too. Catch you later, kid. I’ve got to bounce.”

Whistling, he takes off, strolling up the boardwalk, eyeballing all sorts of different shops.

Leaving me to wonder, what will Ms. O’Mara’s nephew try to steal next?