Beach Boardwalk Babe

this is a story i've been carrying around in my head for a while. i resisted putting it to paper because i didn't know where it was going, but i finally forced myself to sit down and start typing. here's what came out:

Guys hit on me a lot. I’m not bragging; it’s a fact that comes with my job as a sales clerk at a beachfront shop. The manager warned me about it during my orientation.

“Guys will hit on you all the time,” she said, tugging at the roll of white receipt paper jammed in the cash register. “Why?” I asked. She never answered because just then the paper started spooling freely again, and she kept going with the training as if I hadn’t said anything.  

She was right. The first guy looked middle-aged: pastel yellow polo shirt, khaki cargo shorts, Teva sandals. He wandered in after two golden-haired girls between 6 and 9 years old, and a golden-haired woman, presumably their mother. The afternoon sun high above the ocean poured into the store behind them, framing them all in its glow. The three females immediately flocked to the straw hat carousel and began modeling floppy hats for each other. The man stood at the entrance for a minute, briefly glancing around the racks of sunglasses and board shorts- then he noticed me. I ducked my head down, busying myself behind the L-shaped display case that also housed the cash register. I could feel him approaching through the top of my head.

“Slow day,” he commented, from the other side of my glass fort. I muttered something, refusing to make eye contact. He continued to make small talk, in spite of my awkwardness, and even asked for my phone number while the rest of his family was in a far corner of the store comparing beach towels. He stepped away only when the blonde woman arrived at the counter to pay for her items.

He was followed by many others, all male. I now believe that most guys are super bored and constantly looking for a distraction, with one or two being hopeless romantics who sincerely expect to find true love with a shopgirl.

I’m not used to getting this kind of attention. In high school, I was pretty quiet. I guess you could call me shy, but really I didn’t know what to say to people, so I kept to myself. I didn’t know how to be like the other girls, who spoke a flirty, bouncy language that felt clunky on my tongue. They called me skinny, made fun of my clothes. The boys mostly ignored me. It didn’t help that I got braces when I turned 19 (they’ll come off later this year). Even after graduation, living in my small town made it feel like high school would never end. I kept seeing the same kids, on their way to beach bonfires or someone’s house, partying without me.

I don’t want to stay here forever. I know there is a big world outside of this place, but I don’t know how to get there. I live one hour away from San Francisco, but it might as well be several continents away in terms of logistics. Where would I stay? How would I support myself in a notoriously expensive city? Who would I hang out with? At least I’m not the only one who feels too intimidated to strike out on my own; most of the kids from my high school also stayed, except for the few who had good grades and left us for far away universities.

The shop regularly gets visitors from San Francisco; I gaze at them as if they are ambassadors from a fantasy land. There was one guy this summer who came in to buy sunglasses. He asked whether I preferred the gold or silver frames, I gave him my opinion (gold, because it goes with more colors), and from there he began to ask me about myself. It was still before noon and the store was empty except for the two of us and his companion, a woman who flipped robotically through the sarong rack, as if new skirts would miraculously appear if she kept staring at it. He asked the same questions as all the other guys- Are you from here? What’s it like to live in this town? Do you like working at the store?- but he spoke softly and was easy to talk to, and he never asked about my braces. I found myself telling him about wanting to study fashion design in San Francisco. Turned out he taught fashion history at the Art Institute, and he encouraged me to come visit. We chatted for twenty minutes before he paid for his sunglasses and said he had to get going.

The next morning he came into the store soon after I unlocked the doors. The same woman from the previous day followed him in, but then wandered back outside. He just wanted to say hi, he said, and we talked across the glass counter for half an hour. He said he was on his way back to San Francisco that day and offered to give me his phone number, in case I ever made my way up to the city. I surprised myself by writing my own number on a yellow post-it and handing it to him. He thanked me, slipped it into a pocket on his gray cardigan, and said he looked forward to seeing me again.

I thought he was a sign that my life was about to change. Here was the push I’d been waiting for that would launch my city adventures, leaving my small town far behind in the rearview mirror. We began to text each other and I fantasized about living with him in the city. I pictured the two of us eating at his favorite restaurants, visiting art exhibits, going to shows at dive bars populated with young people wearing thick black-framed glasses, plaid shirts, and knit beanies. He would get me a job at the Art Institute, maybe a work study program so I could start working on my degree. My degree- those were words used by people who had a plan, who were not afraid to leave home.

He stopped replying to my texts after a month; eventually I stopped checking his Facebook page and rereading his texts. It was surprisingly jarring to have nothing to daydream about anymore. I had been so certain that my days in this town were numbered that I had mentally started planning my goodbyes. I’d been convinced that I’d be living in San Francisco by October, at the latest. I had to force myself to readjust to the reality that nothing was going to change for me anytime soon.

The other day, I was struggling with the cash register when I happened to look up and saw him walk past on the sidewalk. He was with a different woman this time, their fingers interlaced, her face animated in the telling of some story. He glanced inside the door and lifted his hand sheepishly before turning his head back to the woman, who hadn’t noticed anything. I kept staring at the doorway long after they had disappeared until someone else walked in, glancing behind her to see what was holding my attention. There were few customers that day- beachfront activity tended to slow as the weather got colder- which was a good thing, since I mostly just stood behind the counter, staring out at the ocean. When it was time to close shop, I clocked out, locked the glass doors behind me, and went home.