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Lansberry thought about anything? I had better things to consider than whether or not he liked Sea’s Edge.
    Like final exams, end-of-the-year beach parties, and work.
    Especially work.
    And heat. Especially work and heat combined.
    Mr. Hartley’s used book loft was not air-conditioned. He insisted that books and book lovers could not thrive in the refrigerated false chill of air-conditioning. A few rotating fans gently moving the air around—that was what book lovers loved, claimed Mr. Hartley.
    Well, maybe they did. If so, we didn’t feature any genuine book lovers in Sea’s Edge. Every unfortunate person who came in gasped for breath in my hot, stuffy loft. “Sunny,” they’d moan. “What have you got against the twentieth century? You can’t put a window unit in here?”
    “It’s not my store,” I’d explain. “Complain to Mr. Hartley.” But Mr. Hartley was never there when I was. That was the whole point, you see—that I should run Second Time Around so he could relax and enjoy his summer.
    At least all the patrons became immediate friends.
    The browser at science fiction would clutch his chest and say, “I hope you have the phone number of the medical squad written down, Sunny. I’m gonna die of this heat.” The woman at historical romances would add, “Make sure there’s room for two on the stretcher.” Then the man at biographies would say, “You do have a certificate in lifesaving, don’t you, Sunny?”
    We’d all laugh and be old pals.
    Panting old pals.
    “It’s so hot in here,” I muttered to myself, “I should get a tan just from staying here eight hours a day. Kind of like a pie crust browning in the oven.”
    But I didn’t. I stayed pale white because no sun ever shone in the book loft and I stayed thin because I’ve always been thin, no matter what I eat. I stopped wearing jeans and oxford shirts with the sleeves rolled up. I started wearing the shortest shorts my father would let me out of the house with and halter tops as skimpy as the stores sold.
    At first I was embarrassed because I was so thin and pale, and all my customers were coppery bronze and muscular (men) or coppery bronze and curvaceous (women).
    “That’s the wrong attitude,” said Mr. Lansberry. Tim had been right about one thing. Second Time Around was his father’s favorite place. Mr. Hartley was his favorite person. And I, Sunny, was selling his favorite entertainment. “Forget those adjectives,” said Mr. Lansberry one boiling hot day. “No more thin and pale. Substitute willowy and fragile. Slender. The color of porcelain.”
    The suggestion might have come from my least-liked neighbor, but I am nothing if not flexible. I adopted the idea immediately. Every time I looked down at my chest and saw nothing, I’d whisper, “Slender, Willowy.” Whenever I glanced at my thigh and saw this pale white flesh, not even a freckle, I’d murmur, “Porcelain.”
    I sounded insane, but I felt better.
    I think maybe it was the willowy porcelain bit that made it possible for me to refuse Leland when he came in to Second Time Around to ask me out on a date.
    Leland had put on five pounds since I’d seen him last, and he was wearing only bathing trunks, and the sight could definitely have been improved upon. He had not come in to buy a book (“Read?” he said incredulously. “In the summer ?” ) and the first thing he said after that was “No wonder you’re so skinny, Sunny. You live in a steam bath eight hours a day.”
    When you’ve been priming yourself with words like slender and willowy and fragile, you don’t need a boy who accuses you of being skinny.
    “You wanna go to a movie tonight?” said Leland.
    You have to give Leland credit. He knows how to say things romantically and enticingly.
    I was tempted. It was six days into summer vacation and not one handsome young man had walked into Second Time Around. Not one teenage boy from high school had been frantically dialing my phone number, unable to