Starry Eyes(3)

Yep, those kind of toys.

Kind of hard to ignore the giant vaginal-shaped sign out front. Our well-heeled customers sure haven’t. Classy people usually don’t want to park in front of a sex shop when they are heading to a massage therapy appointment. My parents found this out pretty quickly when longtime clients started canceling their weekly sessions. Those who haven’t fled our desirable location near all the upscale boutique shops on Mission Street are too important to lose, as Dad reminds me every chance he gets.

And that’s why I know he’s upset by Mr. Wiley’s cancellation—it was his only appointment today—but when he leaves the reception area and heads to his office so that he can stew about it in private, Mom remains calm.

“So,” she says. “Should I tell Mrs. Reid you’ll go glamping with Reagan?”

Like I’m going to give her a definitive answer on the spot without considering all the factors. At the same time, I hate to be the wet blanket on her sunny enthusiasm.

“Don’t be cautious. Be careful,” she reminds me. Cautious people are afraid of the unknown and avoid it. Careful people plan so that they’re more confident when they face the unknown. She tells me this every time I’m resistant to a change in plans. “We’ll research everything together.”

“I’ll consider it,” I tell her diplomatically. “I guess you can tell Mrs. Reid that I’ll text Reagan for the details and make up my mind later. But you did well, Dr. Pokenstein.”

Her smile is victorious. “Speaking of, I better get back to her and take out the needles before she falls asleep on the slab. Oh, I almost forgot. Did FedEx come?”

“Nope. Just the regular mail.”

She frowns. “I got an email notification that a package was delivered.”

Crap on toast. I know what this means. We have a problem with misdelivered mail. Our mail carrier is constantly delivering our packages to the sex shop next door. And the sex shop next door is directly connected with item number three in my blueprint for a perfect summer: avoid any and all contact with the Mackenzies.

My mom sticks out her lower lip and makes her eyes big. “Pretty please,” she pleads sweetly. “Can you run next door and ask them if they got my delivery?”

I groan.

“I would do it, but, you know. I’ve got Mrs. Reid full of needles,” she argues, tugging her thumb toward the back rooms. “I’m balancing her life force, not torturing the woman. Can’t leave her back there forever.”

“Can’t you go get it on your lunch break?” I’ve already made the trek into dildo land once this week, and that’s my limit.

“I leave in an hour to meet your grandmother for lunch, remember?”

Right. Her mother, she means. Grandma Esther loathes tardiness, a sentiment I fully support. But that still doesn’t change the fact that I’d rather have a tooth pulled than walk next door. “What’s so important in this package anyway?”

“That’s the thing,” Mom says, winding her long, straight hair into a tight knot at the crown of her head. “The notification was sent by someone else. ‘Catherine Beatty.’ I don’t know anyone by that name, and I haven’t ordered anything. But the notification came to my work email, and our address is listed.”

“A mystery package.”

Her eyes twinkle. “Surprises are fun.”

“Unless someone sent you a package full of spiders or a severed hand. Maybe you jabbed someone a little too hard.”

“Or maybe I jabbed someone just right, and they are sending me chocolate.” She steals a pen from the desk and stabs it into her hair to secure her new knot. “Please, Zorie. While your father is occupied.”

She says this last bit in a hushed voice. My dad would throw a fit if he saw me next door.

“Fine. I’ll go,” I say, but I’m not happy.

Summer plans, how I knew and loved you.

Sticking a handmade AWAY FROM THE DESK. BE BACK IN A JIFF! sign on the counter, I drag myself through the front door into bright morning sunshine and brace for doom.





2




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Sitting on the corner of Mission Street, Toys in the Attic, or T&A as my mom jokingly refers to it—until my dad gives her his not funny, Joy ultradry look—is a boutique sex shop that markets itself toward women. It’s well lit and clean. Not skuzzy and filled with creepers, like Love Rocket across town, which has painted-over windows and is open twenty-four hours. You know, just in case you need fuzzy handcuffs at three a.m.

It also has a themed display window that the owners change every month. This month it’s a forest, and like toadstools, a curated collection of bright rubber dildos rise from fake grass. One even has a squirrel molded into its side. This might be funny, except for the fact that plenty of people I know see this window regularly, and I have to endure lurid, snickering commentary about it from certain people at school.

Our dueling businesses—and nearby homes—sit together at the tail end of a tree-lined shopping promenade filled with local boutiques, organic restaurants, and art studios. Most of our cul-de-sac contains old Victorian houses like ours that have been sectioned up and converted into apartment units. Not exactly the place you’d expect to find sex for sale.

My dad says a place that sells “marital aids” is “no place for a young girl.” The two women who own the sex shop darken his dazzling smile on a regular basis. They are the Hatfields to his McCoy. The Hamilton to his Burr. Our neighbors are the Enemy, and we do not fraternize with the Mackenzies. Oh no, we do not.