THE FIRST TIME
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE - SUMMERTIME BLUES
"I'm a-gonna raise a fuss, I'm a-gonna raise a holler
About a-workin' all summer just-a tryin' to earn a dollar
Every time I call my baby, try to get a date
My boss says "No dice son, you gotta work late"
Sometimes I wonder, what I'm a-gonna do
But there ain't no cure for the summertime blues"
EDDIE COCHRAN (Single from 1958)
You couldn´t exactly say that Jen´s summer had started with a bang, more like a whimper that kept getting fainter by the day. Not that it hadn´t kicked off well enough with Joey´s coming home gathering, but that was also the day before she was given the news, that she´d been dreading for a while: That the owner of "Screen Time", whom they never saw anyway, had sold the store to some large chain, who would be "re-evaluating the employment status" of those already working there (a fancy way of saying that they were all fired, by the sounds of it) and would be closing the store down temporarily, while they had builders in there to renovate the place and make whatever changes to it, that the new owners saw fit to make. Either way, it wouldn´t be the same place to work anymore, meaning that she probably would have had to quit no matter what, when some corporate suck-up began telling her how to conduct herself, while she was at work, so all they really did was save her the trouble of having to tell them in person.
The one problem of course, was how this also meant that she' d quickly hit onto cash flow problem, since most of the meager funds in her bank account had to be set aside for her weekend in New York with Joey, and that the alternative to working, which was coming back to her parents on her crying knees and beg them for an allowance again, was as out of the question as shaving her head bald, or jumping out of plane without a parachute would have been. Summer jobs in Capeside weren´t easy to come by though, seeing as most of the temporary jobs around town had already been filled and that her own work experience extended to having worked in a video store for a few months and only for handful of hours each week at that.
Thankfully, there were still free pleasures, and it was one of these that she was enjoying, while lying close to comatose on Grams' couch, when Joey and Abby practically came barging in.
"Jen, there's no way around it anymore! It's time for an intervention!" Joey explicitly said, while Abby nodded vehemently in agreement with her.
"I don´t have any moolah to go somewhere fun with you guys!" Jen lazily replied. "I´ve been fired, remember?"
"And have you actually tried looking for a new job, since you got fired?" Abby accusingly asked, as if it wasn't already crystal clear to Jen that her two best girlfriends were ganging up on her.
"It´s no use. No one´s hiring!" Jen tried arguing her case, even if it didn't seem to work that well.
"How can you be sure of that, when all you've been doing for the past week is sleep until ten o'clock, where you get up to watch 90210 reruns for most of the afternoon?" Joey, in an all too annoying right in every word she was saying kind of way, asked and had Jen there.
"That´s where you´re wrong, Joey! Today, it was "Melrose Place" reruns!" she answered, trying to make one sound like a more intellectual choice of programming, than the other.
"Like that´s any better?" Abby snappily argued back and before Jen could protest too much over it, her friends had her in the bathroom and trying to run a hairbrush through the bees-nest on top of her head, that had only barely seen one for a couple of days.
"Bessie, that´s the third temporary hire, that you've fired in two days! At this rate, it won't be long until we run out of possible applicants!" Joey tried arguing her case to her very stubborn looking sister, who´d just laid off yet another in the already long line of temporary hires, who hadn´t made it through their first week of working at the Ice House.
"Did you hear the mouth on that girl, Joey? If she talks that way to the customers ..." Bessie tried arguing back, before Joey cut her off.
"We both know that you didn´t like her, from the moment that you laid eyes on her! Did you get the wrong leg out of bed first this morning, or something like that?"
"This morning and every morning!" Bessie sighed and from how tired she looked, if Joey had to guess, she would have guessed that she was at least ten years older, than she was. "I won´t be like this every day during the summer, I promise".
"I hope not, or it´ll only be you and me left to serve the long line of customers, who come in here every day!"
"You don´t need to remind me! Can you believe that this is just the beginning of the summer, and we still have nearly two months of this proverbial hell to look forward to?" Bessie hopelessly remarked, as yet another line of lunch guests came into the restaurant, putting an end to their short talk.
The only one in the restaurant, who seemed pleased with their tremendous upturn in business was their very own "Duracell Bunny", as Abby had affectionally come to be known, who was like a tiny tornado flying through the dining room, rushing from one table to the next either to serve food, take orders or clear tables, while still managing to keep her service industry smile on for every customer, she waitressed for. Something, that Joey had to admit wasn´t always her own strongest side, especially on days like this one, where the hordes of freshly arrived tourists were swarming like locusts all over their usually quiet coastal town, with no place in Capeside seemingly being safe from them.
"Isn't this awesome? I've already made a hundred and fifty bucks in tips today!" a widely smiling Abby asked, while they were both waiting at the pass for their next orders to soon be ready.
"Yeah, but you still have to pay tax off them" Joey remarked, although it didn´t do much to interfere with Abby´s splendid mood.
"I know, but it´s still a solid boost for my bank account. You can´t deny that!"
"I´m not and the last thing that I want to do, is to ruin your infectious good mood, Abby. If you can somehow find it within yourself, to enjoy being at work on a insanely busy day like today, then I have to think that you're a little bit crazy, but I'll also be the first to admit that I probably envy you far too much for your enthusiasm!" Joey had only just answered, when they heard a loud bumping sound coming from outside, followed by the unmistakable sound of her older sister moaning in pain.
Now, where Jen had more or less been forced by her friends to go out and face the world, the question was what to spend her day in the sun on. With Dawson, Melissa and Mary-Beth all being away on their respective vacations, Jack and Andie helping their dad with moving the rest of their things from Providence to Capeside, Abby and Joey working and Pacey having to work at the Ice House in the evening, she´d become short on people, that she could hang out with and instead took a walk down to the beach, where she could take a quiet walk by the water. Or so, she thought, seeing as it was already over-run with tourists and after she´d already been hit on by random guys five times over a maximum of ten minutes, she gave up on her idea and made her way back towards the pier, where she would buy an ice cream cone, enjoy it in peace and quiet down there and tell herself, that she´d done enough socializing for one day.
Seeing as the pier was just as filled with tourists, as the beach was though, she couldn´t find a quiet place to sit down and in a first for her, she decided to instead take a walk around the parts of the area surrounding the pier, that she either hadn´t seen yet or if she had, then she couldn´t remember it. In any case, it was a welcome break away from the masses of humanity and some of the buildings that she passed by were so old, that she figured they had to have either been built when the town was founded, or close to it. It was no secret that the town had at first been built around the harbor and it was actually kind of fun for her to see, how little these back-alley parts of the harbor area had changed in time, compared to the rest of the town.
As she passed by the various buildings, she could hear sounds of people working inside of them and she was wondering to herself, who could be working here and for who, when she saw the façade to the one and only business, that was housed down there. Outside of it´s offices, that looked like they doubled for a small store (where you could buy your assorted boating equipment as well), was a large sign, that read:
HUGHES AND HECKERLING BOAT REPAIRS
YOUR NUMBER ONE CHOICE FOR FAST, CHEAP AND RELIABLE BOAT REPAIRS IN CAPESIDE!
She was just about to leave and head back in the same direction, that she came from, when she noticed another and smaller sign in their window. With her having nothing better to do and her curiosity getting the better of her, she walked up closer to the window, in order to read it:
HELP WANTED
NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY, ONLY A DESIRE TO WORK AND A WILLINGNESS NOT TO MOAN AND COMPLAIN ABOUT IT!
Could she be a boat repairperson? After a few seconds of considering it, she came to the conclusion that no one said that she couldn´t try applying for a job in a field, that aside from being one that girls like herself rarely worked in, also required you to work with your hands. Feeling a touch of feminist pride rising up inside of her and seeing as it wasn´t like she had anything to lose, Jen therefore made her way inside.
When she did, the only one that she saw in there was a boy with roughly shoulder-long brown hair, who aside from being solidly in the good half, when it came to looks, also looked to be around the same age, as she was. He flashed her a very friendly looking smile, when they made eye contact.
"Are you here to apply for the job too?" he casually asked, as she made his way over to him.
"There´s only one job available?" she asked him back and he nodded.
"That´s what they´ve told me. So, why does a pretty girl like you want to work with repairing boats? I bet that it´s not the kind of job, any of your friends would be applying for?" he asked her with a small, albeit kind of cute smile, that she didn´t know entirely what to think of.
"You're not actually hitting on me right now, are you?" she cheekily asked the boy, who let out a small laugh at her question, back.
"Are you telling me that I wouldn´t stand a chance with you? You don't even know me, so isn´t that a bit of a snap decision on your part?"
"You're right, I don't know you and honestly, with how pushy for answers that you are, I'm not sure that I want to!" she annoyedly told him back, even if she had to admit that his stubbornness to get to know her, wasn´t all that off-putting to her.
"You still haven´t answered my question, Blondie! Why do you want to work in a place, where most of your colleagues will be guys with beer bellies, who are old enough to be your dad and will look at someone like you from moment one, like you've wandered into their place of work by mistake?" the boy continued prodding. Although, it shouldn't have, it began to bring out the fighter in Jen.
"Because it's time that they woke up and realized that it's the 90's and women have been on the job market since the dawn of time, perhaps? If they don't like it, I say screw them!" she replied sharply, drawing yet another smile from this sort of handsome in his own way mystery boy.
"It's a whole lot easier said, than done! What if they won't accept you into the communal friendship and start freezing you out?"
"If they do, then I'll just have to show them that I can do their job just as well as they can and win their respect that way, won´t I?" she´d only just asked the boy, when the door to the backrooms opened and a burly and friendly looking man in his 60´s, with a big, white beard, came in to join them.
"Found yourself a girlfriend already there, Ricky? That sure didn´t take you long!" the elderly man joked, before sharing a grin with the boy, whom she now could easily guess was named Ricky.
"She´s only here to apply for work, I swear! Even you in your younger days wouldn´t have worked that fast, granddad!" Ricky joked back, drawing a chuckle from the old man.
"Sir, I´m Jen Lindley ..." she began introducing herself, before being waved off by the old man.
"Being called "Sir" only makes me feel older, than I already am! You can call me Joe, like my wife and everyone else does!" the old man, whom she now had found out was called Joe (by everyone), grumpily answered her. "So, Ricky? Do you think that I should hire her?"
"I don´t know, granddad!" Ricky humorously answered. "She´s got an awful big mouth on her, this one!"
"Phew! It just means that she'll fit perfectly in with the rest of you misfits!" Joe scoffed, a bit like an old-fashioned pirate out at sea, in reply.
"Does this mean that I´m hired?" Jen simply had to ask, seeing as she´d never thought, it would be this easy to find a new job!
"If my grandson thinks that you´ll work out fine here, then I trust his sixth sense on it. The job pays ten bucks an hour and you can start first thing tomorrow, just know that you'll only have a job here, until the end of the summer comes and the out of towner´s head home, then our business takes a nosedive, before the lead-up to next year´s tourist season begins. Can you live with that, Miss Jen Lindley?" old man Joe asked her with a small smile, that she returned with one of her own.
"I think so!" she cheerfully answered and for as little as Jen had attempted to that day, she suddenly found herself being someone´s employee again.
"You actually managed to find a job today, huh? How did you manage that?" Joey asked Jen, while they were helping one another with closing down the Ice House after what had been its busiest day in close to a year. A situation that hadn´t been helped at all, by Bessie having her little accident out on the patio, earlier that day.
"Blind luck, mostly!" Jen humorously (but honestly too) answered. "Plus, I met a cute guy, who I'm pretty sure was hitting on me, so all in all, it ended up being a well above average day for me!"
"It sounds like you've had a busy day! So, tell me about him?"
"All I know is that his name is Ricky, he clearly isn´t from around here and his grandparents own the boat repair shop, where I'll be hopefully be working for most of my summer".
"A boat repair shop? No offense Jen, but I´ve seen you working with hand tools before and let´s just say that it wasn´t exactly your "Forte!""
"I won't be working with any tools, I'll be spray painting the boats, after my colleagues are done repairing them. Ricky is going to show me how, he´s been doing it for the past two summers".
"Ten bucks say that you'll be dating him within a week!"
"Probably! So, how did everything go here today?" Jen, who was still unaware of what had transpired, asked.
"Bessie took a tumble outside. She hurt her back pretty badly, from what I could tell. Our dad had to take her to the hospital".
"Poor Bessie! What happened?"
"Do you want the real truth or the story, as Bessie wants it to be told from now on and forever more?" Joey asked back, before turning her attention away from stacking chairs up, to wiping down the counter.
"Let me hear both of them, just for the fun of it!"
"The story, as Bessie wants it to be told, is that she lost her balance and fell over thanks to the unevenness in the patio tiles. That way, she can blame dad and Bodie for it, since they´d both promised to have it fixed for the summer":
"And the truth is?"
"That a seagull dropped one flat on top of her head from up high and that the reason why she lost her balance, was because a pair of kids laughed at the sight, and it made her lose her focus for a moment! I´ve never heard of anyone being so desperate to have their hair washed, before they headed off to the emergency room!"
"That sounds a lot like a Bessie thing to do!"
"Tell me about it! In any case, the end result is that I'll have to take over most of her duties here, for a few weeks at the least, until she's healed up enough to come back to work. Which also means that our trip to New York ..."
"Will have to be put off until later this summer. It´s okay, it didn't sound like my parents had the time right now, anyway. We can always go on our little vacation, when things have cooled down here. Now that I have a new job too, it probably wouldn't be the best idea in the world to start asking for extra time off already" Jen remarked, before stacking up the final table on top of another table, meaning that Joey could officially call an end to what had been a very long and tiring workday.
END OF CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE