Changing Partners

When their shift had finally ended, Daniel made his escape to the changing room first. For all of Shaune's suspicions that he was a peeping Tom (a month or so into the summer, he already couldn't recall just how that had started), it was she who was prone to letting herself in without knocking. This time, at least, he was fully clothed: she did it just as he was fastening his belt. So he made no complaint as she barged in and stood expectantly before him as he sat down to put his sneakers on.

"Now, how did you know?" she demanded. "And just how much did you see?"

"How did I know what?" Daniel had, in the fog of planning for his next dream, forgotten all about their earlier exchange.

"About this!" Shaune tore off her detested uniform top, revealing that she was indeed wearing a red bra.

"Oh!" Daniel laughed and, instinctively, he looked away as if to give Shaune some dignity she didn't even appear to want. "Lucky guess, that's all. It had to be some color, after all."

"This is my only red bra, and I hardly ever wear it because it doesn't fit!" Shaune said. Darting a glance at her, he saw she was right, the cups were a bit small and she was bulging out of them underneath. "It can't just be by chance! Where's the hole in the wall, Daniel? Does K-Penis spy on me too?"

"Relax, there's no hole that I know of. And you're not my type."

"Unh! Thanks!" Shaune pulled a t-shirt out of her backpack and put it on.

"Well, what do you want me to say if you're accusing me of spying on you?!"

Shaune pulled her t-shirt back off and threw it down on the chair next to Daniel. "Ever think it was a hint, Daniel?" she demanded. To drive the point home, she also undid her uniform pants and shoved them down, giving Daniel an unfettered look at her in her matching bra and panties.

"So you didn't think I was spying, you wanted me to spy," Daniel said.

"No. I wanted you to want to. But if I'm not your type..." She retrieved her shirt and put it on again. "Just what is your type anyway, Mister Sensitive?"

"Mister Sensitive?"

"Yeah, you know, you're a gentleman, the kind of guy who makes me wish I'd waited in high school. You were probably doing your homework all those nights I was hanging out on the beach drinking beer out of some loser's trunk and just waiting for him to try to get my jeans off, and usually I let him."

"And yet here we are both working at Jerry's for the summer," Daniel chuckled as he watched Shaune put her jeans on. "Maybe longer."

"Maybe longer?!" Shaune demanded. "What are you talking about, college boy?"

"I'm not sure if I'm going back to college. I didn't like it all that much."

"Fuckin'-A, Dan, I like you, but you're a moron, you know that? How could you throw that away? Don't you see what a gift you've got?"

"No," Daniel admitted. "No, I don't. It was lame. It was high school with beer. Who wants that?"

"I had that," Shaune said. "And that's why I'm stuck in this job past the end of summer. It's my life, for now at least. I've got to pay my mom rent now, until I get my GED. And I could use a fling. I thought, you seem like you've got it all together...but now you're telling me you don't see what a great thing you've got out in California."

"I could help with your studies," Daniel offered. "Maybe it'd improve my attitude about my education, too."

"That's sweet," Shaune said. "Know anything about civics?"

And so it was that Daniel got an excuse from dinner at home the following night -- a prize Shaune had a hard time understanding. "I don't get why you don't want to spend time with your family, a nice kid like you with both parents and a nice house up the hill and everything," she said as they pored over her civics textbook while munching on chicken from Jerry's in her mother's kitchen. 'Up the hill' was local parlance for the nice neighborhood where all the new money in town lived, while the families who'd been there since the Civil War like Shaune's had mostly lived in the run-down tract houses down near the beach.

"A nice house isn't everything," Daniel said.

"Says the guy who's got one," grumbled Shaune. The little kitchen was crammed with ancient appliances and the counters looked of an even older vintage, and there were dirty dishes jumbled high in the sink, just the sort of place Daniel's mother loved to look down her nose at. But Daniel had been polite enough to ignore it all.

"Point taken," Daniel said. "But listen, money can't buy happiness. That's the truth. And you don't need a college degree to learn it!"

"I guess," Shaune said. She went back to trying to make sense of seniority in the House of Representatives, but then she looked back up at Daniel. "You never did tell me who your type was, you know."

"My type is a problem," Daniel muttered between bites of chicken.

"A problem? Yeah, us girls, we're always a problem, huh."

"Sorry!" Daniel allowed a laugh. "No, it's just, I had this beautiful dream the other night and now I see only too well what my type is."

"And that's a problem?"

"Yeah, because she isn't real at all. She's something out of a storybook. Or a movie, really."

"A sixties movie, like that granny music you were playing in the car?"

"Fifties, not sixties, but yeah," Dan said. "My type is a girl with fifties style and twenty-first century mentality. Sweet and innocent and she doesn't feel like she needs to pretend otherwise, but she also wants a career and a life for herself. And she's not a racist like they mostly were back then."

"Fuck, Dan, you're a Democrat, aren't you? Don't ever let my mother hear that."

Daniel laughed. "I'm used to hiding it from my parents, too."

"So you have a crush on a politically correct fairy tale, then. That is a problem. But what is it about that crazy music you like so much?"

"That's a good way of putting it," Daniel said. "Shaune, you're smarter than you give yourself credit for."

"Thanks," and to his bewilderment she smiled at him in a way he'd never seen her do with any of the customers at work. "But you didn't answer my question. What is it you like about those songs my grandparents probably necked to?"

"Let's get through the civics and then I'll tell you all about it," Daniel said.

An hour and two practice quizzes later (Shaune failed the first but squeaked through on the second), Daniel accepted her suggestion of a drive down to the beach.

"So what is it about this aunt of yours that's got you so fascinated?" Shaune asked as they meandered barefoot through the still-warm sand. "It almost sounds creepy, frankly."

"It's not like that," Daniel said. "She is my aunt after all, and besides that she's seventy-five years old and gay."

"That's what I'm saying!" Shaune said.

"Well, I mean, it's just that she's my one source of information -- and music -- from this magical time to be young. I mean, I know most of what we 'know' about the fifties is nonsense and I know a lot of the realities of the time sucked just as much as there's plenty wrong with today -- but I guess that's what I love about it all. It's just so tempting to believe there really was a time when being young was all about going to the malt shop after school and slow dancing to these amazingly romantic songs about being in love forever, and the streets were clean and safe and the future was beautiful. Even if it's bullshit, it's still a nice goal to strive for."

"If we didn't get nuked," Shaune said. "And what if you weren't white? I remember that from my history practice exam. Got an eighty-two on it, by the way. There was a third menace, too, back then, but I can't remember it."

"Polio," Daniel reminded her. "And you're absolutely right. But that's why Aunt Arlene's story fascinates me so much. Because she talks about those days like they really were that wonderful, even though she was gay and a girl in a time when it sucked to be either. So I imagine her back then in her frilly dresses, dancing at the hop with boys and having a lovely old time with the rock and roll, not a care in the world...and then I imagine her a few years later, married right out of high school with two little kids, this is California when it's changing, you know, Watts and all that right around the corner but they've still got their little patch of land with a lemon tree in the front yard, super idyllic, only she's starting to think she wants a career of her own and does she really love Uncle Teddy anyway? Then a few years after that, long hair on the guys and peasant dresses and Woodstock, and she's a housewife who hates her lot in life but she decides to set down the iron and go back to school -- if the bra burners can do it, so can she, you know -- and then --"

"All right, all right, I get it," Shaune said. "Your aunt's a superwoman and you're not lusting after her, you're just worshipping her like a hero or something."

"Yeah," Daniel said after a moment's thought. "I guess that's right. And the thing is, she went through a lot of bullshit, she wasn't free to love anyone she really loved until she was old enough to be a grandmother and then she got disowned by her family for it, but these wonderful memories of the days gone by, nothing ever destroyed them."

"I read about what you're doing for my psychology test," Shaune said. "Took that for one of my science credits, but I still need to pass biology. There's a name for it, but I can't remember it. You're idealizing the past because you don't want to cope with the present."

"I know," Daniel agreed. "Believe me, I'm aware of it. I try to be glad I'm living in our age, when we've made so much progress, but the problems we still do have can really get you down. Besides, I'm only nineteen and sometimes I wonder if that's still really just a kid. It feels that way sometimes. So I love the idea that there was a time and place where it really was okay to be a little innocent when you were a teenager."

"God, Dan, you're killing me!" Shaune exclaimed. She stopped in her tracks and ran her hands through her hair. "Where were you when I was fucking losers in their cars and on the beach?"

"Probably home doing my homework and feeling sorry for myself for not being out here with you and your gang," Daniel said.

"Now are you still willing to help me with my homework?" she asked.

"Of course," Daniel said. "Honestly, it's great to get out of the house like this."

"You know," Shaune said with an unusually shy look, "We don't have to only study."

"That's sweet." Daniel couldn't think of any nice way to tell Shaune he wasn't attracted to her in any way. So he made no such effort.

Sensing no resistance, Shaune stepped up close and leaned in for a kiss. Daniel, against his better judgment, let her.

"Want to go for a swim?" Shaune asked after she'd finally pulled back.

"Maybe tomorrow night?" Daniel suggested. "It can be our incentive for a better grade on the civics test."

"Good thinking." Shaune really did want out of her mother's shack, Daniel could see.

Arriving home to find everyone else already gone to bed, thank heavens, Daniel plugged in his headphones and got a handful of 45s out of his new hiding place for them in the closet. Torn between the sweet images of Peggy Jean and the hot real view of Shaune in her underwear, he put on his scratchy but coveted "The Things I Love" by the Fidelitys (too obscure for Aunt Arlene to have bought it, but a steal on eBay last semester). As that lilting guitar intro filled his ears, he thought of all Shaune had said about the fifties -- how right she was!

But inevitably, the imagery of sunsets and fireflies and tulips enveloped him once again in the darkened long-ago dance hall. He wasn't sure if he was with Peggy Jean or if he was Peggy Jean; either way, he couldn't make out her face, but she was there -- of that much he was certain. Young and full-hearted and not nearly as innocent as everyone thought, maybe she was feeling the first frustrations of womanhood, or maybe she wasn't. Daniel didn't know. What he did know was all that lay in store for her, or at least might. College in the fall, where she would no doubt learn quickly that it was a man's world, no matter how idealistic, and which would deposit her in the real world halfway through Camelot. The last of her innocence just waiting to be blown away in Dallas, or maybe she'd have already lost it by then in the trenches in Mississippi and Alabama. The burning cities and the country at war with itself and the security and optimism of her youth only a bittersweet memory now. Maybe she'd be a bit too old for Woodstock or maybe not, and maybe she'd be happy to burn her bra or maybe she'd find all that a bit much, and maybe the freedom waiting in the wings would be a silver lining or maybe she'd grow up to be one of those women who didn't see it that way.

Then what? Marriage? Divorce? Kids on drugs? Dead end jobs? Worse? Could be. Better, like Aunt Arlene in the end? Maybe, maybe not, but either way, the world of malt shops and tailfins that Aunt Arlene waxed ever so poetically about was never to return. So perhaps it wasn't so bad for her to focus on one more night in a pretty dress and slow-dancing to the promise of a robin's serenade when day is through.

That day was through, all right.

As the record faded out, Daniel flipped through his stack for the next choice. Finding nothing that quite fit his melancholy frame of mind right then, he switched off the record player and set about undressing for bed.

He didn't get back in his dreams that night, or the next or the next, and conflicting schedules kept him from having to honor his agreement with Shaune. But after a particularly rowdy Saturday night shift that kept him on his toes at Jerry's until well past midnight and left no time for trying too hard with his records, it happened at last. The gym looked about the same as he remembered from last time, and true to his plans, this time there were revelers of every shade and ethnicity getting along like he had never seen in his own time. So he wasn't at all surprised when a black girl in a flashy blue dress caught his eye. "Hey, Danny," she said with a saucy grin.

"Hi, Michele," he heard himself say. He didn't know how he knew her name was Michele, but it was and he did. A rumbling piano intro filled the speakers, which Daniel needed no time to recognize -- "Dear One" by the Scarlets. "Wow, they've got this?"

"Oldie but a goodie," Michele agreed. "My sister had this one. She graduated three years ago."

About right, Daniel calculated, whatever year it was just now. "Nice...oh, sorry! Want to dance?"

"Thought you'd never ask," Michele said with a laugh, and in no time they were ensconced deep in the crowd of other couples. "So I heard you're going back East for college? I am too, you know. Wonder just how bad winter's going to be out there."

"Yeah, I know," Daniel said. He was desperate to search the floor for Peggy Jean, but he remembered his manners and looked only at Michele. Her dark eyes were radiant, her arms were welcoming, and he was thrilled with the knowledge of the taboo they'd have been breaking if this really were nineteen-fifty-something. She only had one shortcoming: she wasn't Peggy Jean. "Think they have dances like this out there?"

"Why wouldn't they?" Michele said. "Doesn't everybody like a little romance?"

"Good question." Daniel sighed deeply and smiled with no further comment.

"What's wrong, Danny?"

"Nothing! That's just it. Nothing. Just feels so good, you know?"

Michele laughed. "Yeah. Sure does. All that's going on out there and there's so little us kids can do about it, isn't it great to just enjoy life?"

All that was going on out there...of course, Daniel reflected. Kids weren't stupid back then, any more than in his own time.

This time, Daniel was prepared for the change-partners call. Maybe, he would reflect later on, that was why it never came. Instead, Michele held him tenderly until the record faded away into the dead wax. "Thanks, Danny," she said. "Have a great summer."

"Thanks," he said. Then, just as she was about to vanish into the crowd, he remembered. "Oh, hey, have you seen Peggy Jean around?"

"Yeah, and she was looking for you! She's over by..." But Daniel's clock radio brought him crashing back into his own time as the alarm brought the morning news. Benghazi, unemployment, another shooting somewhere, and Daniel gazed at the ceiling and wondered if he had imagined Michele's perfume correctly.

"Hey, stranger," Shaune said, helping herself to a shameless look at Daniel in his boxers as he changed into his work clothes that afternoon. "How about that swim tonight? You can't hide forever, and I've been studying!"

He was feeling lonely enough that skinnydipping with Shaune was starting to sound just wonderful whether he was attracted to her or not, and he'd been reconsidering his condition about passing her next practice test. But the point was moot, as she got a 90 on their first try that evening. "Told you I'd been studying," she said, standing up from the kitchen table. "Want a beer for the beach?"

"Your mom won't mind? And congratulations." He admired Shaune from behind in her Metallica t-shirt and cutoffs, and found himself happy to have to deliver on his promise.

"My mom won't know. Neither of them will." She retrieved two Miller Genuine Drafts from the vegetable crisper. "They buy a case of this stuff at a time and neither one pays any attention to how many the other one had. I've been sneaking 'em since I was fourteen, never a word about it."

"Just as long as my mom can't smell it on my breath when I get home," Daniel said. "Now let's get down there."

"Aw, fuckin'-A, Dan!" Shaune whined a moment later as "Could This Be Magic" filled the salty air on Daniel's car radio. "Not more of this slop!"

"I left my Metallica tapes at home," Daniel quipped. "Maybe next time."

"What do you know about Metallica, you dipshit?"

Daniel thought quickly of everything Marc, the senior at the other end of his hall last year, had ever had to say on the matter. "I know a true fan like you probably hates 'Enter Sandman' because it's the one song of theirs most non-metalheads like, and you probably think they've never been the same since Cliff Burton got killed, but you're glad they didn't give up at least."

"Now you're just fuckin' with me," Shaune said. "But I'm impressed. And I don't hate 'Enter Sandman.' I don't hate this stuff either, I just don't get the appeal when our grandparents probably messed around to it!"

"No accounting for taste, I guess," Daniel said. "I just think...well, no matter where you are, it brings back a time when it was okay to be innocent a little longer." Remembering what Michele had said, he quickly added, "Even if that time never really existed. It just gives you a sense of being out there on the floor with your someone special in your arms, and all is right with the world." A glance at Shaune at the next stop sign showed she looked unpersuaded as ever. "I can see you're not buying this," he admitted. "But that's all there is to it. It's just so warm and real compared with what was on the radio when we were kids, and especially now."

But Shaune was paying more attention to the song than to Daniel. "'If this is magic, then magic is love'...well, that's sweet all right. What are these guys called, anyway? The Romantic Fairies or something?"

"The Dubs, actually."

"Dubs?!" Shaune cackled. "As in, 'Dub your dickie'?!" She made a fist and mimed rubbing her imaginary penis.

Daniel laughed, reflecting that not long before he'd have taken offense. "Well," he said, "I doubt that's where they got their name from. But honestly, this music does put me in the mood for that sometimes. I can't imagine anything more romantic to make love to."