"I know, honey. I worry about you is all." Mom looks back to the car, where Dad is applying sunscreen first to his arms, and then to his chest. "Come on, let's go find a place. Your father will be doing that for hours."
"It's not my fault I don't have such a lovely tan already," Dad says. With a hand turned white from sunscreen he blows them a kiss.
Samantha checks for any kids her own age around to see this embarrassing display. Even worse than the hand-holding and Dad turning himself into the Abominable Sunscreen Monster is Mom forcing Samantha to wear a black one-piece suit and a floppy straw hat. They might as well give her a sand shovel and pail.
Before the trip west, she had ridden her bike to the department store after school. When she reached the section of bathing wear, she stared up at the mannequin in its red bikini, showing off its stone-gray skin. She imagines herself in the bikini, boys turning to look at her when she walks past.
Under the fluorescent lights of the dressing room, the bikini doesn't look nearly as impressive. The top chafes her breasts while the bottom is tight. A stubborn roll of fat-Mom said it was baby fat that would disappear when she got older peeks over the bottom. A breeze from the air conditioning sends a chill through her exposed skin.
Her face turns as red as the bikini as she changes back into a loose T-shirt and jeans. Holding the bikini up, she shakes her head. She's not pretty enough for something like this. Not like the other girls at school.
The bikini on its hanger trembles in her hand beneath the mannequin's accusing gaze. Samantha will never have a body like that. She'll never be pretty.
"The baby clothes are over there," her mortal enemy Hannah Lindley says. Her friends shriek with laughter like a pack of monkeys.
"You would know," Samantha growls, silencing the monkeys. For a moment she glares at Hannah's smug face and then turns around, the hanger steadying in her hand. She marches up to the counter, feeling Hannah and her friends staring.
"Aren't you a little young for this?" the old woman at the counter says.
Samantha says nothing. She fishes the money from her pocket, money she's saved from her lunch and allowance for three weeks now for this moment; it doesn't feel half as good as she imagined. Nevertheless, she tosses back her hair, keeping her nose pointed at the ceiling as she struts past Hannah and her chattering friends.
Unfortunately, Mom shared the old woman at the counter's reaction when she caught Samantha modeling the bikini in the mirror. "Young lady, you are not going out of the house like that," Mom said.