"Fair enough."
She said, "I'm twenty-three. I live in Edgewater and I went to
Wisconsin and majored in education. Since last fall I've been a Phys Ed
teacher at a junior high, and if the Board of Education ever found out
I was a nudist they'd probably fire me."
"How'd you get interested in nudism?" I asked.
"Oh, it wasn't any of _my_ doing. My folks met the Richardses at some
sort of political meeting, and they got converted. I came up here first
when I was twelve, and I've been here ever since. For the last two or
three years I've been sort of an assistant director."
"And you took naturally to this kind of life?"
She shrugged prettily. "When I was twelve I was too young to have
inhibitions. The next couple of years, when I was developing and all, I
felt kind of uncomfortable here, but since then it's been all right."
"And in the city?"
"I'm the most prudish thing you can imagine," she said. "A completely
different person. I don't even wear dresses with low necklines. I don't
mind nakedness, but it annoys me when people try to use their bodies as
bait. Hiding all but a little, and teasing people."
"I know what you mean," I said. We were practically in the cove, now.
I steered us away from a shady area, back into the open. I said, "How
about a personal question, now. Have you ever been in love?"
She was silent a moment. I could tell that her desire to mask
her personal feelings was warring with the relaxed atmosphere of
conversation I had established in the boat. She said finally,
hesitantly, "There was someone--once. A long time ago. Three years."
"It didn't work out?"
"No," she said softly. "He--he turned out to be married. I'd rather not
talk about it, Al."
"All right," I said. I was grateful to know that there _had_ been
someone in her life, once. That she was not completely sexless.
"What about your parents?" I asked. "Don't they come here any more?"