T-Backs,
T-shirts,
COAT,
and
Suit
Books By E. L. Konigsburg
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley,
and Me, Elizabeth
From the Mixed-Up Files
of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
About the B’Nai Bagels
(George)
Altogether, One at a Time
A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver
The Dragon in the Ghetto Caper
The Second Mrs. Giaconda
Father’s Arcane Daughter
Throwing Shadows
Journey to an 800 Number
Up from Jericho Tel
T-backs, T-shirts, COAT, and Suit
PICTURE BOOKS
Samuel Todd’s Book of Great Colors
Samuel Todd’s Book of Great Inventions
Amy Elizabeth Explores Bloomingdale’s
Copyright © 1993 by E. L. Konigsburg
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the Publisher.
Atheneum
Macmillan Publishing Company
866 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Maxwell Macmillan Canada, Inc.
1200 Eglinton Avenue East
Suite 200
Don Mills, Ontario M3C 3N1
Macmillan Publishing Company is part of the Maxwell
Communication Group of Companies.
First edition
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The text of this book is set in 11 point Caledonia
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Konigsburg, E. L.
T-backs, t-shirts, COAT, and suit / E. L. Konigsburg. —1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Jean Karl book.”
Summary: Spending the summer in Florida with her stepfather’s
sister who operates a “meals-on-wheels” van, twelve-year-old Chloë
and her aunt become involved in a controversy surrounding the
wearing of T-back bathing suits.
ISBN 0-689-31855-3
[1. Aunts—Fiction. 2. Protest movements—Fiction. 3. Florida—
Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K8352Te 1993
[Fic]—dc20 93–18427
ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-5877-2
eISBN-13: 978-1-4424-2925-3
To the spirit of Thanksgiving and all its
participants—past, present, and future—with love
T-Backs,
T-shirts,
COAT,
and
Suit
In case you live somewhere other than planet Earth and have not heard about T-backs, here is a brief description of them, taken from the law books of the City of Peco, in the State of Florida, U.S.A.
A T-back is a two-piece bathing suit, the bottom half of which, when seen from the rear, forms a Γ: one strip of cloth around the waist is attached to another strip, centered on the back, covering the crevice of the buttocks but leaving a lot of cheek showing on either side. The front is very much the same as the back except that the vertical strip is wider, and the horizontal dips down. In other words, the T-back makes a V-front. This garment, when worn by women, is most often accompanied by a strapless, low-cut bra. Men wear it topless.
If you have to look up any of the words in this description, if you understand the words but are offended by them, or if you are offended by T-backs themselves, please close this report now, put it back on the shelf, and walk quietly away. They have caused enough trouble already.
Going to Peco for the summer was not Chloë’s first choice. Or her second or her third. It was her only choice.
It was when she was asked to sign the hair contract that she knew she had to leave town. Anjelica and Krystal stood over her as she read:
We, the undersigned, do hereby agree that if one of us is having a bad hair day, she will call the other undersigneds, and we will all go into the pool together.
“What happens if you don’t?” Chloë asked.
“The others won’t speak to you—even over the phone—for the next seven days.”
“What happens if you have just been to the beauty parlor for a shampoo, cut, and blow-dry? Do you still have to go into the water?”
“Yes, over the scalp. The deal is total immersion.”
Chloë said, “I think you ought to add a clause to that effect.” Anjelica and Krystal agreed that that was a good idea. Anjelica said, “You can sign now, and we’ll have everyone initial the clause when we get it typed up. That’s the way it’s done. I saw it on TV.” She held out the pen.
Chloë remembered hearing the proverb, the pen is mightier than the sword, and at that moment she knew why. She felt threatened.
“I would love to sign,” she said, “but I can’t. I’m not going to be here this summer. It wouldn’t be fair of me to sign a contract I cannot honor. It may even be illegal.”
When Anjelica and Krystal pressed her about where she would be going over the summer, she said, “It’s a surprise.”
And that is when Chloë knew that she had to go somewhere if she was not to be shunned—for shunning was the punishment for anyone who refused to sign.
She approached Nick with her problem. “Sleepover camp is out,” she said. “It’s much too late to enroll me. Much, much too late.”
Nick replied, “And you’re saying ’thank goodness,’ aren’t you?” Nick knew that Chloë thought of summer camp as an endless sleepover party, and she was no fan of sleepover parties. She came home from them so grouchy her mother would send her to bed “to wake up better.”
“How about going to Florida to spend time with my sister Bernadette?” Nick asked.
“How about my going to Tucson to spend time with Mother’s sister, Aunt Helena?” Chloë countered.
“Your Aunt Helena is planning a cruise of the fjords in Norway this summer. I think you should spend some time with Bernadette.”
Chloë said, “I could go on the cruise with Aunt Helena. Do you think she would mind taking me along?”
“Yes, I do. I think she would mind a great deal—even if we could afford it and even if there were time to include you. I think you should spend time with my sister Bernadette.”
The more Nick thought about it, the more he knew that was where Chloë should be. Chloë and his sister should get to know each other. More than that, the time was right for them to do so. Right for both of them.
Chloë said, “Too bad I don’t have any grandparents who live out of town. They’d take me.”
Nick replied, “Let’s hope that Bernadette will.” He looked at Chloë’s worried face, smiled, and said, “If I ask, she will. It may take some coaxing, but she’ll do it.”
Chloë had met Bernadette only once. That was when she had come to Nick’s wedding. She had served as Nick’s best man and had worn a tuxedo and flats. Chloë remembered that her hair was short—short enough to comb with a suede brush—and that she was tall. Even in flats she had towered over every other woman at the wedding. If Nick himself weren’t exceptionally tall, she would have towered over him too.
Before he made the call, Nick said he would make the arrangements only if Chloë promised to help Bernadette. Chloë thought that sounded a little bit like blackmail, but she was not in a position to bargain, so she agreed
not only to spend time with this person she had seen only once but also to help her. If it weren’t for Bernadette, it would be total immersion and the hair contract.
Bernadette agreed—reluctantly—to take Chloë for a few weeks.
Bernadette had raised Nick. When he insisted that Chloë go to Florida, Nick didn’t know that the T-back war would break out, but he knew his sister, and he knew Chloë, and he knew they needed each other. Whatever happened over the summer, it was time for their lives to touch.
Since there had been no time to buy a hospitality present, at the airport Chloë’s mother gave her a crisp, new fifty-dollar bill and told her to buy something special for Bernadette. “Look things over. Use your judgment. See if there is something she needs for the house.”
* * *
The stewardess took Chloë to a seat in the bulkhead, the first row of the coach section. She made certain that Chloë was buckled in and then left to tend to other passengers coming on board.
Chloë was alone. More alone than she had ever been in her entire life. More alone than she had been in the years before her mother had married Nick and she had been left at day care.
Here she was, breaking away from her mother, Nick, her two best friends, and Ridgewood, New Jersey. Here she was, attached only to the seat of the plane, about to leave the very earth itself, with not a single person around who knew that she considered total immersion the two most frightening words in the English language.
With neither friend nor phone around, Chloë decided to think. She decided to think about death. She could possibly be very close to it. Planes were known to crash regardless of who was on board. She wondered if twelve-year-olds who die in airplane crashes get to grow up in heaven or do they stay twelve forever. She wondered if they ever get to have sex, or do they only get to watch it down on earth. She decided that they must have sex up in heaven, because nowadays they needed angels to beget angels since no one on earth seemed capable of becoming one.
Having solved that, she smiled to herself.
It was wonderful, having all this time alone. At home there was so much to think about that she never had time to. Having solved the major problem of death, she was ready to think about life. But the woman who came to occupy the seat next to hers started a conversation, and once Chloë started talking, all thinking stopped. She was sorry to have to stop thinking because she had enjoyed it.
After the initial questions about where she was going and why, the woman started talking about her perfect oldest granddaughter, named Heather. Helplessly strapped into her seat, Chloë was being shown an entire pocket-sized photo album of pictures of Heather atop a horse, wearing a red jacket and a peaked riding hat. The horse, like Heather, was a champion. Chloë said that near her home in Ridgewood there was some fine horse-riding country. “Jackie O. rides there,” she added.
Heather’s grandmother replied that the finest horse country is in Virginia. Chloë said, “The people who run the Kentucky Derby don’t think so.”
There was still an hour and half to go on the flight, and Chloë was tired of Heather’s grandmother. She wanted to be flung through the heavens, strapped to her seat, all alone with time to think. Being Heather’s grandmother—or anybody’s grandmother for that matter—didn’t give that person the right to interrupt another person’s thinking, even if the thinking person was twelve.
“There are famous horsewomen in my family,” Chloë said. “We are descendants of Joan of Arc.”
Heather’s grandmother said, “But Joan of Arc was burned at the stake as a heretic. She never married. She never had any children.”
Chloë said, “Yes, that’s true. But she had three brothers.”
“But that is not a direct line of descent.”
“It’s good enough for royalty.”
“What did you say your name was?”
“Pollack. P-O-L-L-A-C-K. If you know anything at all about ethnic names, you know that it is an abbreviated version of Paul-of-Arc. My father Nick has the mark of the Arcs on his left shoulder.” Chloë drew a picture of Nick’s tattoo on the back of one of Heather’s pictures. “You can see it resembles a bow and arrow. Everyone in his family has that mark somewhere on the body.”
Nick did have a small tattoo of the peace symbol on his left shoulder. He had gotten it when he lived in a commune called Spinach Hill. Everyone who lived there got the peace symbol tattooed somewhere. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
When Anjelica and Krystal saw Nick’s tattoo, they asked if Nick had been in the Navy—they had heard that sailors often got tattoos and Nick’s looked like an anchor, sort of. Chloë told them yes. She did not care to share the information about Nick’s life in the commune with them, even though she herself loved hearing about it.
The commune had been a big old house called Spinach Hill, just outside the Peco city limits. No one knew why it was called Spinach Hill. There was no hill, and no one grew spinach, but it was a time when everyone was into naming things. The commune people named their kitchen stove Phillip and their lawn mower Gretel. Nick’s sister, Bernadette, had an old VW bug; she named it Lillian. No reason except that it seemed like a good idea at the time. Besides naming everything, the residents of Spinach Hill were into peace, love, understanding, and protests against everyone who was not into peace, love, and understanding. All of them were also into ending the war in Vietnam. Thus the great interest in peace symbols.
The members put their earnings into a joint account and took turns cleaning, cooking, mowing the lawn, and doing house repairs. They were into sharing. That part sounded an awful lot like summer camp to Chloë.
Fourteen people lived in the commune. Twelve were college drop-outs. Bernadette was the only one who had not gone to college at all. She was also the only one who was responsible for a kid brother. Nick was that kid brother. They lived at Spinach Hill for a year. Chloë was now the age that Nick had been when he lived there with Bernadette.
* * *
Heather’s grandmother put her pictures away and said, “You shouldn’t write on other people’s property.”
“You won’t regret what I’ve done,” Chloë said. “You can save or sell that photo because by placing the mark of Arc on it, I’ve made it quite valuable.”
Heather’s grandmother didn’t say another word until they were served dinner, and then she complained about the food.
“If you think you are going to vomit, please use the barf bag,” Chloë said, pointing to the seat pocket on the wall facing them. “You’ll save us both a lot of embarrassment and dry cleaning.”
Heather’s grandmother said nothing else for the remainder of the flight, but Chloë couldn’t get back to the deep thinking she had been doing before she was interrupted.
* * *
The airline attendant stood at the mouth of the plane and said good-bye to every single other passenger before she came back for Chloë. Chloë got hot and sweaty. She could feel her hair starting to frizz. She certainly wasn’t going to make a good impression on Bernadette feeling hot and looking frizzy. She unzipped her vest pocket to make sure that her money was still there. The fifty-dollar bill was no longer crisp. It actually felt hot. She could not remember ever having paper money feel hot before. Her first conclusion about spending a summer in Florida was: No more vests—dressing in layers was out. The second was: If Bernadette did not have air-conditioning, she might have to use the fifty dollars to make other arrangements. A hotel room was not above her means.
At last the stewardess came for her. As she emerged from the jetway, she saw Bernadette standing with the people remaining. Nick had shown her some recent pictures of his sister to refresh her memory, but what she remembered of her—that she was a tall person—would have been enough. Bernadette stood above the crowd.
Bernadette was a full six feet tall, as skinny as a silhouette, pale as a glass of buttermilk, and so nearsighted that her eyeglasses could be sent into orbit to do the job of the Hubble space telescope. She wore a long, full, pr
inted skirt with a drawstring waist, sandals, and a dark T-shirt that didn’t have anything printed on it. She had a head of unruly silver-and-black curly hair that grew in several directions, only one of which was down. It looked as if you could stuff a mattress—king-size—with it. Chloë wondered if this woman ever had a good hair day.
The airline attendant would not give Bernadette custody until she showed a picture ID. Bernadette took out her driver’s license. As the stewardess looked at the picture, Chloë looked at the numbers—the last two were the year of her birth. Bernadette was forty-five. Chloë thought, No wonder she has so much gray in her hair.
They greeted each other with smiles but did not hug or kiss. They did not even kiss the air over each other’s shoulders as grown-ups often do.
As they walked toward baggage pickup, Bernadette said, “I’ll call you Chloë.” Chloë found that a strange thing for an almost-relative to say. Chloë was, after all, her name. When her name was to be written, Chloë insisted that the two dots be placed over the e. She loved having two dots over the e of her name and told everyone that they were called a diaeresis and meant that both the o and the e were to be sounded. Even before she started first grade she would not allow anyone to skip her diaeresis. Everyone called her Chloë. No one shortened it to Chlo. Why would this woman think of calling her anything but Chloë?
It would be no use telling this person, who was stuck with the same last name, that it was Pollack that she was considering dropping as soon as she came of age or got married—whichever came first. There was always the possibility of hyphenating her last name with her husband’s, but she already had two last names.
Nick had adopted Chloë when she was five, a year after he married her mother. When they drew up the adoption papers, they tucked her birth father’s last name between her new last name and her two given names, and she became Chloë June Parker Pollack. If she used all four of her names, she would run out of spaces on credit-card applications, so except for contracts and report cards, she was simply called Chloë Pollack.
As they walked farther along the concourse, Bernadette said, “You call me Bernadette. Aunt won’t be necessary. And I don’t like Bernie. Or Aunt Bernie or Auntie. For a while, when I was twelve, I wanted everyone to call me Detta. No reason except that I was twelve and trying to fit whatever name seemed more glamorous than Bernadette. I like to be called Bernadette. I’ve become my name.”