Working

Illustration by Bob AulI've worked here two months. My family just moved out here from Columbus, Ohio, and I was looking for a place to work, and when I first came in here, there was just so much energy that I really wanted to work here. It's a great shop. There's so much stuff. We have every kind of suit, and you can mix and match suits any way you want. It's really great. It's totally different than Ohio. There, you're lucky if you can find one suit you like. Most of the stuff stores carry is so blah. If you want any kind of selection, you have to go to JC Penney. Here, you can have any kind of style you want, you know, whether you want to cover it up or show it off. A lot of the ladies who come in here are absolutely perfect. I mean, skinny, great skin. But they think they look absolutely awful. I just try to be honest with them. You know, “No, that suit doesn't make you look fatter.” I just try to be honest. If a color or cut doesn't work, we'll get them something different. We're not going to lie to them. Usually, we get them as many suits as we can and just let them decide. I've got a couple of suits from here. I bought one when I first got out here—it was a Hawaiian print—and then I won one for selling the most suits. I got a solid yellow one because that makes you look tanned. If I ever feel nervous about showing my body in a suit, well, for that, I have about 12 sarongs. So far, it's been really fun here. I've met a lot of people. There are so many people walking by the place, and on weekends it's really busy. They tell me that now that the summer has started, it will be like that every day, and the weekends will be packed. My friends from Columbus are coming out this month, and I want to go to the beach and take it easy. Back home, if you wanted to get a tan, you either went in your back yard or lay out by a pool. Some people go to Myrtle Beach—that's in South Carolina, or North Carolina; I'm not sure. Some people go to Lake Erie, but that's polluted. I'm looking forward to the summer here. I just want to go to the beach and have fun. In August, I'm leaving for college. I'm going to Humboldt State. People have told me that it's a whole different scene up there.

—as told to Steve Lowery

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