I was 11, visiting my grandparent’s beach house. It was morning and I’d already been swimming with Grandpa. My orange bathing suit was still damp, my long brown hair windblown and tangled. After that, I’d stretched out on a beach towel thrown on the ground and listened to my transistor radio like I’d seen older girls do. After a few minutes, I was bored.

At Gran’s request, I watered the red petunias growing in flowers boxes under the windows. “Aim for the flowers, not the screens!” Gran shouted from the living room. Making rainbows with the hose, I’d shot water through the open windows.

I pulled the hose to the row of bushes growing near the rail fence. On the other side of the fence, I spied a woman lounging on a chaise. A floppy straw hat decorated with a flowery scarf covered her head, a few strands of auburn hair peeking out. Sunglasses hid her eyes. She was still, so I thought she was sleeping. I stared.

Never had I see anyone like her. Her bathing suit was bright gold. Not gold color, but cloth that glittered like gold. Her fingernails and toenails were painted red. Gold sandals sparkled underneath a nearby chair. A red beach cover-up trimmed with gold was tossed over the chair and fluttered in the breeze.

“What’s your name?” I was startled. She wasn’t asleep! I slipped between the rails of the wooden fence and told her.

“You can call me Taffy. Like the candy,” she said.

She didn’t ask the questions most adults ask, like ‘What grade are you in?’ Instead, she asked, “Do you believe in extrasensory perception?” She told me she had a feeling she was going to meet an interesting girl that day. We talked for a while. When Gran called me home, I was sorry to go.

“See you soon,” Taffy said. Later that evening, Taffy called Gran to ask if I could join her for dinner at a restaurant the following night. In our family, dinner out was usually a burger at a fast food restaurant. I knew eating out with Taffy was going to be different and required dressing up. Fortunately, I had brought a pretty blue dress with me.

At 6:00, Taffy pulled into the driveway in her red Barracuda sports car and off we went. The restaurant overlooked the water and Taffy asked for a table with a sunset view. A man presented us with menus, another quickly brought glasses of water, still another asked what we wanted to drink. “A Shirley Temple with three cherries,” Miss Taffy directed, pointing to me.

I looked at the menu and felt overwhelmed. I wasn’t sure what to order. What if I ordered something and didn’t like it? The kinds of food we ate at home meatloaf, spaghetti, burgers— weren’t on the menu. I was still trying to decide when the drinks came. I sipped mine. Pink and delicious. I loved the sweet cherries and ate them first.

“Do you like shrimp?” Taffy asked.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever had shrimp, but I said, “Oh yes.”

“That comes with rice pilaf,” the waiter said. I knew ‘rice’ but not ‘pilaf.’ I nodded. “Clam chowder to start?” Taffy said.

I nodded again, hoping I wasn’t making a mistake.

First the soup. I tasted it. Rich and creamy. Yum! When the waiter whisked the bowls away, crisp salads appeared. I’d read about courses, meals served in sequence instead of everything being on the table at once. So this is what it was like! I was still nervous about the shrimp.

If I didn’t like it, would Taffy be upset? The waiter placed a large plate in front of me with six huge breaded shrimp. I picked one up and hesitated.

Was I supposed to use a knife and fork? I wasn’t sure. Taffy smiled.

“Eat them any way you like.” I took a tiny bite. “How is it?” she asked. “I never tasted anything so good!”

She laughed and ordered me another Shirley Temple, asking for six cherries this time. “They go well with shrimp,” she winked.