Joyce Schultz had just graduated from high school with honors, and while her parents were very proud of her accomplishments, she were both in agreement on one thing. Joyce was not going to spend the summer in the house reading.
"You're going to get a job," her mother insisted when the subject came up. "I don't care what it is - volunteer somewhere if you want to - but you have to get out of the house and interact with people."
Joyce nodded and shrugged her slumped shoulders, like she often did when faced with a something she didn't want to deal with, but unlike the other times, her parents were not going to let her squirm out of this.
"She has to get some kind of life," Betty Schultz told her husband that night in bed.
"I guess," Jack Schultz said, and although he knew his wife was right, there was something to be said about being the parent of a girl you didn't ever have to worry about.
"Who knows, maybe she'll even meet a boy," Betty suggested.
"Or a girl," Jack added.
"She's not gay, Jack," Betty said, once again rejecting her husband's semi-serious theory for why no boys ever came calling.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that," Jack said. "I just want her to be happy."
"Why don't you see if Don needs help at his place?" Betty suggested, and to get his wife off of his back so he could go to sleep, he agreed.
***
"I don't know anything about ice cream," Joyce said to her parents the next day.
"What did I tell you?" Betty said to her husband with a grin. "I told you she would say that."
"There's nothing to know," Jack Schultz said. "You stick it in a cone, hand it to somebody and take their money. For crying out loud, you had a 99 average last year. You're telling me you can't figure it out?"
"I don't even eat ice cream," Joyce whined.
"Your Uncle Don will appreciate that," Betty said. "Not that you couldn't stand to gain a few pounds."
"And stand up straight honey," Jack said. "Please?"
"Nothing wrong with being tall," her mother added. "Slumping like that doesn't make you look any shorter."
Joyce nodded and straightened up, having fallen into that habit of stooping over once she reached 6' tall, and when she finally ran out of excuses, agreed to go with her Dad to talk to her Uncle about working there.
***
"Wow!" Don Schultz said when his brother brought Joyce to "The Snackatorium", his summer enterprise that kept him busy until the snow started flying and his plowing business kicked in. "Look at you, Joyce. You're a tall drink of water."
Joyce nodded and blushed as her uncle kissed her on the cheek.
"So what do you think?" Don's brother asked. "Do you think you can give Joyce a job?"
"Absolutely!" Don said as he looked over his niece, and tried to curb his habit of mentally undressing the girls who interviewed for jobs with him, at least until his brother was gone. "Especially nights and weekends. All these kids want to book early at night. You okay with that, Joyce?"
"I guess," Joyce said with a shrug, and was left to look around the storeroom as her father went to talk with her uncle.
"That will work out well," Jack said of his daughter. "She doesn't have much of a social life. Correction. No social life, so nights and weekends work out well for everybody then."
"No boyfriend huh?" Don said. "Well, the way these clowns hang around drooling over the girls that work here, that might change."
"I doubt it," Jack said. "But if you can get her out of that shell of hers, that would be great. She's an incredibly intelligent girl, but socially..."
"Leave that to me," Don said boisterously, slapping his brother on the shoulder. "By the end of the summer you won't recognize her."
...
"Here's your uniform," Don Schultz told her new employee as he handed Joyce a couple of t-shirts with the logo of The Snackatorium on the front. "Very few rules here. Don't chew gum while you wait on people."
"I don't chew gum."
"Good. Do you smoke? No? Great. Show up on time, do your best and you'll be fine," Don assured the nervous teen. "Be here tomorrow at 4 and I'll break you in myself. It'll be great to have somebody besides me that can reached the stuff on the top shelves. You're almost as tall as I am. What are you Joyce, 6'2"?"
"About six foot," Joyce lied, knowing that she was a bit taller than that now and her uncle's guess was probably correct.
"Well, stand up straight," Don said, patting Joyce on the back and squeezing her bony shoulder while whispering to her that he only said that because her old man told him to. "Oh, and one more thing. I ask all the girls to wear bras. Family place and all."
Don Schultz eyes went down to the lanky girl's chest, and even though she was wearing a baggy blouse he suspected that his niece didn't have much up on top. While that might turn off a lot of men, Don was certainly not one of them. Just the opposite.
"Okay," Joyce said, blushing.
"And so we'll see you tomorrow. Welcome aboard!."
Joyce awkwardly shook her uncle's hand before walking out of the store with her father.
"Congratulations!" Joyce's father said, winking at his brother. "You're now a professional."
Don laughed and watched his brother walk out of the store with his new employee, and as they turned the corner Don rearranged his pants to accommodate the erection he was sporting as a result of seeing little Joyce again.
"Little Joyce?" he said to himself. "Not so little. Behave yourself Don. That's your brother's kid."
***
"Here," Don said as he handed his niece her name tag, although he was sorely tempted to put it on himself. "You better do it."
Don watched Joyce awkwardly attach the tag above the tiny swell of her left breast, and as he looked over his brother's daughter he knew from the start that it was going to be a long hot summer, at least for him.
It wasn't that Joyce was a stunning beauty or anything, far from it. If you were one of those fans of classical beauty, Joyce was not going to be your cup of tea. It was as if the girl had gotten the lesser features of her parents; her father's big nose and her mother's height, but didn't get her father's outgoing personality or her mother's boobs.
Hardly any boobs at all, Don noted, and who knows how much of what was under the t-shirt and bra was flesh, Don mused. Joyce reminded Don of his first love, back 40 years ago. Gail Hopper was her name, and she was almost as androgynous as Joyce was. She was no looker either, but she had been an animal in the sack, and ever though she had been Don's first, she was still the best no matter what she looked like to others.
As Don showed Joyce around the shop, introducing her to the rest of the staff and showing her the various machines, his mind was elsewhere. Was she a virgin? It didn't seem possible that an 18 year old girl could be these days, but his brother said that she wasn't very social.
Nervous beyond belief too, Don noted, and as the day went on it was easy to see that Joyce wasn't going to excel at customer service. She panicked constantly, dropping things and getting flustered, so when it was time for her break he had Joyce join him in his little office.
"You want me to quit?" Joyce said.
"Quit?" Don said. "Of course not. Why would you think that?"
"I'm no good at this," Joyce said.
"Hey, nothing is easy at first," Don said, putting his hand on Joyce's pale forearm, the skinny limb so white it looked like it never saw the sun, and softly stroked the fine down that graced it. "You just need to relax."
Joyce flinched at first, but Don's hand continued to stroke her furry forearm with his beefy hand, making the down dance between his fingers, and he kept assuring her that she would be okay.
"Hey, you're way ahead of most of the girls. You can make change without the help of the register," Don chuckled. "You should see this place when the power goes out. They're hopeless without the machine telling them what to do."
Don told Joyce that she could help him work the back area, and only come out to wait on people when it got really crowded. Hearing that, it seemed like the weight of the world came off her shoulders.
"There," Don said. "That's more like the Joyce I remember. You're so much prettier when you smile."
Don chuckled as Joyce left, blushing at the compliment. He didn't think that she got told she was pretty very often, because she really wasn't, at least not in the classic sense. Her features were plain, and she did little cosmetically to improve them. Her hair was a mousy brown and was cut in a very ordinary way.
Still, Don thought, there was something about her than gave him a hard-on whenever she was near. That was going to be a challenge now, because they would be working together a lot now.
***
"Working late these days?" Joyce's mother asked when her daughter slipped into the kitchen just past midnight.
"Yeah. Uncle Don has me cashing out all the registers after we close," Joyce said.
"You don't seem to mind your job so much now."