Later on that summer, I started fooling around with a guy named Turtle. This was to become a common theme of mine-dating men nicknamed after animals. Later on there was Chicken, and for a brief two-week absence of mind, there was a boy named Rooster. Chicken got his name because he could outrun anyone, and Rooster got his because he got up every morning at the crack of dawn. Needless to say, my relationship with Rooster didn't make it past our first sleepover. Chicken and Rooster were not related.

I liked Turtle. I had met him when I stopped at the gas station where he worked. There was only one bathroom, and as I was leaning down to cover the seat with toilet paper, with my pants around my ankles, the door flew open.

"Whoah! Sorry about that," he apologized hastily as he shut the door.

When I walked out he was waiting next to the door with an embarrassed look on his face.

"That's not really my best angle," I told him.

Both our faces were red with embarrassment and we started laughing uncontrollably. To the point where I had to use the bathroom again.

"Did you leave me any toilet paper?" he asked as I came out of the bathroom the second time.

"Yeah, there's a little left on the seat."

Turtle and I got along great. He was the type of blue-collar alcoholic that you could have a really solid fling with. Turtle was more laid-back than the Dalai Lama. He was the perfect prototype for a summer fling; a cute, flirty island boy, but not the type you'd miss in the fall. He fixed bikes at the gas station for the summer, and he definitely didn't go to college. He had a vocabulary that could battle my six-year-old nephew's.

Turtle had an uncle named Marty whom Ivory immediately took a shine to. He owned his very own gas station, and Ivory loved the smell of gas.

So there we were, two middle-class Jewish girls from Jersey hangin' tough at the gas station where our paramours worked.