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TEMPORARY TIMES, TEMPORARY PLACES by Barbara Robinson

TEMPORARY TIMES, TEMPORARY PLACES

By

Pub Date: April 7th, 1982
Publisher: Harper & Row

Some of that old, Mary Stolz bittersweet magic adheres to the story of Janet's love and loss of Eddie. It's her 15th summer: the last ""footloose"" summer, she and best-friend Marilyn know, before the onset of summer jobs. And both are hopelessly, non-competitively in love with unattainable Eddie Walsh. Janet empathizes, a little, with her visiting, loudly lovelorn Aunt May--twice divorced and now recuperating from a hopeless entanglement with a married man. Then, with no warning, Eddie mutters to Janet, ""ComeonI'llwalkyouhome."" They don't talk; they do kiss--a lot. And soon they are talking and kissing and hanging about with other couples--and Janet, incredulous, has crossed the line from being ""Eddie's date"" to being ""Eddie's girl."" ""I should at least have stopped to think""--the blissful dawn after the annual swim party--""that when you are at the top of the Ferris wheel, you must either go down when it goes, or jump out."" Janet gets poison ivy, and quarantines herself for three weeks. When she emerges, to go with Marilyn to the Methodist youth retreat, Eddie hasn't called for days . . . and when they get there, he's with another girl. Not because of some misunderstanding, Janet finally has to admit--but ""simply because things change."" Aunt May is leaving, going on too. ""You couldn't just sit down and quit. . . ."" All-together characters and dialogue that says something--along with the ecstasy and pain.