LinnéNanette
Ahlstrand

LAZIEST GIRL IN TOWN languorous is the word for Linné First time we saw the girl, she was stretched out on a half-deserted beach, becomingly bikinied, a big hat over her eyes. We nudged her gently with a sandy toe and pointed out that the sun had gone down and a wind was coming in off the water and could we give her a lift someplace? In disarming confusion, she murmured her thanks, gathered together sunglasses, lotion, sandals, book and terry beach blanket, and stood up. She was shorter (5'2") than she looked lying down. "I fell asleep," she said. In the convertible, purring down the freeway, we asked her name. "Linné Nanette Ahlstrand," she said, and immediately following that lengthy discourse, she yawned. A few days later, we called on Linné to spring the Playmate question. She said (slowly) that she'd think about it. While she was thinking, we whipped out notebook and pencil and asked her, as we ask all our potential Playmates, a few questions regarding her likes and dislikes. She liked to sit down to a big meal of succulent seafood, she said; she liked to sit in jazz dens, digging those sounds; she liked to settle down to an evening of excellent theatre or a good foreign film; she liked to play chess. As we already knew she also liked to loll on a sandy surf, taking the sun. What about dancing? we asked. No, she wasn't awfully fond of that. Tennis? Hiking? Not a prayer. We began to get the picture: Linné just didn't want to do anything that involved standing up. We softly suggested she was a wee bit lazy, maybe? She admitted it. Having settled that, we returned to our original question: how about being Miss July? Yes, she said, she'd like to, very much, in fact. But on one condition. If she could pose lying down.