Camptown Ladies (14 page)

“Lisa, please, you treat your dog like a child,” I said in a very low voice, not believing she would follow suit. We were gaining on the woman and her wobbly toddler, and I was starting to sweat.

The baby’s hands were innocently outstretched as if he were doing a bad impression of Frankenstein, stiffly walking side to side and reaching out as if he wanted to touch the clothes of the people who passed by. I didn’t want to agree with Lisa (nothing good would come of that), but the child was walking right by his mother’s side, not fussing a bit, and I had seen so many others who were more leash-worthy. My sister, for instance.

Lisa was rapidly catching up to the mother and child, raising her
voice in righteous indignation as she walked right behind the woman doing her diatribe of “what the hell is this world coming to when parents can’t control their toddlers.” I fantasized doing an about-face on my sister, but was blocked by a group of shoppers behind me. I’d lived through my share of scoldings by Lisa, and along with my sweat, pity flooded me for this woman and the inevitable scolding that was about to take place.

If I stayed, maybe I could at least try to control Lisa. Maybe some extra harsh shushing, or grabbing her arm to physically redirect her. (OK, I wouldn’t have the guts to do something
that
rash.) Or maybe I would get lucky and the mother would punch Lisa in the mouth, silencing her for a moment or two, while I dragged my sister’s unconscious body across the food court. (As if I could move the most determined woman on the face of earth even for a second, unconscious or otherwise.)

Lisa was yelling now, “You know, it is a sad thing when a parent has to resort to tying their child up, rather then friggin’ teaching them!”

The woman pretended not to hear her as we walked past, but my sister would not let it go, calling over her shoulder as I pretended to window shop at a blinding speed, “I mean really, that is
so
Not Right, using a leash on a child!”

The woman called ahead to us in a weary voice, “It’s OK, everyone thinks that.”

Her answer made Lisa and I turn back in unison at the woman and child. What we saw made us both turn away and quicken our pace, almost to a run.

“Oh my God. I want to die,” I whispered.

“How the fuck was I supposed to know the kid was on an oxygen tube?” Lisa said.

Twelve

Mobsters For Lobsters

“Please pay attention to an important announcement!” Lisa bellowed over the loud speaker.

Eddie stopped his work and waved his hand over at her with a wrist that seemed barely hinged. “Let me guess, they fucked up another dyke storyline on network TV.”

Lisa ignored him while we all gathered near the speaker.

Vince pointed at Lisa and said to Eddie, “Note the hands on the dyke hips, the gym teacher stance, this is going to be big. It may involve illegal activities. Eddie, sit and protect your favorite asset.”

Lisa yelled into the speaker, “Everyone stop talking! Eddie, sit the fuck down.”

We did, and he did.

“Language,” Mom muttered as she joined us.

Lisa said, “I had the greatest idea last night. We have all been working so hard, I think it’s time I treated everyone to a little P-Break!”

“Yipeeee!” Eddie yelled.

Dad said, “Thanks, but I just went.”

“Not that kind of pee, Dad,” I said. Mom headed back to the camp store doorway while we assembled an impromptu meeting in front of Eddie’s over-the-top 80s-inspired dining hall. He flicked on the switch for the rotating disco balls to show off his decorating and Erica’s supreme wiring skills.

Lisa blasted into the loudspeaker, “Mom, you need to come here and listen too!”

“I’m not your father. I don’t like bathroom humor,” she said, folding her arms.

“It’s a P-Break, Mom. As in P-town. We’re all taking a trip to Provincetown, Massachusetts. As a thank you, I thought it would be fun to go to Provincetown for a long weekend to rest before we have our opening in a few weeks.”

Aunt Aggie joined Mom. “That’s all the way up on the Cape Cod,” she said, as though she would have to swim to get there.

“Yes,” Lisa said. “All the way up on
the
Cape Cod.”

Dad and Eddie slapped each other five. “Eddie and I are in!”

Lisa smirked, “See, Eddie already has a date. Mom, Auntie Aggie, Uncle Freddie, we’ll just talk about you behind your backs, if you don’t come.”

“Why do we have to go so far?” Mom asked.

“It’s not far. Plus, it’s research,” Lisa said, winking at Vince and I.

Aunt Aggie asked Uncle Freddie, “Are there a lot of campers up on the Cape Cod?” Uncle Freddie shrugged.

“You’ll also have the best damned lobster dinner you have ever had in your life!” Lisa said.

Uncle Freddie stood up. “Well, I’m in! Aggie, if you girls want to stay and hold down the fort here at camp, I’ll eat your lobster.”

“Oh no you won’t,” she said, then she turned to Mom. “You know if we don’t go, our husbands will dive face-first into bowls of butter and have heart attacks right at the table.”

“The Italians go to the Cape Cod!” Dad yelled, now hitting Uncle Freddie with a high five.

Vince said to Erica, “I’ll make a sign for the van: Mobsters For Lobsters.” When Erica laughed with him, Vince looked a little too hopeful.

Erica asked Vince, “Why do they keep calling it
The
Cape Cod?”

Vince said, “Old people put ‘The’ or ‘My’ in front of everything. ‘I’ve got to go to
the
Stop and Shop to pick up
my
tea.’ Or, ‘Something is wrong with
the
Comcast.’”

When he stepped closer to her, Erica said, “Maybe I shouldn’t go?”

“
Maybe
you shouldn’t go? That’s ridiculous,” Vince said. “Of course you shouldn’t go. We did break up and being around me must be unbelievably tempting. You are only human, after all.”

He moved his face close to her and batted his eyelashes. Erica
playfully shoved his face away, “Don’t be an ass. I just don’t want there to be any mixed signals.”

Vince said, “No worries. If there were any, you just unmixed them.”

Erica was anxious to change the subject. “Your folks have no idea it’s a gay town, do they?”

“Not so much.”

“Well, I think I want to see this,” she said, and her decision mixed Vince’s signals again.

Lisa got off the microphone and looked worried, as if a bad idea just hit her, “Mare, the last time our family vacationed together was in Jamaica, it got kind of crazy.”

“I could write a book,” I said.

“On the plus side, lots of lesbos in P-town. Maybe on this trip you’ll find the real love of your life.”

“Not looking, thanks,” I said.

Lisa turned back to her audience, “So, like Uncle Freddie always says, there are only two things in life: ‘Are you in, or are you out?’”

“In!” most of us shouted.

“In,” Mom and Aggie grumbled.

Of course, Lisa had a bigger plan. Marketing printed materials about Camptown Ladies in Provincetown was really the point of the trip, and Lisa was determined to make this work for her. It was disguised as a vacation, but I knew Lisa would be working this trip like a Rhode Island politician, pressing flyers about the opening of her campground into the hands and bars and restaurants of
everyone
she talked to—and my sister talked to everyone. She had an irresistible, abrasive charm, and the balls to use it to her advantage.

On the way up to Cape Cod, Lisa stopped so she could pick up some salty snacks. As she got out of the rented mini van (Aunt Aggie insisted we strap her scooter to the roof), Lisa stopped off for gas. “Ten bucks should do it,” she said, walking toward the store.
Then she pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her pocket and balled it up so she could toss it through the passenger window at me. “Don’t go over ten, I don’t want a bunch of fucking small bills.”

Lisa may have been a millionaire, like the rest of us in the van, but, being so new at it, she forgot that twenty dollars was not really considered a big bill. She was remembering all those childhood years of us pooling our change to buy a bag of potato chips or a sleeve of Oreos. I was distracted thinking of this when Lisa headed back to the van. I looked at the pump in a panic, but I hadn’t gone over the ten-dollar amount, or I’d hear about it for the entire three-hour drive. I carefully squeezed the handle to choke out small bits of gas, as I felt her hovering behind me.

When Lisa was judging me, I could feel it deep in my bones. It made me paranoid, clumsy, prone to mistakes, and it made her delighted. I squeezed the pump carefully so I would not go over: $9.53 . . . $9.56 . . . $9.58 . . . I must hit that ten-dollar mark or suffer the wrath of Lisa for not following her instructions . . . $9.60. I breathed a sigh of relief, until Lisa tagged me with an affectionate slap on the back of my head. She followed with the helpful explanation, “It’s dollars, not hours and minutes, you fucking tool.”

Lisa was pulling out of the parking lot when a guy with a “GO GREEN” protest sign yelled: “Enjoy your gas guzzler, you jerks!”

Lisa didn’t warn anyone to hang on and I winced for the sake of the protester as she threw the van into reverse and careened right toward him. Aunt Aggie and Uncle Freddie collided in the back seat and Aunt Aggie slapped Uncle Freddie on the arm as if it was his fault. “Ow!” he howled, and he laughed at her annoyance.

The protester’s eyes widened as the minivan skidded just inches from his feet. The scrawny guy’s back was pressed against a fence to avoid being run over. Lisa leaned out the car window and looked like she might grab his neck, which was within reach. He was petrified, and appeared ready to pee himself from fear.

Lisa shouted louder than was necessary, “Hey, little douche bag, if you wanna do something green, stop killing trees with your stupid signs. Go mow my lawn since you need a fucking job!” Mom and
Aunt Aggie gasped as Uncle Freddie wheezed with laughter in the back of the van.

Except for one fight between Mom and Aunt Aggie, the rest of the ride was uneventful. Dad was the first one out of the van when we reached the town, dramatically taking a deep breath of salt air as he asked, “Where are the Margaritas?”

“Dad, this isn’t the Caribbean,” I said.

“It’s the Cape Cod,” Vince said.

The owners of Gabriel’s Guest House, who are known to us frequent visitors as The Two Elizabeths, greeted us as if they had been anticipating our arrival all year. Our disorderly group spilled out from the van directly into their tiny lobby, shattering the peaceful quiet of the beautiful inn. We drowned out the soothing jazz from the adjoining Great Room.