Cape May (11 page)

“You’re lucky it’s Friday night. Everyone’s out, so it’s quiet.” She picked up his empty teacup and left the room.

Michael walked over to Joanna. “Do you want to call it a night?”

“No!” she replied. “I’m wide awake now, and I need some fresh air.”

“Let’s walk.”

“Tell me more about Cape May,” Joanna said to
Michael, as they strolled away from the Manor Rose.
After their naps and his tea, they were both refreshed.

“Well, let’s see. Basic stuff. Cape May is named after a Dutch captain called Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, spelled M-e-y. It was the first American resort by the sea.”

“We passed a B&B called the Captain Mey. On Ocean right?”

“You must’ve been a straight-A student with a memory like that.”

“I was a straight-A student, if you don’t count math or science.”

“Or gym?”

“How did you guess?” she laughed. “Wow, that was yesterday when we saw the Captain Mey? It seems like a week ago.”

“Every hour with me seems like a day. It’s my lack of charm that does it.”

They walked east on Columbia, past the Abbey, past the Mainstay. Michael said, “That gorgeous house, the Mainstay, was a gambling establishment. I like to imagine wealthy men in top hats, smoking cigars, sitting around a large elegant table and losing their band-collared shirts.”

On Stockton Place they made a right.

Joanna said, closing her eyes, lifting her head, and breathing in deeply, “I still can’t smell the ocean. Can you?” He shook his head. She continued, “Do you mind me not making eye contact? While we talk, I mean? I want to see as much of these houses as I can.”

“Sure, then I can make faces at you.”

She looked at him. “You certainly aren’t very mature.”

“You make it sound okay. My wife, uh, ex-wife, accused me of being immature, frequently. She did not make it sound okay.”

“Were you immature?”

“I worked, paid bills, did half the parenting, took out the garbage, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, and more.”

“Sounds pretty mature to me.”

“You’re lucky, Joanna. It’s rare to be in a good marriage.”

“Yeah,” Joanna said, “well, he’s my best friend.”

“Maybe that was the problem with me and Donna. I don’t think she ever really liked me.”

“That had to hurt.”

“Yes, but maybe I wasn’t all that likeable, who knows. It suddenly all seems a long time ago.” After a minute passed, Michael continued, “Funny, looking back, the hardest part was the awkwardness of going from being married, part of a couple with a capital C, to not being married. Everything changed. Took awhile to readjust. Now I like being single.”

“Would you ever marry again?”

He laughed, “Who’d want me?” Joanna opened her mouth to say something but he interrupted. “I wasn’t fishing for compliments or anything. I mean I’m not getting any younger, I’m set in my ways. I do exactly what I want when I want. You know, stuff like that.”

“You ever lonely?”

“Yes. But I was frequently lonely when I was married, too,” he said.

“Marriage isn’t a cure-all, is it.”

“You lonely too, sometimes?”

“Sometimes.” They walked silently for a few moments. She said, “Now I’m depressed.”

He laughed, “Some tour guide, huh? Robbie, I mean Rob, my son, says a conversation with me is more like being interviewed.”

“I haven’t minded. You haven’t pried.”

“Good. Now I probably will.”

“Uh-oh,” Joanna said.

“You don’t have kids?”

“Nope.”

“You seem like the kind of woman who would’ve wanted children. I mean, you’re warm and motherly.”

She grimaced. “Ugh. Just what a woman wants to hear.”

“Sexy, I meant very, very
sexy
woman!” They both
laughed. “I meant motherly only in the most favorable
way, honestly.”

“I…let’s just say it was never the right time.”

“Oh, foot in mouth again, Mike. Sorry, Joanna.”

“No, it’s all a long time ago. But you’re right, I am the mother type. I would’ve loved kids. It’s a long story.”

Michael and Joanna walked quietly, which unfortunately gave her brain the opportunity to remember those few awful months. What felt like both a hundred years ago and yesterday.

How ridiculous to get pregnant the first time you have sex. There ought to be a law protecting stupid virgins. Way back in college when she lost control and fell into bed with handsome, sexy Greg, she wasn’t thinking about contraception. She wasn’t thinking. Desire had taken over, sucking all power away from her brain. It was all over in minutes, it hurt, and certainly wasn’t the stuff romance novels are written about. She convinced herself she was in love, though, probably because nice girls didn’t have sex with boys they weren’t in love with. (Thanks, Mom.) Greg kept after her, and the sex got a little better with practice and as much patience as a twenty year old boy could muster. She was finally starting to enjoy it and lose some of her inhibitions when she realized she was pregnant. They would be in college at least two more years, many states away from their parents, with no support, no money, and no wish on Greg’s part to get married. An abortion seemed the best choice. The arrangements were made and he took her for the procedure, and stayed with her afterward while she cried until she couldn’t cry any more. She cared about Greg, but chased him away because he reminded her of the day she did the unthinkable.

It took her a long time to sleep with anyone again. Part of her sexual reluctance had to do with not wanting to be like Cynthia. Her older sister slept with anything that moved and had a penis. That was how it seemed to Joanna, five years younger and much more shy than her elegant and sexy sister. Boys and men loved Cynthia, and she saw no reason not to love them back. When they were younger, as two daughters of a single mom, they were rivals for their mother’s attention. Joanna, as the younger and less social, won. When Cynthia was out on dates, Joanna listened to her mother worrying about Cynthia’s morals. Joanna knew she couldn’t compete with her sister’s popularity with the opposite sex, but she could be their mother’s favorite child, if she behaved. It cost her a lot to be her mother’s favorite.

Michael’s “I’m really sorry, Joanna” brought her back to the present. “It’s none of my business…”

“No, it’s fine.” The abortion was a part of her history that she didn’t share with anyone. “I got married older, and didn’t get pregnant, and that’s it really.” Her sudden sadness told him it was more involved than that.

“Did you ever want to adopt?”

Joanna looked away from his questioning eyes, with an audibly sharp intake of breath. “I…”

“I should glue my mouth shut.”

“No. We’re talking. It’s a legitimate question. I wanted to, but Brian didn’t.” She paused, and he was about to attempt to say something, but she continued, “No…it’s just, I wish he…you see, he barely even wanted a kid of his own. He was clear about that when we got married. I should’ve listened, I guess.”

“We hear what we want to hear. Or don’t.” There was a long pause. He said, “We sure are wallowing in depressing topics.”

“As Jung said, even a happy life has darkness in it.
Or something.”

“Well, as tour guide I need to cheer us up and I have just the place.”

“Place?”

“The arcade.”

“The arcade?” she said and smiled.

“Yes. It’s right over there. Just a few stores down. You can’t be sad in the arcade. It’s impossible.”

“Impossible, huh?”

“Unhappiness dissolves when you…” he stopped walking, and stood completely straight, head held high, “play skee ball,” he said.

“Skee ball?”

“Joanna, you sound like a parrot.” She smiled. “You’ve never played?” She shook her head. “Then come on!”

CHAPTER 8

One of the reasons Joanna agreed to marry Brian all those years back was that she desperately wanted to have children. She’d felt shut down in her twenties and confused in her thirties. It took getting older and knowing herself better to feel she might be a decent mother. After they were married, she went to her doctor for a full examination. He gave her
the go-ahead—she was healthy and everything was working
as it should—but she never became pregnant. Factors
included not only her age, but their infrequent love-making, both of which, in her mind, were her fault. It was stupid, she knew, but she couldn’t help feeling that she was being punished for the abortion. Joanna knew she
should’ve been smarter. At the time she was a well-educated,
privileged, grown-up virgin who was so carried away that birth control was the last thing on her mind. With that one event, all those years earlier, she betrayed the oft-repeated tenets of her depressed and controlling mother, chased Greg away, and put her own selfish needs before the life of her baby. After that she kept her emotions firmly in check, and she never let herself get carried away again. Greg wanted to continue to see her, but she wouldn’t return his calls. He eventually gave up, not wanting to fight any more. She dated, mostly to have a reply when her friends and family asked if she was dating anyone, but she wasn’t really interested. It wasn’t just that no one felt like the mythical Mr. Right, no one even felt like they came from the same planet that she did. One by one her friends married, and she managed not to feel jealous. She stayed friends with some of them, although she did lose a few to the sometimes exclusive couples club.

When she met Brian, something clicked, two people who felt damaged, recognizing something in each other. As a child he’d been a poster boy for nerdiness: a skinny loner with really bad acne, glasses, and braces, who preferred numbers to people. The night they met, Joanna had been dragged to a party by a coworker at her new job. The coworker talked to her boyfriend all night, and Joanna sat on a couch attempting to talk to an older, dull man. Brian was sitting across from her, not talking to anyone. As the older, dull man monologued about the rotten state of the world, Brian made eye contact with Joanna, closed his eyes and pretended to fall asleep. She couldn’t help but smile. He held up his glass of wine and silently asked if she’d like one. Tilting his head toward the bar, he stood up and walked, and she followed him.

In the “social” department, they were both in the “anti” column, but they managed to talk to each other. In one of the bedrooms, they found a Scrabble set and began playing. That was the building block of their friendship. When people asked how they met, they said they were set up on a
blind date by Alfred Mosher Butts. The fact that no one got the joke about the inventor of the game was part of their fun.

***

Joanna and Michael walked into the Cape May arcade. It had an open front, with coin-operated mechanical
rides—a horse and an elephant, both with bejeweled
saddles—sticking out onto the wooden slats of the boardwalk.
Joanna hadn’t been in a place like it since she was little. The arcade was filled with kids and, to her surprise, some adults, who were sitting on high stools in front of blackjack and poker machines.

“Don’t they have PacMan any more?” Joanna asked, not recognizing any of the games.

“No, only incredibly violent games. Where you blow up dinosaurs, kill zombies or drug lords, Nazis, cheerful stuff like that.”

It was loud, with soundtracks thumping, guns firing, dinosaurs roaring, and people screaming. Michael yelled, leading her to the rear of the place. “Skee ball is like mini-bowling, sort of.”

When they reached the back wall where it was a little quieter, Michael waved his hand with a flourish. “Look.”
There, in all their glory, was a row of a dozen skee ball alleys
. “Just look at them, Joanna. They are made of wood. Not plastic. They don’t kill anything, they require no bullets or batteries. See, the alleys are much smaller than in bowling, and you don’t knock pins down. Here, watch him.”

A teen, whose underwear stuck out three inches above the waistband of his pants, put a token in the machine’s slot. Nine balls released into the holding area. The kid picked up one and rolled it up over the bump in the wooden alley. The ball jumped and landed in the hole marked forty points. Underneath the token slot, a ticket popped out.

Joanna turned to Michael. “These aren’t Victorian,
are they?”

“They were invented around 1910.”

“Corseted women couldn’t’ve bent over to play.”

“They should’ve been home cooking anyway.”

The kid continued rolling the balls, getting them in the holes, and tickets kept popping out. Joanna pointed to them. “What’s that?” The kid turned around suspiciously. “Oh, sorry,” Joanna whispered, as she walked away with Michael.

He said, “We have to get tokens.”

“I have some quarters in my purse, I think.”

“No, we need tokens. Lots of tokens.” He put a $10 bill into a change machine and tokens landed noisily in the cup.

Joanna eyed the pile of tokens. “Uh, how long are we going to be here?”

“You play a few games of skee ball, and then if you want to leave we’ll leave, okay?”

“Fair enough.”

They walked to the end of the row where there were empty alleys side by side. Michael put a token in one machine, and the balls dropped. “I love that sound.” Taking one ball out, he held it up to her face. “Isn’t this wonderful? It’s wood. Not plastic or synthetic. Feel it.”

Their hands grazed.

“It-it’s wood all right,” she said.

“It’s possible that a president held this ball. Some visited here, you know. Do you want me to show you how to play?”

“It looks basic enough.”

She put her token in and watched the balls drop. She rolled one up the alley, and it rolled back down. Rolling it again, it jumped a little when it hit the bump, but didn’t go over the bump.

“Don’t be shy,” Michael said.

She rolled the ball harder. It flew over the bump and landed in the ten points target. The machine registered the points and Joanna picked up another ball. All the balls she rolled landed in that same ring. When she was finished, a couple of tickets poked out under the token slot. “What are these for?”

“This isn’t all just simple, mindless fun, Joanna. I have saved the best piece of news for last. Look over there. See those shelves full of valuable prizes? See the numbers on them? Like that scary looking bear?”

Joanna turned around to see display cases forming a square in the center of the arcade. A bored young man stood in the middle behind the counters, which were filled with cheap plastic toys, jewelry, decks of cards, model ships, and just about anything else you could think of. Hanging over his head were hundreds of stuffed animals of every color, shape, and size. She saw the scary bear, with a sign around its neck. “It says
fifteen-hundred
. Fifteen-hundred what?”

“Points. Each ticket is worth three points. You get one ticket for every forty points you score in skee ball. Then you redeem the tickets for a valuable prize.”

Joanna did some calculations. “Math, math, math. Do you mean I’d have to get five-hundred tickets to win that bear thing?”

“Yep!”

“Wouldn’t I have to spend…a ridiculous amount of money on skee ball to get those tickets?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t it make more financial sense to just buy
the bear?”

“Yes! But it’s about the enjoyment, dare I say adventure, of the game. Also, there are smaller, still valuable prizes. Years ago, I won a whole paper bag’s worth of tiny plastic World War II soldiers.”

She couldn’t help laughing. “And I bet you still have them.”

He stood up straight, head held high, broadening his already broad shoulders. “You haven’t really gotten into the spirit of the game yet, Joanna. I’m sure you, too, in time, will come to love it, and behave like a ten year old.”

“Great,” she said, still smiling, “just what I need.” She rolled a few more balls, all scoring ten points. He was bursting at the seams. “You want to show me how to do it, don’t you.”

He nodded. “I want you to love skee ball.”

“Okay, show me.”

“Now, take the ball and stand here.” She did as she was told, and he stood in back of her, putting his hands on her waist. He dropped his hands, faced her and said, “Uh, is it okay if I…” he motioned with his hands towards her waist.

“I must learn. Do what you have to.”

He put his hands lightly on her waist and positioned her in front of the alley. “Good, now over to the left about an inch. Yes.” Skee ball lesson or not, Joanna noted his delicate touch. He truly was a gentle man. She did a quick inventory of her single friends, trying to think of someone to set him up with. No one seemed suitable.

Michael moved his right hand from her waist, and cupped her hand. He swung it back, then forth. “Let go!”

The ball rolled perfectly down the center of the alley, jumped over the bump, and fell in the ten point hole. Joanna took a step away so she could turn to him, smiled coyly, and said, “I did
that
without your help.”

Michael was determined. “No, really, there’s an infallible method. I’ve studied this more than you’d want to know, or I should admit, on many a long post-divorce, whiskey-fueled night.” His eyes on the alley, his right hand again went under hers. “Let’s try again.” This time his left arm went around her, and his body spooned hers. “Aim down the center, keep your elbow bent a little, and let go when your arm is passing your body. I want you to experience the fifty point thrill.”

His head was over her right shoulder, facing forward, concentrating on the alley in front of them. Her eyes slid toward him, surveying his close profile—the straight strong nose, the soft skin, the gray-speckled days’ growth of beard, and the attractive crow’s feet around his blue eyes. In the seconds they were in this position, the arcade warmed, and she felt faint. She faced the alley and allowed him to mechanically bring her arm back, then forward. As he turned toward her to impart some instruction, she turned towards him, and their faces were just inches apart. The ball fell to the floor with a thud. They quickly stepped apart.

He bent down to retrieve it. “Y-you get the idea,” he said, handing it to her. She nodded, still feeling woozy. He moved to his own alley, feeling a little woozy himself. A few minutes later he said, “How’s it going?”

“I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

“Good.”

Exerting her full concentration powers on skee ball, she aimed and rolled the ball right into the fifty point hole. “Yes! Fifty points! You’re a good teacher.”

“No, some people just got it! Look at that line of tickets.”

“Should I take them now?”

“If you want, or leave them until you’re finished.”

Joanna picked up another ball and scored forty points. “Yes! Yes!”

“Well, Ms. Matthews, do you want to leave? Or are you a convert.”

“You couldn’t drag me out now, Leighton.” She mock spit on her hands, rubbed them together, and grabbed another ball. Michael just smiled. She said, “I know: you told me so.”

They played for a full hour—and used another cupful of tokens—occasionally watching each other and getting excited if one of them scored high points. When their tokens were gone, Michael said, “Enough?”

“Let’s stop while we’re ahead.” She rubbed her shoulder.
“My arm is starting to ache.”

“Okay, then. Time to count our tickets.” She followed Michael to the prize counter. The young man in the red and white striped cheesy jacket and Styrofoam straw hat
watched them approach. How did they appear to this twenty
year old boy. Old? Silly? Together?

The kid said, “Yeah?”

Michael said, “Hi,” and handed in his tickets. The kid, “Brad” according to his name tag, put them on a scale. Michael said to Joanna, “In the old days, we actually had to count the tickets ourselves, and then multiply by three.”

“Thank goodness for modern technology,” Joanna said, holding onto to her long strip of pink tickets, and finding the whole process entertaining.

Brad noticed Joanna’s stash. “Sh’I weigh ’um together, or separate?” he asked, sounding as if he couldn’t possibly care less.

Joanna looked at Michael who said, “We could we pool our resources…”

Both Joanna and Brad said, at exactly the same time, “by joining forces from now on?” The three of them laughed.

Brad lit up. “I love
Gypsy
! I played Tulsa in my high school production.”

Joanna said, “
Gypsy
? In high school?”

“It was highlights from Broadway shows. So, no stripping. But I loved the music and got the CD.”

Michael propped his elbows on the display cases. “Brad, I’m Michael. This is Joanna. It’s her first skee ball experience, so if you want to add her tickets to the scale, and uh, lean on it a little bit with the old thumb…”

“Say no more,” said Brad. “Any friend of Gypsy’s is a friend of mine.”