Cape May Read online

  Cape May

  a novel

  Holly Caster

  Copyright © 2015 by Holly Caster

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission being obtained from the publisher or author.

  Email correspondence to: [email protected].

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  First published in the USA by TDC Publishing, Nyack, New York.

  ISBN: 978-0-99664-890-5

  Cover design by Sarah Fitzgerald

  Interior design by Susan B. Glattstein

  Author photograph © Darryl Fossa

  CHAPTER 1

  Although Joanna Matthews had few memories of childhood—or rather, few happy memories of childhood—she did recall long lazy summer days, so free, such a relief from having to sit in a classroom glued to a chair. She remembered bursts of energy, and spinning, spinning, spinning until she fell on the grass, any thoughts of injuring ankles or breaking hips decades away. Spinning until adrenaline raced, looking up and spinning until she couldn’t tell the white clouds from the blue sky and her heart pounded and her throat went dry, finally collapsing on the warm vibrant grass and feeling the earth itself spin and her young body trying to hold on, until the earth and her breathing slowed, but the exhilaration continued, as shapes magically began appearing in the clouds. Childhood, the good and the bad parts, was long gone. She was a settled married woman with a respectable job. The job, and the marriage for that matter, offered no carefree spinning, no delightful falling on the grass. The only adrenaline now produced was of the harmful variety, caused by deadlines and self doubts about meeting those deadlines competently. There was little time for cloud watching, and only limited views between the buildings of Manhattan.

  Adult though she was, a recent major decision could be traced back to a childhood incident, a visit to the Red Lion Inn in Massachusetts when she was very little. She was five and her sister ten, and their parents took them to Stockbridge. Older sister Cynthia thought the ancient inn, functioning since the 1700s, was creepy and boring. Joanna loved it, and dragged whomever would come with her to see every floor and public room. Of course she was too little to express more than “I want to stay here forever” to her uninterested sister, or to her parents who were going through their own revelations. The trip was organized by their mother in an effort to remind her straying husband how important family was. It didn’t work. But instead of possibly hating the Red Lion Inn because it had split up her parents for good, Joanna loved it even more, for it represented the last place the four of them had been happy together.

  Two decades later a boyfriend of Joanna’s booked a room at the one-hundred and fifty year old Fox and Gables in northern Connecticut, rented a car, and whisked her away for a few days. Instead of blissful moments between the sheets, Joanna was off exploring the inn any chance she got. Long chats with the young couple who owned the place —people not unlike herself—opened her eyes to the possibility of ownership. When the weekend was over, she knew two things: she didn’t want to see the boyfriend again, and she did want to run a bed and breakfast someday. She longed to own a piece of history, history you live in and care for and pass on to the next generation. The need to earn a living led to various jobs in a decidedly nonlinear career path, from bookstore manager to secretary to copy writer and now medical editor, and the B&B dream faded.

  Until about eight months ago.

  Joanna was being treated to a belated fifty-ninth birthday dinner. Her friend raised a glass of a complex Barolo and said, “To the second half of your life.” (Ha-ha. More likely the final twenty years, but still.) “May you be happy.” It made Joanna think. “Happy”? She left the restaurant, still thinking. That night she couldn’t sleep. Her marriage was fine, if not filled with unending joy. Work rarely made her happy, but lots of people didn’t like their job. On the plus side she had her sister, and a few good friends, and enjoyable hobbies, but was it enough? No. In bed, next to her sleeps-like-a-dead-rock husband, she felt suffocated by the condensed molecules in the dark room. Positive, happy thoughts do not come to people in the dark in the middle of the night. Joanna was no exception. Recent events jumped before her eyes like newspaper headlines in a 1930’s movie. The deaths of two people she went to high school with (thanks for the news, Facebook). One from cancer, the other a heart attack. The clichés she’d been hearing and reading, in letters, emails, and in person echoed in her head: “No one lives forever” and “You can’t take it with you” seemed to be the most popular. The latter was uttered most recently by the doorman of her apartment building, in reference to the now empty spot on the bench in their lobby. He added, “God came for her, but didn’t take the dog.” It would take some getting used to, not seeing ancient Marion and her tottering tiny dog, Pola, sitting there every morning and night.

  She sat up in bed and pushed the negative thoughts away, using newly learned techniques enforced upon her and her coworkers by management hoping for an increase in productivity. She resented it, but had to admit the techniques did help, and she looked on the more positive side. Not “I’m going to die soon so why bother” but “I’m going to make the rest of my life a thing of beauty and a joy forever.” She took a moment to visualize herself getting up, happily, in the morning, and getting happily dressed, and happily doing . At first nothing came to her. She breathed deeply a few times, and tried again. “Me, happily doing ” and she suddenly saw, actually saw herself back at the Red Lion Inn, a little girl overflowing and dizzy with exhilaration. The little girl transformed into Joanna, now, in an inn. Her inn.

  The vision had spurred her into action, almost immediately. She had to stop herself from waking Brian up. The next morning she had sat her husband down on the couch and essentially told him, “I need a change. A very big change.” A nice guy who genuinely wanted her to be happy —or who hoped if she were less miserable it would also improve his life—he wished her well on her quest.

  It began with three-day weekends or vacation days visiting towns hundreds of miles away from her New York City base. Sometimes Brian or her sister Cynthia accompanied her, sometimes not. So far those exploring trips, to towns and houses in Connecticut, Vermont, and other areas in the northeast, had proved fruitless, but she wasn’t giving up. Just thinking about house-hunting, and moving, and painting rooms started more positive adrenaline flows.

  ***

  About to embark on another weekend exploring trip, first she was having breakfast with Brian before working at her office for a few hours. She sat at a little table at which she’d sat with him almost every day for two decades. Now, instead of feeling the usual malaise, the upcoming weekend filled her with anticipation. The trifold brochure in her hand interested her so much, she couldn’t help but read aloud to her husband, “‘Cape May has the second-largest collection of Victorian houses in America, right after San Francisco.’ Sounds promising. I love Victorians. Painted Ladies.” She took a sip of coffee.

  “Isn’t that like being the Miss America runner-up? Second largest.”

  “I’ll settle for second best. I’m a lifetime East Coaster. San Francisco would be too much of a change.” She skimmed the brochure. “‘The entire New Jersey seashore town is a National Historic Landmark.’ A landmark. I like that. I can’t wait to see it in person.” A quarter of a toasted everything bagel with light cream cheese remained on her plate.

  “Great,” Brian said, shoving the rest of the bagel in his mouth. “We’ll live in a landmark.”

  Joanna turned away from her husband’s sarcasm (and chewing) and gazed out the living room window. The immediate view from their eleventh floor tiny tw
o-bedroom apartment on West Eighty-Sixth was nothing special; however, if she stuck her head out the window and looked left, she could see the tops of a few trees in Central Park. Friends told her she was crazy to even think about moving from this apartment and neighborhood.

  Brian walked the six feet to the kitchen for more coffee. He emptied the pot into his Yankees mug, flipped off the coffee maker, and said, “Oh, did you want?”

  She shook her head. “Cape May can’t be as nice as it seems, can it? I mean, everyone would move there.”

  “Well, honey, you’ll know soon enough.”

  “I suppose. I just want the perfect house in the perfect location at the perfect price. How unrealistic is that?”

  “Very. Very unrealistic but also very endearing, and optimistic, considering that you didn’t find anything in Connecticut…”

  “Too expensive.”

  “Or Vermont.”

  “Too rural.”

  “Massachusetts.”

  “Oh, I loved that house. I put a binder on it, remember?”

  “And then we wasted a lot of money finding out it was in horrible shape.”

  “Brian, I’m learning. I’ve been doing my homework. Don’t worry.”

  “Yeah, great, whatever.”

  “Your confidence in me is palpable.”

  “Jo, darlin’, I told you I’d move, if you so desperately want to move. It’s your money. But I don’t have to also be your cheerleader.”

  “Okay. You’re right. But I really feel there’s a perfect house out there for us.”

  “For you, Jo. If it were up to me, I’d live here until they carry me out in a pine box. As for ‘perfect,’ in your almost sixty years on earth, haven’t you learned that perfect doesn’t exist?”

  “In myself, yes.”

  She brought her plate to the sink in their tiny kitchen. If they moved, they might have a real kitchen, maybe with an island. Heck, she’d be happy with a 1950’s Formica table, like her family had in their Queens apartment when she was a child. If the kitchen is the heart of a home, her and Brian’s apartment was dangerously low in cardiac function.

  He said, “This’ll be, what, your fifth trip hunting for a house? Maybe you need to lower your expectations. Or stop looking.”

  “I can’t rush this, Brian. It’s not just finding a house and a town. It’s finding, well, a new lifestyle. It could take years.” She added a grim afterthought: “Although I may not live long enough for this change if my job ends up killing me.”

  “You could quit that job anytime now that you got that inheritance.”

  “That’s for the house. Whenever I find the house.”

  “We have a good life here, you know.”

  “I know. Look at it this way: at the very least, we’ll get a weekend away.”

  ***

  Joanna and Brian met when they were in their early thirties. After a slow start, they became good friends. Movies, museums, Scrabble, and companionable meals where they talked about who they were dating and how it was—and usually wasn’t—going. One December 31st, after a long dating dry spell for Joanna and a bad breakup for Brian, they sat on his worn couch watching TV, waiting for the ball to drop, and drinking too much. They later christened that night “New Self-Pity Eve.”

  “I’m sick of dating and getting my heart broken!” slurred Brian.

  “At least you date,” Joanna said, pouring herself another glass of wine, determined to match him in drunkenness. “I haven’t met anyone. And at my new job, there’s no one even egglyable.”

  “Eligible?”

  “Yeah. You meet girls everywhere and you date.”

  “Great. Lucky me! I date and get hurt. At least you don’t get hurt.”

  “I’m hurting right now, Brian. I’m lonely, and I’m feeling like it’s all my fault, that there’s something about me guys just don’t like.”

  “You’ve dated some nice guys, Joanna. You’re too picky.”

  “Just because you like them, to play basketball with or watch boy movies with, doesn’t mean they make good boyfriends.”

  “You push the good ones—even guys I don’t want to hang out with—you push ’em away. I’ve seen you do it.”

  “What about Simon? I liked him, but he didn’t like me. Lots of ’em don’t like me.” Somewhere inside she was relieved to be complaining, letting it out, and mixing whining with the wine. Normally, she tried to be positive, and didn’t admit to herself how lonely she frequently was.

  “Well I like you, a lot. We always have fun together.”

  “I don’t mean fun. I mean sex. Love. A future.”

  “I love you like a friend. And I’d have sex with you like a friend.” With that, he kissed her. Fueled by a long period of celibacy plus the alcohol, she returned the kiss. The fact that he was tipsy made it easier for her, too. In his state he probably wouldn’t notice how inexperienced she was, and insecure in bed. Even though she wanted to get to it before the wine wore off, she wouldn’t head to the bedroom until he located a condom. Some mistakes are so big you only make them once.

  When Joanna woke up, alone in Brian’s bed, she had a hangover, and the suspicion that she’d done something stupid. She shook her head, which made it hurt more. “Ouch.”

  Brian came in with a cup of coffee. “If you feel like I do you’ll need these,” he said, taking a bottle of aspirin out of his pocket and throwing it next to her on the bed. He sat. She inched to an upright position, covering herself with the sheets, and reached for the medicine. He pointed to her breasts, and smiled. “I saw ’em last night, and I liked ’em.”

  She laughed, and smacked his arm, spilling some coffee. He said, “Oh, now I’ll have to wash the sheets. I was going to frame them.”

  “Oh, Brian, we didn’t, did we?”

  “How much do you remember?”

  “It’s coming back to me hazily, slowly.”

  “What about my incredibly huge…”

  “No, please, laughing makes my head hurt more.”

  That was the start of their occasional “sextogethers,” a word they made up because they hated “fuckbuddies.” After a breakup, or when things got desperate, they’d meet, split a bottle of wine or two, and have sex. Sometimes it was okay for her, but more often she was just there for him, trying to be a good friend. She figured use it or lose it. It was better having meaningless sex with Brian than not having sex at all.

  ***

  “You sure you want to take the bus to Cape May?” Brian said, cleaning sesame seeds from his bagel off the table. “Can’t you wait until tomorrow and drive down with me?” He pulled hard on a stuck cabinet door and reached for the jar of vitamins. He downed a few with a cup of water.

  “No,” she said. “This is the best time workwise to get away. And I know you: you’ll speed the whole way and make me feel like there’s something wrong with me if I have to go to the bathroom. Also, this way I’ll have some time alone to walk around, to form my own opinions. Yours are very loud, even when you don’t say them out loud.”

  “Whatever.”

  “I also want the full tourist experience of going to Cape May. Like for research. I want to know exactly what it’s like on the bus, and how guests will feel when they arrive at our door, how we can help them relax after a long trip.”

  “You sound pretty gung-ho.”

  “I am. Well, let’s say gung-ho with reservations. How’s gung-so-so?” She sat on the couch.

  He plopped beside her. “I’m sure most people drive there anyway.”

  “No! I read…about four thousand people live in Cape May, right? During the summer, forty thousand people visit! They can’t all be driving. There’d be no room for all those cars.”

  “Sounds like nine or ten months of the year Cape May is boring and empty, and the other times it’s jammed with annoying tourists.”

  She gave him a look.

  “Or, I could think of it as peaceful and quiet and then exciting and bubbly.” He put his hand on her shoulder
. “You know, I am trying to warm up to the idea of moving. Spending our declining years in a picturesque seaside town.” His hand cupped her breast. “And maybe we can, you know, resume…”

  She took his hand off her breast and rubbed it against her face. “Uh-huh.”

  “You would be one of those annoying, weird women who get better looking as they get older.”

  “Thanks?”

  “It was meant to be a seductive compliment. I want you to know I’m interested,” he said, then closed in on her for a kiss, and she responded. She touched his smooth face. No matter how early he got up, five minutes later his face was shaved smooth as a baby’s bottom. A decade ago, when he started freelancing from home, he felt it was important to maintain a level of professionalism. He had stopped wearing a tie in the house after a few months, but shaving made him feel work-ready, he told her. The only times she saw him scruffy were when he was sick and couldn’t lift a razor, and she had to admit he did look pretty awful. He continued, “Well, it’s time for me to hit the spreadsheets.” He got up to leave, then turned around to say, “I hope things go well for you in Cape May. Really.”

  “Thanks for being the agreeable spouse.”

  “I’m doing my best ’cause you have your heart set on moving.”

  “I do. Manhattan is wearing me down. I’m exhausted. All the time. And here’s a news flash: I hate my job.”

  “You always hate your jobs. A few days away from it all will do you good.”

  She made the bed, then finished packing her weekender bag. She entered their tiny second bedroom, which was Brian’s office. A line of file cabinets in that awful putty color lined one wall, with his fat CCH Master Tax Guides among the books on top of them. He sat behind his desk, with a laptop and a desktop computer, folders, papers, and open books splayed before him. Other than his thinning and graying hair, he looked much the same as when she met him. Tall and skinny. He had reminded her, when she first saw him, of comic-book Archie’s best friend, Jughead.

  She said, “I’d think you’d want to move just to get more work space.”