Barnegat Bay - 26. Chapter 26

Mary and I thought Claire and Spence might eventually get together. But they sure took their time getting around to it. Meanwhile, Al and Gina moved ahead.

“We’re not exactly certain when,” Gina confided in Mary and me one night at Jenkinson’s. Everyone else was dancing or searching for food. “You know how busy Al is, with work and school. And we’re amazed how much we’ve been able to see each other this summer.”

To make that easier, she was working at one of the hotel restaurants, and Al was taking the late afternoon train to Barnegat, Saturdays, then coming back on Sunday nights.

“But we know there’s nobody else for us,” Gina went on. “So it’s just a matter of finding a free weekend.”

“Congratulations,” Mary said.

“Yes,” I followed.

“Please don’t tell anyone. I think everyone knows. But you know how the guys make fun.”

“Can we let Al know?”

“Yes,” Gina said. “But quietly.”

Only it was hard to find a private moment, even on the train back to the city. Because Al and I didn’t always ride in together

Mike and Larry had gotten a car for work, so they’d usually drive to Barnegat on Fridays. But never so predictably that I could always go with them. It was easier to do that on Sundays.

“Nice car,” I told them the first time.

“Yeah, for being eight years old.”

“It’s what we could afford.”

“No – we could afford better. If we didn’t have the trucks.”

Their trucks were a routine joke and always easy to drop into conversation.

“Guess what leaked oil all over the garage last night?”

“Truck number three – the Chevy. Our little brat.”

“Not you,” Mike quickly apologized to Ann.

Larry’s dad and uncles had bought the first one, second-hand, and it set the pattern.

“That one looks like a Model-T,” Larry said. “But it’s not that old.”

“1923,” Mike confirmed.

“At least, it’s not a hearse.”

“I’m not sure they made them yet.”

“This wasn’t the earliest truck, either. That was some years before.”

“Adapted from something in the Army.”

“By Henry Ford – who knew a few things about making money.”

“Why didn’t we think of that?”

“Because we weren’t born?”

“Oh – yeah.”

The first truck served the three painters for years. But when Larry and Mike expanded the business, they needed more.

“You can’t take paint on a bus.”

“Or on the subway. Who’d want to lug the pails up and down?”

“And not in a cab. Think of the cost.”

“That’s his main obsession.”

“Meaning I have smaller ones?”

“Yeah – making people think you’re funny.”

So they bought another old truck. And then another, until they had six. Each was always breaking down. But in a different way.

“We should put a mechanic on the payroll. It would cost less.”

“That would just encourage the trucks.”

“They don’t have brains.”

Instead, Mike and Larry kept fixing them, piece by piece. And they always – somehow – got their crews to work. But this was their first car.

“We were spending too much time in the subway.”

“Or too much money on cabs.”

“I told you he’s obsessed.”

Still, they debated the ethics of using their business car to drive to Barnegat.

“It’s kind of not right.”

“It’s completely against the rules.”

“We could reimburse ourselves.”

“But the money’d still go to us.”

“We could give some to charity.”

“We’re not doing that well.”

They finally justified it – with Al’s help – by deciding they sometimes got jobs through the businessmen they met on Barnegat.

“And we wouldn’t have the jobs if we weren’t there.”

“We couldn’t go by train?”

“There aren’t as many – you know that. So we might not get as much work. The car lets us go any time.”

“Which happens to be convenient – seeing Barbara’s there for the summer.”

She was working at the same hotel as Gina.

“You like going to Barnegat anyway,” Larry poked.

“Don’t blame me,” Mike replied. Then he explained to the rest of us.” Barbara’s his third obsession.” He grinned at Barbara, who just rubbed Larry’s hand.

So it wasn’t a surprise when, in mid-August, Gina and Al decided on their “least busy weekend in October.” Though Barbara and Larry laughed and then told us, “We were thinking about that weekend, too.”

Which only sent Mike into his “Whoa! Whoa! Whoas!”

“This really shouldn’t be a surprise,” Larry quickly told him. “Since I already asked if you’d be my best man.”

“Yeah. But that was hypothetical.”

“A very big word.”

“But just as scary.”

So once we got through the summer, on almost successive fall weekends, we watched Gina and Al and then Barbara and Larry get married.

“Why do I feel cornered?” Mike asked.

“Because you’re always wearing a dunce cap.”

Al really wanted to get married at City Hall. “It’s no fuss. You wait in line on a Friday. Then you go away for the weekend.”

His teachers had already excused him. One even sent a gift.

“It’s not like you need to go to law school classes every week anyway,” Al explained. “You just need friends who take good notes.”

“But you take the best ones,” Spence pointed out. “And never miss a day.”

“This’ll be the first.”

Still, Gina and Al didn’t get married at City Hall because her family insisted on a church. So they got married on a Sunday and had their honeymoon two nights before. Barbara and Larry also got married in a church. But only after getting married in a temple the night before.

“This could be a complicated marriage,” Larry observed.

Since Mary, Spence, and I were in a relationship just a bit more tangled than that, none of us worried.

Of course, with marriage came apartments and moves to the city. Al wanted to be near Fordham in the Bronx, and Gina and Barbara didn’t want to be far apart. “It’s going to be hard enough getting used to New York,” they claimed. So they all decided on a building in Washington Heights.

“I’ve never lived in an apartment house,” Gina said. “And on the ninth floor.”

“We’re only on the fourth,” Barbara added. “So it doesn’t seem as high.”

Spence agreed. “You can always climb down a rope.”

“I’m not doing that,” Barbara insisted.

“The building’s fireproof,” Larry reminded her. “It’s one of those new ones.”

The now nine of us still got together most Saturday nights. And Mike often brought a date.

“They like me ‘cause I have money,” he said, grinning. “Not a lot. But enough.”

“They like you because you’re a great guy,” Larry assured him.

“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever told me.”

“Then hang onto it.”

But Mike’s dates didn’t always like him – because of his friends.

“One of them said you all think too fast. Then talk too quickly for her to get anything in.”

That made us laugh.

“Another claimed we have jokes that only we understand.”

“Like the trucks.”

“Oh, no! Not more truck stories!”

“But the reason that was the funniest was ‘We have no morals.’ She couldn’t figure out the baby.”

“All those ‘Daddies’ and ‘Poppas’?”

“She thought we were a cult.”

Finally, one woman kept coming back. First, for a couple of Saturdays in the same month. Then, for several months.

“I’m not saying she’s the one,” Mike told us, smiling but being careful. “Let’s see what summer brings.”

“You gonna shop around Barnegat?” Larry jibed. “All you’ll find is high school girls.”

“And what was Barbara?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“There’s no reason to rush into this,” Mike defended. “You and Al waited a couple of years.”

“Almost. I’d have to count.”

“And this is barely three months.”

“But she does seem like one of the gang,” Larry offered. “Barbara says she’s really ‘down to earth.’”

“Is that a compliment?”

“I didn’t say ‘in the mud.’”

“With a name like mine, you have to fit in,” the woman – Tony – told us one Saturday. “It’s supposed to be short for ‘Antonia.’ But I was really named for my dad – without even a final I.”

“You have no brothers?” Larry asked.

“Give the man a cigar.”

Mike and Tony outlasted the summer. She didn’t need to work at a hotel because she was already a teacher and liked having vacations off. Gina and Barbara were both practical nurses but arranged their jobs to have July and August free and were welcomed back at their hotel.

“It’s better to be out of the city anyway,” Gina said. “You never know what’s going around.”

Al, Gina, Larry, and Barbara rented a small cottage, and, on weekends, Mike either slept on their couch or on my boat.

“Sometimes, I just need to get away from them,” he said. “There’s so much love in the air.”

When Tony occasionally came with Mike, she either slept at Claire’s or at one of my relatives’ homes. There was always room.

The best thing about having Tony with us is she knew about boats. She took the “Oh, Me!” out the first weekend and handled it better than I did.

“I was raised in Sheepshead Bay,” she told us. “My family always had boats.”

“We’ll sell you this one,” Mary offered, jokingly.

“Oh, no, we won’t,” I protested. “It’s the last reminder of my bachelor days.”

“Notice he didn’t say ‘happy bachelor days,’” Mary shot back.

By early September, Mike admitted, “The only thing that worries me is she’s three years older than I am. I always feel like I’m catching up.”

“The real question is why she’s settling for you?” Larry cracked. “From everything we’ve seen, she has a pretty nice life.”

Tony lived alone, in a studio apartment near where she taught on West 67th Street. She invited us all there one Sunday for lunch.

“It’s small,” she acknowledged. “But I think we can fit in.”

Ann came along, though without her high chair. We stacked telephone books to raise her up.

“Tony wants to have children,” Mike had gone on. “And she thinks I’m a good prospect.”

I’m sure we all had jokes for that. But we all stayed silent. Finally, my mother said, “Don’t worry about her age, Mike. Half the women I know lie about theirs, and more than a few are older than their husbands. At least, Tony’s honest.”

So they were married in November. Of course, Larry was Mike’s best man.

“You don’t think it’s too soon?” Tony asked Mary one Saturday in the kitchen. “It’s been less than eight months.”

“We all love Mike,” Mary assured her. “You couldn’t find a better man. And we’d all never let him forget it if he let you go.”

They were married at a church in Sheepshead Bay. “Fortunately, we’re both Catholic,” Mike said. “No complications there.”

That only left Claire and Spence unattached. And they both were, but weren’t.

“I haven’t even dated,” Spence admitted one afternoon when he was stretched on my examining table. He needed a physical and some very personal questions answered for his life insurance.

“You’re the only one who’s thinking that far ahead,” I joked. “And I should get it before you.”

“To tell you the truth, it’s for Ann. She’s the beneficiary. I was going to tell you and Mary after I passed this test.”

“You couldn’t be healthier.”

“I knew that. But these companies like their forms.”

Spence went on to say that becoming Ann’s father had really scared him. “That’s why I quit dating – I mean, Mary and I were so careful.” He laughed. “She’s probably told you that – and more. And if it can happen when you care about someone and are doing everything right...”

I had to laugh right back. I’d never had that problem. Or else I was extremely lucky.

Still, what he said gave me the answer to a question Mary and I had wondered about. With Spence living so close to Claire, and in such an easy place to reach, were they seeing each other more than they let on? Though now that I had the answer, I couldn’t tell Mary. Because, from then on, I was Spence’s doctor.

Another thing that kept Claire and Spence apart was their schedules – both were very busy. She worked five-and-a-half days then drove into the city. Following Mike and Larry’s example, she’d also bought a car.

“I was going to get one used, but my father insisted otherwise. He said he knew I’d use it for business and needed to make a good impression. I said I’d drive the lumber yard car, but he asked, ‘Why? You and I already share that with Spence.’”

Spence still only worked five days a week then usually took the Friday night train to New York – to spend as much time with Ann as he could. Still, that was changed by summer and law school.

“It was a stupid plan,” he admitted. “I never should’ve signed up for another Saturday class. But I liked the teacher when I sat in on Al’s class last spring, so I took his summer course. Then I took a fall class with another teacher, and now this, with a third. I figured I’d been managing, so I still could. But I honestly didn’t think it through.”

Since Spence needed to be at Fordham at eight AM on Saturdays, the worst of his traveling was in July and August. He’d come to the brownstone on Friday nights, take his morning class Saturdays, then get the early afternoon train to Barnegat to see Ann. Mary, as usual, was running her aunt’s store. Claire would drive in on Saturday afternoons, and Spence would go back to Toms River with her on Sunday nights.

“Is it really worth it?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah – Al was right. I like thinking that way again. I looked at taking classes in Newark or Philadelphia – they’re the closest law schools. But Philly’s too expensive, and Newark’s almost as far as New York. I really need to get a car. The trains don’t run enough.”

“Everyone’s driving but me,” I kidded.

“You do know how?” he asked. “‘Cause if you don’t, I’ll teach you.”

“Thanks. I learned years ago. I just don’t get a lot of chance to practice.”

There were other reasons Claire and Spence stayed apart, though the main ones seemed to come down to: It was too logical. It was too easy. It’s what everyone expected.

“Everyone but us,” Claire protested. “That’s why I’ve kept dating.”

I didn’t know that. “It must make your parents happy.”

“It does. Though they’re never very impressed with the men when they pick me up.”

“What kind of guys?” I asked, and she looked at me quizzically.

“I tell Mary everything.”

I laughed. “I’m sure you do. But that doesn’t mean she tells me. I guess she doesn’t think I’m interested.”

“No. The truth is my parents are right – the men aren’t very interesting. They’re well-bred, they’re intelligent, and they have good jobs. And they’re all appropriately older than I am – five or six years.”

“My age.”

“Younger than that. You’re the oldest man I’ve ever been with.”

“‘Been with?’” I kidded.

“You’re right – we mostly danced.” She smiled.

And we let the rest of it go.

Still, Mary and I never met any of the men Claire dated. She didn’t bring them to Barnegat in the summer, because she’d rather spend time with all of us, and she felt the same way about asking them to join us in the city on Saturday nights.

“I mainly see them on Fridays – for dinner and maybe a movie. And I hope for decent food and a good film. But Toms River isn’t New York.”

“If you don’t like it, why continue?” I asked.

“Because I do want to get married – and not just to please my parents. I want to have a family.” At that moment, she was playing with Ann.

Meanwhile, she and Spence had so many connections. She was Mary’s best friend. He was Ann’s father. And they saw each other all the time – at work, home, and on weekends. It would have been so simple to take that further. But in the same way they overlapped, they did it in uncomfortable ways. She was his boss and, even if not directly, his landlord. And she was depending on him to expand the family business, which – as he did – gave her more authority over him.

“Has she ever even kissed him?” I asked Mary.

“Why would I tell you?” she joked. “That’s best friends’ secrets.”

“Maybe she ought to. Or maybe he should skip coming here some Friday night and ask her out.”

“Why don’t you suggest it?”

“Why me?”

“Because it’s your idea.”

I had a feeling it wasn’t. But I couldn’t figure out where it came from.

So one Friday night, just before we knew Spence was coming in, Mary went upstairs, soon after my parents. Spence found me lying on the living room couch, studying one of my usual medical journals.

“Is everyone all right?” he asked.

“Yeah. They’re just tired. I’m heading upstairs soon.”

“How’s Ann?”

“Fine. The usual. She hasn’t grown any.”

That was the gang’s joke – mostly Mike’s. Every Saturday when he saw Ann, he’d lift her up, boost her over his head, and exclaim, “You’ve grown so big! Soon you’ll be picking me up!” Spence would quickly take Ann to safety and offer, “I look forward to that.”

That night, I told Spence there was some fresh apple strudel in the kitchen, and we went to warm it up. As we snacked, he talked about the lumber yards and law school, and I told him funny stories about my patients, without mentioning their names. Finally, I casually worked around to Claire.

“Who’s she seeing tonight?”

He shrugged. “You know, I don’t really know. That’s kind of off limits.”

“Why? The two of you talk about everything else.”

“Maybe that’s why – we each need some privacy. That’s why she stopped coming up to my apartment. We’re always around each other.”

“And that doesn’t give you any ideas?”

He grinned. “It gives me ideas all the time. But – as I said – ‘there are limits.’”

“Why?”

He grinned again. “Let up, Doc. If I thought this was worth going after, don’t you think I would? Right now, I can’t risk my job.”

I was surprised. “Do you think that’s really that’s a possibility?”

“Who knows? It’s a small family business. There are no rules.”

I thought about that. “You could still ask her to a movie.”

“We’ve see movies all the time.”

Something else I didn’t know. “When?”

“During the week. If we’re both at the same yard after her dad leaves, and there’s something to see.”

“What do you do for food?”

“Eat popcorn. We can both eat better when we get home.”

“So early movies?”

“Yeah – soon after work. Neither of us stays up late.”

“Why don’t you ask her out to dinner then? It doesn’t have to be on a Friday. Leave that to the Republicans.”

He laughed but protested, “They’re not that bad – the guys she sees.”

“You’ve met them?”

“Some.”

“And you’d be happy if she married one?”

“First of all – again – it’s not my business. But, yeah, some of them are fine.” He hesitated. “Some are our clients, actually. I’ve introduced her.”

More news to me, though I expected Mary knew. And I must have thought about that for a moment too long, because Spence just looked at me and laughed again.

“Come on, Doc. Why is my introducing Claire to guys any worse than you encouraging me to ask her out?”

“It’s not,” I had to admit, smiling feebly. “I just think you’re both being stupid.”

“That’s blunt.”

“It’s late, and I don’t have the energy for tact. But any guy Claire wants to marry will have to get past the gang. And you’re already our friend.”

Spence again hesitated, maybe trying to think something through. “Some of the guys,” he began slowly, “are businessmen Larry or Mike have introduced me to. Or guys Al and I met at Fordham. We’ve all been very quiet about this, which is amazing, considering Mike.”

“Right up there with changing water into wine.”

We laughed.

“So we’re all looking out for her. We don’t want her to wind up alone.”

“That hardly seems possible.”

“Maybe.”

“And you?”

He grinned. “I’ve always taken care of myself – you know that. Even when I’ve had you... and Mary... and especially Claire lately helping me out.”

I couldn’t say anything to that. I simply tapped, sharply, on the dining table, to acknowledge his compliment.

Still something must have settled in after that, or maybe something was already happening with both him and Claire. Because very slowly, they began to mention movies they’d seen together. And restaurants they’d tried in Toms River, trying to find one that might even start to approach the ones we all liked in the city. And, as slowly, they began a casual courtship that ended with their wedding, two years after he’d taken her job. On New Year’s Day, 1937, they got married at Claire’s family’s church in Toms River and then had a party in the otherwise empty Jenkinson’s.

“It only made sense,” Claire told us.

“Absolutely!” everyone agreed. And, for the second time I remember, we made Spence turn red – with our toasts.

“To the best thing since maple syrup that’s ever dripped out of Vermont,” Larry began.

“To the only man I’d crawl under a truck with,” topped Mike.

“To the guy I cheat off, every test,” praised Al.

“You don’t!” Spence protested.

“You’re not allowed to talk,” Mary warned. “Someone tie a napkin around his mouth.”

“To the best father I never was,” I finished.

And everybody cheered.

And somewhere in there, Mary and I managed to have another baby, a little boy, Otis, named for her granddad. I almost immediately started calling him “Oats,” though I was sure – as he got older – he’d find a more comfortable nickname. Just to be safe, his middle name was the very sensible Steven.