It was a Saturday, the first Saturday in June. And the sun was beating down, despite a sudden break in the humidity. Meghan was working by herself that afternoon, much the same way she had been for the past three weeks running. Bored and listless, she took to reading beneath a canopy, coastal breezes causing the pages to lift and turn.
June was the most trying time of year for local teenagers. Island schools were still in session, and yet the full machinery of summer was simultaneously taking hold. This represented a dilemma, in that refusing to work back-to-back doubles every weekend might also mean sacrificing face and rank to summer help. The very same mantra that allowed for hibernation half the winter also dictated that once gainful employment was available, one worked hard and one worked right, lest one should not ever seek to work again.
Meghan knew this mantra well, having multi-generational ties to North Wildwood – a place where her father was currently employed as a full-time fireman, and her uncle, the lone-sitting judge. Meghan had relatives throughout the county. Most of her uncles had come up working summers on the beach patrol; most of her aunts, the restaurant circuit. Meghan’s father still requested two weeks off during mid-August – a bustling period during which he’d sell ice cream on the beach (Such contracts were initially offered to local veterans, in much the same way local shipping contracts had been before.) Meghan’s father was a bohemian, and yet he worked tirelessly to provide for his daughters. As a result, Meghan came to equate an admirable work ethic with mobility. More to the point, work ethic was the primary reason Meghan had originally agreed to work the picture stand that afternoon. Only now Meghan found herself distraught, sweeping caked-on layers of sweat off of her brow.
Something was wrong. And whatever that something was, it had been advancing on Meghan throughout the morning – surging forward, pulling back; setting fire to adipose reserves along the way. Meghan’s heartbeat ran off-tempo and her carotid pulse had set to pounding like a drum. She stepped out from underneath the canopy, hoping to find someone who might be willing watch the stand. She felt the need to take a break and splash some water on her face.
There were a pair of tiny kiosks across the way, but neither one of those was open now. There was a troll wheel spinning madly just a few feet to the left, and a twirling skyride named The Condor an equal distance to the right. And at some point, somewhere, not-so far off in the distance, Meghan could hear the muffled stylings of the Spiral Staircase, waxing eloquent about how they loved her more to-day than yes-ter-day (but not as much as to-mor-row). Unable to flag down assistance, Meghan tucked her money apron inside a folder behind the counter. Then she pinballed her way across a hidden alley, the rush and whirl of dueling gears on every side. Meghan’s equilibrium was slipping now; every step fell slow and heavy. And just before the big TILT hit, Meghan’s body came to crashing through a wooden gate along the north side
of the pier.
***
The winter months had not been kind.
First came the loss of Meghan’s sister back in December. Next, my last-minute decision to reenroll at university, followed by my leaving Wildwood for the spring to attend Penn State. In certain respects, time spent apart had drawn Meghan and I much closer. The two of us were still young, and, as such, we both remained idealistic enough to believe that true love lasts. Regardless, the gulf of distance did not make for lack of strain. Meghan took a two-week trip to Paris by way of Madrid at the end of February. I, on the other hand, had taken to drinking more and skipping classes. When the spring semester ended, I made the three-bus trek straight back to Wildwood, optimistic that the two of us could put the worst behind us. Despite us reuniting, I could not shake the sense that one or both of us was drifting. Tectonic plates were shifting, exposing fault lines neath the surface. What’s more, I’d grown indifferent to the notion Meghan was still only 16 – a high school junior, doing her utmost to contend with all the crazy, grown-up bullshit in our lives.
***
I was standing on the Dime Pitch counter hanging stuffed animals, when I got a call from the EMT letting me know Meghan had fainted. By the time I reached First Aid, Meghan was sitting upright on the slab – rushing liquids between aspirin, holding a compress to her head.
She walked out on her own volition, led me down and off the ramp at 25th Street, where her father’s Nissan Pathfinder was idling in wait to drive her off to a doctor’s office. I eased Meghan into the front seat, wished her well, then waved goodbye. I stood there static in the rearview until the Pathfinder turned a corner. Then I hightailed it back up to the pier. I did this because I was young, and stupid, and I feared losing my job the moment Bill Salerno discovered that not one, but two of his full-time employees had simultaneously abandoned their posts.
Either way, it was a bitter pill, seeing Meghan torn asunder. And yet, there was this incredibly narcissistic side of me that had already taken to internalizing the whole thing: What if Meghan was pregnant? What if she had contracted some kind of STD? Was I supposed to get her a gift or something? What if the entire incident could eventually trace its way back to me?
From the time I’d been 15, I stood convinced that there was something physically wrong with me. So stringent was I in this belief that I would stay home from high school on every day the nurse’s office administered junior physicals. Midway through my senior year, I forged all of my medical records for admittance to Penn State. It wasn’t so much that I abhorred the constant probing as it was I had this rumbling fear, an acute phobia, perhaps, of how my father might react assuming I had been diagnosed with some condition. To that end, by the summer of ’94, I was no longer carrying any medical insurance. I had committed to either handling any health-related issues on my own, or ignoring them in the hopes that they might go away.
***
According to preliminary tests, Meghan had suffered little more than a sodium deficiency – upon the order that causes all of one’s internal circuits to fizzle and spin. The diagnosis provided a sense of relief, albeit counterbalanced by the knowledge Meghan’s older sister, Lauri, had passed away due to an undiagnosed electrolyte deficiency only seven short months prior.
I called Meghan during my dinner break, hoping I might run down to see her. But Meghan’s younger sister explained that Meghan had just recently fallen asleep in the back room. And so I spent the remainder of that evening slowly channeling all of my anxiety into guilt. When I called Meghan again around 11 PM, she was wide awake, and she asked if I might walk her bike down to her after I got done work.
I arrived at Meghan’s father’s house just after 1 am. I found Meghan sitting alone along the porch. She was wrapped up snug inside an afghan with a Marlboro 100 in her hand.
I remember Meghan’s warm cheek against my cheek; the smell of glistening apples in her hair. I remember experiencing a sudden rush of relief upon seeing all the color back in her face. In a sense, the two of us were right back where we had started now – sitting side-by-side along that half-pint porch in the midnight glow of East 19th, a pair of voices, hushed, playing against the flickering glow of Citronella.
“I think that we should take a trip,” Meghan said, somewhere after 3 am. “Like a really, really long trip, y’know? Like a road trip, across the country or something.”
“Oh, right,” I said, my back pressing up against soft tar and gravel. “Using what? A magic carpet?”
“No,” Meghan said, pointing off toward the street. “We’ll take the Fiero. I’ll have my license by the end of November. And my dad already told me I could use it. I asked him earlier tonight. The only thing we’d need is for you to get your license and we’d be set.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I wondered.
“What? Money?”
“Yes, money,” I said. I was staring up into the panels.
“I’ve got that handled,” Meghan responded. “Or at least I’ve got my half of that handled. I started working out a plan in the living room tonight. My dad agreed that if I put enough money aside between now and next June, he’d give me a slight cushion to put us over the top. On top of which, I’ll have all of my graduation money to draw from.”
“So you want to drive clear across the country during the height of the summer season, and your dad is OK with all this?” I said.
“Oh, please,” Meghan scoffed. “My dad hitchhiked his way across Europe way back when he was in his mid-20s. He found his way. Some nights, he slept on wooden benches.”
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t necessarily mean he wants his daughter to be eating out of trash cans, as well,” I said.
“No, no … of course not,” Meghan countered. “That’s why we’d need to start planning for all of this right now. Otherwise, we might as well just not consider doing it at all.”
“What about me?” I wondered.
“What about you?” Meghan said.
“I don’t have that kind of money, Meg,” I said. I turned to look her in the face. “I mean, I’m living paycheck to paycheck right now. In fact, I’m actually living one or two paychecks behind where I’m supposed to be. And we both know it’s next to impossible to save anything down here during the winter.”
“OK, so you sacrifice a little bit,” Meghan offered, as she lit a cigarette. “You cut down on all the excess beer you’ve been buying, you cut back on all the junk food you’ve been eating, and you stop lending money to all those broke-ass boardwalk sponges who have absolutely no intention of ever paying you back. Those three adjustments alone’ll put you an extra grand ahead by the end of Labor Day Weekend. From that point, all you need to do is either find another full-time job over the winter or put some cash aside from unemployment and we’re there.”
“You think it’s that simple, huh?” I said.
“Well, no. I don’t think it’s that simple,” Meghan responded. “But who cares? The point is, we can do this. You. Me. Us. We. We can do this … together. More importantly, it’s something neither one of us is ever going to forget. I mean, don’t you even want to try?”
“Look, don’t get me wrong,” I said, as I lit my own cigarette. “Driving across the country has always been a fantasy of mine …”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Meghan interjected. “Think about all the times you’ve mentioned the possibility of just taking off one morning, driving clear across the Dust Bowl, getting lost on some old highway in the middle of the night. I mean, this is it, Bob. This is IT. Our chance … right now. Seriously, think about it – you’re going to be 21 next November, and I’m going to be 17. I’ll be off to college a year after that and you’ll be looking into some kind of full-time career. And, meanwhile, there’s absolutely nothing stopping us from doing this right now. Only it has to be now. Believe me when I tell you we might never get this chance again.”
“You really think that we can do this?” I said.
“I really think we’re going to do this,” Meghan said. She was grinning wide beneath that afghan.
“No bullshit,” I said.
“No bullshit,” Meghan said.
With that, Meghan tossed the afghan aside. She ran inside to grab an Atlas.
We spent the next few hours mapping out a list of destinations – tiny blips along the way. We’d visit Tombstone, Arizona, and Area 51 in South Nevada. We’d hit the Vegas Strip, then Sunset Boulevard … maybe even Highway 61. We’d set out north, stopping for a night inside of Cambridge. Then we’d cut hard left, spending an afternoon along Walden Pond. After that, we’d dip down low into the Heartland, settling deep for the long haul. We had a plan now, or at least the seeds of one. And that plan was more than enough to keep us working through the night. We were wrapped up snug. We were easing back against the railing. And at some point, somewhere, not so far off in the distance, we could hear the lonesome call of waking seagulls. We could see the early mist begin to rise. It was morning now. The sky was turning.
Day 487
(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB)