Matecumbe

by James A. Michener

  “Definitely an older crowd,” Joe said, “with few women.”

  “It’s great fun to watch this game,” Melissa beamed. “And everybody here seems to be really getting into it, what with all the loud yelling.”

  “Half of the cheers are in English,” Joe added, “while the others sound like Spanish.”

  “I think I hear a third language,” Melissa stated.

  “What’s that?”

  “New York.”

  “Jai alai doesn’t need betting to be fun,” Joe believed. “All the players look evenly matched. There doesn’t seem to be any need for scientific betting strategies. It’s like playing a roulette wheel or putting money on a throw of the dice.”

  To spur Melissa’s interest level even higher, Joe bought her a win ticket in the third game on the number eight player, Carlos.

  “He’s doing well, isn’t he?” Melissa exclaimed, as she watched the action.

  “Yes. He looks quick.”

  “Go, Carlos, go,” she encouraged.

  Near the end of his match, Carlos was only a single point away from a victory at betting odds of six-to-one. At that point in the action, he just barely missed an attempt to catch his opponent’s tricky backhand shot, which had ricocheted, at a horrendous angle, off the back wall.

  “He dropped it,” Melissa screamed. “Oh, that was stupid. Really dumb. Did you see that? He just dropped the ball for no good reason.”

  “Tough luck.”

  “Don’t buy me any more tickets,” Melissa told Joe, half-jokingly. “Frustration like this is something I don’t need.”

  From their seats in plastic chairs at the airport departure gate, Joe and Melissa watched the sun begin its slow retreat from the sky.

  The gradual dissipation of light seemed a bit symbolic. It was as if the gods were sending out a message saying, “The sunshine of your vacation is now setting. Your plane awaits you like Cinderella’s fairy-tale carriage.”

  Melissa was now confident, though, that the new sunshine of her life, Joe Carlton, would not be disappearing over the dusky horizon.

  “Two weeks, Melissa, that’s all,” Joe consoled her. “We’ll be together again when I visit you at Christmas.”

  “But in Philadelphia, it won’t be eighty degrees with sun and surf,” she complained. “It’ll be more like thirty degrees—with snow.

  “You’re going to have to bring a whole lot of sunshine with you inside your suitcases, Mr. Carlton, because I’m going to need it.”

  After they had kissed good-bye, Melissa turned to walk toward the crowd that was entering the jet way. It was a suntanned but sad-looking group. Some had carry-on bags that held tennis racquets. It seemed strange to see the occasional passenger who was wearing shorts while at the same time toting a heavy winter coat.

  When Melissa turned to look back in Joe’s direction, for one last time, she noticed that he was cupping his hands over his mouth and shouting. At first, she couldn’t understand him.

  “Bluefish,” he intoned.

  “What?”

  “Bluefish.”

  After hesitating for a reflective half-second, Melissa responded, shaking her head in an obvious negative direction.

  “Doesn’t count! No way!” she screamed back at him, for all of the airport to hear. “Not really blue. Keep thinking.”

  Chapter 8

  Mary Ann cooked the full-course Thanksgiving dinner, including the pumpkin pies baked from scratch. And as soon as the girls had finished doing the dishes, the family talk turned to Christmas.

  Mary Ann remembered that just a year ago, she had taken a part-time job delivering morning newspapers—so she could accumulate a few extra dollars for Christmas. But even with the girls helping her, Mary Ann found that the Sunday papers were too heavy to carry. After just two weeks, she quit. Within days, though, she landed a sales clerk position three nights every week at a jewelry store.

  “To get the jewelry job,” she told Paul, “I first had to take a train up to Allentown, where they gave me a lie detector test. Of course I passed, but I always felt somehow ‘dirty’ at that job. I was relieved when I was able to quit.”

  As to Christmas traditions, one of Mary Ann’s personal favorites was a visit to the Iris Club, a restaurant for which she held an eight-dollar yearly membership. She looked forward to taking Paul there and sharing another part of her life with this man who had become so important in all their lives.

  “Steamed clams and beer, that’s what I always get,” Mary Ann smiled. “It’ll be my treat. I only get to go there about twice a year. I used to waitress at the Iris back when Donald and I first got married. It was a nice place to work. My memory of the place and of the people I met gets better every year. Who knows, at the rate I’m going, when I’m in my eighties and dying, I might be praying for God to send me there.”

  While Mary Ann and Paul were dining at the Iris Club, she saw an old friend of hers, Debbie Eck. Debbie, also an ex-waitress, had since become a driver of tractor-trailer rigs. In a proud and no-nonsense manner, Mary Ann introduced Paul as her “fiancé.” Debbie congratulated both of them and then stayed around for a while, reminiscing. Mary Ann fondly remembered those evenings when she and Debbie would drive into the woods near Manatawny Creek, “spotting” for deer with their flashlights.

  The next bit of Christmas celebrating was at Paul’s insistence: “A bus ride to Philadelphia for some Christmas shopping. We’ll go on a Saturday. The girls will just love it.”

  Two weeks later, while their bus was on the expressway, nearing the center of Philadelphia, they heard the driver advise all passengers to “stay in your seats, because the traffic will get heavy.”

  And once they arrived, the pedestrian traffic proved even heavier. Despite being jostled occasionally in the crowds, the girls enjoyed their escalator ride to the top floor of Wanamaker’s department store; they shopped; they ate huge soft pretzels purchased from street vendors; they did more shopping; and they walked along the Delaware riverfront, taking pictures of tugboats.

  In one store alone, a curio shop called Past, Present & Future, Mary Ann spent close to half-an-hour browsing through the knickknacks.

  Some of the people they saw on the streets of Philadelphia were unlike any the girls had ever seen in Pottstown. A strolling guitar player, a man wearing a skirt, and several panhandlers elicited gawks and giggles from each of Mary Ann’s daughters.

  Melissa was intrigued by a portable pulley that was transporting trash bags from a sixth-story window onto the bed of a pickup truck. She would have stayed at curbside for hours, watching the bags descend, if Paul hadn’t promised he’d get her a library book that explains pulleys.

  The onset of darkness brought with it a unique sleigh ride. Paul put the gang on a horse-drawn buggy, complete with fringe and bells, that pulled them through the brightly decorated historic district.

  “Is it cruel to the horses, Mommy?” Melissa asked, as she sat in the front of the buggy, her hands and legs covered with a blanket provided by the driver. “We weigh a lot, especially with all the shopping bags we have. I hope the horses don’t get tired of pulling us.”

  Later, while they waited to board their bus for the homeward trip to Pottstown, Paul bumped into a former business associate. Immediately, he saw his chance to return a favor to Mary Ann.

  “My fiancée, Mary Ann,” he voiced, affirmatively.

  Soon, from the windows of the bus, they watched the moonlight reflecting on the Museum of Art and saw the Christmas lights on the boathouses along the Schuylkill River.

  Mary Ann told Paul that when he introduced her as his fiancée, she seemed to get a sudden boost of self-confidence.

  “It’s hard to explain,” she noted, squeezing his hand. “A feeling of worth, I guess. Thank you.”

  Christmas Day itself seemed warm and comfortable, an atmosphere amplified by the blinking lights from a real tree—always a must for the girls.

  Paul’s gifts to Mary Ann included a box full of art s
upplies, a watch, and a large wall calendar that featured horses running through open fields. “I usually buy my calendar after New Year’s,” Mary Ann laughed, “when they’re on sale.”

  Paul was saving the biggest gift for last. In the meantime, he opened his own presents from Mary Ann and the girls, who had gone in together to get him a tool kit and a gold tie clip engraved with his name. From Paul, the girls received enough new clothes to be, without a doubt, the best-dressed students in their neighborhood.

  The cats, too, were in line for gifts. Their catnip-filled toys were wrapped in paper that held the slogan: “Have a Purry, Purry Christmas.”

  Paul waited until the girls had gone to sleep before he took the small box from his jacket pocket.

  “This is not an engagement ring, M.A., as you might think from looking at the size of it,” Paul admitted. “But before you open it, I’m going to ask you to marry me. You don’t have to give me your answer right away, but I want you to know that even if you turn me down, you can still have what’s in this box. And if you agree to marry me, we’ll pick out your engagement ring as soon as you’re ready to go shopping for it.

  “Also, there’s something I need to share with you before you give me your answer. I’m afraid I haven’t always been honest with you from the first day we met.”

  Mary Ann gave Paul a startled, questioning look. “Oh, don’t worry,” he continued, “I’m not secretly married or anything. What I need to tell you is that our meeting was not a coincidence. Father Stevens told me your story about finding my wallet. I know he promised not to, but I was so taken aback that my wallet was returned with all its contents fully intact, that I insisted he share the story of its finding.

  “When he told me your story, I was overwhelmed by your situation. I have always been pretty lucky all my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to go to the right schools and find a job that pays me very well. True, my first wife died, and we never did have any children with whom I could share my life. But I never faced the kinds of adversity that you have, and I just wanted to meet you and understand how you could be so selfless.

  “Of course, I thought we would just have a conversation, and I might be able to discover a way to help you get the credit you had been trying so hard to establish. But when I saw your face, and those of your little girls, I just knew that I wasn’t going to walk away. You have taught me so much, Mary Ann, about what is important in life. And now, all I want to do is share the rest of my life with you and the girls.

  “Now, without saying a word, please,” he continued, “open the box.”

  “Your new car,” the note inside the box read, “is the little red wagon parked next to mine. Merry Christmas, M.A.

  “Love, Paul.”

  Melissa’s radiant suntan, an uncommon wintertime sight in the Northeast, made her the envy of her Philadelphia friends.

  And although she described the pleasure of Islamorada to all of her co-workers at the library and to all of those in her circle of acquaintance, she withheld any mention of Joe. Likewise, she said nothing about her dramatic rescue from the Seascaper’s flaming fishing pier.

  Melissa was hesitant, because she didn’t want her classy lifestyle, super-educated friends to think that she was sex-starved. Being a recent divorcee, she might be accused of taking the first pants-wearing specimen who could flash a come-hither smile.

  “But, then again, maybe I should be just as wary of men as those critics would be,” she told herself, reflectively. “Perhaps I’m attracted to Joe because I’m lonely now. Or maybe, compared to Brady and his many faults, which I can see clearly now, any normal appearing male would look halfway decent.”

  However, the more Melissa thought about her budding new romance while she relaxed in these, her comfortable, homey surroundings, the more she became convinced that her interest in Joe was, indeed, the real thing.

  The only person she did confide in regarding what she now considered to be a positive upheaval in her personal life was Cammie, her best friend. Melissa knew that Cammie, also a librarian, could always be depended upon for an honest, straightforward opinion.

  “The thing that bothers me most,” Melissa told her, “might be his lack of formal education. It might not seem like much now, but it could turn into a heavy problem. Could I be happy spending my life with someone who never advanced past high school?”

  “Are you worried about his lack of a college degree more because your friends would think negatively of him,” Cammie began, “or more so because you believe that eventually the different educational levels will cause you and Joe to break up?”

  After a pensive few seconds, Melissa agreed that she had no qualms, at present, about educational levels causing them to split up somewhere down the road. She then thanked Cammie for her incisive analysis.

  “You’re right—I think,” Melissa giggled. “I guess it’s more my being a social animal than any doubts I might harbor about Joe. I know I love him, and I sincerely believe that he loves me, too. So, what other people think about him or what other people think about us shouldn’t be a factor in our relationship. I’m just having an extremely hard time convincing myself that I shouldn’t care two twits what other people’s opinions might be.”

  “You said it—that’s exactly the problem,” Cammie emphasized. “Whether you fall in love with a mass murderer, with a Mafia drug dealer, or with the next squeaky clean president of the United States, it shouldn’t matter. If you love a guy, everything else is immaterial.

  “So, really, Melissa, there’s nothing wrong with loving a policeman. Don’t worry about your friends. Instead, worry about the one guy who’s going to be your BEST friend.

  “And stop thinking like a snob. Social class distinctions disappeared with the Model T. This isn’t nineteenth-century England, and it isn’t India. This is the United States of America.”

  For Melissa, there were moments during these two weeks without Joe that felt like two years.

  Her day-to-day life seemed to be a continuum of rote motion: sleep, eat, work at the library, and spend an occasional evening with a friend. Sometimes she found herself staring at her plants, not even sure how she got in the room, or if she had watered them or not.

  “I’ll be ready for sex as soon as I see him,” she told herself, “and I might not even care if it’s safe.”

  In Melissa’s battle to keep cheerful, Christmas shopping proved to be a welcome diversion. She even bought a gift for Joe’s Uncle Steve, whom she knew she would finally get to meet come Christmas Eve.

  “What better gift for a horse player than a wallet with plenty of space for winnings,” Melissa thought, as she smilingly purchased a large, brown leather model with a small stitched “S” on the front.

  Despite the random distractions, however, the expectation of Joe’s holiday visit dominated her every waking moment.

  Admittedly, Melissa was slightly apprehensive about having everything “just right for Joe.” These feelings were tempered to a great degree, though, by the joy she experienced every day during that two-week period as she came closer and closer to a reunion with the man she had come to love.

  When the time finally arrived for Joe’s plane to land at Philadelphia International Airport, the extreme nervousness Melissa had exhibited during the past few days had, quite strangely, begun to subside. She was, in fact, proud of herself for being “almost calm.”

  And, as soon as their eyes met at Gate B-12, they walked toward each other as if in a trance, or guided by some supernatural bond. Joe’s kiss, and his embrace, were warmly satisfying.

  “I can never, ever, remember Brady kissing me for such a long time,” Melissa told herself. “Brady’s kisses were short and devoid of feeling. Joe’s kisses, in comparison, are like bursts of sunlight on a beautiful spring day.

  “I have no doubts right now that Joe is the guy I should have married so many, many years ago. I guess I should feel no regret, though. After all, Joe and I were different people way back then—when we were
younger. Most likely, if we’d met in the past, there would have been no spark, no magic.”

  During the drive from the airport back to Melissa’s house, they discovered that their own personal magic, born in the warmth of the Florida Keys, was still alive in frozen Philadelphia.

  At the passing of every intersection, and at every curve in the highway, they looked, ever so briefly, at each other. The desire that had been dormant during their separation seemed once again strong. It was outdistanced abundantly, however, by love.

  As soon as they pulled into Melissa’s garage, with the automatic door closing behind them, they embraced. Almost without thinking, they slowly slipped into reclining positions on the front seat of the car.

  After kissing and caressing each other in the most personal of places— their bodies warm with want, they suddenly stopped—at Melissa’s urging. Then, hurriedly, she led Joe up the stairway to the kitchen.

  Melissa hesitated briefly to greet Coke, her white alley cat, pausing just long enough to give the puss two quick pats on the head.

  Next, they went out through another door and onto the enclosed, heated porch. Joe’s luggage, left behind in the trunk of the car, would have to wait its turn.

  Soon, they were standing alongside a soft and ample sofa in this warm, comfy enclosure. Lovingly, they began to undress each other.

  Melissa began by unbuckling the belt on Joe’s faded jeans. While she slid her hands down both his hips, he was busy opening the zipper on the back of her greenish-blue blouse.

  Within seconds, their clothing sat in one common pile, catching the winter sunlight that was shining through a crack in the drawn curtains.

  Effortlessly, Joe lifted Melissa onto the sofa, which had been prudently situated between various houseplants that were hanging from the ceiling and others that were tastefully perched on tabletops throughout what Melissa called her “flower room.”