SQUIRRELY. John Mahoney
this one?” Nancy said. “It says 426 Hemi. What’s that mean?”
“It means it uses too much gas.” I said.
“Ooh, look at this one, Mackenzie. Shelby Mustang convertible. And look! It only has two thousand miles on it.”
“I’m not a convertible kind of guy.”
A salesman soon came out of the office in the middle of the lot and approached us.
“Can I help you folks?”
Nancy squeezed my arm in delight when the salesman called us “folks”.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “Do you have any cars? I mean…we’re looking for a car. A nice car. Not a big car. Well, kinda big, but not too big, and not small, well, not too small. A nice color car, not black, or red, well, red could be okay, but not yellow, and not green, well, not dark green anyway, yellow might be okay too. And bucket seats. No wait, no bucket seats! And not too much money. But not a cheap car either. Know what I mean? And a radio would be nice. And maybe an eight track player? How much is that car over there?”
The salesman looked at the blue Maverick I was pointing at, then he turned to me sporting a big grin. I suddenly had the feeling I had “sucker” written all over my face.
So I bought the 1970 Maverick. It was an okay car; nothing fancy. In fact, it was about as far from fancy as an outhouse is to a marble commode. But hell, all I needed was transportation back and forth to work, and a reliable ride for our Sunday outings.
The next morning I called several motels in Seaside Heights to make reservations for the coming Sunday. Every place I called was booked for the entire weekend. No one was renting rooms for Sunday night only. But finally I did manage to procure one room in a motel two blocks from the ocean. It meant sharing a room with Bill and Susan, which meant we would have to screw in shifts.
When I arrived at work that afternoon the work schedule for the following week had already been posted. The schedule was posted every Wednesday, and only the Subs had to read it. The regulars always worked the same never-changing schedule. To my amazement, all the Subs had been scheduled to work on Labor Day! That can’t be, I thought. That will ruin all my plans and I told Mr. Dell he had to change the schedule because I really needed that day off.
“Can’t,” said Mr. Dell. “I need you to work.”
“But I have plans. Important plans.”
“Look, Mac, you didn’t work the Fourth of July or Memorial Day because you didn’t know the scheme. But now that you know the scheme I need you to work the holiday.”
“Come on, don’t be a prick. I haven’t missed a day of work or been late since I started here. I deserve to have Monday off.”
Mr. Dell removed his glasses, a sure sign he was serious about what he was going to say.
“I may be a prick, Mac, but I’m a fair prick. Everybody gets treated the same around here. If you don’t like the way I run things you can quit. No one’s stopping you, and there are plenty of people who would be more than happy to take your job.”
Mr. Dell was a couple of inches shorter than me, and I tried to intimidate him by standing close to him on the balls of my feet. But it didn’t work. He walked away from me before I could give him the universally recognizable fists on the hips stance. Lucky for him he didn’t say another word to me because I was getting ready to blacken his eyes.
When I told Nancy the bad news she was of course disappointed. I insisted she go to the beach anyway with Bill and Susan. She said she didn’t want to go without me. But after much debate she agreed to go. She hadn’t seen Susan for several weeks, so it would be good for the two girls to get together. Besides, Bill and Susan couldn’t afford to pay for the motel room by themselves.
Early on Sunday morning I kissed Nancy goodbye in front of Bill’s house. The weather forecast called for clear skies and temperatures in the high 80’s. The perfect beach day.
“Maybe I shouldn’t go,” Nancy said before getting out of the car.
“You can’t back out now, Nance. They’re depending on you to go with them.”
“But what will you do all day?”
“I don’t know. Wash the car I guess.”
“Anything else?”
“No. I guess that’s it.”
“You’re supposed to say you’ll miss me.”
“Oh yeah, that too.”
She cupped my face in her hands and kissed me. “I’ll miss you too, Mackenzie. I’ll be thinking of you every second. I’ll call you as soon as I get home tomorrow. I love you.”
“Me too.”
She opened the car door and had one foot on the ground. “I can’t go.”
“Go. Have fun. We’ll see each other tomorrow night.”
She leaned over to give me one last kiss and she ran up the driveway to where Susan was waiting.
In the afternoon I washed the car. It took me about four hours. I could’ve finished it in a lot less time if I hadn’t stopped every ten minutes to down a can of beer. After I woke from my backyard nap, I went to the garage to build another squirrel feeder.
I thought about Nancy all day long. I wondered what swim suit she was wearing. I liked the white one with the real thin strap in the back; the one that took a quick pull on the knot to make her top come off. And the bottom piece fit so snugly around her rear end it was like she was wearing a second skin. Oh, God, I hope she wasn’t wearing that one! Maybe she wore her tank suit, or better yet, maybe she decided to wear long pants and a bulky sweatshirt.
Nancy called me Sunday night from a pay phone near the carousel. I could hear the calliope in the background. She had let Bill and Susan have the motel room to themselves for an hour while she roamed the arcade, playing ski-ball and wasting nickels on the crane game that even if she were successful in having that unmanageable crane drop a prize into the bin, it would undoubtably be cheap and useless. She said she loved me and missed me. I said I missed her too. I couldn’t get out of my mind the plan I had to ask Nancy to marry me. If only we were together. She sounded so close, like I could reach through the telephone and touch her. I could propose to her over the phone. I was sure she’d say yes, and it would be a proposal she’d certainly never forget. But it wouldn’t be right. I had to see her face when I said the words. She wanted to be surprised. Perhaps Monday night I could give her the surprise of her life.
The next morning I was at work at ten o’clock. The day was warmer than Sunday. And if that wasn’t depressing enough, I thought about my original planned schedule of events, which meant Nancy and I would be back at the motel room pressing the sheets for the second time that morning.
Eight of us showed up for work at ten o’clock, including Hank Bevins, the Tour Two Supervisor. All of us were Subs, except for Hank. We started in right away, dumping sacks and traying letters. It was more of a relaxed atmosphere working on a holiday. We tuned the radio to a station we enjoyed, a welcome switch from the sleep inducing old fart music we were usually forced to listen to. Most of the lights in the building were turned off, except for those in our immediate work area. Less people meant less noise. And since Hank was hunched over his desk, trying to match the mail volume with work hours expended, he was too busy to bother with us. I would’ve given the day an A1 rating except that I missed Nancy terribly, and I was still a little hung over from the day before.
At noon time I was sitting at the city case, sorting the mail according to scheme to the prospective routes. Hank approached me with his clipboard and I thought he was going to tell me to take a coffee break.
“Okay, Mac,” Hank said. “You can leave.”
“You mean I can take a break?”
“No, I mean you can leave. Go home.”
“Now?