TRANQUILITY BASE ON THE SOUTH JERSEY SHORE
by Trigudis
Oh, what a trip it was in that long-ago summer when close to a half million American youth flocked to Max Yasgur's farm for three days of peace and rock and roll and Edward Kennedy drove off a bridge in a place called Chappaquiddick and Neil Armstrong took that giant leap for mankind.
The then Noreen Trumbaeur, only nineteen in that summer of '69, was so in love with eighteen-year old Mason Platt that she gave up her virginity to him on that trip to the South Jersey Shore the very weekend that Mr. Armstrong took his giant leap. She remembers it so well; or, at least well enough for a now sixty-nine year old grandmother to remember a half century back. Yes, it was close to ninety degrees that weekend, confirmed by historical weather data culled from the Internet. And yes, she was wearing a yellow nightgown when Mason made love to her. She knows that because she saved that nightgown through the years, had it folded neatly in whatever clothes drawer she owned, wherever she lived at the time. And yes, Mason was driving his blue, four-door '68 Chevy Nova. He's confirmed as much through the sporadic contact they've had through the decades. Mostly it was to update each other on their lives, touching on the past but briefly.
In fact, until recently, their last contact was by email, a full ten years ago, and Noreen wasn't sure she did the right thing when she suggested they celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing with a trip to Wildwood, New Jersey. "If there's nobody around then to be hurt by doing that, I'd love to spend July 19th and 20th with you by the shore," she wrote. She was still married in 2009, and she felt a little guilty to suggest it. After all, Henry, her husband of over forty years would have to be dead in order for her to go. Mason, long divorced, was ready to leave.
When Henry died of a massive heart attack in late 2018, Mason called with his condolences. He didn't remind her of that 2009 email; he just called to say he was sorry and wished her well. It was months later that Noreen thought about it. Did Mason think about it too? She couldn't help but wonder. "I did think about it but wasn't going to bring it up with you still in mourning," he emailed her back after she initiated the contact in March 2019. She thought that was so considerate, so like the Mason she knew of yore. And then he wrote: "But, if you're still game for Wildwood in July, I'd love to take you."
Game? You bet she's game! She's nervous and excited, "nervously excited" about the trip as she told a good friend. She's going off to that special place of her youth with Mason Platt, the first guy she ever loved. She's packing her memories as well as that yellow nightgown. It barely fits her, but it's going too, along with her bottle of K-Y and Advil for her arthritis and a whole lot of water under too many bridges to count.
****
No, she doesn't look like the girl he made love to in The Breakers, that quaint Victorian cottage where he and Noreen stayed over those two days all those Julys ago. He's seen her on Facebook, seen the added pounds to the petite, sexy body that once drove him wild. Her straight hair still drops to her shoulders. It's gray and thinning, but she still has most of it, unlike him whose once thick brown mane started falling out in his late thirties and just kept on going. He's now an inch shorter than his once five-nine, and his only proof of the fine, competitive athlete he once was are a few trophies gathering dust in a box in the basement: Yesterday's hero is today's has-been. Ah, but he does look good for his age, for any age people tell him, when his shirt comes off and those six-pack abs hit them like a starburst. He's no longer big and strong, his muscles round and bulging. Ripped is more like it, striations of thinner muscle pushing up rope-like veins, his medium-sized frame reduced to ectomorphic status. "Aging forces you to reinvent yourself," an older bodybuilder wrote years ago, and Mason took his advice. He's going at it several times a week with weights and cardio, and thus far it's paid off. Even so, he's not immune to the travails of pushing seventy, the aches and pains, the hearing, sight and memory loss and those so-called senior moments when he gropes for words that once came rolling off his tongue.
And now he's on his way to living a fantasy he's harbored for a long time—returning to Wildwood with Noreen Trumbaeur. Okay, Noreen Shuster, her married name, but he still thinks of her as a Trumbaeur, someone he once loved as much as life itself, someone he once thought he'd spend the rest of his life with. That "plan" didn't work out. But then how many plans and dreams conceived at the tender age of eighteen do?
****
Noreen, travel bags at her side, stands on her porch, watching Mason pull up in his white, late model Malibu. "Still driving Chevys I see," she says when he alights from the car.
"Well, that Nova held up so well, I stuck with them while everybody else was going Japanese."
She nods and smiles, thinking back to those wild times in the Nova, those times they made love on the back seat after that trip to the shore. Mason's car was the one place they had some privacy, what with him living with his parents and Noreen living in her college dorm. Such times called for her to wear a dress or skirt, which, after slipping off her panties (red, he loved it when she wore red panties), she'd hike up around her waist, allowing him easy access between her legs.
Today, like Mason, she wears shorts and a light top on this 19th of July, a hot Friday morning, not unlike that Saturday morning back in '69 when they left for the shore. Carrying her bags, she comes off the porch and then gives him a hug. "You look terrific," she says. "You've obviously kept up with your exercise."
"Once a muscle-head, always a muscle-head," he jokes. He grabs her bags and tosses them in the trunk. Then he turns to her and says, "Well, you look pretty damn good yourself." An exaggeration, he knows, but kind of true. Sure, her legs and butt have thickened and he can just imagine what her boobs look like. Yet she's still got that innocent, little girl cuteness, with her little ski-slope of a nose and glorious cheek bones and eyes still bright and blue. Is she wearing contacts?
"No, my distance vision is still pretty good," she says when he asks. "Reading, well, that's a different matter."
"Wish I could say the same," he says, slipping on his prescription sunglasses before starting the car. "You're lucky."
She smiles and hesitates to say what she thinks in response, not knowing how he'd take it. But then: "Of course I'm lucky. I'm sitting here with you on a beautiful morning in July."
He looks over and squeezes her hand. "Thanks, I feel the same way."
Road talk centers on their families and life in retirement, collecting social security and pension from government jobs they worked at for over thirty years. Some three hours later, they're in Wildwood, pulling up to the Sea Gypsy, a B&B that Mason found online and reserved. The Queen Ann architecture reminds them of the The Breakers, the turreted Victorian they stayed at fifty years ago, long a victim of the wrecking ball. Noreen and her older sister lived there in the summer of '68 when they spent eight weeks waitressing, the longest they had been away from home.
After checking in and depositing their luggage in their room, they chow down on Italian sausage and chug mugs of Coors Light in a boardwalk eatery. Noreen says she remembers when Mason wouldn't touch fatty foods like sausage. He's "loosened up," he says, tells her he doesn't always need to eat healthy to stay healthy.
"You know, wouldn't it be remarkable," she says, "if space science had advanced far enough to where this weekend a crew was prepared to land on Mars?"
They're six years too early, he tells her, as the first manned Mars mission is planned for 2025. "Put that on your calendar, we'll return then," he says.
Her face gets sullen. "I should live so long." She shakes her head and looks out toward the boardwalk, watching the traffic clip clop by, hoping he doesn't notice. She gives a slight nod when he reminds her that American women live over eighty on average. And then she thinks: Even if they do make it into their mid-seventies, who's to say they'll still be in touch? She once thought she'd marry this guy, had little doubt she would. And then...he met someone else. Not someone he dated long. But it was the beginning of the end. She was so hurt, so devastated, so angry. Time and her long, loving marriage dimmed the pain. Still, she remembers.
She reaches across the table and takes his hand, doing her best to shake the memory. "I'm just happy to be with you now, living in the moment, for the moment. You reach a certain age and you realize that's all we've got."
He nods, knowing that to be true. But she knew that back when they were teens. At The Breakers, after crawling into bed, she asked him to hold her. "Life is so short," she said, moved to tears with the realization that they were staying in the same room she and her sister shared the previous summer, a time lapse that in some ways felt more to her like a week than a full year. She was always wise beyond her years, sensitive and smart and philosophical, a straight-A student, dean's list, Mensa material. She devoured Nietzsche and Heidegger, could read and write German, while he barely scraped by with Cs in college. She could draw, too, and even math, her "weakest" subject," came easy to her.
He leans forward and says, "Speaking of moments, then, I'd like to kiss you at this very moment. We haven't done that yet, in case you haven't noticed." She meets him halfway. They kiss, nothing long or passionate. But it's a start.
Back in their room at the Sea Gypsy, she worries. How will he react when he sees her changing into her black, one-piece swimsuit? He's in great shape, slimmer now than when he was younger. But she's twenty pounds heavier and she's got that scar over her right breast, a reconstructed breast from when cancer called for a mastectomy several years ago. Henry, always supportive, handled it very well. She never told Mason, never felt the need to. But now, as she starts to disrobe, she says, "There's something you should know." She stands in front of him, staring at him in his green Hanes briefs, almost wincing at his six-pack abs, so impressive but so intimidating. "I've had cancer, which is why I made that comment at lunch. I should live so long...its become a pet phrase of mine."
"Well, your cosmetic surgeon did a great job," he says, not missing a beat. He means it. Other than the scar, a thin scar at that, he doubts if he could tell. Both boobs sag; no surprise there; no surprise that the firm, perky boobs of her youth are long gone, just like his left hip. There's a fake hip there now, a plastic ball protruding from where his femur head used to be, fitted into a titanium cup. Bone on bone supplanted by metal on plastic. The good news: The arthritic pain that ruined his sleep is history. He shows her his six-inch scar. "See, I'm not all what I once was either." He pats his balding pate.
She laughs. "We're the bionic generation, us early wave boomers."
He nods and steps closer, then reaches out to touch her breasts. "Nothing bionic about these babies." He fondles her nipples and then pulls her into his arms. "I missed you, Noreen, missed you through my marriage and other relationships. And maybe it's too late to apologize. But I'm so sorry for being such a jerk."
She doesn't ask; she knows what he means. She wipes her eyes. "Look, I'm going to cry if we stand here much longer and you keep holding me the loving way you're doing. So let's just get into our suits and hit the beach."
****
The Sea Gypsy supplies beach tags, a twenty dollar amenity they didn't need in '69. The beach now costs in South Jersey. The rest is the same, timeless—the broad swath of sand, the ad planes streaking overhead, the squawking seagulls, the roaring ocean, the chatter of people muffled by the wind. If only we could be so timeless, she thinks. Applying sunscreen to his back, the flashbacks come—Mason, his full head of hair worn below his ears and those muscles, so large and strong he had no problem lifting her and then throwing her over a wave, no problem hoisting her onto his shoulders and then running down the beach. Yes, it embarrassed her, all those people pointing and laughing. But she loved it just the same.
Once on her beach chair, she slips on her ear buds and toggles her Ipod to a certain song. Then she hands it to him. "Here, listen."
