We'll Always Have Provincetown

We'll Always Have Provincetown

by Tragudis

What were the odds that a girl who flirted with me on a busy New York parkway would soon meet up with me once again in New England? Looking back on it, probably about ten or twenty million to one. But I'm getting ahead of myself because this story happened long ago--in August of 1967 during the so-called Summer of Love.

Unarguably, the prime pop music soundtrack of that summer was The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Deejays around the country were playing it all the time, along with top Billboard hits like Light My Fire (The Doors) and Come On Down to My Boat (Every Mother's Son). It was the later song that will forever be linked to that flirtation on that busy New York parkway; specifically, the Hutchinson River Parkway where my family (parents and thirteen-year-old sister) was headed up to Cape Cod from Maryland. The song came over our white F-85 Olds' radio, and I began to sing along. It was then that I noticed in the adjacent lane, a girl in the backseat, facing the window, singing as well. Now, I'm no lip reader, but I knew and she knew because during the minute or so we faced each other, we had this sing-along flirtation going:

Come on down to my boat baby

Come on down where we can play

Come on down to my boat baby

Come on down we'll sail away

Finally, our cars passed each other, and that should have been that. It would have been, too, if not for the impression she made on me, not to mention the freaky, impossible odds that sometimes things happen in life that we could never invent, much less expect.

I had turned eighteen just months before. High school was behind me and freshman year at university loomed ahead. I was looking forward to this vacation, one, it turned out, that would be the last time our family went away together. Perhaps I might even meet some girl to sweeten the week we would be on the cape. As far as chicks went, the previous year had been one of frustration. I had plenty of dates, but nothing clicked. Maybe that's why the vision of that girl, peering out the window of her family's car on the Hutchinson River Parkway, kept returning to my mind. She had a face I could never forget, didn't want to forget. Our cars were close enough to where I could see her long, light-brown hair, green eyes and her super-adorable smile. Had months gone by without me ever seeing her again, it's doubtful I could have recognized her, even if I had tripped over her. But by the time we got to Provincetown, her face was still fresh in my mind.

We checked in at a motel called the Chateau. Located just outside the town, we could see the lighthouse, water and sand dunes from the front porch. We had reserved two rooms, one for dad and me, the other for mom and my sister Angela, then thirteen.

What's there to do in Cape Cod when you're eighteen and you're with your parents? Nothing terribly exciting. You can dine out, take walks, play tennis, rent bikes and lounge on the beach. New England water is always cold, even in summer, but that doesn't stop those hearty New Englanders who swim in it every summer. The Chateau had an outdoor heated pool, a big plus. There was a couple in their twenties also staying there, on their honeymoon, I surmised, by the way they were all lovey-dovey in the pool and on their loungers. Seeing them made me even more desperate for female companionship.

My dad knew it, too. Somehow, he found out about this dance in Truro, a town a few miles down the cape, and he suggested I go. Dancing wasn't my thing, though I could fake it if I had to. And everybody could slow dance. Still, I hesitated as many would being by themselves in a strange town. "Take the car, go and have a good time," my dad insisted. "Who knows? You might meet the girl of your dreams." Right.

Well, at the very least, it would give me something to do besides watching TV, so I took the car and drove south on Route Six to Truro. The dance was held inside a community hall. Chairs were arranged in a huge circle to accommodate the eighty or so people who showed up, mostly teens. There was a refreshment stand (no alcohol, just soft drinks, lemonade and pastry). A deejay played a stack of 45 rpm records. I wore plaid denim slacks, a white V-neck short sleeve and loafers. If the girl of my dreams existed, I somehow doubted I'd find her here. First off, there were more guys than gals, and the cuter gals appeared to be coupled-up, dancing with the same guy with every record. I sat there, sipping my lemonade and becoming more bored by the minute. After less than an hour, I was ready to call it a night.

But then...

Well, I'm sure you can guess where this is going. Just as I got up to leave, I saw two girls walk in, one of whom looked very familiar. Maybe she wasn't the girl of my dreams, but she damn sure looked like the one who had joined me in that improbable duet on the Hutch. Her face was still vivid in my mind, as was the song that brought us together, if only for a moment. She wore a dress, short and colorful, and styled her hair the way many girls did during that era, long and parted in the middle, just the way I saw her on the parkway. And that smile, her adorable smile, was unmistakable.

Even so, I tried to dismiss the idea that the girl I remembered--or THOUGHT I remembered--and the one who had just come in, were one and the same. The odds were too great, too ridiculous, and so I wasn't about to approach her to confirm either way.

But then, as I stepped toward the door that led to the lobby, with my eyes trained on her face, she met my gaze. We both froze in our tracks. In that instant, the sights and sounds around me faded into the ether, and all I saw was her face juxtaposed with the one I saw through the Olds' backseat window. Seconds ticked by as we stood there, staring at each other, strangers in that New England August night, yet frozen in a cocoon of weird familiarity.

She made the first move. "This is crazy, I know, but you look like a guy I saw on the Hutchinson River Parkway singing Come On Down To My Boat. This isn't a pick-up line, I swear."

She raised her right arm, and I bent over laughing. Then I nearly screamed, "I don't believe this!"

She giggled in delight like a little girl who just got a puppy for Christmas. "Are you kidding me?! You really are that guy?!"

"I just might be," I said, still not sure.

She calmed down a little, tempered her joy with caution. "Okay, what car was I in?"

"It was red. A Chevy Impala, maybe?"

She cupped her hands over her mouth. "Ohmygod! This is totally far out!" When I asked her to describe our car, she said, "Not sure, but I think it was white."

"Correct. A white Oldsmobile."

One more scream, and then she turned to her girlfriend and explained what all the fuss was about. "Something out of the Twilight Zone," her girlfriend said.

A couple minutes had passed, and we still didn't know each other's names. "Roger Bancroft," I said.

"Melanie Morrison," said the girl who had been in the red Impala.

"And I'm Cindy Cabrera," her girlfriend said. Cindy was cute and petite. She had short, dirty-blond hair and wore a blue sleeveless top over white shorts.

The girls' families were friends and neighbors in suburban Wilmington, Delaware. They had driven up to the cape in separate cars, met up in Provincetown and were staying at the same guest house. Like me, they were eighteen and had plans for college in the fall. The coincidences were beyond amazing, stacked upon one another like so many of the deejay's 45s.

Of course, I changed my plans to leave. We sat together but not for long, because minutes later, a guy approached us and said, "Which of you ladies wants to dance?" His eyes ping-ponged between Melanie and Cindy, as if he was trying to figure out which one might be my girlfriend and which one might be a tag-along. Cindy, respecting the connection between Melanie and me, got up to dance to Let's Twist Again Like We Did Last Summer. Melanie and I followed, twisting along with the crowd, smiling at each other throughout the dance.

Next, came an old Elvis number, Can't Help Falling In Love, and we stayed on the dance floor for that one. The deejay looked to be in his mid to late thirties, so it made sense that his collection included songs that were hits when he came of age.

"I wonder if he'll play OUR song," Melanie said as we began to shuffle across the hardwood floor.

I didn't have to ask what song she meant. "Doubtful," I said. "It hasn't been out that long."

She raised her head from my chest and nodded. "Yeah, maybe you're right."

Already, we had a "song," as many couples do. Normally, they adopt a "signature" song later in the relationship, and this wasn't even a first date. But you wouldn't know it from the way we held each other. Was she thinking what I was thinking? That this was meant to be and all that corny stuff. How about a marriage made on the Hutchinson River Parkway? The thought had me laughing inside. If nothing else, our bodies did seem to fit well together. She was almost my height of five-foot-nine. We were both on the slim side. Maybe she, like me, played sports. Not football (I was a running back in high school), but sports that girls played back then, field hockey or volleyball perhaps. There were other things I remember from that first slow dance--the clean, fresh scent of her hair, the cushiony feel of her breasts against my chest and, most of all, when she leaned back and said, "Do you know the words? If so, sing them with me." I did know the words. And then, just above a whisper, we sang another duet, this time face-to-face in a place that neither of us had ever imagined being at the same time.

"Like a river flows

Surely to the sea

Darling, so it goes

Some things, you know, are meant to be..."

Some things are meant to be...Well, maybe everything that had happened up to this point really was meant to be, I thought as we walked back to our seats. We sat next to Cindy and Harry, a shortish, long-haired hippie-looking guy who could scarcely believe the story of how Melanie and I met. "What are the odds?" he asked, a common refrain from just about everyone who heard our story.

By the time we were ready to leave, Melanie and I exchanged information on our accommodations and made tentative plans to meet up. Much to Cindy's disappointment, Harry was scheduled to return home with his parents the next day. "It figures," she grumbled.

When I returned to the Chateau, dad said, "Good thing you took my advice and went to that dance. Maybe this Melanie will keep you busy for the time we're here." He winked.

Maybe. Still, I was careful to keep my expectations low. For whatever reason, Melanie might not want to follow-up, an idea culled from experience on how fickle girls could be. But Melanie wasn't one of those girls. Far from it, because, as we were getting dressed for breakfast, management called our room, letting us know if "you'd like us to put a call through from a Melanie Morrison."

Dad joked, "I'll leave the room if you want to talk privately."

I chuckled and then took the phone. "Hi."

"Hi, Roger. You know, when I woke up, I thought that maybe this had all been a dream. Well, I'm joking but you know what I mean."

I sure did. "Yeah, it kind of feels like that to me also. Looking forward to seeing you."

"Which is why I'm calling. Maybe we could meet up at the beach or something. Does your family have plans for the day?"

I put her on hold for a few seconds to ask dad. "Nothing out of the ordinary," he said. "Go spend the day with her if you'd like."

We agreed to meet at around noon at the Plymouth Inn, the guest house where her family was staying. Apologetically, she said, "My parents would like to meet you first. Hope you don't mind." This was understandable given that most parents might be concerned about their daughter going off with a boy they didn't know.

Tourist map in hand, I walked just under a mile from the Chateau to the Plymouth Inn, a white-washed, wood and clapboard Victorian era two-story guest house, the architectural antitheses of the post-World War Two Chateau Motel. No need to check with the front desk; Melanie and her parents were waiting for me on the front porch. I thought I looked "presentable" enough in my khaki shorts, Addidas sneakers and blue and white football jersey with the number 7 stamped on the back. My straight, dark brown hair was getting longer, morphing along with the times, so to speak. If her parents liked a jock kind of look, I figured they'd like me, at least at first sight.

I waved, then climbed the few steps to the porch. Melanie looked so damn pretty in her short orange skirt and turquoise blouse. She had her long hair pulled back and tied with a leather barrette. Her beautiful green eyes, not to mention her adorable smile, said that she was glad to see me. As a fantasy girlfriend based on looks alone, she was model perfect.

"Mom and dad," she said, "this is Roger Bancroft. The only guy I ever sang a duet with from a moving car."

"And then met later at a dance in Truro," I chimed in.

Her mom looked like every woman in those nineteen-sixties magazine ads for kitchen appliances, All American wholesome. "Yes, I heard how you and Melanie met," she said. "Unbelievable!"

Her dad, wearing off-white chino pants and a green, long-sleeve button-down shirt, looked like my image of a professor in a New England prep school, right down to his pipe. He took the pipe out of his mouth and said, "Unbelievable is right. Melanie, while she was singing, told us that there was this boy in the car next to ours, singing with her. She said you even remembered our red Impala."

What followed was general talk about my college plans, where I lived, where my family was staying, etc. I felt uneasy being scrutinized. However, I couldn't blame them for wanting to know if the guy their princess was going off with was "okay."

"Well, I guess I passed muster," I said when we were a block away, well out of earshot.

"Yes, I guess you did," she chuckled. "But you know what? You passed muster almost as soon as I saw you at the dance."

We stopped at an intersection, just a few blocks from Commercial Street. I reached for her hand, then leaned in and got close to her face. I wanted to kiss her but thought that maybe it wasn't the right time or place.

She sensed what I had in mind and then, much to my surprise, she said, "Yes, you can kiss me. I'd like that. In fact..." Instead of saying more, she put her lips to mine for a brief, uninhibited smooch in a small crowd of tourists.

This was still so surreal to me. Back home, I had spent months trying to find a girl to get on with, with no success. And here I was on Cape Cod, strolling hand-in-hand with Melanie Morrison who lived in a different state, whom I had met via a weird series of near-impossible circumstances. Just enjoy it, pal, an inner voice told me, because after this vacation, you and Melanie will most likely part ways for good.

We strolled along Commercial and Bradford Streets, soaking up the scene, window shopping and viewing the merchandise in the colorful shops and boutiques. A few of them even had sound systems playing the Sergeant Pepper album. Our parents had been to Cape Cod, but it was the first time for both of us. The hippy California culture was evident in the way people dressed and looked and acted. Tie Dye shirts were all the rage, many with the peace symbol pressed into them. We saw street musicians strumming their guitars and artists at work in front of their easels. Provincetown, after all. had been an art colony for decades. The Summer of Love might have been so much media hype. Still, looking back, we did seem to be in an era of good feeling.

We had lunch at a bayside café that featured indoor and semi-outdoor dining on a screened-in wood porch. We took the porch side, enjoying the soothing summer breeze and taking in the view of boats on Cape Cod Bay. Melanie talked about her experiences in high school, her studies and sports (I was right, she did play volleyball and field hockey). I told her about being a running back in high school. "It's fun getting to know you," I said.

She then sang a couple lines from the King and I. 'Getting to know you, getting to know all about you... Getting to like you, getting to hope you like me ...' Then she said, "I'm a big fan of musicals."

"Really? Well, I always liked Oklahoma. My parents had the cast album. I played it to death."

"Oh, I love that one. 'I'm just a girl who can't say no. I'm in a terrible fix.'"

I laughed the way she sang that line, with an Oklahoma twang, just like on the record. Then I asked, "Are you really a girl who can't say no?" I grinned, hoping she wasn't offended.

She wasn't. In fact, she laughed, then drew an exaggerated look of coy, bringing out her lovely cheek bones. "Maybe. It depends on who I'm with."

Careful not to push the envelope too far, I left it at that. What had happened so far was way beyond my expectations, and if things didn't progress any further, I'd still feel lucky. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, 'something was happening here, but I wasn't sure what it was.' Fate? Providence? Serendipity? Luck? All the above or maybe none of the above, I wasn't sure. Coincidence, yes, but coincidence seemed like too lame a word. More like 'something out of the Twilight Zone,' as Cindy had said.

I repeated Cindy's comment. Then she said, "Yeah, I almost expect to see Rod Serling step from the shadows. I can hear him now." Lowering her voice, she tried to emulate Rod's distinctive tone and rhythm. "Roger Bancroft and Melanie Morrison. Normal American kids from normal American families headed to Cape Cod on the Hutchinson River Parkway, singing in unison to a top-forty hit of the day. Destination, Provincetown, Massachusetts, where their lives will intersect in middle ground between light and shadow in another reality called...the twilight zone."

By the time she finished, I was doubled over in laughter. "That was brilliant. Rod himself couldn't have done better."

"Thanks. I loved that show."

We talked about other shows we watched. Gunsmoke. Bonanza. Carol Burnett. The Tonight Show and others. We talked movies, favorite actors and even delved into the Vietnam War. I was relieved that Melanie and I were on the same side of the aisle. We both felt it was a big mistake, unlike others I knew who argued the other way, which sometimes escalated into a heated argument.

"Yeah, I've sparred with my dad over the war," she said. "Unlike me, he thinks we belong there. It's dividing the country."

I picked up on that theme. "Paradoxical, isn't it? Today, we have all these people espousing love and peace, while we're committing more and more troops to the war effort and the country is getting more and more divided over it. Not to mention the race riots going on."

She nodded. "Dad and I called a truce for this vacation. No war talk, no politics."

"Good idea," I said. "Vacations are for having fun, relaxing. At least that's the idea."

"Yes, and so far, things have worked out that way. But meeting you like I did...Well, that adds a whole new dimension to it."

"The twilight zone thing."

She chuckled. "Yeah, back to that. Seems like we can't get away from it. It reminds me of those opening lines of that Buffalo Springfield song. 'There's something happening here. But what it is ain't exactly clear.' But I guess it doesn't matter how people meet but what happens after they do."

Quite a lot happened that first day. After lunch, the day was heating up, so I suggested we sit around the Chateau pool. Then she could meet my family, especially my dad. After all, it was he who prodded me to go to the dance. We walked back to Plymouth Inn and got the okay from her parents. In fact, her mom offered to drive us to the Chateau. After Melanie packed what she needed in a beach bag, we hopped into the red Impala. During the short drive, I whispered to Melanie that "I'll never look at another red Impala the same way again."