Chapter_3_Provincetow

The smell of salt air and that unmistakable early afternoon coastal sunlight wash over us like a gentle Evian spritz from heaven. A foghorn sounds in the distance as if announcing our arrival.

The dense summer traffic took us an hour and forty minutes longer than expected. I’m still in work mode because I can’t help but think being this off schedule would sink the budget of one of my commercial productions. I hope it’s not a sign of what’s to come.

Leaving gray Connecticut, moving slowly through Rhode Island, and even slower through Massachusetts, Biz fell asleep to the soothing sounds of Billie Eilish. He’s starting to open his eyes now, somehow sensing we’re nearing the famously curved tip of Cape Cod.

“Nice nap?” I ask, glancing over at him, making an effort to connect. Those full lips and handsome face that I signed up for years ago always crush me. Even his pronounced nose has its own personality. If you were watching the cheesiest rom-com on basic cable, you wouldn’t turn it off if Biz was the love interest. He wakes up from his car nap in a way that’s so effortlessly rugged I think, I’ll never be that cool.

“I wasn’t even trying to sleep. It just happened.” Biz yawns and rotates his head, coming alive. His superpower is sleeping. Cars, airplanes, movie theaters, coffee shops, barber chairs, his own birthday party as people are singing “Happy Birthday” to him. He finds sleep anywhere.

“My neck is killing me now.” He turns to see Matilda, who’s still sleeping like a baby and snoring like an old man.

“Are we already in Mass?” he asks.

“Don’t call it Mass,” I say, sort of joking but not really.

“Sorry. Massachusetts. Didn’t mean to offend the native.”

“It’s like when people call San Francisco ‘Frisco’ or Chicago ‘Chi-Town.’?”

“You’re right. That is annoying,” Biz says with a laugh.

“That might be the first thing we’ve agreed on this whole trip.”

“Not true. We agreed on the same music earlier,” Biz disagrees.

“We’re in Truro. Two-and-a-half minutes to Provincetown. Please acknowledge my smooth driving skills to accommodate your nap time.”

“I forgot you need a handwritten thank-you card every time you drive,” Biz says.

“A light ticker-tape parade will do,” I say. “Also please acknowledge you’re driving the next leg of the trip. I’ll have some papers for you to sign, so you’re legally obligated.”

“Acknowledged. And I promise.” Biz looks out the window at the surrounding forests. “I can’t wait for margaritas on our balcony, then we can hit the Boatslip. Not in that order of course. But maybe in that order?”

The Boatslip hosts a nightly beachfront dance party that overspills with dozens of people, and it’s not exactly the mood I’m in. Even though we’re hitting resort destinations, I’m hoping this trip won’t be a nonstop party and we can quietly luxuriate by bodies of water in the sun.

“I made a dinner reservation at the Red Inn at seven,” I say. “I can already taste the first sweet oyster followed by a sip of crisp, dry rosé.”

“Wait. Seven? That’s prime cocktail hour,” Biz says. “Why would you make a Red Inn rezzie so early in the trip? That’s a last-night romantic-dinner kind of thing. Don’t you want to just like see who’s here? Dance? Blow off some steam?”

“It was the only reservation I could get all week. It’s our favorite place. They have a happy hour raw bar.”

I can tell Biz holds in whatever he was going to say next.

Neither one of us wants to argue, especially right now as we look up and see the passing sign welcoming us to Provincetown. That palpable silence between us reemerges as we hit the small-town traffic on Commercial Street, with its charming art galleries, souvenir stores, cafés and salt water taffy shops.

I’m quietly warmed to see the lovable, familiar swath of Americana tourists—strolling families, townies on their way to night shifts in restaurants and bars, and a smattering of gay guys in tank tops on their rented mountain bikes weaving through the pre-peak summer throngs.

“Is that Angel Mike?” I ask. A man in his seventies, who we see every summer always wearing large angel wings and a feathered halo, glides by on an electric scooter.

“Did his wings get bigger?” Biz asks.

More than a few guys turn to look at the fresh meat blowing into town. Biz glances around with a smile. Our vintage orange Virginia Woolf convertible with the top down fits perfectly in this colorful, quirky town, where standing out from the already unique crowd is a fun challenge.

Our feeling of bliss is interrupted when I spot Matilda in the rearview mirror pop her head up like the gopher in Caddyshack. She lets out her familiar yelp.

Without missing a beat, I drive past the Lobster Pot and pull over to the side of the road. Biz lifts Matilda out of the car, her body dry heaving, and sets her down on the sidewalk. Matilda’s legs buckle and this time she marks her territory in her two dads’ favorite vacation spot.

As I gaze up at the perfect deep blue sky and glimpse the Provincetown Monument, proudly standing above the entire town, I think, We’ve arrived.

“You’re not in Kansas anymore, my pretties,” someone says. We turn to see the disembodied voice belongs to a random drag queen dressed in a sepia-toned costume.

“Why, thank you, Wicked Witch of the West!” Biz says, immediately recognizing and entranced by her Wizard of Oz getup.

“That’s Miss Gulch to you,” she says, fully committed to her character with the evil voice and everything. “I’m Dorothy’s neighbor.”

She unlocks her bike that’s tied to a fence and places her little dog, who vaguely resembles Toto, into a wicker basket. Biz and I stare in amused awe. That’s when it hits me.

“Oh! You’re the black-and-white version of the witch before Dorothy enters Oz!”

“You’re quick. Don’t look like such grumps. You’re in P-town!” She flashes a pearly smile and adds, “Cute car and your little dog too.” She hops on her bike as the Wicked Witch theme music plays on a portable speaker attached to her handlebars, sending her off into the crowded street.

The Wicked Witch is not wrong. We probably don’t look like the happiest campers.

I glance at Biz. Usually, we’d share a laugh, a knowing smile or a fun shrug at the locals. But he’s cleaning Matilda’s mouth with a doggy wipe. I can’t help but wonder if he’s purposely avoiding any connection because he’s upset I just want a quiet dinner tonight.

We finally settle into our cute cottage, which is all gray cedar shingle surrounded by a white picket fence off Commercial Street. It’s in a little nook in the West End, the quietest area that’s removed from the buzzy, tourist part of town.

The tiny two-bedroom has a nautical theme throughout with lots of blues and whites, wooden anchor wall hangings and lamps made out of knotted rope.

The best part about the place is the balcony on the second floor that you enter through a spiral staircase, which looks either treacherous or fun, depending on your mood and how much you’ve had to drink. The balcony is just big enough for two blue Adirondack chairs and overlooks a small patch of backyard for Matilda to roam free. It’s a slice of paradise.

After unpacking our bags and settling in, the close quarters feel almost too close compared to our somewhat spacious (for New York) Brooklyn apartment.

Biz returns from the specialty wine shop down the street holding up a small wheel of camembert and a bottle of prechilled rosé. “Welcome to P-town!” he says in the Wicked Witch voice, as we get comfortable in our balcony chairs with Matilda already passed out from the long drive between our feet.

“Cheers, Richard Gere,” he says.

“Cheers, Richard Gere,” I return, smiling at our years-long inside joke that was born one weekend when we binged all the actor’s movies.

We sip and stare at the horizon, taking in the spectacular, pink sky. Sometimes at night a mystical fog sets in on the town, and right now I can feel a version of it between us. I don’t know how to see our way out of it.

“Your reservation is in an hour. Do you still want to go?” Pretty much everything is wrong with what Biz just said. My reservation and asking if I still want to go. As if we’re not even together.

“Kinda. That was the plan,” I say.

“That was your plan,” he counters.

“I’m sorry you don’t want to go to the best restaurant in town.”

“It’s not that. I just wanted something, you know, fun.”

“More fun than the perfect setting, amazing food and hunky servers?”

“The first thing we always do in P-town is drop our bags and go to tea, check out the crowd, dance our asses off to Kylie Minogue or whoever then stumble into dinner afterward.”

“Maybe it’s time we do something different,” I suggest.

“Just because we have a baby on the way?”

“Can’t we have something civilized to kick off our trip? I’m not in the mood for messy drunken chaos.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to comment on the delicate taste of our oysters in a deathly quiet restaurant when we’re eighty,” Biz snaps.

Suddenly, I’d rather have dinner alone but I don’t want to say this out loud. I make the thought disappear in a sip of wine. I haven’t felt this far away from this person in, well, forever.

A memory of last summer pops into my head. We checked into our bed-and-breakfast just down the street and christened our room for the week by having a quick, sweaty romp in bed. My heart flutters thinking about it. This welcome party is the opposite of that.

I think of a plan that will hopefully suit both of us. “Why don’t we just go to the restaurant tonight so they don’t run us out of town for canceling and then do the Boatslip tomorrow. Deal?”

Biz’s expression softens as he turns to me, knowing it’s a peace offering.

The Red Inn is tucked away in a quiet spot near the end of town. Tonight, it’s hardly deathly quiet. The popular restaurant is packed to the gills. We sit in a cramped two-top perched over the serene water, sharing Wellfleet oysters followed by creamy lobster corn chowder.

There’s a famous lone red boat always anchored just in the near distance in the low-tide water, which I keep thinking I can always hop in if our dinner goes south.

As daylight disappears, we both seem too aware that the chattering people around us fill in our sporadic conversation.

“How do you like your oysters?” I ask, pretending I’m the cliché Biz said he’s afraid of becoming. “Or should we wait until we’re eighty years old to discuss?”

“Very fresh. Plump. Almost buttery,” Biz jokes. “Dare I say... delicate?” We both laugh.

A mustached server in a tight T-shirt brings our entrees. Even our main dishes couldn’t be more different as Biz cuts into his medium-rare fillet with Jack Daniel’s sauce, and I take a bite of my fresh local scallops with hints of citrus.

“How did we get here?” Biz asks.

“We drove here in Virginia Woolf,” I say. I’m being facetious. I know what Biz is really asking but I’m trying to make light of the situation.

“I mean us. As a couple,” he says, motioning to our server. “How are we on such different pages right now? And by the way, if you deflect when I’m trying to have a serious conversation, it just makes me want to hop into that boat and paddle away.”

I smile internally, at least we both had the same thought.

He’s right though. Whenever Biz wants to talk things out, my natural default is humor. Somehow it’s easier for me to go deeper with actors I work with, to find the emotional truth in their performance before I can find it within myself.

Biz puts on a huge smile, which seems random until I realize he’s acknowledging our server, who’s hovering over us.

“Did you need something else?” Mustache Guy asks.

“Can I do another spicy margarita?” Biz asks, to which the server nods as if understanding why he’d need a second cocktail. He looks at me.

“I’ll have another rosé,” I decide.

All the energy in the room shifts to a boisterous group of guys in their twenties near the bar. One bearded bearish guy kneels on one knee, presumably proposing to the bigger bearded bearish guy. Several people whip out their phones to capture the moment.

The guy standing shouts, “Yes, of course I’ll marry you!” and the entire restaurant erupts into cheers. The two guys wildly make out as joyful tears stream down their friends’ faces.

My stomach ties in knots that rival our nautical-themed lamps. I’m relieved that we ordered another round.

Marriage is a sore spot for us and the topic has been coming up a lot more now that we’re about to become parents. Biz wants to get married and I remain a skeptic. Of course I love him and want to spend the rest of my life with him.

But I’ve seen what marriage did to my parents and I don’t want to relive it. My mom never recovered after my dad left. Our love and our baby will tie Biz and me together forever. I just don’t see the need to make it official.

We watch as the manager of the restaurant brings a platter of congratulatory shots to the grooms-to-be and their friends.

Biz slings back the final sip of his drink. After a beat, without looking at me, he announces, “Be right back.” He pulls his chair out, abruptly scraping it against the wooden floor, and goes, avoiding eye contact.