‘‘Look, Corrine, I drove up here to talk to Hildy, so if she’ll come with me, we’ll go out for a while, and I’ll tell her what’s on my mind. I promise you I have no intention of hurting her.’’ He stood up and extended his hand to Hildy. She nodded and took it. They walked to the door.
‘‘Mike!’’ Corrine’s voice was sharp as a razor’s edge.
He paused and looked at her.
‘‘Remember. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. And I will personally send you there myself if you so much as give my sister reason to shed one tear. You hear me?’’
Mike nodded, and he and Hildy escaped through the front door as fast as they could.
Chapter 21
‘‘Where’s your big car?’’ Hildy asked as she hopped into the Ford.
‘‘I’m getting rid of it. I’m using a rental until my new car gets delivered,’’ he said, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary.
‘‘You seem so pleased with yourself. What did you buy? A Lamborghini?’’
‘‘No, better,’’ he teased.
‘‘Not a Ferrari?’’ She was thinking what a waste of money that would be.
‘‘No, not a Ferrari.’’ He grinned.
‘‘What then? I give up. A Rolls? A Bentley?’’
‘‘A Prius.’’
‘‘No! You didn’t. Really? Why on earth did you buy a hybrid? The other day you didn’t seem to care at all about your carbon footprint.’’
‘‘A lot has changed since the other day, hasn’t it?’’ he said, and looked at her.
‘‘Yes. Yes, it has.’’ Hildy glanced down at her hands, suddenly shy.
‘‘You want me to park somewhere, and we’ll sit in the car and talk?’’ Mike asked as he drove to the corner.
‘‘Oh no!’’ Hildy cried, her high spirits returning. ‘‘I couldn’t bear to sit in the car on such a beautiful day. Let’s head down to Barnegat Lighthouse. It’s a very special place. I want you to see it. We can talk there. Turn left and keep going until you get to the end of the island.’’
‘‘Whatever you want, sure.’’ Michael started north past Ron Jon’s and the junction with Route 72. In minutes, they had left Ship Bottom and entered the adjacent town of Surf City, as its onion-shaped water tower clearly proclaimed.
Hildy provided a running commentary as Mike traveled slowly down the boulevard. The first thing that he absolutely had to see, she insisted, was Woodies Drive-In. There it was on their left. She pointed at the vintage white building through the windshield. Didn’t it look just like restaurants did in the 1950s? she asked. Maybe they should stop for a hot dog, a foot-long one just like they used to get at the Ranch Wagon in Dallas. Remember?
Mike absorbed her happy chatter like a sponge. Hildy didn’t talk about her meetings with movie stars or European royalty. She didn’t keep pulling down the visor mirror to check her makeup. She didn’t take out her cell phone and start making calls when he was right in the middle of a sentence.
He gladly pulled into Woodies. They went inside and ordered hot dogs with everything and Cokes with lots of ice. Then they finished off their meal with cones of soft vanilla ice cream, which they carried back outside. In the stifling temperature that hovered around ninety, the ice cream soon dripped all over their fingers, so Mike challenged her to a race to see who could lick the ice cream down to the top of the waffle cone fastest.
No biting, they said together. That would be cheating.
After two or three big licks, Mike had to quit because he got brain freeze. He made the funniest faces. Hildy laughed and kept licking. She won. She stuck out her white tongue at him. He couldn’t help himself; he grabbed her around the shoulders and gave her a quick kiss on the nose.
They got back into the rental car and a few blocks later, Hildy told Mike to slow down to see the How You Brewin’? Internet Café where she usually checked her e-mail and drank espresso.
‘‘Can we stop?’’ she asked, her blue eyes so irresistible he couldn’t say no. Inside, Mike hung around the front counter, while Hildy logged in on one of the computers and deleted all her junk mail. There wasn’t anything else in her mailbox, she informed him when she rejoined him just minutes later at the counter. She paid for her time on the computer and bought them two huge chocolate chip cookies, ‘‘for the road,’’ she said. Then they were off again.
When they were nearly out of Surf City and entering the next town of North Beach, she squealed and pointed to a store on the corner of an ordinary strip mall. ‘‘There’s Ciao Bella. The owner makes wonderful jewelry, and it’s not expensive either. And the clothing is really cute.’’
‘‘Do you want me to stop?’’
‘‘Oh no! I have all the clothes I can use right now. I just wanted to show it to you. I liked it, so, you know, I wanted to share it.’’
‘‘I don’t think I can use a wraparound skirt anytime soon,’’ he joked.
She gave him a little punch in the bicep. They both laughed, and then they exchanged glances and got very quiet. Mike reached over and put his right arm around her shoulders, pulling her toward him, like he used to when they drove around in his pickup truck. The center console got in the way, but neither of them cared.
They rode along in a contented silence for a while, while the island narrowed even more until it was barely a city block wide. Suddenly Hildy yelled at him to stop the car.
‘‘Look! Do you see that!’’ She excitedly pointed at a newly constructed, grayish white house on the bay side of the road, nearly hidden by some scrub pines. The building was palatial. It had to cost more than a million dollars, but it had a giant plastic Slurpee container, or at least that’s what Hildy thought it looked like, stuck right in the middle of its front. The oddly shaped ‘‘tower’’ was sitting on an angle, as if someone had tipped it slightly to take a sip. Its flat roof looked exactly like a soda container’s lid too, and there was a round raised skylight smack in the middle of it that resembled the bubble where you’d insert a straw.
Mike leaned forward over the steering wheel, peering out of the car’s windshield in disbelief. ‘‘It’s definitely just like a big plastic soda cup. And that fence around the bottom makes it look as if it’s sitting inside a cardboard take-out carrier. I’ve never seen anything like it.’’
‘‘What were they thinking?’’ Hildy giggled.
‘‘I think it’s an homage,’’ Mike suggested with great seriousness. ‘‘This must be the home of the 7-Eleven Slurpee inventor. His millions were made from blue raspberry ice.’’
Hildy nodded gravely. ‘‘I do believe you are right, professor. It’s a brilliant and daring public tribute to one’s roots.’’ They looked at each other and smiled.
All the gloom that had been following Mike around for days, for months really, vanished. He looked at Hildy grinning at him, her dimples showing. She appeared even more adorable today in her shorts and simple top than she did all dolled up last night. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He realized he was in love, and he was, at last, a happy man.
At the very northern tip of the island, on the south side of Barnegat Inlet, ‘‘Old Barney’’ stood in the spot where it had been built in 1859, using a design created by General George C. Meade. For nearly a hundred and fifty years it had survived the eroding waves and the worst of hurricanes. It remained solid and stately at the edge of the sea, but was no longer a working light. Now it was open to the public.
Hildy showed Mike where to enter the state park’s parking lot. They quickly climbed out of the car and walked toward the lighthouse. Neither of them knew how it happened but they were holding hands.
Painted white on the bottom and a dark barn red on the upper half, Barnegat Lighthouse rose 172 feet above sea level. A sign outside warned that there were 217 steps to the top, and visitors should not attempt the climb if they:
Have or had a heart condition
Have or had serious heart trouble
Have or had serious back trouble
Have or had recent surgery or illness
Are subject to dizziness
Are afraid of heights
They read the notice together. Mike kissed Hildy’s temple and said, ‘‘I may have a heart condition, but I don’t think it’s medical.’’
Hildy’s own heart skipped a beat at his words. ‘‘Should we go up to the top?’’ she asked. ‘‘I see a lot of people walking on the jetty, but I don’t think anybody else is crazy enough to climb those stairs in this heat and humidity.’’
‘‘So we’re crazy, you mean?’’ Mike teased.
‘‘Without a doubt. I really wanted to show you the view from the top. But it isn’t just the view. You’ll see. There’s history in the stairs. You can feel it.’’
Mike studied Hildy. She thrilled him, he had to admit it to himself. He was hooked but good. ‘‘You have a very vivid imagination, don’t you?’’
Hildy shook her head. ‘‘It’s not my imagination. Mike, I’ve learned some things recently. One of them is that if you allow yourself to be open, you’d be surprised what exists in this world that most people think is just a fantasy.’’
‘‘I know
you
surprise me,’’ Mike said, pulling her close and gazing down at her. ‘‘You amaze me. You stupefy me. You dazzle me.’’
‘‘And you are so full of it, Mike!’’ Hildy disengaged from his arms and tugged him by the hand to the narrow door that led into the historic structure.
As it turned out, Mike truly was overtaken by a sense of awe once he stood inside. The yellow metal staircase spiraled upward as far as he could see, like a wild abstract sculpture. Their voices echoed off the brick walls. They started climbing. The risers were steep and narrow. They were grateful that they could rest on a landing about every twenty steps.
Sweat glistened on Hildy’s arms and legs by the time they reached the small chamber on the top where the famous Fresnel lens, six feet in diameter and ten feet high, once provided a beacon for ships sailing between New York City and Europe. Mike stopped to admire the part of it visible in the circular room.
Hildy waited a minute before pulling him away and leading him to a miniature door. It led to the widow’s walk outside and Mike had to duck down to go through it.
In the open air, high above the coast, the green-gray sea stretching to infinity below them, the wind howled with an unexpected ferocity. It whipped Hildy’s hair around her face. It rippled their clothing.
‘‘This feels so wonderful, doesn’t it?’’ she called to Mike over the noise of the wind.
‘‘It’s cooler than inside, but that wind is pretty strong, don’t you think?’’ he yelled back. They stood on a three-foot-wide ledge inside a cage made of iron bars. No one could fall from this high perch or be blown off by accident. It was easy to imagine that the powerful wind could have swept someone off if there were no bars.
Hildy had to shout to be heard over the rushing air. ‘‘It’s exciting! The energy just fills me up.’’ She spread her arms and let the wind encircle her.
Mike moved close to her and lightly kissed the back of her neck. He turned her around and she pressed against him. With the sun beating down on them and the wind racing across their skin and tearing at their clothes, they kissed as if they had never kissed before. And they kissed for a very long time.
After a while, they realized the kissing was awakening deeper passions, and this wasn’t the time or place for them. They reluctantly broke their embrace and went back inside. Mike suggested they descend to the first landing where they could sit down. He did want to talk with her; they had to discuss what was happening between them.
Hildy nodded her agreement and they settled themselves in a small alcove and clutched each other’s hands.
‘‘First, I want to apologize.’’ Mike lowered his eyes and held her hands tightly. ‘‘I could give you a dozen excuses about how this situation arose so suddenly that I wasn’t sure what to do. But that’s a lie. I knew from the second I recognized you on the beach that I still felt the same about you. No, I felt more strongly than ever about you. It took me by surprise. I felt like a man put under a spell or something.’’
An uneasiness stole over Hildy as Mike spoke. She hoped love had been the cause of his reaction and not Tony G. ‘‘Was that a bad thing?’’ she asked.
‘‘No! It was great, and really confusing. Honest, Hildy, my life was already coming apart. I told you that. I wanted to switch careers, I wanted to move out of the city, and I had pretty much made up my mind I
did not
want to marry Kiki. Sure, I cared about her, but as time went on I had come to realize we weren’t in synch. Our values were too different. Our dreams didn’t mesh either.’’
‘‘So do you think ours do? We don’t really know each other anymore.’’ Hildy forced herself to be rational, although in truth she didn’t care about reason. If Mike said he wanted to go sell ice to the Inuit in Alaska, she’d think it was great. They’d have an adventure doing it. They’d be together, and the certainty hit her that being together was all she really wanted.
Mike sat there thinking about Hildy’s question. ‘‘Hildy, we grew up in the same small town. Our mothers knew each other. We were taught the same things. We went to the same church in Lehman. I know we share the same values. As for our dreams, I’m going after mine. But I want yours to come true too. I think we can work out a future that makes us both happy.’’
Hildy slipped away from his hands. She took her fingers and smoothed his eyebrows, enjoying the feel of him. She kissed his eyelids. She traced the line of his lips. ‘‘Being with you makes me ridiculously happy,’’ she said.
‘‘I’d like to have a family. What about you? Do you want children, or would they get in the way of your career?’’
He sounded so PC and so dumb, Hildy thought. ‘‘Mike, I want children. I want as many children as we can afford and the good Lord sends us.’’
‘‘No kidding?’’ Mike was astonished. ‘‘But look, I really want to live here, at the Jersey shore. I’m starting this detective business with Jake in Atlantic City. We already signed the papers to incorporate. It’s going to be one helluva mess to go back and live in Pennsylvania. I know you have a teaching job at the high school. If you can’t move here though, I’ll have to figure out how to commute.’’