HOLLY NADLER
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There’s a great story in The New Yorker of Oct. 10 about geologists in a New Jersey field pick-axing down to the Cretaceous period, 66 million years ago. The Garden State was under water then, actually gorgeous tropical, turquoise waters, and what is now called North America had a different shape, sort of like putty dough pulled sideways. In fact, if we’d stayed that way, we’d probably be in the Euro zone right now; yikes!
As the team tramps back to the edge of so-called civilization, they come upon a Jersey strip mall with a nail salon, a bowling alley, an ice cream parlor. “All of this is what we’d call ephemera,” said one of the guys. “Geology, if nothing else, gives you a perspective on time.”
Couldn’t help thinking of this over the past dreamy weekend, temperatures much like the Jersey of the Cretaceous period. There were so many people, so many last hurrahs, then . . . silence.
Last Saturday in the afternoon I sat with Marty outside Cousen Rose where an art opening was going on. Marty told me he’d be coming to the Island more often but having shorter visits.
All the same, I thought of the child we’d raised here together, the Oak Bluffs Schools — both of them — the tennis team, purple robes at graduation in the Tabernacle. Blink of an eye. Couldn’t help it, but tears spilled down my cheeks for about 30 minutes. Marty said a lot of wise things, but still the tears kept coming, really perfect, non-sobby, delicate tears, dropping with the flow of words back and forth.
I wondered if we were spoiling business for Zita; after all, who wants a weeping woman at her art gala, even if the tears are decorous? Finally, I stopped and gave my beloved ex-husband a cold hard stare. “How’s my mascara holding up?”
“Pretty good,” he said.
I took out my compact and checked. “Yeah, this waterproof stuff is amazing.” I glanced at him again. “You think we got it all in one take?”
Later we sat on Mr. Pugg’s steps waiting for him to open up. An artist whom Marty greeted as Michael Johnson passed us, tall and thin in a brown and gold dashiki, camera clinging to his shoulder. His grin was broad and beatific. “This is summer for Islanders,” he declared, and so it was, although we still had a lot of visitors on hand to revel in the balmy winds and blue and gold skies.
Ernie appeared outside his shop, banging loudly on his own door. “Open up!” he said in his laid-back basso voice, laughing at himself, getting us, as ever, to laugh at ourselves. He glanced at the clock through the locked door. Three o’clock in the afternoon. “Aw! It’s too early to open!”
He did, though, and some insiders dropped by, but made a plan to come back when fresh coffee was brewed. “What do you think, Ernie? About half an hour?”
A visitor ordered a chili dog, but Ernie told him he was out of chili. While the guest waited outside with his big silver Lab, we urged Ernie to defrost some chili. After all, it was Columbus Day weekend, and for a man with only hot dogs and chili dogs on his menu scrawled in blue marking pen high on a slate, we assured him of extra orders over the next 48 hours. Marty suggested some new signs for him for 2012: “In business for 15 years, over 300 served,” and “Open by appointment.”
Ernie took it all with his wide grin, yet we had to wonder, who will he sing his Frank Sinatra hits to in Providence in the winter?
By Monday evening, all the visitors had been rolled up by some invisible carpet and deposited out to sea and back on the mainland. Monday evening my friend, Gwyn, and I walked our dogs along the harbor and saw no sentient beings other than four or five skunks. My knucklehead of a dog has learned nothing by the sliming he received last week; a shorter leash enabled me to snap him back from attacking these otherwise slouchy characters who have nothing against us unless we pounce.
By Tuesday morning, more Vineyarders were in sight. I ran into artist Cheyanne with her daughter, Stella, just turned two. Cheyanne pulled her blue-eyed, tow-headed tot in a Red Flyer wagon but as they stopped to talk to me, Stella flexed her fists under a leopard-print jacket and ordered her mom to sit down beside her. “See Becca!” the mini-model kept saying with a tiny raised index-finger, announcing their planned trip to Becca Roger’s store, Lemonade.
At Phillip’s I mentioned to my favorite curmudgeon, Dave Medeiros that the skunks had replaced the tourists. “What’s the difference?” he asked; then he laid out his own skunk reduction program: “I put out food for them in the yard, then I shoot every third skunk.”
I thought about this. “But then when they run the math they’ll see that two thirds of them make it, so it’s worth the effort.”
He shrugged, amenable to this crunching of numbers.
Later after the sun went down, a group of us celebrated Frank Imbimbo’s birthday at Sharkey’s. Tatiana brought him the special house drink with a plastic shark resting at the top. Frank deposited the toy on the bar and Tatiana scolded him, “There’s tequila in that!” She brought him another one, plus sang happy birthday to him in Russian.
Ah, the passing joys and sorrows.
Ah, the ephemera.
And these fairytale gables and porches? Probably only marginally less ephemeral than those Jersey strip malls. Let’s enjoy it while we can.
Waterproof mascara recommended.
What else is shaking? Well, if you have a mind to fill your winter with great classes, be sure to get on the Adult Education Web site at ace.mv.org to see the schedule and sign up. You don’t want to miss out on some of these great offerings, including courses on wild edibles, conversational Brazilian Portuguese, belly dancing, writing and selling your book with mystery novelist Cynthia Riggs, parenting and workplace dynamics.
And will everyone please join me next Thursday night, Oct. 20 at 7 pm. in the Oak Bluffs library where I’ll be speaking about the Salem Witch Trials and the curious centuries of haunting spawned over that seaport, research straight from my book, Ghosts of Boston Town. For those who know my strict health guidelines, forget all about that; I’m bringing lemonade and cookies with sugar and plenty of it. Of course the talk is free: don’t even try throwing money at me!
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