Page 12 of The End of Summer

“Oh, yeah?” I pause, looking for evidence of this sighting. Suddenly, the shed door swings open and a short, bald man emerges carrying a stack of mail. I turn to Mike. “That her?”

“Maybe you’re right.” He shrugs. “Maybe my tints are a little too dark.”

CHAPTER FOUR

GRETCHEN

Iam a Cape Cod lifer.

Born and raised in Eastport, I can’t imagine permanently living anywhere else. The calm of the tidal flats, the quiet off-season, the quintessential Americana New England summers, replete with clam bakes and bonfires and shark hunting from the shore – all of this was the story of my youth, and I have been blessed with a full and happy existence thus far.

Of course, there are some downsides – like anywhere. Here, the challenges include cyclical traffic, desolate winters, and a shallow dating pool. Everyone knows everyone. There are scant opportunities for higher education on the peninsula that is America’s smallest bicep, so most of my childhood friends opted to saddle up and ride off into a more collegiate sunset in nearby Boston, although those who could afford it went even further. Some ventured south after 18 years of nor-easter-laden Januarys, and some even decided to leave the country altogether on gap-year backpacking adventures through Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Alternatively, some of my classmates found a cranial escape in recreational drug use and mass consumption of spirits. Destined for a future bouncing from holdingcells in local police precincts to the Barnstable County Correctional Facility, these poor souls let the yawntastic redundance of the off-season stifle their potential for greatness.

There were confused dreamers, too – teenagers whose senioritis and mediocre grades conflicted with any hopes their parents may have had for them of a life beyond the Cape. Jenna was one of those kids. Her compass lacked a true north – one day she wanted to be a veterinarian, the next she wanted to go into competitive pickleball, then she decided she was best suited for nursing. She was a prime candidate for 4Cs, better known as Cape Cod Community College to out-of-towners. She has since spent her time piecemealing a part-time Associate’s degree together with online classes towards a Bachelor’s, landing her a placement in the ER at Cape Cod Hospital. Young adults like Jenna took a little longer to find their way, but eventually figured it out. Jenna didn’t stay on the Cape because of her great love for it; she stayed because there was really nowhere else for her to go.

Then there were the kids like me. Few and far between, we were goal-oriented and thirsty for learning but also loved growing up here and couldn’t imagine settling anywhere else. I begrudgingly moved to Amherst to pursue a degree in elementary education at UMass, fully intending to bring that knowledge back home with me and offer it up to the very school system that raised me. And that’s exactly what I did. I got my initial teaching certification, then moved back in with my parents after graduating college a semester early. I enrolled in a Master’s program online at Framingham State University and started working at the Diamond Mine (thepub at the Diamond Excelsior), while beginning the interview process for a full time teaching position in the early months of 2020.

Cue the screeching halt otherwise known as COVID.

The job market for teachers suddenly evaporated. The pub shut down and instead of spending my time pursuing meaningful career opportunities, I gratefully banked unemployment checks from the government while continuing my remote graduate classes. My relatives lived in Boston, and as the mass exodus from big cities began later that spring, we welcomed a houseful of extended family members to stay with us for the foreseeable future. This included my aunt, uncle, three teenage cousins, and one very poorly behaved chihuahua named Foofie, who took pleasure in terrorizing my new pandemic rescue kitten, Zoloft. I’d adopted him as an antidote to the sadness I would have otherwise battled on account of not being able to pursue my calling of working with young people. I found it exceedingly difficult to study amidst the constant ruckus at home, so I decided it was time to find my own slice of local real estate.

Now I live in a cute little condominium. I bought it just before the prices skyrocketed. Like, literally,weeksbefore. I’d been able to save up a modest nest egg thanks to my waitressing gig at Roberto’s, an upscale Italian restaurant in Amherst. It was there that I learned just how lucrative the service industry could be. That plus the bit of money I was able to bank from the Diamond Mine and a few months of unemployment grew my savings account to a whopping $12,000.

My one-bedroom walk-out apartment cost me $110,000. I put down my entire savings account and my parents loaned me the remaining $10k so I wouldn’t have to pay PMI.

The thing about Cape Cod is the rent is batshit crazy in the summer. So if you’re a local and you plan to stick around, you need to own your own place.

Not everyone is as lucky as I am. I live on resort property, so the landscaping is beautiful and there’s a golf course right behind my building. There’s an indoor/outdoor swimming pool complex directly across the street that’s bustling with kids and families all summer. I’m not allowed in there because I’m not a country club member, but it’s still nice to have it so close. There’s a horse farm down the hill, so when I go for walks, I get to gaze upon these lovely creatures just roaming in a wide, green field.

Sure, not everything is perfect. The building can sometimes be a little damp. To navigate one’s way to my humble abode, one would open the main door to the communal residence and walk down a flight of steps to a hallway laden with dehumidifiers that smells vaguely like incense from my neighbor down the hall (the one who leaves every pair of her shoes on her exterior doormat, as if that’s intended to be common space). Inside, my home is a very standard 570 square feet of living space. Tiny kitchen, normal-sized bathroom, single 10x10 bedroom, living room-dining room combo, and a sliding glass door that leads to a small cement patio where I can sit outside and have a drink or read a book. I have a beautiful picture window that overlooks the 5thtee and a spectacular hydrangea that blooms fragrant violet and blue flowers in the summer. Unfortunately, the floralscent can’t mask the odoriferousness of the black Labrador retriever three doors down whose clockwork defecations in the muddy grass between the building and the golf course are reminiscent of a sack full of assholes. By mid-July, the horseflies come, and I can’t sit outside anymore because in the late-afternoon sun, all I inhale is the warmed aroma of canine fecal matter.

Still, it’s paradise.

I suppose I should mention that recently, there have been some issues. Our HOAs are about to skyrocket because evidently, the building (and all of its companion buildings in my “village,” aptly namedTidewater) has massive leakage issues due to improper insulation from back when they were built in 1985. Whenever it rains, I have to lay out a thick stack of towels at the base of my slider because there is active precipitationinsidethe house. Accordingly, stains bearing evidence of black mold are forming on my ceiling, looking like the transmogrifying ink blots one might flip through during an intense cognitive therapy session. I have decided not to consider what breathing in this toxicity might be doing to my lungs, especially knowing that the condo board is on it – they’re all homeowners, too, and a structural concern is no laughing matter.

But they don’t live on my floor.

Many of the owners use their condos as investment properties and lease them weekly to vacationing families. The condos on my floor, however, are mostly owned by Diamond Excelsior’s management, and are then rented to the year-round club employees, because it’s incredibly difficult to find affordable housing in Cape Cod. So, not only are theemployees earning minimum wage and hoping to bring in tips to supplement their paltry paychecks, they also get the added bonus of giving most of that money back to management once a month in the form of a rent check.

For me, this is a starter home. And to be fair, it could be a lot worse. The J-1s, who are seasonal, live in barracks reminiscent of sleepaway camp cabins tucked into the woods in a clearing that management didn’t even bother to pave. They get to ride company-issued rental bicycles down a bumpy gravel path each morning to get to their assignments. Some work at the beach club, others at one of the seven swimming pools, still others on the golf course. J-1s come to Americalookingfor an adventure. I suppose it would be fun to leave Norway, where the average temperature in July is 50 degrees, to have a summer abroad in the balmy-by-comparison northeast corridor of the United States. The gravel biking situation might seem like a small price to pay in that scenario. Alas, the tundra is not my natural habitat. Also, I am not a child. I am agrown-asswoman, according to my new employer, Arrow.

So you can understand my frustration at being woken up so early on a Saturday morning with unwelcome neighbor-noise, especially after getting home so late last night.

Arrow’s staff-member-sisterhood arrived about an hour after I did. Three girls dressed in loose pajama pants and oversized T-shirts giggled through the door, immediately smiling my way. Arrow introduced them to me as Saffron, Cherry, and Indigo. (I later learned their government names are Maria, Cheryl, and Kim, but forced my brain to immediately forget this intel as I would otherwise inevitablyfumble and refer to one using her parent-issued nomenclature.) The first thing I discovered was that these girls are super body-positive. After exchanging brief pleasantries, they headed straight for the locker bank. No one even flinched when they began to strip off their outer layers, as if this is something one just does at work, like a chef peeling an onion.

Except for me.

My jaw involuntarily hit the floor when Cherry dropped her Gymshark joggers to reveal a pair of high-waisted, leather hot shorts that exposed 90% of her posterior and appeared to be lodged in between her cheeks like a permanent wedgie. Indigo’s torso was wrapped in unseasonal Christmas lights with a battery pack tucked into her bra, and Saffron – a diminutive firecracker at 4’11” – wore a leopard-print, one piece situation with a V so deep, it went all the way down to her belly button and left very little of her top shelf to the imagination. They made Arrow’s outfit look demure by comparison.

“Not nice to stare,” Saffron admonished me, half bent over, strapping on a shoe that gave her the additional inches to bring her up to my height of 5’6". She hit a switch on the underside of the shoe and the platform lit up.

I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. I’m just not used to –”

“She’s kidding,” Cherry interjected. “Don’t even listen to her.”

Saffron stood up straight. “I’m fucking with you.” She smiled, smoothing her hands down the sides of her body, adjusting the fabric of the outfit she had on to make sure it was properly in place. “Hand me that tape?” she went on,pointing at a Ziploc bag in the open locker. I grabbed it and passed it to her. “Gotta keep the hammers in the tool box, you know what I’m saying?” She proceeded to remove strip after strip of double sided tape to affix the leopard fabric to her skin.

Indigo flipped on her lights. “You guys don’t think these’ll burn me, do you?”

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