Camptown Ladies

by Mari SanGiovanni

  “It’s a P-Break, Mom. As in P-town. We’re all taking a trip to Provincetown, Massachusetts. As a thank you, I thought it would be fun to go to Provincetown for a long weekend to rest before we have our opening in a few weeks.”

  Aunt Aggie joined Mom. “That’s all the way up on the Cape Cod,” she said, as though she would have to swim to get there.

  “Yes,” Lisa said. “All the way up on the Cape Cod.”

  Dad and Eddie slapped each other five. “Eddie and I are in!”

  Lisa smirked, “See, Eddie already has a date. Mom, Auntie Aggie, Uncle Freddie, we’ll just talk about you behind your backs, if you don’t come.”

  “Why do we have to go so far?” Mom asked.

  “It’s not far. Plus, it’s research,” Lisa said, winking at Vince and I.

  Aunt Aggie asked Uncle Freddie, “Are there a lot of campers up on the Cape Cod?” Uncle Freddie shrugged.

  “You’ll also have the best damned lobster dinner you have ever had in your life!” Lisa said.

  Uncle Freddie stood up. “Well, I’m in! Aggie, if you girls want to stay and hold down the fort here at camp, I’ll eat your lobster.”

  “Oh no you won’t,” she said, then she turned to Mom. “You know if we don’t go, our husbands will dive face-first into bowls of butter and have heart attacks right at the table.”

  “The Italians go to the Cape Cod!” Dad yelled, now hitting Uncle Freddie with a high five.

  Vince said to Erica, “I’ll make a sign for the van: Mobsters For Lobsters.” When Erica laughed with him, Vince looked a little too hopeful.

  Erica asked Vince, “Why do they keep calling it The Cape Cod?”

  Vince said, “Old people put ‘The’ or ‘My’ in front of everything. ‘I’ve got to go to the Stop and Shop to pick up my tea.’ Or, ‘Something is wrong with the Comcast.’”

  When he stepped closer to her, Erica said, “Maybe I shouldn’t go?”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t go? That’s ridiculous,” Vince said. “Of course you shouldn’t go. We did break up and being around me must be unbelievably tempting. You are only human, after all.”

  He moved his face close to her and batted his eyelashes. Erica playfully shoved his face away, “Don’t be an ass. I just don’t want there to be any mixed signals.”

  Vince said, “No worries. If there were any, you just unmixed them.”

  Erica was anxious to change the subject. “Your folks have no idea it’s a gay town, do they?”

  “Not so much.”

  “Well, I think I want to see this,” she said, and her decision mixed Vince’s signals again.

  Lisa got off the microphone and looked worried, as if a bad idea just hit her, “Mare, the last time our family vacationed together was in Jamaica, it got kind of crazy.”

  “I could write a book,” I said.

  “On the plus side, lots of lesbos in P-town. Maybe on this trip you’ll find the real love of your life.”

  “Not looking, thanks,” I said.

  Lisa turned back to her audience, “So, like Uncle Freddie always says, there are only two things in life: ‘Are you in, or are you out?’”

  “In!” most of us shouted.

  “In,” Mom and Aggie grumbled.

  Of course, Lisa had a bigger plan. Marketing printed materials about Camptown Ladies in Provincetown was really the point of the trip, and Lisa was determined to make this work for her. It was disguised as a vacation, but I knew Lisa would be working this trip like a Rhode Island politician, pressing flyers about the opening of her campground into the hands and bars and restaurants of everyone she talked to—and my sister talked to everyone. She had an irresistible, abrasive charm, and the balls to use it to her advantage.

  On the way up to Cape Cod, Lisa stopped so she could pick up some salty snacks. As she got out of the rented mini van (Aunt Aggie insisted we strap her scooter to the roof), Lisa stopped off for gas. “Ten bucks should do it,” she said, walking toward the store. Then she pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her pocket and balled it up so she could toss it through the passenger window at me. “Don’t go over ten, I don’t want a bunch of fucking small bills.”

  Lisa may have been a millionaire, like the rest of us in the van, but, being so new at it, she forgot that twenty dollars was not really considered a big bill. She was remembering all those childhood years of us pooling our change to buy a bag of potato chips or a sleeve of Oreos. I was distracted thinking of this when Lisa headed back to the van. I looked at the pump in a panic, but I hadn’t gone over the ten-dollar amount, or I’d hear about it for the entire three-hour drive. I carefully squeezed the handle to choke out small bits of gas, as I felt her hovering behind me.

  When Lisa was judging me, I could feel it deep in my bones. It made me paranoid, clumsy, prone to mistakes, and it made her delighted. I squeezed the pump carefully so I would not go over: $9.53 . . . $9.56 . . . $9.58 . . . I must hit that ten-dollar mark or suffer the wrath of Lisa for not following her instructions . . . $9.60. I breathed a sigh of relief, until Lisa tagged me with an affectionate slap on the back of my head. She followed with the helpful explanation, “It’s dollars, not hours and minutes, you fucking tool.”

  Lisa was pulling out of the parking lot when a guy with a “GO GREEN” protest sign yelled: “Enjoy your gas guzzler, you jerks!”

  Lisa didn’t warn anyone to hang on and I winced for the sake of the protester as she threw the van into reverse and careened right toward him. Aunt Aggie and Uncle Freddie collided in the back seat and Aunt Aggie slapped Uncle Freddie on the arm as if it was his fault. “Ow!” he howled, and he laughed at her annoyance.

  The protester’s eyes widened as the minivan skidded just inches from his feet. The scrawny guy’s back was pressed against a fence to avoid being run over. Lisa leaned out the car window and looked like she might grab his neck, which was within reach. He was petrified, and appeared ready to pee himself from fear.

  Lisa shouted louder than was necessary, “Hey, little douche bag, if you wanna do something green, stop killing trees with your stupid signs. Go mow my lawn since you need a fucking job!” Mom and Aunt Aggie gasped as Uncle Freddie wheezed with laughter in the back of the van.

  Except for one fight between Mom and Aunt Aggie, the rest of the ride was uneventful. Dad was the first one out of the van when we reached the town, dramatically taking a deep breath of salt air as he asked, “Where are the Margaritas?”

  “Dad, this isn’t the Caribbean,” I said.

  “It’s the Cape Cod,” Vince said.

  The owners of Gabriel’s Guest House, who are known to us frequent visitors as The Two Elizabeths, greeted us as if they had been anticipating our arrival all year. Our disorderly group spilled out from the van directly into their tiny lobby, shattering the peaceful quiet of the beautiful inn. We drowned out the soothing jazz from the adjoining Great Room.

  There would be no soothing sounds while the Santoras were in town, and I tried to think of a gentle way to break it to the Elizabeths as they scrambled to address the questions we fired at them. They were barraged with a sea of ridiculous questions from every direction. I wanted to offer the option that we could get by with one spare towel each if they felt they wanted to leave town during our invasion.

  The questions ranged from “What is the population of this town?” to “Any good Italian restaurants around here?”

  When she could get a word in, the one my sister and I called Sweet Elizabeth did the talking while Quiet Elizabeth (a woman I rarely ever saw indoors, unless there was an internet problem) was more serious as she helped lug all the suitcases out of the van, placing them in an orderly row along the cobblestone driveway, as if they were the critical sandbags needed to hold back a dam. Or a dyke, as the case might be.

  Dad spotted the movie library. “Hey, does this mean we can rent movies here?” he asked.

  Sweet Elizabeth said, “Actually, you can’t. They’re free.”

  “Free?” Dad pushed Eddie out of
his way to get to the movie alcove and Eddie announced, “Mr. Santora is too shy to ask where the gay porn section is.” Dad snorted a laugh from the corner.

  “Those you have to ask for,” Sweet Elizabeth said, adding, “He’ll need to show ID that he’s over twenty-one.”

  Dad laughed and told Sweet Elizabeth to ignore Eddie. “That Eddie’s such a card.”

  “Eddie The Card,” Vince said, and I knew my brother well enough to know when another nickname was born. “Sounds like a gay gangster.”

  I was thinking that maybe we wouldn’t be quite the shock to the town I feared, when my sister asked Sweet Elizabeth, “So, where are all the white women at?”

  I apologized to Elizabeth. “Sorry. That’s a Mel Brooks quote—Blazing Saddles. She really isn’t the total ass she appears to be, just really close.” Then Lisa proved me wrong by taking the baseball cap she kept folded in her back pocket and slapping it on her head. The cap advertised Titleist golf balls, which would have been fine, if she hadn’t ripped off a few of the embroidered letters so it now read: “Tit.”

  “What’s all that noise about?” Aunt Aggie asked, irritated.

  “I’m sure it’s us,” I said.

  “No, that constant chiming,” she said with a face that more accurately described squealing brakes or nails on a chalkboard, rather than the charming sound of the town clock tower.

  Sweet Elizabeth answered, “Isn’t it lovely? It’s the clock bell from the town hall. After you’ve been here a month or so, you won’t even notice it.” She winked at me as my Aunt Aggie visibly turned her festering up a notch.

  Aunt Aggie said, “They better turn it off after eight o’clock so I can get my beauty sleep.”

  “It’s already at the critical stage,” Dad muttered from the video corner.

  “Shut the fuck up, Sal,” Aunt Aggie said, as I winced an apology to Sweet Elizabeth, who was kind enough to pretend to be looking at the check-in book.

  Vince asked, “Are the bars still open in the off-season?”

  “Of course,” Eddie answered for Sweet Elizabeth. “I can’t wait to bring you to my favorite club. All the boys will just eat you up al-live!” he gushed, as Vince’s face lightened a shade. Even in the dead of winter, no Italian should be that color.

  Since it was still off-season, Lisa was able to book some of the best rooms in the inn and, taking advantage of the pet-friendly policy, she’d brought along Cindy-Lu. Lisa, Cindy-Lu, and I would share a large guest suite called Ariel, which was on the highest level and overlooked the Pilgrim Monument. It was a great room with a stained-glass, sea turtle-themed bathroom door and a Jacuzzi that made me wish I wasn’t sharing the room with my sister and a dog. Erica had the room right below us, named Willow, while Eddie and Vince were sharing a room (despite Vince’s protest) closest to the health club so they could work out each morning. We put the older folks in two rooms at the front of the compound so Aggie wouldn’t have to navigate many stairs with her walker, and the Two Elizabeths arranged for special parking for Aggie’s scooter inside the pet gate leading to the garden.

  On the night of our arrival, we accommodated Aunt Aggie and Uncle Freddie’s early bird feeding schedule and ate at Napi’s, a restaurant made popular by locals and tourists alike, and one of the few places large enough to accommodate a family of our imposing size. The interior had an odd ethereal glow from the backlit cathedral-sized stained glass wall over the bar. Years ago, the stained glass had shown Jesus, Mary, and what appeared to be some cute Asian girl with words above her head that read “Hot Stuff,” oddly cut in traditional stained glass craftsmanship. (The inappropriateness of it reminded me of the Korean girl I once worked with who, whenever she didn’t know the answer to something, would say, “Beat Me.”) The “Hot Stuff” quote had disappeared—not, I hoped, due to political correctness (Provincetown is not known for this)—now replaced by plain chunks of stained glass. It was better suited for my Aunt Aggie to be dining under, but I felt something was missing.

  One side of the restaurant was a wall of bricks, which appeared structured by molten lava instead of mortar. They tumbled in a circular pattern before the bricks sobered up, and solidified into straight lines again. There were marvelously peculiar antiques, which covered every inch of the walls, and an Indian War Mask shaped like a giant warthog perched directly over our table, keeping a watchful eye on both Jesus and Aunt Aggie.

  The older folks didn’t notice that the place was filled with gays, but Lisa, Eddie, and I signaled each other with happy nods of approval. While surrounded by tables of boy-with-boy and girl-with-girl pairings, I amused myself by picturing the diners as the older folks did, smirking when I realized that many tables had a female couple dining opposite a male couple, and so, from my aunt and uncle’s point of view, all must have seemed right with the world. Mom commented there must be a theater nearby, since there were so many well-dressed young men, but that was the closest anyone got to figuring out they had landed squarely in the center of Gaytown, USA.

  They hadn’t figured it out earlier, either, during the short walk to the restaurant when Eddie made Vince take a photo of him standing near a sign on Commercial Street that read, “All Deliveries In Rear.” During the picture-taking, a man who made Eddie appear straight galloped up to him and squealed, “Oooh, honey, are you advertising? Cuz I’m buying!” We all waited patiently on the cobblestone street while they exchanged numbers and made plans to exchange God knows what else, God knows where.

  Mom asked, “Does Eddie know that boy?”

  “He will,” Lisa said. Then she whispered to me in her best Obi Wan voice, “There’s been a power shift with the Dark Lord Vulva in favor of the Fairies; do you feel it? Anything with a vagina may be lost.”

  Right now, in the warm comfort of Napi’s Restaurant, surrounded by fairies who were surrounded by fairy lights, we were being served obese lobsters, each sitting on a La-Z-Boy mound of mashed potatoes, claws high in the air in a final gesture of What the fuck? The Mobsters With Lobsters were happy—except for Lisa, who expressed her dislike for seafood with the delicate statement “It smells like my nose is stuck up a fish’s cunt.”

  Mom scolded Lisa, and Aunt Aggie laughed until she had to wipe away tears. She scurried off to the restroom, threatening the diners she clunked by with her walker that she was going to “wet the friggin’ floor.” My siblings and I attracted the attention of the rest of the place with our peals of laughter.

  Thirteen

  Wonder Woman Attacks!

  The next morning, long after Aunt Aggie, Uncle Freddie, and Mom and Dad had eaten the fabulous breakfast in the Great Room at Gabriel’s Inn, Vince, Lisa, Erica, and I realized we’d slept through the breakfast hour and needed to venture out for food. Erica was completely overdressed, in high contrast to Lisa’s hand-cropped yoga pants and t-shirt, which thankfully was covered beyond readability (I knew it had a trashy saying on it).

  I said, “After that huge dinner last night, I almost called Aunt Aggie to tell her I had something of hers—her ass.”

  “You’re eating with us, so don’t even start,” Vince said.

  Eddie cheerfully greeted us in Gabriel’s courtyard gardens as he came in from the night, just as we were heading out to the Post Office Café for our very late breakfast. Lisa yelled across the quiet garden, “Eddie! Good morning. Are we walking a little funny today?”

  He smiled, “I had a great night and I walk more ladylike than you, like a truck driver with a cross-country hemorrhoid flare-up.” Lisa giggled, a little bit like a girl. We braced ourselves for Eddie’s details, but, when none came, Lisa said, “Tramp. Come with us.”

  Eddie happily rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, no, honey, I can’t come with anyone right now.” We couldn’t argue with that, so we set off without him.

  The Post Office Diner is a small restaurant jammed into the bottom corner of a larger building that was converted eons ago from the original town post office. It’s still lined along the interior walls with metal
post office boxes with decorative skeleton key keyholes. We entered a door that sat inches from the main street, and were rewarded by the aromas of fresh baked waffles, ham, maple, and fresh brewed coffee.

  A waiter waving a dishrag shouted across the room, “Hey dolls, sit on anything you like. Hell knows, I do!” I loved this place.

  Lisa smiled like a kid in a candy store, and we took the booth by the window so we could watch people walk by on Commercial Street.

  “You’ve all been here before?” Erica asked us.

  “Not me,” Vince said. “It’s my first time in Provincetown, but Lisa’s practically a local.”

  “Obviously, you’ve never been,” Lisa said to Erica.

  “Why do you say that?”

  Lisa answered, “Because in this town, only the boys wear heels. You’re going to fall flat on your fucking face on those cobblestone sidewalks. And when you do, the dykes will pounce on you like a fumbled football on Thanksgiving day.”

  I was thinking Erica did look dressed way too fancy for the cobblestones, as Lisa illustrated her point, gesturing to an imaginary fallen woman on the street and yelling in her deepest voice, “Vagina down! Vagina down!” Then (in a deeper voice) “I’m starving!” She made loud submarine siren alarm sounds, and did a fair impersonation of a dyke leaping on top of the fallen victim, by straddling Erica who was laughing too hard to push her away. Several of the fluffy gay male wait staff were alerted to our presence and waved their perky figure-eight hellos to Lisa.

  After much sighing and theatrics, Jay, the lead male waiter, floated over to our table without the slightest hint of urgency. He looked at us and said, “Hello, lovelies.” Then he turned to Vince and Lisa and nodded a greeting, “And gentlemen.” Lisa slugged him in the arm, hard, as he yelped like a girl and laughed.

  “Your sister knows everyone,” Erica said.

  “Don’t assume she knows someone just because she hits them,” I said.

  “So, how long have you two been together?” Jay asked under his arched eyebrow as he checked out Erica and me from head to her well-heeled toes.