8:00 am Friday: Called in sick to work. Will drive to Carmel with wife for romantic weekend of rescuing young marriage from accidental coma. She'll work half a day, I'll pick her up 12:30 at BART, we'll beat the traffic and drink wine on the placid beach while average guy sits in rush hour muck arguing via cel phone with poorly chosen spouse. Packed clothes, food, erotic tarot deck, detective novels.
4:10 pm Friday: Phone message said she'd probably have to work full day. Sat in parking lot seventy minutes reading New Yorker magazine before called to check machine. Drove off to seethe and complete errands.
5:10 pm Friday: She must have arrived at BART just as I left. Next time I'll check all messages on machine before storming off to complete errands.
6:00 pm Friday: Ate dinner at home. Inexpensive, satisfying.
8:20 pm Friday: Arrived in Carmel after lovely drive and tender discussion of "this gender role thing". I must be protective and emotionally stable if she is to be nurturing and supportive and occasionally wear halter top. Progress. Weekend sure to be productive.
8:30 pm Friday: Found bed & breakfast and parked aging Volvo between pairs of shiny SUVs. Ascended stairs to courtyard.
Happy Chambers Bed & Breakfast is a little slice of retiree Disneyland with six adorable dwarf cottages surrounding a stone cherub fountain dumping bottomless bucket of water into heart-shaped pond. Water was Freud's unconscious symbol for sex, here endlessly pouring forth like the very wellspring of life, a hopeful shrine. Assume the fountain recycles water, symbolizing an eerie predictability in the activities of aging couples bathing in the tepid tide of rented romance like commuters at a filling station.
The office had closed, our key left in an envelope by the front gate. "Welcome to Happy Chambers. You are in room number 7. Directions: Walk down the stairs and across the driveway until you see the door." Leaving the trickle of the pond behind, we crossed in front of two garage doors to find a 20-inch wide portal hidden between a utility meter and a large plant. Considered moving Volvo to occupy available parking space immediately in front of door. Concerned that third SUV will arrive at 2 am, headlights level with high windowsills, nose pulled forward, front wheel just blocking our only escape route from the underground suite. Decided space was too narrow for third car - second SUV door would be blocked shut.
Turned attention back to narrow entrance to honeymoon suite. Eager to rediscover the secrets that waited within, we excitedly turned sideways and wiggled through, single file.
8:50 Friday: We left bags in the room and walked together downhill to the beach, past a row of posh storefronts and blocks of coastal cabins recently transformed into cozy honeymoon hutches and adorable elf hovels. The curtains in these chambers usually remained closed, the better to incubate the nourishing bacteria of romance while an endless patrol of tourists blocked the view of the road ten feet away.
As we approached the water, some kind of spell had taken over one couple after another. Homely husbands embraced aging wives in the middle of the parking lot that connected the tranquil beach to the world beyond. Not-quite-old folks necked like high school delinquents at an unsupervised party. Some of them would have experienced the mystery of sex that very night, and no great lesson of heartbreak or consequence would they derive from it. Had the whole world gone mad?
Some middle-aged couples had brought along children who bobbed along behind or beside, complaining. What spark were these children here to recapture, I wondered? I envisioned Junior advising parents: "I think we need to get away. Just the five of us. Get a chance to know each other again. No TV, no work, no phone. Three days of nothing but Ashley and me smacking each other in the back seat and telling you to tell her to stop calling me that. Just like when you and dad first got together, when I was six, before you had little stinkface and made us share a room. Hey, if dad says I'm old enough to drive, can I practice on the way?"
10:00 pm Friday: Bed chamber is wallpapered on all sides and roof with bright colored flowers and birds. Room is tiny. Ceiling seems to be closing in. Somehow feel like we're being punished. Traditional bathtub replaced with mobile-home shower unit. We squeeze in for communal rinse. Very much like airplane bathroom. Anything dropped on floor of shower must stay there until one of us leaves, or injury may occur.
10:40 pm Friday: Leaned into bathroom to toss item into wastebasket. Slammed head on tacky lamp. Still works.
11:00 pm Friday: Tired after long day of preparation. Sleep will prepare us for exciting weekend of self-discovery. Romance awaits.
7:30 am Saturday: Car alarm of black BMW sounds horn in parking space immediately outside our door. Escape route not blocked. Take it as a good sign.
8:10 am Saturday: Leaned into bathroom to toss item into wastebasket. Slammed head on tacky lamp. No longer works. May sue.
5:00 pm Saturday: I usually wear sunscreen. Wish I had done so today. Long hikes through glorious Monterey summer. Forehead pink like rare steak. Look embarassed all the time. We have aloe vera at home, so hate to buy another bottle here. Reclining on towel, face and neck covered in Noxema cream, like white chainmail hood. Used to sitting at desk all day, wife now complains she's unable to walk. I will attempt to massage from lying position while she reads erotic tarot deck aloud. Together we will plan beautiful future.
Copyright 2001 Betsy Shebang