Jackpot Summer, page 6
“I don’t,” Noah said, even though he did. If Mrs. Harrison decided to tell the story of her hamlet’s unusual name, it would eat up at least five minutes of the time remaining for her phone to unfreeze, and maybe spill over into charging her for another hour. Loveladies was one of the fancier neighborhoods on LBI and Mrs. Harrison owned one of the many mansions that lined the beach. The area was far tonier than Beach Haven, with houses spread out on generous portions of land and no noisy commercial district. Noah far preferred the vibes on his end of the island. To get to Loveladies meant taking a left once over the bridge to LBI; Beach Haven meant a right. The entire island was only eighteen miles long, but there were major differences depending on which way a person turned after the bridge. A reporter once said of the island’s split: “It was a case of the haves and the have-mores.”
“Because the women are lovely. And…” Mrs. Harrison paused to ensure she had his full attention. “They make excellent lovers.” She placed a hand lined with bulbous veins on Noah’s shoulder. “Isn’t that something?”
It was something alright. “That’s a cute theory,” he said, standing to relieve himself of the light scratching of Rita’s nails on his T-shirt. “But I’m pretty sure that’s not the real story. There was a man called Thomas Lovelady. He owned an island in the bay and the area was named after him. This was, like, a hundred years ago or something. Maybe even earlier.” He was no scholar, but every homeowner on Long Beach Island knew how Loveladies got its unusual name.
“Well that doesn’t make sense,” Rita said, looking perplexed. “ ‘Lovelady’ ends in a Y. And our town ends with IES. Why would they have made it plural? And if his name was Thomas, then surely they would have chosen to call this place Thomas Bay or something like that. I’m pretty certain I’m correct.”
“You may be,” he said, stopping short of agreeing with her. Rita was a steady customer and tipped generously. Her connections had him installing modems, organizing photos in the cloud and downloading software updates pretty consistently in the homes of her rich friends. Serving as a traveling IT provider on LBI was far better than any of his previous stabs at employment, which included selling office supplies (ironic given he’d never had an office job), assistant manager of a gym (fired for too much flirting) and customer service for Peloton (there he was a victim of layoffs, but Noah didn’t miss the explosive tirades from the six a.m. spin class set). Doing tech repair, he could set his own hours and spend the bulk of his time in the fresh air, biking between clients and collecting cash for fixing the most basic technical issues. He couldn’t count how many times his clients gushed, “You’re a genius!” when all he’d done was a hard reset.
“So how do you feel about your family home being sold? I heard it went for over asking.” Mrs. Harrison was as interested in gossip as she was in young flesh. Rita moved across the room and perched on a frilly sofa covered with tasseled throw pillows. Every type of jungle cat was represented in the decor; Noah considered making a joke about being allergic.
With her at a safe distance, Noah sank back into his chair. The thought of packing up twenty-five years’ worth of books, photo albums and memorabilia, labeling boxes “Sophie’s artwork,” “Matthew’s soccer trophies” and “Mom/Dad wedding pics” made his heart ache. And yet that was exactly what he would be doing for the next two days. A week later, the home would be subject to a final inspection and the new owners would retrieve the keys at the end of the month. Unless he had the guts to go through with The Plan. Even if he did, he’d have to pretend everything was normal with his family over the weekend, which meant bubble-wrapping cherished items and sentencing them to oblivion in cardboard boxes.
“I’m sad,” he admitted to Mrs. Harrison. There was no point in putting on a brave face. “We’ve made a lot of great memories there.” He was tempted to list them. The night Matthew raced to answer the phone because a girl he liked was calling and he fell down the stairs and needed twenty stitches in his knee, but it all worked out because his crush was a candy striper in the hospital and they started dating. Or the time Sophie, maybe eleven at the time, decided to surprise their parents by painting a mural on their bedroom wall and their father grumbled the rest of the summer about the cost of repainting. It was the place where Noah first held his niece Emma. Noah had many other firsts there. The Jersey Shore was where he learned to ride a bike. To swim. He smoked his first joint at fifteen behind Tuckers Tavern, where his best friend Joe was bussing tables for the summer. It was where he’d lost his virginity the summer after sophomore year of high school to the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen at that point, Lizzy Markowitz. They were now Instagram friends. Lizzy, still gorgeous, was married and expecting her first baby.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Mrs. Harrison said softly. Noah could imagine laying his head in her lap. “About your mother too. She was such a nice woman. I always enjoyed chatting with her at temple. I’m a mahj player, not a canasta gal, so we didn’t really interact all that much. But I loved the adorable little free library she put outside your house. Is that still there?”
“It is.” The lending library at the edge of their property was Sylvia’s brainchild when Noah was in high school. She’d paid the handyman at their temple to make it (it was essentially a wooden post with something that looked like a birdhouse on top, filled with books that neighbors could borrow and replace whenever they wanted). There was always a “Sylvia Selection,” which she marked with a yellow Post-it note, and that would be the first book snapped up. “It’s not quite as up-to-date as when Mom oversaw it.”
“I’ll bring over some books,” Mrs. Harrison said.
“That would be nice.” He had misjudged this woman as a cougar. At most, she was part feline.
“By the way, Myrna Shapiro is very eager to get the end-of-summer card party at the temple going again. We all are. It was your mother who insisted on adding a room for mahj players. Boy, did she run a great event.”
“She was a very capable person,” Noah said. She even managed to teach him canasta despite the fact that he was math challenged, at least according to every school teacher he ever had.
“She was. I’m sure your family is having a tough time letting the house go.”
Some more than others, he thought. But Noah had his reasons for the strong attachment. His siblings were already teens and tweens when his parents purchased the house in the late nineties. He was an “oops” baby, though his parents would never admit it, born six years after Sophie. And so he spent many summers in the house well after his siblings had gone off to college and visited only for the Fourth of July, Labor Day and the occasional weekend when they brought friends and only used the place as a crash pad. Noah’s experience was entirely different.
While his father worked out of his North Caldwell accounting office during the week in the summer months, Noah and his mother parked themselves at the shore full-time. They would putter around the house together, playing cards, throwing jacks and building sandcastles right outside their front door. The Realtor who got the listing said that the house had “good bones.” It sure did. His mother’s bones. Her essence was practically the home’s foundation. Many of the prospective buyers who’d checked out the property would say some version of, “We’re planning to tear it down anyway.” They might as well have stated plans to dig up Sylvia’s body and dissect her.
“It’s just too much for your father to maintain this property and his new place in Florida,” Mrs. Harrison said.
She was right. Leo was firm that on his fixed income, composed of the pensions from his accounting firm and Sylvia’s library job plus a modest boost from Social Security, he could only maintain one property. Noah had suggested refinancing the Jersey Shore property—he remembered Matthew’s eyebrows climbing in surprise when he made the suggestion—but Leo had dismissed the idea outright. Besides despising financial risk, Leo lacked the capacity for the home’s upkeep, especially from afar.
I’ll take care of the house, Noah thought more than once about saying, but he could predict the reaction. It was true he’d been living there for a year and hadn’t fixed the warped floorboard on the steep entry steps. Nor had he nailed down the loose shutters or repainted the mail slot. And that was just the exterior. The wallpaper inside was stringy and discolored from years of exposure to the sea air. The air-conditioning system was so erratic that the ground floor could be tropical while the upstairs arctic and then, lo and behold, the next day it would be the opposite.
Noah nodded.
“I heard he got a nice condo in Boca.” Mrs. Harrison sighed. “I hope the new people moving into your family’s place won’t be…you know.”
The LBI community was a tight-knit, trusting one, but a tad judgmental. For decades, families left their doors unlocked and literally borrowed sugar from each other, along with beach umbrellas, wagons and even substantial sums of money that were never in doubt of repayment. During and after the pandemic, an influx of new families started buying up the properties, raising property values while also changing the character of the place. Wall Street types were moving in, and with them came BMWs and loud cell phone conversations as they walked along Long Beach Boulevard. For the first time, reservations were needed for the more upscale restaurants. You couldn’t go everywhere barefoot anymore. His mother hadn’t been a fan of the change, though in the last year of her life she wasn’t out enough to be bothered by the newcomers swarming the island with their New York license plates and expensive haircuts.
“I don’t know much about the buyers,” Noah said. He had deliberately avoided hearing about them. They would be casualties of The Plan.
The timer dinged and Noah was relieved to return to Mrs. Harrison’s phone. It took about fifteen minutes for him to set her up with a Gmail account to use the next time she got locked out of Hotmail and a password she wouldn’t forget. He suggested she use her birthday, but she provided her husband’s. “A lady never reveals her age,” she kidded, and her hand crept back onto his shoulder.
“Have a nice holiday weekend,” Noah said, his hand poised on the brass doorknob. “Let me know if you have any other issues.”
“You’re a doll,” she said, handing him a crisp hundred-dollar bill and planting a kiss on his cheek. “I’m going to miss you when your family moves out. You’re not having people over the Fourth, are you? I heard some chatter that you might.”
Noah shook his head. “Nah. We’re pretty swamped with the packing.”
Mrs. Harrison patted his arm. “I hope you’ll rent something nearby. It’d be a shame not to see that handsome punim of yours, and heaven knows I can’t manage my devices without you.”
“I’ll try,” Noah said.
With any luck, he wouldn’t be going very far at all.
* * *
—
On a gorgeous day with the Atlantic at low tide and the waves blissfully mellow, Noah would have far preferred to bike home from the Harrisons than pile into the family Volvo. He’d always preferred getting around on two wheels. The wind in his hair, tousled by the saltwater mist, his T-shirt flapping against his chest as he rolled down the narrow streets with the occasional leaf falling on him, nothing could be better. Noah hated how biking was associated with little kids, unless you were a serious cyclist, the kind wearing a skin-tight onesie and special shoes who biked in packs to show off their new BMCs. Those dudes were now descending upon LBI in droves. Noah would honestly have preferred the invasion of a motorcycle gang.
He was stuck driving the sedan because of an ache in his right knee from a fall he’d had a month earlier when some LBI newbie completely disregarded bike lane etiquette. The doctor had prescribed physical therapy, which helped, but the sessions were expensive and he’d had to stop. Freelance tech support meant his only health insurance was a don’t-get-hurt credo.
Happily, the driveway was empty when he returned home. Laura was in Manhattan for the day with their father, shepherding him through a medical pub crawl. Leo was in good health, but at seventy-three, routine appointments were necessary. On their last pilgrimage, Laura had described the experience like a relay race, the gastroenterologist handing the baton to the neurologist who handed it to the orthopedist who handed it to the podiatrist (bunions were a family curse). If his bum knee was any indication, Noah was terrified of his other body parts quitting as he got older.
Sophie was meeting Laura and Leo in the city and riding down with them. Matthew and Beth were also coming that route, but wouldn’t appear before dinnertime, not if they could squeeze out an extra billable hour. The family planned to use the outdoor grill one last time that evening. The next morning, JerzeyGurrrrrl123, the Craigslist buyer of the ancient Weber, would come collect it. The new homeowners expressed zero interest in keeping the free-standing barbeque, even after Leo had offered it gratis and assured them the grill had fed hundreds of satisfied bellies over the years. “We’re planning a full outdoor kitchen with a built-in Viking and a pizza oven,” the wife, a perky yogi who probably didn’t even eat meat, explained. It was that moment when Noah decided he didn’t need to know any more about these people.
A few other things in the house had already been sold on Craigslist or donated to the JCC. His father wasn’t interested in taking the remaining furniture to Florida, much of which had taken a beating from the corrosive salt air. “Movers are crooks,” he insisted with curious certainty. “I’m better off getting new stuff.” Their father had always been tight with a buck. Noah wondered if his desire to leave everything behind was actually because he preferred to begin his next chapter without furniture and knickknacks saturated with Sylvia’s memory. Noah could still hear his mom say, “Use a coaster!” when he brought a drink into the living room, and it filled him with sadness. What he wouldn’t do to be yelled at again.
Laura had it all figured out. “The ladies in Boca are already primping. Dad will have new furniture and a full fridge in no time.” His father, sought after? With the fringe of hairs jutting past his nostrils, thicker than what remained on his head? His sister was probably right. What did Noah understand about senior romances? Even less than about relationships between people his own age. Just ask his ex, Paola, or the voodoo doll she created from the things he left in her apartment after they split.
“Hiya, Noah,” called a familiar voice, and he turned to see Stanley Archer waving from his next-door porch, the enormous American and Giants flags hanging from the second story flapping above his head. If the new buyers were Eagles fans, it would put Stanley right into the grave. Stanley was fond of hiking argyle socks to his knees and clunking around in orthopedic sneakers, and today was no exception. It was the same uniform favored by Leo. “Everyone coming this weekend? Let me know if you need any help packing.”
Mr. Archer was one of the old-timers. Like his parents, he bought his house decades earlier for a fraction of what it was worth now. Considering Stanley was blind in one eye and occasionally used a walker tricked out with tennis balls for wheels, he was unlikely to be of much use packing, but Noah appreciated the offer.
“I think we’ll be alright. Come over later if you’re hungry. We’re grilling.”
“I just might,” the old man said, patting his belly. “Ruth is visiting the grandkids in Colorado for the week so I’m a bit low on rations.”
“We’ll have plenty,” Noah said. Mr. Archer saluted kindly and stepped back into his house, the sound of the swinging screen door banging against the frame hitting Noah hard with nostalgia. Their house had the same door. All the original houses on the block, the ones not yet torn down and resurrected as McMansions, had a similar wooden door with a brass knocker positioned behind a mesh screen meant to keep out the bugs. The summertime soundtrack of their neighborhood was a medley of waves crashing, chirping birds and front doors swinging open and shut.
Noah looked up at the house, trying to memorize the details of its architecture the way he once tried to commit the contours of Lizzy Markowitz’s body to memory. The Jacobson home wasn’t large by new-build standards—about 2,200 square feet on the interior, 2,600 if the porches were included (and included they ought to be—the front boasted a swinging sofa on one side and three Adirondack chairs on the other; the back porch was screened in and offered incredible sunset views and ocean breezes). Though it wasn’t grand, it had a presence, appearing two stories tall perched on the stilts that were essential to minimize flood damage. Technically, it was one-and-a-half livable floors since the top was an attic with a steeply sloped roof. The three dormer windows that stood out on that level were Noah’s favorite detail. The Cape Cod–style home was painted a light gray, like many of the cottages in the neighborhood, but unlike most, the trim and shutters were navy blue instead of white. While the house had been symmetrical for most of its time in the Jacobson family, about ten years ago his mother had insisted on a small addition for the grandchildren. At the time, there were three of them and the house was busting at the seams on a summer weekend, stuffed animals spilling out of closets and LEGO bricks hiding in shaggy rug piles. Noah remembered his mother nagging his father, “We have three now. Before you know it we’ll be up to eight grandchildren. Where will they sleep? On the beach?”
It was reasonable for Sylvia to assume that with four children of her own, her grandchildren would at least number a multiple, if not an exponent, of the base. It hadn’t happened and now she was gone, though the home expansion she successfully lobbied for (did Leo ever say no to Sylvia?) was put to good use by Laura’s girls. They claimed the space with a Crayola sign that read, “Private Property of Emma and Hannah Cohen” (spelled “privit proportee”).
