Chapter 33: What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Marilyn handed me her keys, and I started her car up. There was a throaty rumble from under the hood. I looked at her and grinned. “Oh, shit! Your old man got this thing with the big V-8, didn’t he?”

She shrugged. “I have no idea. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

I laughed at that. The standard engine in this car was either the Chrysler 225 Slant-6 or a 318 V-8, but they also offered some larger V-8s. Her father must have gotten his daughter one of the big ones, which would have been just like him. Of course, Marilyn didn’t grasp just how great this car was; she thought it was ‘cute’.

“Don’t sweat it.”

On the way out of town, I diverted past Towson High and Towson State, to show her where I had gone to school. Then I drove past my old apartment and pointed that out to her. That was a bit more sobering. “I find that so hard to believe. You’re telling me that when you were still in high school you moved out of your house into an apartment, and your parents went along with it?”

I pulled onto the Beltway and headed west. “My father helped me pick it out and helped me move my stuff in. I had to pay for it, of course, but he let me go.”

“You paid for it? How?”

Time to shade the truth a touch. “I had some money saved up, so I used that.”

“You had enough money to live two years on your own? What about now?” she pressed.

“Why do you think I’m in ROTC?” I said with a laugh. Another shading, but harmless.

“And your parents went along with this? Why?”

I looked over at her, and then back out the windshield. I was silent for a second. “Because I told my father that if he didn’t go along with it, I would leave, and he’d never see me in this life again.”

Marilyn was quiet for a moment. “It was because of your brother, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. “It was one of his more monumental fuckups. The cops got involved in that one. I had enough, and told Dad I was getting out, either with his help or not. He decided not to call my bluff.”

“So, you were actually just bluffing, then?”

I looked at her again. “No, I wasn’t.” I waited a second and then looked over at her. “My old man knew it, too. I told him flat out that unless he threw me in jail, I was history. I was gone the next week.”

“Wow!” Marilyn thought about it for a minute, and asked, “So what did Hamilton do that got the cops involved?”

So, I told her. Everything. Well, everything about my brother and my family. That was depressing enough.

It was a longer drive in those days. You took the Beltway around the city to Glen Burnie, and then drove down 301 to Annapolis, where you would cross the Bay Bridge and take 50 into Ocean City. It was a four-hour drive. Eventually the ride to Annapolis would become an interstate, and Route 50 would be upgraded to an interstate in everything but name, and you could shave an hour off the trip. It wasn’t as bad as it had been, though. The second Bay Bridge had just been finished last year, opening a major chokepoint up. I can remember times when you simply parked the car on the approaches and thousands of people would get out of their cars and play Frisbee in the median strip, while the entire single bridge was used one way. Then the traffic would be reversed and the people on the other side of the bridge would catch some sun.

It was a long and sobering conversation. No, I didn’t tell her about any of the girls I had dated or Jeana, and I left out Hamilton’s stunt with the rubbers. I did tell her how he used to break into my locker. She was astonished that I needed to keep my stuff locked away in my own home. The very concept was alien to her. She did ask me about the various fights I had been in, including the one where I got Tessa away from the lacrosse players.

“And now you know my entire sorry history,” I told her as we pulled into Ocean City. “Damn pathetic, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You could do a lot better than my sorry ass.” I looked over at her and shrugged. I never understood why Marilyn ever fell for me. God knows I wasn’t much of a catch the first time around. She once said she fell in love with me at that first party at Kegs, but I never understood that. I always figured I was batting way above my average when I met her.

She began crying. “That’s not true. You’re good and kind and brave and wonderful. Don’t ever say those sorts of things, not ever.”

I took her hand and kissed it. I felt like crying myself, but then I wouldn’t be able to drive.

I kept driving until I saw the sign for the Hilton. It was on North Baltimore Street, just north of the Boardwalk. I pulled in and parked under the overhang. We went inside to register. It was a Tuesday evening, so there wasn’t a line (Friday afternoon would be a different matter!)

“Can we help you, sir?” asked a pretty young lady in a skirt and suit jacket.

“My name is Buckman. I have a large suite reserved,” I replied.

This was all in the days before you could just punch a few buttons and it would pop up on a computer screen. In those days the clerks would sort through paper records, and it took a bit longer. Eventually she found the paperwork and pulled it out. “Yes, sir, you have a two-bedroom suite reserved until Saturday, August 24. Is that correct?”

“Quite.” I handed over my American Express card. I still had about $4,000 in cash from the Vegas road trip, and I had pulled another grand from the bank. There was always the possibility that they might make a stink about an 18-year-old with a credit card, so I made sure I could pay cash. Some places did, but I guess the Hilton was used to trust fund kids with daddy’s credit card.

“Two bedrooms, right?” asked Marilyn.

I grinned at her. “I didn’t forget.”

She gave me a relieved expression and I rolled my eyes theatrically. Then it was simply a matter of signing papers and getting the keys (actual keys, not electronic key cards). After that, a bellhop was summoned and we went out to the car. I couldn’t believe how much stuff Marilyn could bring! We loaded it on the bellhop’s cart, and I handed the keys to the valet and slipped him a few bucks. We followed the bellhop to the elevators and rode with him up to somewhere near the top of the place. He let us in and after he took our bags off the cart, I slipped him a fiver.

“Carl! This is beautiful! How much does this cost?” asked a wide-eyed Marilyn.

“For you, nothing!”

“Carl, I’m serious!”

“Well, I’ll take it out in trade,” I replied, waggling my eyebrows lewdly.

“Carl!”

“Don’t worry. It’s already covered.”

“How?”

“Okay, I’ll tell you, but you can’t tell your folks. Tell them I saved the money up, okay?”

Marilyn gave me a skeptical look. I knew she didn’t tell her folks everything, but she didn’t like it all that much either. “Don’t tell them what?”

“Well, you know we went on that cross-country road trip - I’ll show you the photos later, by the way...”

“Keep going,” she prodded.

I nodded. “Okay, so on the way back we went through Vegas. I got lucky.”

She gave me a shocked look and her jaw dropped. “You gambled!”

I just grinned. “I won! Someday I’ll tell you all about it, but trust me, it was legal.”

Marilyn simply rolled her eyes and shook her head in disbelief. “Unbelievable!”

I tossed my two bags in one of the bedrooms and lugged her twenty or thirty into her room. “Do yourself a favor. Unpack your bags and hang everything up in the closet or in the drawers. Don’t try to live out of your suitcases. Everything gets messed up and rumpled.” I gave her a quick kiss and applied my wisdom to myself in my own room. Five minutes later I stuck my head in her door. “I’m going to take a few minutes and grab a quick shower. You do the same, and dress pretty, and we’ll go down to dinner. Okay?”

“Good. I’m getting hungry,” she replied with a smile.

Fifteen minutes later I felt fresh and clean and was putting on clean khakis and a dress shirt. I slipped barefoot into my deck shoes and went back out into the common room between the two bedrooms. I heard Marilyn puttering around in her room, but she didn’t come out for another fifteen minutes. It was worth the wait. She had on a simple little pink and white sundress, with a tube top and tied spaghetti straps, and short enough that it was several inches above her knees, and a pair of medium heeled sandals. She didn’t even have a strapless bra on underneath it, and she jiggled wonderfully. I groaned happily when I saw her and cornered her against the wall. “I think I want to start taking that trade right now!”

“Forget about it!” she said with a giggle. She had on some lip gloss and a light flowery scent that went straight from my nose to my dick.

“Not when you look as good as you look!” I leaned forward and took her in my arms, and kissed her, with a lot of tongue and my hands roaming all over. It was a very thin dress, and she had on a pair of bikini panties and nothing else, and if she couldn’t feel my erection poking against her, she must have been dead! As it was, her nipples were pushing out against that tube top, so the feeling must have been mutual.

After a few minutes of this, she groaned and pushed me away. “Dinner!” She had a very wild-eyed and distracted look, and was breathing heavily, which did amazing things to that top, and she moved a little unsteadily.

I caught my own breath. I took her hand and grabbed the key. “Dinner.”

We held hands on the walk down the hallway and in the elevator. I kept glancing at Marilyn, and she caught me at it. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“What are you looking at?”

“You. You’re beautiful.”

She colored at that, and turned her head away, but I could see her reflection in the polished surface of the elevator door, and she was smiling.

As we were walking across the lobby towards one of the restaurants, I saw a man behind the registration counter start waving an arm and calling out, “Mister Buckman! Mister Buckman!”

I walked over to the counter. “Can I help you?”

“Mister Buckman, there have been a number of messages for you.” I glanced at Marilyn curiously, and she gave me a mystified look back. The phone in our room hadn’t rung. The clerk at the counter continued. “I think the problem was that these all came in before you registered. We took the messages down, but I stepped away from the desk when you came in, and, well, I do apologize.” He handed me a small sheaf of pink notes. I glanced through them.

“It’s all right. Nothing critical. Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome, sir. Enjoy your evening.”

I took Marilyn by the arm and led her towards the restaurant. Once we were seated, Marilyn asked, “So, what were the messages?”

I simply handed them to her. They were in time order. The first four were from my mother, starting at a time well before I could have ever possibly have arrived, all demanding insistently that I call her immediately. The fifth and final note was from my father, telling me to ignore my mother’s notes, not to call the house, and call him at his office tomorrow, along with his direct line phone number. I stuffed them in my pocket when she handed them back.

“What does it mean?” she asked.

I sighed. “It means my mother has gone off the deep end, but my father has managed to calm her down. It means I’m never going home again.” I shrugged with a fatalistic look. There are some things you can’t fix. My brother was one, and my relationship with my mother was another.

“How bad is it?”

I gave her another shrug. “Well, I suspect that is what Dad will tell me tomorrow. I can make a guess or two. For one thing, Hamilton is still alive and kicking, although just how good that is is a debatable question.” Marilyn gave me a dirty look at that. “When last he was seen on the floor of the kitchen, with the broken doors draped over him, my brother was moving and moaning, so he wasn’t dead. Likewise, since the state troopers haven’t broken down the door to our suite and hauled us in, nobody has called this into the cops. They’ve had more than enough time to have gotten some troopers on my ass by now.”

A waiter came by and took our drink orders. I went with a gin and tonic and Marilyn went with a whiskey sour. The main formal restaurant of the Hilton didn’t have silly drinks with umbrellas; they were probably reserved for the other restaurants. I waited until he had left us with our menus before continuing. “Seriously, though, before you ever showed up, I had a talk with Dad and warned him that if Hamilton got out of line, I’d never be coming back. I’ve been independent of them for almost three years now, and I’m legally an adult. There is very little they can do to me to make me do things their way, and Dad at least knows it.”

“I just don’t understand them. Do they think it’s your fault that your brother is a jerk?” she asked.

I had to think about that for a bit. “Actually, I think that is part of it, at least for my mother. We are not a Norman Rockwell type of family.”

“Oh?”

“Well, my parents are really good people, but they are really lousy parents. They play favorites, for one thing. My Dad’s favorite is Suzie. She’s actually the normal one around our house.”

“She’s such a sweetheart!” said Marilyn, smiling.

I grinned at her. “Yes, she really is. She would love to get to know you better, too. She needs an older sister type to help her along. She is getting to that age where she is asking questions a brother shouldn’t be answering.” Marilyn giggled at that. “Hamilton is my mother’s favorite, probably because he does what she tells him to do.”

“You’ve lost me there.”

I made a wry face as I tried to formulate an answer. “Think about your own family for a moment. Now, you’ve told me your oldest brother Matthew is just out of high school and he works for your father’s company, right?”

“Yes, he’s a truck driver.”

“And that’s the job your parents want him to do?”

It was Marilyn’s turn to shrug. “I guess so. He likes it, I know that.”

“What if he wanted to go to college or get a job somewhere else? Would they like that?” I asked.

“Uh, I guess so. I mean, they like that he works for them, like the other boys do, but if he wanted to go to college, they wouldn’t stop him. Why?”

“From the time I was born, my parents have had my future mapped out in perfect detail. Where I would go to school. What I would study. Where I would go to college. The girls I would date. The jobs I would have. Where I would live. I figured this all out back when I was about twelve or so and told them I wasn’t going to live their dream. Usually that resulted in a spanking, but by the time I hit thirteen I told them it had to stop. My father understood and agreed with me, but my mother fought it tooth and nail.”