Dzhon Makdonald - Honeymoon in the Off Season

It had been, they told each other on the airplane, such a wonderful wedding. They said it many times. Too many times. A very nice wedding indeed. Really beautiful. The reception too.

He was a young man named Tom, a young man with ordinary brown hair, with eyes pleasantly weather-wrinkled at the corners, with a kind of collapsible grace. There had been, of course, a bachelor brawl the night before. His head still throbbed faintly. But that was less important than the curious anxiety.

This was his honeymoon. He wanted desperately not to look like a groom. The prize he had won sat beside him. Sara, the prize. Special. People always looked twice, and the more discerning looked at her three times. Alive. A luminescence from within. A prize and a terrifying responsibility.

Anxiety made him alternate between a kind of heated giddiness and a heartfelt wish that his seat would open up beneath him and drop him into the Carolinas.

Wasnt it a lovely wedding, darling?

It sure was.

He felt that in some strange way he had lost her by marrying her. They had seen each other across a room at a large party and he had phoned her the next day. On their fifth date he confessed that the moment he saw her his own date had become a drab article indeed. And she told him that the same thing had happened to her with her date. A month later they had decided they would be married. It was less a decision than an inevitability.

Once it was decided, they had been together every possible moment. They had spoken a billion words to each other, in cars, on long walks, in restaurants. They felt closer than any two people since the beginning of time. For an interminable time the wedding seemed impossibly remote. Then it was a month away, a week away, a day away, an hour away, and then, incredibly, it finally happened and they were married. Now they seemed to have nothing to say to each other.

He wanted to say to her, Look, we wanted to get married, didnt we? And now we are. So whats wrong? Why do you seem like a stranger?

Instead, they talked about how nice the Palmetto Grove would be. Such a honeymoon had been out of reach. His job was humble, though in time it would become very good indeed. Then had come the astonishing check from an uncle of hers long considered penurious. Be sensible and bank it, they told themselves. But they kept returning again and again to the brochure of the Palmetto Grove.

After all, how many first honeymoons do you get?

Friends were skeptical. Florida in September? Who goes to Florida in September?

Well, weve never been to Florida, either of us, and the rates are lower then, and this place is brand-new and air-conditioned, and it has three hundred feet of private Gulf beach, and just look at this picture of the swimming pool. Anyway, it isnt as hot there in September as people think. Theres always a breeze, it says here. And heres the floor plan of each apartment. Television and a restaurant and a bar-lounge and room service and... everything.

So they got off the airplane in the thick, misty glare of an early afternoon in Tampa. Somehow Tom managed to dribble some confetti after he thought it was all gone, and this made him so furious he was certain the car-rental arrangement would be fouled up. But the car was there waiting in the name of Mr. Thomas Browning, a fine, bold, yellow-and-white convertible. By the time the new luggage was loaded, his shirt was pasted to his back and there was a dew across Saras upper lip and along her hairline. They drove out of Tampa International, navigating by marked map toward Palmetto Grove. They felt more on their own, which made them act more gay and feel a great deal more nervous.

Ahead was two weeks at a glamour spot, with waiters in white serving tinkling drinks to tanned and sophisticated people around the huge, free-form pool. There would be cocktails and dancing in the muted richness of the bar-lounge, carefree hours on the sparkling white-sand beach.

The day was beautiful until they crossed the high span of the Sunshine Skyway and saw, far ahead and to their right, an exceptionally sullen-looking bank of thunderclouds.

They drove into the rain much sooner than Tom expected. When the first big drops struck he drove onto the shoulder and stopped, and pulled at the knob that raised the convertible top. It worked. The top puffed and creaked upward at a speed slightly better than the minute hand on a clock. By the time he could secure it, Sara was gasping, her bronze hair plastered flat. She told him it didnt matter. She told him it wasnt his fault. She told him so many times that he began to feel it was his fault; any fool would have stopped sooner and put the top up.

He felt his way south through a streaming and milky world, peering ahead through the misted windshield at the tail-lights of the cars that passed them. He got lost twice in the middle of Sarasota, finally found the Ringling bridges and the Longboat Key road. But he was certain that soaked as they were, amid the efficient service and glamour of the Palmetto Grove they would be restored.

They found the Palmetto Grove. The rain had stopped for a few moments. They drove in. They looked at it. They looked at each other.

Oh, no! said Sara. No!

They... they havent built it yet, Tom said in a strangled tone. The lobby part seemed to be nearly finished. There were piles of sand and lumber under wraps, roofing material, an abandoned and disconsolate bulldozer, and what seemed to be several acres of standing water ringed by mud. The architecture of the almost-finished portion was, indeed, extreme roof angle like the wing angle of a tilting seagull. He parked as close as he dared and they hurried through the first fat drops of new rainfall. The lobby was high-ceilinged and huge. Four metal washtubs were strategically placed, with water spanging into them. The one on the registration desk was nearly full. A round, balding man was talking into a telephone. His face hung in tired and desperate folds.

...dont care what you think, old buddy. This is a sieve, and a sieve is a thing with holes, and somehow it is raining harder in here than it is outside. He listened for a time, eyes closed, lips compressed. ...So better you should bring over water wheels. And tropical fish, old buddy. No. Everybodys gone home. Had I both sense and courage, I too would go home. He hung up. He looked at the Brownings with a crooked and hopeless smile. Dont tell me. All day Ive been buoyed up by the forlorn hope that you might not get here.

Are you the manager? My name is Browning, Tom said.

They keep telling me I am the manager. I am Mr. Meecham. I took your hundred bucks. I confirmed your reservation. Welcome to the Palmetto Grove. You are our very first guests. Welcome, indeed.

But we cant stay here, can we? Sara said.

Meecham came around the desk with something faintly maniacal in his smile. Aha! But you can. I insist. I was told to be open on the fifteenth of September. So I am open. Voil ! I do not have quite two hundred units as in the brochures. Nor one hundred. Nor even ten. But I do have one. One! For the Brownings, who have just arrived.

He took them to their unit. It was on the ground floor of a half-finished building close to the main building. To reach the door they walked a plank across a morass. Meecham opened the door with an extravagant flourish. The colors were bright and so fresh that Tom wondered if it was safe to strike a match.

The lights work, Meecham said, demonstrating. The beds are made. Water runs out of the faucets. See? The refrigerator is busily making ice. The stove is hooked up.

Tom said, Really, Mr. Meecham, I think it would be better all around if we

Every day at three oclock my wife loses her mind. Today, before that sorry event occurred, she indulged herself in a gesture. He opened the refrigerator door. They saw milk, eggs, bacon, orange juice. He opened a cupboard to display coffee, sugar, salt and pepper. He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of champagne with a red ribbon tied around it.