on exactly what color and style dresses she wanted for the maid of honor and six bridesmaids. She wanted to get married in December. Her birthday was in December, the 10th, and of course Christmas was in December. It had always been her special month, and us getting married in December would make it all that more special for her. I agreed with everything Nancy wanted. Her happiness was my only concern.
Naturally, we couldn’t get married in the coming December. It was too soon in coming to make plans, plus, we didn’t have a whole lot of money saved. But December of the following year would be okay. We didn’t have a calender with us, but we figured on getting married in December of 1973, sometime between her birthday and Christmas.
“There’s only one thing left to do,” Nancy said.
“What’s that?”
“The proposal.”
“What proposal?”
“You have to ask me to marry you.”
“I do? Why?”
“Because it’s tradition, Mackenzie. The man always asks the girl to marry him.”
“Is that in the Marriage Book of Rules?”
“Don’t get wise. I’m serious. You have to propose.”
“Oh, okay. Now?”
“I don’t care when you do it. Although, I think you could pick a more romantic spot than sitting here on the side of the road next to a broken down car.”
“Okay. How about next week?”
“Jeez, Mackenzie, you could use a lesson in spontaneity. I’m not asking for a candle lit dinner in some fancy restaurant with a trio of violinists. Just…just surprise me, that’s all.”
I conjured up a plan. Next Monday would be Labor Day; a holiday for both of us. We could go back to the shore on Sunday. We’ll stay at a motel. We’ll go to dinner, someplace quiet and romantic. She’ll expect me to propose there, but instead I’ll keep making jokes like, ‘Nancy, will you…pass the salt?’ or, ‘Nancy, I have something important to ask you. Can you lend me ten bucks?’ Yeah, that’ll be funny. Then after dinner we’ll go to one of the piers that jut out into Barnegat Bay, and as the sun sets I’ll tell Nancy how much I love her and ask her to marry me. Then we’ll go back to the motel and have sex all night. Then on Monday morning we’ll have breakfast, then more sex, then go to the beach. What a great plan!
We were hot and hungry by the time the tow truck dropped us off at the service area. And it was long past dark by the time Bill and Susan picked us up and drove us home. Along the way we all discussed going to the shore for Labor Day weekend. As much as I would enjoy the company of Bill and Susan on the beach, I feared their presence would put a crimp in my plans. But I suppose something could be worked out.
On Tuesday morning Nancy drove me to a used car lot in Springfield. I really wanted to wait a few months before buying another car, but there was no getting around it. I could’ve borrowed my dad’s car for maybe a week, but I decided against asking him when I saw him sitting in his chair looking over a paint chart. The twenty five dollars I got for junking the ‘61 Chevy barely covered the towing charges, so I had nothing to use as a down payment except money from my savings.
There were at least a hundred cars on this car lot, most of which were out of my price range. Nancy was very excited that I had asked her to help pick out a car. I had no preference as to the make of car I wanted, I just knew I didn’t want anything too flashy.
We walked hand in hand under the flapping plastic pennants, low down payment signs, and guaranteed state inspection banners. Some cars were easily passed up as being either too costly, too big, too small, or too ugly.
“How about this one?” Nancy said. “It says 426 Hemi. What’s that mean?”
“It means it uses too much gas.” I said.
“Ooh, look at this one, Mackenzie. Shelby Mustang convertible. And look! It only has two thousand miles on it.”
“I’m not a convertible kind of guy.”
A salesman soon came out of the office in the middle of the lot and approached us.
“Can I help you folks?”
Nancy squeezed my arm in delight when the salesman called us “folks”.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “Do you have any cars? I mean…we’re looking for a car. A nice car. Not a big car. Well, kinda big, but not too big, and not small, well, not too small. A nice color car, not black, or red, well, red could be okay, but not yellow, and not green, well, not dark green anyway, yellow might be okay too. And bucket seats. No wait, no bucket seats! And not too much money. But not a cheap car either. Know what I mean? And a radio would be nice. And maybe an eight track player? How much is that car over there?”
The salesman looked at the blue Maverick I was pointing at, then he turned to me sporting a big grin. I suddenly had the feeling I had “sucker” written all over my face.
So I bought the 1970 Maverick. It was an okay car; nothing fancy. In fact, it was about as far from fancy as an outhouse is to a marble commode. But hell, all I needed was transportation back and forth to work, and a reliable ride for our Sunday outings.
The next morning I called several motels in Seaside Heights to make reservations for the coming Sunday. Every place I called was booked for the entire weekend. No one was renting rooms for Sunday night only. But finally I did manage to procure one room in a motel two blocks from the ocean. It meant sharing a room with Bill and Susan, which meant we would have to screw in shifts.
When I arrived at work that afternoon the work schedule for the following week had already been posted. The schedule was posted every Wednesday, and only the Subs had to read it. The regulars always worked the same never-changing schedule. To my amazement, all the Subs had been scheduled to work on Labor Day! That can’t be, I thought. That will ruin all my plans and I told Mr. Dell he had to change the schedule because I really needed that day off.
“Can’t,” said Mr. Dell. “I need you to work.”
“But I have plans. Important plans.”
“Look, Mac, you didn’t work the Fourth of July or Memorial Day because you didn’t know the scheme. But now that you know the scheme I need you to work the holiday.”
“Come on, don’t be a prick. I haven’t missed a day of work or been late since I started here. I deserve to have Monday off.”
Mr. Dell removed his glasses, a sure sign he was serious about what he was going to say.
“I may be a prick, Mac, but I’m a fair prick. Everybody gets treated the same around here. If you don’t like the way I run things you can quit. No one’s stopping you, and there are plenty of people who would be more than happy to take your job.”
Mr. Dell was a couple of inches shorter than me, and I tried to intimidate him by standing close to him on the balls of my feet. But it didn’t work. He walked away from me before I could give him the universally recognizable fists on the hips stance. Lucky for him he didn’t say another word to me because I was getting ready to blacken his eyes.
When
