I’d spotted Hugh and Helene on weekends this summer. It seemed as if every time I ran a Saturday errand, I had to cross the street to avoid bumping into them. When the summer ended, I was relieved they’d finally be gone. I never expected Helene Westing Walker (luckily, I hadn’t taken Hugh’s name when we married—there was less chance people in town would connect us now) to show up in my Pilates class on a Monday morning in November.
The class meets three times a week in an unusual location: the old bowling alley outside of town. Kelly and her husband brought the failing alley back to life after finding it for sale on Bizquest. A tragic event gave them the means: Kelly’s parents died in their sleep from a carbon monoxide leak in their boiler, and she came into an inheritance. Originally from Catskill, they changed the alley’s name to “Van Winkle Lanes” for the fabled Rip Van Winkle, who heard thunder in the Catskill Mountains and discovered ghosts up there bowling ninepins. Kelly dubbed the alley’s cocktail lounge The Thunder Bar. Her husband bartends there.
“The Van Winkle name says bowling is awesome, bowling is timeless. The name Pequod Lanes didn’t say a thing about bowling,” Kelly explained for a story I did on the reopening. “Business is up seventeen percent since we changed the sign.”
Until bowling hours begin, our Pilates group has the place to ourselves. Depending on moods and weather, between five and ten of us set our mats down in the shiny, oiled lanes. If you know your bowling, then you know the oil is what helps the bowling balls flow smoothly. What puts that sexy “slide and glide” on them. And if you don’t know your bowling, I understand completely. I only have this information because my father, Nathan Glasser, did a lot of business in bowling alleys and bars when I was a kid, and he often brought me along.
I miss my dad. He died sixteen years ago, not long before I met Hugh. He was a complicated man with a big heart, and I was his “pearl of a girl.” In some curious way, spending mornings in the bowling alley makes me feel connected to him again.
“Nor, snap out of it,” Grace called out her car window.
I was still glued to the spot by the open trunk of my blue Toyota, having dropped my mat inside, anxiously watching the exit door of Van Winkle Lanes. I was thinking I should stay and say something when Helene came out, like, “How dare you! Go find your own damn class!” But really, I just wanted to cry.
“Why did Helene have to come here? Why?” I groaned.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“Maybe she won’t come back,” I said.
Grace frowned. “I heard her ask about Kelly’s thirty-class card. I think she’s buying it right now.”
“Oh.” I staggered for a second, grasping the trunk lid.
“Nora?”
“I’m a little thrown, that’s all,” I said, recovering. “I’ll be absolutely fine.”
“Just tell me you’re not thinking of quitting.”
“No way.”
“Good. I can’t come on Wednesday, but I’ll try for Friday’s class. This week is insane. Both kids have dental appointments and I’m interviewing the mayor about the new tax increases, so I have serious prep. Plus, I promised my mother-in-law I’d help her learn how to auction off her LPs on eBay. That could take days. Love you. Stay strong.”
“Love you.”
Grace drove her Prius out of the lot. I slammed the trunk and plunked down behind my steering wheel. I was dreading Wednesday morning’s class already.
The encounter with Helene left me agitated. I decided to drive directly to the Courier office rather than return home to change clothes. The oversize black sweater I’d worn to class would cover enough of my Pilates pants. I tried to think about the column I needed to write that morning, but I was too upset.
As soon as I reached the wharf, the sight of it began to calm me down. The cheery, green-and-white-striped snack stands dotting the long wooden pier. The wrought iron benches lining its edge like front row seats for the theater of the sea. Beyond them, light danced on the water under a bright fall sky. The air smelled of salt and burning leaves. I breathed in the scent, felt my tension release and turned left at the hand-painted PEQUOD EST. 1827 sign.
The name Pequod derives from the Pequot, the Algonquin tribe that thrived hunting whales off the coast here before the white settlers moved in. It’s also the name of the whaling vessel in that epic tome Moby Dick, which I’d decided to reread during my “anger therapy.” I’d tackled it in high school and remembered the story of one-legged Captain Ahab. He set out on the Pequod to kill the great white whale that cost him his limb, but he wound up going down with his ship. Given my fantasies about Hugh and Helene, I thought it might be wise to revisit a tale about the perils of seeking revenge.
I turned left again onto Pequod Avenue, the town’s main thoroughfare, and drove between the rows of historic brick and clapboard buildings. The town’s bones aren’t all that different than they were in 1827. Stately sycamore trees line both sides of the street. The immense wooden doors of the library, painted a glossy cherry red, welcome readers into the landmark building. Pequod is a picture postcard. On the surface, a gem. But when I started work at the paper, the publisher and editor in chief, Ben Wickstein, warned me not to be fooled.
“It’s a nasty little town,” Ben cautioned. “Think Salem in the year of The Crucible. There are still wooden stocks behind the salt factory. And some people around here would like to see them get used. They’ll call the health department if they see you bring a puppy into a coffee shop. They love their rules.”
Grace encouraged me to try for a job at the Courier when I first mentioned wishing I could move to Pequod.
“I know the editor. I’ll talk you up,” Grace had offered. “He needs someone with your skills.”
“You think? I’ve been out of the game for so long. And my last reference is Hugh.”
Once we moved in together, Hugh had asked me to run his studio. “For a salary, of course.” I was barely earning a living at a free downtown paper called New York Spy, covering everything from hip-hop clubs and pop-up galleries to rent strikes. I saw Hugh’s offer as a win-win-win: a way to help him, earn decent money, and still have time to write. The studio job was demanding, but I managed to keep publishing. I even sold a feature to The New York Times on the Guerilla Girls, an anonymous group of feminists I admired. They donned ape masks and protested in front of museums on the dearth of women artists shown inside. They passed leaflets with slogans like DO YOU HAVE TO BE NAKED TO GET INTO THE MET?
But the fact was, I hadn’t practiced the feminism they preached; I’d let my career take a back seat to Hugh’s. Grace’s proposal meant a chance to reclaim my identity as a writer.