Ch.2: Sunny Isles

Cassie’s father’s girlfriend, Maggie, was an energetic woman who was clearly younger than her father by a substantial fraction of his age, but not so young as to raise eyebrows (except those of Cassie’s mother). She was still old enough to be Cassie’s mother, although she was scarcely out of high school at the time of Cassie’s birth.

Maggie had bonded with the 1980s in a way that few others could understand or appreciate. It was the aerobicizer in her. The 80s were the time when aerobic exercise really took off. Jane Fonda led the stampede, but even in dance and film, people bounced and flounced in a way that touched Maggie’s heart. She devoured “Flashdance,” “Footloose,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Fame,” and everything Cyndi Lauper. Then there were Whoopi Goldberg’s colorful sneakers in “Jumping Jack Flash,” a fashion inspiration that stuck with Maggie for life.

Still, Maggie had adjusted to changing times, to the extent that she was no more an embarrassment to a teenager than any other adult. She was merely a bubbly, bouncy woman who did a lot of aerobics, wore colorful (but nevertheless fashionable) clothing, and was known to suddenly and alarmingly scream, “Oo, she-bop!” in the middle of vacuuming.

As a school nurse, Maggie had her summers to herself. When Brad told her about the Miami getaway, she delightedly cancelled her July aerobics enrollment, visited a tanning salon a few times, and pronounced herself ready for South Beach.

The condo, much to her dismay, was a few miles away from South Beach, far away on the north end of Miami Beach, practically outside Miami altogether: Sunny Isles Beach. Brad’s company wanted to furnish its executives with plenty of quiet in which to accomplish great and profitable things while inspired by a sedate beach populated by well-to-do, respectable pillars of society—or, as Maggie preferred to think of them, old people. With much dramatic flinging of arms, she hastily assured Cassie, who honestly didn’t know the difference between one beach and another, that she absolutely promised, cross her heart and hope to die, that they would spend a lot of time seeing and being seen at cooler beaches than Sunny Isles.

For her part, Cassie only wished her brother Paul were coming. He had been invited, but he’d declined. He had a summer research assistantship in Princeton, and a two-bedroom apartment that he shared with three friends. It definitely beat sharing a room with his little sister on one of the most unhip beaches in Miami, although he took care not to explain it to his family that way.

As the month of June drew to a close in Bala Cynwyd, one would assume that Cassie’s mother’s anxiety and jealousness would peak. Cassie would be subjected to hysterical outbursts and sarcastic remarks beginning with “That woman...” There would be tirades about crime in Miami, with admonishments not to get out of the car in a fender-bender until the arrival of police, lest your purse be stolen and you be run over and killed thereafter. There would be attempts to buy Cassie’s loyalty with money and credit cards. Her mother would give her a long talk about being careful with boys she met on the beach, and she would embarrass Cassie with calls to her father to extract promises of faithfully watching everything Cassie did in Miami.

But Cassie’s mother did none of those things. Instead, she waited until the morning of the departure for Florida, and then advised, “Cassie, I know your father always takes good care of you, and Maggie... is Maggie... and she loves you very much in her fashion. Here’s fifty dollars. I know your dad will buy you what you need, but try not to get carried away. Love you, dear.” She kissed Cassie on the forehead and helped her carry her bags outside, then waited with her until Brad and Maggie showed up. They tossed Cassie’s bags into the back of their Highlander and headed south without further ado.

Rather than talking on the cell phone with all of her friends and jamming to music on a headset, Cassie looked out the window, chatted with Brad and Maggie about what they saw on their journey, and only occasionally retreated into her headphones, generally only when Brad was listening to the stock reports. No one threw any tantrums at all. The three of them were about as unlike a TV family as possible, yet there they were, on their way to a vacation adventure in Florida! Shopping, sunbathing, and boys! Cassie could scarcely believe her good fortune.

The journey was uneventful, proceeding with no incidents more alarming than getting cut off on I-95; and after all, it would have been more surprising if they had not been cut off on I-95. Brad never got lost and refused to ask for directions, and they were never once accused of being discourteous SUV drivers who thought they owned the road.

After two days of driving, they arrived in Miami. Cassie had been catching sight of beaches for hours and could hardly contain herself any longer. She prepared herself to leap out of the car without warning as soon as it stopped in the parking lot. She would fly out the door, run full tilt to the beach, dig her toes into the sand, and stay rooted there until Brad had insisted several times that she return for her luggage.

They passed a number of moderate homes, then a bewilderingly tall, dark fantasia of circular turrets thrusting out of a green plot of land like some vigorous, stubborn, overgrown tropical plant. After that hotel there were condos: great gray, white, or even pink buildings dotted with palm trees. Some were new, some were rundown, and others were just skeletons waiting for demolition. Finally, to Cassie’s great disappointment, the Highlander turned and entered a parking garage. The beach would have to wait. Maggie and Cassie loaded up luggage carriers in the cool, closed garage, while Brad picked up their key. The three together took the elevator to the sixth floor and let themselves in.

There was a small corridor inside the door, and they all bumped into one another squeezing inside with the bags and racing to the balcony. Maggie reached the sliding door first, but Cassie managed to slip past and be the first one to see the ocean view. The sea was magnificent, surging in and out, glistening blue, green, and white, blending with the sky in the distance. The pale sand was its perfect accessory, dotted with colorful umbrellas and soporific people dressed in every getup imaginable. Not hearing a thing that Brad or Maggie said, Cassie closed her eyes and listened to the murmur of the sea and the cries of the gulls. She smelled the salt air and the sharp tang of the beach. Every sensory impression was intoxicating. No wonder people worked so hard to become Baywatch lifeguards.

Gradually she realized that someone was talking to her. “Cassie? Do you want to get in your new swimsuit and go down there? It’s a little too late to go anywhere, but with the water reflecting the sun, we might be able to get some sun, especially with accelerator.” Cassie sighed contentedly and helped Maggie get her tanning accelerator on evenly, and she changed into her blue bikini from Maggie’s favorite online retailer. Brad had long since shut himself in a bedroom with his laptop, so Cassie and Maggie ran for the stairs and scampered down to the beach.

Both of them were surprised at the unbearably hot sand, and they shrieked, hopped up and down, and made a dash for the water. There, Cassie chased waves in complete absorption, running out to sea and back in, grinning and giggling. Meanwhile, Maggie slowly and thoroughly took stock of the people on the beach. She stood with her arms folded and eyes narrowed, sternly surveying every umbrella, every towel, every cooler, and every last hairdo and outfit that went with them. At last she made her pronouncement, with the gravity she reserved for fashion: “It’s just as I thought. They’re old, and old fashioned. They don’t even care. Hasn’t anyone here heard of Jane Fonda? Now, that is a woman who knows how to take care of herself. Come on, Cassie, let’s walk.”

Maggie began power walking down the beach, with Cassie splashing through the water to keep up. When people passed going the opposite direction, Cassie would briefly observe them to try to see how they had let themselves go, but instead she always found herself listening in on their conversations. So many of them were in languages she couldn’t understand! She’d had a year of Spanish so far and was signed up for a second year, and sometimes she understood “blah blah si blah...” but other times it was probably not Spanish at all.

When Maggie turned around to go back, Cassie asked eagerly, “Can we go for a swim?”

“A swim? But you’ll ruin your hair!” She paused. “Well, I’ve seen a few people worth looking nice for, but certainly no one your age, and I’m already taken. Oh, what the hell.” She plunged into the ocean with Cassie hot on her heels. They splashed each other, shrieked, and jumped waves until the sun became red and low. At that point they suddenly noticed it was late, and they walked hurriedly back to their condo, just barely managing to locate it before darkness fell. Brad had take-out waiting for them inside, and they warmed it in the microwave.

Cassie was perfectly satisfied. In addition to her pleasure at the ocean, she had even overheard someone complimenting her bathing suit, more than enough for her modest needs. Her evening could scarcely be improved upon. She imagined that she might have seen her hero somewhere along that beach, but not yet known him. They would meet again under different circumstances, dance all night, and embark on numerous adventures in the morning. However, in point of fact, she had not so much as glimpsed a hero anywhere that evening, nor had one spotted her. Indeed, she saw no one at all who would ever play a role in her life.