J
UST MY LUCK. The day I finagle a date with Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Marisa Miller there’s a Quicksand Warning in effect at the Jersey Shore. I’d gladly take her to a fancy Italian restaurant but she says she really only feels confident (i.e. not fat) at the beach. She insists we meet either early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the sunlight is at its best. I’m not half the man I think I am if I can’t overcome one little obstacle, but just in case, I enlist my buddy Bones to help.
Including me and Bones, there’s eight of us — eight guys sharing a rented place. For nine consecutive summers we’ve patrolled the boardwalk looking for our future wives. Each Labor Day we leave empty-handed, and have to wait another eight months before we can start the search all over again. No way was I gonna cancel on Marisa Miller.
For nine consecutive summers we’ve patrolled the boardwalk looking for our future wives.
I position Bones on the Ferris wheel with binoculars. It’s early in the morning and the ride isn’t open yet so it shouldn’t be too hard for him to balance in the stationary car. He can see the whole beach so I figure he can spot quicksand vortexes that develop and direct me away from them. Marisa will never have to know.
The place we rent every year is above the pro shop of a Putt-Putt golf course called
Crazy Golf. True to its name, its holes are a mishmash. There’s everything from pirates and buried treasure to creepy page boy statutes and windmills from Holland. We applaud the creativity, although Bones’ idea to steal a mini-windmill and place it in front of our toilet was voted down by the other guys in the house.
I guess the Putt-Putt people had a lot left over because instead of carpeting our apartment has putting green turf running throughout the rooms. The turf also covers the stairs that lead right into our living room; sometimes, if one of us forgets to close the front door, a romantic foursome will mistake our living quarters for a challenging hole and try to play through the bedroom. We usually let them and think that’s the kind of thing we’re gonna do with our cool future wives.
Marisa smiles as we exit the boardwalk and stroll towards the ocean. I’m a few steps behind. I shield her from the strong sun with a silver dashboard visor I stole from some guy’s car. She says that my thoughtfulness makes her feel secure.
Bones does an excellent job of warning me of two small pockets of quicksand. Walkie-talkies would be too obvious so he uses a pirate flag from the Putt-Putt course to steer me in the right direction. Everything’s going according to plan.
My heart sinks as I see Marisa take a pair of small binoculars out of her bikini top and zero in on the Ferris wheel.
I expect her to get angry and say
you know that creep? but it’s actually she who is apologetic.
I’m sorry, she says. But I just met you last night and for all I know you could be a serial killer so I asked my little sister to keep an eye on us. That’s her up by the Ferris wheel.
I take the binoculars and sure enough, there’s a shorter Marisa Miller waving the Dutch flag about thirty feet below where Bones is sitting.
My sister’s my Wing-girl, she says. Hey look! She’s met a guy. And he’s a pirate of some sort. That’s good because she loves Johnny Depp. I don’t know what it is but she can never seem to meet the right guy.
Marisa and her sister jog towards each other to celebrate their good fortune. As soon as they embrace, the Miller sisters disappear into a giant sucking circle which deflates and then re-inflates, leaving the sand to look just like it had before. It’s as if the Miller sisters were never even there.
Bones and I still go to the Jersey Shore every summer but we no longer look for our future wives. When the pretty girls pass us on the beach, we ignore their straw cowboy hats and Pilates’d bodies. We see only the shadows that claw at the heels of their sinking feet.
