DANIEL’S STORY

The electronic ambiance surpassed volumes that have seen only the likes of mid-eighties rock gods. It was a four-car garage bleeding teal cement blocks that I remembered from those unfinished basements where I once played hide and go seek in the dark with children wrapped in Catholicism like myself. Murals; painted by the sober and appreciated by the belligerent, surrounded these machines of fascination. The tile floor welcomed dropped coins and dust mites of all sizes. Looking back on that raspy arcade I guess it was all in all begging for a makeover. Yet the one thing I learned through my seven year run at the arcade was that all the games in the arcade accepted change but the owners sure as hell didn’t embrace it. You see, consistency was the key to this quaint establishment that sat a block from the ocean where I last saw her. The ocean that I was once so privileged to kiss her well-glossed lips, the ocean where I held her hand as she wore the most brilliant red dress I have ever seen at dusk, and the ocean where I left her…indeed the ocean where I left her. Yet, putting current star-crossed casualties aside; perhaps I should go back to the start. The summer of 2005 was when waves seemed to of crashed as fast as crushes would last. Time would prove that this was not a crush; no this would grow into something much more meaningful, something that I still struggle to define and accept.

I wanted to understand her. I think it’s important for you to know that. After all, wanting to understand someone is really the difference between attraction and fascination. Now, I would love to tell you that the first time I saw her that time stood still but the truth is that time actually sped up at first glance. A whirlwind of possibility knocked me away from her elegance like a pinball back and forth I bounced between two pinball machines ironically. The first thing I remember was hair. My god that hair! A never-ending cluster of chaos that was as bouncy as her satirical nature. The truth is that I couldn’t see her eyes from where I was pretending to work. So I pulled one of the B. Bills core values and did what any stoned arcade attendant would do and pretended to walk across the arcade to go and do something important. The reality of course was that I just wanted to see her face. So after walking southwest away from the skee-ball machines I finally made my first pass. I tried to look at her eyes without making eyes contact but   I got caught and it was an undeniable connection from there.

When my eyes felt hers my lids were forced shut by the sheer power of her preciousness. God she looked amazing, even though my eyes were closed for seventy percent of the time upon my first passing.  In short, most of the girls who were patrons of this fine establishment wore short shorts with short words on the backside which was usually showing due to the how short those short shorts truly were. Not her though, she was so damn beautiful and I was so damn out of my league but I couldn’t let her know that of course. I went to the “safe zone” and leaned up on a basketball game and watched her from afar. I still remember exactly what was running through my mind after my eyes felt hers:

Play it cool man. Stay calm, grab a broom or something! Well if I grabbed a broom then my bosses will know something was up but at least pretend to be busy man! Jesus. O-K, she’s with a kid, it can’t be her kid, can it be her kid? Can’t be her kid. She’s a kid. Now I feel like a kid right now because I am so damn excited but just keep this bored appearance. Oh yes Dan, you must keep this bored appearance or all is lost. Look at her, but don’t stare! There she is. Playing that stupid driving game. She looks genuine right? I mean really genuine. It’s so hard to find that quality in a girl these days. What does genuine mean actually? Maybe that’s a good opener. Maybe I should go over and ask her. After all she is genuine so she must know what it means. Wait Dan., you moron, you can’t go over to her out of the blue and ask her to define a word on the spot. She’s not Wikipedia! Plus she’s really into that game. Wonder how she kisses? She definitely has a boyfriend. How couldn’t she? Shit, she’s amazing. The way she playfully pretends to like that driving game for the benefit of that little annoying boy she is babysitting is so cute. Or maybe she actually really just likes that taxi driving game? Is that weird? No, forget that. It’s sincere, she’s playful. I cannot allow this opportunity to pass, I just cannot. This is probably the first and only time she will ever be here. I mean any self-respecting woman wouldn’t truly have ever or want to ever continue to hang out at this arcade in New Jersey right? Right?! I want to hold her. I want to talk to her. I want her to stop playing that game. I want to be with her. I want to see her everyday for the rest of my life. I want to burn her dinner. I want to show up six minutes late to pick her up for a date. I want to explore, to exist, to sing, to laugh, to cry, and to love her. I want…I just want to understand her.

PELLEGRINA’S STORY

I had seen him before at this place, a very long time ago.  It was the year 2000 and the dreaded Y2K hadn’t ended the world as the media was warning it would.  My mom and dad didn’t buy into that crap.  While people rushed around supermarkets stocking up on canned goods and toilet paper, my mom went about her everyday food shopping. I was 14-years-old, with braces, glasses, and all the other amenities that accompany puberty.  He was older than me, I knew it back then.  I figured he was in high school dating a beautiful girl – no – a beautiful woman that also went to high school.

He was tall, even back then.  His smile, the way his one lip raised higher on one side than it did on the other, his one dimple, and his voice.  I remembered it all and recognized it immediately when I locked eyes with him again, a half a decade later, at the same exact place I had first noticed him, scurrying off before he had a chance to notice me, not to say he would have ever noticed me if I had stayed put in that arcade the rest of the night, past my 10:00 curfew.

The first day I had seen him I was with my best friend Amanda. It was hot, it was one of those days where the breeze did not suffice against the blistering heat and you had to wear shoes even on the sand of the beach or you were at risk of your feet frying off.  It was one of those days where you can smell your epidermis burning.  It was definitely well over 100 degrees.  It didn’t scare us, Global Warming was just a whisper then, and not the piercing scream it is now.  Manda and I must have been in and out of the water 50 times before giving up on the beach entirely.  The local arcade was only a few blocks away, and it was air-conditioned.

Those few blocks were painful.  We walked along the ocean for as long as we could until we had to hike up the hot sand and onto the boardwalk.  The tide was washing in and out, erasing our footprints in the process.  Seagulls cawed overhead, looping down very low to the sunbathers, almost taking off an elderly woman’s straw hat in the process.  There had to be 20 birds swarming around this one woman and her toddler son who was being weighed down by a soaking wet diaper that he wore under his swim trunks.  The kid had thrown a handful of French fries into the cloudless sky, bating the gulls to come.  This was always one-way Manda and I saw the difference between a local and a Benny: bennies always wanted to feed the damn gulls.

The boardwalk was quick and painless; we were protected from the sun that had been beating on my shoulders the past 10 minutes because of the gazebo.  The gazebo, which was a town landmark and late night teenage hang out, was located at the entrance of the beach, a centimeter from the dunes that had been “adopted” by some affluent family in 1992.  It always casted a long shadow that time of day.  It was the 100-car parking lot we had to trek through to get to the arcade, which was located on the main highway in town that was the most treacherous.  All this for air conditioning, I had thought to myself as Manda and I very carefully made sure to keep our bare feet aligned on the painted white stripes of the black top that designated parking spots.  It was a local’s scientific fact that if one walked on the parking lines like a gymnast on a balance beam, one foot carefully over the other, that their feet would not be burned and blistered.

The arcade had video games, prizes, a unisex bathroom (one at a time), a food court, and a mini golf course.  What it didn’t have, even though at the time I felt I was losing my mind, was air conditioning!  The establishment resembled a renovated garage more than anything, but it welcomed swarms of kids, mostly sun burnt tourists that resembled the hue of tomatoes who wanted to dip their toes in the ocean for two weeks, but some locals frequented the place too, like the employees and Amanda and I.  The walls were lined with video games; nothing was really too current, the most current game back then was a game where you played a taxi driver.  I loved this game.  It was one of those simulated driving games that made you believe that you could actually operate a real-life vehicle.  The punk rock music blaring from the machine was not particularly my favorite choice of music, but it called to me.

Amanda never played video games when we got here, unless you counted how many teenage boys she would approach.  Amanda was always more confident and outspoken than I was.  I was her sidekick, not the other way around, and I was okay with that…most of the time.  Amanda had actually acquired her first kiss earlier that summer right under the circular wooden shingled roof of the gazebo; I still had not even come close to it.

Amanda had perfect white teeth and perfect dewy skin.  She had perfect cheekbones and was filling out her bikini beautifully.  Her perfectly straight hair fell right above her shoulders and she had freckles in all of the right places.  Puberty had done right by her, which is more than I can say about myself.  So, as always, Amanda chatted up the boys that seemed to always be there day in and day out, morning and night, and I walked around the rectangular arcade in search of an arcade attendant to give me four quarters for my dollar bill.

And that’s where I saw him for the first time.  Looking down at the multi-colored floor of the arcade and shoving my hands into my denim shorts trying to fish out a few dollars, I approached him.  As I looked up to ask for change, I felt my face turn red, as if someone had lit a fire under my chubby cheeks.  Breathe. He looked right through me, as most guys did that year, and with a quick flick of his wrist, a dollar worth of quarters unloaded from the change belt he wore around his slim waist.  I noticed his khaki shorts had a ketchup stain on them.

Other than that heat wave of a day that summer, I never saw him again, and my constant thoughts about him dwindled to just a dull light, much like the gradual change in the summer sun and the winter sun.  Now, five years later, I saw him again.  This time I was playing the now out-dated taxi game and saw him in the reflection of the screen.  He seemed to be pacing unsure behind me and Tripp, the 8 year old I had been babysitting even well before the first summer I saw him.

That’s him again, he came back.  I gripped the mock steering wheel tight with both hands, using all my mental energy to steer the car instead of glancing in the glass to see him walk by the game again.  I was playing the same game at the same place where I first saw him, but that was the only thing that was the same this time around.  My glasses had become contacts and my teeth were Colgate commercial straight and white.  My baby fat was gone, replaced by toned body parts and a gym membership.  My long brown curls were controlled and neat.  I had grown up; I had begun to receive attention from guys my age finally.  You have to go up to him.

I heard a little crash and saw Tripp peer behind him.  With a mouth full of M&M’s, Tripp quickly reported back to me, knowing I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen or risk losing my rank.  “The arcade guy just tripped into the pinball machines.”

“Mm hmm,” I answered, pretending that I could care less.

The game ended, fifth place, not too bad and I got out of the hard black seat.  My white flip-flops were beside the machine, and I slipped them on.  I always played this game barefoot.  Tripp took my place at the game and dropped four quarters in the slot.  I pulled my thick hair off my back and secured it with the hair tie I always wore on my wrist.  For July, it was a pretty brisk night, I remember I wore the sweatpants my father had just bought me that named my college down my left leg.

I suddenly regretted wearing sweat pants and a white tank that night.  Pells, it wouldn’t kill you to put some eyeliner on even when you go babysit.  You never know who you will run into.  My mother’s words echoed around in my head, bouncing around like the Funny Ball game that had just rewarded a little girl with a bright pink rubber ball.  My mom was right, I was always out with Tripp and his little sister be it the arcade or the boardwalk, I constantly ran into my friends or their friends, and always looked like I just rolled out of bed.  The only good thing about my ensemble was that the white tank highlighted my tan I had worked months on, slaving away on the private beach that Tripp’s family owned.  My tan lines were very evident, and I had heard that guys thought tan lines were sexy.

I stood directly behind the game’s chair, coaching Tripp as he played.  Nights like these, where most of my friends were out drinking illegally or just having fun, I was always babysitting Tripp and his sister Selena.  I had been watching them since I was 12.  Before I was allowed to stay home alone in my own house, Mr. and Mrs. Starzellina entrusted their two young children who were only 14 months apart, who were about 2 at the time, to me 5 days a week.  It had been a full time job that monopolized my summers since that year I was 12, and I never complained.  They paid too well, gave me perks at their beach and club (like free parking and admission, and promised when I was 21 I would get a drink discount too), and I loved their kids.  I knew that if I weren’t around, they would be holed up in their condo located above their club watching television.  I had realized that many kids my age didn’t have this sort of responsibility outside of taking out the trash.  I had a purpose.  I was making some kind of difference in two 8-year-olds lives.

While coaching Tripp and keeping an eye on Selena who was playing skee-ball a few feet away, I knew immediately someone was standing behind me, but didn’t turn around until I heard him speak.  “You’re pretty good at that game…”

OH MY GOD!! My heart began to race.  It was beating so hard I was positive that if I turned around, he would see it pounding outside of my body.  It was one of those moments where it seems as though God hit the mute button on the world and all you can hear is your own breathing and heartbeat.  I slowly turned around and gave him a quick smile, as if to say thanks.  If I had said anything to him, it would have came out like a mouse squeak and I would have died of embarrassment.

Though my voice seemed to be broken, my eyes worked just fine.  He looked great.  He looked older than he did five years ago, I guess the natural progression of time was to blame for that, but he was still beautiful.  His eyes seemed bluer, definitely bluer than my own, his smile seemed to melt me into a puddle, and his voice was deeper.  Perfection.  His hair was short, but messy, and I wanted to run my fingers through it.  Get a grip!!

“Babysitting?” he pushed further as he walked to my right, so I had no choice but to face him straight on.  All I could do was nod.  He smiled; he must have known that my sudden inability to speak was all because of him.  “You live here? Or just on vacation?”

One sentence and three questions and you can’t even answer him!? I unnoticeably shook my head, attempting to bring myself back to reality.  I unconsciously put stray hairs behind my ears and answered, more confidently than I thought I could.  “Both actually. I love it down here, and go to school down here, and I am on summer break.  All of the above.”

“I live down here too.  But I go to school up in P.A….I’m on the five year plan as of end of August.”

I quickly did the math in my head…he was 22 years old.  He’s just making small talk with you, there’s no way he’d be interested in you, he’s a grown man for God’s sake.

“I couldn’t imagine not living down here…even if it was for school,” I said, my eyes darting between his amazing face to Tripp who was grunting with frustration.  He wasn’t too good at the game.

Mystery boy smiled at my comment, whilst at the same time probably pigeon holing me as a “beach girl”…which didn’t aggravate me too much.  He agreed with me, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.  I noticed he stood with his feet spread well apart, and his arms crossed over his chest, as if to hide the fact he was so damn tall.  “You’re right.  I love surfing.  But as luck would have it, I love winter sports too.  My school isn’t too far from the Pocono’s, a ton of sn–.”

“I hate snow.”  I blurted it out before he even finished his sentence.  Dammit, Pells!  Agree with the pretty boy.  He laughed, and it seemed sincere.  “Good to know.  I’m Daniel by the way.  You are….?”

“Pellegrina.”

He cocked one eyebrow.

“It’s a family name,” I explained, as if it was a disease.

“Gotcha…it’s pretty.  And this young man is…”

“Tripp,” I said as I ruffled his hair with my fingers.  I pointed to his sister, cute as a button with mousy blonde hair.  She was now standing on the skee-ball game and placing the balls in the score hole she wanted to get.  So much for chance.  “And that’s Selena.   Their family owns Tide Beach and Night Club a few blocks away.”

“I know where it is,” he breathed.  “My friends and I drink there some nights.”

Of course he knows where it is, he’s of age…he could drink…unlike me.

There were a few moments of silence, as we both watched Tripp crash his taxi into a crowd of pedestrians.  He had 65 seconds left.  I had 65 more seconds to talk to him.  He was the first one to initiate conversation again, and I must have looked relieved.  “So,” he said with a cross of his bronzed arms, “why do you hate snow?”

“Never liked it.  Too cold and snow days are overrated because most of the time you just end up holed up in your house.”

“What do you like? Aside from this game, those kids, and the summer.”

As he delegated what I couldn’t say I liked, he pointed.

40 seconds.  I looked up for a moment and thought this out.  Whatever I was going to say had to be mind altering; it had to shake the very foundation that we stood on.  30 seconds…

“Peach Snapple.”

I saw him bite the inside of his lip; I assumed he was holding in a snicker. “Peach Snapple?”

“Yeah,” I replied as I simultaneously wondered if there was a way I could will myself to disappear.

Just then, Tripp got up from the game and tugged on my wrist.  “The game’s over.”  Yeah, Tripp, I would say the game was most definitely over.

Tripp started pulling me towards the air hockey table; I owed him a rematch from the night before.  I took one more look at the beautiful boy and said, “Well, it was very nice to meet you.”

As always, there was a wait to get onto the air hockey table.  Even worse, a father was playing against his four-year-old son.  The game was going to time out before 7 goals were even made.  Tripp waited with the quarters in his hands, letting everyone know we had next game.  Then that feeling rushed over me again. It was a warm feeling, and I held my breath.

“So, Ms. Peach Snapple, come here often?”

His smile was bright, and if it was even possible, he had definitely become better looking in the two minutes it took to walk to the back of the arcade.  Again I had to remind myself to breathe.  “Every night. It’s part of my job description.  I’m friends with Drake and PJ so it’s cool.”

I assumed he knew Drake and PJ, at least on a professional level.  Drake and PJ were brothers; their father owned this arcade and a shore house a few blocks away where they lived in the summer months.  Frequenting this place as often as I did, I began to become friendly with them, they too were a couple years my senior.

With that statement, his eyes brightened and his body relaxed a little bit.  He removed his hands from the pockets of his khaki shorts.  “You know them guys? I’ve been friends with them for years.  They’re great.”

With that simple statement, I had finally achieved what I had been attempting to all night.  I had reached common ground.  We had something or in this case somebody, in common that we could talk about.