Out of the Frying Pan - Part 8
Ridin' on the Freeway of Love with Haylene and Marla. Hop in for a 7-minute trip!
You can find all of Haylene and Marla’s road trips HERE . You can read them in any order or begin at Part 1.
“I am so low this morning, I feel like I could crawl under a snake’s belly with my hat on,” Haylene grumbled.
“Me too,“ sighed Marla. “This town in winter is about as exciting as a fried cow pie. Layoffs! Man, I hate not having work — I just gotta be doing something useful, Haylene. “
The sky over Vero Beach, on this February morning was a dreary dish-water gray, the droop of clouds was underscored with a line of listless pelicans. Three small sail boats were bobbing lazily at anchor just beyond the surf, and an old guy with his cuffs rolled up was walking up the beach, swinging a metal detector back and forth, lethargically searching for his own personal El Dorado.
“All this town lacks of being dead is getting the news out,” said Haylene. “We need to get out of here.” She was sitting on the patio with a Mimosa in her hand and her bare feet propped up on a chair to dry her freshly varnished toenails in the breeze. The color she’d chosen was Crimson Sizzle, to match the Capris she had on. Those pants were so tight they looked like they were made for an eight-year-old. She had her long platinum hair piled on top of her head with a purple scarf wound around it. At the moment, her eyes were on Carlos, the man skimming leaves out of her swimming pool. He was usually a source of Cuban titillation, but she found him decidedly less inspiring when he had all his clothes on.
Marla was sprawled out on the padded chaise, laboring over the daily Wordle. It took her five tries today. “Damn it to hell,” she said. She closed her laptop and stared for a few minutes out at the sea, deep in thought. “Can you believe it, Haylene? We been living together more’n two years now. Seems like it was just yesterday you found me hitch-hiking out of Tallahassee. I was a such a mess back then.”
“You were a girl in trouble, Marla — such a lost little thing. I just had to stop and pick you up — and you know, after five minutes I knew somehow we’d be good for each other. We’ve had a lot of fun, you and me, haven’t we?”
“We sure have!”
Marla was from Tennessee, and on the day she first met Haylene, she’d just made a hasty escape from the brutality of her step-father. Haylene, who was old enough to be Marla’s mother, was a recent widow, whose husband’s untimely death left her with so much money she could buy the entire state of Arkansas if she’d wanted to. But she was lonely, and as Providence would have it, the two of them had stuck together and become the best of friends.
“You got the do-nuts? Don’t be forgetting those do-nuts, now!”
“I won’t. I got ‘em right here, Haylene. Don’t worry.”
It was late Saturday morning, the women packed a couple of suitcases and left Vero Beach in Haylene’s classic yellow ’79 Camaro Sport Coupe. They were soon spinning like a hula hoop across the hips of Florida.
They took Route 70 west, and were driving only 20 MPH … above the recommended speed limit. They stopped for lunch in Lake Okeechobee at a funky little cafe that served mostly crawfish and beer. “Food’s pretty good,” Haylene said, “but that fool keeps playing the same song over and over on the jukebox. I don’t think they’ve updated that Wurlitzer since 1980. Who is that? The Ramones?”
“Can’t prove it by me,” said Marla. “That’s way before my time.”
“Let’s get back on the highway, girl. My head’s about to explode.”
The Ramones, I Wanna Be Sedated , 1978
A couple hours later, they were licking the jelly off their sticky fingers from the last of the do-nuts, when they flew across the Matanza Bridge and touched down in Ft Myers Beach — just in time for an early happy hour at the “Lah-De-Dah Bar”. Marla laughed. She knew that, generally speaking, lah-de-dah was Haylene’s favorite life context.
Even in the winter, Ft. Myers Beach was jumping with young, enthusiastic, hyper-hormonal tourists, and it looked like everyone’s favorite activity was drinking and chasing after each other like dogs off the leash.
Marla stood on the balcony of the Lah-De-Dah. sipping a tall gin and tonic, looking out over the crowded beach. Haylene wandered off, as she often did, sipping a frosty glass of fruit-enhanced alcohol through a straw. She quickly flirted her way into a provocative conversation with a well-dressed older man standing next to a potted palm. Marla noticed her touch his sleeve, lean in and giggle. She also noticed when the wife walked up. Haylene, without missing a beat, smiled sweetly and introduced herself big as you please. Then she said something like, “Have a nice day, you two sweethearts”, and casually sashayed back to Marla, leaving the husband to ad lib some justification for his behavior.
They checked into the old Lani Kai Resort hotel, which had a widely known and somewhat questionable reputation. From previous experience, Haylene knew there was a lot of action there, so naturally it was her first choice of lodging.
The next morning broke bright and sunny and full of promise. “Parasailing! That’s what I wanna do today,” Haylene shouted to Marla, who was in the shower lathering Herbal Essence into her long blonde hair. “Let’s you and me take to the sky!” she yelled. “What do you say, sweetheart?”
“Sure! I’ll come,” Marla shouted back. “But I’ll just watch. I’m not going up!”
“Why? You got some kind of hydrophobia?”
“It’s acrophobia, Haylene. Hydrophobia is what mad dogs get.”
“Whatever.”
“And, yes, as a matter of fact I am scared of heights.”
“Sometimes you are just so chicken-hearted, my friend. We’re gonna have to remedy that one a these days.”
They walked west up the beach toward the Municipal Fishing Pier and found the Paradise Parasail launch. A few people already were waiting their turn to go on a high-fly adventure. After watching for a while, Haylene was having second thoughts about going alone and began looking for someone who might be willing to go tandem. As fate would have it, she spotted a man standing by himself who seemed to be waiting to embark. He was slender and good-looking, a little older than she was. He had a messy high pompadour haircut and a stylish stubble on his cheeks. She just walked over to him, casually, and said, “Hi! My name’s Haylene. Y’all are not going on this parachute thing alone, are you? I never been on one of these things in my life, and I don’t mind saying I am a little scared of it. You wouldn’t want to take me along with you, would you? In one of those two-seaters?”
He looked her over slowly from her red toenail polish up to her platinum hair and must have considered the proposition to be viable. He introduced himself as Ricky, and took her arm. Haylene looked back at Marla, gave her shoulders a little shimmy and winked. Ricky, no doubt, began to generate more than few kilowatts himself.
Marla sat back against an upturned skiff and studied her best friend. Haylene had been a beauty and a shameless flirt since she was 15, and at the age of 43, she still had it all going on. About ten minutes later, she and Ricky soared into the ethers hand in hand and were gliding 500’ above the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, pulled along by a roaring speed boat. Feet dangling in the air, Haylene was squealing and holding on tight to Ricky. He probably felt like he’d won the daily jackpot.
“Why don’t you come along Marla?” Haylene was brushing out her hair and gluing on eyelashes. “Ricky and me are just going for dinner and maybe a bit of dancing. Please come - it’ll be fun! There will be a lot of young single guys around to dance with.”
“Aw, I don’t think so, Haylene. I don’t wanna cramp your style. I’m gonna take a walk into town, nose around in the shops for some new sandals, and then maybe go up to the roof top bar here to listen to some Reggae. Might just turn in early. I’m thinking of going out tomorrow morning to see if I can’t get into a volleyball game on the beach.”
Haylene, not surprisingly, did not make it back to the Lani Kai that night. She strolled into the lobby barefoot about ten in the morning, her red strappy heels dangling from her fingers. She was humming Besame Mucho , a little out of tune. Since Marla had already gone out, Haylene just flopped onto the bed for a little siesta.
Marla sat on the beach in her white short shorts, a skimpy pink tank top that she’d cut out of an old T-shirt, and a visor with bright red cherries printed on it. She’d waited about half an hour to get in on a game of women’s volleyball. Finally a space opened up and she was invited to join them. She hadn’t played volleyball since high school, but she knew what she was doing. She didn’t fool around, either; she played to win.
The team prepared for the set and spike. There was a low dive into the sand for the dig and a girl named Tiffanie set the ball perfectly for Marla, who leapt two feet into the air and spiked that ball - cross court - so hard, her opponents jumped out of the way. Every member of her team grinned and wondered where she'd come from. The opposition looked at each other as if to say, "Guess we got us a serious game going on."
For two full sets, Marla maneuvered sharp set-ups, showed no fear of eating sand for the digs, and inflicted strong, unpredictable spikes on the opposition. Her serves were accurate and intentional — over and over she placed that ball in unexpected parts of the court and at different speeds. She kept her opponents on their toes, and received more than a few pats on the back for the number of kills she scored.
Marla was not a show-boater, though — she was a team player all the way, and she played with drive and heart. But several times she noticed foot faults and double hits by players on both sides who neglected to call themselves out, which made her mad as a wet hen. Hey! Rules are rules! And fair is fair! she thought, but she was the newcomer and didn’t say anything. Just having a bit of exercise, she reminded herself and she just let it go.
She left the game after a couple of hours of full-on exertion, adrenaline pumping through her like oil through the State of Alaska. She went off in search of a beer. Or two.
Next morning about 10:00, Marla was so stiff and sore from the exercise of day before, she could hardly get out of bed. “Man! I feel like I am worth about ten cents with a hole in it!”
And Haylene didn’t even get into bed until three in the morning. But, the two women re-packed their bags and got into the Camaro for the three-hour trip back home to Vero Beach. They’d planned on staying one more day, but after last night’s unfortunate incident, management had politely, but firmly suggested that it was time for them to leave.
Haylene and Ricky had unwisely gone skinny dipping in the deserted hotel swimming pool after two in the morning. How could she have predicted that while they were fooling around, someone would steal her clothes from a lounge chair? And leave Ricky only his boxers. “Well…. if that don’t beat all!” she’d said, shaking her head, and standing there in the altogether.
Ricky kissed her a quick good-bye, ducked out the front gate in his underwear and sprinted back to his hotel. Haylene had had to walk through the lobby with nothing but a bar towel she’d found on a table to cover her anatomy. The management was not amused at the view of her backside as she passed the front desk, and they went running after her with a beach towel, saying that if she didn’t want the police involved, noon would be a good time to check out.
“Ah, well,” said Marla, “ I guess we had us enough excitement to get us through to spring break.”
“I’m just hoping that what happens at the Lani Kai Hotel, stays at the Lani Kai Hotel, and that’s all I am saying.” Haylene tuned the car radio to classic K-Rock 96 out of Bonita Springs and began to sing along to Aretha Franklin’s Freeway of Love.
She had already moved on.
Aretha Franklin , Freeway of Love, 1985
LOVE MISS ARETHA! And I love this story. Never had that much fun on a girl trip ever.
Always an adventure with Haylene and Marla! - "The management was not amused at the view of her backside as she passed the front desk, and they went running after her with a beach towel, saying that if she didn’t want the police involved, noon would be a good time to check out." Hilarious, Sharron!