Chapter 1

1

“DAMN!” shouted Dean, pounding his steering wheel. “I knew I should have left earlier!” The events in this part of the trip to Cape Cod were always predictable: three main highways, the 195, the 495, and Highway 3 from Boston all funneling down to cross the bridge over the Cape Cod Canal onto the onehighway on the Cape. It always seemed like half the population of the Northeast was on vacation on the same weekend, all trying to get to the same place.

He put down the window to try to see what was happening, already knowing the answer. All he could see for a quarter mile ahead was brake lights. Clearly, he wasn’t going anywhere for a while. If he wanted to make it all the way to the end of the Cape for even a late lunch, there was no chance of that now.

For an hour and a half, the traffic inched along, until finally he was on the bridge. The view from here was always fantastic, and under the bridge he could see a tall sailboat passing through the canal. Then he was onto the Cape, the traffic moving a bit faster now, but still very heavy. One by one, the cars turned off to their various vacation destinations: Hyannis, Chatham, Orleans, Truro. He was almost there now. It was three o’clock, and he was missing some serious beach time.

Driving down Commercial Street, he had to be extremely careful of all the tourists walking in the street. It was always a slow go here, the number of people in the street vastly outnumbering the cars. Six blocks down he found his bed and breakfast and stopped in front to check in and take in his bags.

It was a large establishment, unattractive from the outside but pleasant enough on the inside. It was owned by two gay men who Dean thought to be quite young to be running a business like this on their own. But they seemed polite and professional, and the place seemed to be very clean and well run. After parking his car in the municipal lot, Dean returned to his room and began to unpack. The room was small—verysmall—and there was no air conditioning. It would be hot during the day and might not even cool off that much during the night. Well, that’s what you get for trying to take a bargain vacation, he thought to himself. He would just have to make the best of it. He wasn’t planning on spending much time in the room, anyway.

He decided to take a walk to the beach and grabbed a few snacks from one of his bags to take along. Hopefully he could grab a slice of pizza or something on the way back. He headed down to the street and turned in the direction away from the center of town. The street was crowded with all kinds of tourists, but the ones Dean noticed were the guys. Often in groups of four or more, they were the party boys that he would probably see again later tonight, when most of the straight tourists had retired to their rooms. After about nine P.M., the streets of this town would take on an entirely different character.

He walked for a mile, passing dozens of motels, but then he could see the large sand dune up ahead that hid the ocean from view. Climbing it, he had a marvelous view of the ocean in both directions. From here, if he wanted, he could watch the sunrise over the ocean in the morning, and from the same spot, turn in the other direction and watch the sunset over the ocean in the evening. There were not many places that he could do that. Such was the uniqueness of Provincetown.

Though it was now early evening, the day was still very warm. He had worked up a pretty good sweat walking here from town, and he took off his shirt to catch the last few rays of the sun before it dropped below some clouds on the horizon. A fresh ocean breeze disheveled his hair. It always felt good to be here in the open, away from the traffic and commercialism of the northern New York City suburbs. There might be a lot of people vacationing here on the Cape, but the miles and miles of beaches always seemed to swallow them up. You could still find a spot on the beach all to yourself, at least for a while early in day. And tomorrow morning Dean was planning on doing just that. He started back toward town, but not before a swarm of black flies descended on him, making the walk miserable. Picking up his pace to a jog to escape them, he was soon back in his room.