Act II Episode 3 Lynda Van Devanter and the Nurses and a Visit with Madame Marie

Act II Episode 3 – Lynda and the Nurses and a Visit with Madame Marie

Lynda 

Squinting from the garish sun as it rose over Margate, Lynda Van Devanter and her boyfriend "JJ" walked out of the Dunes a little after 8 am on the morning after the Rock & Roll Turns Ten Party, each sporting fresh blue t-shirts that read "Bay Shores" on the front and on the back, "Dunes 'til Dawn" with a rising sun they had won in the dance contest earlier that night.

They were with fellow nursing students Barbara and Gigi, walking across the vast now nearly empty parking lot to Lynda's black '61 Chevy Nova convertible with its top down and all piled in and Lynda drove across the Ocean Drive bridge to Ocean City, having to make the first significant decision of the day - should they go back to their rooming house or hit the beach?

The beach won a hands down unanimous decision, though JJ didn't vote, he would go with whatever the girls decided. John Joseph Smith was a local boy from nearby Tuckahoe in Upper Township and attended Ocean City high school before enlisting in the Army. A buck sergeant who just returned from a year-long deployment in Vietnam, JJ was on leave until Labor Day when he had to report to his unit at Fort Dix.

Lynda parked on the street a half block from the boardwalk and carrying their blankets and beach chairs they walked across the boards, past the hippies gathering at Shrivers Pavilion and taking their shoes off, walked through the cool, soft sand that would soon be hot from the sun. Setting their blankets down in their preferred spot next to the huge black granite boulders of the jetty they surveyed the scene around them and of the hundred or so people already on the beach they could recognize some of them from the Anchorage, Tony Marts, Bay Shores and Dunes the night before.

It wasn't long before Chris and Katie - the mayor's daughters came by and set up in their spot nearby. They all had met there on the beach on Memorial Day and became fast friends and Lynda regaled the sisters with stories of what occurred the previous night - Seven for a dollar beers at the Anchorage, the Hawks and Bill Haley and the Comets at Tony Marts, the JoDMars at Steels, Tido Mambo and the Messiahs of Soul and the unscheduled appearance of Sam the Sham and the Pharos at Bay Shores and the dance contest at the Dunes. The sisters were annoyed they missed it all.

The unwritten but respected beach rule was to keep radios off in the morning so people could sleep, and after a little cat nap JJ woke up and picking up a medical text book began quizzing the girls, as they had graduated from Mercy Hospital nursing school in Baltimore, they were preparing for their state board exams.

Among those who came by to say hello to the girls were the lifeguards when they came on duty, Jim Croce, one of the hippies with his guitar, who knew JJ from when he was in the Army reserves at Ft. Dix, and Silvio, a young Italian law student kicking a soccer ball.

Jim sat down on the blanket and told JJ he was writing a song about their drill sergeant at Ft. Dix - Big Bad Leroy Brown. JJ laughed and said he had to go back to Dix and report for duty on Labor Day.

A Visit with Madame Marie

For the girls at the shore there’s only two kinds of days – sunny beach days and cloudy not a beach day, and so it was one cloudy not a beach day when Lynda and Stephanie, Chris and Katie, JJ and Jim stayed on routine and went to the beach anyway. But after an hour or so, while the sisters dozed off on their blankets, Lynda and Stephanie decided to take a walk on the boards.

Their first stop was at Del’s grill and sat and talked with young Joe as he made each of them a miss-steak cheesesteak with the works that they ate as they walked down the boardwalk. After the last crusty bite, they ducked into an arcade instant photo booth and took four small inch square black and white head shots, giddily giggling and laughing along the way.

With their pockets flush with tips, they walked a little further but both stopped cold in their tracks almost at the same time in front of Madame Marie’s, the gypsy fortune teller, who must have the smallest boardwalk frontal at maybe four feet and two small rooms deep.

They knew Madame Marie from passing her and saying hello a half dozen times a day, but this was the first time they were going to pluck some money down to have their fortunes told by the “Mistress of Destiny.”

Madame Marie was sitting where she is usually found, in the rocking chair knitting and smiling at every face that goes by. Other boardwalk barkers and hawkers, like Bruce Willis used to be in Wildwood, are always talking and have a dozen lines they use to get you to stop and spin a wheel, take a shot or come in for a good time. Not Madame Marie. She just sat there and smiled until someone stopped to read the sign, smell the incense and wonder, if only for a moment, what it was it was all about.

Marie’s eyes lit up as she realized the girls were coming in for the full tilt monte, so she put the knitting down and pulled back a curtain to get behind a small table with two chairs in front of it. Following her behind the curtain, the girls had to adjust their eyes to the darkness, lit only by a single candle that was off to the side.

“Since I see you girls every day and you reward me with such beautiful smiles, I will give your fortune for half price, two for one,” Marie says in broken English, with a snatch of brogue, as Marie was of a family of Irish gypsies – called Tinkers in the old country because of the clang of the pans on the side of their wagons.

“First we will look into the ball to see your future destinies together, and then we will use the cards to explore each of your futures in life,” Marie says softly.

Taking a silk scarf off the crystal ball in the middle of the table, Marie instructs the girls to each place a hand on the side of the ball and pick it up together, which they do, and follow Marie’s instructions to shake it gently.

The ball is suddenly filled with a cloud of multi-colored dust and sugar sand that slowly descend as the girls put the ball back on its round wood stand and the settling sand and dust particles form a pattern, an apparently random one that only Madame Marie can read.

“The ball reflects the near future of all of us while the cards tell us what lies in the future for each of us.”

Looking intently into the ball Marie puts her hands to her head and smiles.

“Your association is new,” says Marie, “but it will be long and eventful, as there is magic in the air and a monumental experience will bring you close together. You will travel and have many great adventures before you will separate for a long time, many years, but you will remain friends forever.”

“Friends forever,” she repeated.

“And that monumental event will happen soon,” she cautioned, before turning to the stack of cards on the table.

After having Stephanie shuffle the cards Marie placed them on the table in front of her and looking at Stephanie she turns over the top card and draws a joker.

Marie looks at the card and then looks Stephanie in the eyes, laughs, smiles and says, “You get to keep the joker, and use it whenever you like, but,” she paused for a moment, “it only works once, so don’t squander it.”  Then suddenly grabbing one of Stephanie’s hands she turns it over and glances at it before saying, “and don’t use it for fame or future because they are already yours.”

Linda declines to shuffle the cards saying, “I like the way Stevie shuffled them,” and looks at Marie’s face flash horror as she draws and glances at the card before setting it down saying – “the Devil at the Gates of Hell!”

“You will meet the Devil and see Hell,” Marie said without emotion, “but you will be snatched from the Banshee’s jaws by an angel from the sky, a bird, a whirly bird, and save many lives and souls along the way that will redeem you for your sins, and you will be, as they say, you will be in heaven before the Devil even knows your dead.”

With that, Marie blew out the candle and pulled back the curtain so the cloudy light of day could shine through and make them squint as they emerged back into the sights, sounds and smells of the boardwalk carnival. They ran across the boards in their bare feet, went down the steps, laughing and ran along the breaking surf until they got to the Ninth Street jetty where they knew, on the other side, sisters Chris and Katie, JJ and Jim were waiting on their blankets to hear all about their boardwalk adventure – their meeting Madame Marie, their fortunes and destinies – “Friends Forever,” they yelled over and over and slapped hands as they ran along in the wet sand and jumped over the wet, black rock jetty.. 

Later that after noon, as the sun peaked out from behind the clouds and the beach began to fill up with kids, Jim commented on the city commissioners wanting to ban music on the beach and Boardwalk. "First they close the beaches at night so we can't sleep there and now they want to ban music all together? What's this world coming to?" he asked rhetorically, though no one responded.

Katie said their father was against the resolution - it was an infringement on free speech he argued, but the other commissioners were adamant.

Around two in the afternoon, while JJ and the sisters kicked the soccer ball around the water’s edge with Silvio, Lynda took a dip in the gentle breakers and then gave Jim and his guitar a ride across the causeway to Somers Point where he asked to get dropped off at the Anchorage Tavern where he was to finish writing his song while Lynda went to work in the emergency room at Shore Memorial Hospital a few blocks away.