Gemma @ ' Half Moon Bay' - They had each other's backs
What’s it about?
Half Moon Bay is about a damaged man and woman, Gabe and Annie, who meet in a bar one night in California and get caught up in each other’s lives in ways neither person could have predicted.
My experience:
Despite the fact that I left for the theatre with more than enough time for me to commute there by train, I managed to:
Ride the 1 train a few stops past Christopher Street
Which resulted in me having to:
Get off the train at Franklin Street and ride the 1 train uptown back to Christopher Street
Spend 15 minutes trying to get from the Christopher Street stop to the Cherry Lane Theatre, walking the wrong direction enough times that I was five minutes late for the show
Luckily for me, the show didn’t officially start until fifteen minutes after 8:00 PM, and so I heaved a sigh of relief before taking the only available seat left in the then COMPLETELY full house.
The set was a dingy bar in the back of a bowling alley with a jukebox, and some tables and chairs. A woman named Annie sat alone at the bar with a beer, looking dejected. A few minutes later a man named Gabe joined her at the bar. He was awkward and looked like he hadn’t spoken to a woman in a long time. Annie jokingly complimented his bowling shoes and he about had a nervous fit. I would have felt worse for the guy if he were less weird. And he was definitely weird. Practically the first thing out of his mouth after meeting this woman was an invitation to watch him and his bowling team play in a championship game that Saturday. Annie was naturally unnerved by this, and instead suggested alternatives like coffee or a movie, but Gabe really wanted her there and he wouldn’t quit. His desperation added a certain charm to his character. He bought them drinks and Annie revealed that she was there with people from work, and they were all bowling. She had recently been hired at a startup thanks to her good friend and thought she had to make an effort to be social with her coworkers and bosses in order to fit in. She and Gabe flirted a bit and I thought there couldn’t have been a more unlikely pairing. Annie seemed so sharp and strong while Gabe was stuttering and insecure.
Before Annie left, she agreed that she would seriously try to watch Gabe and his team bowl, despite their appallingly corny name, Pinternal Affairs.
The next scene featured a barefoot, pissed-looking Gabe alone at the table in the bar. Annie stumbled through the door, clearly very intoxicated. But even seeing her did nothing to cheer up Gabe. And then I realized it: Annie hadn’t come to Gabe’s game.
She didn’t seem very apologetic either, as she nearly fell into her seat across from him. She noticed that Gabe wasn’t wearing any shoes, and when she asked him about it, he admitted that he had lost his brand new bowling shoes, along with his real shoes and socks, in a bet. He had been so sure that his team would play well and win, and wanted it so badly for her, because he was convinced she was coming to see him. Annie looked like a mess, a different person entirely from the confident woman she had been at the bar a few nights earlier. She told Gabe how sorry she was for not making the game. She had planned to, had even spent all afternoon making a shirt for him sporting the words “Department of Pinternal Affairs,” with some graphics of bowling pins wearing sunglasses, but then had chickened out and gone drinking with her friend instead. She fished the shirt out of her bag and flung it at him, before turning to leave. But Gabe stopped her, shed the shirt he was wearing, and donned the one Annie had made for him. When Annie asked him why he was doing what he was doing he yelled, “Because I fucking love the shirt and I fucking love you!”
Annie stopped in her tracks. The two talked and she mentioned that she had been fired from her new job for what she called “absolutely nothing”. Then, to my and Gabe’s surprise, Annie asked Gabe if he was going to take her home that night, and Gabe jumped at the opportunity.
During intermission, I sat captivated as the set transformed from a bar into the interior of Annie’s incredibly messy apartment. The transformation was so involved that it took up the entire fifteen intermission, but once it was complete I never would have guessed the set had ever been a bar if I hadn’t sat through the first half of the show.
Annie forced Gabe to thoroughly wash his bare feet (surely crawling with bar-floor bacteria) the moment they entered her apartment, and he was quick to comply with her wishes. The two then started to play a dare game that incorporated alcohol. Gabe was interested in getting to know Annie, and suggested that they just take turns asking each other questions. But Annie did not want to go there, and instead dared Gabe to stick his penis out of the window. After some hesitation, he actually did it!
The two briefly made out on the couch, and Annie lightly slapped Gabe’s cheek playfully, which REALLY bothered him. Annie apologized, and even though Gabe said it was okay, he definitely wasn’t. I briefly wondered if he was going to get violent with her, but that never happened. Although, the irritation on his face that something was majorly off.
Over the course of the night, Annie and Gabe got very, very drunk together. They danced with beer cans on their heads à la Fiddler on the Roof , argued, laughed, snorted lines of cocaine, and disclosed a lot of information to each other. Annie used to be in a band and even played a recording of part of one of her songs on a dare. Gabe told Annie that it was actually his birthday and the reason he made the bet which lost him his shoes was because he wanted cash to take her out to a nice restaurant. He explained how a few years back he had squandered over $40,000 and had been to Gamblers Anonymous meetings. He now had an arrangement with his mother regarding his finances which involved her monitoring every check he made working at the paint store. Every purchase that exceeded groceries and rent had to be approved. For once, he wanted to be able to blow a wad of cash, and not on himself, on Annie.
Gabe had been smitten with Annie from the moment he saw her. But sitting with her on the carpet of her apartment, he decided to be blunt. He told her he wanted to take her on dates, lots of dates, and he wanted to be allowed to make her happy. Annie was scared to believe his words, but I could tell that she wanted to. In response, she challenged him to find the warmest part of her body, and the scene faded to black.
The morning after, Gabe was sleeping on the couch while Annie frantically cleaned. She was really keyed up. Finally, she woke up Gabe and told him he needed to leave. It was around 7 in the morning. Gabe, shoeless and infatuated with Annie, stalled for time and tried to get Annie to open up to him. And eventually, perhaps against her better judgement, she did. Annie explained that her mother was on her way to pick her up and take her to a rehab facility, and she wanted Gabe out of her apartment before that happened.
Gabe and Annie, both addicts, both damaged, both desperately in need of love. They could heal each other if only Annie would take the leap. I was sure Annie had been burned before, and it made her reluctant to trust. And as her mother buzzed up to be let into the building, Annie decided that she wanted Gabe to come with her on the drive to the facility. She would mention that Gabe was a friend. Gabe didn’t fight this. Their eyes found each other, and after a pause, she decided that she would actually mention to her mother that Gabe was somebody she had known for a long time. Gabe and Annie grasped hands, and the lights dimmed to nothingness. These two strangers who met in a bar had each other’s backs, and as long as that remained true, they would be okay.
Half Moon Bay
Previously published on the HuffPost contributors’ network on 06/19/2016 11:12 pm ET
