The Red Spruce Inn and Wellness Center - Part Three
I called Marty that evening to give him a heads-up that I wasn’t sure there was an “adventure” angle at the Red Spruce Inn. People were playing backgammon and going for walks, I told him. “The Red Spruce Inn could be any gingerbread house in New England.”
From behind their velvet ropes, each side had a clear view of the other. The group of mostly gay men had bunched themselves close to their doorway, from which I inferred years of “stepping up to the line.” The team I mingled with, was gathered away from the door, in the center of their room, which meant the opposite to me, a crowd less use to confrontation. But both sides seemed most engaged with their own kind, and within my group, it did not take long for the conversation to turn to me, thanks to one of the young women who had been present in the drawing room for my arrival. She was thin, attractive, with blonde hair to the shoulders, and had been studying me over the rim of her wine glass.