The Maine Mutiny (4 page)

I kept Seth company while he finished his breakfast, then gathered up my things. “You’ll have to excuse me,” I said. “Doesn’t look as if the weather’s improving, and I have errands to run.”

“Wait,” he said. “Got something for you.”

“What’s that?”

He reached into the shopping bag he’d placed on the seat beside him and pulled out a small green folding umbrella. “Patient dropped these off this morning,” he said. “Gave me two of them. Here, you take this one. I don’t need so many umbrellas. Just end up losin’ ’em anyway.”

“Thank you,” I said. “As it happens, I left my umbrella at home. Your timing is perfect.”

He grinned. “Glad to be of service.”

“I’ll call you later,” I said. “Think about being a judge. You’ll get to sit on the podium. It has the best view of the parade. And all the girls’ mothers will likely ply you with cakes and pies to try to gain your favor.”

I pulled on my slicker and went to pay for my coffee and English muffin.

“All taken care of,” Mara said when I approached the register. “Gwen treated you to breakfast.”

“That’s very nice,” I said, closing my wallet, “but don’t let her do it again.”

“Why not?”

“You heard the mayor. She’s not getting paid very much. I’d like to see her stay in town after the festival, if she can find work here. It’s refreshing to meet someone of her energy and enthusiasm. How is she doing?”

“Gwen’s a nice girl, but you know how the old-timers are. They’re not very welcoming to newcomers. I never can understand that. It’s like if you’re not related to half the town and can’t point to your grandmother’s house, you’re still considered to be from away. They’re polite, just not really friendly. It’ll always be that way, too, unless she marries a local boy.”

I nodded. “It’s a shame. A town needs new blood and new ideas to prosper.”

I pulled up my hood, waved good-bye, and stepped out into the wet. Slipping my new umbrella out of its green sleeve, I pushed the button and it flew open. Immediately a gust of wind blew it inside out. I managed to get the umbrella right side out again, only to have it reverse itself once more. I struggled to close the umbrella and dropped it into my shoulder bag. Head bent against the blustery weather, I walked up the dock toward town. I had debated taking out my bicycle this morning, but decided to walk instead, on the theory that the bike was rustier than I. Of course, it had been a gentle rain when I’d left home. It was coming on a gale now.

I understood why the mayor was worried. If we had this kind of weather for the festival, we’d be hard-pressed to keep up a cheerful atmosphere, much less attract a big crowd. Money had been spent in expectation not only of making it back but of reaching a profit. The mayor’s reelection campaign was scheduled to kick off the day after the festival, and the lobstermen were going to build up the supply of lobsters by holding their catch out of the market to ensure that there would be enough to serve all the attendees. If those visitors didn’t materialize, the lobstermen stood to lose a lot of money when they flooded the market with the crustaceans. There was a lot hinging on the success of this event. So much could go wrong.

Mary Carver was hanging wash on the line behind her house the next day when I walked around to the backyard.

“Good morning, Mary.”

“Hi, there, Jessica,” she said, reaching into her straw basket for a blue T-shirt, which she draped over the line. “Hope you don’t mind if I keep on workin’. Got to take advantage of the weather while I can. Sun’s been so stingy this summah, and my cellar’s damp enough to begin with. We haven’t worn dry clothes in over a month.”

“No need to stop on my account,” I said. “As I said on the phone, I can talk and you can listen just as easily with busy hands as idle ones.”

“Levi’s been urgin’ me to get another of those electric dryers ever since ours went on the fritz.” She paused in her task, propped her hands on her hips, and looked up at me. “But I’m stubborn, I guess. My mother always hung her wash outside, and I like the smell of clothes dried in the sun.” She resumed her chore. “Of course, the constant rain these past months has been givin’ me second thoughts.” She eyed the lowering clouds.

“I love the smell of clothes dried on the line, too,” I said, “but I also love the convenience of a dryer, especially when I’m in a hurry, which I always seem to be.”

“If we get another week of this rain, I’ll be running to the appliance store,” she said. “Hand me some of those, would you please, Jessica?”

I pulled out a handful of clothespins from a bucket next to the basket and passed them to her two at a time as she pegged up the laundry. As Mary worked, I explained my predicament, having offered to write a story, but not sure how to approach the lobstermen’s association with the request to observe the work by riding along on one of the boats for a day.

“I was hoping you could advise me,” I said.

“You know, some of the men might be superstitious about havin’ a female on their boat,” Mary said, taking the clothespin I held out.

“One or two of the old-timers might,” I said, reaching into the bucket for another. “But I can’t believe they’d all feel that way.”

Mary laughed. “Even if they did, they wouldn’t dare say it.”

“Don’t some of the wives work on the boats with their husbands?”

“Some do, especially in the busy season. More often the ones starting out. I used to go out with Levi before the children came. Later on, when the kids were little, he’d take on a man every summah to help out as sternman.”

“Sternman?”

“The one who stands at the stern, pulls up the pots, empties them, throws them back. Levi used to do it all himself, pilot the boat and be his own sternman, but as soon as we were able to put by a little extra money, he got himself a helper. Most of the men these days—leastwise the ones with bigger boats and hundreds of traps—have a helper. I have to warn you: It’s very busy on board. There wouldn’t be a lot of room. And you’d have to sign on for the whole day. It would cost them time and money if they had to come back to the dock to let you off.”

“I’d never ask that,” I said. “I’ll try to be as inconspicuous as possible, stay out of the way, observe, and ask questions only when they’re not in the middle of work.”

“You know, Jessica, if it were still Gwen asking, she might never get the chance to go.”

“Why not?”

“She’s way too young and pretty for any of the wives to trust their husbands to.”

I laughed. “Well, there’s no danger here,” I said.

Mary reddened. “I didn’t mean any offense, Jessica.”

“None taken, Mary. I’m long past the need to fish for compliments.”

Mary lifted the empty laundry basket and rested it on her hip. She started toward the house, and waved me to join her. “Come have some coffee. I’ve got a Bundt cake I baked this morning. Should be about cool by now.”

I followed Mary into her pretty yellow, black, and white kitchen. It had recently been renovated, and she was pleased with the gleaming granite countertop and elegant maple cabinets, inspired by a picture she’d found in a decorating magazine. Many a Friends of the Library meeting convened around her large oval table, where details of the project of the moment could be argued without disturbing the peace of the library’s reading room.

“Don’t trip on Anna’s sneakers,” she said, pointing out a pair of red-and-white high-tops that had been left on the kitchen floor. “I purposely didn’t put them away because I want her to pick up after herself. That’s a lesson she’s havin’ a hard time learnin’.”

“Many youngsters are like that, I’m sure,” I said.

“Maybe so, but her father will give her what-for if he finds them when he gets home. I’m letting her take the consequences this time, if she doesn’t put them away.”

While Mary stowed her laundry basket and turned the cake out of its pan onto a plate, I walked to the wrought-iron baker’s rack against the wall where black-framed photographs of the Carver family were arrayed on a shelf. Images of Mary and Levi when they were young marrieds sat next to pictures of their three children through the years. The eldest, Ginny, was married now, with a child of her own on the way. I’d met her only once or twice. I was more familiar with her “baby sister,” twelve-year-old Anna, she of the offending sneakers. A whirligig of a girl, constantly on the move, she would fly in and out of the kitchen during our meetings, working her charm on her mother for privileges she’d never have gotten if the library’s Friends had not been in attendance. A school photograph showed an impish, grinning face under curly hair that hadn’t seen a brush that day.

Mary came up behind me. “That’s Evan,” she said, referring to a photo I had picked up to examine. It was of a young man on a boat.

“He must be about seventeen now,” I said, looking at the handsome teenager with his mother’s blue eyes and his father’s sturdy build. I replaced the photo on the shelf.

“Eighteen come January,” his mother replied. “He’s been helping out his father this summah. Keeps him busy, and he’s too tired at day’s end to go girlin’ with his friends.”

She pulled a teapot off another shelf. “I seem to remember you prefer tea,” she said.

“Only if it’s no bother.”

“It’s no bother at all,” she said. “I’ve got one of those instant hot spigots. Audrey Williams bragged about getting one in her new kitchen, and I figured if it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me.”

Audrey Williams, wife of Linc, was a proud woman; proud of her house, proud of her children, and proud of her husband, the president of the lobstermen’s association. She was on the Friends of the Library committee with us, but was not a favorite among the other wives, according to comments I’d heard passed from time to time at Loretta’s hair salon.

Mary fixed cups of Earl Grey tea and sliced two pieces of cake, which she set on the table.

“Evan’s got his eye on the Brown girl, Abigail. Know her?”

“Is she the one Charles Department Store is sponsoring in the beauty pageant?” I asked, pulling out a chair and sitting.

“That’s the one. She works there part-time.”

“I’ve seen her picture in the store window. Very pretty.”

“And smart, too,” Mary said, putting a pitcher of milk on the table and joining me. “She was in Evan’s class. She’s goin’ away to Colby College this fall.”

Mary looked off into space. Her eyes were sad, as if she were wrestling with some difficulty. She broke off a piece of cake, chewed thoughtfully, and took a sip of tea. I wondered what was occupying her, when she said, “He’s had a crush on her since sixth grade.”

“Abigail Brown?”

“Yes.”

“It worries you?”

She sighed, staring into her cup. “Evan told me he wants to marry her.” She looked up at me. “He’s too young to make such a commitment. I want him to see a little of the world before he settles down. Levi and I got married so young. We were high school sweet-hearts. Ginny and Pete, too. I was hoping Evan wouldn’t follow quite so closely in our footsteps.”

“Does Abigail want to marry him? I thought you said she plans to go to college.”

“I’m not sure Abby knows how serious he is. They’ve been in the same group of friends a long time. She’s been teasing Evan lately, urging him to apply to Colby, too.”

“It doesn’t sound as if they’re about to elope,” I said, smiling.

“Gorry, Jess. I certainly hope not.”

“Don’t you like her?”

“It’s not a matter of liking or not liking, although I do like her. She’s a nice girl from a good family. My mother and her grandmother were second cousins. It’s just that Evan is so young, and he’s a stubborn son of a gun, just like his father.”

“And his mother, to hear you tell it.”

Mary laughed. “I guess I’m caught in my own words.”

“Anyway, young people often have a change of heart, don’t they?” I said. “I seem to remember when I was teaching, the students in my classes played musical chairs all year, according to who had a girlfriend—or boyfriend—at the time.”

“That’s true,” she admitted. “And if Abby wins the Miss Lobsterfest crown, she’s likely to attract a lot of potential beaus.” She stopped, a piece of cake halfway to her mouth. Shaking her head, she put it down. “That’s the mother’s dilemma. I don’t want him to be too serious about her, but I also don’t want her to reject him.”

I smiled. “How many young women entered the competition?”

“There are eight altogether. Rockland had twenty in the Sea Goddess pageant, but their winner represents the state’s lobster industry for the comin’ year. We can’t offer that, so we wanted to keep ours small. The winner holds the crown till next summer, but we’ll have to think up some events for her to participate in or we won’t get any girls willin’ to compete again.”

“You sound as if you don’t think we can do that.”

“I’ll tell you, Jessica, this project has really taxed my patience. Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of something—even if it’s only the launching of the back-to-school sales days. That’s the easy part, but there have been a lot of tough parts, too. And I’m really worried how it’s going to turn out.”

“An event as ambitious as this is going to go through growing pains before we get all the elements of it worked out,” I said. “We all knew that. But at our last meeting, I got the impression that everything was under control. Isn’t it?”

Mary’s brows lifted and she studied the ceiling for a moment. “Not exactly. At least from what I hear.”

“What is it you’re hearing, Mary? And from whom?”

“It’s the guys; they’re grumbling a lot.”

“What guys?”

“The lobstermen.”

“What are they unhappy about?”

“Well, you know the men have been asked to hold off selling their catch to the market so we have enough in the pound to serve all the tourists during the festival.”