The Empress of Graniteport

By Roland L. Bessette

In the picturesque coastal village of Graniteport, Maine, Ned Bailey savors the view of his empire from his home built on a bluff above the harbor. Bailey the self-proclaimed king of Graniteport and the elders preserve village traditions based on mans law and a belief that people from away are dangerous and to be avoided and that those of French Canadian ancestry are inferior and to be shunned.

Mae Horvath has been in the village for almost twenty years. Hopeful, loyal, and indomitable, Mae is fierce about being an American whose ethnicity happens to be Chinese. When she falls in love with Roy Slade, an attorney from away who settled in the village, it triggers an abhorrence of people violating what Bailey calls the natural order and jealousy on the part of her former husband, Sean. But everything changes when Roys daughter and her husband visit Graniteport and make a fateful decision.

In this gripping thriller, a deadly tragedy in an insular coastal village results in a cycle fueled by bigotry, hatred, love, renewal, and the emptiness of revenge as secrets are exposed and a towns people are forever transformed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491721636

Roland L. Bessette

Roland L. Bessette earned a bachelor of arts in journalism from Wayne State University in Detroit and a juris doctorate from the Michigan State University College of Law in Lansing. He is a semiretired attorney whose areas of practice include defense of labor and medical malpractice matters. Roland lives on Cape Cod with his wife. This is his third book.

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CHAPTER 1

The King of Graniteport

It was at times a lullaby and at others a symphony with the riggings on sailboats owned by summer people strumming masts and resonating with soft pings against aluminum or a dry, leathery crack on wood with the gulls cawing and the wash of the sea with the rise of dinghies, sail and lobster boats, the insistent monotony of a lone foghorn, the rinse of the ocean against the bold granite slabs of the harbor, the drip-drip of the condensation from the wet, blackened buildings on the wharf and the dull report from Ned Bailey’s boots along the pier as he felt his way to his lobster pound. The uncertainty was odd even to him as he had made the walk from his home, which was built on a bluff three blocks above the harbor at 11 Bailey Road and from which he could view all of his holdings in Graniteport and look far out to sea, to his place of business nearly every day for more than 40 years.

With the fog, he could see but three feet in all directions and – though it was certain that the sun was bright above the roof of the bank – there was only smokiness and blurred outlines of what Ned knew surrounded him – sometimes coming into focus only when he bumped against it.

The fog had blown in and settled four days ago and, though tourists innocently asked when it would lift, the immense bank had to be pushed back to sea by offshore winds. The men who earned their living fishing went far enough to know that the fog was always, always there.

Ned Bailey came in from the opalescent swirl on his wharf to the restlessness of 19 men drinking coffee and doing what lobstermen are reputed to do best, which is moan. When the price for their catch is high, they complain that the harvest is thin. If the price falls, they complain that the harvest is being stolen from them. If the price of fuel isn’t ruining them, the weather is against them. Endless topics include unfair taxes, regulations passed by politicians who don’t understand the art of lobstering, limits on harvests, the stupidity of tourists, the arrogance of summer people and – in the hamlet of Graniteport – the inferiority of those cursed with French-Canadian ancestry.

Well there Mr. Almighty, Dan Borden – a 35-year old lobstermen respected for the size and consistency of his catches taunted. Can’t get the fog to clear out so we can make a living?

Make a living? David Bret chimed in. You mean pay too much for bait, fuel, supplies and repairs at Bailey’s Chandlery so we can sell lobsters at a goddamned loss to the esteemed Bailey’s Lobster Pound? he continued in exaggerated tones.

If you know of a better deal or a fairer man, you’re not indentured servants, Bailey grunted while filling his mug. Fact is I’d be a damned bunch more pleasant to be around if you took your moanin’ to another harbor.

He crossed the room and sat at a table that had a worn, red Formica top and chrome legs and was the surface on which he ate breakfast as a child. There were three men who had not spoken seated there.

Bunch of men breakin’ 150 thousand a year in a state where a Canuck can’t get a break outside of Biddeford and those Down East fight for seasonal work makin’ Christmas wreaths for L.L. Bean moanin’ about their lot, he shot back. You don’t know how good you got it with me.

Most lobstermen, good or bad, know exactly how good they have it in Maine – where prosperity is more unevenly distributed than in Manhattan. Of course, not admitting or acknowledging anything positive about their lives is a great source of pride for many of them. What most take as carping – moaning – is an art form for lobstermen, much as tourist-baiting is a craft perfected by many ordinary Mainers.

Don’t see you setting out on a boat in the cold or the rain or setting a line of traps, Bret criticized. He was of average height – which most lobstermen seem to be – with thick, unruly brown hair that always looked to be badly cut. He was lean – which is another characteristic of most lobstermen – with a reddish tone to his skin and gnarled, calloused hands.

Any of you slackers headed out today? Bailey interrupted. My hay’s in the barn. I’ve got lobster in the pound to keep the rusticators fat and happy, make my commitments to the wholesalers and stay ahead with the retail for months. You fellas are losin’ money.

It was the fourth day with fog and the men had been content to remain ashore for the first three, calculating that the slowness and danger of their operations made heading out foolhardy. But, a lobsterman makes his money during the milder months and it was August – peak tourist season – so with some amount of rationalization, the specter of danger and monotony of slow travel to where their traps were set diminished. Once there, they could follow the lines and work almost as quickly as they could with better conditions.

S’pose you’ve got the baits a’ready, Greg Quinn, the oldest and least successful of the group carped while rising.

Bargains abound today. Just like every other day, Ned Bailey nodded.

Yeah. Reg’lar fuckin’ Salvation Army you are, handin’ out charity by the boatload, Quinn teased.

Probably stale bait you’ve had since Monday, Marty Perkins chided.

Fresh as a high school virgin, Ned chortled.

Yeah. As much of a chance of that as with one of the Canuck broads from Beaudry’s Trailer Court, Perkins joked.

Next you’ll claim I add water to the gas.

Aha! An admission! Bret called as he left the building.

No sense to phoning the police, Curly O’Bannon called as he followed Bret. He owns them too.

You mean him, Red Crain grimaced while kicking O’Bannon square in his seat. All of the men wore boots and coveralls, so there was more noise than collision.

The lobstermen and their sternmen, who had been waiting in the repair shed, boarded dinghies and rowed to their boats, which were anchored in the middle of the narrow, rockbound inlet known as Graniteport Harbor. Once aboard, they readied their gear and headed to sea in order of their seniority. The gurgle of the exhaust and voices – and you could hear every word with the stillness of the fog – was percussion and counterpoint in a symphony now turned sea shanty.

Ned took solace in the quiet after three days and a morning with the Graniteport lobster gang growing restless and working on their moaning skills. He rearranged the five tables at which the members convened every morning with none taking other than their unofficially assigned seats and no mere sternman daring to do other than stand.

Bailey’s daily routine consisted of waiting for the gang to put to sea and then checking to be sure that lobsters were packed and placed in his own trucks for delivery to wholesalers in Portland or to be picked up by others. Then, he was off to his gas station and foodmart – at Bailey’s Corners – to get the deposit, check inventories and place orders. The part of the Bailey empire in which he seldom interfered were Bailey’s Seafood Mart – which was managed by his oldest daughter, Rita – and Bailey’s Dining in the Rough – which operated under the tight rein of Catherine Bailey, to whom he had been married for 41 years. He liked the hubbub of the restaurant with the crowds that came during the summer season but avoided it because he had been taught – from childhood – that mingling with summer people and tourists was akin to corruption. Whenever he engaged them in conversation, Bailey came away with a view that they weren’t bad for outsiders and were thus exceptions to an otherwise inviolable rule of nature. He was comfortable with those from here – which meant long lineages on the Graniteport roles – even when he knew some of them to be petty, mean and boorish. Though he was an astute businessman regarded as fair in his dealings, he missed the irony of the slots at the post office marked here and away in spite of the deposits from both winding up in the same bin.

By noon, he was at Bailey’s Chandlery for a perfunctory visit as he had absolute trust in the manager, whose name was Clyde Bailey and who was also a first cousin. In fact, everyone he employed in a position involving oversight of employees or inventory or who handled money was a relative. Ned was not so naïve as to believe it eliminated theft but rationalized it was kept to a minimum and at least benefitted the family. He also theorized that, given the extent of his business interests in Graniteport, most of the ill-gotten gains would filter back to his coffers.

Bailey stood 5’9" and weighed 200 hundred pounds. Though that is heavy, his weight was evenly distributed and he was thick of fingers, hands, wrists, arms, legs and neck. His hair was still reddish-brown and his grayish eyes were expressive and deeply-recessed in the crinkles of his weathered face. He had a paunch that seemed designed for his uniform of a dark-green work-shirt, matching work-pants and brown, leather suspenders. His only outward trapping of success – in his view – was a modest Citizen watch his daughter Carol had given him on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. It was stainless steel with a link bracelet and a dark blue face, which he regarded as showy and the sort of thing summer people or tourists went for. It was not as if he regarded deprivation as a form of esteem and he saw no reason not to build a fine home, fund the best educations his children were able to pursue, give generously for the benefit of his village, or buy an oceanfront condominium in Fort Lauderdale. If he thought that shunning ostentation; however slight, kept others from an awareness of his wealth, it was boorish conceit. What would have surprised him – thus qualifying as naïveté – was that his comfortable net worth of just over $7-million was barely half of what most in Graniteport guessed it to be and less than Avery Wright, who owned lumber-finishing mills in Lewiston, Bangor and Old Town as well as blocks of residential property in Portland.

Catherine Bailey spent the winters in Florida though Ned could barely stand a month there in spite of his love of the weather and the sea. Within days, he missed the familiarity of his businesses and the cloistered social order of Graniteport. There was always something to do in Fort Lauderdale with its swollen, migrant winter population, but that wasn’t what wearied or worried him. Rather, he feared losing something vital through becoming comfortable in the presence of people from away. There he was part of those who were from away and no more from here than an Eskimo. It was something so long with him it had become internal and could no more be located, removed or comprehended than the concept of a soul.

He knew that no one in Graniteport regarded him as a bumpkin because of his Maine accent and crankiness, asked what happened to the first two joints of the right pinky finger lost during a moment of carelessness while lobstering 34 years before – the recollection of which yet made him wince – or what he meant by his pet phrase: hunky dory, which was always shouted and meant that everything was very good or terrible, depending on his inflection.

Bailey was sure that people in Florida – few of whom were from the state – overlooked his intelligence, thought his humor corny and dismissed him as a rube from Maine. It was an extension of the uneasiness that bedevils relationships between Mainers – who regard outsiders with mistrust; certain that they disrespect everyone from here. Lost in what are often crusty exchanges is that Mainers too often bristle with a certainty they are regarded as insular, backward, dim-witted and resistant to change at the outset, resulting in a usually unnecessary preemptive defense regarded as rude – which reinforces the apocryphal legend of snobby, dismissive, all-knowing outsiders.

Outsiders who move to Maine are resented for having money and not knowing what to do with it or how to manage their lives whereas those from here are regarded as thrifty, in possession of greater common sense, closer to their families, more caring about the environment and less likely to be dishonest.

Mainers also seethe with a deep territorial belief that Maine produce and products are superior, which is fine as a blind loyalty to local growers but counterintuitive when they advocate that people from away should support the cause – whether in the form of federal supplements or purchases. It is also a difficult regimen if you like oranges, bananas or grapefruit and do not take to fiddlehead ferns or root vegetables.

The worst form of intrusion is someone from away who dares to presume that they sunk roots in a community and should have a voice about how their tax dollars are spent; and the summer people who live in the expensive homes pay more than their share. After all, Mainers reason, they would introduce crazy ideas from away and try to alter the natural order of things. The formula for governance is simple for a Mainer; candidates with plenty of ancestors on the village rolls and in the local cemeteries.

There is comedy and tragedy in the farce with the roles of the protagonists reserved for the locals. The saddest parts – those of the jesters – are consigned to those who were not born in the state but yearn to be embraced as insiders. The fastest track to that cloister is marriage, though even the children of those unions are nominal members. Some of the realtors in the biggest city north of Graniteport were so eager that the locals made a sport of leaning toward illusions of acceptance and then moving the finish line. Few of them could explain a single advantage that would result as most of their business was with people from away. Still, it was as important to some of them as their high school proms must have been.

Of course, there are wonderful, good, boorish, rude, lousy and even unspeakably evil people from here and away, but the walls separating them are impenetrable and stereotypes overtake actual experience. Those from away often retreat and remain in their own enclaves. On the other side of the barriers, the ultimate derision toward summer people goes: "If they had real money, they wouldn’t be heyah. They’d be down on Cape Cod with the rest of the snobs and swells."

Ned Bailey straddled both worlds in Graniteport, making much of his living from summer people and tourists while functioning as an elder to those in his community; making certain that all in his extended family ate, had adequate housing and – when he could provide it, a job. He had done it for so long and so regularly that it was now routine. His greatest challenge was keeping the Graniteport lobster gang within the limits of man’s law.

Man’s law, among lobstermen, is an unwritten but defined code that divides sea beds - areas from which lobsters could be taken – among the villages, islands, harbors and hamlets. Within communities, only those with long histories on the village roles can harvest within set boundaries. State law permits summer people to set six traps, which is an incursion not always in accord with man’s law. If a summer person’s traps intruded on a lobsterman’s zone or he did not need (in the opinion of the lobsterman) the bounty from six traps, a warning sign of two half-hitches of rope might be tied around the spindle of each buoy and meant move or set less traps. If the warning is ignored, the tactics can advance to looting the traps or cutting the lines. At $75-100 per trap, it is more than an annoyance.

It is called a lobster war when conflict erupts between two or more gangs. If one gang pushes its boundaries and enters waters claimed by another, the first warning is usually the same as that given to summer people. There is seldom an amnesty period between gangs once a war begins and the losses can be heavy when hundreds of traps are destroyed. There are rules; again, man’s law, that govern the wars but the younger lobstermen are less content with the feints, bluster and negotiation and only occasional fistfights of tradition.

Bailey would always regret ordering that one of the Moncroft Island boats be set afire as revenge for the same happening to a Graniteport boat. Two nights later, he woke with the sound of an explosion and a whoosh and then saw the entire harbor lit by the flames soaring from Bud Simmons’ boat. If it weren’t for the cause and destruction, it was a pretty scene with the ripples electric and shimmering and the other boats as vivid and outlined as in a watercolor against the dark hills that flank the harbor.

A few from the gang went against Bailey’s orders and retaliated by destroying another Moncroft boat. Ned had been firm in decreeing that one boat for one boat was enough. Two nights later, there were more explosions and, in the morning, the charred bows of Bud Simmons’ and Steve MacAdam’s boats bobbed in the water like displaced windows from a cathedral. Bailey assessed each lobsterman a share of the costs of getting Simmons back on the water, after insurance, but fined the three who had gone against his orders 1/3 of the costs for getting MacAdam back in business. The greater deterrent was the certainty that as many Graniteport as Moncroft boats would be sunk, each in succession, until there were none headed to sea from either place. Bailey lamented – as had his father before him – that the younger generation lacked the values of his own. When a Boothbay lobsterman was killed by a Moncroft gang member the summer before, it convinced him that a generational decay was part of the cause. The rest was predicable: "That Boothbay guy went off for three years in the Navy. He was never the same after mixin’ with them from away, Bailey reasoned as if it had been a thing close to justifiable homicide. Even married one of ’em," he usually finished with a bitterness that was surprising in view of his own family history.

His rounds at the pound were finished and the trucks were loaded and gone. Bailey considered making another pot of coffee but decided to get it at the Seafood Mart, where his daughter Rita usually had it available.

He came in from the dimly lit murk to the bank of white, enameled display cases with tubs of grey-white steamers, salmon-shelled quahogs, gray-brown littlenecks and trays of fresh fish. The haddock was pearly white and tempted Bailey as the Market always made him hungry. Rita was smiling and glad to see her father.

Fog is holding, she started with small talk.

Can stand anythin’ long as you got hot coffee, he snapped.

Enough to float the gang, Rita laughed while filling his cup.

Hunky dory! he happily shouted.

Rita Farnsworth-Bailey took after her father and had his coloring, gruff ways and tendency to gain weight. She was 32 and the oldest of his three children. She was married to a lobsterman from the gang, which did not set well with him at first as he knew what rough articles some of them could be.

They’re like wine, he often joked. Start out bad as can be but mellow and become great husbands and dads – almost when it’s too late.

Kyle Farnsworth had enough sense to behave when his father-in-law was nearby but could be trouble when on his own. He was one of the three Bailey fined for sinking the second Moncroft boat.

Rita kept a good home and was proud of her three children. She now weighed as much as her father and wondered if Kyle still found her appealing. Lately, he spent a lot of time looking for a new lobster boat in places like Boothbay Harbor and as far south as Bath. Some whispered that he was fooling around with Claudette Tessier, a nicely-built French-Canadian woman from inland who worked as a maid at a Comfort Inn near Carden.

How long does it take for a man to find the right boat? she complained to her parents.

Until he finds the right one, Ned brushed aside the inquiry.

What’s wrong with the one he has? Rita persisted.

He might decide that’s the best one. After he’s looked around, her father sighed.And when he does, everythin’ will be hunky dory.

Her mother was vague and even less philosophical in assuring that all would be well in time.

Ned sipped his coffee and moved from the counter toward the window. He thought about talking to Kyle about what a fine woman and circumstance he had but as quickly changed his mind. He already knows that, Ned dismissed. Better to work on shame. A Canuck slut what lost custody of her kids, the old man hissed. Lower than where you find goddamned ground fish, he spat. Why not a summah person? Or one of them horny college types from away that give Portland a bad name.

His other daughter, Carol, was three years younger and, like her mother, barely over five feet tall, always on the move and slim in spite of a healthy appetite with high-cheek bones and thick brown hair she wore pulled back in a ponytail she refashioned a few times every hour. Bailey sometimes wondered if she woke up at night to fuss with it and joked that the activity kept her weight down.

As a teenager, Carol was the best waitress at that end of the family business. When she insisted on attending Boston College, Ned was no match with his plea that she not go away and instead attend the University of Maine.

Why, she demanded. "So I can mock people from my own state by calling them townies and never be sophisticated enough to know the difference? I want to understand why it’s so bad away so – when I come back here – I’m doing it for a reason besides being told that’s how it is."

Her stubbornness should not have surprised him, but Bailey was oblivious to the same trait in his wife.

If Bailey fretted about her attendance at Boston College and the things that go on in a place like that, he lost even more sleep when she chose social work as her major.

"That’s like bein’ from away by inoculation, he complained to his wife. Same business about thinkin’ they know how everybody else should live their lives and thinkin’ they can snap their fancy fingers and change the natural order of things."

When Carol Bailey decided to stay in Boston for another year to get a masters in social work, Ned declared her a lost cause and gave up on his notion of her returning to Graniteport, setting aside that foolish learning and becoming content with life in a quiet hamlet and marriage to a local businessman.

You thought Carol – my Carol – would be content with that, Catherine taunted.

It was good enough for her mother, Ned challenged. And I ain’t done so bad by her. No hunky dory can come from that business.

Catherine knew better than to hurt her husband – whom she regarded as a narrow-minded, hopelessly corny but loveable character – through a misunderstanding of what she meant by hoping that one of her daughters might do better than her. Mrs. Ned Bailey was aware that she had done well for a woman born in Graniteport and what she called her time.

She was the daughter of Dave and Alice Bradford. Even against the lax standards of Graniteport, Dave was a rough customer who eked out an existence as a lobsterman as often ashore as he was at sea. Even then, he was drunk, though at least able to stand. Bradford wasn’t the best provider in Graniteport. Nor was he the worst. There were three meals every day, though Catherine fumed whenever anyone waxed nostalgic about the New England staple of frankfurters and home-baked beans.

If all the beans I ate were pennies, Bill Gates would be second on the Forbes 400, she often joked – and she could have passed any test devised to discern the truth. Her father’s sole virtue was that he did not physically abuse his wife or children. Rather, he punished himself over guilt about something no one could identify and because of demons some in Graniteport blamed on his military experiences.

He was never the same after that Korean business, many said, unable to accept that a Bradford; a name on the Graniteport roles since 1789, could be troubled by anything but what happened while away. Alice knew that the unidentified source of his torment was roiling before he was drafted into the Army. Before he left the village, Dave was a good-looking, strong-willed man who often drank too much, started too many fights and was unreliable as a mate to the lobsterman willing to give him a day of work. When he returned, he struck many as changed. Alice thought otherwise. He was older and now had to confront responsibilities because she was pregnant with Catherine. Dexter Bailey – Ned’s father – staked Dave Bradford’s career as a lobsterman and helped the family through plenty of rough patches. Even with that, there were too many tables set with franks and beans, empties bearing a Seagram’s label, an untended, scrubby lawn, a boat too often slowly rising and falling in the harbor while the other men were out, and a house half-shingled and half tarpapered that Dave always intended to finish. He died at the VA Hospital in Augusta at 54.

Catherine vowed that her lot would be better than what her mother knew. As with many such vows, it was achieved and abetted as much by luck as it was the result of planning or demands. Ned Bailey was what most call a good man in that he provided well for his family and, in contrast to his burly, gruff exterior, could be sentimental and soft-hearted. Catherine knew that their wealth exceeded her expectations or needs and respected her husband’s loyalty to his family, businesses and community. Though he lulled many into thinking him backwards and even dim, Catherine regarded her husband as the shrewdest, most observant man she had ever known.

Know what is goin’ on about you, was the deepest philosophical revelation he allowed himself to disclose. Though his forays into her domain – Bailey’s Dining in the Rough – were brief with him merely ambling through and nodding to employees and summer people, Catherine knew that a sideward glance and a gruff pronouncement: Eyes on that one, meant she had a dishonest employee on the payroll and quickly found he was right.

Her greatest regret after she turned 40 – which marks the early season of regrets for many women – was that Ned was as remote as her father had been. For a while, Catherine worried that something wonderful had passed her by in the form of operas, ballets, concerts, plays, fine dinners, European capitals and expensive jewelry. She yet wore the gold band Ned nervously placed on her finger four decades before and though she was aware that only summer women, tourists and people from away flashed impressive diamonds, Catherine wondered if being ostentatious was really worse than understatement. It also disturbed her that she had never owned a version of the little black dress she saw in so many magazines and movies and was certain she would present well in one with her trim figure and good legs. It bothered her even more that – had she owned one – there was no place in Graniteport where she could wear it without causing a lively round of rumors.

Then there was the summer when she resurrected her resentment over Ned’s winter of restlessness when she was pregnant with Rita. He came home late as often as he was on time that season, engaged in a determined search for a new boat. If he wasn’t in Bath, it was Portland or Grafton. When heavy snows fell, it meant he would be away until morning. Just as quickly – with the late spring and Rita’s birth – the search ended. When she asked if he was taking a break – would it resume – Ned resignedly sighed: Man finally figures it out. Best boat for him is the one he’s got.

When the Birgit II anchored in the harbor that July, even the locals admitted to admiring her. She was a Dyna Craft Laguna – 77 feet long with a deep draft that permitted a superstructure high above the waterline. She had four staterooms, a master suite with a Jacuzzi and enough teak to build a sizeable house. The yacht could hit 28 knots and generate 1550 horsepower. Her homeport was Cape May, New Jersey.

A crew of three tended to the Birgit II for her owner and captain; Thor Gundersen, who had emigrated from Norway when he was 18 and became a millionaire many times again with two of the sharpest elbows in the rugged interplay of the scrap metal business on the East Coast. The business eventually fed a jigsaw puzzle of mismatched pieces that included car washes, rundown apartment complexes in Hoboken and Camden, strip malls, and a brickyard in Rahway.

That summer, he was 51, of average height with reddish brown hair, an athletic build on which his clothes looked as if he were modeling them, deep blue eyes offset by a ruddy complexion and beautifully squared teeth. His movements were smooth and he was both capable and good-looking.

Thor had a wife in Cape May who busied herself doing whatever fourth wives of those considered nouveau riche do in a place steeped in old money. Her name was Tracey and she was pretty enough if your taste runs to brassy blondes with implants. Thor was now aware that 25 years was too much of a gap and that, aside from a body he considered a masterpiece, she was boring and clumsily conniving. Thor hoped the prenuptial was as tight as his attorney claimed and was beginning to view the $100,000 payout in the event of a divorce as enticing.

Gundersen had walked the short artery that is both Route 10 and Main Street in Graniteport and was already bored with the array of gift shops, restaurants and galleries not much different from other places he had visited in Maine. He was amused by the easy spending of some tourists for artwork and bric-a-brac they would have avoided as overpriced trash when in their hometowns. The fascination with tourmaline – which he considered junk and just above polished granite in value – intrigued him and he wondered how he could capitalize on the markups.

It’s like selling tap water in Dom Perignon bottles, he considered.

Still, he overcame his cynicism and bought what the 19-year old saleswoman claimed was a rare piece; a necklace with a large rectangle of clear, deep green tourmaline, for Tracey. Thor rationalized that he was in Rome and not a Roman and thus should do what others enjoyed. Plus, he knew that his young wife was dopey about jewelry and they would have a wonderful evening because of it. Whether or not that makes four-thousand dollars a good investment is subject to a man’s values – or what some might view as a lack of them. At 51, Gundersen was aware it was also a matter of supply and demand and that no young and beautiful heiresses were throwing themselves at men of his age.

CHAPTER 2

Court Intrigue

Thor retraced his path toward the harbor and then down to Bailey’s Pier. It was mid-afternoon and he was in the mood for clam chowder. So, he walked back from where his dinghy was tied to Bailey’s Dining in the Rough. Catherine was standing by the station where customers were greeted, waiting lists were monitored and menus were scattered. She was distracted and did not notice there was a customer waiting. Thor observed that she was petite and nicely-built with good legs, a shapely derriere and medium breasts. Her face was pretty and no-nonsense without makeup and cropped dark brown hair. She was wearing navy blue sailcloth shorts, a blue oxford button-down shirt and tan topsiders. Gundersen noticed that her nipples pressed against her shirt

When Catherine returned from where her mind had drifted, she was startled by Gundersen’s presence and briefly taken aback by his good looks.

I’m sorry, she stammered. I was daydreaming. It’s usually quiet this time of day, she rambled.

Is the chowder good? Thor interrupted. He sensed that Catherine was flustered and liked the advantage.

Best in the area, she shot back, reaching deep for her composure.

Oh? They usually claim the best in Maine. Sometimes all of New England and as often the world, Thor chuckled. A limited warrantee, but I’ll take the chance, he finished as he followed her to a table by a big window from which you could see the harbor. He was even more intrigued by her petite, toned figure as she self-consciously walked away from him, seeming to sense that she was being inspected.

Do you need a menu or is your gamble limited to the chowder? she joked. Something to drink? she asked, now composed and in her business mode.

A Manhattan and a bowl of the chowder.

Thor was open about his assessment and appreciation of Catherine Bailey’s looks. She was again flustered and found his accent interesting and difficult to place.

She placed his order, tended to other tables and busied herself at the hostess station. Though she consciously and devoutly attempted to resist, she flitted between sorting receipts and glancing at Thor. She felt foolish – even girlish – about his advances. Catherine had dealt with summer people and tourists who drank too much and made clumsy and even deft passes over many summers. She knew it wasn’t because Gundersen was that handsome or charming. She also knew that something was changing about her. She felt indifferent about resistance and even drawn to returning the flirtation. When she noticed the chowder on the raised counter that separated the kitchen from the dining area and the Manhattan in the serving area at the bar, Catherine placed the bowl on a tray and then failed to beat one of the waitresses to the drink.

I’ll take it to him, Becky Corbin laughed. It’s slow. She was 19-years old and 5’10" with pretty brown hair and thick legs.

You will like hell. What I mean … , Catherine recovered, is that he is a tough one to please. I’ll handle him.

Becky – who was on summer break from Westbrook College in Portland – was miffed by her abruptness but knew to be deferential. She was hopeful of returning to Graniteport for summer work the next two years.

So this is the best chowder in the area? Gundersen teased.

Depends on how you define the area, she parried, unaware that she was striking a pose.

Who is the judge with this business? Thor demanded, nursing his Manhattan and pushing the chowder aside.

You. The customer is always right.

"That’s a first for Maine. Folks from away – that’s how you say it, I think – can’t be right about anything."

Always a first for everything, she returned, aware that their exchange was just banter.

"And if I don’t think it’s the best?’

"We’ll bring a quart of fresh to the Birgit II tomorrow."

Catherine regretted the admission of any knowledge about his association with the expensive boat in the harbor. Thor reflexively assessed that he had a chance with her, though he was also aware that those from here were world class busybodies who knew all of the comings and goings in their villages and even the surrounding hamlets. He dismissed the matter of rumors and a tarnished reputation as her problem.

It started the next day when Catherine Bailey took a quart of chowder to the Birgit II and stayed for two hours. It went that way every Tuesday through the summer and on other days when Catherine made awful excuses to her husband and the staff at the restaurant. She missed all of her golf outings that year and gave reason for a rabid rumor mill to flourish.

Catherine was a willing accomplice and believed Thor when he told her she was different, undervalued and more than a buffoon like Ned Bailey deserved. Whether or not it was true, Catherine experienced a form of affirmation and corruption in discovering that sex could be a long, joyful and ultimately empty marathon. Still, it was something she had not experienced and – however cheap it made her feel the next day – Catherine longed for the next time and felt she became a woman that summer. It wasn’t that Ned was obsolete or that she didn’t love him. In fact, she admired him more for his thrift, steadiness, fairness and common sense compared against Thor’s bluster, showiness and view of himself as superior to any man from Maine.

There is usually a downside to comparisons made when a relationship is new. Thor was gentle and athletic in bed, smelled of crisp cologne and told Catherine how he felt about her; that she was sensual and attractive and wasting herself in Graniteport whereas Ned Bailey always smelled of the pound, tobacco and sweat and regarded only one way of making love as appropriate and all others perversions. The worst thing about that summer was Catherine’s entrancement with Gundersen’s roguish charm and believing him when he whispered that he loved her.

During July – instead of enjoying the commerce at the restaurant and exchanging barbs with customers – she lingered at the large window that overlooked the harbor and by which Thor first sat and wondered if he was aboard the Birgit II and what he was doing. She was aboard as often as she could make excuses and still more times when she disregarded her normal sense of caution.

During August, the talk was vicious and circulating as it will in a closed society. Instead of enjoying the wonderful morning views of the harbor from the porch at her home, Catherine only saw the Birgit II and relived what she had experienced there. Only those who have been unfaithful – which is not to imply that it has ever been a small population – know the self-inflicted exile of the desperate, ache-to-the-bone loneliness of your own home while actually sick with a desire to be in the other place where wonderful things happen and you feel whole. It usually goes that way until it either fades – sometimes with one very bitter – or the new lovers leave those they once loved and try what they failed at again. Those who leave miserable situations sometimes find an improved circumstance and others are just lucky that way in spite of having given up on something that could have been as good if their efforts had been the equal of the neglect that caused it to wither and end. Of course, plenty find themselves in an even worse place or eventually come to the hard luck realization that they repeated the same mistake. Some make it again and, sometimes, another time or two.

Thor Gundersen was too self-contained and convinced of his appeal to be bothered with self-introspection or burdened by guilt. Instead, he assessed the women who were attracted to him as worthwhile – so long as they were at least decent looking as he was not a man so fussy as to waste opportunities. He would reach his end yet confounded by those who felt hurt and even betrayed when he suddenly lost interest and retreated. When he came to those decisions, Thor saw no value to telling anyone as tearful displays only made him angry. It was over, and that was all any woman needed to know.

When September approached with its step-down to fewer tourists after Labor Day and into October with reduced staffing and hours until the restaurant closed in mid-December, Catherine went from apprehensive to frantic. She told herself it was foolishness; that she had bartered her values, word, reputation and husband’s trust for the recycled tinsel of a fling. Some days, she thought herself strong and rationalized that she would be a better woman and wife because of it. More often, and it worsened as Labor Day and Thor’s departure neared, she hated herself for having been so selfish, vain and evil as to ever believe that this thing between her and Thor should ever have happened. Worse, Catherine wondered if she would survive days that would add up to weeks and then months without Thor’s companionship or touch. For a while, she was certain that death would be better.

We could meet in New York. I could say I’m going to the ballet or shopping, she urged.

Thor resisted: I know too many people in the city.

You could meet me in Florida during February. You could get away for a week or so, she begged.

Busy time for me in Cape May, Thor demurred. I have to earn money so I can come back in June, he smiled, knowing it always melted her resolve.

If it had not been for her children, she would have asked him to marry her. Catherine could not know it, but they shielded her from being shattered by the response.

By Christmas with no word from Thor, Catherine was immersed in the season as celebrated in a place now abandoned by tourists and summer people. She enjoyed her children and regained her comfort with Ned’s steady ways. Eventually, she realized that days went by without a thought about Thor and her wayward summer.

During mid-May, she began to wonder if she would awaken and see the Birgit II in the harbor and what she would do if Thor came back into her life. By June, it was a thought that banished the practical from her mind as she knew that pleasure would return, followed by guilt and then the desperate emptiness.

I’m over it, she tried to steel herself. There can’t be any going back. Losing it again would destroy me.

In spite of vows that became chants accompanied by many tears, she knew her resolve would topple with a glimpse of Thor. Day after day, she stood by the hostess station and waited for him.

June came and there was no sighting of the Birgit II. Catherine was often relieved when the boat wasn’t there in the morning but lovesick when it wasn’t anchored in the harbor some evenings. On July 4th – with the fireworks display flashing and lighting the harbor, Catherine slipped.

Thought maybe that Norwegian would be back with his big boat this summer.

Ned looked off and down the harbor from the porch. Heard he was down in Boothbay last month. He inhaled deeply and then blew smoke rings that hung and were backlit by the colors of the fireworks. "Heard he’s anchored in Grafton now. Better place. More summah people and tourists theyah. Fact, there’s hardly anybody from heyah in that town. He inhaled and blew another series of smoke rings that hung with the humidity. The grand finale was ablaze and the boats in the harbor looked like colorful toys. He’ll find more of his own kind theyah and it’ll be hunky dory for him."

Oh Ned! Catherine gasped. I should have known you knew . . . .

Bailey cut her off. "Quiet, woman. Enjoy the fireworks and the view. Tomorrow’s another run at the pound and with the rusticators. No sense to getting worked up ‘bout some summah guy showin’ off his yacht."

What Catherine would never know was that Ned set out in his boat and pulled alongside the Birgit II the day it left Graniteport and was three miles out.

Cut your engines and drop anchor, Bailey radioed.

Gundersen decided to outrun Bailey, figuring the Birgit II for more speed than a lobster boat could muster. Even if they remained abreast, Thor reasoned that they would eventually encounter other boats and attract attention or cause a diversion.

Ned aimed his shotgun and fired two rounds across the bow of the Birgit II.

Cut your engines and drop anchor or the next round goes into your hull – right about the waterline, Bailey warned from a bullhorn. I mean you no harm.

Thor regarded it as an odd promise from a man with a shotgun aimed at his boat. When he was certain Bailey was taking aim, he cut the engines and ordered his crew to drop anchor. The boats drifted at 20-feet apart with a light chop and a bright sun. Ned was concerned they were in Moncroft Island territory, which meant business had to be transacted quickly to avoid being misidentified as trespassers.

Know who I am? Bailey barked.

I do.

Next year, Bailey spat. Don’t bring your fancy boat or ideas to my harbor.

Is there a law against my anchoring there?

Ned stowed the shotgun as Thor’s arrogance made him a tempting target.

No laws of Maine or the federal bunch, Ned bristled. "Just man’s law."

"And what is man’s law?" Gundersen challenged.

My law, Bailey flatly answered.

"And what happens if I come back to what you call your harbor," Thor pressed.

No arrest or fine, if that’s what you mean, Bailey again spat. But you’ll have to swim or walk back to your homeport – unless that tub can sail as a submarine.

I get it, Thor nodded, aware that he had no clout in any of the small harbors in Maine or nobility as a man having an affair with the wife of someone from here, let alone a village elder. Gundersen was a foolishly competitive man and did not resist a parting shot: You don’t deserve her.

I know that, Bailey calmly answered. But I’m twice the man you are and the better deal. You keep your boat afloat somewhere else. Then everythin’ will stay hunky dory, Ned finished as he weighed anchor, swung a narrow circle that caused a swell that rocked the Birgit II, and headed back to his harbor.

Ned gained an odd and unexpected peace from all of it as he knew, when there was no meal waiting after a long winter day at the pound or when his wife went into exile in the guestroom, he was making another payment on a debt that would never be repaid. After the summer of Catherine’s disloyalty, they were even and their situation became more stable. It would be nice to say that passion seeped back into the aquifers of the relationship, but it was more mundane and just a treaty between two people who at times barely tolerated but always respected one another. Catherine occasionally missed Thor’s praise and expressions of love but accepted her husband’s response – when she asked why he never told her he loved her – that he left and returned to their home every day and it was the place to which he brought his money. As often as not, it was, I’m with you, ain’t I? and Catherine Bailey knew it was all a man like her husband could admit and was more heartfelt than anything a man like Thor Gundersen had ever expressed to any woman. In the give and take and commerce of a relationship. Catherine would always wish for more; a man who was open, expressive and whatever romantic means to a particular woman. She also realized there were better men than Ned Bailey. Perhaps it was the rationalization that propels all successful marriages, but Catherine was certain she had never met a man finer than her husband.

Their youngest daughter earned her master’s degree in social work and took a position with a veterans outreach clinic near Lexington. Bailey lost all hope of his favorite daughter returning to take her place in his business – which he decreed as running what he called the fillin’ station and convenience store – when she announced her engagement to Jeff Teitelbaum, who was a chiropractor with a practice in Concord.

A Jew! Bailey railed. "Don’t get no more away than that bunch."

The only Jews Bailey knew were people from away; the families that owned a few stores on Main Street and medical practitioners who moved to the area. He found them friendly enough but standoffish – never aware that they said the same about him and others whose family names had been on the village roles for centuries. He was even more appalled when Catherine pronounced Jeff a fine man who would be a good husband and father.

When Jeff and Carol were married at a nondenominational ceremony on Cape Ann, Bailey reflected on his parenting and where he might have gone wrong. He declared his daughter one of those who had retreated so far from Graniteport and what it meant to be from here that she was now something less – one of those from away. He hoped Carol would eventually inhale the scent of the sea in Graniteport and escape from her mistake. Jeff’s mother, Edith, wondered about the same kind of failing in her own home and sat Shiva – mourning her son’s spiritual death – rending her dress and remaining in her room for seven days following the wedding. Her misguided hope was