“work.” He maintained, and I had come to agree, that reality
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suggests more homogeneity: Boats are boats. All boats are work, and no vessel is strictly pleasurable. However, even without the distinction, boats live in different neighborhoods defined by income. Fairways was in a class all her own, I thought as I made my way around the front bumper of the Duster.
The path from the parking area to the front door was covered with seasoned mussel shells, the color of which recalled the lupine along the drive. The brittle shells crunched under-foot and warned those on the opposite side of the screen door of arrivals. Before I was able to knock, the woman of the house pushed open the door, invited me to come in, admon-ished me for being early, and introduced herself as Lucy Hamilton. I had previously seen her from across the high school gymnasium and on the plant’s dock. Now my impression was that Lucy looked like Cher. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hamilton. I wanted to call, but my cell phone is dead. Shall I leave and come back later?” I asked politely.
“No. He’s not doing anything. I’ll get him.” Lucy rolled her large dark eyes and pulled her long, silky hair from where it rested on breasts that rose like biscuits from her red dress.
She whipped her dark locks behind her head and let them cascade onto well-tanned shoulder blades. She turned on a spiked heel of a strappy shoe, took two steps toward an arched doorway, cupped her hands around fully glossed lips, and shrieked, “Sweetheart! The insurance lady is here—
earrrrrrrrr-ly!” She turned and retraced the two steps, flashed a “say cheese” smile, and said, “He’ll be right down. Let me s l i p k n o t
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take your bag.” Lucy grabbed my messenger bag with both hands, lifting its bulk from where it rested on my opposite hip.
“Oh. No, thank you. I’ll need my bag,” I said, and calmly removed it from Lucy’s heavily jeweled fingers. With the quickness of a spoiled girl whose mother had taken away the last bonbon, Lucy snatched the bag again, this time pulling the strap hard into my neck.
“It’s lovely. It’s a Seabag, right? I have to get some of these for my boutique.” Lucy’s fingers were turning white as she tightened her grip. I leaned away from her in an attempt to rip the bag from her grasp again. Lucy was bracing herself so as not to slide along the hardwood. “I need some of these bags, ”
Lucy continued through clenched teeth. “They’re made from recycled sails, right? Very chic now—recycling. And so nautical! Was this one sewn by ladies in prison?”
“No.” I lurched with my full weight into the strap that I always wore across my chest, unwilling to lose a tug-of-war with the prim Madonna. I could, I assumed, twist Lucy’s spindly arms off at the shoulders, but I found it more amus-ing to watch her struggle.
“It is an authentic Seabag, isn’t it? Every bag is an original, right?” Lucy was almost groaning from the extent of physical output needed not to relinquish the bag to its owner. “I just love this one! How much did you pay for it?”
The strap was being tugged so hard into my throat that I could barely speak. “I made it myself,” I whispered.
“Ewwwww!” Lucy recoiled from the bag, releasing it as if she had discovered that it contained snakes. I fell backward
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with the sudden release of counterweight and stumbled into a table, sending a very large and ornate vase to the floor, where it exploded into tiny fragments and dust. Before I could blink, Lucy had frantically pulled something that looked like a yellowed envelope from the mess and tucked it into a small drawer in the table. After she smoothed the front of her dress, her hands landed on her hips, where they remained as she joined me and stood speechless over the pile of rubble that I thought looked like kitty litter. Blaine Hamilton rushed into the room.
Blaine Hamilton had a presence that was friendly and familiar. Although his boat moccasins were well worn, his chinos sported a perfect crease, and his green flannel shirt appeared to have been starched. Except for his shoes, Blaine’s clothing was crisp and fresh, like what was worn by the male models in the L. L. Bean catalogs I had been given by my landlords, perhaps as a subtle suggestion that I upgrade my wardrobe to something less Miami.
“Oh, my! Are you all right?” Blaine approached me with his right hand extended. I took his hand and, before I could fully execute an apology for the vase, was interrupted by the impatient woman in the red dress.
“She tripped on the Oriental rug. She’s fine, but look at your poor parents!” Lucy turned and snapped at me, “It was an urn, not a vase.”
“Touché” was all I could manage.
“Oh, dear,” Blaine said. “Well, they always wanted their ashes scattered around the shore. Where’s the broom?”
“In the broom closet,” Lucy sniped sarcastically. It was s l i p k n o t
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clear that she was not budging from what I suspected was sentry duty at her self-appointed post between the drawer where she had tucked away the envelope and anyone who might want to peek inside, like me. Blaine hustled out of the room, leaving Lucy and me glaring silently at each other over the remains of his father and mother.
“That urn was worth more than your annual salary,” Lucy hissed in a loud whisper.
“That’s not giving much value to the urn.” I smiled. “I’m sorry. We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot. I’ll go survey the boat with your husband and be out of your hair.”
“You! Alone with my husband? Over my dead body! A lot of people want what I have. You can forget your scheme and go back to Florida with the rest of the reptiles that crawl around on their bellies.”
And there it was. The only drawback of being a woman in a place regarded by most as a man’s world is the insecure, jeal-ous female who thinks you’re after her husband. Blaine Hamilton wasn’t my type. He wasn’t at all like Lincoln Aldridge. Did everyone know I came here from Florida? I wondered. I quickly passed this off as the result of small-town gossip. I gracefully bowed out of the seething stare and attempted to portray disinterest in the drawer and in Lucy’s husband.
“Yeah. Whatever.” I detested the dangling “whatever” response and hoped Lucy did, too. Letting my eyes wander around the room, I finally focused on a series of portraits lined up like a perp walk along the far wall. The portraits, all men, were handsome and dignified and not at all like the last of their bloodline—Blaine Hamilton. As Blaine scurried back
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with broom and dustpan and proceeded to sweep up his folks, chatting the entire time about nothing consequential, I grew fond of him. Blaine was soft and warm. His portrait would look like a caricature in the company of those it would join someday.
I began strategizing on how to get some time alone with Blaine to pump him for his account of what had gone down at the public meeting preceding the death that I was certain had not been an accident. How could I shake the suspicious wife?
I would think of something. I just needed to be patient. I also would have loved a few seconds alone with that drawer, but I doubted that would happen. Lucy caught me staring at the drawer and moved to block my view of it. Fidgeting uneasily with her charm bracelet, she said, “The remains of the most affluent and superior people reduced to a dustpan . . . I never thought I’d see the day. What a disgrace. Does your employer carry liability insurance on you, Ms. Bunker?”
“Lucy, darling. Please try to be polite to our guest. Accidents happen,” Blaine wheedled.
“She’s not our guest, and most accidents are covered by insurance. Come on. Let’s get this over with. I have to be at the boutique at eleven.” Lucy swept her right arm toward the door, inviting and insisting that Blaine and I exit ahead of her. Blaine grabbed a ball cap from a hook in the entryway, pulled it on over his thinning curly hair, and held the screen door for the ladies with his foot while cradling the full dustpan to his chest.
The three of us marched along the mussel shells with me in the lead and moving quickly. I wondered how Lucy was faring with her heels, but I never glanced back s l i p k n o t
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to check. Once we were on the boardwalk, the heels clicked closely behind. I nearly ran the length of the granite pier and stopped abruptly at the top of the ramp, where Lucy almost ran up my back.
“Ms. Bunker, we’ll only be a few minutes sprinkling the ashes around the shore. Then I’d be delighted to show you Fairways. Come on, sweetheart,” Blaine said to Lucy.
Lucy ran her eyes along the shore, where the tide had receded, exposing a narrow band of clam flats. Then she looked down at her shoes. “I’ll just watch from here. But hurry. I’m meeting Victoria Cole at the shop. She’s always good for a grand. How long will this survey take?” Lucy asked me.
“Well, I’m not sure.” I hesitated, hoping to discourage Lucy from joining us aboard the boat. “Your vessel hasn’t been surveyed since Mr. Hamilton, Sr., had it built, and you’ve made some changes, right?”
“Yes, yes, that’s correct. There have been some changes—
improvements, upgrades. That’s why I need a new survey. I have no other plans for the morning. You can have all the time you need,” Blaine chirped pleasantly. “Sweetheart, you can’t be thinking of going with us. You’ve never been aboard Fairways. You’ll surely have trouble climbing in and out of the dink wearing that dress.” The use of the word “dink” for his dinghy reminded me that Blaine was indeed a member of the upper crust of society; watermen below the yachting class would have called the dinghy anything but.
“Don’t you worry about me,” Lucy warned. “I am no stranger to boats. I was born and raised in this town, on the
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water, and in a dress. My grandfather came here from Italy to fish,” she added proudly.
“I thought your grandfather came from Poland to work as a stonecutter in the granite quarry,” said Blaine.
“Yeah. That, too.” Now Lucy sounded irritated. “Come on. Snap it up!”
“Yes, dear.” As Blaine made his way to the edge of the water, Lucy followed me down the ramp and onto the float. I untied the dinghy’s painter, jerked the tiny boat around by the bow so that it lay with its side against the float, and hopped down into the stern seat, leaving the bow for Lucy, as she appeared to be the lightest of the three of us. Not to be out-done, and taking her cue from me, Lucy pushed her hair from her face, took a deep breath, and moved to the edge of the float adjacent to the dinghy’s bow. As she attempted a step onto the tiny triangular seat, her dress stopped her foot short of making contact. She quickly withdrew, hiked her dress up a notch, and tried again. I had allowed the slight breeze to blow the bow off just enough to keep the seat out of reach of the fully exposed leg. Again Lucy withdrew to a secure and square stance on the dock. “Need a hand?” I asked.
“No.” Lucy shrank into a deep knee bend and reached for the painter, the bitter end of which was lying on the middle seat. Her long, perfectly manicured nails were one inch short of the line. She placed her knees on the float, gripped the starboard oarlock with her left hand, and stretched with her right. She easily grabbed the line, exhaled in relief, and gave me a “see, I can do it, too” smirk. She triumphantly pushed against the dinghy to right her full weight back on the float.
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The boat moved out, rather than her weight up, leaving Lucy neither here nor there. She arched between boat and float like a human bridge. She held fast, seemingly trying to decide whether to lunge for dinghy or dock. The gap between the two widened, flattening the arch in her back to nearly hori-zontal. There really was nothing I could do to help at this point, even if I had wanted to. All Lucy managed to utter before splashing was “My shoes.”
Blaine came sprinting down the ramp in time to see his wife treading water. Her wet black hair was plastered to her tiny skull, which bobbed up and down like that of a seal looking for a mackerel. I switched myself into the middle seat, placed the oars in their brass locks, and maneuvered back to the edge of the float. I hopped onto the dock, secured the dinghy, and moved quickly to assist Blaine, who was pulling his wife out of the ocean by her fragile-looking arms. Although, of course, I did not laugh, I was amused; I knew I was seconds from a real visual of the expression “mad as a wet hornet.” We worked together to haul Lucy first onto the float and then to her feet. The red dress clung to every curve, like a peach in heavy syrup to the side of a bowl.
I didn’t know whether Lucy’s trembling was from cold or rage, but I broke the silence with an explanation to answer the puzzled look on Blaine’s face. “I think one of her spikes got jammed in these boards on the deck,” I said, dragging the toe of my sensible shoe along the crack between two eight-inch planks. “Ouch! Look at those legs! There must be a barnacle factory down there,” I said, drawing all attention to Lucy’s shins. Rivulets of salt water trickled from the lower
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hem of the dress, over her knees, and onto her shins, where they mixed with blood from multiple scrapes. The shredded panty hose did little to contain the streams as they irrigated Lucy’s very expensive-looking shoes. Lucy’s fists were balled up tight. Her entire body stiffened with what I perceived as extreme ire and indignation.
“Sweetheart, are you all right?” Blaine winced with what I understood to be apprehension and anticipation of a lashing wrath I was certain Lucy was fit to deliver.
“I’m fine,” Lucy answered calmly as she smoothed her dress and pulled her dripping tangles behind her head, then let them plop onto her back, which was stippled with goose bumps. “Ahhh. First swim of the season. Quite refreshing. I need to shower and change before meeting Mrs. Cole.” As she sloshed past me, Lucy hesitated long enough to slit her eyes, clotted with damp makeup, and mouth something un-readable at me. She went up the ramp slowly and gracefully, with a seemingly forced nonchalance.
I stepped over the puddle left by Lucy and called out, “Nice to have met you, Mrs. Hamilton. Sorry about your vase.”
Lucy never turned around, but she threw her head back, said “Urn” to the sky, quickened her pace, and disappeared up the boardwalk.
I climbed nimbly into the dinghy and took the rear seat, facing Blaine, who held the boat against the float while I got settled. Pushing off, Blaine placed the oars in their locks and pulled strongly and rhythmically toward the majestic dark-hulled sailboat. The size of the dinghy mandated a physical closeness that I found strangely warm and comfortable. With s l i p k n o t
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each dipping of the oars, the dinghy rose up slightly, forged ahead, and settled back into a short glide before the next powerful stroke.
I shook myself from the lazy state that so naturally lulls the one in the stern seat. Knowing that my time alone with Blaine would be brief, I initiated conversation with “Interesting hat,”
referring to his cap. Its embroidered endorsement for the wind farm very much reminded me of the button pinned to the deceased. Seemingly relieved to have the stillness interrupted, Blaine apologized profusely for his wife’s lack of manners, excusing her actions with an explanation that led naturally to the questions I had come here hoping to ask. “Lucy is distraught over the death of Nick Dow. She hasn’t been acting at all normal—beside herself with grief, I suppose.”
“They were friends?” I hoped for more.
“Well, sort of.” Blaine lifted the starboard oar into the boat and tucked the glistening blade under the stern seat.
One short backstroke with the other oar landed the dinghy gently against the side of Fairways. Blaine grabbed the edge of the three-runged ladder that hung over the rail and waited for me to climb aboard the large vessel. I did not budge. I sat waiting for more of an explanation. It eventually came. “Not friends, exactly,” he continued. “Lucy had taken Nick on as a project, like a community
service. She accompanied him to A.A. meetings, delivered meals to his place, took calls from him at all hours . . . I suppose she’s feeling somewhat responsible for his death, since he was clearly fully intoxicated the evening of his accident.” Blaine motioned toward the ladder with his free hand and said, “After you.”
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One of my few assets was something innate that compelled others to open up to me. Wanting to hear more but not wanting to appear overly interested, I climbed over the rail and onto the deck of Fairways. Blaine followed. As he secured the dinghy to a cleat, I said, “That town meeting was my first look at Green Haven. I didn’t have a clue what was going on.”
“You’re fortunate to not know. It was appalling, wasn’t it?” Blaine’s soft voice was lower than what I assumed was normal for him as he recounted the same sequence of events that I had heard from Audrey in the café earlier this morning and had witnessed myself last night. Of course, Blaine’s take on the episode was centered on Dow’s misbehavior and how his actions had riled the town to the breaking point. He did not make any mention of the contentious wind-power proposal and how this had disturbed an otherwise complacent community. So I supposed his recounting was, in part, a way of dismissing any responsibility he might otherwise have to face for the meeting’s outcome.
I went about the business of surveying the Hinckley while Blaine supplied a few pertinent details of Dow’s fated evening, including the fact that Lucy had stayed out all night following the mayhem at the gymnasium, supposedly looking for Dow and her son. “She was worried about Alex. He was verbally attacked and publicly humiliated by someone whom only she hadn’t given up on. Not to mention that it was all because of my wind farm proposal. It’s become my pet project.
The money I’ve spent . . . That’s pressing particularly hard on Lucy. She knows that wind power will be great for Green s l i p k n o t
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