The Vanishing Expert

by David Movsesian

  It was especially difficult for Gloria to see the growing distance between her and Kate, whom she’d always valued as a dear friend, even though she knew Kate would usually side with her brother whenever Gloria and Edward quarreled. She knew Edward always confided in Kate, and that Kate knew every detail of their differences. Edward wasn’t one to broadcast his problems to the world, but he kept nothing from his sister.

  As Gloria began to uncover the curious remnants of Edward’s last year, she hoped to gain some insight from Kate, but Kate rarely spoke about her brother after his death. She avoided the subject. She was much the same person she’d always been, but whenever the topic of Edward was raised, Kate retreated into a kind of shell, and said nothing until the subject changed.

  Gloria wasn’t the only person to notice that Kate had grown quiet and detached since Edward’s death. Kenny noticed Kate’s remoteness as well, and when he mentioned it to Gloria one afternoon in December, they discovered they agreed that Kate showed signs of the same sullenness that Gloria had seen in Edward during their final year together.

  “She seems so quiet,” Gloria said. “But I get the feeling she doesn’t want to talk to me for some reason.” They were standing outside the supermarket where Gloria had spotted Kenny as she drove slowly past, looking for a place to park. It wasn’t nearly as cold in Rhode Island as it was on Mount Desert Island. It hadn’t dipped below freezing during the day for nearly a week, and that day, the rain was falling in a light mist, which would surely freeze during the night. It was a dismal afternoon, but Gloria was pleased to see Kenny, and she left her car idling at the curb while she ran under the awning to join him on the sidewalk. “Does she ever talk to you about Edward?”

  Kenny shook his head slowly. “She hardly ever talks about him at all,” Kenny said. “I know she thinks about him, but she keeps it to herself.” He thought for a moment, looking out at the rain. “Sometimes she seems so sad, but there are times when she talks about him as if he was still alive, and then she catches herself. It’s like she forgets that he’s gone.”

  Gloria nodded slowly, and she looked sadly at Kenny. “I do that, too,” she confessed. Her eyes began to mist, growing as damp as the gray day that surrounded them, and Kenny put his arm around her shoulders and hugged her to him.

  Gloria always liked Kenny. She met Edward about the same time that Kenny met Kate, and they shared a kind of bond as they became part of the Moody family together. They grew to be good friends over the years, and although neither Kate nor Edward was aware of it until much later, Gloria and Kenny spoke frequently. When she and Edward began having problems with their marriage, it was Kenny that Gloria went to for advice, and he was pleased to help her.

  On Christmas Eve morning, as James Perkins strolled through the streets of Bar Harbor, Gloria sat at her kitchen table, ignoring the breakfast she’d made for herself, which went untouched on the table before her. She didn’t decorate the house that year. For the first time, there was no Christmas tree in the living room. There was no mistletoe hanging in the doorway or stockings hanging from the mantel. It was Edward who enjoyed decorating the house for Christmas. Every year he looked forward to decorating the tree and hanging the lights on the house. It reminded him of all the Christmases he knew as a child, and Gloria always took pleasure in seeing the happiness it brought him.

  It was a magical time for him, but now that he was gone, the joy had gone out of it for her, and she simply chose to leave the ornaments and the colored lights in the same boxes in the attic where Edward packed them away almost a year earlier.

  Only one small ornament escaped the darkness of the attic that season, a small bulb that had been one of Edward’s favorites from his childhood. Kate had asked Gloria if she could have it, and when Gloria agreed, Kate rummaged through a half-dozen boxes until she found what she was looking for. On her way out, she showed it to Gloria.

  “It always makes me think of him,” Kate told her. “I just need to look at it this Christmas. I thought if I hang it on our tree, it’ll be like he’s there with us in a way.” It was a good lie, and she even surprised herself with the genuine sadness in her voice.

  Gloria joined Kate and Kenny for Christmas dinner, but she was quiet and introspective throughout the meal. Deciding she was dampening the spirits of her hosts, she excused herself early and returned to her empty house without ever questioning Kate about the ornament that was missing from her tree.

  10

  Winter

  Winters along the Maine coast are long, bitterly-cold affairs. The winds that sweep in off the ocean are brisk and raw, nearly unimaginable to the summer tourists who visit Mount Desert Island during the warm summer months. From December to March, the island appears almost uninhabited compared to the busy tourist season. Several of the shops close for the season in late October when the stream of tourists thins to a trickle, while many others close shortly after Christmas. Many of the houses on the island, both the summer cottages and the stately homes overlooking the ocean, sit vacant and dark, like hollow shells, their owners choosing to head south to wait out the season in warmer climates. Given a choice, those who remain venture out only when necessary, more often choosing to remain inside near the comfort of their woodstoves to observe the passing of winter through frosted window panes.

  That January was a frigid month, perhaps the worst of what promised to be a particularly harsh winter. Even those locals who were familiar with all that winter on Mount Desert Island had to offer agreed that those first few weeks after Christmas were particularly severe. With the exception of the blizzard on Thanksgiving weekend and the few inches that fell on Christmas Eve, there had been very little snow, but a raw, biting cold made even the stoutest New Englander question the wisdom of remaining on the coast for this least accommodating of seasons. Even the most resilient of them, those who normally appeared oblivious to whatever conditions nature might throw at them, shivered and ached from the cold.

  The weather was the most popular topic of conversation in the small pubs and markets that remained open during the winter. Locals from all over the island gathered there on the weekends to catch up on the week’s events, and to gossip about their neighbors. Other than those impromptu weekly meetings in town, most of the islanders ventured out only when necessary during those harsh winter months, otherwise keeping to themselves.

  James Perkins was one of the exceptions.

  It was his trip to Freeport that changed his outlook. After sharing his secret with Tracy, it was as if a tremendous weight had been lifted off him. For the first time, he felt as if he could step out of the shadows and live his life openly, and he found himself cheerfully greeting people he met on the street without the nagging concern that they would recognize him from a picture in the newspaper. If nothing else, he felt certain that no one from Rhode Island would venture to Mount Desert Island during the winter.

  He frequented The Spinnaker Pub whenever he ventured into Bar Harbor. If Denny happened to be there, he always made a point of stopping by James’s table or his seat at the bar and bringing James a beer on the house. If James ever seemed sullen or distant, Denny had a habit of dipping his thick finger in the head of James’s beer, and flicking the foam in James’s face to get his attention.

  “Hey!” Denny would bellow. “This is supposed to be a happy place. Cheer up, or I’ll toss your butt outta here!” Then he would offer a silly smile as he handed James a napkin to wipe his face. “At least don’t mope near the window. I don’t want you scaring off my clientele.”

  James always smiled. He liked Denny, and he didn’t even mind his damp greetings. “Good to see you, too, Denny.”

  Denny would wink at him and pat him on the shoulder with one of his large hands as he turned away to return to work. “Always good to be seen, my friend.”

  Denny Kirkland was always easy-going and friendly, and although James only had brief conversations with him when Peter wasn’t around, Denny always managed to make him fe
el as if they were old friends.

  When James wasn’t seated at the bar, Denny made certain he was guided to a good table near the window, but away from the draft from the door. He never allowed James to finish his first beer without having a fresh one right there at his elbow. And he always saw to it that he introduced James to every available woman who entered the bar. More than once, he’d picked up James’s food and drink and led him to another table, seating him next to a woman who was also dining alone. Even if the women didn’t know James, most of them knew Denny, and they were usually amused.

  Before long, James was convinced he’d met all the single women on Mount Desert Island. Some of them James found quite interesting. A few of them he even found attractive. But the more women he met, the more he realized that he was holding each of them to a standard to which they couldn’t possibly measure up, unfairly comparing them to Jean Berkhardt.

  He saw Jean often during those weeks following Christina’s return to college in January. The gallery was closed for the season, but whenever he noticed the gallery’s lights were on or spotted Jean’s car parked at the curb, he always made a point of stopping in to see her.

  Winter was a lonely time for Jean with Christina away at school and many of her friends spending the season in the south, so she was always pleased to see James. She’d noticed the change in him since Thanksgiving. Though he never spoke of what happened that weekend, except to say that he'd visited an old friend, he was different since his return. He was more cheerful, less introspective, and she rarely saw even a glimpse of that dark, troubled man who sat with her in front of her fireplace a few months earlier and spoke so regretfully about his life. Jean looked forward to his visits as much as he did. If by some chance she didn’t see him in the course of a day, she was disappointed, and she’d try to plan the following day so as to be at the gallery at those times when James was most likely to stop by.

  They continued their tradition of sharing Sunday dinners, which were almost always at Jean’s house during those cold winter months. After supper, the two of them inevitably moved into the living room, relaxing in front of the fire with a bottle of wine and talking until late in the evening. Jean noticed that James often became much more open about his past with the benefit of a full stomach and a bottle of wine, though he was still evasive about the last two years leading up to his leaving Rhode Island and his sudden appearance in Southwest Harbor.

  When James mentioned Gloria, which he did rarely, he mainly spoke of the early years— when they met in college, their courtship, and the first years of their marriage. He usually avoided discussing any details of their marriage after their fifth year together, and Jean concluded— more from what he didn’t say than from what he did— that their marriage must have deteriorated after that. Perhaps it was her experience with her own failed marriage that enabled her to recognize the signs.

  Had anyone seen them together on those Sunday evenings, it would have been easy to mistake them for a married couple. Often, as they sat together on the sofa watching the fire, Jean would lean affectionately against him. As the evening wore on, and she became sleepy from the meal and the wine, she would often rest her head upon his shoulder, occasionally drifting off to sleep.

  The portrait that Del Miller eventually took of Jean and Christina sat in a cherry frame and hung upon the wall just to the right of the fireplace. In it, they wore matching dark sweaters, and were seated next to each other, Christina on a slightly higher stool, leaning into her mother with her hand resting upon Jean’s shoulder. Christina’s expression was bright and beautiful; Jean’s smile exuded the same pride and delight that James often saw on her face whenever Christina was with her.

  Just as James had assured Christina on that cold day in December as they stood outside Del Miller’s studio, Jean had been overjoyed with the gift. When she opened the framed portrait of Christina on Christmas morning, she was delighted. When Christina explained that the real gift was a portrait of the two of them together, and that she’d already scheduled the sitting, Jean wept and embraced her daughter, kissing her repeatedly. There was nothing in the world that mattered more to her than her daughter, and nothing she could have treasured more than the portrait of the two of them together.

  “It’s the best gift I could ever get,” Jean told her later.

  On a nearby bookshelf was another frame that contained three more photographs from their session with Del Miller. They wore white sweaters and sat against a white backdrop, but all three images were tightly cropped so only their faces and shoulders were visible. In the first image, they gaze directly at the camera, their lovely faces tipped toward each other, almost touching. In the second photograph, Jean is smiling contentedly at the camera while Christina, in profile, plants a playful kiss on her cheek. The third image showed both of them laughing joyfully as if they’d just shared some private joke. James loved those photographs, perhaps even more than the formal portrait because it seemed to capture the essence of their relationship— grace, love and pure joy.

  After one of their Sunday suppers, they made their way into the living room as they always did, and when James sat on the sofa, Jean presented him with a gift, wrapped in red Christmas foil, placing it in his lap as she sat down beside him. James was confused and a little embarrassed and he told her so, but Jean just smiled.

  “It’s more of a thank you gift than a Christmas gift,” Jean told him. “That was just the only wrapping paper I had.”

  “Thank you for what?” James asked.

  “Just open it,” she told him.

  Inside the box was a smaller version of the framed montage with the same three photographs that he’d been admiring on Jean’s bookshelf for weeks. He held it in his lap and smiled.

  “Christina told me the portrait was your idea,” Jean confessed. “And I just wanted to thank you.”

  James had encouraged Christina not to admit his role in it. Part of the joy of the gift, he’d explained, is that she’d thought of it on her own, and he assured her he would keep their little secret. But when the time came, and her mother was overflowing with gratitude, Christina couldn’t help herself.

  “I might have guided her a little,” James said, still hoping to deflect Jean’s praise.

  Jean touched his hand. “I’ve noticed you looking at these pictures on the bookshelf. I just love them, and I wanted you to have a set of your own, seeing as it was your idea.”

  James leaned toward her and kissed her, not on the cheek this time, but on the lips. It was just a small peck of a kiss between two intimate friends, but it was a moment that could easily have led to something more, something they were both thinking about, both wanting. There was a spark between them that was undeniable, but just before it ignited, James turned away and returned his attention to the picture.

  “Thank you for this,” he said, this time without looking at her, knowing where that might lead.

  He’d grown so close to Jean in such a short time, finding in her the kind of connection he’d once shared with Gloria before they were married. Jean had a gentleness and a quiet confidence that he found in Gloria at only odd times after they were married, and never at all during their final few years together. Gloria’s temperament was always unpredictable, while Jean’s was unwavering and calm, and he found in Jean a grace that Gloria seemed always to strive for but never quite achieve.

  What weighed on Jean at those moments when she felt herself drawn to James was the knowledge that he wanted something that she wasn’t prepared to offer him. At forty-two years old, she was certainly capable of having another child, although it was somewhat riskier than it might have been a few years earlier. But when she was honest with herself, she knew that conceiving a child, let alone raising another child at this point in her life, wasn’t something she was eager to do.

  It was different for James, she knew; he was younger and hadn’t experienced fatherhood, so she understood why he needed it. In truth, it was one of the many thin
gs she found attractive about him. Even so, she couldn’t imagine herself having a child in order to be with him any more than she could expect James to sacrifice that experience to be with her. Once she accepted that, she knew that beginning a more intimate relationship could only lead to heartache.

  She also knew that James was only recently divorced; that wound was still fresh, those emotions still raw. She remembered those first years after her divorce and the conflict she felt when she was first attracted to any man other than her husband, whom she’d once thought would be her companion for life. So when James wavered now, even when she could see in his eyes what he really wanted, she understood, and she knew to be patient and to not be hurt by it.

  Even with all that weighing upon them, their relationship was always effortless and joyful. There were those awkward moments when they were tempted to act on their impulses, but held themselves back out of a sense of fairness for the other, which may have been the most unfair thing of all. It always seemed as though whenever one of them slipped, the other always managed to find their footing.

  When they met during the week, it was usually for dinner at a local restaurant or a drink and a little conversation at a local pub, sometimes with Peter, and occasionally with Annie, and sometimes not.

  On a Saturday evening in February, they drove to Bar Harbor to see a movie at the old Criterion Theater. Along the way, they wandered past a small gift shop called The Whale’s Tail which was still open, and Jean guided James inside.

  The owner of the shop was a woman named Claire Trumbull, a small, cheerful woman whose shocks of gray hair belied her age, causing her to appear much older than her fifty-three years. A pair of half-frame reading glasses perpetually dangled from a silver chain around her neck, but only those closest to her had ever seen her wearing them. She detested the idea of actually resting them upon her fine English nose, choosing instead to squint and to read small print (which seemed to grow smaller all the time) at the distance of a fully outstretched arm (which seemed to be always growing shorter). It was a sign of vanity that contradicted the fact that she refused to color her gray hair, even though it aged her at least ten years.