The Vanishing Expert

by David Movsesian

  It wasn’t until the middle of the century that Mount Desert Island began to be viewed as a summer retreat. Around that time, famous landscape painters like Thomas Cole and Frederic Church came to paint these quaint New England villages, the rolling peaks, the tranquil harbors and the rugged shoreline of Mount Desert Island. It was after viewing their work, and that of the many artists who followed, that so many summer visitors— called ‘rusticators’ and later ‘summercators’ by the locals— were drawn to the island, hoping to witness first-hand what Cole and Church had depicted in their paintings.

  Many of these early visitors— some artists themselves— stayed with local families who, seeing an opportunity to profit from the sudden interest in their villages, opened their homes to the curious travelers. Before long, villages like Bar Harbor took on a new life catering to the rusticators. Hotels, inns and restaurants began to spring up, dotting the otherwise pristine landscapes, and populating the island with an ever-changing sea of eager but unfamiliar faces.

  Beginning in the 1860s, many of the wealthiest and most influential families in the northeast— from cities like Boston, New York and Philadelphia— began to discover Mount Desert Island. They stayed at first in the many hotels, returning year after year for the summer social season. They spared no expense on their opulent homes or on their extravagant social functions. The locals who had made Mount Desert Island their home for generations suddenly found themselves on the outside of the new Bar Harbor society. While many were hired as servants at these functions, or in these grand estates, few were ever invited as guests. Many of the locals, and a good number of the rusticators, bemoaned the arrival of these wealthy summer people, and their efforts at altering life in Bar Harbor to suit their lofty and frivolous needs. Change wasn’t something that Mainers took kindly to, but change is what they got, and before long, Bar Harbor became a world-renown summer retreat for many of America’s most elite families.

  Bar Harbor’s Golden Era faded in the 1930s, a direct result of the Depression and Mr. Roosevelt’s new income tax. After World War II, although some of these aristocratic families still returned to the island, it was clear that much of what Bar Harbor had been in its glory days had passed. The great fire in 1947 seemed to punctuate the feeling of an era coming to a close, destroying many of the beautiful homes and hotels, and adding a sense of finality to what was already a painfully foregone conclusion.

  If the people of Mount Desert Island were accomplished at anything— and in truth, they were accomplished at a good many things— it was their ability to adapt to the changing times, to their fortunes and misfortunes, and it wasn’t long before Bar Harbor was rejuvenated yet again, this time, literally pulled from the ashes of what it had once been. Many of the older buildings that survived the fire remain to this day, providing the villages with elegant connections to their colorful history, and in some cases, a reminder of a time when finer things prevailed.

  What was destroyed was quickly replaced with hotels and inns and shops, or was kept undeveloped and pristine, like the lands maintained within Acadia National Park. Those who live on Mount Desert Island today, and those who visit, find remnants of its many lives— its continuous rebirth— pieced together to form a kind of patchwork of history, a commingling of old and new. The past and present remain as inseparable on the island as the shore and the sea.

  It seemed especially appropriate that Edward Moody, now James Perkins, would choose to start his new life in a place like Bar Harbor, a place that had led so many different lives of its own.

  Many of the summer people who visited Mount Desert Island when James Perkins lived there were New Englanders and Canadians who came there to view the scenery around the island and within Acadia National Park. At some point, most found time to walk the streets of Bar Harbor, strolling through the many shops and visiting the restaurants and pubs. So it was inevitable that Edward Moody’s life would one day spill over into his new one.

  Michael and Susan McKinnon owned a home in Warwick, Rhode Island, just around the corner from Edward and Gloria Moody. Although they weren’t what the Moody’s would consider close friends, they were good neighbors, and they were frequent guests at each other’s homes. (At Edward’s memorial service, it was Michael McKinnon who’d whispered to his wife that Edward had managed to avoid coming to church for his own funeral.)

  Edward had always raved about the beauty of Bar Harbor, and he always seemed surprised that Michael and Susan had never seen it. After Edward’s death, they decided they should finally see for themselves the place that Edward Moody had described as ‘the most beautiful place in New England.’ That the McKinnons picked what turned out to be a bleak and rainy weekend in June dampened their spirits some, but they decided they could pass the day poking about the many shops and waiting for the weather to break.

  In the dozen years since Jean opened her gallery, The Berkhardt Gallery, located on Mount Desert Street, not far from the intersection of Main Street, had come to be regarded as one of the preferred galleries along the Maine coast. As was her vision, Jean focused on the local artists and artisans of Mount Desert Island, and she’d developed a remarkably loyal following from those perennial summer people who were looking for just the right piece that captured the spirit of Mount Desert Island.

  Many of the paintings she sold hung in the summer cottages and local inns of Mount Desert Island, but many more were scattered around the country, decorating the plush homes of the affluent travelers who visited the hotels and bed and breakfasts of Mount Desert Island each summer. They were some of the finest works of art created along the Maine coast, and just as rusticators journeyed to Bar Harbor a hundred years earlier, inspired by the paintings of Thomas Cole and Frederic Church, Jean Berkhardt welcomed many a summer visitor who told her they traveled to Bar Harbor specifically to witness for themselves the landscapes they’d seen represented in oils or water colors over a friend’s fireplace, and to visit her gallery where they might find something for themselves.

  For that reason, many of the artists who made their livelihood capturing the essence of the Maine coast on canvas, or in any other medium for that matter, acknowledged the Berkhardt Gallery as one of the premiere galleries in which to show and sell their work. In the spring, Jean was often inundated with phone calls, letters, and visits from Maine artists hoping to be represented in her gallery.

  Jean was one of the few gallery owners in the area who could afford to be discerning. In most cases, the artists sought her out. There seemed to always be a steady procession of trucks and vans pulling up to her little shop. In the spring and early summer, Jean was often seen on the sidewalk viewing the work these artists brought to her. Some she invited inside, others she politely referred to the other galleries in town, most of which lined their walls with the work that she turned away.

  In that summer of 1991, Jean Berkhardt opened the remodeled Berkhardt Gallery, looking forward to a prosperous season. She took special care to display each painting so it would benefit from the warm light that poured in through the front windows each morning. As she moved about the shop, she regarded the work Peter and James had done the previous autumn. She passed her hand over the smooth surfaces of the counters and display cases they’d installed. It seemed to her as if years had passed since James first entered her gallery, and her life.

  During the summer months, Christina worked as a waitress at the Bar Harbor Inn, but she helped her mother in the gallery whenever Jean needed her, something she’d done each summer since she was fifteen years old. She was familiar with many of the artists whose work lined the gallery walls, many of whom she’d met, and when she spoke to the customers who visited the gallery, she regarded the paintings with the same affection that the artists themselves had for them. She didn’t sell anyone a painting or sculpture so much as she matched them to a particular piece and endeared them to it, a skill she’d learned from her mother.

  Jean always hoped that Christina would one day take over the
gallery. She’d worked so hard to make it the success it had become, and Christina had such a knack for the business that it seemed the ideal arrangement. But it was clear that the gallery was Jean’s dream, not Christina’s. Christina enjoyed spending her summers there, along with the occasional weekend in the fall when she was home from school, but she couldn’t imagine making it her life’s work. She believed she must have a calling, but when she stood in the gallery and listened for the work to speak to her, as her mother said it often did to her, she heard nothing. She admired and respected the art and the artists, but she was convinced her destiny was not to be found there among them.

  There were occasions when Jean found the need to travel, though rarely outside of Maine, to attend an estate sale or to view the work of an artist from further Down East who was recommended to her but hadn’t yet heard of the reputation of the Berkhardt Gallery. She liked to catch artists on the way up, before they’d established themselves. Once they made a name for themselves, she knew, they often opened their own galleries to display their work. None ever opened galleries near the Berkhardt Gallery, however, not wanting to compete with the woman who’d helped to establish them as part of the artistic elite by displaying their work when they were starting out. And many still offered Jean a few paintings each year, partly to keep their work in the public eye, but mainly to show their gratitude for the exposure she’d given them in leaner years.

  In mid-June, Jean headed for Portland to meet with a painter named Douglas Kearn, with whose work she’d become familiar only recently when she saw one of his paintings hanging in the lobby of a local Bed and Breakfast. She didn’t like to leave the shop on the weekends, leaving Christina alone on the busiest days of the busiest season of the year, but the artist was leaving the state for several weeks, and this would be her last opportunity to meet with him. James agreed to stay with Christina in the shop.

  Since it was a rainy weekend, blustery and cool— as June weekends can be on the Maine coast— the streets of Bar Harbor were less crowded than they would likely be in July or August and few customers found their way into the Berkhardt Gallery. Those tourists that remained in town despite the weather visited the bookshops and the souvenir shops to pass the time on a dreary afternoon, but the gallery was almost deserted for much of the day on Saturday. As the morning crawled past, only a few couples wandered in, as much to escape the elements as to peruse the art. Later, James and Christina pulled up two chairs near the front windows and settled in to watch the tourists scurrying past to get out of the rain.

  “I always liked rainy days around here,” Christina said. She was patting Max’s head as she peered out through the rain-specked window. “It’s always so peaceful when it rains.”

  Although a steady flow of cars passed through the streets, the sidewalks seemed as deserted as they had been in winter when only the hardiest of the locals could be seen out and about.

  After experiencing his first winter on the Maine coast, James actually longed for the hectic pace of the summer tourist season. He liked the crowds and the activity of the Bar Harbor he came to know from his many visits in summers past. He would have preferred a clear and sunny June afternoon to the gray day that loomed outside the window, but he realized that it was the rain that made it possible for him to spend some uninterrupted time with Christina, and for that reason alone he welcomed it.

  “When I was little,” Christina continued, “my father used to take me out right after it rained when everything was really clean and shiny. I always loved it. I used to splash in the puddles and come home drenched, and my mother would be furious with him for letting me do that because she always thought I was going to get sick.” She smiled warmly. “But my father was always fun because he always let me be a kid, and he didn’t sweat the little stuff.”

  James could see in her warm smile and her distant gaze that she was imagining herself as that carefree little girl bounding through puddles while holding her father’s hand. “You don’t usually talk about your father,” he suggested.

  “I know,” Christina said, emerging quickly from her daydream. “That was before he became an ass.”

  James frowned at her. It was hard for him to imagine anyone thinking of their father in that way. He was so close to his own. It was harder still for him to imagine a father abandoning a child. “Your mom told me a little about what happened,” he said. “But she didn’t really seem to want to dwell on it.”

  Christina forced a short laugh. “For a long time, that’s pretty much all she ever did was dwell on it,” she said. “That’s why she never got involved with another man after Dad left. She always figured they’d eventually do the same thing to her.”

  “Some guys just don’t understand when they’ve got a great thing,” James offered.

  “Some women, too,” she said. She looked briefly at James, and then quickly averted her eyes.

  It was a peaceful day. As they sat watching the rain, they often lapsed into long, luxurious silences when there was nothing but the sound of the rain splashing on the sidewalk and drumming on the roof. James managed to sneak a few furtive glances at Christina’s lovely face in the soft light of the window. Each time he looked at her, he was reminded of that cold December afternoon at Del Miller’s studio in Ellsworth, the diffused light from his softboxes playing upon her perfect skin.

  Just after noon, James went out and brought back sandwiches from Epi’s on Cottage Street, and they continued their vigil by the front windows as they ate.

  Eager to make himself useful, James spent the afternoon chasing down a squeak in the hardwood floor near the back of the shop and mending a crack in one of the plaster walls in the back room while Christina greeted the occasional customer or spoke on the phone with one of her friends.

  It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when James stepped out of the back room and looked out over the small gallery. He’d worked up a sweat in the small unventilated room, and the dust from the plaster clung to his face and arms. Max was curled up on a braided rug near the counter. Christina was speaking to an elderly couple about a painting near the front window when the door opened and the bell rattled on its post.

  James didn’t immediately recognize the woman, who appeared to be about his age, with a barrel-shaped body and long dark hair that hung limp and dripping at her shoulders. He was prepared to offer a smile to welcome her, but their eyes didn’t meet. It was only when the man stepped in out of the rain and spoke her name that he recognized them as his old neighbors, Michael and Susan McKinnon, and he quickly darted into the back room, hoping he’d been quick enough to avoid notice.

  It was a moment he’d dreaded since he first began his life as James Perkins; that someone from his past would wander into his new life when he was unprepared, putting an abrupt end to it. It was a fear that had forced him to live a solitary existence in Waterville, where he was careful to visit only obscure, out-of-the-way places, small markets and local taverns where he wasn’t likely to be recognized.

  It wasn’t until he came to Mount Desert Island that he finally began to feel at ease again, but every time he began to feel as if he’d finally left his past behind him, there was always some reminder that he was never completely free of it. On that rainy Saturday afternoon in the Berkhardt Gallery, his old life came bounding in out of the rain in the form of Michael and Susan McKinnon.

  He stood in the back room, rigid with fear, and wondering if either of them had recognized him. He imagined his old neighbors standing in the center of the gallery, dripping on the old wooden floor and staring with wide-eyed astonishment at the doorway to the little back room, waiting for Edward Moody to reemerge.

  He was certain they’d seen him.

  He waited in the back room, imagining the moment when their eyes would meet. He pictured the recognition and the shock that would register on their faces when they finally encountered this old friend that everyone believed to be long dead. He breathed quietly, listening as their foot
steps drew nearer. He could hear their voices as they spoke in the quiet tones that people often assume in the presence of art, and he tensed as they wandered passed the open doorway not more than ten feet from where he stood. He heard Susan stoop down to pat Max, and he desperately tried to think of a way to get past them.

  A few moments later, he found his opportunity when he heard the creak of the hardwood floor beneath their feet. It was the same squeak he’d been following earlier that afternoon, and when he heard it, he knew exactly where they were. They were standing in the back corner of the shop, most likely studying the painting of the surf pounding at Thunder Hole with their backs to the door.

  James didn’t hesitate. He pulled his white painter’s cap down low over his eyes and hurried out of the room with his head down, calling to Max as he moved quickly toward the front door and out into the rain. He never looked back, and he never said a word to Christina as he left. She watched curiously as he hurried out of the gallery, Max following close behind, and the two of them climbed quickly into his Jeep and drove away.

  James was supposed to drive Christina home, but when she closed the shop promptly at six o’clock, he hadn’t returned. She called his apartment several times, letting the phone ring, but there was no answer.

  She was able to get a ride home from a friend, and as they drove, she found herself becoming alternately concerned and agitated with James. She wondered to herself about all the things she still didn’t know about him. He’d opened up to her that day in Ellsworth, but when she really considered it, she realized there were gaping holes in what she knew of him, large pieces of his life that were unaccounted for. At times, it frustrated her, and she wondered why she was so troubled by him. At other times, she found herself intrigued, wanting to know more. On that rainy evening in June, it was pissing her off.