One Year in Coal Harbor

by Polly Horvath

  “I wanted to hear how people wanted to spend the money,” said Uncle Jack, winking. “As a developer, you never know what kind of knowledge will be useful.”

  The mayor started banging his gavel. You could see huge wet rings under his arms. Some of the kids started balling up pieces of paper and throwing them, just for the fun of it. Some of the protesters burst into a chorus of “We Shall Overcome” and some others linked their arms and started swaying and singing, and in general people enjoyed themselves in whatever fashion took their fancy.

  Finally the mayor seemed to give up, declared the meeting over and walked out. Which meant that effectively there was no meeting left, just a lot of people screaming at each other. So those of us not inclined to hand-to-hand combat or ululation put on our coats and left.

  Evie, Bert, Ked and Uncle Jack all came to our house for the postmortem.

  I took Ked into the kitchen and showed him how to make cinnamon toast. “The trick is to put lots of melted butter on the toast and then to make sure the cinnamon sugar melts into the butter.” I demonstrated. “We could put this in our cookbook. Or do you think it’s too easy?”

  “Not if we call it Recipes for the Simple-Minded,” said Ked.

  Evie came in and proudly eyed Ked buttering toast. “Teenage boys have got such wondrous appetites,” she said. “You want me to put some mini marshmallows on that, honey?” She pulled out the Baggie of them she kept in her purse for emergencies.

  But Ked said it was perfect just as it was. It was, too. Cinnamon toast is so good I’m surprised we bother eating anything else. When Evie went back to the living room, Ked told me that because of Evie’s belief in the appetites of teenage boys, he was eating way more than he wanted so as not to shake the foundations of her beliefs.

  We brought a plate of toast into the living room as my mother was saying, “Honestly, Jack, why didn’t you just tell Miss Honeycut to … stick it?”

  “Look, Jane, we’re going to get the money for the park or no money at all. Who cares if she wants to erect a statue?”

  “Oh, I’d just like to throw it up in her face and say forget it, keep your money. If she really loved the town, she’d know where that money would do some good. To her this isn’t about the town, it’s about coming back as some big shot who has a statue of her father in the square. Who needs it?” said my mother.

  “I doubt you’ll ever see her face in Coal Harbor again, but point taken. Well, I’ve been able to hive off a little anyway, which can go to the Fishermen’s Aid or wherever the town decides it wants to use it. She’s giving me seven percent, my usual realtor’s fee for finding the property and purchasing it for her, so I’m going to give that back to the town. I would have said that at the meeting if that Sneild fellow hadn’t interrupted.”

  “Thank heavens Fishermen’s Aid will get something.”

  “Not necessarily. I can’t decide where the money goes. I have to let the town make that decision. Even though technically it’s my money, it’s money that will come to me through Miss Honeycut, and you can see feelings are running high about the allocation of those funds as it is.”

  “I don’t know why we have to let the town decide. I don’t know why you can’t just quietly give it to Fishermen’s Aid.”

  “Because someone will find out and I have to live in this town.”

  “We still got some time to get people swayed to Fishermen’s Aid,” said Evie. “Primrose and Ked can help. Can’t you?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Ked looked up and said something nervously indistinct, his mouth full of toast.

  “There, you see,” said Bert.

  Then everyone seemed to tire out from all the passion and excitement and my mom and Evie made more hot chocolate and Bert and my dad talked about fishing.

  “Ked here wants to be a fisherman,” said Bert proudly.

  “Well!” said my dad. “Well!”

  We were all silent, looking at each other and digesting this information or maybe just not knowing what to say next. Ked looked like he would like to crawl under his chair but he was frozen into a posture of politeness. Then you could see a lightbulb go on over my dad’s head and he said, “Hey! Why not come out on the boat with me one Saturday?”

  I thought this would be too much for Ked, who didn’t like the spotlight—and when you’re just two in a boat at sea, it’s kind of hard to hide. But I was wrong because his eyes lit up like a pinball machine.

  “That would be great,” he said calmly, and I could see he was straining to appear cool and controlled to match my dad’s demeanor.

  “That would be great!” echoed Bert as if he were Ked’s personal voice-amplifying machine.

  “Well, okay then!” said my dad, and he looked happy but surprised too, the way he always did when he’d somehow managed to do something useful for someone.

  We continued to sit there staring in a happy, vacant manner. To be honest I was a little miffed that Bert knew something as important as what Ked wanted to be and I didn’t. I thought if Ked was going to confide anything to anyone it would be to me, the person who really understood him and was watching out for him.

  And then I had another sudden thought and turned to Uncle Jack. “I don’t understand why Miss Clarice doesn’t seem to care about the clear-cut. She’s really the one most affected. Her business depends on the view.”

  “I’m going to make a prediction,” Uncle Jack said. “And we’ll see if it comes to pass. I’m going to predict that before long Miss Clarice puts that property of hers on the market.”

  My mother, who was coming in with a pot of hot chocolate, said, “Nonsense. She’ll never do it. When she hired me she said she planned to live there until she died.”

  “Plans change,” said Uncle Jack enigmatically, and refused to talk any more about it.

  Did Uncle Jack already know that Miss Clarice was going to sell the B and B because he had put an offer on it? Was he buying it for Miss Bowzer after all? Or had Dan Sneild bought it and that was what he was hinting at? Who was going to get the B and B? Because it seemed to me that the person getting the B and B got Miss Bowzer thrown in for free.

  “Why won’t you tell?” I blurted out, interrupting Uncle Jack, who was talking to Bert now. “Why are you being so mysterious?”

  They both stopped and looked at me politely.

  “Because I don’t know anything for sure, Primrose,” said Uncle Jack. “And I don’t want to start unfounded rumors. That’s just a prediction. As reliable as looking in a crystal ball. The only reason I told you was because lately you’ve had this worried look every time I see you and I thought I’d give you something new and interesting to chew on.”

  I wanted to say, But you’re one of the things I’m worried about. Dan Sneild is going to scoop up Miss Bowzer and that will be that. You will lose her forever.

  Then, before I could decide whether to say this flat out, the party broke up and everyone started moving toward the door.

  “Come on, honey. Let’s go home and I’ll make you a casserole,” said Evie to Ked.

  “But we already had supper,” said Ked in alarm. “And cinnamon toast.”

  Evie looked crushed.

  “But I could really use some fruit salad with mini marshmallows,” he added quickly.

  “Coming right up,” said Evie happily.

  Cinnamon Toast

  Make toast. Butter it well. Make sure it’s melty. Add a judicious amount of previously mixed-up cinnamon and sugar. Serve.

  Gussied-Up Cinnamon Toast

  Follow steps one and two. Add brown sugar and cinnamon. Run briefly under the broiler.

  What Happened at Uncle Jack’s Office

  A LOT HAPPENED IN the weeks that followed but the logging didn’t happen as immediately as any of us had feared. Dan Sneild stayed on at the B and B. The Hacky Sack kids and the older environmentalists became a fixture and were busy trying to recruit people for the big day when the logging began. They had to work really hard because it
’s difficult to keep people whipped to a white-hot protesting fury when nothing much is going on.

  One day, seemingly out of the blue, Uncle Jack called it quits with his restaurant and a big FOR SALE sign went into its window, surprising everyone. His only explanation was that he was tired of renovating a building where the darn ceiling wouldn’t stay up. He had his eye now on something else. But he wouldn’t say what.

  I tried to hint to Miss Bowzer that he had sold it because he didn’t want to displease her but she just gave me a skeptical look. You’d think someone in love with two men at once would be waltzing around with stars in her eyes but all she seemed was secretive and irritated. I told her that Uncle Jack said that she couldn’t make crème brûlée and she said, “I’m not cooking any more French food, Primrose.” And that was that.

  Ked and I were making great strides with our cookbook. Every day after school we went to my house to experiment with recipes.

  “We’d better publish this, Primrose,” he said one day. “Because the cost of the ingredients must be beginning to add up. We should pay your parents back.”

  “Well, it’s all just stuff we have around the house anyhow,” I said, up to my elbows in biscuit dough. We were making buttermilk biscuits. “We’re actually doing them a favor because this buttermilk is two days expired and would just get thrown out anyway.”

  We cut the biscuits out companionably. Ked was much more meticulous than I was and his biscuits looked perfect, while mine looked like they’d been nibbled round the edges by cats.

  “I don’t know whether to get arrested or not,” I said for the hundredth time. One of the nice things about Ked was that he never minded how many times you repeated yourself while working through a problem.

  Everyone in school was talking about the protest. The big exciting question for all the kids in Coal Harbor was whether or not we were going to let ourselves get hauled off to jail. It had been explained to us that if you blocked the road as planned, and were warned by the sheriff you were breaking the law by doing so and still wouldn’t move, you’d be arrested. Even if you were twelve. Some parents wouldn’t let their kids be arrested but many would, feeling that it was a moral decision that affected their future even more than the grown-ups’. My mom and dad said I had to make such a decision for myself. This disappointed me because I didn’t want to go to jail any more than I wanted the clear-cut and was hoping they’d tell me I couldn’t get myself arrested, so that any moral laxity would be on their part.

  “They’re going to clear-cut no matter what,” said Ked.

  “Maybe, but I think I should take a stand anyway, because it seems to me that when you look back on the Holocaust and stuff, everyone says, Why didn’t they see it coming? Why didn’t more people do something? It’s so easy to notice and not do anything.”

  “Or to do things and they make no difference,” said Ked.

  “Or not to be able to think of anything to do,” I said. Lately I lay in bed at night thumbing through what I could do for Miss Bowzer and Uncle Jack, what I could do for Ked, what I could do for the trees. Mostly what I could think of was nothing.

  We pulled the biscuits out of the oven and tried a couple.

  “These biscuits are boring,” I said. “If we’re going to include this recipe, we’d better play with it a little first. Add more butter? It is my experience that if you add more butter to anything, it improves it immeasurably. It is nice to have one simple solution that always works.”

  “Simple Solutions for the Simple-Minded, you could call the book that,” said Ked. “I know what Evie would say.”

  “Add mini marshmallows,” I said.

  “Never fails,” said Ked. “You could also call the book Add Mini Marshmallows.”

  “We’d better leave that title for when Evie writes her own cookbook,” I said. “How about Just Throw Some Melted Butter on It and Call It a Day?”

  “Great title,” said Ked.

  “I was kidding,” I said.

  “I know, but it’s a great title because it’s such a bad title, you know?”

  So that’s what we called it.

  Through all of the various happenings and troubles, the last person I expected to cause more trouble was Eleanor Milkmouse. I knew I had kind of left her in the lurch when Ked and I became friends. She didn’t know that I’d come to some sort of turning point with her during the scissors incident, which had happened before I even met Ked. She thought I defected because of him, and whenever she could say something snide about him she did. One day during lunch she said to me, “Did I tell you that I’m going to your uncle Jack’s office after school?”

  Now that Uncle Jack wasn’t working on his restaurant, he could be found a lot of the time in his real estate office.

  “Why?”

  “To tell him I know who has been stealing his change.”

  “How would you know?” I asked. “How do you even know someone was?”

  “Because I talked to Spinky when I was helping him with the film projector and he said your uncle closed the gym for two days because his change was disappearing and then opened it again without any explanation. And I know who was stealing your uncle’s money and I’m going to tell him and then I’m going to tell everyone.”

  “How do you know who took it?”

  “I saw him.”

  “You saw him where?”

  “At your uncle’s, where else?”

  “What were you doing there?” I asked.

  “Spying on Spinky,” she said. “If you hide under the kitchen table you can peek out through a hole in the tablecloth without anyone seeing you. I’ve lined the hole up with the door to the gym.”

  That she would hide under my uncle’s kitchen table was one of the few things I’d ever found endearing about her.

  “How long have you been spying on Spinky from under the kitchen table?” I asked. I tried to make my tone respectful because I could see it was something anyone in a lovelorn state might do.

  “Long enough. Long enough to see Ked take the money. I knew he would steal. My mother said you’re just asking for trouble, hanging out with a foster child.”

  Then the bell rang and she ran inside. I spent the rest of the afternoon madly passing notes to her, trying to convince her not to do this rash thing. Ked wouldn’t have stolen the money. She had probably just heard him getting the key for the bike lock. I knew Uncle Jack wasn’t stupid enough to just take Eleanor’s word for it. But other people might not be so levelheaded. This was just the kind of incident Ked dreaded.

  After school Ked was waiting for me as usual but all I had time to do was call out that I had to catch up with Eleanor and I’d talk to him later. Then I took off after Eleanor, who was speeding toward town on her surprisingly fast dumpy little legs.

  Eleanor must have sensed that I might turn desperate enough to leap on her and stop her from going to Uncle Jack’s, because she kept glancing back and speeding up whenever I got too close.

  By the time Eleanor ran up the steps to his office and barged in without even knocking, I was two steps behind. My uncle looked up from his desk at our flushed faces in surprise. Then, as if sizing up the situation, he put his pen down and assumed a grave expression.

  “Ked stole your money!” Eleanor blurted out. “I came over one day to, to, to …”

  It was clear she hadn’t thought ahead how to explain this.

  “You came over to?” prompted Uncle Jack.

  “And I was peeking through the window and I saw him steal it. Everything that was in the jar on the table. He dumped it out and put it in his pockets.”

  “He didn’t!” I cried. “He wouldn’t. You’re lying.”

  “I’m not!” she said.

  “You’re jealous and you’re lying!”

  “I’m not. I wouldn’t want to be with either of you. He’s a delinquent and you’re, you’re CRAZY, like your whole family. My mother says only a crazy woman would go out in a boat in a storm and leave her child.”

>   Oh, not this again, I thought, rolling my eyes. I’d had so much of this the year my parents disappeared that I was inured to it.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” said Uncle Jack, putting up his hands.

  Eleanor and I pulled ourselves up short and stood panting for a second.

  “Let’s say,” he said slowly, “that he did take this money.”

  “He DID!” shouted Eleanor.

  “Okay,” said Uncle Jack. “Even if I knew for sure he did, you know what I would do about it?”

  “What?” breathed Eleanor eagerly, as if now we were getting somewhere.

  “Nothing.”

  Her face fell.

  “He didn’t anyway!” I said.

  “He DID!”

  “Just a second, Primrose,” said Uncle Jack, signaling me with his hands to be quiet. “You’re both missing the point. The point is that it is information that would be mine to do with as I liked and what I’d like to do with it is nothing. So case closed. Nowhere to go with this. Thanks very much, let’s all go back to what we were doing before this came up.” And he picked up his pen hopefully.

  “Well, if you don’t do anything, I’m going to tell. I’m going to tell everyone and those boys will beat him up.”

  “Why would the boys beat him up?” asked Uncle Jack, putting his pen back down.

  “Because he let you think one of them had taken it.”

  “In the first place, I don’t know where you got your information but I let them know last week they weren’t under suspicion and the matter was closed. So all of this is old news. To everyone.”

  “You KNEW?” asked Eleanor.

  “Yes,” said Uncle Jack.

  “He never would. I don’t believe it,” I said. “If someone said he did, they lied. How could you tell the boys that Ked took it?”

  “I didn’t,” said Uncle Jack. “No one knows anything, and that’s the way it is going to stay. As far as I’m concerned, I misplaced that change myself.”

  “But you didn’t, because I saw him,” said Eleanor, and I could see she was simply insane by now, because never in her right mind would she argue this way with a grown-up. She was so out of character that any second I expected her to grab a pair of sharp scissors and wantonly cut up some paper. “Anyhow, you can’t keep me from telling everyone the truth.”