The Bar Harbor Retirement Home for Famous Writers_And Their Muses

by Terri-Lynne Defino

  Frantic eyes darted from beach path to old woman, back and again. To run now was worse than staying, than walking, than pretending the screaming didn’t deafen all. Cecibel yanked her gathered hair into place.

  Finlay called and waved.

  Olivia responded in kind.

  Cecibel bolted awkwardly to her feet, forcing fight before flight.

  “Hey, Cecibel.”

  “Hey, Finlay.”

  “Beautiful afternoon, isn’t it? Lots of shells on the beach after yesterday’s storm.” He reached into his pocket, jiggled the contents, opened his palm to her. “Pretty, right?”

  Snail and clamshells. Muted and pink. Pale, blue sea glass. An orangey pebble washed smooth by the sea. Finlay plucked the sea glass from the cluster and held it out to her. “Matches your eyes.”

  She took it from his fingertips. He smiled and let it go. “Keep it,” he said. “I have a whole jarful back at my place.”

  “Thanks . . . Fin.”

  “You’re welcome . . . Bel.” He grinned. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “Low tide’s around five tomorrow, if you’re interested.”

  The sea glass on her palm was nothing like her eyes. Hers were not pale blue, but cornflower, bright like marbles, not matte. Still, it was lovely, and it made her look away and smile. She curled her hand around the offering, and tucked it into her pocket.

  “Well, see ya.” Fin’s back was to her when she looked up, already walking away, but there’d been a lightness in his tone that let her hope she hadn’t insulted him with silence, or frightened him with a smile.

  Cecibel breathed slowly in. And out. Heading back to the main building, she hummed a song she maybe remembered from the past, maybe made up on the spot. She’d put the sea glass in the jar of treasures in her room, then she’d go see Alfonse for the first time since Memorial Day, maybe get a glimpse of a brown leather notebook with gilded edges all around.

  * * *

  Gravel crunched beneath Olivia’s sensible shoes, her footsteps slow. The pain in her back—righteous penance—was bearable now. Thank all the heavens for her herbal medicine. Cecibel hadn’t even noticed her leaving, though Finlay had. The man had patience, for right and certain. Nine years in prison might’ve had something to do with that.

  She’d read all about it in the local paper, after his release. A boy abused. A pedophile acquitted. Justice taken into seventeen-year-old hands. There was only so much the law could do when confession was made without remorse, when the murder weapon was delivered to the police station still dripping fresh blood and brains.

  “Justice has been served” was the quote, Finlay’s own, in the papers. Across headlines. Coast to coast. Both before the trial and after the inevitable conviction. Olivia had been, at first, appalled by his cool, then sympathetic, and finally curious about the polite young man Cornelius hired shortly before his death. Cruel gossip called it a crime of passion, an affair gone wrong, a lover spurned. But Finlay had been a boy of fifteen when the local teacher had his way with him, and only after more abuses came to light and got brushed aside had he acted. He’d paid the price for his actions—almost a decade of his youth, gone—and for all she could tell, he was a happy-enough man.

  She found Alfonse in the house library, without his wheelchair, chatting with devotees. A couple of editors, a proofreader. Olivia barely knew them outside of titles they once held. Gesturing to Alfonse, she finally got his attention by dropping a book on the marble floor. He startled, hand to his heart, and Olivia feared for that instant before he smiled and started her way. The man loved his drama; she had to remember that.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you walk more than a few steps,” she said as he approached.

  Alfonse waved a hand over his head. “I must walk a little every day or lose the ability completely. As long as I take it slow, I’m fine. Have you come to walk me back to my suite?”

  “Actually, no, but I will. I’ve come to tell you, the bait is laid and the mouse is sniffing.”

  “My darling, Livy, what in the hell does that mean?”

  She giggled, almost girl-like, as if she’d ever been such a one. “It means I’m stoned. I’m happy. Cecibel now knows about our endeavor. She thinks it’s a secret you’re not to know.”

  “Why would you do that? How can I discuss it with her now?”

  “You can’t. Now you have to go without her praise of it. Can you bear it?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “It’s all for her,” Olivia said. “Such a little thing to give the child, this bit of intrigue. You should have seen her glow.”

  “Just how stoned are you, my dear?”

  “Quite, but that’s beside the point. She loves me like a dear grandmother, but you? She is as enamored as any of your groupies, past and present. She is your muse, and you are mine. See? It all works out.”

  “I will pretend there is logic in there, somewhere.” Alfonse sipped at the air, his shoulders going slowly back. “She returned to me my words, but Cecibel is a child in comparison.”

  “When has that ever mattered? To you, or anyone infatuated with you. She is a woman. A woman locked away far too long, and ready to live again. You did that for her, Alfonse. All these years, I’ve tried to accomplish what you have by simply appearing in her world outside of the pages in a book. Like she gave you back your words, you gave her back the longing for life. Let her have that. It feeds your ego more than you’ll ever admit to anyway.”

  Alfonse chuckled, a wheezy, breezy sound. He offered his arm, and Olivia took it, resting her head to his stooped shoulder and remembering days gone by. A similar setting. A sanctuary, they called it. His shoulder broad and sinewy. Her hair like fire. Fans waiting. Gossips, too. But in there, safe from them. From him. Her injuries healing. Her memory daily and diligently erased by drugs and electrical shocks. Dreams of tumbling turned to headlights and twisted metal. No one visited. Not the man who refused her a divorce. Not the children he kept from her. Only Alfonse, and sometimes Cornelius, though never at the same time. Now, decades hence, decades older, decades lost, they bookended the fame, the fury, the sweetness and safety and solitude. They’d give to each other, to Cecibel. And maybe it would be enough this time.

  Chapter 9

  Bar Harbor, Maine

  June 9, 1999

  It’s not always about what you need; sometimes, it’s just about what you want.

  —Cornelius Traegar

  Alfonse had been as happy to see her as Cecibel was to see him. Her silly heart, and how it fluttered when he smiled at her. How foolish she’d been, staying away. She promised to resume her daily visits, after work, and though she spotted the brown leather notebook with gilded edges fanned on his armrest, not even the desperate fangirl within her had the nerve to swipe it.

  From Alfonse, Cecibel went to the beach, where Finlay waited as he had promised without ever speaking the words. Hair in a side ponytail, hoodie up, she kept to his right, offering him her left, and was able to enjoy hunting for sea glass with him. It was June. Days were long. They walked until even the late sitting for dinner had passed. When he asked her to raid the kitchen with him, Cecibel became an armadillo. A hedgehog. A pill bug. She ate granola bars alone in her room, washed them down with water from the tap. Lying in her bed that night, staring at the ceiling lined by moonlight and windowpanes, she wondered what cruelty Finlay had in store for her. What mockery. What malice. By morning, shame opened her eyes. Finlay was good and kind. So he had killed a man; that didn’t make him evil. Not like her—I didn’t want to be saved, and so she couldn’t be either—who had such wicked thoughts, whose outside matched her inside, though no one seemed to know.

  “Meet me here tomorrow?” Finlay had asked after that first walk, before hedgehog-Cecibel exposed her prickly back.

  “I can’t tomorrow,” she’d answered, “but how about Wednesday? We both have off. We can ramble a good long way. No telling what
we’ll find.”

  He’d smiled, nodded. Cecibel hadn’t seen him since. And now it was Wednesday. Banishing armadillo and hedgehog, pill bug and wicked thoughts, she tied her hair in place, grabbed her bucket from the shelf, and headed out to meet Finlay.

  He wore a red baseball cap, working the brim of a matching one in his hands. Cecibel held her hair against the force of the wind, trying so hard to appear casual her teeth ground together.

  “For you.” He offered her the worked-in cap. “It’ll keep the sun out of your eyes.”

  “It is bright out here. Thanks.” She took the cap, turned her back, and placed it on her head. Not only did it keep the sun from her eyes, it helped to hold her hair in place.

  “Ready?” Finlay lifted his bucket, a metal thing half rusted through.

  Cecibel held up her plastic yellow pail by the bright orange handle. “I’m hoping for some sand dollars today.”

  “Haven’t come across one in a while. I’m hoping for shark teeth.”

  “Shark teeth? Really?”

  “Ancient ones,” he said. “Prehistoric. I got lots of them. Been collecting since I was a kid. I’ll show you sometime.”

  And so they walked along the beach, searching for sand dollars and shark teeth, sea glass and shells. Cecibel stayed to his right, always to his right. If Finlay noticed, he didn’t say. Low tide had passed hours before, not the best time for such hunting. By noon, they’d each found treasures enough to add to their collections, and Cecibel had worked up an appetite she hadn’t anticipated.

  Her stomach rumbled, loud enough to hear above the hissing surf and breeze. They’d been walking in one direction for more than two hours. She sipped water from the bottle she’d thankfully thought to fill earlier. Not much left now. She snapped closed the cap and shook it. “I guess I didn’t prepare very well. Maybe we ought to head back.”

  Finlay grinned. He tossed his backpack in the sand, set down his bucket and then himself. “An Eagle Scout is always prepared,” he said. “Sit.”

  Cecibel obliged. “An Eagle Scout?”

  “Yup . . . well, unofficially. Jailbirds ain’t allowed to be Scouts. I was almost done before I went to juvie, finished before they sent me to Buldoc.” From his backpack, he pulled two deli-wrapped sandwiches, two bottles of iced tea, and two bags of chips. “I didn’t know what you like. I figured turkey was safe.”

  Her empty belly clenched. “I . . . uh . . . I’m not hungry. But thanks all the same.”

  Finlay placed one of everything on the sand beside her, smiled, nodded, and rose to his feet. He resettled himself closer to the tide and, his back to her, unwrapped his lunch. Cecibel stared at the plaid pattern of his shirt stretching shoulder to shoulder. His hair curled around the edge of his cap. Nice hair. Nice shoulders. Nice. In her periphery, the white deli paper waved surrender. Tears threatened. Why was he so nice? What did he want? Just a friend, Bel. Just a friend. Hideous, suspicious, she was a coward, too. Picking up the sandwich, iced tea, chips, and herself, Cecibel forced down the fear ripping her into tiny pieces and replaced it with anger. For what happened. For the result. For being afraid of eating a sandwich with so kind a man. She dropped down onto the sand beside him and unwrapped the sandwich. She’d eat it with him, or not at all.

  “Don’t look at me.”

  “I ain’t.”

  “The scarring is tight and the muscles in my face don’t work right and I’m missing a bunch of teeth. It’s disgusting.”

  He kept his gaze on the sea. “Nothing you do could be disgusting.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I’m trying to change that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like you.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you ask Mrs. Peppernell that question?” He glanced her way out of the corner of his eye, took another bite of his sandwich. To be so free! Cecibel could weep with wanting it. No one knew. No one understood. To worry over a zit, a wrinkle, wide-set eyes, or a big nose or a chin that owned its own chin—oh, the joy that would be. To be able to go out among people without the monster in tow, without fearing she’d be seen. The anxiety. The derision. The pitying, averted glances. The silent wondering about what she’d done to earn a face like hers, or how the monster inside got out of its cage to ravage her face. Once so beautiful. Everyone said so.

  Thoughts tumbled over themselves, over her. Cecibel bit into the sandwich. She chewed and she spewed and she wept until it was gone. Not once did Finlay look her way. Not a single word did he utter. He simply uncapped the iced tea and handed her the bottle. She drank, liquid running out the corner of her mouth. He handed her a napkin. “You ever hear the story about Tatterhood?”

  Sniffing, Cecibel wiped her eyes, her chin, her neck. “Huh? Um . . . no.”

  Fin settled back onto his elbows, eyes on the sea. “It was my favorite story when I was a little kid. Kind of obscure, I guess. You remind me of that story.”

  “Not sure if that’s a compliment or not,” she tried to joke.

  Eyes closed, Fin tipped his face to the sun. “That’s pretty much the gist of the whole story, when you get down to it. Tatterhood and her sister were twins. One ugly and smart and brave, the other pretty and sweet and kind. Couldn’t separate them for nothing. Tatterhood knew what she was. Calling her ugly only made her hoot and holler and bang her wooden spoon on a pot like a drum.

  “One day, hobgoblins came knocking at the door and the pretty sister ended up with a calf’s head in place of her own. Tatterhood rode off on her goat, her sister went, too, and they got the pretty sister’s head back. On their way home, they met two princes. One fell instantly in love with the pretty twin and asked her to be his wife, but she wouldn’t marry anyone unless Tatterhood got married, too. Prince One talked Prince Two, who was actually a pretty nice guy, into marrying Tatterhood. He liked her goat and her wooden spoon. He liked her hair all wild with birds and shit living in it. He liked that she was smart and brave and didn’t mind that she was ugly when there was so much more to her than that.

  “On their wedding day, Tatterhood wouldn’t fancy herself up. She trotted her goat down the aisle. Prince Two just kind of smiled, thinking he was in for some strange life with this woman, but happy. Then she got a little closer, and he saw she wasn’t riding a goat, but a really fine horse. Her wooden spoon was a ruby-crusted scepter, and she wasn’t ugly and tatty anymore, but way prettier than her pretty twin was on her best days.”

  “And they lived happily ever after.” Cecibel chuffed. “Is there a moral to this story other than the obvious commentary you’re making about my face?”

  Fin sat upright, brushing his arms free of sand. “That’s not it at all. I thought you was smart.”

  Were smart. “Enlighten me.”

  “Enlighten yourself,” he said, but he smiled when he did. “You just remind me of both sisters all rolled into one. And I can picture you riding a goat and waving around a wooden spoon.”

  “I’m honored,” she drawled. “Thanks.”

  He shifted in the sand, facing her now. How kind his smile. Sincere and warm. It made Cecibel feel even meaner, even lower, for putting her own unkindness on him.

  “Nothing about you is as bad as you seem to think it is,” he said. “You don’t see yourself clear, is all.”

  “Did you get your psychology degree along with your Eagle Scout badge when you were in prison?” Even lower. Even meaner. Cecibel thought she would vomit.

  “Doesn’t take a degree to know any of that. You ain’t got to be afraid with me, Bel. I seen things, done things. Nothing about you scares me, or grosses me out. Okay?”

  Another sniff, this time accompanied by a shrug. Finlay handed her a bag of chips. Cecibel took it and, this time, ate without weeping. She drank the rest of her iced tea and hardly spilled any. Like when she ate alone in her room, away from stares and gasps and pity. And even that was easier to take than Fin’s gentle kindness, than Olivia’s love, than Alfonse’s pretense that her app
earance didn’t matter. Those things hurt far worse than anything, because they looked beyond her scars, and still didn’t see her at all.

  Fin had moved closer to the tide line, throwing scraps of bread and turkey to the gulls that shrieked and dove. He dodged and laughed. After all he’d suffered, all he’d done, how was he so carefree? What battle had he waged and won against all those demons born in abuse and murder? If he had, could she?

  Something in Cecibel’s chest dislodged. It fluttered like a moth inside her. She opened her mouth and out it flew. Whispering, feathery wings beat about her face. She didn’t grasp it back but let it flutter, let it fly, let it vanish on the wind.

  Alfonse wasn’t in his room when Cecibel got there, right on time, despite her day with Fin. She’d only had enough time to freshen up, change into a dress, and brush some of the windblown tangle from her hair. The treasures she’d collected remained in her bucket, on the vanity in her bathroom. She’d see to them later. Compromising the precious little time she spent with Alfonse was not an option.

  Instead of checking with the nurses, who usually looked down their noses at the lowly orderlies the way the doctors looked down on them, Cecibel went straight to Sal, who knew everything that went on in the Pen.

  “He’s in the hospital,” he told her. “Don’t look like that, honey doll. He’s just having some kind of treatment they can’t give him here.”

  “I wonder why he didn’t tell me.”

  Sal’s penciled eyebrow arched. “Why would you need to know that, hmm?” He waved a finger up and down. “And why you so dressed up? Huh? Ceci-bel-bellissima, you got an old-man crush going on?”

  “He’s someone I like spending time with. Someone I respect.”

  “Fine, fine. But you know you ain’t getting any from Mr. Casanova, right?”

  Cecibel shook her head. “Just tell me when he’ll be back, will you?”

  “By supper’s all I know,” Sal said. “Now, since you don’t got no place to go, how about you tell me where you been all day, and why I saw Fin swinging a bucket and whistling his way to the maintenance shed a little bit ago.”