Harbor Lights

by Theodore Weesner

  It would be fine to have the lights fade without warning, Warren thought, though there was something to be said for knowing ahead of time and having a chance to make peace with yourself—as he was striving to do. He’d never be able, in this life or the next, to accept what she and Virgil had done to him—their stunting of his heart—but it wasn’t them alone that concerned him now. He kept trying to bring a larger picture into focus. Hearing the roar of the crowd, wondering if a phantom audience had at long last decided to tally the score of his life. His thoughts and fears about dying had him feeling human for the first time in years, sensing freedom of a kind he had forgotten existed.

  Time to have strong drinks and hear strong music, he thought. Time to shed bittersweet tears and let his heart open all the way. Dear God, please release me, he cried to himself, looking down his front. Please release my locked-up heart and let it live again.

  Fifty-seven was young by today’s measure, but not so brief in the time mortals had on earth. It was hard to believe his father had lived to but fifty-two, though he had seemed old to Warren when he came down sick—leukemia had been the diagnosis—and died but days later. Half a century still seemed a lifetime on earth, no matter how you cut it. Compressed today, maybe, but a full turn nonetheless. If you hadn’t done what you wanted by fifty, chances were you had spent your chances. Think of the Indians, who would have been relics at fifty, Warren thought, or of the current life expectancy of seventy-six or so, and half a century still looked like a reasonable run.

  Getting the obituary blues, he thought. He grinned to himself and thought of telling the line to Beatrice—after all, she was his wife—letting her know that the end didn’t have to be so solemn. The thought seemed to nudge him onto another train spur of barking and disrupted his intoxicating sentiment, the best time it seemed he’d had in a month of Sundays. Getting acquainted with mortality. Morose pleasure. What phase was this?

  Warren finished tying down the Lady Bee’s pilothouse and, swallowing a shallow breath, pushed the dinghy into the water. His thoughts were on times in the past when things had been wonderful between them. More than just respect, she had loved him once, he was certain. It had to do with this very boat, which had defined who he was even in high school, when they had first gotten together. His father had been dead a year, and he was the only boy in high school running a full-time business on the side—early-morning and late-evening hours—though he ran no traps at all from December into March when he undertook boat maintenance and trap repair for the coming season. Beatrice had been impressed, as had others. His industriousness led to the Phelps Award at graduation, when the principal said to the full gathering that Warren Hudon was a credit to the school and the community. He was six-two and skinny at the time, and the long hours had come easily to him, not excluding playing first base on the school team in the spring and in Legion ball during the summer. That senior year would turn out to be the high point of his life did not come home to him until he was in his forties.

  There had been another moment, one dawn as he left the house, when his mother told him from the heart he was the best son a mother could ever wish to have. And another moment when Beatrice took him home to meet her parents, and exclaimed, “Warren’s the only boy in school who already has his own business!” But his best moment was when it came to him, age nineteen, to name his boat and business for his teenage bride-to-be. the Lady Bee. His eyes had filmed over then and grew misty here again, as he dragged the dinghy to his truck and hefted it in. The Lady Bee. Had anything ever been more satisfying than that moment of inspiration?

  After a week of painstaking stencil-taping along the bow and across the stern, there came the painting and drying of the letters, the buffing with wax to protect the paint from the elements. Then came the time to drive Beatrice to Narrow Cove for the presentation, when the boat’s angle would be just right as she uncovered her eyes, as she stared, caught her breath, and appeared more thrilled than he had been himself. The only schoolboy to have his own business had stood there with existence in his hand in 1958.

  They married that summer, and Beatrice began her two-year college business program in the fall, while he added gangs of gear, joined the Fisherman’s Co-op, and worked long hours to live up to expectations. Earning her associate’s degree, she answered an ad for a job in the offices of Virgil Pound, who, not yet thirty, was already the father of three, a practicing attorney, and, from the thirty-sixth district, a recently-elected state representative to the Maine State Legislature.

  Who could have guessed what lay before them—tossed by the sea, harrowed by winds of lying, deception, rejection? What a fine young couple they made, everyone liked to say. What a future they had before them. Who would have guessed it would come to this? How could a politician like that just have his way with another man’s wife? Why had she gone over to him as she had? Who knew the answers to such impossible questions?

  Beatrice

  The young women seemed to like her well enough, but not as much, at first, as she had been prepared to like them. She believed she was lively, warm, coherent, and, as Virgil had said, that her stage fright gave her a charge that worked to her advantage: an independent businesswoman letting them know they could make it on their own in a man’s world—if they were willing to give it their all! Most of them appeared more vague, however, than captivated.

  Were they distracted? Slightly vacant? Had she grown more educated and removed from them than she had realized? After all, nine years had slipped by since her own daughter had been their age in college. Too bad she couldn’t describe the Thomaston account—the wooden candle holders, lamps, salt and pepper shakers to be produced in red oak and maple laminations by inmates at the Maine State Prison—but Maine Authentic’s move for an exclusive agreement was still up for approval and not to be disclosed.

  “A Business of One’s Own” was the banner under which she made her presentation—a thirty-minute talk to be followed by thirty minutes of coffee klatching—and there was smiling and laughter, but only two or three of the twenty-odd seemed to have any fire in their eyes. Were the others half-asleep at ten a.m.? Who were they kidding if they were dozing in business school at ten in the morning? Were they spoiled? Beatrice wasn’t ready for that either, and when she finished talking and it was time for coffee, her thought was to glide through the chatter, be on her way, and chalk it up to differences between the “can-do” and “why-me?” generations, as Virgil liked to call them.

  There came a question from a young woman in a slouch, and all at once Beatrice decided to respond as she would to Marian when she had been in high school. “How do you get some senior banker to agree to a start-up loan?” the young woman said, and Beatrice wasn’t sure if the girl was one who had paid attention or not.

  “Listen to me now, because I’m going to be a little hard on you,” she said, and saw some eyes turn her way. “You have to look the part—you hear what I’m saying? You have to act, eat, drive, and walk the part. It has to be in your hair—in your pantyhose, young lady, when you walk into a bank and climb a flight of stairs. If you’re content to be a clerk for the rest of your life, just tune me out right now. Fresh clothes. Nice clothes. A sparkling car helps—something with a good name—a Buick, an Oldsmobile, a Chrysler. A manager’s car, not a clerk’s car. Appearances are especially important for women—let’s face it. And to look the part you have to be the part within. That’s the secret—be clearheaded and confident. Be smart. Present yourself in that way, have your act together, your homework done—be ready—and that bank manager will respect you and will be thrilled to sign. ‘Yes ma’am, will that be enough?’ he’ll say, and he’ll be wishing his own daughter was half as together.”

  Sounds of response came from the room and, on a glance, Beatrice knew she had gained their attention; added questions came about credit, clothes, money for cars.

  “Self-esteem is what every woman is aware of when she selects her outfit for the day,” Beatrice said then. “You have to
plan ahead and be prepared. Heaven help you if your blouse has coffee stains, and you put off washing your hair because it’s Friday and you’re getting off early. That’s laziness—go back to the end of the line. Dressing for success is step number one. Preparing the inner self. Standing tall—taller than you’re standing right now—yes, you, young lady, who asked about bank loans. Being liked on the outside because you’re liking yourself within. And don’t tell me you can’t come up with nice clothes or borrow your father’s car. Do what has to be done. No excuses. Or be happy as a clerk, with stringy hair and minimum wage.”

  There was gasping and laughing, more questions about clothes and looking the part within, and Beatrice said, “In fact I was wrong when I said dressing for success is step number one. What is really step number one is eating for success, because the trimmer you are the better you’ll look—and in less expensive clothes. Okay, now maybe that’s sexist to have to worry about dressing and eating, I would agree—but don’t we ourselves feel respect for women who have it together? I know I do, along with some envy. It keeps me going. In the battle of the bulge, don’t rationalize, is what I say! Be vigilant! Savor sweat!”

  Their faces were laughing, blossoming, asking about mentoring, interviewing, what employers looked for in applicants. “Okay, this is important too,” Beatrice said, “and it’s not unrelated to dressing and eating! Number one: Attitude. Spell it out to yourselves because it’s everything. It means loving what you do. You can tell when someone is winging it, going through the motions. Teachers, lawyers, clerks in stores. You can tell. Lost threads. Missed connections. Put that beside someone who is involved in their work, and a child can tell you the difference. The young woman who is prepared and loves what she does has confidence, has style—which derives from attitude—and it doesn’t matter if she’s winning a case in court or selling a one-piece bathing suit. She brings magnetism to her life and to her employer—she’ll get job offers and she’ll love getting up in the morning because she knows she’s good at what she does. Think about it. Attitude. If yours isn’t one of wanting to do it, then you’re wasting your time and everyone else’s. And the battle of the bulge will only be harder to win,” Beatrice added, to more laughter and spontaneous applause.

  When one of the young voices gushed, “Will you be my mom?” she laughed, and joy filled her breast. “I’d love to if I had time,” she said, and the mom exchange made her eyes gloss up as she returned across the parking lot to the shiny red LeBaron. Affection for the girls had taken her by surprise, and she anticipated recounting the experience to Marian and Virgil. And she thought again that she could write a book about it. Self-taught; self-starting. Not to brag, but that would be the ticket.

  Virgil

  At the intersection leading into the Mall segment containing Maine Authentic, an old Transam blasted its horn as it roared past on the shoulder, cutting off his right-of-way. The scuzzy wreck with Maine plates was driven by a twenty-something, and Virgil thought, have it your way, fella, and, in the wake of the careening car, guided his Mercedes into the parking lot with the cool, slow demeanor of a top gun riding into town.

  Virgil was pleased that his big vehicle might trigger hostility. The charcoal gray S420 was a muscle car, and though it wasn’t what he’d drive if he were still in office, he liked that it conveyed a message. His other considerations had been a black Seville STS or a black Lincoln Continental. Nothing else was horse enough to do the job though selecting image in a car wasn’t something he would readily admit. A man’s car did some talking, especially in today’s in-your-face world, while understatement also needed to play a part. Quiet power. People took notice when it pulled alongside. Or they spat gravel on the run like that loser in the Transam. Black leather and walnut trim. A Stealth cockpit. Dozens of instruments. A car with which to have an affair of the kind he was having. Low $70s. Paid in cash on a shifting of funds between accounts when he wrote the check, and, okay, $12,000 more than he’d disclosed to either Abby or Beatrice, but worth every penny. He adored his car the way a teenager might adore an elegant woman beyond his reach, and guessed that settling into the black leather passenger seat, for a woman, was a tingling sexual experience. It sure was for him, though it was another awareness he wouldn’t readily admit. When it came to power, Virgil Pound reserved an eye for details of the kind many voters felt but never took time to notice.

  At least he had this, Virgil thought as he circled the lot before the store, looking for an opening and not unaware of his position and prominence. People’s eyes still paused when noticing him, and remarks were uttered aside to companions. He’d never made it to the national game—his life’s core regret—but it had to be acknowledged that competition at that level was ferocious and that he’d done okay in what he’d gone for. He was happy. You’re happy, aren’t you? he joked to himself as he found a space facing the store.

  Pausing, spotting two former constituents he had no wish to hear out—listening politely in parking lots was one of the singular downsides to life as a public figure—Virgil acted out concern with his attaché case on the passenger seat. Shifting an eye, seeing that the coast still wasn’t clear, he continued with the attaché case. Within—in no rush and in a good-humored mood this pleasantly warm day—he sensed an old interest visiting his mind: the enjoyment he experienced in exercising authority. No doubt about it, power had been a lifelong vice, and it certainly was a vice. Witness his fantasies in controlling, zapping, if he wished, Beatrice’s clod of a husband and the pleasure he could derive in merely thinking what he could do to make the man’s life miserable. Dim-witted Warren learning that his commercial license had expired, his bait was in violation, his traps were too large—and having no idea he was being finessed into begging to be taken back on by the Water Pollution Commission. Fantasies of that kind were one of Virgil’s dirty little secrets—and, no doubt, a source of enhanced potency. The women’s groups had it right in their yammering about power being an aphrodisiac—administering power was certainly one for him! However privately, he knew that manipulating Beatrice’s husband added … well, ask any old pol if administering power wasn’t part of the game? Of course they’d deny it—why else call it a game?

  Marian’s was the first familiar face Virgil saw on entering, and she said at once, “Hope you don’t mind—I’m going to lunch with you and Mom. I sort of invited myself.”

  Virgil smiled, said, “Nothing could please me more. Gorgeous day today—beautiful.”

  “I won’t be buying,” Marian added.

  Virgil chortled.

  “I have some things to ask the grown-ups,” Marian said, and Virgil kept grinning, trying to figure out what was happening.

  Beatrice appeared, and he turned aside to give her a peck on the cheek. “You don’t mind Marian coming along?” she whispered, and he said, “Not at all,” which meant, they both knew, that he was less than thrilled. Things to ask the grown-ups? “I don’t know what’s on her mind,” Beatrice said. “It must be Ron.”

  Minutes later, jackets and purses in hand, they were in the LeBaron with Beatrice behind the wheel and Virgil in back—where he did not like, ever, to be. Marian, next to her mother in front, glanced his way and smiled, looking amused at the scrunched-in sight of him. Beatrice had a quirk about driving her own car during business hours and Virgil understood, though on this outing, serving as aide to the two women, he was sorry he hadn’t insisted on the security of his big gray import.

  “Can we get into this now or do we have to wait?” he said.

  “Honey?” Beatrice asked across the front seat.

  “Can we wait?” Marian said, and added, looking to the rear, “Virgil, I’m sorry to draw you into this—I can see you just wanted to have a nice lunch, and I’m screwing it up. I’m not even sure I know what I want to say. Some headaches I’m sure you’d just as soon do without.”

  Virgil gave no reply, to let her know she was right—he had only wanted to have a nice lunch. Beatrice pressed south on Route 1, and
looking the two women over, Virgil thought yes, it has to do with money, or with her husband. Probably both. Further, as in any state house invitation to lunch, he knew his presence was in no way casual. She’s probably disillusioned with her little hubby and wants him to make it go away. Or it may be the store; she may want to leave—she’s never appreciated what her mother has done for her—and go to graduate school. Probably to study philosophy, or sociology, or French literature and to say that when she has another degree she’ll be ready to come back on full time and really give herself to sales. At the least the husband, Virgil thought. The marriage was faltering, he’d gotten the drift of that, and knew, too, that Beatrice had conveyed to Marian his disappointment in her choice of a mate. Maybe Marian wanted him to know he had been right in the first place, and wanted to return to his good graces. Who could blame her?

  “Don’t worry about lunch,” Virgil said. “If we’re not here for you, who is? Only next time can we go in a more comfortable car?”