The Vanishing Expert Read online

Page 5


  “No,” he said. He took a bite of his sandwich, hoping she’d be satisfied with his answer.

  She wasn’t letting him off that easy. “Ever been married?”

  James nodded. “For nine years.”

  “Divorced?” Jean persisted. In her tone, James noticed both anticipation and suspicion.

  He thought for a moment, considering the consequences of his answer. He nodded. “It didn’t work out,” he said. “We both wanted different things.”

  “Let me guess,” Jean said. “She wanted kids. You didn’t.”

  James shook his head. “Other way around, actually.”

  She smiled at him, that bright smile he’d first seen at the gallery when they met, and she urged him on.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I was the one who wanted kids. She wanted everything but kids.”

  “Well,” Jean said. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out. I hope it didn't end badly.”

  “Not really,” he said. “She got the house, the car, most of the savings.” He winked at Jean, who got the joke.

  “And what about you?”

  “Me?”

  “What did you get?”

  He took another taste of his chowder, which was growing tepid, as he contemplated the question. “A fresh start,” he said finally.

  “And that’s why you came here?” she asked.

  James nodded. “Everything got so complicated. I just wanted to start over. Keep it simple.”

  Jean took a sip of water, studying him over the rim of her glass. “Life gets complicated anywhere,” she said. “I’m living proof of that.”

  “Maybe,” he conceded.

  Jean smiled. She liked him. She felt a connection with him that she’d rarely felt with a man since her divorce— the common bond shared by two people who had both failed at the same venture.

  In the days that followed, they continued their conversation over lunch each afternoon, usually sandwiches at the gallery. Peter joined them on the days he was at the gallery, but on a few occasions, it was just the two of them. James wished he could spend more time alone with her, but when Jean invited him to join her for dinner, he graciously declined, too proud to admit he couldn’t afford the cost of a meal.

  “I really hate eating alone,” Jean confessed.

  “You know everyone,” James reminded her. “Why would you ever have to?”

  Jean smiled sadly, an expression that pulled at his heart. “They all have families,” she said. “They all have places to go.”

  It never occurred to him that a woman like Jean could be lonely.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said, gathering herself again. “We’ll go to supper— my treat— under one condition.”

  “What’s that?” James asked her.

  “You’ll tell me your life’s story.”

  James hesitated a moment too long, and Jean issued a long, scrutinizing gaze.

  “Aaah,” she sighed, intrigued. “You have secrets.”

  James attempted to conceal his anxiety behind a wry grin. “Doesn’t everybody?” he asked her.

  “Oh, now you have to have supper with me!” she told him.

  They dined that evening at Mallory’s, a small restaurant just past the shops at the west end of Cottage Street. It was actually a pub with a large bar occupying the center of the room and a handful of tables lined up near the window.

  Over supper, Jean asked him a string of questions, hoping to draw out of her companion some details of a life that was still largely a mystery to her. As the evening wore on, she found precisely what Peter Langston had found— that James was willing to talk about his childhood, but he was stingy with details about his adult life. Whenever Jean pressed him for more information about his marriage or his job before coming to Bar Harbor, he always managed to turn the conversation to his youth, an area of his life that he felt afforded him some security.

  “So, tell me about your wife,” Jean prodded him.

  “There’s not too much to tell,” he said. “She was a good woman, but we found out we wanted different things. That’s what happens when you get married too young.” He took a sip of his wine, considering his next careful step. “My parents got married young, too,” he continued. “My father was twenty-three. My mother was twenty-one, I think. But times were different then. They were teenagers during World War II. They grew up not knowing if their world was going to end, and that changes you. They were only in their early twenties when they got married, but they lived through so much by then that in a lot of ways, they were much older.”

  Jean nodded slowly, her eyes distant and sad. “It’s a strange age,” she said. “I got married fresh out of college, too, and you think that the whole world is about to open up for you. You feel like nothing you do can be wrong, and you find out later that just about everything you did during those times was wrong.”

  James smiled. He felt as if Jean understood him completely, but he could sense that in her recollection of her misspent youth, there was a regret even greater than his own. A moment later, she confirmed it.

  “You think, at that age, that nothing else matters as much as love,” she said. “And then you find out that love matters least of all.”

  James was surprised by the remark. “You’re a cynic!” he teased.

  “I’m really not!” Jean insisted. “At least I hope I’m not. I’m not sure where that came from.”

  James stabbed at a piece of chicken with his fork. They ate in silence for a moment, Jean’s words hanging in the air between them like a cloud. Jean was about to break the silence by remarking on the food when she noticed James leaning forward as if he was about to confide something in her.

  “You know,” he said, “we really only made one mistake.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We each married the wrong person. At some point, you just have to stop beating yourself up over it.”

  He sat back in his chair and studied her face for a moment. He watched the sadness that had filled her eyes melt away, and a smile formed on her pretty lips. He raised his wine glass, holding it up between them until Jean lifted hers as well.

  “Here’s to starting over,” he said.

  “To a simple life,” Jean added, touching her glass to his.

  They each took a sip of wine to seal the toast, but in a moment, Jean’s gaze grew pensive again, and she turned her eyes to the activity in the street, at strangers passing beneath the streetlight outside the window. “So, when do you get to stop starting over?” she asked. Her voice was as distant as her lovely gaze. She turned and looked James directly in the eye. “It’s been twelve years since Richard left me, and I still feel like a divorcee. When does that feeling go away?”

  James considered her question for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m still pretty new to this.” He leaned on his elbows, resting his chin on his fists. “Ask me again in twelve years.”

  Jean smiled wistfully. “Deal.”

  On Friday afternoon, Peter and James finished cleaning up and loaded their tools into Peter’s pickup truck. As they were preparing to leave, Jean followed James outside. It had been a blustery day, and Jean hugged herself to keep warm as she stepped out into the brisk evening air.

  “My daughter called me from school last night,” Jean said. “She’s coming home for the weekend, and I was wondering if you’d like to join us for supper tomorrow night.”

  James looked over his shoulder at Peter, who was tying a ladder to the top of his truck and pretending not to listen. He saw the wide grin emerging through Peter’s thick beard, and when their eyes finally met, Peter winked at him knowingly.

  “I wouldn’t want to impose,” James said to Jean, though he was eager to spend more time with her.

  “About six o’clock,” Jean said as she turned and hurried back inside to escape the cold. Just as the door was about to close behind her, she quickly turned and poked her head out. “You can tell him
how to get there, Peter,” she said with a sly smile.

  Peter, realizing he’d been caught eavesdropping, chuckled and gave her a wave. “I’ll make sure he finds his way,” he said.

  After they left the gallery, Peter and James walked to a bar called The Spinnaker Pub, where Peter treated his employee to dinner and a pitcher of beer. It was quickly becoming a Friday evening tradition. Peter always picked up the tab, since James was usually broke by Friday, and he held off giving James his paycheck until afterward so James wouldn’t be tempted to spend it on the meal.

  Peter had become protective of his new apprentice. He still knew very little about James, only that he was divorced, and he’d moved to Maine to make a fresh start, and that he was a diligent worker, and that he had an eye for a certain gallery owner. Even so, Peter kept a paternal eye on him, for starters by making certain he didn’t squander his money on their Friday nights at The Spinnaker Pub.

  James had already developed a loyalty to Peter in those first months that Peter recognized and appreciated. After all, loyalty was one of the things he was looking for when he’d hired James, the quality that had been sadly lacking in the young men he’d hired before. Certainly Mitch Blanchette, who’d been so quick to abandon him in September, knew nothing of it.

  They used the Friday evenings at The Spinnaker to discuss the following week’s projects and they often stayed for hours, with blueprints and sketches spread out over two tables. The summer tourist season having coming to an end, the bar was never full.

  “That way,” Peter said, “I can write off the pitchers as a business expense.”

  “Does it matter, since it’s your business?” James asked him.

  Peter smiled. “I suppose not,” he said, pouring himself another beer.

  James didn’t mind. He appreciated the company. And that night, he wanted to talk about Jean. He asked Peter what he knew of her.

  Peter laughed and rolled up a blueprint he’d been showing James, inserting it into a long cardboard tube. “She’s something, isn’t she?” He leaned forward, resting his thick forearms on the table as if he were going to confide in James something that he wanted no one else to hear. “We better have more beer,” he said. “If we’re gonna talk about Jean Berkhardt, this could be a long night.” He emptied his mug, and signaled for the waitress, whom he knew by name, to bring another pitcher. “We go back a long way, Jean and me. Back before Christina was born.”

  The waitress arrived and set the pitcher on the table between them, and she placed her hand affectionately on Peter’s massive shoulder. “You boys all done talking about work?”

  “That’s right, Sandy,” Peter said. “Now, we’re gonna gossip like a coupla women.”

  She smiled coyly. “Nothing about me, I hope.”

  “That depends,” Peter said. He winked across the table at James. “You got something juicy to get us started?”

  “Nothing I want to tell you,” she said, giving a firm tug on Peter’s beard before she left them.

  Peter laughed and watched the swing of Sandy’s generous hips as she walked away. “I’m a bit of a flirt,” he confessed when he turned back to James. “It’s not something I have any control over. I just love women.” He poured himself another beer from the pitcher. “Not all women, mind you, but most of ‘em.” He smiled and topped off James’s mug as well. “Two women I love most of all—my wife, who’s some kinda saint for puttin’ up with me all these years, and Jean Berkhardt.” He took a swallow from his mug and wiped the foam from his mustache with the back of his hand. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I’ve never cheated on my wife, and I never will, but if there was ever a woman who could make me think about it, it’s Jean.” He pointed a thick finger at James. “That, of course, stays between you and me.”

  James wasn’t surprised by the remark. Over the past few weeks since he met Peter Langston, he noticed that he flirted with every woman he met with only one exception; around Jean, he was a perfect gentleman, and James sensed by mid-week that Peter had a crush on her. It was odd thinking of a man of Peter’s character— not to mention his proportions— being reduced to mush by a woman, but that was precisely the effect Jean Berkhardt had upon him. Of course, as James was getting to know more about her, it seemed to him like the most natural thing in the world. Although he said nothing to Peter, he smiled knowingly when Peter confessed to it.

  Peter picked up on it. “I don’t hide it very well, do I?” he asked.

  James shrugged.

  “Well, I admit it,” Peter said. “If I was single and younger and better-lookin’, I would’ve been after her a long time ago. But as it is, we’re just very good friends.”

  “What’s she really like?” James asked him.

  Peter seemed surprised by the question. “You ought'a be gettin’ some idea by now.”

  “I guess,” James conceded. “I was just hoping you could fill in the blanks.”

  Peter shook his head. “I don’t go around tellin’ anybody’s secrets but my own,” he said. “Course, I told you one that should give you a pretty good idea what I think of that lady.” He smiled and waved at a group of people who walked past the window, and then he quickly returned his attention to James. “Only piece of advice I’ll give you is this— make her your friend, and you’ve got a friend for life.”

  James nodded. “I wasn’t really looking for anything more than that.”

  “Good thing,” Peter said. “Because she hasn’t really been involved with any man since Richard left her; not seriously anyway. It’s a shame, too, because she’s a catch.” Peter took a big gulp of his beer and flashed a toothy grin across the table. “Should be an interesting evening for you, especially if you’ll be meeting Christina.”

  “Why’s that?” James asked.

  Peter just smiled over the top of his beer mug at James, deciding whether to let James in on his secret. “Jean was about Christina’s age when I met her, a little more than twenty years ago, and she’s the spitting image of her mom back then. I’m guessing after a few hours with the two Berkhardt ladies, you won’t know which end is up.”

  “Why’s that?” James asked again.

  Peter decided he’d said enough. Finally, he reached out and tapped his mug against James’s, the glasses connecting with a loud clink. “You’ll see tomorrow night,” he said coyly.

  On Saturday evening, James followed the directions Peter gave him to Jean’s house to a narrow street off Seal Cove Road, just a few miles from his apartment, arriving at precisely six o’clock. It was a modest two-story home, pretty and well kept, and resting back from the road on a grassy lot that clearly needed tending. Along the front of the house ran a long farmer’s porch, and as he approached it, he recognized Peter’s craftsmanship in the hand-turned spindles and the railing, which appeared to have been recently painted. A pair of green Adirondack chairs were positioned close together in front of a large window to the right of the door. One of the chairs was occupied by an enormous Maine Coon Cat, who gazed up at him sleepily as James mounted the steps. James rubbed the big tomcat behind one ear before knocking on the front door. After a moment, the door opened, and the cat jumped down and hurried inside.

  James had expected Jean to greet him at the door, so he was surprised when he looked up to see the pretty young woman who now stood before him. He’d never seen her before, but her face was familiar, the likeness to her mother startling at first.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m James.” He smiled nervously. “You must be Christina.”

  Christina nodded and invited him in. “Nice to meet you, James. My mother will be right down,” she said as she closed the door behind him.

  James couldn’t help but watch her as she spoke. She had her mother’s endearing quality in her voice, but with a youthful pitch and bounce. When he realized Christina had caught him staring at her, he smiled shyly. “I didn’t mean to stare,” he said. “It’s just that I can’t get over the resemblance.".
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br />   Christina smiled. “I get that a lot,” she said.

  Jean cooked a wonderful supper, the best James had tasted since he arrived in Southwest Harbor, and yet he was so captivated by his two hostesses that he found it difficult to give the meal the attention it deserved.

  “My mother said you live in Southwest Harbor, James,” Christina said to him over dinner.

  “That’s right,” he said. He described his apartment on Clark Point Road, and he found that both Jean and Christina knew his landlady, Ruth Kennedy. It was a small town. He wasn’t surprised. “She’s very nice,” James said. “But she seems very lonely without her husband.”

  Jean nodded knowingly. “He died only a short time ago, April or May, I think.”

  “In May,” Christina offered.

  Jean thought about Mrs. Kennedy rambling around her big house all alone, and a sadness crept into her expression. “She’s so sweet,” she said. “It’s got to be hard to lose someone who’s been with you that long.” Not wanting to spoil the mood of the evening, she quickly turned to her daughter and changed the subject. “So, how’s school going this semester,” she asked. She turned to James without giving her daughter a chance to answer. “Christina’s a junior at the University of Maine.”

  “Orono?” James asked.

  Christina appeared surprised that he’d heard of it. “Right.”

  “I went there myself,” James said. “That’s partly the reason I came back to Maine. I had some great memories there. Of course, that was in another life,” he added, though only he was aware of the mischief in his remark.

  Jean dismissed it with a swipe of her delicate hand. “Nonsense,” she said. “You’re not that old.”

  “I’m thirty-five,” he said. He looked at Christina and smiled. “Class of ‘78.” He was disappointed to see by Christina’s expression that, unlike her mother, she thought thirty-five was quite old. “How do you like it there?” he asked her.

  Her face brightened. “I like it fine,” she said. “But sometimes I just like to get away for the weekend.”