Better Than Gold

by Mary Brady

  “I could sell ’em, but I get the best kick outta seein’ that grand-daught-ah o’ mine smile when I give ’em to her.”

  “I hear you’re going down to Florida,” Mia said and carefully watched the look on Edwin’s face.

  He twitched a little and rocked on his stool. “I gotta check out my options, eh. Wint-ahs are hard on a’ old guy like me.”

  The conflicted look on has face told Mia he wasn’t set on anything. That should be encouraging to Monique.

  She leaned forward and back to see all seven of the men at the U-shaped bar. “Have any of you ever left Maine?”

  “Ah-yuh.” Charlie Finn around the corner from Edwin wrinkled up his face in distaste. “My wife made me go to Chicago for our honeymoon—in January. Colder than a— Oh, well, no palm trees growin’ there, I can tell you.”

  The other guys laughed.

  “I had to go to some tiny lake ne-ah Bemidji, Minnesota, with mine.” Barrel-chested Harley Davies sat near the end of one of the legs of the U, the closed end that abutted the wall, and he spoke without moving his darkly whiskered face from its position of hanging over his beer. “I still don’t know exactly whe-ah that town is. Stayed with a bunch of her cousins at a lake cabin. Good thing I didn’t mind sand in my bed sheets. Bless h-ah, she loved me for goin’ and that was enough for me.”

  Heads nodded and beer got sipped.

  “Almost left once.” Short, round, white-whisker-faced Bill Schroeder said, piping up from two stools past Whister. “One of my daught-ahs thought we should all go to New Aw-leans for her weddin’. Convinced her we could put on a much prettier show if we didn’t have to pay for all those hotel rooms. Gas wasn’t nothin’ then.”

  “Wasn’t that something? Imagine how good life would be if we paid a quarter a gallon again.”

  That raised a row of cheers.

  “What about you?” Harley leaned forward from his far-flung stool and asked her.

  “Ah-yuh, I left Maine for almost six years. In Boston, the university, a job, you know.” She couldn’t help but think she’d be down there still if she hadn’t been downsized out of two jobs and hadn’t failed at romance.

  “How’d that go?” he asked.

  “I’m back, aren’t I?”

  That got a round of chuckles and more sipping.

  Mia drank more of her wine because she was getting woefully behind. “Fellas, I had a lot of time to think about what’s important about where I live and I gotta say, it’s Maine things, the families raising children with good stout values, the young people who stay here because it’s home, and it’s you guys and all the older generation.”

  There was almost an embarrassed silence. She knew these guys loved compliments as much as anyone, but they had the hardest time taking them.

  “Older generation?” This was the bartender. “What about us youngun’s?”

  “And who’s you callin’ old?” Whister Carmody did have a voice.

  “Sorry about the old crack,” she said as she put a hand on the bar near him. “You have all lived here long enough to be the polished gems of the town.”

  “Ah-yuh, that’s us. Gems,” said Stan from the stool around the corner to the right.

  “Hey, Edwin, you an opal or a topaz?” Harley called.

  “He’s an opal. He’s soft in the head,” white-whiskered Bill piped in. “Me, I’m a nice shiny piece of quartz.”

  “Naw, you’re a big old chunk of watermelon tourmaline,” said Charlie around the left corner.

  “If I’m a watermelon, you must be—”

  “All right. All right.” Mia stood on the rung of her bar stool and raised both hands.

  “Careful, Miss,” Michael said as he leaned over the bar in front of her. “If you incite a riot here, I’m gonna have to charge you for a round just to quiet ’em down.”

  They all cheered.

  She sat back down. “You’re gonna get me into trouble here, Michael.”

  “So, how’s that coming over they-ah?” Edwin tossed a thumb over his shoulder toward Pirate’s Roost as he spoke, and Mia felt a pang that she was in no position to hire him and may never be.

  “Well, we are trying to figure out who that was in the wall.” Mia stretched and looked exaggeratedly around at them all. “I don’t suppose any of you were around when that guy got himself walled up.”

  “Bill was,” Whister said without missing a beat, and Mia knew he was kidding. Apparently when you got him into the conversation it got easier for him.

  “Watch out, Whiss, or I’ll collect on that bet I won off you in 1898,” Bill shot back.

  Laughter ensued and the guys ordered another round. When the bartender brought her wine he said, “You should come more often. A good-looking woman is very good for business.”

  “So you people are pretty hush-hush over there.” A new voice was heard from. Earl Smith, the only man who could be considered skinny in this group, spoke from the opposite end of the U from Harley. “Tell us wha’s going on ’cause if we have to wait for our wives to find out from those two at the yarn shop, we get way behind. We did hear about that man who keeps coming around from the university.”

  “Yes, that’s Dr. Daniel MacCarey. He’s a forensic anthropologist.”

  “Like that TV show where they study bones,” Whiss said.

  “He’s the one who’s going to tell us exactly how old the bones are.”

  “Is he a Maine boy?” Bill asked.

  “I didn’t ask him.”

  “He’s not bad-looking. You might want to snap him up if he is,” Edwin said from her elbow.

  “I guess I’ll have to check and see if he’s a Maine boy. But hey, you guys, I’m looking for information about what would make life around here better for people.”

  “We were kind of looking forward to that place of yours getting finished, eh,” Harley said as he looked up from his beer.

  “Wouldn’t have to drive so far from town to take our wives to a nice dinner,” Stan added with enthusiasm that was seconded by some of the others.

  That surprised Mia. She had no idea these men even thought of such things.

  “Or maybe a date, eh, Whiss?” Bill teased the other man.

  Mia expected Whister to dive into his beer mug, but he grinned. She wondered who the lucky lady was, but she didn’t want to push his burst of extroversion past its limits by asking.

  “A hand of cards in a nice warm place in the wintertime, maybe after a warm breakfast and a good cup of coffee.” Harley looked as if he were daydreaming as he spoke. “That might be good.”

  She thought of the big windows she would like to have put in the front of the restaurant and the smaller ones in the back. They’d let in a lot of light. She’d planned on supplementing central heat with a large stone fireplace. It should be cozy.

  She could even see these guys at a couple tables in the corner in the back laughing, harassing the waitstaff for more coffee. But what if this was the kind of thing that kept them here. Kept the heritage in Maine.

  If she ever got it built.

  “So what do you think?” Whiss leaned toward her. “Are you gonna make that place over there work for us?”

  She hadn’t thought about breakfast, or card games.

  “So wha’ if it’s that pirate you’ve got over there in that wall?” Skinny Earl spoke before she could answer. He had moved down to sit at the corner of the bar next to Charlie Finn.

  She laughed. “Then I named the Pirate’s Roost well.” If she could deflect him, that might be very helpful for the peace in the town.

  She turned away. “You haven’t said much, Mr. Beaudin, what would you like to see the Roost offer?”

  “I don’t much care,” Monique’s granddad said and it was almost a mumble.

  “Hey, St
an, maybe you could’a had the baptism celebration there for that surprise grandchild of yours,” Earl said louder than he needed to be heard by everyone in the bar.

  “Stan, I heard he’s the cutest grandbaby ever born,” Mia said because she knew Earl had just shot a dig at Stan.

  “You must have been talking to my wife,” Stan said, maintaining his jovial tone. “Strappin’ boy if I ever heard one.”

  “Gave his opinion several times in church that day. Make any granddad proud,” Edwin added.

  “So can we come across the street and have a look?” Earl seemed to be feeling his beer and she wasn’t sure that was a good thing.

  Mia wanted to talk to Edwin more, but decided the best way to get away from Earl’s questions was to remove herself. She swallowed her last sip of wine and slid off her bar stool.

  “I had a great time, fellas. Do you mind if I come back, say Saturday?”

  “Anytime, Ms. Park-ah,” and several variations thereof came from the patrons at the bar.

  “See ya, Mia,” the bartender added as she heaved open the heavy wooden door.

  She hurried out into the cool air. A good night for a walk. She patted her neon green car on the hood and hiked on up the street toward home. One of the great things about a small town. There were a lot of places one can walk to and from.

  The closer she got to home, the more the night cleared her head.

  Edwin Beaudin seemed to have been prepared for her subtle inquiries, or maybe she hadn’t been as clever as she had wanted to be. She had wanted to be able to report to Monique about which way the wind was blowing with her granddad.

  She thought of the darkened windows in the Pirate’s Roost and wondered if she would ever make them bright with life, if folks would ever play a hand of cards or celebrate a baptism there. If they could, would people like Edwin stay?

  She smiled when she thought of Stan’s sweet cherub grandbaby. He was the cutest thing ever. Even Father Murray didn’t judge a child for being conceived before marriage.

  Her thoughts traveled to another time. Two hundred years ago Archibald Fletcher’s daughter might have married under similar circumstances. If the woman had been in love with Liam Bailey and then married so quickly after Bailey disappeared, maybe there had been a baby involved.

  If there had been a baby and if that baby was born, say, six months after the wedding, Liam Bailey could indeed have an heir. Holy cow. Tomorrow she’d have to check the records at the church.

  She hurried the rest of the way up the hill to her house. When she got there she sat on the porch swing and looked out over the town and the people she loved. Dappled moonlight shined through the pine boughs and stars twinkled overhead.

  Eventually the cold slipped inside her coat and she went indoors for a long warm shower. That and the wine should make her sleepy.

  When she finally lay in her bed, she couldn’t keep her eyes closed.

  Could she really keep people here if she got Pirate’s Roost open? Could the Roost give the residents of Bailey’s Cove a place to hang out, a place to gather?

  Did Liam Bailey have a child?

  Could she find out in the church records? Luckily, the priest had kept them in the rectory in the 1950s because the church was so small. That kept them safe from the fire that nearly destroyed the old church. She needed the wedding date...birth date...

  Sleep. She needed sleep.

  An hour went by and all she could do was think and plan. Try as she might, she could not reckon how she could talk Markham Construction into opening up a new spot for her or if the bank would restructure for her so she could lower her payments.

  Sleep!

  No. Use.

  A good run would help her sort out her jumbled thoughts. She could pick up her car so tomorrow when she was too tired to drag her pitiful self around town, she’d have wheels.

  She donned her running gear and jogged down Blueberry Avenue’s hill in the twin beams of her headlamp cap. There were no streetlights on the side streets, but she’d soon be down on the main street and there would be less chance of twisting her ankle or tripping over a night creature. She and a raccoon had almost collided on one such restless night. She wouldn’t soon forget the challenge in those piercing eyes.

  As she turned on Church Street, the crisp night air in her face made for a wonderful run. To the old church and back home was her six-mile route. Tonight it would be easy.

  The old brown dog that roamed the streets of Bailey’s Cove and that everyone fed met up with her at the corner and loped without effort at her side. He had gotten left behind by someone passing through town, maybe on purpose. He never seemed to pine for whoever left him, he just adapted. Maybe he wasn’t left, maybe he chose to stay.

  “Hey, Brownie. You can’t sleep, either?”

  The dog trotted on silently, his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth.

  “Well, I’m glad for the company.”

  She passed the post office. Bailey’s Cove was one of the lucky towns. They still had their own tidy little redbrick post office. After the post office came the hardware store and the small building with paper covering the windows that used to have a deli on the ground floor. She wondered if the people who had owned the deli had left town yet. Rumor was they were going to find jobs that didn’t suck the life out of them.

  She wished them well.

  As she and Brownie trotted closer to her car, she noticed there was light coming from the windows of Pirate’s Roost, bright light. It was then she realized the car parked on the street across from hers belonged to Daniel.

  Her heart thudded hard as she stopped close to the dirty windowpane and Brownie ran on. “See you later, boy.”

  Daniel stepped into the half-demolished doorway of the back room holding two of the pieces of granite in his gray-gloved hands. He didn’t look up at her and was trying to see if the pieces fit together. He was reassembling the crypt.

  The backlight put him in silhouette, chiseling his features and his fine body into art.

  Mia remained perfectly still, so as not to attract his attention, watching as he put one of the pieces on a tarp he had spread out and picked up another. She wondered if he wanted any help.

  Suddenly and with only subconscious permission, her hand leaped out and rapped hard on the window.

  Silly hand. She stuck it in the pocket of her warm-up suit as the other waved at Daniel, who was squinting to see what mad person was outside disturbing his work at two in the morning.

  She let herself in and Daniel met her halfway across the front section, granite pieces in his hands.

  “Good morning?” She smiled at him.

  “And you’re up in the middle of the night because?”

  “Couldn’t sleep. I jogged over to get my car and saw the lights on here.” I wanted to see you, to kiss you and have you hold me in your arms and see where our feelings take us. “And you?”

  “Working the 3-D puzzle.”

  “Because you always work at two in the morning?”

  He put the pieces of granite into one hand and reached the other out to her. When he lightly touched her cheek with the back of one gloved finger, it felt like warm silk touching her and she closed her eyes for longer than a blink.

  She had the feeling his hands gave his deepest desires away, too. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. That did not help quench the desire inside her.

  “Couldn’t find a way to get to sleep, either. Do you want to help me?” He gestured toward the other room and she followed him in.

  “An insomniac’s dream.” She pulled a pair of gloves from the box on the corner tarp. He had set up two lamps and spread out the tarp for serious work.

  She hunkered down near where he had separated out the most promising shards.

  “Have you found any
thing?”

  He picked up several pieces and crouched beside her. “I started collecting pieces with discoloration on them, but they’re harder to sort out because I think there is discoloration from more than one cause. See the different shades of brown.”

  “Where do I start?” Her breath trembled in and out as she tried to function, to think when his body heat seeped into her, his warm scent filled her. Where do I start? To find the strength to resist her feelings for an unavailable man.

  “Chances are, when the stones were knocked loose, they flew as a group. So if you pick up stones from the same general area, that might help find matches.”

  His eyes moved over her, caressing her, stoking the already blazing fire. Where do I start? To begin to dig him out of her heart, because that is where he was firmly lodged.

  “Are you trying to put together the whole thing or just the area with markings?”

  “I think the markings will tell us all we need to know for now.”

  They sat, hunkered down or wandered, picking up pieces of the tomb and patiently fitting them together.

  “Mia, is there a possibility you could move Pirate’s Roost to a different location?” he asked after they had worked in silence for a while.

  “It seems like such a simple solution, but I passed the point of no return on this place a long time ago.”

  * * *

  DANIEL SAT ON the plastic tarp and listened to what Mia had to say. If he was going to destroy her plans, he needed to know how much damage he was doing and if he could help.

  “I put a lot of effort into planning Pirate’s Roost. I made and revised a business plan about ten times. I chose the site by looking at traffic flow in the area, the visual appeal and the view, of course.” He remembered that view of the harbor, of the sea birds soaring and the bustle. Great view for a restaurant. “I have given everything I have to Pirate’s Roost, and have too few resources left to move anywhere else.”

  She did not seem embarrassed by what she was saying, but sadness was something he knew well, and she radiated hopeless loss at this moment.