“But we have two houses.Melissa Gentile said that makes us rich.She doesn’t have two houses.”
“But the one that she has is far nicer than ours.”
“I like ours.”
“Melissa’s is bigger.Hers is an estate, with lots of land.”
“We have lots of land in Timiny Cove, and our house there is the nicest one in the whole town.”
Patricia grunted.“Timiny Cove is dirty.It’s shabby and poor.”
“I like Timiny Cove,” Pam argued, though from an early age she learned that she wouldn’t change her mother’smind on the matter of Timiny Cove.“What else is Daddy going to do?”
“Besides make lots of money?He’s going to have an office that’s even fancier than the one he has now.He may even own the building, and if he doesn’t own that one, he’ll own others.Real estate is a good investment.It’s a good way to make money.”
“But if he already has lots of money, why does he need more?”
“Security,” Patricia said in a way that left no doubt about its importance.“You’re a very lucky little girl, Pamela.You don’t know what it’s like to be without.I do.I remember when I had to wear the same pair of shoes for three years even though my feet had outgrown them after one.I remember when my mother used to send me to the butcher’s shop for a small bit of stew meat, knowing that I didn’t have enough money but hoping that the butcher would take pity on us and leave the extra piece or two in the bundle.I remember …”
Coming from her father, the “I remember” stories were warm and fun.In spite of the hardships he described, there was a fondness in his voice for the time in his life when he’d made the best of the low cards he’d been dealt.There was nothing warm or fun or fond in Patricia’s voice when she spoke of the old days.Her tone was hard.Everything about her was hard when she spoke of the old days, and if Pam had been leaning against her, that was the time when she would get up and move to sit on the floor or wander around the room.Her mother wasn’t happy when she talked of the past.Sometimes she wasn’t much happier when she talked of the present.
“I never had any security until I met your father.We have some now, but not enough.Real estate is the future.I’m going to have your father talk with Franklin Dowd at the symphony dinner on Thursday night.Franklin has done well for himself in the last few years.”
Pam was too young to know who Franklin Dowd was, why real estate was the future, or what the necessity was for stockpiling assets.But she was sensitive to simple emotions, attuned to facial expressions and tones of voice.Just as she knew that her mother grew agitated when she talked business with her father, so she knew that Eugene was correspondingly complacent.He agreed with Pam.His life was just fine.He loved the things money could buy and availed himself of them as he pleased, but he was happiest and smiled the most when he was in Maine, wearing overalls, either checking on work at one of the mine sites or visiting with his friends, the men he’d known all his life.
Pam knew them all.Whenever she was in Maine, Eugene had her with him, showing her off, teaching her to love the men, the mine, the crisp, clean air on a cool Maine night.Some of the things they did, like sneaking out to swim in the stream at midnight, were secrets because Patricia wouldn’t understand.Other things they did, like share a picnic lunch with the governor, were secrets because John wouldn’t understand.
John didn’t understand much, as far as Pam was concerned.He was sixteen years older than she, the product of Eugene’s first marriage and a different world, and if he’d ever been a child, Pam couldn’t see it.He didn’t play games, tell jokes, or watch television.Moreover, he didn’tlike tourmaline, didn’t like Timiny Cove, and didn’t like Eugene or Patricia or Pam.“He’s jealous,” Eugene would sometimes say when John was at his worst around Pam, and in her innocent way she understood.The warmth that she shared with her father never flowed between father and son.When Eugene and John stood side by side, they rarely touched.When they talked, they rarely smiled.They shared a temper, but then, Pam shared it too, and though in time she learned to control it, she hadn’t managed it when she was eight and playing poker.
The game had gone on for little more than an hour when John burst into the back room.“We have a problem,” he announced to Eugene without preamble.“Your foreman’s stealing stones.”
Eugene sent his son a dark look before shifting a slow gaze first to Rufus, then to Dwayne.“That’s quite an accusation.”Lips pursed, he looked back at his cards.
“I’ve been going over the books,” John went on.He didn’t bother to look at Rufus or Dwayne, and Pam was just as glad.The looks he usually gave them weren’t the nicest.“They’re a mess.When was the last time you went through them yourself?”
Eugene tossed a penny into the pot to match the one Dwayne had bet before him.“I don’t have to go through the books.I have a bookkeeper to do that.”
“Then your bookkeeper is as crooked as Blaise,” was John’s brash assessment.“We’re taking more out of the ground than is reaching the vault.”
“Another time, John.We’ll deal with this another time.”
“Simon knows he’s been found out.”
Eugene looked up.“You told him?”
“He was there.I didn’t see the point in waffling.”
“Did you fire him?”
“No.I thought you’d want to do that.”
“Well, I don’t.Simon Blaise has worked for me for twenty years, which is a damn sight longer than you have.What gives you the right to waltz in and start harassing my people?”
John did glance at the other men then, obviously resentful of being taken down by his father in their presence.Pam wasn’t bothered by it at all.It was John’s fault.He’d started it.
Apparently realizing that he had no escape, he turned on his father.“You were the one who wanted me here, when I’d rather have stayed in Boston.There’s plenty there to keep me busy.But you dragged me up so you could play hooky with her.”He shot Pam a nasty look.“I have an interest in this company.You’re the one who keeps reminding me of that.So I called a crooked employee to account.Blaise is stealing.”
“Says you.We’re making money hand over fist, and someone’s stealing our stones, says you.The state gives us an award for fair service, and the books are messed up, says you.Well, I say that Simon Blaise is a good man.”
