A Star for Mrs. Blake Read Free

traps, spitting, shooting at the racket boys from Portland—
    “I’m
referring
,” Essie said archly, “to importing illegal alcohol. As if you didn’t know.”
    Ah yes, that too. But Big Ole Uncle Percy was only getting his small draft of the spoils of Prohibition, brisk business on the craggy coast of Maine. You could hide a Canadian steamer loaded with booze in those coves, where bootleggers had radio stations to warn the ships, and armored cars to deliver the goods to upstanding Republicans at private clubs in Bangor. Percy was just the chump in the rowboat.
    “Everybody knows,” Cora said mildly.
    “Don’t mean we have to stand for it.”
    A secondary conveyer belt was grinding into action, moving rows of flashing cans. The edges were razor sharp. Cora would not give Essie Jordan the satisfaction of drawing blood and kept her eyes on her work.
    “Essie, it’s no shame that your own husband was arrested for disturbing the peace. He’s not the only man who likes to take a drink.”
    The blue eyes fired. “That’s not true.”
    “Nobody cares, Essie.”
    “Men are weak. That’s why
decent
women fight against the devil alcohol. You think it don’t affect you because you ain’t married.”
    “You know full well my husband died. It was a long time ago,” Cora added with a twist of bitterness. “Maybe so long you don’t remember.”
    “I know you
was
married,” Essie sneered. “The point is, now you ain’t.”
    It was afternoon and the sandwich man did not come. Mr. Healy patrolled the tables in the rubber apron he always wore, tweed cap on his swelled head. Cora’s neck ached and she was thirsty. There were no good memories in this reeking place. Even in fair weather, even while their mother was alive, the cannery yard was cluttered with mountains of decaying vegetable matter and clamshells fought over by swarming birds. Mr. Healy counted the ocean as his garbage dump and the tide as his street sweeper, but nature didn’t always oblige, and the facility was usually surrounded by scarlet pools of fish gore. This was the summer playground for the village kids, where they threw rocks at wild cats and raccoons.
    The trays of fish kept coming. The cans kept flashing past. Essie’s snide little jab had been aimed at Cora’s friendship with Linwood Moody, a sweet-tempered soil scientist she’d known since high school, who’d recently lost his wife in a car accident. They’d been seen around town together, so what? You call bean supper in the church basement a tryst? Still, Cora’s stomach clenched at the unprovoked attack. How could a person be so put off all the time? It was like Essie Jordan ate mustard for breakfast. There was only one way to put the poor lonely woman out of her misery.
    “Essie?” Cora shouted. “How’s your rugging coming?”
    Essie was an expert in the art of making rag rugs. Her coils were pulled so tight it was like she turned old bedsheets into steel cables.
    “Comin’ fine, I guess.”
    “Mrs. Grimble said you’re making braided chair seats for the spring fair.”
    “That’s right. Round ones.”
    “What kinds of colors?”
    “Blues, mostly. Got some nice bright purple from a housedress that belonged to Aunt Dot.”
    “Memories in every braid, isn’t that the truth?”
    “I suppose.”
    “I find it calms the heart.” With no response from Essie, Coraplunged ahead: “Say, did you know I’m going to be chairman of the July Fourth church fair?”
    “Ain’t you always?”
    Cora bit her lip and let it pass. “I’m thinking we could use some help,” she went on. “How would you like to take over on the crafts committee?”
    Essie blinked several times. Her eyes scanned the room with suspicion.
    “You’re asking me to run it?”
    “Nobody knows more about rugging and weaving than you. I’ll bet you could draw in some good people. What do you say?”
    Essie took her time in answering. Something like this—although she’d never admit it—she wanted