Chapter 18
Thea sat in her gown for Sophia’s wedding at the Portland Citizen’s Bank. The last time she had worn it had been to her grandmother’s funeral.
“So, Miss Manus?—”
“Ms,” she corrected. Something about being called a miss at forty years old didn’t seem appropriate, even if the gray-haired man sitting in front of her was older than her.
He mumbled something she couldn’t understand and handed her back the folder with her presentation for a business loan she had worked on all night.
“I don’t think this is a project our bank would like to take on,” he said, looking at the folder as if he was somehow disgusted by the mere sight of it. “You might be better off taking your business somewhere more… local.”
“I’m from Isabel Island. It’s part of Portland,” she said, passing back her folder. “And you didn’t even look at my idea for the shop.”
He just lifted his hands up as if that was all.
“You can see I’ve been making a profit for several years,” she explained. “Everyone took a hit during the pandemic.”
How could he fault her when the government had shut down the nation?
“Look Mssss. Manus”—he’d dragged out the S like a snake hissing at prey too rancid to eat—“small businesses like yours with rental spaces like the one you’re in are risky for any bank, even big banks like us.”
She wondered if they’d say the same thing to someone like Johnny. How’d he get a loan to buy the building she was in anyway? She knew his finances enough to know he would need a loan to buy the building.
“Your business is clearly not sustainable,” he said with a smug look on his face. “I mean, you’re only open for half the year.”
“So your business slogan is just false advertisement?”
She pointed to the framed print of a lighthouse along the Maine coast with a quote of how they “cared about small local businesses.”
“We do support small business, but have to make sure we don’t lose money in the process,” he rebutted. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have another appointment.”
He stood up, holding out his hand to shake hers, but she just got up and left.
As she walked past the next appointment, she could tell the man sitting there waiting was a fisherman, by his sweatshirt and boots. There was something about him, and when he got up to go into the loan officer’s office, she noticed that the back of his sweatshirt had a lobster claw as a logo.
“Seems awfully seasonal, fishing,” she said to his secretary, who gave her a pitying look.
She slammed the door, but the glass door would only close slowly and carefully, making her even more mad.
“Grrrrr!” she seethed through her teeth as she tightened her hands around the strap of her purse.
She pounded down the city streets of Portland—down Congress Street to Union to the wharf, where’d she take the ferry back home.
She thought of Arielle, running off in Crissy’s mind, but to Thea, she saw that girl running toward her dreams. And she was dang proud of her, too. It wasn’t easy to live for yourself, to go against everyone else’s expectations and life choices.
Crissy saw a girl falling apart. Thea saw a rapture. A tear in her old world illuminating a fresh start.
Just like Thea. She may not have gotten the loan, but it wasn’t her end. This was only the beginning.
She picked up her phone as she waited for the ferry to come to its harbor’s port. She sent Arielle a text.
I’m so proud of you. No matter what you decide for yourself, I will always be proud of you and love you. Don’t run from your dreams—go chase them!
She sent a video image of a bird flying away from the shoreline, diving up and down in the air like an acrobat and disappearing as it flew over a green forest and the mountains where the sun set.
Arielle’s words repeated in her head. Maybe the closing of her shop would be the push she needed to find her own dreams.
She had saved plenty, just not enough to buy the shop on Isabel Island. She could leave and find a place to work. Live somewhere new. Go somewhere like Florida or California and start fresh.
Off in the distance, she heard the low blow of a foghorn. The Casco ferry had made its trip across the bay.
“How long until the next ferry?” a man said, tapping his credit card on the counter. He seemed impatient about the whole ride. He held big bags, and a man and woman stood behind him holding what looked like camera equipment.
“It’s about to arrive right now,” said the older woman behind the glass selling tickets. “Would you like to purchase a ticket?”
Thea walked past the line of people visiting the island and sat in the local section.
“How’s it going?” said one of the captains of the ferry, who also lived on Isabel Island. Red had been one of the ferry captains for the Casco islands for as long as she could remember. He held a container, which appeared to be his lunch.
“Good,” she said, wondering why the older man was looking around the platform and also looking at her strangely.
“I had some weird characters on the ferry earlier today,” he said. “They were asking about you.”
This startled Thea. Was it the people from the bank? Had they gone to the island before her meeting to check things out?
“What were they asking?” Why would anyone want to talk about her? She bit her lip thinking of what people they could’ve run into. Had they talked to Johnny? He was the first stop when someone got off the ferry.
“They were asking about the football player,” he said.
The comment completely threw her. “The football player?”
He nodded. “Yeah, something about a baby and you?”
So he was having a baby with Miss Wisconsin after all. “I think they were looking for another woman. Probably his girlfriend, Miss Wisconsin.”
His face scrunched up at this, looking more perplexed. “No, not some state. You. They mispronounced your name, Thay-ah. That’s when I knew they were from out of town.”
This raised the hair on her neck. “What did they look like?”
“A couple men,” he said. “Definitely from out of town. One had blue hair. They said they were journalists, but they didn’t look like any journalists to me.”
Thea started putting the pieces together. Ryan was having a baby, and somehow people had seen them together. Now she was going to be the other woman. She didn’t dare open her phone, but how else was she going to find out what was going on?
She looked around at the crowd that sat with her in the local section.
No one seemed to notice her or care that she was sitting amongst them.
But sitting in an evening gown didn’t exactly make her blend in.
She looked over at the tourist line waiting to get on and noticed the group from earlier, with all the equipment, talking to people and moving through the crowd.
“There was a woman with them, too,” he said, opening up the plastic container to reveal a sandwich inside. He pulled out a pickle and handed it to her. “Want a pickle?”
She felt like she was in a pickle if that group made it onto the ferry. It wouldn’t take long before the dozen or so locals pointed her out.
“I’m good,” she said. “Hey, Red, could you somehow make sure those people don’t make it onto the ferry?”
He looked at her questioningly, then like a light switching on, he understood her concern and nodded. “Okay, I’ll make sure they don’t make this ferry. Hold this.”
Red handed over his sandwich and walked over to the ticket booth. The three journalists were busy smoking a cigarette while Red pointed them out to the woman selling tickets. She nodded, seeming to understand what he’d asked, and gave him a thumbs-up, then gave it to Thea.
Thea smiled, feeling slightly comforted by the way they took care of her without a hesitation.
And sure enough, as the ferry docked and the ticket lady allowed passengers onto the ferry, she managed to direct the line just the way she needed to cause the journalists to “miss” that ferry. Would that happen in a place like Florida or California?
“Sorry!” the woman announced to the “leftover” passengers. “This ferry is full.”
“Ah, come on!” complained the cameraman.
“Locals get first seats,” she said, closing the gate.
As Thea boarded, she slipped into a bench with a group of tourists pointing out landmarks with one another.
“Look, there’s a lighthouse!” one of the mothers said to her children.
“Why do the houses have those things on top?” her daughter asked.
“You mean the widow’s peak?” her mother said, but she went straight into explaining what it meant.
Her thoughts spun the whole ferry ride. She had acted overly dramatic stomping away from Ryan. She had heard what he’d said but couldn’t process everything until later. And even if he’d meant what he’d said, she had Miss Wisconsin to deal with, and a baby.
What kind of relationship could they build when he should be devoting his time to his new family?
It didn’t seem right for the baby or the mother.
She googled Miss Wisconsin and found Ainsley right away.
She looked amazing in her evening gown and bathing suit competition.
No wonder why she was runner-up in Miss USA.
Her talent had been singing, and she’d sung a jazzy number that actually impressed Thea.
And now, she was going to a wedding.
She closed her eyes, letting the midday sun warm her face. She didn’t want to cry, but the tears were pushing through as she listened to the happy voices around her. Everyone seemed to have their life under control—getting married or finding someone they loved or finding a new place to live.
Except for Thea, who was stuck in the residue of what her life had become, or hadn’t become. She was about to lose everything. Her store, her livelihood, her home.
When they reached the shores of Isabel Island, her thoughts were out of control.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to be disembarking in a few minutes. Please take a moment to look around for any personal belongings. We’d like to thank you for traveling with us this afternoon and hope you enjoy your time on our beautiful island.”