Author’s Introduction:
[Here are two chapters from my novel The Bayrose Files, forthcoming in May 2025 from Regal House Publishing. Using a file of autobiographical stories written by a cooperating friend, a budding journalist secured a residency at a prestigious artists/writers colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts in the mid-1980s, hoping to use her experiences there to write a riveting exposé of the place, thereby launching a successful journalistic career.]
Chapter 4. Just Passing By
I’d always loved Provincetown. When I was a kid in New Jersey, my parents would rent a cottage in Wellfleet for a week (or sometimes two when they could afford it), and my memories of those vacations are among the sweetest of my childhood. The beaches and the air and the ocean and the food: all of those were delightful, of course, but there was always one day set aside for visiting “Ptown,” which I guess my parents considered the epitome of weird, and part of our education. I’m sure they secretly enjoyed it too, and not just the extraordinary saltwater taffy. When I was really little I didn’t even know what made the people who lived there so beguiling. I didn’t know any artists or fishermen, and I certainly didn’t know what “gay” was, or whatever it was called then—but I did intuit that there were no restrictions in Ptown on what a person could look like, or be, or pretend to be. It all looked like tremendous fun. I thought it was a marvel beyond anything New Jersey, or even New York City, could offer. When I was in college I would steal away to Wellfleet or Truro for a weekend now and then with whatever friend or boyfriend would go with me, and then I would take them to Ptown, where most of them had never been before. The very air of the place was unique: fog, sea life, burning sand, pitch pine, ozone. I felt I could breathe more easily. Walking down Commercial Street on a summer night was, for me, a strange kind of heavenly stroll. I didn’t belong there, and yet I did.
So it was no hardship at all to pack up my little white Chevy Citation and set out to investigate The Home. I pretty much knew the way by heart. Once I crossed over the Sagamore Bridge, I got that old feeling of freedom and possibilities. Just about two hours to Provincetown if the traffic was good and you drove real fast.
Somewhere during my drive, I realized to my delight that it was off-season. I hadn’t even thought to check. It was April. I was able to park easily, quickly secure a great little room in a B&B on charming Bradford Street, complete with a view of the famous Pilgrim Monument, unload my stuff, and set out on foot for The Home. I didn’t want to try to get inside the place just yet, even though they had an art gallery that was open to the public. I wanted to just walk by, pretending to mind my own business: just another Ptown off-season visitor on her way to the little supermarket nearby. Buy some cheap chardonnay or a bottle of bourbon. Pick up some of that sweet, spongy Portuguese bread. Maybe a baseball cap that said “Ptown.” Just passing by.
I bought the bourbon and bread first, so I’d have something to carry, and set out down Conwell Street where The Home’s three weathered buildings sprawled across an unlined parking lot paved with broken oyster shells. There, a haphazardly parked assortment of vehicles seemed to have stopped mid-sentence while describing where they wanted to go. I walked very slowly. It was about two o’clock in the afternoon and several youngish people stood talking next to one of the vehicles. They were sun-kissed and bohemian. One of them, a long-haired blond man with a kerchief tied across his brow, was leaning on an enormous bone that looked like it belonged in the dinosaur exhibit of a natural history museum. The others were talking and laughing in an animated fashion that made me feel lonely somehow. I wanted to be one of them. I walked even more slowly and noted that another building looked like a regular, if downtrodden, house, and the third looked like a barn. Then I had to move on, for fear of being noticed.
I walked back toward town, picked up a creamy coffee and a salty fried fish sandwich at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and went back to my room. I ate and drank and lay on the bed staring at the pseudo-historical nautical décor, wondering how I could break into the world of The Home. Knowing the town, I guessed that the best way to meet people was to go to a bar, but I couldn’t decide which one. The Figurehead was big and boisterous and on a busy corner, but maybe too popular with any tourists who were taking advantage of the April rental rates. I decided to try Floaters, a seamy, steamy, old-timey bar right on Commercial Street, the main drag, complete with a dirty, street-level display window that frightened the tourists away and a bevy of ceiling fans that never seemed to rotate, even in the summer. The name of the place derived from the historical fact that in the 1800’s, some fishermen’s houses had been literally floated from Long Point all the way across the bay, because lumber was too scarce and pricey to allow the construction of new homes. I’d been there a couple of times with the friends I’d drag along on my Ptown excursions, and I liked it. The bar itself was usually populated by genuine townies, in varying degrees of flamboyance and decay. It seemed like the perfect place to find denizens of The Home—or at least learn more about them.
Chapter 5. Star of the Sea
“Your name really Violet Maris?” the man said, with a screwed-up expression on his face that would have been appropriate to asking if my name were really Florence Nightingale. I sipped my bourbon.
“Yes,” I said.
“You’re aware, of course, of the meaning of your last name?”
I looked down the bar at him. There were two unmistakable Ptown locals separating us. One of them had asked me my name, and this character had intercepted the answer. He appeared to be about forty, and was a tad portly, but in that comfortable way some men have that doesn’t bother me. He wore prescription-looking sunglasses, a red baseball cap, a brilliantly white t-shirt, and khaki Bermudas. The shirt was a dead giveaway that he was married; left to their own devices, men never bleach anything. I had to admit he was attractive, with nice features, the kind of guy you could fancy yourself cuddling up to and watching television with. This guy would talk about art and literature all the time, even though he looked like a hockey fan, you could just tell. He was smart, but he probably had some kind of mother fixation or something that could never be addressed. All of this passed through my mind in a matter of seconds. I should have been an FBI profiler I guess. He got up and moved to a stool on the other side of me, so we weren’t separated by the other customers.
“Yeah,” I said. “I am aware.”
He ignored that. “Maris: of Latin origin, meaning ‘of the sea.’ As in ‘Stella Maris,’ or ‘Star of the Sea,’ an epithet for the Virgen Mary. Third declension neuter genitive—indicating possession.”
“Yeah. As I indicated, I’m aware.”
“Figures that you would be, of course. From now on, when and if I see you, I will greet you with ‘Ave, stella maris,’ or ‘Hail, star of the sea.’ What a great name to bring to Provincetown.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Cool.” I couldn’t tell if this was going anywhere.
“So will I be seeing much of you around here?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m doing some research.”
“Oh boy.”
“Is that a problem?”
“No, no,” he said, pulling at the brim of his cap. “No problem at all. What are you researching?”
I decided to go for broke. “Well,” I said, “are you familiar with The Home?”
He stood up, and stretched. He smiled at me. It was a really nice smile, white teeth on a tanned face. “Oh yeah,” he said.
“And?”
“I’m on the board there.”
“Wow,” I said. “Great to meet you. And you are….?”
“Eugene Pelletier. Gene.” He pronounced it PELL-uh-teer. “Don’t worry. It’s French for fur trader, but that’s not me at all.”
“Okay, then.” I looked him over again. I just wasn’t getting a recognizable vibe, didn’t know if I wanted to trust him. “So how long have you been on the board?”
“Right from the beginning. That is to say, not long.”
“Were you ever a fellow there?”
He ordered another Jim Beam and one for me. “I was sort of both for a while,” he said. “It was all very informal. Now we have committees and all. What’s your interest in The Home? And, by the way, is this on the record?”
“No, no,” I said. “Sorry. I should have explained. I’ve just started thinking about writing an article about The Home—freelance. Thought I should come out here and see what people really thought about it—plus, I love the town. Do you think there’s any possibility I could interview some staff, or, better yet, some of the fellows?”
Gene Pelletier slowly pulled at his cap again, downed what was left of his bourbon, and stood up next to me. “Miss Maris,” he said, “I doubt any of them would want to participate in anything like that. It’s kind of a private space for us, you know. Everybody’s there to work on their art. Very nice meeting you.”
And he was gone. No noise, no drama, just gone as if he had never been there.
The guy next to me laughed and said, “Sorry, honey. Old Eugene’s a little touchy sometimes.”
When I got up to leave, I discovered that Gene had slipped his business card under a scarf I’d left folded up on the bar. “Eugene Pelletier,” it said, in a sort of Olde English-y font. “Town Meeting Member, Real Estate Sales, Man about Provincetown.” And there was a phone number. I slipped it into my pocket. It was the temperature of a drinkable cup of tea.
I stayed in town three days. I was able to find four people who lived at The Home, and one who worked there, but every one of them was as closed-mouthed as Gene Pelletier. I didn’t call him then, but I thought I might, someday. The whole scenario was frustrating, but it also fueled my desire to find out more. I had to go back to Boston, but I intended to some up with some kind of scheme. I was going to penetrate the sacred wall surrounding The Home, I was sure of it.
*****
Diane Wald is a poet and novelist who has published five chapbooks, four full-length poetry collections, two novels, and numerous poems in literary journals. Her most recent books are The Warhol Pillows (poetry), and My Famous Brain (novel). Her next novel, The Bayrose Files, where this excerpt appears, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing in May 2025.
