The Harbor Master's Uniform

Kevin came to Saltmere two years ago. Thirty-three years old, never married, one duffel bag and a toolbox. He fixed pipes now, and mostly he was fine with that.

The marina job came through Edwin. Edwin did maintenance at the harbor and knew Kevin through Kevin's coworker Tulani. The off-season pipes were a mess. So Kevin showed up on a gray Tuesday with a wrench bag and a coffee he didn't finish.

The harbor master's office sat at the end of the pier. He knocked. Nobody said come in, so he pushed the door with his shoulder and stopped.

A woman sat behind a desk buried in paper. Navy-blue uniform. Cap pushed back off her forehead. She was sorting tide charts with hands that moved like she'd done it ten thousand times. She didn't look up right away.

"Pipe's in the back," she said. "Edwin said Thursday."

"He's flexible. I'm not."

That got her to look up. Brown eyes, steady. Not amused, but not annoyed either. Twenty-nine, he already knew from Edwin. Her nameplate said HARBOR MASTER J. MOREAU.

"Jeanne," she said, standing. She offered her hand. Her grip was firm and dry.

"Kevin."

"You're the plumber."

"That's the whole résumé, yeah."

Her mouth twitched. Almost a smile. "Back hallway. Third door. It's been dripping since August."

"Since August?"

"I kept a bucket under it. This is a harbor, not a spa."

Kevin liked her immediately, which annoyed him, because he hadn't planned on liking anyone this week. He followed her back. She walked as if the building belonged to her, because it did. The uniform did something to his head. Crisp collar, brass buttons, sleeves rolled exactly twice. Cap slightly crooked. He caught himself staring at the back of her collar and made himself look at the wall instead.

The leak was a bad compression fitting. Forty minutes of work. She checked on him twice, said nothing useful either time, just stood in the doorway with her arms crossed like she was inspecting him. Maybe she was.

"All set," he said, wiping his hands. "Six months minimum before that joint thinks about leaking."

"Six months." She nodded slowly. "I'll hold you to that."

"Please do. I need the work!"

That earned a real laugh. Short, low. He thought about it the whole drive home, which was stupid, because he'd known her for an hour.

* * *

Thursday he was back for a second pipe, and Friday he ran into her at Wally's, the seafood shack off the boardwalk. Half the shutters in town were down for winter. Wally's stayed open because the fishermen would riot otherwise.

Kevin was at the counter with Tulani when Jeanne came in out of the wind. Uniform again. Same cap, same roll of the sleeves. She ordered chowder and sat two stools down.

Tulani elbowed him. Hard.

"Ow!"

"Don't 'ow' me. You've been staring at that woman since she walked in."

"I have not."

"You have. You've got the same face you make at a busted water main. All focused and doomed."

Kevin looked at his soup. Tulani was thirty-one, married to an electrician named Rick, and had made it her personal mission to get Kevin a life beyond work and his couch. She was not going to let this go.

"So talk to her," Tulani said.

"She's working."

"It's Wally's. Nobody's working at Wally's."

Jeanne glanced over, caught him mid-glance, and he turned back to his chowder like it held state secrets. Tulani snorted into her coffee.

"She's the harbor master, Tuls. She's got a uniform and a whole pier. I've got a van that smells like flux."

"So? The uniform's kind of the point, isn't it? You've been talking about her all week. Edwin says you asked him three times what her deal is."

"Edwin talks too much."

"Edwin says she's great. Dated some fisherman years back, way before his time there, ended fine. Works too much. Nobody bothers to ask her out off-season because everybody who's here in summer leaves in fall."

Kevin stirred his soup. He thought about saying something casual. It didn't come.

"I keep picturing her out of it," he said finally. Quiet. "The uniform. Not... not like that. Okay, a little like that. But mostly I just want to see what she's like when the day's done. When she's not the harbor master. Just her."

Tulani grinned like she'd won a raffle. "Then ask her."

"With what? My van that smells like flux?"

"Ask her anyway. Worst case she says no and you keep fixing her pipes like a professional."

He finished his chowder. Then he got up, walked two stools over, and his brain went blank at the exact wrong second.

"Jeanne."

"Kevin." She waited.

"The fitting. In the back hallway. If it, uh. If anything changes. You have my number. Through Edwin."

Smooth. Real smooth. But she looked at him for a beat, and something in her face softened.

"I do," she said. "Thanks for the reminder."

He went back to his stool. Tulani put her face in her hands.

* * *

The call came the next Thursday, right as the light was going. Wind all day, hard out of the northeast. His phone buzzed on the passenger seat.

"Kevin? It's Jeanne. Harbor office."

"Everything's official with you, huh."

"Force of habit. Listen. There's a boat drifting loose off the north dock. Owner's a summer guy, gone till spring. Edwin's out with the flu. Can you help me secure it? It'll take two people."

"Plumber, not a sailor."

"You're a big guy with working hands. Close enough."

He turned the van around.

The dock at dusk was all gray water and creaking rope. Jeanne stood at the end in a foul-weather jacket over the uniform, hair flattened by wind, shouting directions that made sense even over the noise. The boat bumped the pilings. They got lines on it. She knew exactly what she was doing, and he did the heavy lifting, and between them the thing sat tight against the dock in about twenty minutes.

Then it was over and quiet came back all at once. Just wind and water.

"Thanks," she said. She pulled off one glove with her teeth. "I could've called the coast guard but this was faster."

"Happy to be faster than the coast guard."

She laughed. Then she reached up and loosened her tie. Just a pull, one finger hooked under the knot. Something about it went through him like a current. Under the collar he could see the soft fabric of her shirt, the pale line of her collarbone. The cap was pushed back again. Off duty by one degree.

"Long day," she said. "You want to know a secret? I'd burn half these uniforms if I could get away with it."

"Why? They look..." He stopped himself.

"They look what?" She wasn't teasing. She genuinely wanted to know.

"Sharp," he said. "The whole, uh. The whole getup. But I get it. It's a costume by the end of the day."

"Exactly. A costume with my name on a placard." She looked out at the water. "People see the cap and stop listening!"

"I listen fine."

"I noticed." She said it lightly, but she held his eyes a second longer than the sentence needed. Then she turned back toward the office and he fell in beside her, and somewhere in the dark his hand brushed her sleeve. Wool jacket over uniform shirt. He didn't pull away fast enough, and she didn't either.

They walked the length of the pier like that, shoulders almost touching, neither one making it a thing. Yet.

"Cold out here," she said at the office door. "There's coffee inside. The bad kind."

"I've had worse."

"You haven't. It's terrible." But she held the door open for him anyway.

* * *

He didn't sleep much that night. Friday he ran three jobs, told Tulani about the coffee, and got laughed at for an hour straight.

Saturday evening he was back at the harbor office with a toolbox he didn't need.

"Checking on that fitting," he told the woman at the desk who wasn't Jeanne. It was some seasonal clerk doing paperwork. "Six-month guarantee. Standard follow-up."

The clerk squinted at him. "There's no work order."

"Preventive."

"Whatever. Back hallway's unlocked."

The pipe was dry. Of course it was dry. He'd tightened that joint like his name was on it. He stood there holding a wrench for a stupid amount of time, and then a voice came from the doorway.

"That's the worst inspection I've ever seen."

Jeanne. Off shift. Still in the uniform, but the top two buttons of the shirt were undone now, collar open, cap gone. Hair down around her shoulders. She