Beauty: A Novel (11 page)

Water Line

H
e didn’t jump up and down, didn’t want to scare her off, but Easy had himself a date.

St. Peter was so interested in doing Carol the giant favor of making oatmeal and cutting up fruit and checking with Carol that he was getting it right, that there wasn’t time for Carol and Easy to talk. Next came the old-timers who crawled in every morning to see if anybody’d died, and they figured out Carol was the one who had spoken at Town Hall the night before. Which made it a responsibility they tell her what it had been like in their day, when you could walk across the harbor on fishing boats. And that was true, but again no conversation between Easy and Carol. Still, it was sweet to see her relax into being accepted in this harbor breakfast dive. Had to be nicer for her than going from one town to the next, year after year, without ever belonging. Today she belonged.

As they walked on down to the old plant, Easy thought about holding her hand and didn’t. He didn’t want to distract her if she was getting into her business frame of mind. Either that or he was afraid. He wondered if she was nervous around him. She had kissed him. For him, it had been a while since he’d touched a woman, and since Mississippi, since Angie died, Carol was the first woman he’d wanted to care about. Last night he was all there for kissing her. This morning, after being so proud about getting a date with a nice-looking woman, he was afraid to hold her hand, and he figured if he got past that, he would probably make both of them unhappy. He wanted to run home to the boat.

As the two of them approached the plant, it wasn’t hard to pick up that they were the center of attention for Parks and Buddy and Annette Novato and Anna Rose, which killed what was left of the date thing for Easy. Ben Garcia was there, too, and Easy didn’t know him more than to nod hello, but he was the engineer for the old plant, and looked like he was fifteen.

Carol got rid of the stares by introducing herself to Garcia and asking if he knew the plant well enough to run it.

Easy, freed from attention, settled in to watch Carol do her stuff.

Garcia said, “I know this plant like my pocket,” an answer that made Carol laugh. Garcia was up from El Salvador, and had an accent, but so did a lot of Elizabeth Island, and Garcia smiled like he had just come up with his line.

Carol studied him, and Garcia stood straight and looked back at her. He looked respectful and also like he could hold his own. Carol said, “How long would it take to get it running?”

“We have cooking oil and batter. We have boxes for shipping at dropdown. It is only waiting.”

“Can you keep it running?”

Everybody else was concentrated on following along, but Easy was admiring how sharp Carol was, how she was finding out what she needed to know about the plant and Garcia both. A small thing, but it spoke to Easy about how capable Carol was. Easy liked capable.

Garcia, matter-of-fact but on the nose, said, “It is simple. Like the old Detroit cars: iron, manual transmission, carburetor. Turn it on, let it go. Change the oil every thousand miles. And I still can work as foreman.” Easy could have used Ben Garcia on the boat, and he figured Carol had already come to the same conclusion about Garcia and her plant.

She said, “Would you turn on part of a line so that Mr. Taormina can see something work?”

Garcia started for the door with his ball of keys and had the lights on in seconds and then, in another minute, a belt going at the head of the first line.

Easy had not been in the plant for years, but you couldn’t miss that work had been done. Buddy was noticing the same thing. The lines looked like they’d had major upgrading.

Easy said, “Ben, the lines look shinier.”

Garcia looked a little less head-on, at first, but then stood into it. He said, “Mr. Mathews ordered as soon as everybody moved up to the new plant. He paid me overtime to be here and see it all went in good, asked me not to talk about it because it was separate from the company, for selling this plant. The work was good and the plant was already left behind, so I didn’t feel it was wrong. Also they brought one truck and the men in at night and out by the end of the next night. I don’t know about all that, but I know machinery, and for these lines, it was a little quicker, also more reliable, besides prettier; a good thing, no question. For me, too, and my family, the overtime money helped. I wouldn’t be saying anything now because I promised, except he doesn’t own the plant anymore.”

Buddy and his mother were surprised like Easy, but Carol and Parks and Annette Novato were not.

Carol said, “It’s fine, Ben, a good thing.” To Buddy and Anna Rose, she said, “We found out about it in the private file cabinet Mathews kept. One more of his games, but it works for us; it gives us some extra value and a better chance keeping up with the big processing outfits.”

Buddy said, “That jerk.”

Anna Rose said, “I am not going to listen to you speak like that.”

Easy was already back to watching Carol. She said, “Go ahead, Ben.”

Garcia said, “It all works pretty much the same. I can light the ovens over here, after the basting. You would see flames if you want.”

Carol said, “Buddy?”

Buddy said, “No, that’s all right.”

Garcia said, “You want to walk all of it?”

Carol looked to Buddy, who said, “I knew it would run if it was still here. I just wanted to be sure those jerks hadn’t gutted the place. I guess, yeah, great if they fixed it up some. I lumped for the water line as a kid in summer. Remember, Ma? And Maria was with the cutters until Dad found out. Hey, Ben. How about that? Do you know anything about the water line?”

Garcia headed for the dock wall.

Easy remembered the water lines from all the times when he was a kid and had fed them out of his father’s hold. He had no idea how long since they were used, but he watched Carol check everything out, and he thought that, given a day, she could probably get the whole plant up and running again by herself.

Easy liked the plant. It reminded him of his boat—not pretty but useful. The belt at the head of the first line echoed like gravel. The ceiling had blackened above the fluorescents. The walls were yellowed stucco, hung with watermark. The floor was concrete gone iron with rust and stained by dry pools of sickly green. The lines hunched up and down through the room. Actually, the rust on the floor could be blood from all the thumbs lost to shattered flywheels.

Carol interrupted Easy’s musing. She said, “All the plants I shut down had old machinery held together with not much more than hope and chewing gum. Sometimes, when the people were emptied out, I cared for the dead machinery more than a real factory, because it had been loved all the way to the end.”

That was how Easy had felt, and why he couldn’t bear his own empty house without Angie and the baby they’d made ready for. It was how he imagined the bones of his father’s boat off the Georges.

Parks said, “Carol. I don’t think that’s the note we want to strike just now.”

Carol laughed with everybody else, but Easy thought she was beautiful for what she had said. Besides which he thought there was a good chance she’d find his boat beautiful. He went ahead and said that, courageous and happy both. “Wait until you get a good look at my boat.”

More laughing, from everybody, but he thought Carol gave him an extra nod.

She said, “Now. Where were we?”

Annette Novato pointed off to one wall where there was a warren of alcoves with partitions that didn’t come close to reaching the ceiling. Then Carol, pointing at one alcove that jutted into the floor, said, “Corner office.”

Parks pointed at a stain on the floor and said, “We had business from McDonald’s and lost it, and we won’t get them back with the way the place looks. But the inspections come up clean, so it’s mostly cosmetics.” Easy had expected a golden oldie on floor stains, but he knew Parks well enough around town to have seen a smart guy underneath the songs. Parks, along with the kidding, kept things in focus. Another good guy to have around. Carol was hiring all the best crew.

There was a rolling rumble from across the width of the building, and a bright slice of sunlight shot in through the wall. The rumble continued as Garcia pushed the dock doors open wider, and the day poured into the cave of the plant.

Buddy said, “It’s ready for business, Ma.”

“Of course it’s ready,” Anna Rose said. “I told you it was ready.”

Garcia was folding blue plastic tarp off of the simple series of belts and countertops that had been stacked in sections along the open wall.

Buddy said to Carol, “They called it the water line because it was next to the water and brought in the fish fresh from the boats. Used to be a couple of lines.”

Garcia said, “I never saw it run, but I have set it up before to know. It is nothing to work. Just people cut the fish.”

“Look, Ma. The saws. Remember when Maria was cutting the heads off whiting and Dad found out?”

Annette Novato said something about still not seeing the missing electricity.

Anna Rose led everybody out onto the dock, saying, “Why do you remember those things, Ignacio? Let Carol see what a beautiful city we have.”

Easy looked. It was a beautiful city, if you could call it a city. The late lobster and day boats were still clustered at the head of the inner harbor, dirty reds and yellows and blues, their guys dragging bait barrels from the pickups. Just behind them was the back of the hardware and lumberyard and the back of the appliance place with the grandson still holding out against the Sears off the island. The back of the St. Peter’s club was there where Main Street came down to the harbor road, and at the other end of things were the windows of the Peg Leg, where the Lions and Rotary and all the others held their meetings until the bottom of the summer crowd came to eat either the dregs of local catch or frozen from God knew where. Most of the buildings up the hill were still the stone and brick they’d always been, and they had a worn importance with being solid and with having been there years, and the edging of their rooftops was greened copper. As the hill rounded side to side higher up, there were the wood buildings, the houses with some of the colors still true and with pointy roofs, lonely looking houses from up close but postcard pretty from here. Away to the right, you could see the two blue steeples of the Portuguese church, and from here on the plant dock, which Easy had never realized, you could actually see the Our Lady between the steeples holding her boat. You couldn’t see the big Italian Catholic church, going the other way to the Italian end of town, but there were a couple more wooden steeples tucked in, Yankee steeples, his own among them for as long as there was anyone to drag him, and the trees were becoming green up there. His city. It was hurting, and had been hurting for a while, but you didn’t see that. You saw, Easy saw, and he believed Carol would see, how beautiful it was. He was glad Anna Rose had said something.

Anna Rose said, “Is that your car, Easy? Do you have a new car?”

All of them lined along the dock looking across the harbor at Carol’s car beyond Easy’s boat.

“Out-of-state plates,” Buddy said.

Carol said, “It’s my car.” Said it just like that and no more. Straightened up some, maybe took a deep breath that only Easy saw because he was looking for it. She stared across at her car and let the quiet be the quiet. She was a strong woman, first to last. Easy didn’t care what people thought about him, but he didn’t want anybody assuming things about Carol. Now was a time when Easy wanted to put an arm around her, which would have been stupid and would also have taken courage he could only ever dream of. What he did, he looked away out at the harbor, pretending to see any sort of something fishermanly, pure chickenshit.

Anna Rose said, “It is Carol’s car, Ignacio. Mind your business.”

Carol stood between Buddy and Garcia and said, “It is a beautiful town.” Then she turned to Buddy and said, “And you believe the plant can work?”

So much for the car. Good going, Carol. Only, now, Easy wondered if she was starting to think, like he was, what it would be like if they had spent the night together.

Buddy said, “I’m in, Carol. You’ll be seeing me and my fish off your dock here as soon as you’re ready.”

Good to have Buddy say that. Easy said, “Me, too.”

Anna Rose said, “Carol. Maybe you didn’t see this.” She pulled a rolled section of newspaper out of her clothes. “The
Boston Globe
. Front page. From the meeting right here in Elizabeth. The agency will tell the judge she should not enforce the amendment. Even the environmentalists agree. And now fishermen are environmentalists, too, Carol. We are helping the fish to come back. So if Ignacio thinks he has to know the plant is working, Carol, you can know that Ignacio and Ezekiel will be able to bring you fish. Don’t worry about that.”

Buddy said, “Thank you, Ma, for that instruction.”

Garcia, still looking across at the car, said to Carol, “You tune?”

Easy said, “Forget the car, Garcia.” He didn’t say it loud, because Garcia wasn’t sniggering, but enough about the damn car.

Carol nodded at Garcia and said, “Once upon a time,” and both of them nodded.

Then Carol gave Easy a cool-it tilt of the head. He took a breath and cooled it.

Parks said, “So, Carol.”

Parks was a smart guy and a guy who kept an eye out. He’d probably picked up on all of it: Easy saying what he hadn’t had to say to Garcia, and Carol’s tilt.

But Parks was going somewhere else. He said, “Somebody has to ask it out loud, Carol. You’re an undertaker. You bury places. Can you run this place?”

If somebody besides Parks had asked that, Easy might have said something, but Parks looked like he knew what he was doing, and Carol had given the cool-it tilt, and really she looked fine with the question.

She said, “The fact is, I don’t think I can run it.”

Carol said that and looked out over the harbor coming blue under the early sun. Everybody was quiet, including Easy, who was way out of his league here. Carol must have practiced at quiet. She turned, looked up at the brick and the stone and green copper roof trim toward Town Hall and the steeples. No argument it was a beat-up town, but nobody’d deny it was beautiful.