Beauty: A Novel (12 page)

Just when everybody was getting used to the quiet, Carol came back on.

She said again, this time with muscle, “I don’t think I can run it.”

Then she said, “I am running it.”

That sank in, and she said, “We’ll have a company in a matter of days, and this plant will be up in a matter of weeks. For now, Ben, you get oriented inside, figure out who you need and clear that with Dave. We’ll have to clean and paint. Give some thought to that.”

Had she worked that out with Parks? Easy didn’t think so. Maybe Parks had just wanted her to step up. But Easy would have bet Carol was waiting for the right chance to step up. Leaving him, a fisherman, feeling landlocked. He’d better be ready to step up himself.

But what was really on Easy’s mind was how pretty Carol was and that her car was right there across the harbor by his boat, as if . . . he wasn’t sure as if what. He wanted to hold her first.

Going to the Kitchens

A
s everybody came out of the dim of the plant, somebody got Carol’s arm from behind to hold her back, and at first she thought it would be Easy. She smiled because she was happily worried that Easy was going to collect his kiss right now, for God sake.

It was Anna Rose. “Some of us, especially our Wives of the Sea, talk to one another about the things you said last night, our history and our harbor. Others don’t want to talk; they want to forget and be done. It was difficult for all of us, everybody, having a stranger stand up and put her nose into other people’s families and how we live and who has died. But you said it like you were in church. Everybody heard that, and when they heard it, they were surprised. Me and the Wives of the Sea and also the others; you made us see our dead and remember like the first time. No one liked it, but it was what we needed.”

When she’d finished, Anna Rose clamped her short arms around Carol and squeezed. Her head came to Carol’s chin. Carol was not used to hugs. It had only been her and her father in their house, and what hugging there was had been as awkward as it was rare. She was glad Anna Rose had said what she’d said, but Carol was a businessman in the middle of something, and Anna Rose did not give a quick hug, and Carol’s arms were trapped. The hug went on until finally Carol laid her head down on top of Anna Rose’s head.

Anna Rose hugged a moment more, then pulled away and looked at Carol as if they had become people who had known each other forever. For some reason, it came to Carol that Baxter would doubt a hug if it ever happened. Baxter didn’t deal one on one with many Anna Roses, and if he did they weren’t going to think of hugging him. Carol decided that she’d liked her hug, and she put Baxter away.

“Now,” Anna Rose said. “Business.” And she led Carol in a march to Annette’s car, where Annette had the detailed justifications and was handing out copies of a one-page summary. She mentioned to Carol again that the plant was using electricity she couldn’t account for, and Carol cared about anything on Annette’s mind, but the electric bills would have to wait.

Out from behind the bulk of the plant, the sun came up on the old, idled cold-storage building, peeled and half repainted in industrial greens and blues and the fading black of abandoned signage.

Carol took a copy of the summary and pretended to study it. It was brief and it looked doable. All Carol had to do was close. She didn’t care how Baxter closed; she wasn’t Baxter.

The price on the old Elizabeth’s Fish plant was next to nothing. Even Ben Garcia knew that.

It was also a ton.

Or was it?

Was it a ton to Anna Rose?

Was it really a ton to Elizabeth Island?

Carol wanted to say, “We can do it.”

She glanced at Easy as if he might have a suggestion. He was watching her, probably to see how she’d handle things.

What she said, with calculated hesitance, was “We can go to the banks,” and she knew that if Baxter were here he would be grinning like the used car salesman he was. This was how he did it.

She said, “Frankly, I doubt we can raise this much among ourselves and in town. But with what we can raise, and with the competitive pricing we can show because of our fresh fish business and the office rentals and the refurbished lines, we might be able to find a banker.” She spun it out in quasi-business vernacular to disguise the manipulation.

She could all but hear Baxter whispering, “Yes.”

She said, “This is a whole lot more than we’re likely to come close to raising. I wish we could, and you know better than I do, but Elizabeth’s not a big town or an especially wealthy town. We may find fewer investors than we hope. On the other hand, we might find more than one banker and muster some pushback on the rates. I’m willing to put in half of my net worth to start the ball rolling, and work at least a couple of years on subsistence salary with some performance options, but I don’t have deep enough pockets myself. I hate to do it, but it looks like banks are the only option.”

She paused. She glanced at Easy. She hoped he would understand. After all, she’d just promised a lot of her own money. She took a breath to go on, and in her head, Baxter told her, “Don’t say another word.”

Carol didn’t say another word. She looked down at her summary like everybody else. She wanted the plant, and she didn’t want bankers. She didn’t want to pay the rates they’d insist on. She didn’t want to give up the control they’d insist she give up. She didn’t want anybody saying she couldn’t go right to the edge, and this plant was going to be on the edge for a while before suppliers and customers developed any confidence. Even in her dreams, this would never be any kind of growth engine, and as long as it was on the edge, it wouldn’t want to pay a penny of its cash flow on debt. If they worked their way back from the edge, they’d want a credit line, and they’d use it, but right now, please, she didn’t want bankers.

She looked at her plant and she walked away from everybody. She could almost hear Baxter laughing.

Anna Rose said, “This is not so much money.” She said it loudly, after Carol, though Carol had not walked very far. The volume was for anyone who thought Elizabeth couldn’t afford its fish plant.

It was working. Carol was closing, and now she felt guilty about it, about Anna Rose. Baxter would feel no guilt. He’d say, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Carol glanced at Easy, who kept his head down over his summary. She told herself that this company was a good thing. It was a good thing, and she was doing what she could to make it happen.

Parks said, “It’s a fair price. The plant can justify it. I have no problem trying to sell shares in this.”

Carol started to turn around to enter the conversation, and Baxter said, “For Christ sake do not turn around yet.”

Ben Garcia, bless his heart, the least likely guy in the circle, the furthest outside outsider, said, “I will invest in this plant, and I know more people who will invest.”

Baxter said, “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you planted him.”

“I’m in,” Buddy Taormina said.

“What do we need bankers for this?” Anna Rose said. “This is not so much we need bankers. I thought we decided no bankers.”

Carol turned around.

Anna Rose said, “Our town is not so poor. For this much, it is not poor at all.”

Parks said, “I think she’s probably right. We can get this.”

“It is no probably,” Anna Rose said. “What do bankers want with our building here? If they lend to us, they want us to fail so they can have the land and wait for condominiums at the next zoning.”

Carol started to speak, and Baxter said, “Shut up.”

Anna Rose said, “We can raise this much money in two, three days. We need more for emergencies, we can raise that. We better raise that. I am putting in half of what I have, and it is not so little. Everybody else, most of them, we don’t ask so much to risk, and we don’t have to ask so much. And some can give plenty and never notice. Two, three days.”

Easy was staring at Carol. He said, “You ought to be selling used cars, Carol.”

She made herself look him in the eye, but her heart was going oh-gee-whiz.

He said, “I hope you sell fish as good as you sell this run-down factory nobody wants.”

He didn’t say it as hard as it sounded. He was almost teasing, she thought.

Baxter said, “Tell this deltabilly to ante up and go trawl.”

Carol said, “I’m putting my own money where my mouth is,” and wished she didn’t sound defensive.

He shrugged and said, “It’s good, Carol.” He smiled, and she felt relieved.

Then she got hold of herself and turned mercilessly to Anna Rose. Anna Rose dove in. “Easy Parsons can give plenty. He owns that boat outright, and he is a high liner. I hate to say it—I am from generations of fishermen, and Ignacio is as good a fisherman as any of them—but Easy brings in more fish quicker than any captain from New Bedford to Portland. Easy is going to give us one hundred thousand dollars, and then he is going to make us listen to him. Ignacio owns two boats, but not both outright, and he has a family, so maybe he only gives a hundred thousand also.”

Garcia said, “I have family here and much family in El Salvador, and I will give two thousand.”

Parks said, “This is why I haven’t slept,” and he turned away from the group the way Carol had done.

But Carol didn’t think Parks was turning away to manipulate anybody. She expected he was deciding whether to really jump in. He faced the large, abandoned cold-storage building that belonged to the plant but was outside the fence. If Parks, who knew more than anyone else, pulled his rip cord, it was over. All of them knew that, and Carol knew she would not get another chance like this.

He turned back around and said, “I can commit two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. We’re core investors, and we’re at the heart of operations. If we’re going to sell it, we better own it.”

Carol couldn’t laugh when Parks had just kicked in a nervous quarter of a million dollars, but she was glad.

When Easy held up two fingers, she didn’t understand until Parks said, “What’s that, big guy?”

“Two hundred thousand dollars,” Anna Rose said. “He will give two hundred thousand, but now he is not talking because I said he would talk too much. Good. You sound best not talking, Ezekiel.”

Buddy said, “I can go a hundred and a half, but I’d rather start at a hundred.”

Carol said, “I can do eight hundred thousand.”

“I will put in three hundred thousand,” Anna Rose said.

“Ma.”

“Mind your own business. You don’t know what I have.”

Annette said, “I have twelve thousand dollars.”

Carol said, “Take a day to think about that. I want you on the team regardless. You, too, Ben.”

Annette said, “I’ve thought about it. If we get close and need extra, I can invest another six thousand.”

“Fair enough.”

“And now,” Anna Rose said, “we all together come to the kitchens.”

Carol laughed and said, “Yes. To the kitchens, Anna Rose.”

Anna Rose said, “I will make meetings for tonight and for tomorrow night, maybe the night after that.”

Garcia said, “I will help with my own people.”

Carol said, “Okay, but you have to come everywhere else, too, Ben. You answer the questions about whether and how the plant runs. I’d be surprised if there weren’t questions.”

Then she said to Parks, “What about the golfers and the Chamber, those people?”

Parks said, “My territory. I’ll put that kitchen together. Some of them will be Mathews’s pals, but I think they may want in regardless. Buddy, you and Easy need to set something up for the harbor guys your mother doesn’t reach.”

“Yes, but also,” Anna Rose said, “we need Ignacio and Ezekiel to come with us to all the kitchens so that people know we have the fresh fish.”

Baxter whispered, “Do not be in a room asking for money while that guy flirts with you.”

Carol told Baxter it was his turn to shut up, and the next thing out of her mouth was “Do we want Easy in the kitchens with us?”

Which she meant to sound like she was teasing him, but it sounded like Baxter. She looked at Easy and laughed so he’d know it was teasing, and even the laugh came out wrong.

Buddy joined in the laughter and pushed at Easy as if they were teenagers.

Easy looked away from Carol as if he were surprised and then right away looked back and grinned as if he couldn’t care less.

Carol blushed with shame. She’d said something mean. And worse, it was true—she didn’t want Easy in the kitchens disrupting her pitch for the money they needed to go forward.

“No,” Anna Rose said. “We need Easy. He is the best fisherman in our harbor and everyone will want to see he is with you. If only we could keep him from talking—you are right about that.”

Carol said, “Easy, forgive me. I want you in every room where we sell this business.”

She hoped he would say something that forgave her. He left her alone.

She said, “I’m sorry. I am sorry. I wish I hadn’t sounded mean.”

She didn’t care what everyone else was thinking. And then she had to move on.

She told everyone as quickly as she could about two guys arriving late in the day from Baxter Blume to sell off the new plant and set up the stock offering for the old plant. She arranged to meet Parks at the new plant in half an hour to talk to the women on the line there. She told everybody to keep in touch with one another and with her.

She said loudly, a battle cry, “To the kitchens.”

Parks picked it right up. “To the kitchens.”

They, all of them but Easy and Carol, went to their cars calling, “To the kitchens.”

Carol walked next to Easy back along the narrow lane of sheds and the lobster building. Easy went in his lunging stride as if she were not there. He wore a green and blue plaid shirt over a black T-shirt, and he had on jeans and work boots, and Carol thought he belonged in this lane. He swung his boots; he swung the long bounce of his gait and the lengths of his arms.

Carol had a meeting in less than half an hour, and she walked fast the way she did. She was eager for her meeting, and yet this lane of decayed industrial waterfront was as gorgeous to her as the inside of the factory. Potholes held water from last night’s rain, and that water held the blue of the sky in oily iridescence.

She said, “Wait.”

He didn’t stop, and she said, “Please.”

She went half a dozen steps over to a corrugated wall that had been painted and faded to a surgical green only seven or eight feet up its twenty-foot height. The rest of the wall was battleship gray with chalk mottlings of bird splatter and brown runs of rust. She stood against the wall in her dark blue suit, and she spread her arms.

Easy looked at her, but she could not tell if he saw her. She was afraid that if he didn’t see her, no one who mattered would ever see her again. Dominic had seen her. She stayed where she was, as she was. She was a beauty in that lane, she had to be, and she closed her eyes. She heard his boots.

He put a callused finger on her lips. This was what Easy Parsons felt like. Before she could open her eyes, he kissed her. She didn’t even think to put her arms around him before he stopped and said, “You have a meeting at the new plant.” He didn’t laugh at that. She kissed him back, and he said, “Sooner or later,” and took her hand, and they walked around the rest of the harbor like that, holding hands.