Beauty

by Frederick Dillen

  She opened her eyes, and she was in the fishermen’s gym, and Dominic was not here. Easy Parsons was walking past her, going out through the gym doors without having seen her.

  She shoved herself away from the bleachers and followed him. In the hall, he was walking fast but not nearly as fast as Carol was thinking, and what she was thinking about, now that she had her focus back, was what she had to get right. In ten yards, she figured out her company’s niche and how it had to work.

  She caught up to him and said, “Please remember me, Mr. Parsons. Easy. I’m Carol MacLean, and I’m here to shut down the plant. Did I say that this morning?”

  He nodded and smiled and said slow, teasing, “Won’t you give me a hello?” She worried she had been too formal. That was a default posture. But the point was, she’d seen him on his boat, in his factory, this morning. Then, just now, she’d heard him capable and confident at the microphone. She’d sensed respect for him in the gym.

  She got straight to the point. She said, “If I bought the old plant, could you and other boats in the harbor bring enough fresh fish to my dock so I could run a small but reliable sideline? With the big outfits bringing in frozen fish in blocks from Asia, I suspect the fishermen in the gym here are selling their catch to retail outlets through auctions or wholesalers, or both. I think I could find profit margins for the old plant and for some fishermen, if we bypassed the auctions and wholesalers, and their commissions, and I took fish directly off the boats and marketed it fresh and direct to close regional retail. We’d have to work the numbers, but I think they might be good.”

  Easy stopped beside the trophy case closest to the parking lot door and studied her and said, “Cash?”

  He was a good-looking man with authority, and she couldn’t help wanting to stand near him.

  “Cash,” she said.

  “You know anything about fish?” he said and looked her up and down. Carol told herself to focus.

  “No.”

  “But you know factories.”

  “I do.”

  “And you got a fish factory team.”

  “I think so.”

  “You want me on that team.”

  “Yes. I think I might.”

  “No, I’m telling you. You want me on that team. Why do I get the feeling you’re making this up right this minute?” He was interested, and she wanted to answer him in a way that kept hold of him. She liked talking business with him in this hall.

  She said, “Sometimes it happens that way.”

  He grinned, and his grin was all teasing, no business. He was not tall, but he was a big man just the same, and he said, slow enough that the beginning and the end barely touched, “Sweetheart, where’ve you been hiding?”

  Carol liked when Easy teased her, but now she wasn’t sure what it meant or if it was kind. She was no beauty; she knew that. So she ignored it and stayed on topic. “On the basketball court just now, I thought you were telling everybody that you could catch fish despite the regulations.”

  He said, “My groundfish stocks, my cod and haddock and most of the rest, are stabilized. That’s what’s really happening in there. The scientists say the stocks are level; the regulators say they’re going to tell the judge to drop the amendment, and the conservationists say they won’t argue.”

  That sounded good, but he sounded irritable.

  She said, “I didn’t know that. I thought they were going to keep the amendment and the regulations. I was relieved to think you’d still be able to catch fish.”

  He stood with his legs apart and his arms out from his sides and waited, definitely irritable, for her to explain why she hadn’t known what the hell was going on before she talked business to him.

  She let him wait. To make a real living at physical work now, you had to be seriously on the ball, and she admired his kind of guy, but he wasn’t the first one she’d ever met.

  He made an expression implying he was above the silent game. “When I said I could catch fish no matter what, it was only to tell the bureaucrats that a good decision was not a handout. If the amendment actually happened and the regulations went into effect, we’d all either die or take our boats to ports a thousand miles away. If you don’t know any of this, Carol MacLean, why would you come to town one day and talk about buying an old fish plant the next?”

  “Good question,” she said. “We’ve got some thinking to do. But it could happen. If it does, I’ll come find you.”

  She’d heard what she needed to hear, and she thought she’d be able to find him if she needed to.

  Now, if they’d been in the parking lot, he could have headed for his truck, and since she was walking, she could have headed in any other direction, but they were still locked together in the hall, so he threw her a bone. “As it is under the old regs and with what we’re catching these days, which isn’t much, Elizabeth Island boats could bring a nice little business worth of fresh fish to your door. You’re right—we’d save on fuel and time and probably auction cost, and you’d get a best price. Everybody makes out.” Which he said sensibly and agreeably. He was a guy she could work with, so it had been a useful dawn visit that she’d made to his boat, and a useful visit here to the high school.

  He opened the door to the raw damp of the parking lot, and Carol said, “Wonderful. Thank you,” and focused on reading which way he was headed.

  He headed nowhere.

  He stood and held the door for her. Carol was not one of the women who objected to doors being held, but she was caught off guard, and he waited. He was teasing her, because she’d waited him out a moment ago with her silence. He looked ready to wait with his door for a month.

  She brushed his arm as she walked through the door.

  He smiled. He got serious again and said, “You know what else? And it ain’t a small thing. If we keep that plant going, we keep the port going. It’s always been a fishing port, and it should stay one. If we lose the plant, and the harbor zoning on its land, zoning on the whole harbor could become a free-for-all. The fish plant and everything else could go to condos in a heartbeat. That counts, Carol. We can do some good. Harbor zoning. I’m supposed to take my boat out, but I’ll stick around another day to see what you come up with. I’ll talk to other captains.”

  She reached and got his hand and shook it and said, “Thank you, Ezekiel.”

  He had a strong grip. She was glad she had a strong grip herself, but then she was nervous with them holding one another’s hands, and she let go. He didn’t let go. He looked at her with the kindness she’d almost forgotten, and he said, “I’ve heard what some people call you, and I don’t approve of it. If I ever call you anything besides Carol, I’m going to call you Beauty.”

  She took a breath. He sounded like he meant well, but ­Carol’s business from now on was her new company, and as soon as her company was going, the name would be history. She said, “Thanks, but I’m used to the name.”

  Another fisherman called out from across the parking lot, and Easy nodded to say good-bye to Carol and jogged off. Carol stayed where she was to let him get away. She watched him longer than she needed to.

  When everybody in a town knew that you were Death, people sometimes pretended to be friends because they thought you could do things for them. She was more comfortable without those friends, though she made a point of always being courteous. Easy Parsons was something else. If she’d been asked what, aside from his fish, she most liked about him, she would have said it was that he didn’t notice he was four inches shorter than she was. The Beauty part she could do without.

  Time to move on, for the fat boys. Carol was convinced that they were working something to rip off the new plant. But now she wondered if they might have something going with the old plant. It had already been a long day, and she had some thinking to do.

  She also had Dave Parks’s second meeting tonight. She had time to ge
t back to her apartment and close her eyes for a minute.

  Instead of starting back, she watched Easy Parsons standing in a puddle and talking to the fisherman who’d called out to him. They stood together beside their trucks. All those boots in a puddle. They would be talking about her, she guessed. She wished she knew what they were saying.

  Yes.

  She ran across the parking lot between kids’ cars and around puddles. Carol could run if she had to.

  The meeting tonight in Town Hall was all about harbor zoning. If Mathews and the other fat boys bought the old plant, they could sell the equipment inside, equipment that still worked, for a fair dollar in South America or the Caribbean. But the big score, if the harbor zoning got lost, would be tearing down the plant and developing the site for a hotel or condos. If the fat boys could buy the site for what it was worth when zoned for harbor use only, they could buy cheap. Then, if they had been playing for this all along, and if the harbor zoning was abandoned tonight . . .

  She called, “Easy,” and he and the other fisherman watched her run to them like it was something they’d want to remember. Who cared? She cared, but not enough to slow down.

  She guessed Easy would have told his friend that Carol wanted fish for the old plant. If keeping the harbor for fishing was serious to them, she had serious news. She got to their puddle and stood in it with them. She was not wearing oiled boots like they were. Cold water, price of admission.

  Easy said to her, “Beauty.”

  What was that supposed to mean? With Beast, it had been forever since she’d had to think about keeping her mouth shut, but she had to think about it now. She had thought she was all business, and now she wasn’t sure.

  Easy kept on talking as if he knew her from some other neighborhood that had called her Beauty forever. He said, “This is Buddy Taormina. When Buddy goes out, I follow him to where the fish are. He runs two boats. You want to know Buddy. And Buddy, this is the Carol MacLean we’ve been hearing about, come to shut down Mathews and what’s left of the company. Even when she’s not standing in water without her boots on, I call her Beauty.”

  Oh come on, except he had a nice smile. He was teasing her, and he looked like he also thought she was a beauty. Carol was not used to that, but she was going to accept it. Why not? If he meant it, he meant it, and she said, “Another case of women, even beauties, having tougher feet than fishermen.” He laughed, and so did his friend, but if he didn’t mean it about her being a beauty, Easy Parsons had damn well better be a terrific fisherman.

  She held out her hand to the friend, Buddy.

  Buddy shook her hand and looked at Easy. Buddy had heard about the Beast. Everybody always had.

  Easy said, “I also call her Beauty when she’s not around. From now on, I figure we can all call her that when she’s not around.” He sounded like he’d been sent to get rid of the Beast and start things over all by himself, and like he was ready to go after anybody who didn’t fall into line. Carol blushed. They were only words he was saying, but she felt them as if his callused hands were on her skin.

  Buddy Taormina was taller than Easy but not as tall as she was. He was wide, and a bigger hand wrapped around her own big hand when they shook. He looked at Carol like she was a foreigner, which she was, and like he was a tough guy, which he was, and like he was content to call her anything.

  She said, “Carol is fine,” but it came out more faintly than usual.

  Buddy said, “If you open up the old plant and start working fresh again, Easy and I will be happy captains, and we’ll find you some other happy captains. We’ll bring you good fish at a good price.”

  She nodded. She didn’t look at Easy. She was a businesswoman. She was forty years past sixteen, and she wondered if she’d become one of the girls who giggled with boys in the parking lot. She’d never been one of those girls, and never wanted to be. After the alley, and after Dominic, she had worked because that was what she had and what she wanted, and that had become a long time. There had been men but not many and never for long, so being alone and wanting to be touched mattered less and less.

  She said to Buddy, “Something tells me Mathews and his gang are going to try and buy the old plant.”

  She could see that rang bells with Buddy.

  She said, “It’s the zoning, isn’t it?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Easy straighten up. He said, “Fuck me.”

  Carol was glad for the voice. It brought her back.

  Buddy said to Easy, “What’s the matter with you?”

  Easy said, “Sorry. But really. No, I never gave that a thought.” Carol didn’t mind the language a bit, and she nodded at Easy to let him know. Then Buddy said to her, “It’s harbor industrial. Ordinarily, if they didn’t do fish in there, they’d have to service boats some way.”

  “Ordinarily,” Easy said in an ordinary voice that Carol heard in her own ordinary way. Business.

  She said, in a businesslike voice, “I heard it from Parks, but I didn’t put it together until just now.”

  Easy said, “Now it’s so sacred that the town council only votes to open it up once every four years.”

  Yes, Carol thought. “And tonight’s the night,” she said.

  “Beauty,” Easy said quietly to himself like he was appreciating her business smarts. She appreciated them herself.

  She was holding her coat over her arm, and she reached into a pocket for her cell phone.

  Easy went over it out loud. “Finally everybody’s ready to say the hell with fish zoning. Harbor property would be worth something, and condominiums will pay better taxes than the piers do anymore. The commuters have wanted to kill the harbor for years, museum it, pretend it makes them part of something without having to smell it.”

  “Marblehead it,” Buddy said. “Berth their yawls.”

  “But the old plant is a big site,” Easy said. “Mathews and the boys could fit a real hotel there.”

  Carol punched in Dave Parks on her cell. When he picked up, she said, “Dave, it’s me. I’ll bet Mathews is buying the old plant.”

  “We know,” Parks said. “We just found the separate filing system in his office. He had had Annette do a cursory prospectus to sell the old plant, and then, without Annette or me suspecting a thing, and I would ordinarily have had to sign off, Mathews arranged a sale. He ran it outside the company, through a group of firms in Rhode Island. All the paperwork, all in order, firewalled from operations in the rest of the company. The prospectus wouldn’t satisfy a serious buyer, but they got a buyer.”

  “It’s done? Dave. Don’t tell me it’s done.”

  “They made the sale as soon as we moved out of the old plant, with an appearance of selling the equipment along with the property for a genuine fish business, to satisfy the harbor-industrial zoning. There’s a due diligence feint and a throwaway escrow, and because the property’s zoned for fish business only, they bought at a great price.”

  Carol said, “Oh. God damn.”

  Parks said, “But here’s the thing. It’s a straw buyer. We’re committed to the sale, but they don’t have to make final commitment until next month, and they can pull out up until then. Well, do you remember me telling you about the meeting tonight, at the town hall? That the town only addresses zoning on the harbor every four years, to preserve the infrastructure and the character of the harbor and keep the Marbleheaders out? Well—”

  “Tonight’s the night,” Carol said. Last night, she was finally getting a company of her own before she lost it, and then she actually got one this morning and lost it less than a minute ago, and just now, as the rain began again, she got it back. She shook out her coat and pulled the shoulders around herself and bent over to keep the phone dry.

  Easy and Buddy, one of them on each side of her, lifted her coat so it covered her like a tent.

  She was in the middle of the
scariest business deal she’d ever been near, and she was giddy for two fishermen holding her coat over her head.

  “Right,” Parks said. “If the zoning changes tonight, the straw buyer executes the purchase.”

  Carol smiled at Easy and told herself to pay attention. She was paying attention. She could pay attention to fishermen and business both. It was all business now. She felt like Baxter bringing home a deal. She said to Parks, “So here’s what we do. We go to the meeting and commit out loud to our plans for the plant. Then we pray the town council votes for our version of the future. I was hoping to wait a few more hours before we announced, but here we are. You and Annette and my instincts are the due diligence we get.”

  She listened to the rain become lighter against the tent of her coat, and she said, “I’m standing with Ezekiel Parsons and Buddy Taormina, who say they would bring us fresh fish if we had the plant. Could be the critical margin. I’ll ask them to bring fishermen from the high school to this evening’s meeting at the town hall.”

  Parks said, “You can believe Mathews won’t have any fishermen on his team. I’ll bring who I can. The women off the line. We want a crowd.”

  “I’ll see you there, Dave.”

  She put the cell away, and as if she were Baxter laying things out, she said to Buddy and Easy, “If we can keep the fish zoning, either they go back into the fish business, or they walk away. I’m certain they’ll walk away, which will mean we’re in business.”

  The rain stopped, and she took her coat from them, and Buddy looked at her feet in the puddle. He said to her, “We can bring what’s left of the working harbor people.”