Outside, the air was incredibly humid and the men working for the cable and electric companies were already attached to posts repairing wires; police cars rolled slowly up and down the street as if looking for somebody, and the dog walkers were out too, with their baggies of brown stool. Young mothers pushed their expensive strollers and joggers, delighted to see the sun again, daintily sidestepped puddles of water. Hard to believe that not too long ago this was considered an old working-class neighborhood full of mainly Irish and Italians who worked in the arsenal. Now the town was full of yuppies driving up property taxes and opening restaurants that served arugula salads and Kobe organic burgers. And the arsenal now housed the gourmet ghetto, expensive artist studios, condominiums, and a high-priced mall.
She walked by the tiny cemetery where many a dog went to defecate against the mildewed tombstones, and by the old church they were developing into more condominiums. She waited at the light, and when it changed she walked past the hairdressing salon, the Syrian shoe repair shop, the Greek diner, and the Miles Pratt house, taken over by dentists now. She nodded hello to a man and his little girl standing outside the Armenian Library and Museum. Down the tiny side street near the CVS was the Iranian restaurant where she’d had lunch a few times by herself; she liked the rice sprinkled with fleshy pomegranate, the ice cream flavored with cardamom and rose water, and had planned to take her daughters there when they visited. To the left of the restaurant was the post office, and beyond that the Charles River, with its cool, dark, slow-moving waters. Often she went there to read or to feed the ducks even though there was a big sign prohibiting this. Sometimes just to empty her head and to be in the company of nature.
Outside the bank, she sat on the bench near a Japanese maple and smoked three cigarettes in succession, waiting for the line to thin. Up the street near the CVS, a police car circled the square slowly.
PART II. SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET
FEMME SOLE
BY DANA CAMERON
North End
A moment of your time, Anna Hoyt.”
Anna slowed and cursed to herself. She’d seen Adam Seaver as she crossed Prince Street, and for a terrible moment thought he was following her. She’d hoped to lose him amid the peddlers and shoppers at the busy market near Dock Square, but she couldn’t ignore him after he called out. His brogue was no more than a low growl, but conversations around him tended to fade and die. He never raised his voice, but he never had a problem making himself heard, even over the loudest of Boston ’s boisterous hawkers.
In fact, with anxious glances, the crowd melted back in retreat from around her. No one wanted to be between Seaver and whatever he was after.
Cowards, she thought. But her own mouth was dry as he approached.
She turned, swallowed, met his eyes, then lowered hers, hoping it looked like modesty or respect and not revulsion. His face was weathered and, in places, blurred with scars, marks of fights from which he’d walked away the winner; there was a nick above his ear where he’d had his head shaved. Seaver smiled; she could see two rows of sharp, ugly teeth like a mouthful of broken glass or like one of the bluefish the men sometimes caught in the harbor. Bluefish were so vicious they had to be clubbed when they were brought into the boat or they’d shear your finger off.
He didn’t touch her, but she flinched when he gestured to a quiet space behind the stalls. It was blustery autumn, salt air and a hint of snow to come, but a sour milk smell nearly gagged her. Dried leaves skittered over discarded rotten vegetables, or was it that even the boldest rats fled when Seaver approached?
“How are you, Mr. Seaver?” she asked. She tried to imagine that she was safely behind her bar. She felt she could manage anything with the bar between her and the rest of the world.
“Fair enough. Yourself?”
“Fine.” She wished he’d get on with it. “Thanks.” His excessive manners worried her. He’d never spoken to her before, other than to order his rum and thank her.
When he didn’t speak, Anna felt the sweat prickle along the hairline at the back of her neck. The wind blew a little colder, and the crowd and imagined safety of the market seemed remote. The upright brick structure of the Town House was impossibly far away, and the ships anchored groaning at the wharves could have been at sea.
He waited, searched her face, then looked down. “What very pretty shoes.”
“Thank you. They’re from Turner’s.” She shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t believe he was interested in her shoes, but neither did she imagine he was trying to spare her feelings by not staring at the bruises that ran up the side of her head. These were almost hidden with an artfully draped shawl, but her lip was still visibly puffy. It was too easy to trace the line from that to the black and blue marks. One mark led to the next like a constellation.
One thing always led to another.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Seaver?” she said at last. Not knowing was too much.
“I may be in a way to do something for you.”
Anna couldn’t help it: she sighed. She heard the offer five times a night.
“Nothing like that,” he said, showing that rank of teeth. “It’s your husband.”
“What about him?” Gambling debts, whores, petty theft? Another harebrained investment gone west? Her mind raced over the many ways Thomas could have offended Mr. Seaver.
“I saw him at Clark ’s law office this morning. I had business with Clark…on behalf of my employer…”
Anna barely stifled a shudder. Best to know nothing of Seaver or his employer’s business, which had brought a fortune so quickly that it could only have come from some brutal trade in West Indian contraband. Thick Thomas Hoyt was well beneath the notice of Seaver’s boss, praise God.
“…and your husband was still talking to Clark.”
“Yes?” Anna refused to reveal surprise at Thomas visiting a lawyer. He had no use or regard for the law.
“He was asking how he could sell your establishment.”
“He can’t. It’s mine,” she said before thinking.
Seaver showed no surprise at her vehemence. “Much as I thought, and exactly what Clark told him. Apparently, Hook Miller wants the place.”
“So he said last night. I thanked him, but I’m not selling. He was more than understanding.”
Seaver tilted his head. “Because he thinks the way to acquire your tavern is through your husband.”
The words went through Anna like a knife, and she understood. Her hand rose to her cheek. The beating had come only hours after Miller’s offer and her refusal. Thomas had been blind drunk, and she could barely make out what had driven him this time.
“If I sell it, how will we live? The man’s an idiot.” She was shocked to realize that she’d actually said this, that she was having a conversation, this conversation, with Seaver.
“Perhaps Thomas thinks he can weasel a big enough price from Miller.”
“The place is mine. No one can take it, not even my husband. My father said so. He showed me the papers.” Feme sole merchant were what the lawyers called her, with their fancy Latin. The documents allowed her to conduct business almost as if she was a man. At first, it was only with her father’s consent, but as she prospered-and he sickened-it was accepted that she was responsible, allowed to trade on her own. Very nearly independent, almost as good as a man, in the year of Our Lord 1745. And, though she could never say so aloud, better than most.
“I think Clark will be bound by the document,” Seaver said. “At least until someone more persuasive than Thomas comes along.”