Beauty: A Novel (17 page)

Easy laughed and so did she, and she was more pleased than she would have thought possible.

But when she stood up to go to the bathroom, the waiter stared, and that fast she was self-conscious about her dress and her shoes and her height and not being pretty enough for anything but a blue suit.

But Easy saw the waiter look and said, “Back off, pal,” like the waiter had been looking her up and down, and maybe he had. A couple at the next table seemed startled by Easy’s tough voice, but Carol could tell he had been kidding, and the waiter laughed, and Easy laughed, and Carol went in a strut toward the bathroom.

When she got back, Easy said, “Do you want to get a hotel room?”

She was in business with Easy. In fact, a critical part of the business, the fresh fish that would be her profit margin, the success or failure of the business, really, depended on Easy. Shouldn’t she have a position on that? Wasn’t there a relationship code about behaving sensibly around the people you worked with? She knew perfectly well there was, and she’d never had to pay the least of attention. She very nearly laughed at the notion. She’d been burying dead companies forever, and she’d done that alone, and none of the guys she’d fired would have wanted to ask her. But now, she had her own company, a living company. Carol MacLean. And she had a man right here who wanted to go to bed with her. She stood beside him and let him look her up and down for real to be sure. She said, “What’s the best hotel?”

It wasn’t a
big room, but it was very nice, and it looked over the Public Garden. She sat on the edge of the bed in her dress and her shoes. She was more nervous than in the restaurant but happy. She was who she was, and right now that had everything to do with the man in the room, who sat down beside her and told her to close her eyes. He put his thumb to her lips and whispered, “Beauty.”

Obituary

B
axter had pulled out of Blume’s new fund and was thrilled to be out and wished them all well. He had some ideas that he was not ready to talk about much less do anything about. He had time on his hands. He flipped through the obituary section, something he’d begun early in his career, thinking he might get a leg up on a promising turnover coming into play, and actually once it had paid off. This was how habits began.

And now, just when he was at loose ends and wanted something to dabble with, he came upon an interesting death. It was the head of a third-generation family company, hopelessly complicated (family and company both). The name had come across low on his radar enough times for Baxter to know that the company had a few interesting pieces. One piece in particular had marginal value to anyone else but was something he might put to use. He had some discreet calls made, made some discreet follow-up calls himself. There wouldn’t, in the bigger picture, be much money involved. It was a New England company, logging, once upon a time. Why not? So, Boston, the Four Seasons.

And last night, over dinner with some of the family, he had found himself in a swamp of competing hopes and hatreds that made his own family look like a Hallmark card. They wanted something besides money, something that sat on the ground and made a product, though he thought some of them, for sentimental reasons, would have preferred something that only used to make something. Baxter had had such things pass through his stewardship in the past but didn’t have one at the moment. He could put people on it for a few hours, but the family wanted a deal done today. This was what dabbling could lead to.

Baxter was an early riser and he went down to the lobby for a paper, not really thinking lightning could strike through the obits so soon again, but you never knew.

He was surprised and happy to see this headline over a column on the bottom half of the front page:

STUDY MOURNS OCEAN, FAULTS FISHING

Judge Imposes Punishing Regs

Surprise

I
n the morning, Easy Parsons was the happiest man on land or sea, and he went down to the lobby early to get toothbrushes and then went out on the street so the day could meet him and he could breathe it in.

Coming back in through the lobby, he grabbed a paper and thought that he loved Carol because she was beautiful, which was stupid to think right off, but she was. He also loved her because she walked fast, and even though she was shy, which he liked, she could take charge when necessary. She was working people. She knew that he was a working guy who needed the sea and whose boat was a factory. He loved that she knew what he did and that he loved it. He was sure she could learn to find fish if they were ten years old together.

He loved that she went ahead with the shoes and then the dress, and he loved that she let him put his face into her beautiful red hair, and when she kissed, despite how stiff she could seem when she was walking fast, she kissed as soft as any creature under God’s blue heaven.

Then he saw the headline.

In the elevator, he tried to get control. Nobody had died. In two weeks, when the new regs went into effect, he could no longer catch fish in New England. He would have to take the boat south to Christ only knew where, which meant he would not be with Carol. There wouldn’t be any fresh fish coming in or any fishermen left to bring it, and fresh fish was what Carol’s plant needed. She had skills, and she wouldn’t want to give up, but even with the extra two million, her plant was dead in the water. Carol would know that and she would pull the plug right away, get out what money she could, and spread that around town.

And then Carol would have to go back to New York, where she could make a living. Maybe she could get her own job back. There wouldn’t be room for Easy in her New York program. She would be who she used to be, and he would be who he used to be, and that guy he used to be felt like he was dying. He’d barely met her, and now he couldn’t live without her, and he was going to lose her.

It wouldn’t take her long, he figured, to shut and empty the plant. If he stuck around after the regs kicked in, everything would just get harder. With every extra day they would both know they were a day closer to the end of it. Would he sit on his boat and watch the plant? Would she look out at him while she worked her phone unloading the lines? Would they hold each other every night hurting more and more? That couldn’t be fair. He could stand anything, but he couldn’t bear to think of Carol hurting any more than she had to.

Don’t drag it out, he thought. He would take his crew fishing for every nickel they could catch in two weeks, and then he would head back out—south it would have to be. If there was any kindness he could still do for Carol, it had to be that he would just go.

In the elevator, he kept in control, and when the doors opened, he was able to walk.

Carol was in her business suit down the hall outside their room with a guy who looked like he was dressed for weekend Monopoly. Sport coat too smooth even for a sport coat, and suit pants, loafers with tassels, yellow socks. The jerk was holding the newspaper.

Easy concentrated on Carol. He held up his paper. He said, “Remember the judge who put off the tough fishing regulations two weeks ago? Yesterday she changed her mind.” Lay it out, he told himself, keep it simple.

The other guy was nodding, but he took a step back. Carol knew. She had composed herself. She said, “The judge is enforcing the amendment to cut back your days and your catch and where you can go.” She looked like she had taken the punch and gotten her breath back. Carol would be all right. “It’s fixable,” she said.

It wasn’t fixable, and Easy wanted to get it over with as fast and painlessly as he could, for her sake. He reached her and said, “Every ground fisherman north of Delaware is losing another sixty-five percent of their days. We’re not going to be able to feed your plant, and we’re not going to be able to feed ourselves.”

She said, “Easy, listen.” He had to hand it to her. She sounded like emergency was her bread and butter. She’d have made a good captain.

Last night was more than he’d ever hoped for. But he had to go. “The regulations take effect in two weeks. I’m going to fish those days for my crew, and then look for new water.”

Carol said, “At the gym, you told people your boat could survive the new regulations.”

“That was noise, and in the gym I told you so. Nobody wins derby fishing. I didn’t want the bureaucrats to think they were throwing a bone to a bunch of half-wits.”

Easy didn’t like the anger that had jumped into his voice, but maybe it was just as well.

Carol said, “Easy, we can handle this,” and said it like how she’d said she loved him, last night, which he’d said to her and meant with all his heart, and now his heart was beside the point, and he was doing what he had to do.

He said, “I’m going to call my crew. I’ll pay the room and leave you taxi money downstairs. But I want to tell you something.”

She looked at the jerk businessman like she didn’t want him to hear, and she closed her eyes. As if she thought he was going to tell her he loved her again. That was what Easy wanted to tell her, but he couldn’t and he wouldn’t. That was the whole point. Don’t drag it out. Not fair to her.

He said, “You were right to keep the two million. When you go under, try to get my crew their investment back. I don’t need anything back on my own investment. If I need more to set up somewhere else, I can borrow on the boat. Remember the little guys.”

He couldn’t bear to listen to himself, and neither could Carol. She didn’t open her eyes. She squeezed them tight shut and tighter, like he had hit her, and he had.

He said, “I’ve got to go. Here’s a toothbrush for you. I got toothbrushes before I saw the paper.”

He took her hand and put the plastic container for a toothbrush in it, and she kept her eyes shut, so he had to fold her fingers over the toothbrush. They were a stranger’s fingers now, and yet he knew them.

He began to back away, but before he turned around, the jerk said, “I’m Tom Baxter. I’m a principal in what people call a private equity firm, a buyout firm.”

“Good for you,” Easy said. He said, “Carol, remember the little guys.”

He turned and headed for the elevators. He was getting shut out of his home and his harbor and the fishing grounds that he knew and that fed him and his crew. He was getting shut away from Carol. If it would have helped, he would have given up his boat, and that was a discussion you had with God when you were going to change the shape of wind, and even so he would have done it. Instead he did what you did when the trouble was too much—you did the next thing and the next. Easy took one step at a time back to the elevators.

The Baxter guy called down the hall after him. “I’m here to buy Elizabeth Island’s Best. If you’re an investor, you’re one of the people I’ll be writing a check to. You and your crew.”

Easy stopped and looked back. Carol had opened her eyes, but it was Baxter who had the wheel.

“I’m prepared to pay a very good price,” Baxter said to Easy, a conversation voice now. “A significantly better price than you and your men and the rest of the town paid.”

Easy walked back to him and said, “You’re Baxter Blume. I get that part.”

“I was in town for work and saw today’s paper and realized I might have a deal that could work for everybody. I spent some time tracking down Carol and came over to make an offer. Unless I miss my guess, you were going to catch the fresh fish for Elizabeth Island’s Best profit margin. I was very sorry to see the paper. I’m sorry for the dislocation of your business as a fisherman. I’m sorry for your crew.”

Baxter offered his hand, and Easy shook it. You didn’t get to be a successful jerk unless you had skills, and Baxter had the sense not to pretend to be a blue-collar fat-ass from the docks. He talked in his overeducated jerk voice straight at Easy, doing business man-to-man as if Easy were in charge.

Well, he was in charge of doing what he could for his guys. And you didn’t become a successful fisherman just by catching fish. When you brought your catch in, if you were good and consistent, you made deals, and Easy had found that if you had what people wanted, you did best keeping your mouth shut.

It seemed like Baxter was waiting for Easy to say something, and when Easy didn’t, Baxter went ahead. “We can make you more than whole. We can, at the very least, get you what you need to set up in new waters, as you say. You’ll probably set up on your own, the way that suits you. But it’s not impossible I could also help with that, and if you let me know where you’re going, I’ll certainly make some calls.”

Easy didn’t give a damn about himself at this point. He did care about his crew and Buddy and Buddy’s crew and Buddy’s family and everybody else on Elizabeth Island. Those were his people. He watched Baxter and waited. He hadn’t heard anything resembling a trustable offer, and he wasn’t going to count on the “making calls” bullshit.

He was startled when Carol spoke. She said, “Easy wants to know why you want the company, Baxter, and whether he can count on your money.”

Easy couldn’t care less about the money for himself. Didn’t she know that? He ought to be angry at her if she didn’t know that. For some reason, he was angry at himself. You couldn’t be angry at the paper. He concentrated on Baxter.

Baxter said to Easy, “Carol, can you tell Easy why I’m here and whether I’m good for my commitments?”

Carol sounded like she was getting angry, too. At Easy?

She said, “You guys know whose company this is?” But she was talking to Baxter, and Easy wasn’t sure where he fit in. She said, “You’re doing what you do, Baxter. My guess is that you’re trying to get hold of a large family company around here, or some hunk of it. You’re close to making the deal. This weekend. When you saw the article in the paper and knew we’d have to sell our little company, you also knew that the owners of your big company might make the deal if you could show up today with a box of chocolates in exactly the shape of our company. It is today, isn’t it? Otherwise why are we here? But why do they want us? Maybe they can afford to wait for the zoning. Can they work conservation easement trade-offs? Even if you pay us too much, your price on our property will be nothing compared to the long-term tax basis they can assign. Am I close?”

Carol was going to sell the company, and Easy figured this was how she meant to negotiate it. If she could get all of the investors in town all of their money back, that was great under the circumstances. If people made a profit, even better. If Easy got included in the profit, fine, but as far as he was concerned, everything was still a wreck. He was going south. He and Carol had had one day. What he couldn’t figure was why he was even here in the hall, with Baxter talking at him and Carol looking from him to Baxter to him to Baxter.

“She knows her stuff, Easy. I’d like to be able to promise your plant to some folks, and I’d like to be able to promise it today.”

Easy had started to feel ashamed of himself for pretending he had a right to discuss any kind of deal for Carol’s company, but he kept going because here he was. He said, “What are you promising us?”

Carol said, “Us?” like the word was a joke or a lie, and like maybe Easy was a joke and a lie, too.

That didn’t sit well, but Easy knew she didn’t want to lose her company. He knew she wasn’t happy and that she was doing her best, hustling to save the investors regardless of hurt feelings. He admired that she was still that tough, even though Baxter buying the company, at whatever price, didn’t put fish back in the ocean or change the judge’s decision. It didn’t keep Easy from going south, and Carol back to New York.

Baxter said to Easy, “We’re prepared to pay you one hundred and fifty percent of your investment, including improvements. Which I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to get a commitment on this right now. I might, though, like to haggle for a few minutes about the proceeds on the Chilean sea bass which came up on the radar of one of my interns.”

This time, Easy looked at Carol to see if he was supposed to say something. Every second since he had gotten off the elevator, he had gotten smaller and weaker and more beside the point. Since it was obvious about Easy and Carol, did Baxter want Carol to sell cheap because she liked Easy? Did that make sense?

Easy should have been grateful as hell that he was going to get his investment back, make money on it, leave his crew with something in their pockets before he drove south. But he was not grateful as hell. He had to be happy that he and Carol had met, but he wished to hell that they could be unmet now.

Carol looked at him, and he couldn’t tell if she was heartbroken or if she’d already written him off. He hoped the new dress and the shoes would work in New York.

She said, “Easy, I’m sorry for you losing the fish and the grounds and the harbor you know.”

She sounded professionally sincere. He could have been a gas station going out of business. Which was great, exactly what he wanted.

“Sorry doesn’t reverse the judge,” Baxter said, sounding a whole shitload more sympathetic than Carol. Easy was so far out of his league that all he could think was he had to get to open water.

He didn’t say anything in answer to Baxter. He didn’t plan on saying anything, period, until he got out of the hotel.

Baxter nodded as if he and Easy were in perfect agreement, and said, “Let’s get Carol’s take on the money before we go any further.”

Then Baxter made a thing of turning to Carol.

Easy didn’t bother. The money would be what it was and would make setting up somewhere else easier. He wished he thought that Buddy could come. But Buddy’s and his father’s boats had Elizabeth Island in their keels, and Buddy had a family of his own.

Baxter said, “What do you think, Carol? Is Baxter Blume good for it? If I can trust your commitment to the basics of a deal, Carol, can you trust me to find the money? So Easy can drive his boat to sea knowing that everyone on board has a bank account? I think you and I, Carol, both have an idea of the figures. Maybe Easy does, too.”