Beauty: A Novel by Frederick Dillen Page A

calling for quiet as past business was read, and Carol nodded to the woman that they should whisper. The woman held one large hand toward whatever was the business in there and dismissed it.
    Carol, before she could stop herself, said, “You have big hands, too.”
    “Thank you. They are hands that have done work always. My name is Anna Rose Taormina. My Elizabeth Island Wives of the Sea have prayed for years to keep our harbor, and then this year we gave up. We lost faith, Carol, and I am ashamed of that, but now you are here, and together we will succeed.”
    Carol remembered Easy introducing Buddy. His name was Buddy Taormina. She said, “Are you Buddy’s mother?”
    “Yes. It is not your fault, but why Ignacio must be made into Buddy, I can never know. Call me Anna Rose. You’ll see it on one of Ignacio’s boats that was my husband’s for many years. Twenty years ago, I organized the Wives of the Sea, and now I can talk to both senators. They know to return my telephone call. The senators in Washington, not the crooks in Boston. But you don’t need the senators for this. My women are here tonight, and Ignacio and Ezekiel brought all the men from the waterfront who are still sober enough after the meeting with the fisheries commission.”
    “It was a good day for the fishermen.”
    “If we can land fresh catch again in Elizabeth and sell direct to a processor, it is a better day. Do you know anything about what we do? No matter. It is not hard as long as the fish are with us. And just the same, we don’t ever again stop praying.” She took hold of Carol’s arm and led Carol into the meeting.

Our Dead
    T own council meetings were not a usual part of Easy’s life, and this was the first time he’d paid attention to the podium. It was old, square, dinged but solid, dangling a cord, looking like something that’d been stolen off the boat. It was to the side of the town councillors, in front of the stage and under the mural. Easy watched Carol set herself there behind the podium and hold the top of it with both hands. She looked over the crowd. She didn’t look nervous exactly. It was a full house, and Easy didn’t think anybody hated her yet, so that was good. Somewhere in town, of course, Mathews and his fat pals were hating her; Carol had apparently kicked them all out in her first five minutes. Easy looked at Carol and thought of that and started to laugh out loud until Buddy gave him an elbow.
    Carol was bending her knees a bit, feet apart, back-and-forthing a bit foot to foot. That had to be good, getting ready for action. Easy worried about her. He wanted her to get what she wanted. He didn’t care so much about what her fresh fish angle meant for him; he’d be fine with or without. He didn’t even much care if he was fine, and hadn’t cared much about anything since Mississippi and Angie and the baby. He’d kept going because that was who he was, fishing and a couple friends. He was surprised by how much he liked Carol, who was tough and smart and smiled some and didn’t seem to mind him.
    He and Buddy and Dave Parks and Buddy’s mother, Anna Rose, had spread the word and gotten a lot of the town here, but Easy wondered if the town cared. The fish and the real waterfront work in the harbor had been dying for twenty years anyhow. Unless you had skills like Easy and Buddy, it’d all been as good as dead for most of the last ten. If the town got a hotel on the old plant site, if they got condominiums for rich people, that would buy educations for everybody’s kids, and restaurants and tourists. The value of everybody’s houses goes through the roof. Easy cared about the harbor, but he figured most of the people who had showed up tonight were just pretending for a few minutes, and then they’d be ready to get on with it.
    Carol stepped away from the podium. She stepped out in front of the town council table and faced the town.
    She looked around at everybody, meeting their eyes. She knew what