by Mary Campisi
“I could meet you in New York on the twenty-sixth if you’d like.” Connor wanted his deal; he didn’t care what she was doing in the middle of nowhere that kept her so busy.
If Mr. Saro from Japan had called and spoken to him in Japanese about financial issues, Connor would have dragged in a translator, maybe two, to interpret the words in English, then he’d have analyzed them, dissected meaning and inflection, spent hours, perhaps a whole day, trying to understand.
But this, something as mundane and uneventful as a girlfriend in her dead father’s cabin in the Catskills—it smacked of emotion and angst and Connor was careful about avoiding both.
“I’m not sure when I’m leaving.” She was suddenly tired of talking. “I might stay on another day or so, or it could be longer. I’ll let you know, okay?”
“Do you want me to come up there?” He wanted to make a trip to the Catskills about as much as she wanted to throw herself naked into a pile of snow.
“No. I want to be by myself right now.” There, she’d give him his out because it would ease his conscience, and because it was true.
“Okay, then.” He sighed into the phone, a long breath that she supposed was intended to make her feel a tinge of guilt for remaining undecided about the New York trip. “Let me know as soon as you can.”
“Sure.”
And then, this last bit, perhaps to boost her spirits. “The Dow was up two hundred points today. You should check it out.”
“Thanks. Maybe I will.”
Click. He was gone.
She placed the cell phone on the nightstand and fell back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It was dark outside, a cocoon of blackness but for the tiniest sliver of moon sifting through the window, settling in a faint arc above her.
It was then, as she stared at the arc, followed its faint shimmering trail, that she realized the truth about her relationship with Connor Pendleton.
He’d made certain he told her about the Dow but had never once said, I love you.
And neither had she.
***
Christine spent the next two days at the cabin, pondering the dilemma of Lily and following the NASDAQ. Jumping into the market was the best way to get back in control. She called her assistant, Moira, returned phone calls to clients, made recommendations, took orders.
No one needed to know she was conducting business from a card table in the Catskills, surrounded by snow and evergreens, or that she was dressed in gray sweats and a red fleece top and two pairs of Thinsulate socks.
On the third day, she decided to pay a visit to the machine shop her father had bailed out. Stay busy, just stay busy. She’d meet the owner and reassure him she planned to honor the agreement. She was also curious about the type of man, a relative stranger, she guessed, her father would sign a note for, guaranteeing payment. But maybe the man wasn’t a stranger; maybe he was a friend. Fourteen years was a long time to cultivate a friendship and the fact that she didn’t know upset her as much as it depressed her.
For days, she’d asked the question: who was Lily Desantro? But the real question was who was Charles Blacksworth?
She had to get away from the cabin—now, before her mind drove her crazy with its incessant ranting. She pulled on her boots, stuffed her arms into a down jacket, and fought her way to the car. It took almost an hour to dig a path to the road and another thirty minutes to clear the car and heat it up. She could get stuck out here and no one would ever find her until spring when the thaw came through.
Christine drove the back road into Magdalena, fingers gripping the wheel, gravitating toward the middle when there weren’t any other cars around. The snow fell, full and fat on the windshield. Her father must have driven roads like these for years, narrowed from snow piling up along the edges, slick with ice, dark; country roads, fighting change, fighting progress, just like the people who lived in the towns where the roads led: Tristan, Ennert, Magdalena.
ND Manufacturing was located about five miles from Magdalena. It was a longish-shaped brick building, weathered to a faded orange, with a flat roof supporting several metal vents and two small windows at the front entrance. There were a handful of buildings similar to this one running up and down the road like brick rectangles. A parking lot stood to the left smattered with pick-up trucks and older model cars, Fords and Chevys mostly, with bumper stickers that read, Mail Pouch and Union Works.
She parked her car next to a blue Ford F150 with a dented right fender and headed for the entrance. The contact person was Jack Finnegan, but he wasn’t the owner, only the “man in charge of the paperwork,” her father had told her. He hadn’t given her the owner’s name, telling her there’d be time enough for everything she needed to know later. But there hadn’t been enough time; there hadn’t been any time.
A gray-haired woman with tight curls and cat’s-eye glasses perched behind a glass partition in the lobby. She looked up when Christine entered. “May I help you?”
“I’m looking for Mr. Finnegan. Is he available?”
The older woman let out a chuckle. “Sure is. Your name?”
Christine hesitated, then said, “Christine Blacksworth.”
“You’re Christine?” The woman’s blue eyes widened behind the cat’s-eye glasses. “Charlie’s daughter?”
“I am.”
“Oh, my word. Oh, my goodness. Oh my.” The words rushed out in a string of breathlessness as the woman fanned herself with her hand, said again, “Oh my.”
“You knew my father?” It was a ridiculous question because judging by the woman’s reaction, she had indeed known him.
“Yes, oh my yes.” The woman stood and thrust her hand through the open portion of the sliding window. Even standing she barely reached Christine’s shoulder. “Betty Rafferty. I’m the receptionist here.” She paused, let out a small laugh, “And the chief cook and bottle washer. I do a little bit of everything in this place: answering phones, filing, typing, checking time cards—” She stopped herself mid-sentence. “My Lord, but we are so sorry about Charlie.” She shook her head but the curls didn’t move. “So very sorry.”
“Thank you.” Did everyone know him, know about him? Know about Miriam and Lily, too?
“He was a wonderful man,” Betty Rafferty went on, “wonderful. There wasn’t a kinder person than Charlie Blacksworth. He helped us all out at one time or another and I mean all of us, no matter who we were, he didn’t care. Me, when my mother died and the lawyer tried to tie up her estate and charge a ton of legal fees, Charlie made a few phone calls and it was done—” she snapped her bony fingers “—just like that.”
“And then, when Ned Glezinski’s landlord was gonna kick him out for not making his rent payments, Charlie stepped in.” She lowered her voice. “We all thought he loaned Ned money but nobody ever said, least of all Charlie. Anyways, he showed Ned how to do a budget, how to put a little aside in savings for a rainy day, and I’ll be darned if Ned didn’t buy a two-bedroom house down on Edgar Street last year.”
Christine didn’t want to hear that any good had come of her father’s stay here, didn’t want to even consider the possibility that he was missed by this town as much as he was missed by his friends and associates in Chicago. This place wasn’t his home. These people had no right to Charles Blacksworth. They were nothing but pirates, bootlegging his name and his identity.
“And then there were Freda and Arthur Peorelli and their son, Giovanni,” she went on, stopped. “I think”—she scratched her pointy chin—“I should stop before the boss comes in.” She lowered her voice, leaned forward. “He and Charlie didn’t quite see eye to eye.”
“No?”
Betty shook her head again. “No, ma’am, they sure didn’t, but then you must know that.”
“Actually, I—”
“Betty!”
Christine turned and spotted the scruffy old man standing behind her, clad in jeans and a red flannel shirt rolled up to his forearms. He was wiry and small with shocks of thick, white hai
r sticking out from under a John Deere ball cap, cocked back on his forehead. Gray white stubble peppered his cheeks, a stark contrast to the weather-beaten tan on the rest of his face. But it was his eyes that held her. They were a brilliant blue, and they were trained on her.
“Christine.”
She managed to nod.
The man shot a glance toward the receptionist area. “Been flappin’ your gums again, Betty?” he asked, lifting a bushy white brow.
“Just making Christine feel welcome, Jack, that’s all.”
“I’ll take over from here.” He thrust out a work-worn hand. “Jack Finnegan, otherwise known as ‘Old Man Jack.’”
“Mr. Finnegan.” She reached for his outstretched hand and felt the calluses. “You’re just the person I came to see.”
“Don’t think so, not if you came to see Mr. Finnegan. Like I said, I’m Jack or Old Man Jack, plain and simple.” He threw back his head and laughed, revealing random spots of silver and a row of bridgework.
“Jack then.”
“Let’s go into my office,” he said, winking at her. “And, Betty, not a word of this to the boss, you got it?”
Betty lifted a blue-veined hand, pinched a thumb and forefinger together and ran it along her lips. “I’m zipped, Jack.”
“Good. Keep it that way. No slip-ups.”
“Aye-aye.” Then, “Nice to meet you, Christine. Your father was a true saint.”
“Come on, before she starts praying the rosary.”
Christine followed Jack Finnegan down a narrow hallway. There were offices on both sides, four altogether, small squares filled with carpet, computer, an occasional metal filing cabinet and a desk. Jack moved past the first three, stepped into the last one, which had a copy machine where a desk would be, and six filing cabinets along the back wall. There was only one chair in the tiny room, a gray swivel with black plastic arms. “Sit,” he said, closing the door behind her. He kicked a box of copy paper a few feet from her and plopped down, feet spread, arms crossed over his chest.
“What can I do you for?”
“I guess first you can tell me what you make here.”
“That’s easy enough. Parts for farm equipment, you know, gadgets that fit on tractors, combines, bailers and such.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Your dad was mighty proud of you.”
It was a plain statement, meant as a compliment, but the mere fact that these intruders felt they had a right to an opinion concerning her father angered her. “Before my father died, he made mention of a collateral loan he’d signed for ND Manufacturing. Your name was listed on the correspondence as the contact person.”
Jack Finnegan scratched the back of his head. If he’d noticed the direct snub, he chose to ignore it. “That’s right,” he said slowly, “I’m the contact man.”
“Who’s the owner? I don’t have his name.”
His thin lips pulled into a smile. “No, you don’t now, do you?”
“Well, I’ll need his name so I can contact him.”
“Are you planning to call the loan, Christine? Shut the place down?”
“No, of course not.”
“’Cause I know that’s not what Charlie wanted and he’d be damned disappointed if he thought his daughter was doing this to spite him.”
“I have no intention of calling the loan or changing the agreement my father made.”
“Good.” He stroked his stubbled chin. “That’s good.”
“And that’s the reason I came here, to give my assurances that my father’s word would be honored.”
“Appreciate it. I’ll pass the word along.”
“Mr. Finnegan...Jack, what’s going on?”
“Charlie bailed this place out of a rough spot. If he hadn’t come through, a lot of people would have fallen on tough times, lost their jobs, their medical insurance, probably their homes. I don’t know how much you know about this town, but Magdalena doesn’t have an extra supply of jobs.”
“I gathered that.”
He nodded, pushed his cap further back on his head. “But some people don’t take kindly to accepting favors from anybody, especially if it’s somebody they ain’t too keen on.”
She forced herself to remain quiet. If she bided her time, eventually, in a roundabout, convoluted manner with hundreds of detours, Jack Finnegan would get to the crux of the matter, the truth.
“And then you got pride,” he went on. “That has to figure in somewheres, now don’t it? So, you take pride and somebody you ain’t too keen on, and then, you add a family member buttin’ in, and well, that just plain spells disaster.”
“Yes, it does.” Now they were getting somewhere.
“So, what’s a body to do? The boss still needs help, still has to find a way to come up with money he ain’t got and ain’t got no way of gettin’, leastways on time.” He leaned forward, planted his elbows on his bony knees. “I’ll tell you what you do. You find a body that can get the boss to take the money, but you can’t tell him where it came from—” he paused “—well, not exactly where it came from.”
She was starting to understand. “Are you saying the owner of this place doesn’t know my father put up the collateral for his business?”
“No, ma’am, he don’t know,” Jack Finnegan said, shaking his head. “And he ain’t gonna know, not now, not ever.”
“Just how do you plan on keeping all of this a secret?”
He shrugged. “Same way we been keepin’ it a secret for the past thirteen months.”
“And what way is that?”
“A member of the family loaned it out, said it was insurance money.”
“And does the owner believe that?”
“Ain’t got no reason not to. The man’s desperate. When people get like that, they don’t want to go lookin’ for the truth if it’s gonna cause them a grief they can’t handle. It’s easier to just shut out that little voice that’s sayin’ somethin’ ain’t quite right.”
“Well, there’s no reason not to tell me who the owner is. If I want to find out, all I have to do is look up the company in Dunn & Bradstreet and all of the officers are listed.”
She waited for him to say something but he just sat there watching her, fist balled under his chin, elbows on his knees.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Guess I’m gonna have to now, ain’t I?” He let out a sigh. “You gave your word you ain’t gonna cause no trouble, Christine. You said you’d honor Charlie’s agreement.”
“Of course, I will.” She just wanted a name. As long as she received a monthly check, she didn’t care where it came from and if the old man wanted to keep ND Manufacturing’s benefactor a secret, fine.
“The boss’s old man and I went way back. I been with this company forty-three years.”
Oh, God, he was starting again with the stories. “Just give me the name Jack, okay? That’s all I want, so I know, and I promise it’ll stay between us. I give my word.”
“It’s Nate. Nate Desantro.”
Chapter 8
It was snowing, gobs of white sticking everywhere: trees, animals, cars. But Nate and Lily were tucked away inside his log cabin two miles outside of Magdalena, a world away from the storm outside. The stone fireplace crackled, filling the room with what Lily called “tree heat.”
They sat next to each other on the old piano bench that had once belonged to their mother. The piano, too, had been hers, but she’d given it up years ago in favor of a paintbrush and router. And Nate had gladly accepted it into his home, found solace in the sound his fingers extricated from the keys.
He reached over and grasped Lily’s hands, gently placing her index fingers on the keys. “Now, when I point to you, I want you to tap the keys three times in a row, got it?”
Lily giggled. “Got it.”
“Okay. I put a red mark on the ones I want you to hit. Here we go.” He played the first few chords of Jingle Bells, watched her face split into a smile as she waited for h
er part. Then he pointed to her.
Lily giggled again, raised her fingers high, aiming for the marked keys. She hit the edges of them. Once, twice, three times.
“How was that?”
“That was good, Lily. Very good.”
She threw her arms around his waist, hugged him tight. “I love you, Nate.”
He brushed his beard over the top of her head. “I love you, too.”
“Play Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”
“Why?” He paused, his fingers resting lightly on the keys. “Santa Claus already came to town, and he brought a whole sack of goodies for Lily Desantro.”
She laughed. “A lot of stuff,” she said, nuzzling against his flannel shirt.
“Too much. You’re going to have to move to a bigger house just to find a place for all your junk.”
“It’s not junk, Nate.”
“Okay, then, toys. Bicycle. Dollhouse. CD-player. CDs.”
She squeezed her hands tighter around his middle. “Santa didn’t bring me the bike. Daddy did.”
He stroked her hair. “You’re right. He did.”
She sniffed into his shirt and whispered, “I miss him.”
“I know you do.”
“I don’t want him to be in Heaven.”
“I know.”
“Why did God have to take him?” She eased her hands from around his waist, looked up at him, her blue eyes shiny behind thick glasses. “Why, Nate?”
He was not the most God-fearing person in the world. Hell, he wondered sometimes if he even believed in God despite his twelve years at St. Gertrude’s and his altar boy duty. Maybe God was just a form to curse for the pain and suffering in the world, kind of like shooting practice with a billboard target.
Nate’s life sucked. Here he was, alone at thirty-five, divorced, no children, not even a relationship with a woman that brought him gratification past a one-night stand. The only ones who brought slivers of light into his life were Lily and his mother.
The only other times he experienced anything close to joy was when he was making furniture. The feel of the wood in his hands, the smell of a fresh cut of oak or mahogany, the planning and design of a chair, a desk, a dresser, all of this brought him peace and made him forget the unfortunate circumstances of his life: the near bankruptcy of his business, the duty to his dead father that would not permit him to leave the company, the self-imposed solitude, the plight of his mother, the hatred toward Charles Blacksworth.