“HIYA, MRS. LEVINSON,” I said, and began emptying my basket at the register in Levinson’s, the corner grocery closest to my house, just a half block up from the wharf. It was right before lunchtime on our second official day of summer, and it was hot—hotter even than yesterday. The soft bump of boats against the dock played a faint and steady sound track. Lettuce. Thump. Onions. Thump. Potatoes. Thump.
“Hello, Jane, sweetheart,” she replied. Mrs. Levinson called everybody “sweetheart.” “Roasting a chicken in this hot weather, are you?”
“I was thinking about it, you know, for the leftovers.” I glanced at the plastic-wrapped plucked and skinned bird sweating on the counter. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea after all.”
Mrs. Levinson eyed my items. “The heat from the oven is going to turn your house into a sauna.” She picked the chicken up and set it to the side. “Larry! You got any of those roasters left from the bridal luncheon?” Silence. “Larry, you hear me?”
“Gimme a minute,” he yelled from the storeroom in the gravelly voice of a man who’d spent the majority of his life smoking cigarettes.
“You don’t have to do that—” I began.
Mrs. Levinson shushed me. “It’s not a problem, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.” She ambled off, everything about her rustling. The only sound left after a while was the talk in Russian coming from the radio she kept on the counter.
The bell over the door jangled as it swung open and shut, and my heart swooped and dipped. Handel Davies walked in and made an immediate left down the first aisle. Talk between the Levinsons floated out of the storeroom and mingled with the Russian words swirling around up front. The potatoes and onions I’d set next to the register were staring at me. My entire body had gone still, as though it were waiting for something to happen. Goose bumps covered my bare arms and legs, and I longed for something more substantial than a tiny sundress to hide my skin. A shiver traveled up my spine, and my body shook off the unease creeping over it.
Footsteps behind me—slow, sure—tapped their way from the wall-sized fridge holding milk and yogurt and soda at the back of the store. I wished for Mrs. Levinson’s reappearance, or maybe I wished it away.
There was the faintest sound of breathing.
“Jane,” Handel said with that laugh of his.
My name from his mouth a third time.
I turned a little, but only just. Enough so there was the sway of long dark hair and the display of my profile. “I saw you come in,” I said.
Bold, I know.
Handel stepped to the side so he could better see my face. “I saw you, too.”
I looked at him, all six feet of him, Irish skin and blond hair, thick and long. His eyes, too dark on someone with such fair coloring. I smiled then, just a small one. Didn’t say anything, though.
There came the sound of rustling again. Mrs. Levinson ambling along, returning to the register to break the strange spell that had fallen over the front of her store, and with a roast chicken of all things. “Here you go, sweetheart,” she was saying, the tip of the kerchief tied over her hair flapping with every step. “Saves you the trouble of cooking it yourself, all right?” The chicken thunked onto the counter. “It’s too hot today.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Levinson. Really, thanks so much,” I said. She rang everything up. Money exchanged hands. A bag was passed over the counter, and I took it. In a flash I was saying, “See you later,” about to head out the door, a quick “Bye,” to Handel, like it wasn’t a big deal we’d been exchanging words when of course it was.
Before the door closed behind me, I caught another few of those Handel words.
“A pack of Marlboros, Mrs. Levinson.”
I set the bag of groceries on a bench outside and found a ponytail holder to tie up my hair. Get it off my neck.
Was I stalling? Waiting?
Maybe.
Fishermen congregated on the docks, taking a break, some of the Sweeney boys among them. Old Mr. O’Connell and his sons. The smell of salt and seaweed and ocean pressed into the heat, pressed into all of us. We were tender with the newness of summer. Raw.
Mr. O’Connell put up his hand in a wave.
I waved back. Slipped the bag over my arm again.
“You headed home?” Handel appeared next to me, cigarette dangling from his lips. He took it out of his mouth, and a stream of smoke followed.
“How can you smoke in this weather?” I asked.
“Habit.” He took another drag. “I’ll walk you partway.”
I nodded toward the docks. “You don’t have to work?”
“They’ll live without me awhile.”
“All right,” I agreed, and suddenly there I was, walking down the street, Handel Davies at my side, like he already knew where I lived and maybe he did. We passed the neighborhood gossips sitting on their front stoops along the way. Old Irish ladies and old Italian ladies. Old Eastern European ladies, too. Their mouths grew hushed as they watched us go by. Then they went to work again afterward. Clocked some overtime.
There’s Jane Calvetti with the youngest Davies boy, I heard one of them say. I thought she was going out with that nice Seamus McCormick. The smart one. People were always guessing I was dating Seamus, but they were always wrong. That Davies family is bad news. Always in trouble.
“Is that your dinner?” Handel asked after a long silence, still puffing on his cigarette. He nodded at the bag in my hand.
“It is,” I said, blinking in the bright light. Tossed my ponytail.
“For your family?”
“My mom and me,” I said. “Just my mom and me,” I added.
A pause. Then, “Yeah, I read about that.”
“Yeah, I bet,” I said. It was in all the papers.
Another long pause.
“I should probably get back,” Handel said next.
What he didn’t say was sorry about your father, and this was a relief.
I stopped—we both did. We’d gone five blocks, and I only had another two left. Handel had walked me more than partway. “Okay. See you around,” I said without ceremony. Tried not to stare at him but failed. I suddenly wanted to get up on my toes, lean closer, and kiss Handel’s lips. It was the way he watched me that made me want this, I think.
Handel took another drag of that cigarette. Those black eyes of his holding me there for the second time in my life. So many firsts, seconds, and thirds for Handel and me in such a short period of time.
Then, a question from Handel. “Can I see you tomorrow? On purpose?”
“Okay,” I said. Bit back a smile. “Yes.”
He watched my face. Smiled a little, too. “I’ll come by your house.”
Something in me resisted this. “I could meet you at the docks.”
“I’d rather pick you up.”
I laughed, nervous. “All right. If you insist. My house is—”
“I know where your house is.”
“You do,” I stated. Somehow I’d already known this. Accepted it without question or concern.
He nodded. “Eight?”
“Eight.”
“See you tomorrow, Jane,” Handel said.
My name a fourth time.
I would have to stop counting soon. Not yet, though.
“See you tomorrow, Handel,” I said.
Then he was turning and walking back the way he came, and I was continuing on the way we’d been going, my mind a whirl.
Tammy and Bridget were going to die.
I had a date with Handel Davies.
Michaela, well, she was going to disapprove.
But I didn’t care.
Ever since that night in February, I’d wanted my luck to change, and my luck was going to change with Handel Davies. I knew it would be with him. I knew even then. I just didn’t know how, and at the time, it didn’t cross my mind that sometimes luck could be bad.