Again the whistle buoy sounded. Emma liked the buoy’s noise, though she wouldn’t have said so to Mrs. Cohn. It put her in mind of the malt-house horn in Banagher, and of her own old innocence, as a girl. Eimhear.
“I’d like to see the harbor,” she said.
Josiah’s arms began again to lift and pull. The oars banged in the rusted locks, his knees knocked into Emma’s, the boat clanged miserably on. But why, he thought, should he be so unhappy? He didn’t used to be unhappy, and now, by all accounts, he should be happier than he’d been then. He knew the map of Cape Ann by heart. He had two of his own, one on the wall outside his and Susannah’s bedroom, and another—showing the names of roads and streets—that he kept in the glove compartment of his Duesenberg. He knew where Bayview became Lanesville and where Lanesville became Folly Cove, knew which kinds of people lived on which streets, knew about the hermits and witches supposedly living up in Dogtown, knew Magnolia from West Parish, knew where the prostitutes were and how to make a phone call, knew the view from the bell tower atop City Hall. Soon, if all went as planned, he would have his own office in the room beneath the tower. His men at the quarry (except for Sam Turpa, he hoped) would probably vote for Fiumara, even the ones who weren’t Italian—to them it was a vote for Sacco and Vanzetti, a vote for themselves—but his men did not matter in the big picture. Josiah would still win. Susannah was pregnant. He might be a father. A father and a mayor, writing a check to dredge the cut, which was officially known as Blynman Canal. Josiah knew this, too, because Caleb had made the annual and entirely uncontroversial dredging of the Blynman a centerpiece of Josiah’s platform.
Caleb had written Josiah’s speech in the end, after Josiah admitted the night before he was supposed to make it that he had written nothing at all. (He would never show anyone that first sentence.) The speech was good, Josiah thought, but giving it had made him feel ridiculous, like a character in costume, the upright one that speechified about canals and temperance while his other one, the down-low one who wheeled and dealed in his office, went on undermining everything this one had to say.
This, he supposed, was maybe part of why he was unhappy. But nobody seemed to notice. Even his father believed in Josiah For Mayor. Josiah had gone to him back when Caleb first proposed the idea, had worn to his father’s shop the suit Susannah had bought him on her last trip to Boston, and his camel and white two-tone brogues, still stiff from the box. Some part of him must have meant to offend his father, ply his insecurities, incite his judgment and gall, so that Josiah would not have to feel any of this himself. He expected his father to rant about the vileness of elected officials. But Giles Story was not himself that day, or else he had changed. He was smitten by the notion of seeing the name “Story” on campaign signs all over town. He especially liked the idea of seeing it added to the company billboard out on Washington Street, which he was sure would happen if Josiah won his campaign. STANTON & STORY GRANITE COMPANY. Giles went straight to the shop telephone—he was usually stingy with the telephone—and rang a friend who made signs.
And so. Josiah ran for mayor. He tried for fatherhood. He rowed.
“How are the children?” he asked, to ask something. Emma didn’t answer. He considered asking why her husband had been off “fishing” for nearly two months now, when the longest ice could last in a hold was two or three weeks. Or maybe he would tell her how her daughter, the different, dark one, was working at the quarry dressed up as a boy, and how Josiah had seen through her disguise right away but hadn’t said a thing, and wouldn’t—he was that magnanimous! Maybe then Emma would forgive him.
Or not. She was looking at him now, harshly. She asked, “Have I been of use to you, Mr. Story?”
“I wish you would stop calling me that.”
“I know. Have I?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Has Beatrice Cohn agreed to endorse you?”
“She’s working on a speech. I thought I’d told you.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
She chewed her lip with her big front teeth. He loved to lick those teeth, just as he’d known he would the first time they met. Josiah stopped rowing. He heard the roil of the cut now. He had forgotten that, too, the river’s agitation as it squeezed between the stone walls, how it churned with square waves, how a boat could jump and slide in the narrow passage. He rested the oars on the gunwales, hung his head on his neck. The tide began to push them back.
“You’re afraid,” Emma said. Her tone was gentler now—not accusatory but matter of fact.