“And I might be flattering myself, but I like to think that, when I put my full trust in my real allies—my fellow mothers and daughters, the ones who understand life’s bloodiest battles and how to win them—I can see it all much more clearly. Both the big picture and the small one. Or, as your friend Ed Ricketts might say, both the ocean and the tide pools on its border.”
From where she was standing, she couldn’t see the sacristy, but she could hear a subdued commotion occurring inside of it: chalices clinking, robes shifting on their hangers, uneaten communion wafers being returned to their tins. There was a strange, unpleasant sort of pressure in the air, as if she were about to enter a tunnel. She turned around.
“What’s your question?”
Mrs. Agnelli broadened her smile, her nose crinkling.
“Oh, I have several. The workers he’s hired, for one thing. Not a single Sicilian—or even a Genoan—on his payroll. He’s taken in all the mongrels instead: the Japanese, the Chinese, the Portuguese, the Filipinos, the Okies, all the people that live even lower on the hill than you do. He’s even allowing them to fully unionize, which is something I’ve been fighting against for years.”
“None of that was in the contract. So it’s fully within his rights.”
“Oh goodness! You are clever! No, the real problem isn’t the people he’s hiring or the bureaucratic mess he’s allowing them to make. It’s what he’s not having them can.”
She looked beyond Mrs. Agnelli at the iron-studded front door, biting the insides of her cheeks to keep from smiling.
“You see, my most valuable property sold at a pittance. There’s an absurd surplus of product on my hands, and the biggest buyer in town refuses to buy.” She rose from the pew, the wood creaking. “And unlike you, I don’t find it particularly funny.”
“He isn’t buying from anyone else. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“That depends on who you ask.”
“I’m unclear on what you want me to do.”
The sound of a car sputtering down the street outside, the jovial hollers of someone selling ice cream or peanuts. For a moment, Mrs. Agnelli seemed pinned to the floor. Then, without warning, she was smiling and laughing, pitching forward and pulling Margot into a hug.
“I’d like you to think carefully about your own interests. And then tell me what you decide.”
Margot couldn’t see. She was in the tunnel now, and Mrs. Agnelli’s voice was bouncing against the walls and her smell was, too: warm and thick and lovely. Margot held her breath. She tried to move her body but it wouldn’t listen, so she called on her mind. Run, she told it, before it’s too late. But it was just like that first morning in the tide pools: her limbs dead with panic, the unwanted memories rapidly surfacing. The discovery of the fake paintings in the root cellar. The bestowal of the penknife. The ghost-balloon of her mother’s floating, omniscient head. But also something from much further back, from before she was of use to her father, from before she was of use to anyone. A toy made of tin and held aloft on little wheels, its mouth clattering behind her as she pulled it across terrain that was far too rough for either of them to safely navigate.
When the embrace ended, she took a step back and stared at the floor.
“My interests are the same as my father’s.”
Mrs. Agnelli waited for a second or two, lungs rattling. Then she brushed past her, footsteps weirdly silent. “Let me know when you change your mind.”
When she was gone, Margot sat down on a pew across the aisle from where Mrs. Agnelli had sat. She waited for a new noise, a new smell. She waited for the bare walls to suggest a color or a pattern. When she finally went back outside, everyone was gone except Tino, who was still standing on the church steps, just as she had left him.
“I’ll do more sketches,” she said. “But only if you’re still certain we can sell them.”
He considered this and then nodded. “You’re financing an escape, too.”
“No. The opposite.”
He frowned in confusion.
“I’m pursuing some new business,” she explained. “With Ricketts.”
His eyes brightened. “Well, then you were right before. We should start at three dollars apiece. The Woolworth’s on Alvarado will give you a discount on supplies if you purchase in bulk. I get fifteen percent of net.”
“Three seventy-five apiece. You buy supplies. Your percentage is ten.”
“Fine. But no sea creatures. Just people. Portraits on commission.”
“Come on.” She hurried down the steps. “Let’s get started.”
“Right now?” he replied.
“Yes. Unless you can give me a reason to wait.”
15