Текст книги "Her Name Is Rose: A Novel"

Автор книги: Christine Breen

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Six

Iris had never been across the Atlantic. When she arrived into Boston’s Logan Airport at four on Thursday afternoon after an eight-hour flight from Shannon, she was travel weary, in a bit of a daze. So she followed the crowd through to the arrivals area where people in summer clothes looked like they knew where they were going. They seemed happy to be there. Happy to be on holiday. Happy to be home. Happy to have arrived safely. With a little trip of her heart, Iris believed that happiness belonged only to these people. Not to her. She slumped and let go of her suitcase. Gone was the confidence she’d felt walking away from the Adoption Board—a woman with a mission, doing nothing but charging forward until she would arrive in Boston and find Hilary Barrett. No distractions in between. She’d let no one know. Not Tess. Not the postman. Not the Breast Clinic. Not Rose. Especially not Rose. She expected to be back in four or five days. (She’d left enough food for Cicero in one of those plastic funnel self-feeders but, she was suddenly remembering, had neglected to reschedule her appointment with the Breast Clinic.)

In the center of the concourse the crowd she’d been following dispersed in a dozen directions. Iris stood by her suitcase and looked around. She hadn’t thought this through. Now what? Now what the hell? What the bloody hell! There, under the bold bright information kiosk, stood a young redhead. As Iris approached the counter she saw the girl was wearing a green HI! I’M KERRY nametag. She had the kind of face you see on old postcards of Ireland, the ones with donkeys in Technicolor and freckled, curly-haired children. Iris angled her suitcase against the kiosk.

The girl looked up from her work.

“Can you find me some place to stay?” Iris blurted. “I mean, please, can you help me?” She was hot and gathered up her hair to let the air-conditioned air cool the back of her neck. “I’m afraid I haven’t booked a place. It was last-minute.”

“First time to Boston?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be happy to help.” Kerry smiled. Iris noticed her teeth were straight and perfect and white. Her red hair was more auburn than Iris’s. “In the city?”

“I’d like to stay near St. Botolph Street. Is that in the city?” Iris didn’t know what size city Boston was or, foolishly, she was now realizing, how expensive. She’d already spent a fortune on the last-minute flight.

“Sure thing. St. Botolph Street? Ummm.” Kerry’s eyes squinted into the distance. After a moment she said, “Oh, right! I know where that is. I pass it all the time.” She said it with such obvious satisfaction that it made Iris smile. “I can look for a hotel around Copley Square. The Copley Plaza maybe?” Kerry leaned slightly forward and asked, “Single?”

“Single,” Iris said quietly and made her best silly middle-aged-lady face. “I don’t know what I was thinking, not booking accommodation. It really was a last-minute decision.”

The girl smiled and looked down. Her fingers padded a keyboard behind the counter while she scanned the PC’s screen. “Um … sorry. Copley’s booked. It’s the weekend.” She paused. “Like, how nice a place do you want? There are lots of great places. But, some of them are—”

“A small hotel, I think.” Iris placed her hands on the counter.

“No problem.”

“Like a B-and-B, maybe? But near St. Botolph Street,” Iris quickly added.

“A B-and-B? We don’t really have B…” Kerry thought a moment, looked at her watch, then back to Iris. “Just a sec.” She picked up the phone.

Iris’s eyes rose from her hands to Kerry’s young face. She wanted to say more. She wanted to confide in her the way one does sometimes with strangers. In fact, right then she wanted to confide to anybody who might listen. And for a few seconds she imagined walking right out into the middle of the concourse, walking into the flux of the arriving and departing, the helloing and good-byeing, and saying: “Hey. Listen. I need your help. I have to find my daughter’s mother.” But of course she didn’t, and the flow of people continued, each face carrying its own story, like worlds within worlds.

She’d kept to herself the whole flight from Shannon, flicking through her gardening magazines, and back and forth between films she didn’t really care to watch, eating and not eating, drinking a gin and tonic after takeoff and then two small bottles of pinot grigio somewhere over the mid-Atlantic when she realized she wasn’t going to be able to nap. She’d been eight hours in a silent cocoon with the name “Hilary Barrett” and the words “architectural distortion” flying around in her head. Everything was up in the air, literally—her appointment at the Breast Clinic; her promise to Luke; and just what she was going to say to Hilary Barrett when she found her. It had all been colliding silently in seat 16D for eight hours. And now, now she was desperate to talk to someone. Just that. Talk. She turned from the counter to watch the crowds negotiating the concourse, a nonstop rush of families, friends, and other strangers moving purposefully across the polished floor, and then she looked through its wide windows beyond where cottonball clouds floated above the city on the horizon.

Kerry returned and scribbled something down on a little “Welcome to Boston” pad. Her short nails were painted purple. She produced a map from below the counter and as she leaned forward, she tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “Here. Here’s a nice place,” she said quietly, looking around her and ringing the location with a pen. “She has a vacancy. A Mrs. Hale.”

“Thank you.”

“But I have to tell you…” She lowered her voice even more. “She’s not registered, exactly. Not like, officially. But I know her. She’s a bit, um … she’s really nice. I think you’ll like her.” She looked at Iris, quizzically, as if to see that she understood.

But Iris’s eyes were scrambling over the map to see how close this was to St. Botolph Street.

“Okay. That sounds okay.”

“Good.” Kerry smiled. “See here? This is the T stop, just a few blocks away.” She outlined with her pen. “You can walk from the T to here, and then, here.”

“The T?” Iris flagged her hair against the back of her neck and wondered for a second if jet lag made you hotter.

“Public transport. It’s called the T.” She laughed. “You can take it straight there. I’ve done it many times. Or you can take a taxi. But it’s Friday. Rush hour, you know.”

“Is it far?”

“On the T? No. And it’s a lot cheaper. Don’t worry. I know Mrs. Hale. She’s my mother’s friend. They play tennis together over near Berklee.”

“What’s Berklee?”

“Berklee College. It’s near the South End. Near St. Botolph Street. Where you’re going. Look. You take the Silver Line”—Kerry indicated with a wave of her arm across the concourse in the direction of the T—“to Newton Street Station. Then walk here. Where St. Botolph Street is.” She circled it, too. “Very close.” She handed over the map but Iris didn’t want to move away from the information booth.

“Thank you. Kerry.”

As if sensing the lady in front of her wanted something more, Kerry said, “Are you Irish?”

“Yes.” Iris’s face brightened.

“Me, too! My grandmother’s from County Kerry.” She pointed to the name tag. “That’s how I got my name.” Her Boston accent was now, Iris noted, heavily pronounced with its missing Rs. “One day I hope to get over there.”

This brief recognition was just what Iris needed, one tiny connection to inch her along. She nodded. “I hope you do. And thank you so much for your help.” She smiled as genuinely as she could and grabbed the handle of her bag and headed toward the Silver Line, leaving the girl at the counter dreaming, probably, about the day she would return to the birthplace of her grandmother in the Kingdom of Kerry. Midway across the concourse, Iris turned to wave back but the crowd was already whirring between them.

*   *   *

Mrs. Hale’s was only a few blocks from the station stop but with each step—pulling a resistant brown suitcase whose wheels seemed to have swollen in the heat—Iris withered. She stopped on a corner and looked up. Tremont and West Newton. My God, it was hot. Heat rose from the sidewalk and channeled through her feet up to the top of her head.

It was commuter time. People passed around her. Well-dressed women in running shoes and men with suit jackets off, their ties loose around their necks. She fanned herself with the map and walked toward the shade under what looked like maple trees. She rested a few moments. Through the canopy of green she looked up at the blue sky. In the middle of a puzzle, the pieces will fit somewhere. Trust. White in, gray out. Water up, fire down. She steadied, went another block, and arrived at the steps of a redbrick building with a fancy wooden sign: HALE 116.

She rang the bell, and after a few moments a middle-aged woman with a shock of cropped golden-white hair and the reddest-painted lips opened the door. She was a good few years older than Iris.

“Oh, hello!” the woman beamed. “Come in. Come in. Hot out there, huh? Yes. The heat is just gruesome today. We’re having a heat wave. Right?” It was like she was giddy with it. Iris stepped in. Air like a cool breeze rushed toward her.

“Mrs. Bowen, yes? Have I got it right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Grace Hale.” She offered her hand. “Not up for this heat, are we? Not even we Bostonians are. And golly, look what you’re wearing. You must be ready for a tall glass of lemonade. Or something.”

Iris took Grace’s hand, which was cold, and said, “That would be lovely. Thank you.”

“Here, let me take that,” the woman said, beginning to reach for Iris’s bag, then shouting, “Billy?” She seemed as if she was either just coming in or just going out. Pink seahorses rode in the white of her knee-length shorts and the pink socks she wore peeked above her white tennis shoes. Mrs. Hale called down the cool hallway, “Billy? Billy!?” and turned back to Iris, who was still holding her bag. “Oh, leave your bag. Billy, my helper, will bring it up. Eventually.” She led farther along the hallway, past framed prints of landscapes and city scenes that hung on green-painted walls.

Mrs. Hale explained that she’d had a phone call from Kerry and was happy to let out the room. “It’s a little arrangement Kerry and I have.” Iris followed her up two flights of old wooden stairs and into a small room with wallpaper patterned with bird boxes. “Kerry only sends me special people.” The bed was tidily made up with linen pillowcases and a dresser held a small pile of books and brochures. “I’m not exactly registered with the tourist board, you know.” Everything in the room was wooden except for a soft leather armchair. “Maybe next year I’ll apply for my license.”

“I’m very grateful,” Iris said, feeling she should say something, but now wondering if she should have declined Kerry’s booking and found a Best Western or something.

At the window Grace Hale moved the voile curtain aside and said, “It’s not much to look at, but you’ll be glad because this corner is nice and quiet in the morning.”

“I’m not here for the view.”

Grace Hale didn’t follow up; she just smiled. “You’ll find everything you want.” Grace’s round eyes opened wider and she scanned the room, nodding to herself as if ticking off a mental checklist: fresh towels, a bar of soap, bottled water, and a drinking glass. It was all there. “And now, what about a bite to eat? You must be starved. Right? I mean, what time is it? I can bring you up a light supper and something to drink.”

“Really? If it isn’t too much trouble,” Iris said, thinking how she’d love a glass of that lemonade she’d been offered at the door. “Thank you.”

“Gosh. Not at all. I couldn’t send you out into this heat.” Grace Hale leaned slightly out the door. “Billy?” she called down the stairs, then turned back to Iris. “Lemonade? Or … something stronger?”

Iris paused. She was unable to match this woman’s energy and before she could reply, Grace laughed. “I’m famous for my chicken sandwiches. Wouldn’t that be nice? Yes? Toasted?” She spoke quickly, as if used to one-sided dialogues. “I’ll get that and I’ll leave you now, unless there’s something else—”

Of course there was something else. “No. That would be wonderful. Thank you, Mrs. Hale.”

Grace stood a moment longer. “It used to be Mrs. Hale,” she said “but my husband, Bob, died a while ago.” There was a tiny puckering around the corners of her eyes then, a little resigned upturn on her lips, as if it was a story she was finally able to tell without crying. “Please, call me Grace.”

*   *   *

A young man with black hair and a black T-shirt and khakis finally appeared with Iris’s suitcase. “Hi, I’m Billy. Welcome to Boston. If you need anything I’m usually downstairs. I’m helping Grace out—” He was about to say more when they both heard Grace calling “Billy!” from below, and he shrugged and said “That’s me,” and headed off down to her at a saunter. “Coming, Mrs. Hale.”

Iris closed the wooden door, stood a few moments feeling at a loss, then unpacked. And as if she needed evidence that she had made her decision to come too rashly, here it was: no nightgown and too many cardigans. Three. “Well done, Iris. If they get a sudden freeze, you’ll be fine.” She pulled aside the curtain and looked down into an alleyway, listening to the sounds, inside and out, of the early evening. A soft whir of traffic hummed. Someone walked by her door outside. The floors creaked. A vent above the door to the bathroom made a hissing noise, but Iris didn’t mind. She was glad of the cool air. She checked the bathroom and was grateful to see a tub. A white cotton bathrobe hung on a hanger on the back door. It was belted at the empty waist. She could sleep in that.

At the airport there was no phone service. Here, too, her old phone said “no service,” but yet her battery was half-full. She walked around the room with it held out as if to catch signals. Then suddenly, like a pulsing in her heart, she thought of Rose in London. Was it wrong she hadn’t told her? Of course it was. But I’ll be back in a couple of days. But I still should have told her something. And ruin her practicing for her master class? No. No. This was right. This is what a mother does. Get it done. And get back. Carry on. Make no fuss. You don’t want to ruin everything. Rose would be in her own world practicing like mad anyway. She had an important master class next week. She wouldn’t be in touch. She was like that. She needed her own space and she’d be coming home soon for a short holiday anyway. Best to say nothing. Just get it done. I’ll buy a phone card, she thought, and phone Tess and the clinic.

There was a knock at the door and Iris opened it to see Grace—now in a cream muumuu with a thick leather belt girdling her waist. On her wrist was a square, gold bangle. “Toasted chicken sandwich with lettuce. Potato chips. A pot of tea. And a half bottle of red. How’s that? Nice, right?” She laid the tray down on the desk.

“Very nice.” There was no sign of lemonade.

“And just what the doctor ordered,” Grace said, stepping backward to the door and lingering there. She straightened her belt and looked at Iris a moment. Iris wasn’t sure if she was expected to taste the famous chicken sandwich right then and there. Grace didn’t stir.

“Will you join me in a glass?” Iris said at last. She didn’t really know why she’d said it; she was tired and hungry and needed to gather herself for the morning’s mission of tracking down Hilary. But then it seemed inviting Grace in was the right thing to do, and Iris liked to do things that were right. Because here was a woman like herself, although a decade older. Widows in arms. A sort of ally, Iris thought.

“Well, yes, that might be fun!” Grace’s eyes broadened. “Yes! I’ll be right back,” she said and scooted down the stairs. Moments later, with a second glass and a full bottle in her hands, Grace reappeared. “Here we go.” She unscrewed the top and poured the glasses. “You save this one for later.” She placed the unopened half bottle on the bureau, then pulled the chair around from the desk and settled, somewhat ungracefully, down onto it. She sat only a moment. “Grace Hale, where are your manners?” She popped up. “You sit here. You have your supper at the desk … and…” She hesitated. “I’ll sit there.” She indicated the leather armchair and thumped down again, dislodging a cushion embroidered with a tennis ball and racket.

Iris angled the chair at the desk and sat facing Grace. She began to eat the sandwich, but thinking now—what unusual accommodation Kerry the redhead from the information kiosk had booked her.

“This was Bob’s chair.” Grace said quietly, and she picked up the cushion that had fallen, hugged it for a moment, then tucked it back behind her. “Five years and I’m still getting used to his not being here.” She looked at Iris. “Do you know what I mean?” But before Iris could answer that yes, she did know, she did understand, that her Luke was gone, too, Grace went on. “Bob was in investments. What I don’t know about derivatives and hedge funds, and options and futures!” She laughed and patted her knee with her free hand in a manly way as if Bob’s gestures came with inhabiting his chair. In between quick swallows of wine she told Iris how Bob would come home in the evenings and spill out all the office politics and whatnot and how she listened to him like it was the most important thing in the world. How on weekends they played tennis together in the park and, having no children themselves, they had traveled to see their nieces and nephews. Before he died they’d taken a cruise to Alaska and seen the bear and the salmon.

“Bob was my world,” she said, and turned toward the open door, and Iris got the feeling Grace expected Bob would somehow appear. When Iris had finished her sandwich and emptied her glass, Grace sprung up and refilled it.

“I’ll take this away,” she said and removed the tray to the hallway. “The tea’s cold, I’m afraid. Would you like another?”

“No. That’s fine. Wine’s good.” Iris felt a slight lift, as if she were delicately floating.

“I’m afraid I’ve drunk more than my share,” Grace said, sitting down. “Ever since Bob died I’ve had trouble sleeping, although I don’t know why. He was such a snorer! Now I find a few small glasses help me sleep.” She paused, sinking further into Bob’s chair. “Sometimes he slept in this room, when he had to get up early. So as not to wake me.”

The memory of it took her away into a quietness that Iris welcomed. She calculated what time it must be in Ireland. After midnight. She looked over the travel brochures on the desk and fingered Kerry’s map of the South End. She glanced at Grace, who seemed like she might fall asleep at any moment. Then Billy appeared, and seeing that Grace looked about to doze, knocked sharply on the open door.

“You’re wanted downstairs, Mrs. Hale.” He looked at Iris with a knowing smile.

“What? What?” Grace stirred.

“Downstairs. Hector.”

“Right,” she said, rising quickly. “I’ll be there in a minute.” She straightened up, looked in the mirror, then turned to Iris and said, “Well, that was perfectly lovely.” At the door she paused. “How lovely to meet you.”

*   *   *

The sun through the thin curtains woke Iris at nine. It was later than she’d intended, but she’d slept poorly in the early part of the morning and dozed off and on all night. Her eyes opened on the map of the South End that lay on the desk beside the bed. St. Botolph Street was marked in blue ink. She was dying for a cup of tea. She looked around the room again. Not like Ireland, she thought. No kettle in sight. She might ask Billy for one. She showered quickly and dressed in the only “nice” outfit she’d packed, a periwinkle blue linen sleeveless that Tess had bought with her one day.

“Get something Rose would be surprised to see you in,” Tess had said. “Instead of those ratty blue jeans and Luke’s old shirt.” They’d chosen the linen dress because it was the kind of thing she could dress up or down, with heels or sandals. She chose the black sandals. She hadn’t worn a dress in so long, she felt uncomfortable in it. She’d folded it carefully between tissue paper but that hadn’t prevented it wrinkling. Oh, hell. She tugged at it as best she could. Looking at herself in the mirror now as she was ready to go downstairs, she felt acutely like an imposter. (What does one wear when meeting the woman who birthed your child?) She sat down on the edge of the bed and took off the sandals and put on the heels. She wanted to look smart meeting Hilary Barrett. She wanted to look like she’d measured up to the mother Hilary had probably hoped for when she gave her baby over to the adoption agency all those years ago. She tried to think about what she was wearing that day, but she couldn’t remember.

Would Hilary remember her?

In the breakfast room another guest was already sitting, a tanned man in a Hawaiian-like shirt, who sat in the corner by himself. He looked to be in his mid-forties. Iris sat down near the window at the only other table for two. She’d prepared a friendly smile to offer as she passed, but he didn’t look up. His straight back was leaned forward, his head fixed over the table. His unfinished plate had been pushed aside. He was writing something. He mustn’t have heard her, she thought. Then a sound, like a low humming, haphazard in rhythm, reached her and she looked over. It was coming from him. A low music somewhere inside him was humming and he was moving his head to its rhythm.

“Good morning, Mrs. Bowen.” Billy had startled her and she looked up. He’d come in without her noticing. “Mrs. Hale says she hopes you slept well.”

“You can tell her, thank you, yes,” she said in a quiet voice. She kept her eyes on the man in the blue and green and white shirt.

The humming continued.

“Coffee. Or … would you like tea?” Billy asked, taking no notice of the guest in the corner. “Mrs. Hale says you might prefer tea.”

“Tea would be lovely. Yes,” she almost whispered.

“Coming right up.” He turned. “Morning, Hector,” Billy breezed past him, but the man made no acknowledgment except a slight nod of his head.

Letting the fall of her hair curtain her face, Iris glanced at the humming man, who was now making small circles in the air with his long-fingered hands, like butterfly wings fluttering. His lips were moving bap bap bap bap. He looked up and stared at her blankly, then returned his attention to his writing.

“Where are you off to today?” Billy was back with the tea and toast.

“I haven’t quite decided,” she replied quickly.

“If I may suggest?”

“Yes?”

“If you haven’t seen the Mapparium, then you should go. Just around the corner, across Huntington.”

“Mapparium?” She pretended to be interested.

“Yeah, it’s awesome. It’s like … it’s hard to explain actually. It’s a giant walk-through globe with a map of the world painted on glass. Inside out, like. Like you’re in the middle of the earth looking out. Really cool. The acoustics are unreal, and—”

From butterfly hands came a groan. “Hey, Billy, pipe down, can you? I need to finish this.” The man hadn’t looked up.

“Yeah, sure, Hector. Sorry, man.” Billy moved so he was masking the tall man from Iris’s view. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged and lowered his voice a notch. “Anyway. It’s three stories high and there’s over six hundred glass panels held together and they’re individually lit from behind. And there’s a glass bridge, midway though the earth, that takes you across from one side to the other and—”

“It’s the world as it was in 1934,” said Hector. He stood up then and strode from the room in a kind of whoosh, but not before first looking directly at Iris, then back to Billy. “And don’t forget to say it’s a whispering gallery.” Whoosh. He was out the front room. Bang. He was passing in the street below the window, striding away, his fair hair like wings beating behind his ears.

“Was it something we said?” Iris said, trying to make light of what was feeling to her like an awkward situation.

“Don’t worry about it. Sometimes he’s like that, Professor Sherr. He’s a real good friend of Mrs. Hale’s. He’s Californian. He stays here a few times a year. He can be really nice, when he’s not composing.”

“A musician?”

“Yeah. He’s playing tonight at the park.” Billy pointed through the room and out the window. “Jazz.”

Iris felt her face blush for no reason at all. Billy kept chatting and he told her he was helping Grace out while she took in a few guests over the summer. He told her he was a sophomore at Boston University, hoping to major in computers. “I’m a bit of a computer geek,” he said.

“So, you’re about my daughter’s age, then?”

“Twenty in September. Twenty-ninth.”

“My daughter’s going to be nineteen at the end of the month.”

*   *   *

Iris didn’t wait for Billy to return with the brochure on the Mapparium that he’d proposed to get. Instead she went up to her room to change her shoes again and brush her hair. She looked at herself one long moment. Will she remember me? A few minutes later, map in hand, she left the guesthouse and walked in the direction of St. Botolph Street. The day was already hot. Iris passed alongside a long expanse of iron railings that enclosed a park. Children’s voices rang in the near distance. Redbrick townhouses, like Mrs. Hale’s, with double wooden doors and bowed windows with lead glass lined the other side of the street.

Would Rose have come from a house like this?

Would she have played in this park?

Would she have loved growing up here?

Anxiety, which had been briefly diverted by the Hawaiian-shirted man, returned. Her breath quickened and her chest hurt. What was she was going to say to Hilary Barrett when she found her? She’d been operating on gut instinct and her usual impulsiveness, but had she really thought it through? No. Of course not. Of course you didn’t, Iris. For a moment she wished she could beam herself home and wake up, relieved, as if from a bad dream. But there was too much at stake; she’d come too far to turn back now. At the end of the park, an almost paralytic terror gripped her.

I am keeping my promise, Luke.

At the intersection of West Newton and St. Botolph, a three-story building spanned the corner, curving with it. It was unlike the other buildings on the street. This one was a bit more elegant, with a kind of turret at its corner capped with lead. Iris walked across the street, closer to it and looked up at its doors, which stood at the top of a set of brick steps.

99 St. Botolph Street.

These numbers were etched in a glass panel above its black frame. If this is the place, nothing about it said it could be the home of Rose’s birth mother. It might have—once upon a time—housed apartments, maybe, but what Iris now saw as she stood fixed to the sidewalk was not someone’s “home.”

Iris climbed the steps to the door and knocked.

Nothing.

She knocked again.

Nothing again. No one came to answer the door.

She turned around and half slumped her back against the door. A surge of heat rushed to her chest and face. She tugged on the neckline of her dress and felt perspiration gathering in the folds of her skin. How could 99 St. Botolph Street be the home of Hilary Barrett?

It was a restaurant.

After a few moments she went down the steps and crossed the street. She walked dazed, an ache in her heart, a kind of numbness buffering the pain of her thoughts. She turned abruptly and came back. There was a fruit and vegetable stand outside a small shop called Megaira’s Market. Botolph’s was across the way. She stepped into the market and, feeling conspicuous, took up a Boston Globe from the stack of newspapers just inside the front door. She looked back toward the restaurant, peering through stacked shelves of cans of tomatoes and lentils and jars of stuffed cabbage leaves and boxes of rice. A stoic-looking lady with small dark eyes and gray hair, standing inside behind the counter, snapped at her.

“You want that paper?”

“Sorry?”

“Globe’s two dollars. You want it?”

Iris crossed to the counter and stood for a moment in the whir of a fan.

“They’re not open,” the woman said, opening the till.

Iris looked at her questioningly.

“Botolph’s, not open until lunchtime.”

Iris smiled weakly. “Oh.”

“Where you from?”

“Ireland. I’m Irish.”

“Ireland? Never been. I always wanted to visit places where foreign languages were spoken.”

Iris didn’t know what to say to that, although she could have said, The world feels like it’s speaking a foreign language today and I don’t understand.

From her post at the checkout the woman eyed Iris but as Iris met her gaze directly, something in the old woman lightened.

“You looking maybe for a place to eat?”

“No, thanks.” Iris put her things down and opened her purse.

“Looking for a job? Maybe you got an interview or something. You meeting someone?”

“No.”

“None of my business, then,” the woman said, this time sounding cross.

Iris was about to pay when she spotted some postcards of an urban garden. “I’ll take these, too, please.”

“Titus Sparrow Park.”

“How much are they?”

“Six for five.”

“Unusual name,” Iris said.

“It’s Greek,” the woman said and shuffled along behind the counter and made a noise that sounded like spitting.

“No, sorry. I meant … I meant Titus Sparrow.”

A noise behind Iris got her attention. And then a voice. “Don’t pay any attention to Mrs. Kostas … often cranky midweek.” An elderly man in a red baseball cap had come just inside the door, half inside, half out. “Isn’t that right, Megaira?”

“Ah, áfisé her ísihi!” She took a ten-dollar bill from Iris and placed the postcards on top of the newspaper.

“You got that right, though, ma’am.” The man smiled. “It’s an unusual name, but a nice name.” He glanced at Megaira. “And TSP’s got a nice long history, too. Titus wasn’t a bird, a sparrow, you know. He was a great man. And once upon a time, before the park was named after him—in honor of his teaching tennis to poor kids—Salvation Army had a home for unwed mothers and—”

“Hey, Amos, old man … you want something?” Megaira interrupted.

“Just the Globe today, Megaira. Read about my Sox beating Baltimore.”