Chapter 5 - The Night of the Second Table
By seven that evening, the second table was crowded with chipped mugs and people who had come with their own questions. Leah had put the newspaper in the center, faceup. Mae wanted to tear it in half. Odessa wanted to write corrections in red pen. Joy, whose night shift began in two hours, wanted to know whether the building would still have a working roof when she came home.
“Joy first,” Leah said. “The newspaper can wait.”
Simone gave an update: the locksmith's work order had been withdrawn, but the property owner was pressing ahead with a proposed redevelopment. No one had shown the residents a legally binding relocation plan. Inspections were being arranged, and people needed to save notices and tell her about hazards rather than guessing what the law required.
“Then what's the second table for?” one of the students asked. “If we're just waiting for somebody in a suit to make a decision?”
“It used to be where my mother asked who could do what,” Leah said. “So let's ask.”
Odessa could call every household. Joy could help plan a safe temporary meal route. Mae knew the food suppliers. The students could make accessible notices in English and Spanish with help from their neighbors. Julian offered contacts for independent building assessments, explaining the conflict with his former client before anybody had to discover it later.
“And you?” Odessa asked Leah.
“I can keep records, find funding we don't have to trade our homes for, and coordinate without putting anyone's photograph on a brochure.”
“That's a start.”
The door opened. Lucia Melli stepped inside wearing a dark wool coat and the expression of someone accustomed to rooms going quiet for her. They did. She looked at the newspaper before she looked at Leah.
“I helped prepare the gala program,” Lucia said. “I came to apologize.”
Mae pulled out a chair. “You can apologize sitting down.”
Lucia sat. Leah watched her struggle with that simple instruction. At the ballroom, Lucia had seemed elegant and perfectly sure of herself. Here she appeared a little younger than her thirty-two years.
“My father told me this place had been abandoned,” she said. “I believed him because I wanted the project to succeed.”
“You saw the building at the gala address,” Joy said. “You could have come here yesterday.”
“Yes.” Lucia didn't reach for a defense. “I could have.”
“Did your father send you to make us feel better?” Odessa asked.
“He doesn't know I'm here.”
“That wasn't my question.”
Lucia sighed. “I want to limit the damage to our foundation. And I think the only way to do that is to stop pretending the damage isn't ours.”
Leah could respect an answer that admitted self-interest. She asked Lucia who had approved the language describing the building as vacant. Lucia said the redevelopment team had written it and she had signed off on the final presentation without speaking to a single resident. She also admitted that she had included Bianca's account of taking Leah in as a teenager in a donor biography. A public-relations contractor had been given access to it.
“So the newspaper's version of me came from your office,” Leah said.
“I don't know who sent it to the reporter. But I made it available, and I should never have treated your childhood as campaign material.”
The apology cost Lucia something; Leah could see that. It didn't restore the privacy she'd lost.
“Tell your father we want to meet him,” Leah said. “Not at a gala. Here, or somewhere the residents choose. With a real proposal he can explain.”
Lucia nodded. “I'll tell him.”
The lights flickered once, then held. Rain began against the front window. A drop landed on the center of the table. Mae looked up. Another drop followed, then a steady line from the ceiling seam. Chairs scraped. Joy moved her bag, and Julian called for everyone to step away from the wet electrical fixture overhead.
A loud crack sounded from an old plaster panel. Dust drifted onto the table. No one was struck, but the room froze. Mae stared at the ceiling as if an old friend had betrayed her.
“Everybody out of this room,” Leah said. “Carefully. The rear exit's clear.”
There was no stampede. The students helped Odessa. Joy guided the children downstairs from the apartments and accounted for them with their families. Mae wanted to stay behind for the soup pot until Leah took her by both shoulders.
“The soup can be made again.”
“My mother gave me that pot.”
“Then we'll get it when someone says it's safe.”
They gathered in the neighboring laundromat, whose owner, Mrs. Alvarez, held the door and brought out folding stools. Simone contacted the appropriate emergency services and building contacts. The response team restricted use of the damaged kitchen area pending assessment and advised residents about the rooms that could not safely be occupied. By midnight, several households needed temporary places to stay. Leah called the services Simone recommended, and Mae insisted that nobody be separated from their medication or left without a way to reach a relative.
Dante arrived at the laundromat in a plain coat, no entourage beyond Raphael at the curb. Leah saw him take in the children asleep on their parents' laps, the bags hastily packed with toothbrushes and chargers, the tight look on Mae's face.
“What do you need?” he asked Leah.
“Three accessible rooms tonight, maybe more. Help the housing clinic arrange them. No Raviieri publicity.”
“I'll ask what they can accept.”
He made the calls in the corner, quiet enough that he didn't turn it into a performance. Mae watched him for a moment, then nudged Leah.
“You've been angry at him all week.”
“I've had reasons.”
“You have. Doesn't mean you have to deny it when he learns something.”
At one in the morning, every displaced household had an agreed place for the night, though the repairs and longer-term arrangements remained unresolved. Leah sat on the laundromat floor beside a basket of clean towels. She was too tired to stand. Dante crouched at a respectful distance.
“Vittorio wasn't working alone,” he said.
“Is this going to make my night worse?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me.”
“The redevelopment contract has a condition. If Mercer Street is cleared by the end of the month, Melli's group gets a freight facility our company operates. I signed that agreement.”
Leah felt the sound of the dryers fade away. “You knew?”
“I knew the business condition. I accepted assurances that relocation was agreed. I didn't ask the tenants.”
May you like
She thought of Odessa carrying a sleeping child out into the rain. Of Bianca's photograph. Of an agreement signed by the man who had crossed a ballroom because Julian stood too close.
“Don't tell me you're sorry yet,” she said. “Tell me what you're going to do about your signature.”
