“It’s not particularly soft but it’ll do the trick,” he said, wrapping the canvas, which was as big as a tent, around her shoulders.
“Thank you.”
“Come over here where it’s dry,” Stuart said, leading her toward the rear of the pool deck where the roofline of the hotel created a small overhang—no more than a foot or two in depth. Anna offered him a portion of the canvas, which he draped around his own shoulders. The pair leaned together, pulling the canvas around themselves, and watched the rain come down.
“How are things going with your parents?” said Stuart. “Isaac says not so good.”
Anna scrunched up her nose. “Isaac?”
“He’s probably not a very reliable source?” Stuart said with a laugh.
She shook her head, pulled the canvas a little closer. “Actually, their prospects seem better.”
“Oh?”
“We’ve got two extra letters now, besides Joseph’s. And Joseph was very generous and started an account at the Boardwalk National Bank for them, so I think that will help.”
So that’s what Joseph had done with the check on the afternoon they’d returned from Atlantic Highlands. Put the money in an account in Anna’s parents’ name. He was a good man. “That’s great news, Anna.”
She looked up at Stuart then, her face as open and effervescent as he’d ever seen it. He liked the idea that Florence’s death, her failure to do the one thing she’d ever wanted, was making it possible for Anna’s family to be reunited. He thought Florence would have liked it, too.
They stood in silence for several long and quiet minutes. Finally, Stuart broke the spell. “I guess we could go inside. I might be able to find us some robes.”
“This is nice,” was all Anna said but it was enough to make him stay right where he was.
Stuart could hear Mrs. Tate’s heavy footfalls on the stairs that led up to his room. His landlady was a large woman, with fat feet and swollen ankles, and it was rare for her to take the stairs at all, let alone all the way to the boardinghouse’s third floor. The wood risers groaned under her weight, and—as if in response—Mrs. Tate did as well.
The sound caused Stuart to sit up in bed, rub his eyes, and look around for a shirt. He had begun to dig through a pile of dirty clothes when he heard the knock at his door.
“Mr. Williams?” On the other side of the door, Mrs. Tate was doing her best to catch her breath.
“One minute.” Stuart spied a sweater and pulled it over his head.
“You have a package.”
Odd, Stuart thought. Mrs. Tate usually left all mail—packages included—on the table under the stairs. In the three years he’d lived here, how many times had he overheard her telling a tenant that she wasn’t the Pony Express? A dozen times? More?
“You didn’t have to come all the way up,” he said as he opened the door but, when he saw the package in her hand, he knew why she had made the trip.
It was one of The Covington’s gift boxes—the kind that they used in the shop on the first floor, purple with gold lettering foil stamped on the lid—and she had to be curious as to its contents, not to mention the lineage of her third-floor tenant. She handed it to him.
“This didn’t come via post?” Stuart asked, already knowing it hadn’t.
“A nice man in a fancy jacket dropped it off for you.”
Wilson, probably. “Was the man bald, with a dark mustache?”
“No,” she said. “Sandy-colored hair, a clean-shaven face. He was a very sharp dresser.”
The description matched that of his father but that couldn’t be right. Stuart’s father was most definitely not in the business of delivering his own packages.
“Well, thanks,” said Stuart, moving to close the door.
“You’re not going to open it?” she asked, letting her curiosity get the better of her.
Stuart felt bad for Mrs. Tate, bad for anyone who lived vicariously through people she barely knew. “It’s probably just a shirt.”
Mrs. Tate didn’t move an inch. Stuart had no idea what was in the box, but it seemed he would have no choice but to open it with Mrs. Tate as witness. He tucked the box against his body so that he might use a free hand to wiggle the lid up and off. When he had freed it, he looked behind him for a place to put it but Mrs. Tate was quicker than that. “I’ll hold it for you,” she said, her hand already extended.
Whatever it was was wrapped in a layer of The Covington’s custom-printed tissue paper—white with small interlocking Cs. A notecard, snug in its envelope, sat on top of the paper, and Stuart held it aside.
“What’s the occasion?” Mrs. Tate asked as Stuart pulled aside the paper but he didn’t answer. He’d seen enough.
“No occasion—just something being returned to me,” he said, grabbing the lid back from his landlady before she could argue. “Thanks so much for delivering it.”
Mrs. Tate looked crestfallen, though how much was related to the fact that she would never know the contents of the box and how much was related to the fact that she now had two flights of stairs to travel to get back to her apartment, Stuart didn’t know.
Stuart waited for her to turn toward the stairs before softly closing the door behind her. Alone in his room, he tossed the box onto his bed and tore open the note, which was written on his father’s stationery—John F. Williams engraved across the top.
Stuart,
Your friend left this behind yesterday evening. I thought she might want it back.
As ever,
Your Father
P.S. Next time, I’d urge you to keep the covers on the chaise lounges. The frames are made of Teak, which doesn’t hold up well in the rain.
Inside the box was Anna’s pink cardigan, professionally laundered, pressed, and folded. Stuart would have liked to have thrown the box against the bedroom’s far wall but
