Chapter 11 - The Ashes on West Broadway
The black Maybach delivered me back to the curb of Bellamy Blooms just as the church bell struck eleven in the morning.
The South Boston air had warmed slightly, but the damp salt smell from the shipyards hung heavy over West Broadway.
On the sidewalk outside my store, a small crowd of neighbors had gathered beneath the peeling green awning.
Ruth Kaplan was there, clutching her sister Miriam’s coat, along with Mrs. Bernardi resting on her aluminum cane and Mr. Henderson with his grease-stained butcher’s apron rolled around his waist.
They had heard the sirens screaming toward the downtown hotel an hour earlier, and whispers traveled through Southie faster than the harbor mist.
When the Maybach’s door opened and I stepped out onto the asphalt in my torn, soot-stained bridal gown, the murmur instantly died.
Nobody laughed.
Nobody whispered about marrying beneath stations.
They saw the white legal folder clutched against my ribs and the iron set of my jaw, and they stepped back to give me a clear path to the door.
“June?” Ruth asked, her hand fluttering to her collar.
“The police cars down on Atlantic Avenue... was that about Graham?”
“Graham is in county custody, Ruth,” I said, my voice echoing clearly down the block.
“The wedding is over, the fraud is dismantled, and Bellamy Blooms is opening for business.”
Mr. Henderson let out a low, gravelly whistle, shaking his bald head.
“That bastard had snake eyes from the day he set foot on this sidewalk.”
“He’s done, Mr. Henderson,” I answered, pushing the brass key into the door lock.
With a firm upward jerk that I knew by heart, the cylinder turned and the brass chime rang out with clean, ringing certainty.
I turned back on the threshold to face the eight people standing on the sidewalk.
“Give me twenty minutes to change out of this polyester,” I told them, the first genuine smile in forty-eight hours touching my lips.
“Then I have five flats of fresh autumn mums coming off the wholesale truck that need arranging.”
I stepped inside, locked the door behind me, and walked straight through the dark floral shop into the tiny apartment above the back workroom.
In the small bathroom with the clawfoot tub, I reached behind my neck and unzipped the ruined lace dress.
The fabric dropped to the linoleum floor like a shed snakeskin, dirty, torn, and completely powerless.
I stepped into the shower, letting scalding hot water wash away the hotel dust, the dried gardenia sap, and the phantom sensation of Graham’s hand on my collarbone.
I dressed in my usual uniform: heavy canvas work trousers, thick woolen socks, a charcoal waffle-knit henley, and a faded green canvas florist apron.
When I caught my reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror, my skin was flushed pink from the steam, my hair was tied back in a neat, tight braid, and my eyes were clear.
The trembling was gone.
I carried the white bridal gown downstairs in a plastic trash bin, walked out the rear door into the alley, and dumped it directly into the commercial dumpster behind the deli.
No souvenirs.
No crying into bridal lace on cold rainy nights.
When I returned to the front counter, my mother’s landline phone was ringing.
I lifted the receiver and pressed it to my ear.
“Bellamy Blooms.”
“Miss Bellamy,” Arthur Sterling’s gravelly voice came through the line, crisp, professional, and devoid of the nervous stutter he had shown in the penthouse.
“The Suffolk County Registrar of Deeds has formally expunged the fraudulent transfer instrument.”
“Your property title is clear, unencumbered, and recorded under the sole name of June Bellamy.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sterling,” I said, resting my palm flat against the cool oak desk.
“One more thing,” the attorney added, paper rustling on his end.
“Mr. Vance has executed the corporate floral contract we discussed.”
“A wire transfer in the amount of two hundred thousand dollars has cleared State Street Bank and been credited to your operating ledger at South Boston Savings.”
“The initial delivery requirement begins on Friday for the Vance Marine terminal offices on the waterfront.”
“We will be ready,” I told him, keeping my voice steady despite the massive lump forming in my throat.
May you like
I hung up the receiver, turned around, and walked over to the front display windows.
I unlocked the deadbolt, flipped the cardboard sign from CLOSED to OPEN, and opened the door to the neighborhood.
