The buttons were bronze and formed out of the same mold. In a household practicing economy, it was wise to buy plain buttons so they could be interchanged on various garments.
“Not that ’tis any of me business,” she added in a tone that implied the opposite, “but peace in the house make peace in the heart.”
The buttons stared back at me. Not that it was any of their business!
“It’s not my place to speak of such intimate matters,” I said in a tone I hoped walked the fine line between being polite and absolutely crushing this subject into oblivion. “I was hoping to ask to borrow thread. I’ll pay you back, of course. I can salvage a great deal from my skirts and petticoats by piecing together one skirt from the remnants. I could manage a few work vests—singlets, I mean—from the scraps if your little lads have need of such. It’s quite good quality wool challis…” I trailed off, surprised to find my hands in fists, buttons biting into my palms.
She gave me a measuring look. “Happen that young man ever hit yee?”
“Hit me? Like, beat me?”
“He don’ seem like that kind. But I reckon I best ask.”
“No. That’s not what happened. Although he’s said some pretty awful things to me.”
She smiled wryly. “I admit, that lad have a sharp tongue when he wish, not that he ever use it on he elders! And he think very well of he own self.”
“That is a way of describing it,” I agreed.
She chuckled. “Yee may use any of the thread in the copper tin. If yee’s feeling up to it, I reckon I shall set yee to serving food and drink in the evenings. Yee’s a pleasing gal to look on, and yee have a bold way of speaking. ’Tis hard to get help these days with the factories hiring so many.”
“I can do that. Aunty, I’m grateful to you for taking me in. I mean to earn my keep.”
“Seeing that look on Vai’s face when he brought yee back is keep enough, but fear not, gal. I shall see yee earn yee bed.” She laughed merrily at whatever expression blanched my face.
I fetched my ruined skirts and borrowed scissors from one of the neighbor men. At a table in front of an interested audience of children and the regular customers who always came early, I began dismantling the ripped and torn remains while I spun a carefully worded tale that left out Salt Island, James Drake, and Prince Caonabo, and jumped straight from the watery attack to my beach rescue by buccaneers. The rains came through, as they did every afternoon, and more people gathered as folk left off work for the day and came to drink and relax.
“Yee say yee was attacked by a shark? Describe what yee saw, gal.”
“It was very large, and a nasty shiny gray, and it had dead flat eyes. I must say, I’ve never been so terrified in my life.” Except standing before the creature who sired me. “I punched it, and it swam off.”
They laughed and whistled. Several began debating whether it was a carite or a cajaya, two different kinds of sharks known to attack people. I looked up to see Vai standing in the back with arms crossed, glowering as if I had personally offended him. By the evidence of sawdust dusting his skin, he had only recently come in and not yet washed; he’d tied a kerchief over his head today, making him look very buccaneer-ish, a man about to sail off in an airship except of course for the minor issue of his deflating the balloon and thereby causing a spectacular crash.
“That shark is not the predator yee shall have been feared of, gal,” said Uncle Joe. “’Tis they buccaneers yee shall have feared more. Seem yee was rescued off the beach by the Barr Cousins. They is called Nick Blade for he knives and the Hyena Queen for the way she laugh.”
“The Barr Cousins? Likely so. We were never formally introduced.”
“Yee’s killing me, gal!” said some wit in the crowd. “‘Never formally introduced!’”
“She said her grandmother was a Kena’ani woman. That makes us cousins of a sort. Maybe more, since I’m a Barahal. We might be truly cousins, if their ancestors shortened the Barahal name to Barr. That must be why we got along so well.”
My bravado sent my audience into gales of laughter as I measured cloth against the waistband. As Vai’s gaze swept across my audience, they stepped back just as if he had pushed each one. Maybe he had, for the air had a sudden bite. All hastily moved away to other tables.
He sat down opposite me, arms still crossed. “You’ll get sick again if you overdo it.”
I kept my voice low as I pinned cloth to the waistband, for although the customers had gone to sit elsewhere that did not mean they weren’t watching. “I need to earn my keep, Vai, not as your kept woman. It does amaze me how you felt able to tell everyone the gripping tale of how you lost your darling wife and have searched for her ever since. How heartbreaking. How noble.”