Compass Rose

by John Casey

  “Dick’s at sea.”

  “Yes, I understand that. I’m looking forward to talking to him, too. I just want to give you time to give it some thought on your own. You could talk to Eddie Wormsley—he’d be the one to build the bridge—and Eddie could tell you he and I work things out fair and square, like old shipmates.”

  There he went again. But what bothered her more was his saying he and Eddie work things out fair and square, and not a minute before he’d been talking about hiring Tom away from Eddie. She said, “Eddie is Dick’s oldest friend. He put us up after our house got knocked in.”

  “Yes, indeed. Eddie is the salt of the earth. I loved my cousin Lydia, but I’m afraid one of her few faults was that she was unfair to Eddie.” It took May a second to realize he was talking about Miss Perry. Another second to realize he’d heard what she said about Eddie but that he didn’t understand it. He swept on. “Of course, to her credit Lydia held Dick in high regard, and Charlie and Tom were great favorites of hers, too. She was a model of how fortunate people help out …”

  May heard the unspoken “those less fortunate.” That bothered her. But there always seemed to be two things to be bothered about in every breath this man took in and let out. The second thing this time was that in his hearty speechifying voice he was talking about the biggest things in her life. It was like being hugged by someone you didn’t know.

  “I’m sure you’ve got things to do, so I won’t keep you. I’m glad we had this talk. Oh. I’ll be sending over a couple of guest passes to Sawtooth. They’re good for everything, including Rose’s play. I know you saw it at the school, but this promises to be even better, something all of us South County folks will be proud of. Best to Dick when he comes in. I’m glad we had this little chat.”

  What on earth?

  The call had made her so nervous she had a shaky time getting Rose’s uniform onto the hanger. She’d said hello to Sally now and then, but she didn’t believe she and Jack Aldrich had said ten words to each other in as many years.

  She drank a glass of water and was able to iron the maid’s cap with its two long ribbons. She called Phoebe, got the answering machine at the office. Mary Scanlon was likely over in the Sawtooth kitchen, not a good time to bother her.

  She put the cap in a paper bag, punched a hole in the bottom so the ribbons hung free, and taped the bag to the hanger. She’d just talked to Elsie on the phone about Rose’s costume, and that made it almost natural to call her.

  Elsie’s voice was a little odd, but there was no going back. “I’ve just had a phone call from your brother-in-law. I don’t want to be unfriendly to him—”

  “What’s Jack up to now?”

  “He was pleasant enough, but I have to say it was out of the blue. It made me a little nervous. He said how we were neighbors and how he was doing things for Rose and for Tom—”

  “And then he wanted something.”

  “Yes. He said just a little easement.”

  “Look, May. You don’t have to do anything; you certainly don’t have to do anything just because Jack wants it. You remember those Just So Stories? Miss Perry read them to Charlie and Tom. There’s one about a camel who asks if he can just put his nose in the tent—it’s a cold desert night—and the guy in the tent finally says, ‘Okay, just your nose,’ but before you know it the camel’s inside, the whole hump and hooves, and the guy’s out. So you’re right to be nervous, especially if Jack’s sounding extra-nice and jolly. I don’t want to alarm you, but I know Jack. He’s got his eye on Tory Hazard’s house; he’s got his eye on your house. It might start with an easement. You’re on the only piece of land between Sawtooth and the wildlife sanctuary, and he’d dearly love to have a nature trail right through to it, so be careful if he starts talking about letting people from Sawtooth make a little path. It’ll get bigger. Jack’ll talk about community, he’ll talk about nature, but he’s really only for Sawtooth. He’s Sawtooth, and Sawtooth is him.”

  May was alarmed. She’d thought of Jack Aldrich as a phantom neighbor, a ghost that made itself known by producing cottages, tennis courts, and docks. Now he condensed into a sharper picture, a real man in a suit who talked to her as if he knew her better than she knew him.

  Elsie said, “I’ve warned him off once about your place. If it comes to anything, I think Sally would be upset, and he’s reached that age when he doesn’t want trouble at home. And now that I think of it, Rose has come into his worldview—well, this little piece of the world—and she can be fierce these days. And I don’t mind taking him on, either. I’ll certainly keep an eye on him. Anyway, I’m glad you called. And thanks again for taking care of Rose’s costume.”

  May couldn’t remember if she’d thanked Elsie. She found herself out the back door halfway to the wharf, staring at the creek. That didn’t surprise her. She occasionally thought she was still in the kitchen and found herself in a different room, having forgotten what she was looking for. What surprised her was that in the same way that her notion of Jack Aldrich had suddenly condensed into a person, her notion of Elsie was changing. She’d called Elsie almost by accident, but now that she had, now that she’d called purely for herself, she saw Elsie all of a sudden and awful clear. It was like the time when she went wading for quahogs with Charlie. They were waist-deep near the mouth of the creek, feeling with their toes. Charlie gave her a face mask. The bottom jumped up at her, but in the squeezed-up space there was a bit of wrack fluttering in the current, specks of silt streaming past it so clear you saw each one and how one was deeper than another even though they were just a hairsbreadth apart. It was a world of life down there. She didn’t want to see all that each time she went feeling for quahogs with her toes, but there it was. And there was Elsie talking on the phone, talking fast that way she had, going off one way and back another, right there in front of you with all that energy running through her.

  May saw how Dick would have wanted to touch her. She saw this without pain.

  chapter fifty-six

  Mary woke up, closed her eyes again. She pulled the sheet up over her face, decided she didn’t have a headache, just a terrible thirst. She said, “I wonder if you’d get me a glass of water,” which meant she knew she was in bed with the white-haired baritone. Nothing wrong with that. And when he brought her a glass of water and said, “Now, where can we get a really good breakfast?” she thought that was just the right thing to say. It only bothered her that it took her a moment to remember his name. Ah, there it was—he went by his initials—JB, JB Callahan.

  The other thing that bothered her (once she’d drunk some water and made her way to the bathroom wrapped in the top sheet) was that the two of them were in the guest room of the Perryville School. JB didn’t seem anything but happy, and told her she looked like a Roman goddess. She pulled back the blinds and saw, just outside the door, her pickup covered with dewdrops. The dew was a good sign in that it meant it was still early enough to have that really good breakfast. It was a bad sign in that it would be clear to anyone at all that the truck had been there for the night without giving itself so much as a shake. Who knew how many of the kids were Sawtooth brats who would have seen her truck coming or going round the back of the Wedding Cake with a load of groceries? She didn’t want to make a fuss, so she was thinking of the least fussy way to bring up the problem as they got dressed. He was humming the tune to “Down by the Salley Gardens,” another good omen. She pulled back the blinds again. A bunch of kids sauntered across a patch of lawn, too far away for her to see their faces. Oh, dear God, and what if Rose was wandering around? Hadn’t her last words been “I’ll sleep on the floor”?

  Apparently her peeking past the blinds made enough of a fuss. He said, “Okay. You got your keys? Let me know when the coast is clear.”

  “It’s just that Rose spent the night in the dorm. But let’s just go—she’d recognize my truck, anyway.”

  “What kind of a school is this? Don’t they have morning prayers? We could go back to bed until the
y’re all in the chapel. Or until they’re all in class.”

  “It’s Saturday. I don’t know what they do on Saturday.”

  When she started the engine she realized she had no idea how she’d got through the maze of buildings the night before. She came round a corner and had to stop for a line of students—a line stretching across the narrow road onto a porch and then into what must be the dining hall. The students made way for her to roll through. She was concentrating on the road but caught the motion of JB waving his hand.

  There were still a lot of dewdrops clinging to the hood. They’d slid a few inches, leaving what looked like the traces of a herd of snails.

  “Is Rose your niece? Some sort of relative?”

  “Was she there?”

  “I’m afraid so. You came by just now to show me around. That’s our story, and we’ll stick to it. Honi soit qui mal y pense.”

  “And what might all that French mean?”

  “Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”

  “You’re pretty bouncy for this early in the morning.”

  “Well, I had a pretty good night.”

  “Is that all?”

  “A sweet, splendid night. You have lovely shoulders. Skin like gardenia petals. What are you doing tonight?”

  “Hard at work.”

  “Then what about tomorrow morning?”

  “The famous Sawtooth Sunday brunch.”

  “Then Sunday afternoon?”

  “We’ll see. But right now do you really want a good breakfast? Would you rather have an omelet or pancakes and sausage? Do you like your omelet a bit runny?”

  “I hope this means we’re going to your house.”

  “It does.” He made a pleased noise in his throat. She said, “Not a house, just a small apartment.”

  He leaned over, slid the hem of her dress an inch higher, and kissed her knee. “There’s my big knee,” she said. “I’ve often wished my knees weren’t so big.”

  “No. Just right for your long legs. I like walking beside your long legs. I can’t wait till we go swimming so I can see your long legs waving in the water.”

  All right. Let him keep talking himself into it. He said, “How small an apartment?”

  “One bedroom.” That would be the reason he was asking—the possibility of a roommate. “I haven’t been there all that long. I used to share a house with Rose’s mother and Rose. Since Rose was a baby, in fact. For one reason and another, I’m on my own for a bit.”

  There was a pause while he absorbed this. It was a pause during which she could have said, “And yourself?” She put off any questions that might tip a weight onto the rest of the morning.

  chapter fifty-seven

  After Elsie dropped Deirdre off in Narragansett she drove back to the Perryville School. In the parking lot she had second thoughts. If she went tramping around the grounds looking for Rose, Rose would be embarrassed. “Oh my God—there’s my mom.” Find a student and send her? A teacher? “Your mother’s out in the parking lot. She wants to see you.” Just as bad.

  Elsie thought she’d write a note and leave it in Rose’s mailbox. Or did only boarders have mailboxes? She dimly remembered day students having separate message boxes. And the stigma. “Yes, he’s cute, but he’s a day student.” When Elsie had been mad at Rose she’d thought other kids’ giving her a hard time was just what Rose needed. Now that Elsie’s remorse peeled her to the quick, she felt the sting of every embarrassment she might inflict, had inflicted.

  She saw kids walking past Main to the dining room. She slid down in her seat. Easy to imagine their talk: “Who’s that woman sitting in her car, that really old Volvo? I think it’s Rose’s mom.” “No, Rose’s mom and dad drive a pickup. He’s like some kind of fisherman; you can smell fish in the truck.” “Don’t you know about Rose?”

  Elsie said out loud, “I’m sorry, Rose.” She peered over the dashboard. Everyone at lunch. She found a ballpoint, tore off the blank corner of a map, and started writing. The pen went dry. She found a pencil in the glove compartment, its point broken. She had a knife; she always had a knife. “Hey, did you know Rose’s mom carries a knife? A humungous knife.” “That’s nothing, she used to carry a pistol.” “She should’ve had a shotgun—you know, to get Rose’s dad to marry her.” Teenage girls: every oddity a deformity, every deformity an anguish to Rose.

  Okay. Enough. Just write the note. She’d give it to a secretary in Main before lunch was out.

  Her first draft on the piece of map was a mess. She rummaged through the debris under her feet and found an old electric-bill envelope. When she put it up on the dashboard to write she saw the white-haired baritone walking into the parking lot from the road. She tried to remember his name from the program. She got out and waved, said, “Excuse me, you’re in the play, you’re Rose’s father in the play.” She sounded like an idiot, but then the man looked odd himself, looked like he’d slept in his suit and hadn’t noticed it yet.

  He said, “Yes,” as if he had to think about it.

  “Yes,” Elsie said. “You could do me a big favor. I’m Rose’s mother. You’ll see Rose before the play, right?”

  “You’re Rose’s mother …”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then, I practically know you. You’re Mary Scanlon’s friend.” He looked a little less dazed. “What’s the favor?”

  “To start with, you could get in the car.”

  As he slid onto the passenger seat, he eyed her bare hunting knife. She said, “I was sharpening a pencil,” and sheathed it.

  He laughed. He eyed the mess in the back, poked at her pruning shears. “And these are for cutting your nails?”

  She didn’t have time for a joke. “I garden. Can you give this note to Rose? You’re sure you’ll see her?”

  “Yes. The music teacher’s giving a supper party for the cast before.” Now he looked at his suit. “You don’t happen to have an iron tucked away back there? I’ve got another shirt but just the one suit. I was going to go back to Boston after the show, but now I’m staying through Sunday. Or Monday.”

  “Here’s one of Heloise’s Helpful Household Hints—hang your suit in the bathroom while you take a shower. The steam takes the wrinkles out.”

  “Is that right? Are all you Rhode Island women so good around the house?”

  Elsie looked at him. She said, “Did you know Mary Scanlon before?”

  He blushed. “We just met, but she was kind enough to give me a tour of the countryside. She just dropped me off on her way to work.”

  Elsie thought, And up on the road out of sight. She said, “I’m glad. We had a fight last night, so I’m glad she had someone to take her mind off it. She used to live with Rose and me.”

  “So she said.”

  “It was sort of a three-way fight. I was wrong. The note is for Rose.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did Mary think Rose was good?”

  “My God, yes. And she’s right. You and I might have a talk about Rose. There’s a gift there.”

  “I’m not all that musical. Mary’s the one who taught her.”

  “Yes. Mary has a fine voice. But Rose … The music teacher here is good, but Rose might want a voice coach as she comes along. Someone serious but not pushy. I could ask around; you’re not that far from Providence.”

  “Is that how you learned? Your own voice coach?”

  “God, no. I’m an amateur like Mary. I’m just doing this because I know the part—I wrote the lyrics. The music teacher’s a friend, and he’s a friend of the composer. That’s why we’re doing it here, while we’re waiting for—”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Elsie said. “I’ll take you to my house and you can iron your shirt.”

  “That’s very nice of you.”

  “If you’re staying through Monday, we should iron your suit, too.”

  He laughed. He had a nice laugh, something Mary had noticed about Johnny Bienvenue. He said, “I’ve never been so well looked after.” />
  Was he flirting? Was she? It had been a while since she had the full attention of a man. Well, Jack.

  Elsie said, “You’ve never been so well looked after? I guess Mary cooked you breakfast.”

  He blushed easily with his fair skin, up to the roots of his hair. She said, “Hey—it’s okay, I’m her best friend.”

  As she started the engine, May’s car went by and pulled up next to Main. May got out with Rose’s maid’s uniform over one arm and a bag in the other. Two white ribbons hung out, fluttering as May walked briskly toward the auditorium. Everyone was taking care of someone else’s wrinkles.

  He said, “You know how Mary gets her omelets so light? She beats the egg whites separately. It’s something to see, the way she twirls the whisk and her hair hanging down her back, bobbing in its own rhythm. And she knows all the old songs.” He hummed a tune. “You must have heard that one. ‘The Rose of Tralee.’ ” He sang, “ ‘The pale moon was rising … ’ ” and broke off with a faraway look.

  Good for Mary, then. The man was smitten.

  chapter fifty-eight

  The first thing Tom said when he came in was “Walt’s put his foot in it this time.”

  May said, “I thought he was finally settling down.”

  “He was,” Tom said. “But he picked another fight with Phoebe. She told him for the umpteenth time that it made a bad impression—his driving over to the job at Sawtooth on his motorcycle. He leans back in his chair and asks her what she’s doing all those times she’s going up to see Mr. Salviatti. He says it right there in front of Eddie and me. Then nobody said anything, and Walt must have figured he’d hit a nerve. He said, ‘I don’t mind what anybody gets up to, it’s just that you’re the one talking about bad impressions.’ Phoebe did that thing she does—she goes all soft and puzzled. She says, ‘Why, Walt, I’m not sure exactly what you mean.’ And then Eddie says—and you know Eddie, he never gets riled but this time he says, ‘I know what you mean, and you got about one minute to apologize. Phoebe is the model for an angel.’ It did sound like he just meant something soppy, and Walt laughs. That made Eddie go another shade of red. Phoebe says, ‘It’s the statue, the one that’s going to go down by the town docks.’ Walt is squinting like he’s ready to hear more and maybe mumble his way out of it, but it’s too late. Eddie starts barking, ‘Stand up! Take your hands out of your pockets!’ and he pulls Walt out of the chair by his shirtfront. Walt whacks Eddie’s hands down. They’re chest to chest, real close to it; I mean, that close. Phoebe gives a little shriek and starts batting me on the arm, like I’m supposed to do something. So I get my shoulder in there and I’m face-to-face with Walt. Not exactly face-to-face, since he’s bigger than me. I feel his breath on my forehead.”