Compass Rose

by John Casey

  Tom paused. May said, “Go on. I was afraid of this; I’ve been afraid of this for a long time.”

  “Eddie was still shoving, and I couldn’t help leaning into Walt, so he got pushed into sitting down again. And then it just popped into my head to do something funny. So I sat in Walt’s lap and I said, ‘Walt, honey, maybe we should tell them our secret.’ None of them has much of a sense of humor. Walt just stood up, and I landed on the floor. Walt left. Eddie stood there. Phoebe sat down. She didn’t cry, but she kind of mewed. I said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall end up on their ass.’ ”

  May said “Tom” reflexively, though “ass” wasn’t all that bad. She was mainly thinking of how they all felt. Phoebe and Eddie, of course, but she imagined Walt wishing he’d kept his mouth shut, but once he’d said what he said and with Eddie coming at him, it had to boil over.

  Then she replayed Tom’s mimicking the three voices; she heard Phoebe saying, “Why, Walt, I’m not sure exactly what you mean,” and she saw Phoebe going all wide-eyed and tilting her head. But it was Walt’s saying “I don’t mind what anybody gets up to” that was the bigger spark. The truth was that it was Eddie who didn’t mind. He hadn’t minded Phoebe’s going off for her ski weekends, or her going off to Sawtooth in her short tennis dress or going up through Mr. Salviatti’s electric gate—all that dancing around in places Eddie didn’t go, to get the kind of attention Eddie figured was brighter than his. As long as it was between Phoebe and Eddie, Eddie could maybe go glum or mopey when Phoebe left, keep extra-busy while she was away, and be happy when she came back.

  But there was Walt, who by all reports had been getting along fine with Eddie while they were working on Miss Perry’s house—there was Walt, Eddie’s own flesh and blood, putting words to Eddie’s unthought thoughts. There was Walt Wormsley looking like Eddie and sounding like Eddie but bigger and louder.

  And by all accounts Walt had been around a lot of women. That would give his remark about Phoebe a sly knowingness. May could see how Eddie wanted to knock Walt down.

  Tom said, “Okay. Let’s pretend I said ‘butt.’ Or maybe ‘rear end.’ I’m just glad Walt didn’t knee me in the … below the belt.”

  “Oh, stop joking around. This is …” May saw Tom shake his head at her. “I’m sorry. You did the right thing there. I mean, getting in between them. I’m not so sure about your trying to get a laugh out of it. Though I suppose that’s what got Walt out the door. Lord, I don’t know what they can do now. Two men. And father and son is even worse.”

  “I don’t know why you say that. There’s mother and daughter. Rose is staying over at the school on account of something Elsie said. It’s kind of an inconvenience for me. Rose used to run my work clothes through the washing machine. She said I could throw in some of Dad’s, too.”

  “You shouldn’t ask her to do that. Rose has her schoolwork and her play on top of that.”

  “I give her rides, and while the wash is getting done, I help her with her homework. Don’t look so surprised, Ma. I’m good at math. I’m the one who figured out where to put the new moorings in Sawtooth Pond. Got to set them so the boats don’t bump into each other. Had to use the Pythagorean theorem. See, the hypotenuse is from the mushroom anchor to the buoy—”

  “Not now, Tom. I’m worried about Eddie, and you’re all over the place with washing machines and moorings.”

  “Well, Jack was impressed. He’s got room for more sailboats, and that’s cash in his pocket.”

  “Since when do you call Mr. Aldrich ‘Jack’?”

  “Since he told me to.”

  “I’m not so sure I want you mixed up with Mr. Aldrich.”

  “Eddie does a lot of work for him.”

  “And you work for Eddie. Has Mr. Aldrich been after you to work for him?”

  “Jack’s not crazy about Phoebe. He likes Eddie, good old steady Eddie—but he thinks I’m good with boat owners. Jack doesn’t see me spending my life banging nails alongside Walt. Come on, Ma. Don’t be a stick-in-the-mud.”

  That was one way of saying it, May thought. Another was that she didn’t like things getting beyond what they were supposed to be. Or people. She could put up with a few bits of disorder—Dick on land was one. She supposed she could get used to one disorder or another if the disorder stayed in the place it started. But here was Mr. Aldrich getting after her, getting after Tom, and Eddie and Walt and Phoebe … and she was worried about Charlie with Deirdre. It was like storms joining up, and then everything was chaos. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She let her breath out, opened her eyes. She said, “I suppose it doesn’t hurt to talk. Just don’t count on something that’s just talk. And remember, Eddie’s our friend.” She needed to settle down some more. She added, “You had your lunch yet? You go pick some peas and I’ll heat up the meatloaf.”

  “You’re going to think I just came by for a free meal.”

  “I got more peas than I can eat, what with your father staying out so long. Meatloaf, too.”

  Tom took the basket but stopped at the doorway. “You know, it’s not necessarily all a bad thing, Eddie losing his temper. I suspect Phoebe might like the change. She’s been trying to gussy Eddie up; she thinks that’s how she’d like him better. But she’ll get a tingle off of his growling at Walt. Maybe another tingle when she thinks, Oh, what if he growls at me?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that. You shouldn’t think things like that about other people. Go pick some peas. See if you can keep your mind on that.”

  Tom sighed. “Oh, Ma. That wasn’t … You know, it’s not just peas you got too much of. It’s disapproval. I hope it’s just me stirs it up.”

  May didn’t have time to answer. Quick as that, Tom thought of something else. He twirled the basket. “When I get back, I’ll tell you some other news. Nope—I can’t wait. Mary Scanlon’s got a boyfriend.” Then he was out the back door.

  She wasn’t going to bring it up to defend herself against Tom, but she’d made her own kind of peace with Elsie. Maybe Tom meant Deirdre. May had pounced on her for taking Rose’s skiff. True enough that Deirdre didn’t know how Dick made Rose cry, how Rose’s crying was in the grain of that boat like her first coat of paint. All right, then—there was Deirdre flying in out of nowhere, not linked to anything or anybody around here, and then there she was padding down the upstairs hall at night. Yes, she dove in to save Charlie. May tried to keep that in mind. It didn’t hold. Maybe Tom was right. Maybe she should be weeding out some disapproval. She might let Tom take Dick’s dirty clothes up to Elsie’s washing machine, but she was no closer to allowing Deirdre a quiet place in her thoughts when Tom came back in with the peas.

  chapter fifty-nine

  Deirdre said, “I don’t think Charlie’s going to marry me.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “May’s been nicer to me. She’d only do that if she was relieved. Charlie must have said something to her.”

  That struck Elsie as shrewd. She was surprised until she thought that it was the sort of shrewdness the self-absorbed could be good at. Elsie said, “Could be. Or it could be that May’s got other things on her mind.” Elsie stopped wheeling her bicycle up her driveway to let Deirdre get ahead, out of talking range. She’d been happy enough to have Deirdre as an exercise partner, to get pushed harder than she could push herself. She’d also considered Deirdre as offering a retrospective of her own vanities and vices, a harsher scouring than her unaided memory. But Deirdre offered this unconsciously, and Elsie missed Mary Scanlon and Miss Perry, and now that Rose was busy, she missed Rose. All of them had set her straight, or at least straighter.

  By the time Elsie got inside, Deirdre had poured herself cranberry juice and recited her litany of carbohydrates, glycogen, electrolytes, even though they’d cut the ride short when it began to rain. Deirdre drank and then lay down on the floor to stretch. She said, “It could be that Tom told Charlie some stuff Tom heard from Walt.”

  “I though
t Charlie knew about you and Walt.”

  “I was off and on with Walt, so there was stuff in between. Walt didn’t mind hearing about it. In fact, it turned him on. A lot of guys are that way. With Charlie I’ve got to be careful. What is it with Charlie? He probably gets it from May—her way of seeing everything in black-and-white.”

  Elsie sighed. Lying on her back, Deirdre pulled her legs over her face. She kept on talking. Elsie caught muffled bits and pieces, enough to recognize that this was another litany, this time of Deirdre’s sexual adventures, some of which Elsie had heard but not in a single recitation. Something about being jounced in the bed of a pickup. How Deirdre had come on a couple skinny-dipping in a stream and waded in—first time she let a girl kiss her, first time she gave a guy a blow job underwater. How Deirdre had been on a canoe trip—a bunch of guys, two women. She’d borrowed the other woman’s blue wet suit, hung it to dry on the guy-rope of her pup tent. After dark one of the men crawled into her tent.

  Deirdre sat up, raised one knee, and twisted herself around it. “He wasn’t, like, her boyfriend, just a thing he thought of. He whispered, ‘Linda. Okay?’ I went, ‘Uh-huh.’ Weird rush.”

  Elsie said, “I can imagine your telling these things to a guy in a bar. I can’t imagine telling them to someone you want to like you.”

  Deirdre twisted herself around her other knee. “I don’t really go to bars. I’m more an outdoor person.” It took Deirdre a few seconds to frown. She said, “Hey. It’s just us here. When did you get to be all judgmental?”

  “I’m not judging what you get up to. It’s just the way you’re—”

  “What? Adventurous?”

  “Endlessly fascinated with your adventures.”

  “It’s not like you haven’t done stuff.”

  “It’s just not something I go on about.”

  “I don’t mean recently. When I said you and I are alike, I didn’t mean now you’re older. But then, maybe I am more adventurous.”

  “ ‘Adventurous’ is one way of putting it.”

  Deirdre stood up. She said, “Where do you get off with that tone? Like you get to look down on what I’ve done and judge.”

  “I’m not judging what you’ve done. You said ‘tone.’ Okay. Tone. Your tone.”

  “Well, screw you. I’m going.”

  “It’s raining. I’ll give you a ride.”

  “Don’t bother.” Deirdre put her bicycle helmet on. With her hand on the door she said, “You are on May’s side. Everything black-and-white.”

  “May is more complicated than that.”

  “I guess screwing her husband makes you an expert? Screwing her husband makes you part of the family.”

  Elsie said, “It’s going to rain harder.” She pointed out the window. “The wind’s picking up.” Deirdre went out the door.

  Elsie sat by the window and watched the rain dot the pond. She’d let Deirdre think they were friends. Better not to lead her on. She’d been harsh. It was about time. There was a lull. She thought, Deirdre’s not good enough for our Charlie.

  chapter sixty

  Mary took JB to see her old restaurant. They ate breakfast on the terrace overlooking the salt marsh. The breakfast wasn’t as good as the ones she used to make here, but the view was better than she remembered, a maze of hummocks and creeks all the way to the back of the dunes. The sun was still low, the light soft as it came through the trees on the higher ground between Sawtooth Creek and Pierce Creek. At the time—fifteen, sixteen years ago—she’d been relieved to sell to Jack. Now she wondered.

  She was just as glad JB was leaving her to her own thoughts, shielding his eyes with one hand as he peered this way and that. When he said, “Ah!” it was so loud and sudden it made her jump. He pointed.

  “Yes,” she said. “A heron. There’s a lot more birds over here than at Sawtooth Point. All those boats and people.”

  He said, “Above the salt creek’s gloss of light—” so conversationally that she almost said something back. He went on—

  “The great blue heron’s pillowed flight

  Belies his eager appetite.

  Alighting on the bank he cocks

  His head. With freeze-frame steps he stalks

  The unsuspecting mummichogs.”

  She laughed. “Do you know what a mummichog is?”

  “Yes. A little fish. One of those Indian names Rhode Island keeps in use. Like ‘tautog’ for blackfish, ‘squeteague’ for sea trout. In Massachusetts, except for the name itself, we papered over the Indian names with British ones. Gloucester, Worcester. Here you’ve got Quonochontaug, Watchaug, Usquepaug.”

  “Did you look up that little ditty because I told you we were going to look at a salt marsh?”

  “I didn’t look it up. I wrote it. This morning, before you got up.”

  Mary had laughed at herself in the past for wishing for poetry from a lover. Now here it was and she was wishing he’d go back to being quiet. What was wrong with her? They’d made love Friday night and Saturday afternoon, and then on Sunday night when she was all done in from work they’d fallen asleep curled up like kittens in a box. And here he still was on Monday. As her father used to say, “What do you want? Egg in your beer?”

  She said, “Well, it’s not every visitor from Boston has such enthusiasm for Rhode Island names. And not many could dash off a rhyme with mummichog.”

  “I was working on a poem about you—”

  “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.” Dear God, where did that twitter come from?

  “But I thought I’d warm up with something lighter.”

  A different part of her brain fizzed, and she said, “There was an old maid from Nantucket … No end of rhymes there.”

  His white eyebrows gave two wing beats. Puzzled, hurt. She looked away, then looked at him again, at his new expression of amiable concern. If she didn’t get off by herself, she was going to bite his head off.

  chapter sixty-one

  Elsie didn’t quite get the name of her opponent in the Sawtooth tennis tournament. Patty something. They were both a little late. She hadn’t seen the woman before, but then she’d been playing either at night with the assistant pro on the indoor court or with the Perryville girls up at the school. She’d signed up for the tournament because Jack had told Sally not to. “Wouldn’t look good if the owner’s family did well.”

  The warm-up took Elsie by surprise. Patty had a heavy topspin forehand that kept Elsie deep behind the baseline. It wasn’t until well into the first set that Elsie got the rhythm. Patty liked banging the ball, moved Elsie from side to side but without trying for the very edges of the corners. It was the great big bounce that made Elsie take the ball so high her shoulder was up to her ear.

  Patty covered her own baseline with a couple of long-legged straddle steps as she took her looping backswing. Patty was enjoying herself, Elsie thought, not just because she was winning but because she was in love with her strokes. When Elsie started chipping back short balls, Patty stopped having fun. Her knees seemed to get in her way as she galloped forward. If she got her racket on the ball, all she could do was scoop it up, usually high enough for Elsie to have time to come to net and put it away. Elsie took pleasure in making this pretty player turn awkward, sometimes punching the ball at Patty’s feet, once in a while floating a lob over her before she got her balance.

  During the changeovers Patty began to take more time, carefully toweling off her face and hands, fiddling with her wristbands.

  Elsie came back from 2–4 to win the first set 6–4. Patty sat on a bench. She smiled up at Elsie and said, “You’re certainly making me scramble.” Her red hair was getting a pretty curl, her face was flushed, the veins in her throat were sky blue. Elsie felt like a vampire, ready to drain this succulent girl.

  Elsie said, “I haven’t seen you around—not that I’m exactly a regular.”

  “I just moved up here from Washington. My fiancé used to belong; he’s a friend of Jack Aldrich’s. He gave u
s a summer membership. Is there a water fountain?”

  Elsie pointed to the bubbler. Patty kept her knees straight as she leaned over. The back of her skirt tilted up—a wren dipping at the birdbath, tail feathers twitching. Patty’s sheathed bottom was full and dainty. If I were a man, Elsie thought, I’d have her just like this. A flurry of feathers—peep, peep, peep—and into the underdown.

  Patty wiped her mouth and said, “And—small world—my aunt works here.” Elsie’s eyes tightened and fixed on Patty’s face. She should have seen the family likeness. “Is your aunt Mary Scanlon?” If she hadn’t quarreled with Mary, Mary would have told her. So it served her right.

  “Yes. My father’s sister. I haven’t seen her for ages. My father was in the navy, so we were all over the world while I was growing up, and then I worked in Washington. But now it looks like Rhode Island is home. At least until the election. I’m working on a congressional campaign.”