Compass Rose

by John Casey

  Elsie said, “So you want to pitch a tent for the fun of it?”

  “Okay. I had a little run-in with May, and I thought I’d better camp out for a bit. Do you know when the town library opens? I’ve got some writing to do.”

  “Not till one, I’m afraid. Look—if you want to reconsider sleeping in the snow, I’ve got a spare room these days. And I’ve just made supper. Rose is staying over at the school, so there’s plenty. Not very elaborate, but …”

  “That’d be great.”

  Elsie took Deirdre up to Mary’s old room, noticed that Deirdre’s clothes were wet, and asked if she’d like a hot bath. It didn’t take long for Deirdre to settle in. One trip to the car for her duffel bag and knapsack, another for an old and bulky word processor. She was in and out of the bath, up to Mary’s room wrapped in a towel, and back down for supper in a sweatshirt and shorts. She went out to get another log for the woodstove in her bare feet. Elsie thought Deirdre was overdoing the ready-to-rough-it message. It turned out there was more. Deirdre said, “I hear you got shot by some guy while you were out patrolling on your cross-country skis. I’m into cross-country skiing, too. That and white-water canoeing.” She pulled up one leg of her shorts to show a scar on her outer thigh. “I ran into a pine that was stuck in a chute and flipped. This stub of a branch went way into my leg. So I guess we both get purple hearts.”

  Elsie said, “So what were you doing on the Trident? Are you an oceanographer, too?”

  “No. I’m writing an article. I do stuff and then I write it up. Have an adventure, write something to make enough money to get up to something else.”

  “What if nothing adventurous happens?”

  “There’s usually a story. If I don’t have one of my own, I can almost always find someone who’s got one. I like the one about you catching Eddie when he shot a swan with his crossbow.”

  “You’ve certainly picked up the local news pretty quick.”

  “I heard some before. I knew Eddie’s son back in Maine. And of course now I’m with Charlie.”

  Elsie was of two minds. She suspected that Deirdre had come down in her cutoffs on purpose, that there was, in general, a good deal of purpose. But she also thought there was some innocent part to this flurry of friendliness. And she was pleased to be treated as the senior resident of the territory, to receive ritual gestures of deference, and to give food and shelter as hospitably as a bedouin sheik.

  Deirdre tucked her legs up under her on the sofa and sipped her chamomile tea. Elsie sat back in her chair. She could see why Charlie was attracted to Deirdre. She was something like Sylvia Teixeira, short-waisted, compact, and giving off a whir of ready energy. Elsie tried to think of someone else Charlie had been attracted to. Herself. Ages ago, before Rose was born. No—he’d had a faithful little crush even when she was plump and nursing Rose. Though he’d been quick enough to take up with Sylvia Teixeira when she sashayed up to him.

  Elsie laughed at her spark of vanity—then twisted away from the thought of Charlie’s pain when he found out about his father and her. She looked at Deirdre again. Deirdre seemed intent on linking herself to Elsie—all that shared nature and adventure lore wasn’t just for fun. What else did Deirdre have in mind? What had Charlie told her? What else had Deirdre picked up about Elsie during her stay at the Pierces’?

  Her curiosity about herself glittered for an instant, like the sparkle of sand just after a wave recedes. Then she thought of May and Charlie, of May and Dick and Charlie and Tom. She thought of May making what she could of all of them. She thought of how May came to love Rose, how May had kept a house that held three such different men and welcomed Rose.

  There was no new fact in all this; no new resolve would come of it. She doubted that she could ever tell it to May without May tightening her mouth, feeling a distaste for Elsie’s tainted attachment to them.

  Deirdre stood and stretched, dangling her empty mug, the handle a ring on one finger. She said, “I’m all in.” She washed the mug and said, “You’re good to take me in like this.”

  A companionable note on a winter’s night.

  chapter forty-nine

  Rose came home for supper the next day. She dropped her book bag in the middle of the room. She said to Elsie, “That’s her car, isn’t it? That’s Deirdre O’Malley’s jeep.”

  Elsie pointed toward the upstairs room. Rose said, “Come into my room.”

  Elsie said, “Pick up your bag and take your boots off.”

  When Rose got Elsie into her room and shut the door, she whispered explosively, “Mo-om! Are you out of your mind?”

  “Calm down, Rose.”

  Rose looked out the window, breathed a deep breath, crossed to her desk, and sat down, a study in rigid calm.

  Elsie said, “What is it?” Rose put her fingertips to her temples, and Elsie said, “Quit acting. I’ve got to get back to making supper.”

  “Then I’ll put it as simply as I can.” Rose clasped her hands and stared at them for another second. “Charlie and Deirdre. You’ve got that? Deirdre in May’s house. Deirdre takes out my boat without asking. I’m getting all this from Tom, by the way. Who thinks it’s funny, but we all know Tom. May says something, we’re not sure what. Deirdre leaves in a noisy huff. Now Charlie and May are in a silent huff.”

  “When did you see Tom?”

  Rose raised her fingers as if to say “Don’t interrupt” but allowed the question. “Tom gives me a ride home every so often. The point is this: this afternoon Deirdre left a note in their mailbox telling Charlie she’s staying here. Tom says he’s not sure how that came out, which I imagine means that Charlie told Tom and Tom let it slip.” Rose said this last phrase with the same theatrical head tilt and eyebrow lift as the first time. “The point is, Mom, that you shouldn’t get in the middle of it. You shouldn’t be in it at all.”

  Elsie had been distracted by her irritation with Rose, but all that snuffed out in a cold second.

  Elsie sat down on Rose’s bed. Rose put her elbow on the arm of her chair, pressed her knees together, and swung them to point at Elsie. Rose said, “May has really been good about—” and Elsie said, “All right, all right.”

  After a moment Elsie said, “I can’t just tell Deirdre … I mean, I’ve told her she could stay another night. I can’t just kick her out. Maybe tomorrow she can … She seems to know the Wormsleys.”

  “No,” Rose said. “Charlie’s jealous of Walt and her.”

  “Oh?”

  “Tom told me. She knows Phoebe, but she can’t go there because Phoebe’s best friends with May. I mean, face it, Mom—we live in a tiny ecosystem.”

  Elsie would have laughed at this last bit of Rose’s making herself a wise little watch-bird, but on the main point Rose had seriously set her straight. “Wait,” Elsie said. “Doesn’t Charlie have a room over in Narragansett?”

  “He gave it up when he sailed on the Trident. It was supposed to be a long trip. But Deirdre could find something for herself. I mean, it’s her problem. Of course, she’s used to parking herself on people—at least that’s what Tom said.”

  “How does Tom know so much?”

  Rose gave a little sigh. “Mom—he works with Walt Wormsley. They see each other every day. Can you give me a ride back to school after supper?”

  “Do you have rehearsal every night?”

  “No. I’m signed up for the piano room. I told you I was taking piano. Remember?”

  Elsie wasn’t sure, but she nodded. She said, “You’ll be nice at supper …”

  “I’ll be adorable,” Rose said. She got up and curtsied. She sang, “On the good ship Lollipop …”

  Elsie was exhausted.

  chapter fifty

  May cried when Charlie moved out. She blamed herself. She blamed Deirdre, too, but mainly herself. Dick didn’t catch her crying, but when he was getting ready to take Spartina out, when it wasn’t yet first light, when he was standing by the door with his gear, he must have noticed that she’d be alone in
the house. He said, “Did you think Charlie was going to move back home for good? There’s no cause for you to go on blaming your fussing at Deirdre. It’s natural he wants his own place. He’ll come to visit soon enough.” Dick was being reasonable, and May tried to be grateful. Dick said, “You can like or not like Deirdre O’Malley, but she got Charlie back here, and his being here turned out better than I could guess. He’s coming out on Spartina.” Still reasonable but with less of an eye on May. He tucked his logbook under one arm and picked up his sea bag.

  May said, “Charlie didn’t want to go on being mad at you. He just didn’t see how to come back halfway.” Dick dropped his chin. She let him think for a bit. She hoped he might think of what was wrong with his going off by himself to Boston, but most likely he was already feeling Spartina under his feet.

  He surprised her. He said, “I shouldn’t ever have been uneasy about you taking such a liking to Rose. I don’t think I said anything—”

  “You did.”

  “Then I shouldn’t have. It’s good how Tom and Rose get along. And Rose coming round to see Charlie as often as she did … Without you being the way you are with her, she wouldn’t be the boys’ sister.”

  She heard the thump of his bag in the bed of the pickup, the cab door slam, the engine catch, the crunch of gravel. He was off to sea, and she was standing on a patch of land. It might as well be an island, a dot on his chart he could put his finger on by tracing the latitude and longitude, coordinates he’d noted in his logbook.

  She should be glad. She should be glad he’d said what he said, but she felt more alone than ever.

  chapter fifty-one

  Elsie liked her days at Miss Perry’s house—the walk down the driveway surrounded by sunlight and the first pale green shimmer of budding trees, her second cup of coffee in Miss Perry’s kitchen, the smell of wood as Eddie and Walt set to work turning a new banister, or planing a piece of window frame. The lathe was outside under a tent that fitted off the back of a van, but the smell blew in the front door. Elsie made sketches of the new floor plans for the upper rooms, lists of the pieces of furniture that would stay or go, happy to be interrupted by Eddie. Yes, the stone garden house needed a new door. The coping of the garden wall—Walt could take care of that.

  In the afternoon Elsie put in an hour or so on the garden, uprooting the brambles and maple saplings crowding the rhododendron, boxwood, and old flower beds. Then she’d go round the house, leave her dirty boots by the front door, and pad into the kitchen in her stocking feet for an end-of-the-day talk with Eddie and Walt. Part of her pleasure was that she liked the way the work was going. Another part of her pleasure was spending the day with two men. Nothing electric, just a low-grade amiability. She wore work clothes, jeans and a denim shirt or her old uniform, but each morning, after Rose left for school, she took a look in the mirror.

  Jack showed up once, but it didn’t spoil her day. He came down from the third floor and said to Eddie that he didn’t see why it was necessary to put a dormer window in the attic room that was being made into a single. Why not put in a skylight and save some time and money?

  “You could bring that up with Elsie.” Eddie tipped his head toward her. “All I know is the boss lady’s on budget.”

  “Fire code,” Elsie said. “All the upper rooms have to have a working window and some kind of ladder.”

  “We got hold of some chain-link ladders,” Walt said. “They fold up in a wooden box, makes a nice window seat. Bolt the top rung to a floor joist through the bottom.”

  “So,” Elsie said, “we don’t even reach the aesthetic.”

  “Good,” Jack said. “Sensible.”

  Walt said, “Otherwise we’d have to put up a big, ugly fire escape.”

  “I think he’s got it,” Elsie said.

  “You’re doing good work, Eddie,” Jack said. “As always.”

  Phoebe also showed up once. Eddie beamed. Walt scowled. Elsie took Walt by the elbow and led him into the garden. She said, “I know. But take a deep breath and—”

  “Yes ma’am, boss lady.”

  “You can drop the ‘boss lady.’ It wasn’t all that funny the first time.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That, too.” Elsie looked back through the door to make sure Phoebe wasn’t coming out. “Just let her float in and float out. Come on. The three of us are doing fine, so don’t piss your father off.”

  Walt sighed and sat down on a stone bench. Even sitting down he was almost as tall as Elsie. She said, “Does she always set you off like this? I mean, it’s been years.”

  “No. Just sometimes. It’s when she gets this extra-high note in her twitter. People think I’m worried about money. I don’t give a shit about the money. I wouldn’t mind if she married him. I’d like her better if she married him. It’s her having everything just how she wants it and giving off her twitters like she’s all wide-eyed and helpless. Hell, I don’t know. Sometimes I feel sorry for her. When I said she has everything how she wants it, that’s not right. She has Dad all lined up, she’s making plenty of money, but she wants to be a duchess of South County. Like your sister, like Miss Perry. Ain’t going to happen. Phoebe can play tennis at Sawtooth, she can get on committees to save the bay, she can do needlepoint for the Episcopal church. But she’s stuck with Dad. She can’t let him go ’cause he’s the bread and butter, but then she can’t let go hoping she’ll get asked to the ball. Can’t be much fun.”

  Elsie didn’t say anything. Walt looked at his hand and ran his thumb over the calluses. She wondered if it was up to her to end the session, but Walt got up and said, “What do you think? Should we get the ivy off the wall? There’s a couple of places it’s pulling stones loose.”

  “Yeah. I’ll put it on my list. You ready to go back in?”

  “Yeah. You got me thinking, and that always slows me down.”

  Elsie laughed, then wasn’t sure he’d made a joke. He didn’t appear to mind. He said, “When Deirdre was staying with you, did you get to read any of that science fiction she’s writing?” Elsie shook her head. “Maybe Phoebe’s like a slave of the glass city.”

  Before Elsie could ask anything, she saw Eddie and Phoebe in the window of the kitchen door. Eddie held the door open and Phoebe stepped out, saying, “So there you two are! I won’t stay a minute, I just had to check with Eddie—nothing to do with this, this is all gorgeous—though, of course, that’s for you to say, Elsie. More to the point, I just saw your brother-in-law, I was taking a peek at the new dock Tom’s putting in—Jack’s completely happy about that—I mean, he tried to be grumpy, but that’s just Jack. More to the point is that he’s thinking of backing another production of Rose’s operetta. For when the summer people show up at Sawtooth. Keep Rose but otherwise a professional cast. It’s part of his plan to give Sawtooth a cultural dimension. I think it’s a splendid idea, and I told him I’d help him any way I can.”

  Walt tried to catch Elsie’s eye, but she wasn’t amused by Phoebe; she was feeling the weight of another Jack incursion. She was already worried about Rose being spoiled by starring in her little play at school. She’d had in mind that Rose get a summer job—pick crabmeat at the processing plant, bag groceries, bus tables. Get her hands dirty. Let her see what her mother’s life had been for twenty years. And what was Jack thinking, anyway? Throwing a barely sixteen-year-old girl in with a troupe of actors …

  Elsie sat down on the stone bench. It wasn’t Jack. She could take Jack on any day of the week. It was the thought of herself at fifteen and sixteen—not so much what she’d got up to but how desperately sure she’d been that everyone was wrong about everything—that made her dizzily uncertain about taking on Rose. Rose was like her, Rose wasn’t like her; she knew Rose, she didn’t know Rose; Rose was a little girl, Rose was as fully armed as a grown-up; Rose was part of her, Rose was already out the door.

  chapter fifty-two

  Elsie turned down offers to drive her to the school auditorium for the opening. Sal
ly and Jack, Mary Scanlon. Walt Wormsley offered her a ride on his motorcycle. She walked, taking a slight detour through Miss Perry’s walled garden. The daffodils were over, but the peonies were in full bloom. She hoped that the sight of these extravagant flowers swooning on their absurdly long stems would put her in the mood for a play. She didn’t like plays, especially plays with music. She’d read the original She Stoops to Conquer without cracking a smile. Mary Scanlon had told her there was a knack to reading a play and that Elsie didn’t have it. But then Mary told her that the playwright was Irish, so she discounted Mary’s enthusiasm. Mary said, “But don’t worry, it’ll come to life when you see it. And Rose’ll be fine—she’s putting her sassiness to good use for once.”

  “You’ve heard her?”

  “She’s come over to Sawtooth once or twice.”

  Of course she had.

  Elsie got a smudge of rust on her hand tugging at the back gate. The gate popped open and hit her hip. She went back into the garden and kicked the head off a peony.

  The auditorium was packed. Mary Scanlon waved to her and pointed to the seat she’d saved. Elsie saw Dick and May and Tom. A few rows back, Charlie and Deidre O’Malley. Eddie and Phoebe and Walt. All of them in their Sunday best, some of them doubtless a bit uncomfortable to be packed into a room with at least one other person who’d caused them pain or shame.

  The house lights dimmed. Mary said, “You cut it pretty fine. Never mind, here you are.”

  The overture began. There was something like old-fashioned jazz, then something like a Charleston. Elsie couldn’t see the musicians, but she thought she heard a banjo. Then there was a slower part with just a piano and either a clarinet or a soprano saxophone—Elsie couldn’t tell them apart. Rose had played a recording of Sidney Bechet’s “Shine” over and over until Elsie said, “Turn that damn clarinet off!” Rose had corrected her. Later Rose had asked her how she’d ever managed to learn birdcalls with her tin ear.