by John Casey
“So when I changed into the maid’s costume—that was okay?”
“When that boy chased you around the bed? You were funny. Reminded me of Tom. I told him so just before he left. Tom up to his pranks. I liked when you were being the nice young lady, but I liked it when you cut loose on that boy and didn’t let him get too fresh. And not a bad word in the whole play, not like some movies.”
Mary couldn’t keep out of it. She said, “Dick? What about you? Rose remind you of anybody?”
“It was Rose on her own up there singing, but I suppose I got to give you some credit, and not just for the singing. She reminded me of you when you were behind the bar in your old place. What do you say, Rose? You see Mary over in the Sawtooth kitchen. She still take the paint off anyone gets out of line?”
Rose laughed. Mary hadn’t ever heard Dick and May so talkative. They’d looked grim in the greenroom, but now that they were out in the fresh air on their way home, the play was bubbling up in them. Dick started the motor. May said, “I’ll bring the dress and hat over tomorrow lunchtime, if that’s all right with you, Elsie.”
Whatever Elsie said was lost as the truck moved and a bait barrel rattled against the side of the bed. Mary, Rose, and Elsie watched the truck find a place in the line of cars headed out of the parking lot.
Mary said, “Rose, I think that’s the clarinetist over there. In that station wagon. And the guy next to him—he’s putting his bass fiddle in the back.”
Rose wasn’t through with Elsie. “I didn’t expect you to like the play. I mean, you’re practically tone-deaf. But you’re out to get me. You’re as much out to get me as the nastiest girl in school. At least she’s going to graduate.”
Mary said, “Rose—”
“You stay out of this,” Elsie said.
“Oh, right,” Rose said. “Pick on Mary just because you’re wrong.”
“I’m not so sure I am wrong. Maybe Dick and May were just being nice. They let you get away with anything over there, and it’s gone to your head—along with this playacting.”
“My head? You’re the one who took Deirdre O’Malley in, and how dumb was that? You’re the one who said you didn’t want Uncle Jack to pull strings—you think you’d get a job here if it wasn’t for him? And now you try to think of some way to fuck up the one thing I can do—not that you’d know anything about it—and guess what? You’re wrong again. You think they’re ashamed of how they talk? Why should they be? They live on a creek that’s named for their family. They used to own Sawtooth Point. You think Johnny Bienvenue is ashamed of how he talks? Or Eddie Wormsley? You’re the only one who cares. Well, you and Uncle Jack.”
“Then how come you talked like them when you were being the maid? The one who makes the beds and cleans the toilets.”
“That was aeons ago. I know you didn’t get the music, but you might have noticed the costumes. Like 1920.”
“And don’t try to lump me in with Jack.”
“What toilets? No toilets. Who went and got Jack to fork over a membership card to Sawtooth?”
“That’s yours.”
“Then how come it says ‘Family membership’? You’re the fancy tennis player. You and Phoebe Fitzgerald. I only go there to see Mary.”
“That’s enough,” Mary said.
Elsie said again, “I told you to stay out of it.”
“I’m not talking to you,” Mary said. “I’m telling Rose she’s screeching her voice. But the pair of you ought to shut the hell up.” They both turned toward Mary. She said, “I’ve got half a mind to bang your heads together.” They both opened their mouths. “By Christ, you say another word and I’ll do it.” As fast as she’d got angry, she felt a great sob coming on. She took a breath, and it came out a growl that scratched her throat. “Now, go home. The two of you. Just go on home.”
Rose took two steps away and said, “I’m staying here. If I can’t find a spare bed, I’ll sleep on the floor.”
Elsie set her jaw and marched off toward the woods.
Mary got in her pickup. She put the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it. She laid her forehead on the top of the steering wheel, drained.
chapter fifty-four
Elsie woke up late after a bad night’s sleep. She felt too tired to go work on Miss Perry’s garden, too hungover with spent anger to pass a Saturday morning alone. She certainly wasn’t going to call Mary. She got out of bed, pulled the comforter up sloppily, felt one of her lurches for Dick in her bed—funny how she could see him and feel neutral, edgy but neutral, but when she was alone be stung by wanting him. That bit of wondering swerved her back to bleakness. She put the teakettle on and said, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
She got Charlie’s new listing from information, hoped she’d get Deirdre, almost hung up at the thought of Deirdre and Charlie in bed together, one of them reaching across the other to get the phone.
She got Deirdre, who said she was about to go for a bike ride, but if Elsie didn’t mind waiting an hour she’d love to stop by. “So Rose must be feeling pretty great. Tell her from me she was terrific.”
Did that mean Charlie hadn’t been bothered by Rose’s accent? Or had he just not said anything about it to Deirdre?
Elsie put on a Rolling Stones tape. And to hell with Rose telling her she was tone-deaf. She could dance to it, she could sing along.
She stopped in mid-song. She’d forgotten that May was bringing Rose’s maid costume. Elsie didn’t want May bumping into Deirdre. She called May and said she’d come pick it up. May said it was no trouble to bring it over. Elsie said, “Well, if it’s no bother, could you drop it off at the school? That’s where Rose is. If you don’t see her, just go by the auditorium. Someone’s bound to be there.”
“That’ll be fine. I know the way now.”
Elsie hesitated. Did May have a misgiving after all? She took a breath and said, “You really liked the play? Parts of it seemed odd to me. Maybe I was nervous.”
“We were all nervous for Rose. But then it seemed she was born to do that sort of thing. Tom and I are going again tonight.”
“But not Dick?”
“Dick and Charlie wanted to, but they took Spartina out this morning. Dick got one of his feelings. Or could be he heard something from Captain Teixeira. He didn’t say, but then he never does. Took his harpoon, so he has swordfish in mind.”
Elsie managed to thank her for taking care of Rose’s costume. She thought of Dick on Spartina, all his thoughts at sea. She thought of Dick in this house with her. She wouldn’t kiss him by surprise this time, not like the time he was holding baby Rose. This time would have nothing to do with Rose, nothing to do with May. He’d be here and she wouldn’t go near him at first, she’d move around the room, bring him a cup of coffee and put it down without touching him. When he looked at her, she’d look back and smooth her skirt, smooth her skirt over her hip bones and wait for him to stand up.
She washed her face, went down to the pond, pulled off her knee-length T-shirt, and waded into the cold water up to her shoulders.
She was back inside and dressed when she heard Deirdre outside the door. Deirdre was flushed, her curly hair matted from her bike helmet. She was wearing a red uni-suit very like the one Elsie had in her closet.
“I should get a mountain bike,” Deirdre said. “Get off the main road. Route One is all traffic and guys slowing down and beeping.”
“Some of the back roads are smooth enough for your road bike.”
“You ride, right? Maybe you could show me. And maybe we could go canoeing. I hear you have an old canvas canoe. Or is that Rose’s? I don’t want to touch anything of hers or May’ll have another fit. Of course, what she’s really mad about is me and Charlie.”
“You look like you could use some water.”
“Oh, yeah,” Deirdre said. She unzipped her uni-suit six inches and fanned herself. They went in and Deirdre drank and drank.
Elsie said, “But Charlie knows that you and Walt … I mean …”
“But if Walt tells things to Tom, Tom can’t help repeating what he hears, especially if he thinks it’s funny. May and Charlie don’t think anything like that is funny. And they’re not exactly at ease with the idea of a liberated woman. Charlie only had one girlfriend before me. And he still feels guilty, like he marked her somehow. I told him I wasn’t ever in love with Walt, it was just a thing. Boy, was that a bad idea. Of course, I was probably in a catch-22. Bad if I was in love with Walt, just as bad if I wasn’t. Maybe worse. I don’t know. All I know is I have to be careful, and I don’t like having to be careful. Charlie read a little bit of this sci-fi thing I’ve written, and some of it’s pretty sexy, and he brooded. It didn’t take a mind reader. Had I done all that stuff? I was going to say it’s all made up, but that would have left him uneasy in another way, so I said it was stuff the women talked about around the campfire when I was running Women in the Wilderness trips. Which is a tiny bit true. And he said he found it hard to believe that women go into detail, and I said some women do, more than you know. And he said, ‘So you’re going to tell some woman about us?’ I said, ‘I just listen.’ Which made him laugh for the first time in a long while.”
Deirdre lay on her back on the floor and pulled her knees to her chin. She said, “No, thanks. But do you have a banana? Or some cranberry juice? Something with potassium.” She sat up, spread her legs, and lowered her chest between them. In a muffled voice she said, “You probably had some of the same problems with Dick.”
Elsie waited until Deirdre sat up. She said, “I’ll get you some cranberry juice.”
Deirdre said, “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. None of my business. I wasn’t fishing, I just thought you could maybe reassure me, like tell me that things just settle down by themselves.” Deirdre lay on her back and put her hands over her eyes. “I should remember I get high after I exercise. And you’re probably coming down after last night. That must have been something, your daughter up there … The thing is, I’m worried about Charlie out on that boat. After Charlie took off this morning I needed a good hard ride and someone to talk to.”
Elsie put the cranberry juice on the table by the window. Had she ever been like Deirdre? So at a boil about herself? She sat at the table and looked at Deirdre, who was doing some sort of breathing exercise. Had she ever told adventure stories about herself like Deirdre’s white-water story? With some nature mysticism thrown in? Yes. Had she ever told stories about her sex life? Yes—not part of her repertoire lately, but yes, she’d told Mary Scanlon about Johnny Bienvenue, and yes, in her red-dress days she’d said some things that counted as sexual swaggering.
Deirdre got up and sat across from her. She said, “Oh, thanks,” when she saw the cranberry juice, put one hand on her chest, and took a swallow. She leaned forward and looked Elsie in the face. “It’s not just that we look alike.”
“Oh?” Elsie leaned back in her chair. “I hadn’t really … And I’m a good bit older than you.”
“Maybe chronologically. Your biological age is what counts. We both keep in shape. But the reason we look sort of alike is we’re both free women. We’re not slaves of the glass city.”
“Walt said something about … He said Phoebe’s a slave of the glass city.”
“Yes. Good. So you know the story.”
“No, just what Walt mentioned.”
Deirdre nodded. “I’ll bring you the book. Are you into science fiction?”
“No,” Elsie said. “Unless you count Ovid’s Metamorphoses.” She wasn’t sure why she threw that in. She said, “That was years ago, when I was doing Latin with Miss Perry.” She didn’t like the eager claim Deirdre was making, but she didn’t like herself as a snob.
Deirdre was unrebuffed. “I don’t know about Ovid. But sure. All that Greek stuff—sort of science fiction.”
“Ovid was a Roman.”
“I really want you to read it. It’ll make our getting to know each other go faster. You’ll see what I mean. It’s not just that we’re both outdoors people. We make our own rules. We’re like sisters.”
Penance, Elsie thought. It’s part of my penance to come face-to-face with this doppelgänger, this would-be doppelgänger.
Deirdre said, “And I know I could learn stuff from you that would help. I mean, it’s eerie that you hooked up with Dick, and here I am with Charlie. What I don’t get is how come May hates me and she seems sort of okay with you. You slept with her husband. I’m just sleeping with her son.”
Elsie sat up so fast her chair creaked.
Deirdre stood. She said, “I should put some water in this cranberry juice. I should be rehydrating.”
Elsie laughed. The woman was like a kid’s paddleball game. She smacked out a thought that got as far as somebody else, but then her attention reached the end of its elastic cord and bounced back to herself.
“What?” Deirdre said. “Is it because I’m so intense about nutrition? No, wait, I get it. I’m wired. I used to get like this when I’d been alone in my cabin, and I’d bike into the general store and I’d be way too on. It made some of the old codgers laugh, too.” When she got to the kitchen sink, she put her glass down. Her shoulders fell. She turned and said, “After a while they got to like me.”
“Oh, Deirdre,” Elsie said.
“No, they really did. I wasn’t flirting with them, either. It was winter, and I was wearing so many clothes I looked like the Michelin tire man.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“It’s that I’m annoying you. I should get on home. It’s still a ride to Narragansett.”
“I’ll give you a lift—I have a bike rack. Drink your juice and relax a little.”
That was enough. Deirdre walked around silently, looking at Elsie’s bookshelf. After a while Deirdre said, “Thoreau. You’ve got a lot of Thoreau. Have you ever wondered what he sounded like? I’ve tried to imagine his voice. It’s kind of sad that voices disappear. I love the Maine accent. When I was alone in my cabin for a long while I’d start hearing one of the old guys from the general store, the one I liked the most. It was like he was there. You know how you get when you’re living by yourself. One time I was splitting wood for kindling, I was holding the log with one hand round it and swinging the ax with the other. His voice said, ‘Not so fast, they-ah, young lady. You might just want that thumb late-ah on.’ ” Deirdre laughed. Elsie was struck dumb. Deirdre said, “I thought what he said was pretty funny. Right, too. Next time I saw him, I told him what he’d said. He laughed at my version of a down east accent; he said it would take me a few years to get it right. It’s just right for setting someone straight. I hope it doesn’t die out. Children don’t talk the way their parents do. Maybe it’s TV. But Charlie didn’t watch TV, and he has less of a Yankee accent than Dick and May.”
“Wait,” Elsie said. “Did Charlie say anything about the play? About the way Rose talked when she was pretending to be the maid? When she said, ‘I’m smaht enough to know the fu-cha you have in mind.’ ”
“Oh.” Deirdre squinted. “No. Not about that. Of course, I didn’t go backstage with him, so they might have talked about it then. I don’t think so, though, because he told me pretty much everything. Someone said Mary Scanlon taught Rose how to sing, and Tom said that he’d taught her how to be funny. Charlie thought that was a laugh. Charlie hadn’t ever heard Rose sing. He missed Miss Perry’s funeral, and he didn’t go to Sylvia Teixeira’s wedding—which he should have, it might have helped him see that people can just move on.”
“That’s it?”
“About the play. But one thing Charlie really liked was when the old guy, the actor with white hair … when he came over he said, ‘These are your proud parents,’ and Rose said, ‘And this is my father, Dick Pierce. His wife, May. And these are my brothers, Charlie and Tom.’ It wasn’t just that she handled it. All the other kids from the play were just running around, making a fuss over themselves, and there Rose was … Charlie really liked her saying, ‘These are my brothers, Charlie and Tom.’ ”
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Elsie resisted imagining the sound of Rose’s voice, resisted imagining Rose’s state of mind when she’d grabbed her in the parking lot. She dug in harder—her argument might have been wrong, but she was right to worry. She thought of Rose’s saying, “If I can’t find a spare bed, I’ll sleep on the floor”—pathetic teenage self-pity. Then Elsie gave way. Rose had said, “This is my father … These are my brothers,” when Rose was the center of attention.
She’d been horrible to Rose.
chapter fifty-five
May was just finishing ironing when the phone rang. She said, “Hello?” There was a pause. A women’s voice said, “Mrs. Pierce? Please hold, I have Mr. Aldrich on the line for you.” Another pause and she heard a booming voice. “Hello, May! Sorry about that. I’ve got people running in and out. This is Jack Aldrich.”
“Hello, Mr. Aldrich.”
“Jack, please. I saw you were at Rose’s play—wasn’t she great? I knew she had a voice, but what stage presence. We couldn’t have guessed, could we? It seems like yesterday she was a little girl. Look, I’m sure you’ve got lots to do. So I’ll get to what’s on my mind. I want to apologize. I’ve been remiss about being a good neighbor. I’ve been thinking about how many ties we already have. I guess you must have heard from Rose that I’m going to put her play on over here.” May wondered how Mr. Aldrich knew about her and Rose. It could be Phoebe’d been a chatterbox. She hoped Mr. Aldrich wouldn’t go on about that. “And your boy Tom,” he said. “I can’t say enough about him. Great job building the new dock. More than building—he’s got good ideas about our whole waterfront. I could see a future for him here at Sawtooth. I know he works for Eddie Wormsley, but one of these days he may want to be part of something bigger. I like the cut of his jib.” May supposed she ought to say something, but she was still nervous and bothered by Mr. Aldrich’s trying to sound like an old salt. Mr. Aldrich kept right on; she didn’t have time to say thank you. “There are all sorts of ways we can get together. One thing just occurred to me. What if I bought a little easement from you, just to put a footbridge across Pierce Creek so a few of our Sawtooth nature lovers could get across to the nature sanctuary? Way down at the tail end of your three acres. I don’t think you’d even see it. If Dick is changing over from the red-crab fishery and getting back to lobstering, there might be a readjustment period, and a healthy payment for an easement might bridge the gap. More than bridge the gap.”