Compass Rose (45 page)

Dick heard May out, looked away, and said, “Up to you.”

Sally called Elsie. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” Sally said. “I think he’s trying. We had a terrible fight. I honestly thought it was the end. But then I let him come back and talk, and it’s more complicated
than I thought, and he seemed truly miserable. I think he really cares about you, and he cares about you and me. And I said everything’s flying apart, and he said all he was asking was that I just please, please, let him try. So I don’t know, but I couldn’t stand it if you’re mad at me.”

Elsie waited a second too long, and Sally cried. Elsie said, “No, I’m not mad at you.” And then, “Yes, I’ll come.”

Mary said to JB, “You don’t have to come. You could say you have a business appointment.”

“On the Fourth of July?”

“Some sort of writing deadline, then.”

“You don’t want me to come?”

Mary sighed. “I have to be there. You don’t. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I think you’re still worried I’ll put my foot in my mouth. You forget I’ve been up there clearing rocks with half the people coming to the party.” He shot his white eyebrows up and cocked his head.

She knew him well enough by now to see he was filling up with a compliment to himself. She said, “I’m sure they were all amazed at how you made the day pass so brightly.”

“You’re very close. What they actually said—what they actually said at the end of the day as they hoisted me on their shoulders—was ‘Lucky Mary Scanlon—no wonder she’s never looked happier.’ And then we all sang ‘Bringing in the Sheaves.’ ”

“Never mind, then. There’s no pricking your balloon.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. I just said that because you said … Look. I live here now. I’m living here with you. I’m getting along with your friends. We had a fine time up there in May’s field. It was
two
days, by the way. Now that there’s this stranger occasion, you’re worried. You’ve been worried before—you worried that I’d talk too much and May wouldn’t like it. It turns out May and I get along just fine. You can’t keep on poking me at every turn—watch out for this, watch out for that. You’ve told me the stories. I can take it from here.”

“All right, all right. I’m glad you’re finding your way. That’s not what I was talking about at all. I was only offering you a way out of
an evening of Jack’s telling us he means nothing but the good of all his subjects.”

“It’s a party,” JB said. “You like everyone else who’ll be there. The food will be splendid, the fireworks spectacular. Listening to a bit of his hypocrisy is a small price—”

“He’s not a hypocrite. A hypocrite knows he’s pulling the wool over our eyes. Jack is devious enough, but he truly believes that everything he does is for an almighty good—if fools like us could only see. There’s days I feel sorry for him, him living in the middle of a little ball of his own notions. There’s not a glimmer of anything else. Oh, he knows there are other creatures who have to be dealt with one way or another. And he’s good at that—I mean, skillful at keeping on in his own direction. It only occurred to me the other day—he never really apologizes. He says, ‘I’m sorry, but sometimes a good storm clears the air.’ Or he says, ‘I’m sorry you were offended.’ He’s like one of those little Coast Guard boats—all sealed up and self-righting.”

“So why is he throwing this party? I mean, if he’s that oblivious …”

“Ah, well. That’s me going on about him as a loonie. He’s not altogether oblivious. There’s him wanting his way no matter what, but then there’s him feeling an ache he doesn’t know much about except it’s an ache. Of course he’s upset that his wife’s upset, and he means to show her that he’s taken with one hand but given with the other. He knows how to keep a wife, at least a wife who’s got no other way to live. It’s people like Elsie and Dick who puzzle him. He looks down on their messy lives, and at the same time he has a suspicion that they have something, some wild nerve, that makes them ready for anything. Each time some tail end of their doings floats in, he wonders if they’re getting more out of the world they live in than he gets out of his.” Mary sighed. “If he knew them better, he’d see the long stretches of their ordinary days, he wouldn’t envy their giving off the odd spark. It’s as though he thinks Elsie had Rose or Dick had a shipwreck to make him feel dull. But he keeps that ache of envy buried. He thinks to himself he’s bringing pieces of land into a proper order. He doesn’t see he’s got another motive. He’s trying to
make everyone in his life subordinate to him—to owe him money, to be on his payroll, to be bound to him. That’s one thing this dinner is about—here you all are at my table, there’s Eddie working on the gazebo and May in her garden, and I’ve put in a word for Dick with the insurance company, and Mary’s cooking, and there’s Elsie with a job at our school, and Johnny Bienvenue is looking forward to our fund-raiser, and let’s not forget Rose’s success in our show, and she certainly deserves every penny of the Aldrich scholarship. Of course, he won’t say that out loud, but he’ll have a moment of seeing himself as the great heart that’s pumping the blood through the system, and it’s only decent to hope that that moment will do for him and that he won’t look around the table and see something else. And it’s not resentment that would do him in—that would mean he’s still part of the mix—it’s that he might see that whatever he’s taken and given is taken and given. Now we’ve all had ourselves a shake and we’re back to living our lives with each other and he’s just something that happened.”

Mary sat down. When she caught her breath, she looked at JB. “What?” she said. “And all you wanted to know is if you should wear a coat and tie. You poor man, you didn’t know what you were getting into.”

“I didn’t know I was taking up with a Greek chorus.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you have uncanny sympathy for everyone.”

“That’s just the inside out of ‘Everyone loves Mary Scanlon.’ I’m not sure that that says much for my brain.”

“Then you missed what I just said about your brain. I love your brain. Forget what I just said about your poking me. I’m glad you’re telling me things. I’m glad I’m here with you. I’ve never been gladder about anything.”

It took Mary a moment to let go of the rhythm of their back-and-forth—and, deeper than that, her worry that everyone else was bobbing up and down … They could wait this once while she sat still for this breath of pleasure.

A
ll by herself in her house, Elsie argued with Dick. She let Dick argue back. When she said, “Maybe Rose is more like Tom. Tom’s happy to live and let live,” she imagined Dick’s saying, “Yup. Tom’s a happy-go-lucky guy. Nothing against Tom, but just as well he makes his living on land, don’t need to be so strict. Rose is Charlie’s sister, too.”

Elsie argued that she knew Dick in a way that no one else did, that she needed him as much as anyone, that she only wanted a part of him, that she was part of his life, that they were bound together in their own way … And Dick said, “I won’t argue about that. It’s just that arguing doesn’t get as deep as how I ought to get along with Rose.”

“We’ll see,” she said out loud. The sound of her voice startled her, then made her laugh at herself, then made her worry that she was getting too crazy.

She needed to get outside. Not through the woods to May’s field. Down to the salt marsh? No—someplace she hadn’t been with Dick.

She went for a slow jog on the beach, swerving away from the spill of waves, swooping back onto the hard, wet sand as they slid away. Just enough of a dumb game to keep her half alert, half lulled, her eyes half closed against the westering sun. Sandpipers skittered away from the reach of a wave, skittered back to peck at sand-flea holes. Gulls lofted themselves, hovering until she jogged by. Familiar rhythms, familiar colors, even the inch of shadow cast by half a quahog shell and then another and another. Everything was as repetitive as the stir of small waves breaking, the hiss of their receding. She saw a small boat coming toward her alongshore, sixty yards or so out. It was dark against the glare off the water. Someone was rowing. As it came closer to being abreast of her she saw it was two people
rowing, the oars in the air together, dipping together. She stopped, raised a hand to shield her eyes. Looked like they knew what they were doing. When the boat was straight out from her she saw that it was white. She watched the port-side oars swing toward the bow, pull harder toward the stern. As the boat moved past her the sun lit up the colors of the rowers’ shirts and then their faces. Dick and Rose.

When they got farther away the sunlight struck the water behind the boat and she lost their faces in the brightness that trailed them. And then all she could make out clearly was the blinking of light on the narrow transom as it rose and settled in the easy swell.

A wave she didn’t hear foamed over her running shoes. Her feet sank into the sand. She stood so still that sandpipers ran close by her.

She didn’t understand her astonishment. It was like and not like seeing the indigo bunting, drab in the shade, electric blue as it flew into the light. It was like and not like the time she watched Dick weave the strands of a cable splice, his blunt fingers intricate in a way she didn’t know. Like and not like Rose making her entrance onstage, the laughter from the audience alarming until it was clear that Rose knew what she was doing.

The litany of what she’d seen and what she made of it blurred. Good. Let Dick and Rose alone. She knew, without argument, that she wouldn’t mention seeing them to either of them. She knew in spite of what she’d wished for, what she would not stop wishing for, that she could also wish not to cast a shadow on her daughter, on her daughter’s awkward father, on that graceful man.

E
lsie had misgivings. What good could come of all those people crammed into one room?

Rose was full of beans. Her show was over; it was as good as being let out of school.

There would be people Elsie didn’t want to see. There would be people Elsie wanted to see but not with each other.

“I hope we get to dance,” Rose said. “I want to see Uncle Jack shake that thing.” She laughed and looked at Elsie, then rolled her eyes and sighed. She said, “Maybe you’ll think the hat’s funny.” She put on a tiny white yachting cap with a plastic anchor on the front. “Come on, Mom. It’s a goof.”

When they got to Sawtooth, Rose tugged Elsie along to the kitchen. Mary Scanlon looked up and said, “Dear God—it can’t be time already.” She set a timer and handed it to one of her staff. “That’s for the roast vegetables.” She set another timer. “And that’s for the pig.” Rose peered through the glass door of the oven. “Roast suckling pig,” Mary said. “Thank God there’s a bit of a breeze or it’d be too hot for a heavy meal.” She turned to a waitress. “Before you bring it in, there’s a holly wreath goes on the head.”

Rose said, “Or you could put my hat on it. It’d look like Uncle Jack.”

May came in with a basket of tomatoes. She said to Mary, “Last ones out of my old garden.” She set it down and hugged Rose.

Mary caught the eye of another of her staff. “These’ll go right into the salad. They’re grand, May. Don’t think of them as the last—we’ll put them down as the first in your new account.”

“No,” May said. “They’re not that much, but they’re what I’m bringing to the meal. So we’re not just eating crumbs from the rich man’s table.’

Elsie thought, Trust May to cast a pall. But there were Mary and Rose laughing, and May turning to Rose with a smile. Rose said, “And Mary and I are singing for our supper.”

There was Rose standing in the middle of the women who’d raised her. When Rose flew away, what then?

May said, “Come say hello to your father. He’s out there on the side porch with your uncle Jack.”

Mary laughed. “I can hear the silence all the way in here.”

May and Rose left. Elsie watched Mary whirl around the kitchen, a peek at the ovens, a word in everyone’s ear. Mary came back to Elsie and said, “I’ve just got time to change. His nibs gave me a key card to the spa. Good for one day.” She laughed. “If it hasn’t expired by midnight, I’ll treat myself to a whirlpool bath.” She took Elsie’s hands. “You’re not still mad, are you? You seem …”

“No.” Elsie sighed. “I don’t know. I’m not in the mood for a party. Not this party.”

“Ah, well. Think of it as our party more than Jack’s.” And Mary was gone.

There’d been a time when she could tell Mary everything.

The sunlight was slanting into the screened porch. As Elsie walked in she narrowed her eyes against the glint from the forks and knives, the light refracted through the wineglasses. In the bright haze the people were faceless shadows.

On a sideboard there was a row of framed photographs. Rose said, “Oh no. I hate that one. I look like someone just—”

“Grabbed your ass,” Tom said, and laughed.

“That’s enough of that,” May said. She turned to Rose. “I think you look pretty. And look at how the ribbons are flying out.”

“Well at least I’m not the only one on display,” Rose said. “There’s one of that statue of Phoebe.”

Mr. Salviatti cleared his throat. “I hope you won’t find fault with that one. My cousin made it.”

“It’s a wonder,” May said. “And you’re generous to give it to the town.”

“What I’m wondering,” Tom said, “is how all that wind got there.
Your cousin set up a big fan or something? Get that robe all blown up against her … I mean, it looks great, no two ways about that. I was just wondering.”

“There is the model, and there is also the imagination of the artist.
La sua fantasia.
”

Everyone was getting jostled. Eddie and Dick were looking at a photograph of Miss Perry. Dick said, “That’s a nice picture. So don’t say anything about how she chased you off her land.”

“Wasn’t going to. I know how good she was to you and your boys.”

Dick said, “No need to bring that up, either.” He half turned and said, “Hello, Elsie.” He cleared his throat. “Just keeping Eddie here in line.” He turned back to Eddie.

Here was Dick in this life. Not a flicker of anything else.