Compass Rose (7 page)

May felt an odd relief, as if Phoebe’s chatter were in the future—everybody knew and nobody took much notice anymore—Elsie Buttrick’s child just another piece of small change, worn smooth by jingling with all the others—Mr. Salviatti’s company’s repaving Route 1, the red-crab packing plant’s hiring, Captain Teixeira’s retiring again …

Phoebe said, “So of course I said, ‘What baby?’ but Eddie started talking about whether Miss Perry would make a fuss about his going past her house. For an instant I thought that Eddie … that it was Eddie.”

May sat up straight. She didn’t say anything right off. Then she wondered just how well Phoebe knew Eddie, for all the time she spent with him. Of course, it could be that Eddie was changing; maybe he’d changed enough so he’d seem more of a risk. Used to be he’d just as soon be alone in the woods, but if you needed something done and didn’t mind waiting, he’d get around to it. People would say, “If you need a new dock you can get one at the boatyard, you don’t mind paying. Or you can get Eddie. Keeps to himself, but he’s handy.” Phoebe had said Eddie was “uncurious,” as if that was a fault. Maybe where she came from it was. That was of a piece with the way Phoebe dished out praise. No holding back. When Eddie put in a new porch railing at the Teixeiras’ store, Captain Teixeira gave it a pat and said, “That’s not the first one you’ve built.” Captain Teixeira might speak Portuguese at home, but he knew just what to say to Eddie without any extras.

Right now, whether she meant to or not, Phoebe had got her backed into a corner—all those extras, all that hovering and darting.

May looked her in the face and said, “It’s not Eddie.”

“Oh,” Phoebe said. “How do you know?” She put her hand over her mouth. Phoebe looked away, squinting over the next question. It didn’t take her long. She said, “So if Mary Scanlon is moving in, it’s to help out.”

“That’s right.”

Phoebe said, “If it’s Elsie’s baby, then who …”

May watched Phoebe take it in. She was relieved Phoebe didn’t say anything. Then May felt a greater relief. She was in the kitchen, her kitchen. She felt it was her house for the first time since it got fixed. She said, “I’m going out to the garden.” She looked at Phoebe’s shoes. “You can put on Tom’s boots if you want to come along. They’re by the back door.”

When Phoebe got the boots on she fluffed her skirt. She looked like she was looking around for a mirror. May handed her a basket and said, “You know how to tell a ripe tomato?” Phoebe raised her eyebrows. “Give it a turn and see if it falls into your hand.”

Phoebe admired the vegetable garden, the new garden shed. May said, “The shed’s in the same place Dick built
Spartina
. His shed was bigger, big posts and beams so he could use a chain hoist. Covered it all with canvas. When the hurricane hit, the canvas didn’t tear off. It caught the wind like a sail. Carried the beams right into the house. You saw what that was like. Dick kicked himself about it later. At the time he was running around, getting his boat out to sea.”

Phoebe said, “I always wondered—why out to sea?”

“He thought he could get her out past the storm. But even if he didn’t, she stood a better chance at sea than in the harbor. Half the boats smashed into each other. One got picked up and rolled onto Route One. He had some idea about how it’d be, so he fueled her up and took off.”

“What did he say to you?” Phoebe said. “I mean, did he ask you?” May laughed. She said, “No more about that than the other thing he got up to.”

Phoebe’s eyebrows climbed up her forehead. Phoebe opened and closed her mouth. She finally said, “I’m sorry, I guess that was another joke. It’s good that you can put things at a distance …”

May pointed across Route 1. “If it wasn’t for those trees we could see Elsie Buttrick’s house.” She pointed to the creek. “If you throw a stick in there, it’ll float right by her sister’s house. Dick didn’t get his baby on some hula-hula girl in the South Seas. It was right over there. Pretty soon I’ll be in the supermarket and I’ll run into Elsie
Buttrick with her baby in her grocery cart and I can either fall over in a faint or I can say, ‘Well, look at that. She’s got Dick’s eyes.’ So I don’t see where there’s much distance.”

Phoebe blinked and her eyes teared up some. Phoebe’s bit of weepiness was probably nothing more than crying at the movies. May didn’t doubt she did a good deal of that. Let her take it whatever way suited her. May was breathing easier. She’d wrestled with forgiving Dick until she didn’t know what it meant. And there was no talking to Dick—he was walking on eggshells. She sometimes liked him that way; other times it made her feel the two of them were drifting around inside a gray day that wouldn’t turn into anything but kept her on edge waiting for something.

Phoebe started picking tomatoes. She made slow work of it—each time she stooped she smoothed her skirt over her rear end and held it against the backs of her knees. Then she twisted the tomatoes so delicately that even some of the ripe ones didn’t fall. When she did pick one she laid it in the basket as if she was making a flower arrangement. Then stood up, moved the basket, stooped, smoothed her skirt.

May said, “You don’t need to be so dainty. Here.” May knelt beside her and picked three in short order.

“I’m sure it’s going to be all right,” Phoebe said. “I mean, here you are with everything he could want. You’re so good and beautiful in a real way.” She held her hands out wide. “I mean, it’s as if all this is a part of you.”

May felt the side of her mouth twitch down.

Phoebe said, “I know, I know. I should just think those things.”

May picked two tomatoes and another two. She said, “That’s more than enough. You’d better take some home with you.”

“I’m going back to the office,” Phoebe said. “I’m probably late; I am late. They’ll be all right in the car?”

Phoebe left in a flurry, shuffling to the back door with a pair of tomatoes in each hand, shaking off Tom’s boots, trotting out the front door in her high heels, waving out the car window.

May stood on the porch, a little let down. At first she thought it was because she’d been talking too much. Then she thought, what if
Dick was to find out? No, that made her cross, not sad. Dick was out to sea, where he didn’t answer to anybody but himself. No reason why she shouldn’t do what she pleased in her own place. Then she had a suspicion that Phoebe had got round her, had got the better of her. No to that, too. Phoebe was clever enough behind all that giddiness, but she didn’t think Phoebe meant her any harm. Phoebe was lonely, was aching to find a friend.

So what did it mean that Phoebe picked her?

E
lsie reread the instructions for hooking up the answering machine, one of the many small items on her list. In fact, they were all small, Lilliputians wrapping their tiny ropes around her just when she wished to do something big. She’d imagined that Miss Perry—Miss Perry’s situation—would require largeness of spirit, a beaming of will and encouragement. Instead she felt like an IBM typewriter ball tapping out one minuscule letter after another. The day nurse had immediately taken command of Miss Perry’s bedroom. On this first day she’d popped out four times to suggest things Elsie could do. All perfectly sensible. All elaborations of doctor’s orders. An electric heater, at least until Elsie got the plumber to bleed the radiators. A hot-water bottle. A tray with legs for meals in bed. As soon as Elsie arrived with one thing the woman would meet her in the front hall wanting another. And now this answering machine with instructions that seemed to be translated from Japanese.

The day nurse came down the stairs and said, “Lydia’s asking for you. Don’t stay long. Oh, we need baby aspirin. And I couldn’t find coffee. There’s tea, but I prefer coffee.”

“Baby aspirin?”

“Yes. Adult-strength would irritate her stomach, but we need a small dose as an anticlotting agent.”

“Okay. Baby aspirin. While I’m out, why don’t you see what you can do with this answering machine … It’d be a big help. I’ll put coffee on my list. Oh, by the way, it’s Miss Perry. We all say Miss Perry. Only Captain Teixeira … but he’s her oldest friend.” The nurse lifted a hand. Elsie said, “I’ll bring my coffeemaker, and we’ll have a chance to chat about everything tomorrow. Oh. We’re having meals brought over from Sawtooth Point, whatever’s the special. Once the answering machine is hooked up, just turn the ringer off and it won’t bother you anymore. And let me know if there’s anything you can’t eat. You’re okay with seafood? No problems with clams, lobster, squid?”

“I haven’t ever had squid.”

“Okay. No squid. After I see Miss Perry, I’ve got to run, but I’ll be back to meet the night nurse. Do you know her?”

“No. I don’t know who—”

“One of the Tran girls. She’s an angel. If you have any trouble with the answering machine, she’s very handy. They’re all very bright. The young ones all have perfect English.”

As she went up the stairs Elsie thought she’d just done a Jack. Not the stony-faced wait-’em-out Jack but the nipping-at-your-heels border-collie Jack. Couldn’t be helped; the woman was driving her nuts.

She trotted up quickly, a last little display of border collie. She slowed in the dark hallway. She’d never been in this part of the house. She stopped short in front of the half-open door. To go into Miss Perry’s bedroom seemed a terrible intimacy.

She knocked. Miss Perry’s voice floated to her, a single unsteady note. She went in. The light from the windows silvered the large lenses of Miss Perry’s glasses. In her long white nightgown and bed jacket, she looked like a snowy owl.

“Elsie.”

The sound of her name went through her. It had the odd effect of erasing her. It was a relief. It brought her to Miss Perry as a very simple organism.

“Elsie. Sit here.” Miss Perry moved her hand across the bed. Elsie sat. At this angle she could see Miss Perry’s eyes, one opened wider than the other. “I want to talk.” She waved her right hand back and forth without lifting it from the bedspread. She looked at her hand and said, “That means I’m laughing.” The right side of her mouth smiled.

“Yes,” Elsie said. “What are you laughing at?”

Miss Perry crooked her forefinger and slowly raised it. At last it reached the top of her head and tapped once. Then her hand seemed to dribble down back to the bed. She said, “Think.”

“All right. I’m thinking. You said my name … You know Captain Teixeira?”

Miss Perry shook her head. “Things.” She looked out the window.

“Tree.”

“Yes. Tree.”

She waved her right hand. Not a laugh. “Things you know. I know. More words for trees.”

“Oh. Ash. That tree is an ash.”

“Yes. Ash. Say a tree I don’t see.”

“Beech. The copper beech in front.” Miss Perry nodded. “All right. Sycamore. By my pond. It always looks like it’s peeling,” Miss Perry added. “And there’s the white oak beside it.” Miss Perry moved her hand, this time a laugh. Elsie said, “What’s funny?”

“
Quercus alba.
” Miss Perry touched her head again and said, “Odd. I know Latin. I don’t know
beside.
”

Elsie was afraid she was going to cry. She squinted and squeezed her nose as if stopping a sneeze. She said, “Beside.” She held out one hand, put the other out. “This hand is beside that hand.”

“Odd,” Miss Perry said. She closed her eyes. She lay back and waved her hand at her hip.

Elsie said, “Do you want to lie down?”

“Yes.” Elsie reached under the covers to slide her down. As Elsie touched her, Miss Perry’s eyes opened. She said, “I remember. When it was odd, I called the telephone. I called
you.
”

“Yes. Let me take your glasses off.”

Miss Perry’s eyes were blurry for a moment, then grew distinct. “You came. I said … Did I say thank you?”

“I’m sure you did.”

“You talked. You said trees. The same trees.”

“That’s right.”

“I remember the men came. The … car. Not a car. What is it?”

“Ambulance. We’ll talk tomorrow. You’ll remember it all tomorrow.”

“And the baby.”

Elsie said, “Yes, that’s right,” as if Miss Perry were a child trying to put off bedtime by saying to the grown-up reaching for the light switch, “I remember …”—what she saw at the beach, what she ate that day that was good for her, the end of a fairy tale.

E
lsie was to meet Mr. Bienvenue at Miss Perry’s house at eight in the evening. She sent the night nurse, Nancy Tran, to babysit Rose. Elsie set out the memoranda, appointment books, and letters on Miss Perry’s desk. She laid a fire in the fireplace. She was still in her uniform, thought of going back to change, thought Mr. Bienvenue might arrive. She decided to go up to tell Miss Perry what was going on; Miss Perry would wonder when she heard a man’s voice.

Miss Perry was speaking more clearly now, and the doctor was pleased at how much she’d improved in a month. Miss Perry still had difficulty with prepositions. She had a theory that her grasp of prepositions would improve as she began to move around.

Elsie said, “A lawyer’s coming over this evening.”

“Is it Jack? I should very much like to see Jack.”

“No. It’s someone Jack recommended. We’re just going to go over some papers.”

Miss Perry said, “I see,” but after a moment she said, “What does ‘over’ mean?”

“Oh. Sorry. Go over, look over.
Over
is like on. You remember
on.
”

“ ‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.’ But you said, ‘Over.’ ‘A lawyer is coming
over.’
”

“I should have just said a lawyer is coming.”

“Very well. A lawyer is coming. Am I to meet with him?”

“No. He and I are just going to put a few things in order. I thought I’d tell you so you won’t worry when the doorbell rings.”

“All this fuss.” Miss Perry suddenly glared at Elsie. “It is tiresome. Now please go change your clothes. What will he think when you open the door? He’ll think you’re the cleaning woman. Your clothes are covered with something, I don’t know what.”

“It’s just bark. I brought wood in for the fire.”