Compass Rose (34 page)

The sun sank low enough to take on its first stripe of red. The shadows of the stone wall and the scrub cedars grew longer.

This slowness was an unlooked-for relief. The time with Rose that had stung her near to grief was inside her—out there, time was moving more peacefully, a slow slip of the land through its veil of changing light.

Her first thought when she came to was that he had the sense to let her be.

W
hen she was reduced to one word it was
thorough
.

He came through the window headfirst and pulled his body into the room, walking his hands along the floor. He ended up full-length at her feet. So far, it was her idea. She could laugh it all off. She could help him get up and see what happened when they put their hands on each other. She was pleased for the moment to turn the idea in her mind, register the flush of her skin against her second thoughts. But during the time he lay there without moving—perhaps only seconds—the room seemed to tilt toward him. He got to his feet and pulled the ladder up, carefully folding it into the window seat. He closed the lid, looked out the window. He
said, “There’s our bikes out front.” He pulled the window down and said, “I guess that’s okay.”

So she was next. He held her shoulders, kissed the side of her neck, lifted her hair—all the preliminary attentions. When he kissed her, her mouth felt faraway. She was impressed by the way he unzipped the front of her bicycle suit and slid it down both her arms at once. When he moved his hands down her bare back and inside the suit, she clenched her buttocks. That reflex of vanity was the only bit of response her mind provided. When she’d been the girl in the red dress her thoughts had woven through her, little strands of commentary that made her shiver as much as skin on skin. Now her mind was blank. She certainly felt this and that—she felt his unpeeling the suit down her legs. She may have lifted one foot and then the other. Another set of attentions and she felt herself divided into more zones—his hands on her rear keeping her upright, his mouth ranging up and down her front, and her own breath brushing the roof of her mouth. Nothing on the screen of her mind, although she could tell that her hips were moving. And soon enough her breath was stuttering out of her, and then she was being tipped onto the bed. She felt her hand touch the bare mattress. For an instant the hand was distinctly hers. Then it disappeared from her mind as abruptly as it had appeared.

After he made her yelp he propped himself up on his hands and knees. She felt the air on her skin as one more touch urging her on. It was then that the word
thorough
occurred to her. He rolled to one side and lay still.

When he began to touch her again, her head felt heavy, but her skin tightened. She closed her eyes. Her brain felt stoned, but her body began to jitter again, a circuit of nerves humming in the dark.

This time, when she thought
thorough
, the word seemed coarser.

The sun was almost down. She lay on her side along the edge of the narrow cot. She looked for her bicycle suit. In the dimness the red looked black. She stretched her arm out. She couldn’t reach it. She didn’t feel like moving. She let her hand rest on the floor. Her stomach growled. She put her hand on it and realized she had to pee. She went down the hall, feeling her way to the bathroom in the
windowless dark. When she came back she put on her bicycle suit. She thought, Well that’s that. It was a surprise to hear herself in her own mind. She thought that she’d never noticed the noises she made. She tried to remember the noises she used to make. She must have made noises, because one time someone had put his hand over her mouth. But now, as if there were an echo in this strange little room, she heard herself yip.

The late light from the sky filtered through the leaves of the copper beech. There were no shadows, just a steady half-darkness.

She used to do this sort of thing and then fly away. Now she felt like a ghost of herself—there was her body, and she couldn’t get back into it.

She used to do this sort of thing and go home laughing, laughing at how she’d made a man lurch out of his well-tailored life, at how the hand that knotted his tie and signed the letters on his desk had trembled to touch her.

Now she was the one lurched out of her life. The body down there was enjoying the aftereffects.

He sat up and ran his hands through his hair. Had he been asleep? Or had he watched her tugging her bicycle suit back on? He got up and went down the hall. Of course, he knew where the bathroom was, he’d worked on it, he’d carried the armoire up the stairs. She’d been his boss.

That should have done it.

She heard the toilet flush, the faucet run, his hands splashing water. What a ridiculous set of sounds to pay attention to. But apparently not for her nerve ends. When she heard his footsteps in the hall, her breath caught in her chest and she couldn’t stop the whir of what would happen next.

H
ere it was well into spring, pretty near official summer, and it didn’t feel like it to her. She felt as tight-packed as unturned earth. She’d been busy enough—got the house in order; put the woolens away; repainted Rose’s boat and revarnished the oars, since Dick kept putting that off; got the tomato vines staked.

It was more than just being by herself, doing and making lists to do more. What she was doing didn’t jibe with what the rest of them were up to. She wanted them all back in the house, and at the same time she couldn’t pull back from being at odds with them. Tom with his get-rich-quick ideas, Charlie sticking with Deirdre. Dick going off to the bank, buzzing with the same desperate energy as when he was building the boat but more dangerous now that he had more to put at risk.

They’d been pulled together in the house when Charlie was here and Tom brought Rose to visit. It made her wish for winter again.

Dick had come back from the bank, sat down at the kitchen table, and said, “They wouldn’t make a loan on
Spartina
. Just on the house. I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but I told them that the last time a hurricane came by,
Spartina
just needed some paint, it was the house needed fixing. I told them I built both, I’m the one ought to know. They think the house and lot are worth something. They’re worth something because of what Jack Aldrich has done at Sawtooth. And it’s not so much the house, it’s the lot. Funny damn world where it’s not my work—it’s someone else’s work next door that makes them hand over their money.”

May had said, “Well, a boat is more like a car. It goes down as soon as you drive it off the lot.” She added, “I mean, that’s how they think,” but it was too late. Of course, she saw how Dick was insulted,
how what he’d put his mind to and what he’d made with his hands and put to use for sixteen years got weighed on a scale in a bank office and barely made it tip. It wasn’t until now, with Dick five days out, that what she herself felt rose up in her. She felt slighted. She didn’t expect anyone up at the bank to know anything much about her house, but as offhand as you please, Dick weighed the house as less than his boat. Just another thing he’d made out of wood when he had time to spare. Put the shingles on and go out to sea again. She was the one who felt every inch of it in her fingertips.

If there was a balance between the two of them, her house had to weigh as much as his boat.

She wished she wasn’t alone now, now that she was finally delving into herself, turning over what she’d kept buried. She’d been reproaching herself for having driven Charlie away, for being cranky with Tom … She’d been worrying that that was why she felt like a stony field. What she turned up now was that she didn’t forgive Dick for driving to Boston without her. And clinging to that—she wasn’t sure just how—was that Dick got Charlie to go out on
Spartina
with him. They didn’t make peace here in this house, not here where she lived, where she’d got over her pain, where she’d let them see that she’d come to love Rose. Dick had taken Charlie where Dick was in command, where Dick could forget everything but the sea and hope that Charlie would melt into that forgetfulness with him.

And now Dick had gone and put her house at risk. He’d got Tom looking at the accounts, gone off to Mr. Aldrich’s bank—got himself mixed up with all that machinery of invisible money. And then put out to sea without another word. At least he knew what he was doing out there. Though this time, as if to show how tangled up he’d got, he’d taken Mr. Aldrich’s son along—not that that would make a difference if he couldn’t make a bank payment.

She stayed angry, fiercely angry, until midday. She took a mattock and dug a slit trench just outside the wire fence around the garden. She buried a band of chicken wire in it. Something, likely a groundhog, had been getting under the fence. She took some pleasure in thinking of his frustration. He might end up cutting his paw or getting a claw stuck.

Then she was alone again, sliding off the crest of her anger into the trough. She thought of calling Phoebe, but Phoebe was in a tizzy over Eddie and Walt’s going at each other. And even if Phoebe was smart about real estate, Mr. Aldrich cast a spell on her. Mary Scanlon was more down-to-earth about Mr. Aldrich, but even if it was her day off, she’d be up to something with her new boyfriend.

Spring was getting into everyone’s bones but hers.

She wished that Deirdre O’Malley didn’t set her teeth on edge. If Deirdre wasn’t so impossible, she could’ve helped with all this; nobody said she didn’t have brains. Maybe Deirdre would grow out of being stuck on herself.

May called Elsie. She said, “I was just wondering if you talked to your brother-in-law. He came by—”

“No, but I just talked to Sally. She’s worried sick. How long has
Spartina
been out?”

“Five days.”

“Jack Junior was supposed to send a radio message; Sally made him promise.”

“Well, Dick doesn’t like to get on the radio till he’s homeward bound. Doesn’t want the other boats knowing just where he’s working.”

“I suppose I could tell her that. She just asked Jack to call the Coast Guard station, but he said to wait. What did he say when he came by?”

“That wasn’t today, it was a while back. About mortgages and the like.”

“Oh.” Elsie paused. “So you’re not calling about … Okay, I see. And you’re right, that’s probably something to worry about, but just now Jack and Sally are on the subject of Jack Junior. And you’re right, I did say I’d do something, and I will. I suppose I could tell Sally you’re not worried. And about Dick not using his radio. You don’t know if there could be a storm out there that we don’t know about here? I mean, they’re out, what, two hundred, three hundred miles?”

“That’s where the shelf drops off, but Dick gets out there and follows the edge. Or he could take a detour if he thinks he might spot a
swordfish. If Sally needs to keep busy, she could call Captain Teixeira. He’s at home, but
Bom Sonho
is out, so he’d know what the weather’s doing.” May immediately regretted saying “If Sally needs to keep busy.” She remembered standing right where she was now with this same phone in her hand when she heard about Charlie. She said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said—”

“No, I understand. And you’re right. Sally would be better off talking to Captain Teixeira. All she’s doing now is getting furious at Jack. I mean, Jack pretty much ordered Jack Junior to do this. Jack’s got a thick hide, but she might say something sharp enough … And then if it turns out nothing’s wrong, he’ll be insufferable. God, family life.”

May liked Elsie’s voice, liked that last sigh. She wondered what it would be like to have Elsie as a friend, worrying about her the way she worried about her sister. And they could talk about Rose. May thought she’d always be grateful to Phoebe for driving her to Boston, but when Phoebe zigged and zagged she wasn’t as good at it as Elsie. And Elsie didn’t need as much help about how things worked. Phoebe came back to herself more often, all that talk about some old beau. And then posing for Mr. Salviatti’s statue. May felt guilty. She’d call Phoebe right after this, see how Phoebe was doing with Eddie and Walt.

“Look,” Elsie said. “I’d better get back to Sally. I haven’t forgotten about Jack and what he might be up to. I’ll give you a call. And maybe we’ll see each other at Rose’s play. You’re awfully good to go three times. I’m afraid I had a little fit after the first night. Did Rose say anything?”

“No. It seemed to me she was fine. You’d have thought it might go to her head, but she was just as steady as if she’d been doing it all her life. The second night was just as good. She was, I don’t know, bouncier. You know how she acted the maid’s part—kind of sharp-tongued and sassy? The second night was more like sweet and sassy. She sounded like Mary Scanlon when she sings those Irish songs and puts on her brogue.”

“You mean when Rose was talking? She did it in an Irish accent?”

“Just when she was pretending to be the maid. When she was
being herself—I mean, herself in the play—she sounded even swankier. Like Mr. Aldrich if he were a girl.”

Elsie laughed. She said, “Now, there’s a picture.”

May hadn’t meant to be funny, but she was pleased she got Elsie to laugh.

After that phone call May went out to the garden again. She pulled weeds until she filled a bushel basket; she made a hole in the compost pile and buried the weeds deep enough so their roots would be too hot to do anything but rot into black earth. She didn’t know the science of it, not exactly how the microbes made the old leaves and the green weeds and garbage so hot, but she knew how to manage it, get it working so it dissolved not just her vegetable peels but eggshells and fish bones—and even some of Dick’s bait when it got too rotten—into crumbly soil that smelled sweet.

When Tom showed up May was still out in the garden. He said, “I’ve been trying to call.” Then he just stood there, sliding his hands on the top of his pant legs. He finally said, “Charlie’s coming over; I called him and he’s coming over.”

May said, “What for?” There was a dazzle of light in her eyes when she jerked her head.