John Casey - Compass Rose

Phoebe said, “We can go on to something else. Just tell me I haven’t made you mad at me. I’d really be at a loss without our little get-togethers. I mean, right this minute I am at a loss. There we were having a lovely talk …” Phoebe tucked her chin in but kept looking.

“I’m not mad,” May said. “I just thought of something and it got hold of me.”

“Well, I certainly know what that’s like. Anyway, now that we’ve gone this far, I’ll say one more thing. I absolutely will never tell anybody else anything that we talk about. Never.”

May felt stuck to the chair. She knew that if she didn’t say anything, Phoebe would go on. It was her own fault. Just let everything knot up inside her and pull her face apart.

Phoebe said, “Oh, May. I have this little problem, and now I’ve … without meaning to in the least. But I’m sort of stuck. If I just get up and leave, it would be heartless. I mean, it wouldn’t be heartless, it just might seem heartless. But if I don’t say anything else, then you’ll be left wondering. I mean, you’ll be left wondering what I’m wondering. I suppose I could promise I won’t even wonder. Maybe if I were like Eddie. Eddie is someone who can just not wonder. You know Eddie built another room up there since Mary Scanlon moved in? Since I was doing the time sheets I asked what kind of a job it was, and he said a bedroom and a bath on the east side and walling in the screen porch on the other side for when the baby needs a room of her own. It was as if it were just another detail, like what kind of windows. Eddie can be amazing that way, he just looks at the job. It’s not that he doesn’t have an imagination. He can imagine what things will look like, he can say, ‘If I fix it that way it’ll look funny, but if I do this …’ It’s just that I’ve never met someone as uncurious about people.”

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.”