John Casey - Compass Rose

He began to move, rustling and jostling that seemed to have no relation to his shifting darkness against the dim windshield.

“I mean, we don’t have to worry.”

He moved sideways. He was trying to slide over the back of his seat.

She said, “Wait. I’ll put that down. No, wait. You’ll have to put your seat back up.” He opened his door and the overhead light came on, which made the pulling and pushing of the seat backs easier but did away with the spell of her igloo, of the subtleties of touch and sound.

He shut the door, managed his way between the front seats. He had the good sense to lie still. After a while he put his arm around her shoulders and said, “ Nous voici. ”

She had enough French to translate: here we are. It took her a moment to think of why this plain phrase should stop her. It was what Dick had said when he’d appeared in her driveway and Mary had gone inside with Eddie, and Rose was nursing, and Dick had moved his hand in an arc and said, “Here we are.” Maybe he’d said it just to say something, but it had landed on her then. And now.

Johnny said, “Are you a little tired? After all that tennis? It’s okay.”

From chill to anger. She wasn’t ready to go home. She turned her anger on amiable, inadvertent Johnny Bienvenue. She wouldn’t mind a little fierceness. She sat up and pulled a boot off. She threw it into the front seat. Then the other. What else? For an instant she forgot what she was wearing. The wool dress she looked good in. She’d admired herself in the locker room, come out swinging her gym bag so he’d look at her.

She hoisted her hips and pulled off her tights and underpants, then smoothed her dress back over her legs. “Tell me what I’m wearing,” she said. “See if you’ve been paying attention.”

“A goose-down jacket.”

She took it off. She said, “That’s too easy. Now what?”

“A blue dress. Wool … Dark blue. And blue stockings.”

“Wool is right. Blue is right. The rest is wrong. Too bad.” She turned around and pushed her bare foot against his arm. She slid it along his sleeve until it reached his hand.

She thought of his legs as he stooped beside the stream, of his forearms as he played the trout, of his thick, dark hair as he bent to pick up the papers in Miss Perry’s library. She thought of herself thinking about him. Fantasy? Even though he was right here? Was that the discipline? It wouldn’t work if she thought of him as a nice, solid, comfortable man. What if he’d got the guy off? What if he’d said he’d see to it that she got in trouble? She liked the thought of him as a bit mean.

She leaned forward and moved his hand onto her calf before this fantasy dissolved. It was flimsy stuff but carried just enough charge to draw a sound from her throat when he touched her leg. She came back into her skin. Part of her was lethargy, part urgency; her mind slowed, her nerves quickened. A current of pleasure spiraled up her ahead of his touch, subsided, then gathered again as he peeled her wool dress up to her ribs. She felt his weight. She smelled the wet wool of his overcoat where snow had melted on the shoulder, and that became part of the jumble of winter clothes and bare skin of which she was now the center.

The snowstorm made it a slow night in the kitchen at Sawtooth Point. The few cottage owners who came in ate early. Mary got home and offered to drive Sylvia Teixeira, but Sylvia said she was just going down the hill to Miss Perry’s.

“I thought Elsie’d be back by now,” Mary said. “I’m sorry to keep you late on a school night.”

“No problem. Oh — I hope it’s okay — Charlie Pierce came by to help me with math.”

“As long as Rose got to sleep.” Mary looked Sylvia over. “So Charlie’s good at math, is he?”

“Oh, yeah. Math and biology. All that left-brain stuff.”

“Is that right? I thought he might have a touch of the poet. All those books of Miss Perry’s.” Mary wondered at herself, trying to sneak a peek into Sylvia’s love life.

“Well, sure. I didn’t mean he doesn’t read, you know, other stuff.”

Mary looked at the snow on the greenhouse roof and said, “It’s coming down some. It wouldn’t take a minute to drive you.”

Sylvia said, “I mean, he’s really sweet.” Mary heard the breathlessness she’d been listening for. She held up the car keys. Sylvia said, “Oh. No, I’ll be fine. I’ve got boots.”

Mary said, “It’s not too much for you — taking care of Miss Perry on top of going to school?”

“I’m mostly there just so someone’s there. It beats going home. Someone always has something for me to do at home. This way I’m doing something Uncle Ruy wants me to do.”

“Captain Teixeira is your … What? Great-uncle?”

“Yeah. But he’s the head of the whole family. For instance, my cousin Tony asked him if it was okay to work on Captain Pierce’s boat. And if I want to go to college, I’ll have to have a talk with him. I mean, he’s nice and everything, but still. Like he has this idea that everyone should spend a year in Portugal. Three of my cousins did that. I’m hoping that on account of my helping out with Miss Perry, I can maybe get out of it. At least till I’m out of college.”

“You want to go to URI? Is that where most of the kids in your class are going?”

“Yes.”

Mary stopped herself from saying, “And Charlie Pierce.” She didn’t really want yet another piece of someone else’s life. She saw Sylvia out the door. She looked in on Rose. Sound asleep, one arm hooked around the new teddy bear. Would she still be around to quiz Rose about her love life? Both yes and no terrified her. She loved Rose. She loved Elsie, even though Elsie burned her up twice a week. She felt for the first time the dulling effect of the choices she’d made. Each one was okay by itself. She’d been as much a sister to Elsie as Elsie’s real sister, so why not move in and help out? And she’d been exhausted running her own restaurant, so why not get into something that didn’t weigh on her every hour of the day? Because she was becoming the background. She’d been tired the year after her father died. But now that year was up, she was back on her feet, she had some money in the bank, and she was still living on scraps from other people’s meals. Even little Sylvia Teixeira’s.

She climbed on Elsie’s Exercycle, got off and raised the seat, got on and pedaled. After two minutes she wondered what could possess someone to do this night after night. She remembered watching TV in her father’s hospital room, an interview with a boxer at training camp. The reporter held the mike up near the boxer while he was skipping rope and asked what he thought about during the boring parts of getting in shape. Without missing a beat — in fact, keeping time with the whir and tick of the jump rope — the boxer said, “A million and change, a million and change.”

So what did Elsie think about? A longer life? Getting good at games? Men?

And what was she herself doing on this ridiculous machine but trying on another bit of Elsie’s life? As if the machine were magic, a way to conjure health, adventure, romance: a way to spin a counter-spell to the routine of child care and work.

Be fair, be fair — Elsie wasn’t on a joyride. She was good with Rose, had run to help Miss Perry with Rose on her hip, and then managed Miss Perry’s household … which was how she’d caught the eye of Johnny Bienvenue.

Mary pedaled slower. The Exercycle was minor witchcraft compared to the way she herself was being transformed into doting Aunt Mary, plumping into middle age, no longer bothering to pluck the gray from her long, red hair, happy to have Elsie bring Rose to her bed weekday mornings, to feel Rose nuzzle into her. Of course she loved that time — Rose and her under the covers. Rose making humming noises while Mary sang. And she loved the way Rose was with her all day. Rose was sociably happy to be held for a bit by this one or that one of the kitchen staff, but she called for Mary if she was wet or hungry, had begun to say something that sounded like Mary, Mayee, Mawee, something distinct from the “Mama” she cried out to Elsie when Elsie showed up at the kitchen door.