John Casey - Compass Rose

She put the cap in a paper bag, punched a hole in the bottom so the ribbons hung free, and taped the bag to the hanger. She’d just talked to Elsie on the phone about Rose’s costume, and that made it almost natural to call her.

Elsie’s voice was a little odd, but there was no going back. “I’ve just had a phone call from your brother-in-law. I don’t want to be unfriendly to him—”

“What’s Jack up to now?”

“He was pleasant enough, but I have to say it was out of the blue. It made me a little nervous. He said how we were neighbors and how he was doing things for Rose and for Tom—”

“And then he wanted something.”

“Yes. He said just a little easement.”

“Look, May. You don’t have to do anything; you certainly don’t have to do anything just because Jack wants it. You remember those Just So Stories? Miss Perry read them to Charlie and Tom. There’s one about a camel who asks if he can just put his nose in the tent — it’s a cold desert night — and the guy in the tent finally says, ‘Okay, just your nose,’ but before you know it the camel’s inside, the whole hump and hooves, and the guy’s out. So you’re right to be nervous, especially if Jack’s sounding extra-nice and jolly. I don’t want to alarm you, but I know Jack. He’s got his eye on Tory Hazard’s house; he’s got his eye on your house. It might start with an easement. You’re on the only piece of land between Sawtooth and the wildlife sanctuary, and he’d dearly love to have a nature trail right through to it, so be careful if he starts talking about letting people from Sawtooth make a little path. It’ll get bigger. Jack’ll talk about community, he’ll talk about nature, but he’s really only for Sawtooth. He’s Sawtooth, and Sawtooth is him.”

May was alarmed. She’d thought of Jack Aldrich as a phantom neighbor, a ghost that made itself known by producing cottages, tennis courts, and docks. Now he condensed into a sharper picture, a real man in a suit who talked to her as if he knew her better than she knew him.

Elsie said, “I’ve warned him off once about your place. If it comes to anything, I think Sally would be upset, and he’s reached that age when he doesn’t want trouble at home. And now that I think of it, Rose has come into his worldview — well, this little piece of the world — and she can be fierce these days. And I don’t mind taking him on, either. I’ll certainly keep an eye on him. Anyway, I’m glad you called. And thanks again for taking care of Rose’s costume.”

May couldn’t remember if she’d thanked Elsie. She found herself out the back door halfway to the wharf, staring at the creek. That didn’t surprise her. She occasionally thought she was still in the kitchen and found herself in a different room, having forgotten what she was looking for. What surprised her was that in the same way that her notion of Jack Aldrich had suddenly condensed into a person, her notion of Elsie was changing. She’d called Elsie almost by accident, but now that she had, now that she’d called purely for herself, she saw Elsie all of a sudden and awful clear. It was like the time when she went wading for quahogs with Charlie. They were waist-deep near the mouth of the creek, feeling with their toes. Charlie gave her a face mask. The bottom jumped up at her, but in the squeezed-up space there was a bit of wrack fluttering in the current, specks of silt streaming past it so clear you saw each one and how one was deeper than another even though they were just a hairsbreadth apart. It was a world of life down there. She didn’t want to see all that each time she went feeling for quahogs with her toes, but there it was. And there was Elsie talking on the phone, talking fast that way she had, going off one way and back another, right there in front of you with all that energy running through her.

May saw how Dick would have wanted to touch her. She saw this without pain.

Mary woke up, closed her eyes again. She pulled the sheet up over her face, decided she didn’t have a headache, just a terrible thirst. She said, “I wonder if you’d get me a glass of water,” which meant she knew she was in bed with the white-haired baritone. Nothing wrong with that. And when he brought her a glass of water and said, “Now, where can we get a really good breakfast?” she thought that was just the right thing to say. It only bothered her that it took her a moment to remember his name. Ah, there it was — he went by his initials — JB, JB Callahan.

The other thing that bothered her (once she’d drunk some water and made her way to the bathroom wrapped in the top sheet) was that the two of them were in the guest room of the Perryville School. JB didn’t seem anything but happy, and told her she looked like a Roman goddess. She pulled back the blinds and saw, just outside the door, her pickup covered with dewdrops. The dew was a good sign in that it meant it was still early enough to have that really good breakfast. It was a bad sign in that it would be clear to anyone at all that the truck had been there for the night without giving itself so much as a shake. Who knew how many of the kids were Sawtooth brats who would have seen her truck coming or going round the back of the Wedding Cake with a load of groceries? She didn’t want to make a fuss, so she was thinking of the least fussy way to bring up the problem as they got dressed. He was humming the tune to “Down by the Salley Gardens,” another good omen. She pulled back the blinds again. A bunch of kids sauntered across a patch of lawn, too far away for her to see their faces. Oh, dear God, and what if Rose was wandering around? Hadn’t her last words been “I’ll sleep on the floor”?

Apparently her peeking past the blinds made enough of a fuss. He said, “Okay. You got your keys? Let me know when the coast is clear.”

“It’s just that Rose spent the night in the dorm. But let’s just go — she’d recognize my truck, anyway.”

“What kind of a school is this? Don’t they have morning prayers? We could go back to bed until they’re all in the chapel. Or until they’re all in class.”

“It’s Saturday. I don’t know what they do on Saturday.”

When she started the engine she realized she had no idea how she’d got through the maze of buildings the night before. She came round a corner and had to stop for a line of students — a line stretching across the narrow road onto a porch and then into what must be the dining hall. The students made way for her to roll through. She was concentrating on the road but caught the motion of JB waving his hand.

There were still a lot of dewdrops clinging to the hood. They’d slid a few inches, leaving what looked like the traces of a herd of snails.

“Is Rose your niece? Some sort of relative?”

“Was she there?”

“I’m afraid so. You came by just now to show me around. That’s our story, and we’ll stick to it. Honi soit qui mal y pense. ”

“And what might all that French mean?”

“Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”

“You’re pretty bouncy for this early in the morning.”

“Well, I had a pretty good night.”

“Is that all?”

“A sweet, splendid night. You have lovely shoulders. Skin like gardenia petals. What are you doing tonight?”

“Hard at work.”

“Then what about tomorrow morning?”

“The famous Sawtooth Sunday brunch.”

“Then Sunday afternoon?”

“We’ll see. But right now do you really want a good breakfast? Would you rather have an omelet or pancakes and sausage? Do you like your omelet a bit runny?”

“I hope this means we’re going to your house.”

“It does.” He made a pleased noise in his throat. She said, “Not a house, just a small apartment.”