John Casey - Compass Rose

The juice came to a boil. May set the timer and wiped her hands on her apron. May found herself nodding, not because she agreed but because she should have figured that Phoebe couldn’t help herself.

“How good you are, ” Phoebe said. “And I never would’ve dreamed … I mean, think of all the people who know you and … For example, I’m sure Mary Scanlon talks about Rose to her new boyfriend.”

“Mary Scanlon has a right to.”

Phoebe put her palm to her cheek as though she’d been slapped. She sat up very straight and said, “Oh dear.”

That was Phoebe, too — she might run on and on or she might just give a little peep. To put a patch on Phoebe’s hurt feelings, May said, “Mary’s as close to Rose as I am.” She felt herself going blank. She wasn’t tired, she’d just had enough of going round and round. She said, “What’s done is done.” Her voice sounded far off. “I know you mean to help.”

“Of course I do. And I understand how much stress … I mean, it’s been one thing after another — Charlie’s accident, Dick’s boat, and now your house. I’m not surprised you’re on edge.”

There Phoebe went again. But this time Phoebe wasn’t really present to May. What Phoebe said was sharp for a half second, then blurred, then gone — like the trail left by a fish swimming through phosphorescent plankton.

May said, “I guess it’ll be all right so long as the next time you see Mr. Salviatti you make sure to tell him what I told you. I don’t want Rose talked about, not in the argument about this house.”

Phoebe floated to her feet. “Yes, of course. I’m on my way there now. And don’t worry, Piero is very understanding. I’d trust him with any of my problems.”

Phoebe went to the downstairs bathroom and came back with her hair brushed to a shine. After she went out the door there was a trace of perfume. May closed her eyes and saw her things — no, more like ghosts of her things — the canning jars, the kitchen table, the cedar chest, Rose’s skiff. There they went trailing in Phoebe’s wake, up the hill and drifting through the bars of Mr. Salviatti’s gate, then disappearing into the swing of Phoebe’s skirt as she climbed the front steps.

The timer buzzed. May turned off the burner. At first she thought her little daydream was about whatever tomfoolery Phoebe got up to. But then she felt peaceful, as if whatever was to happen with people wanting this or that didn’t matter all that much, as if she’d been waiting for something to shake her loose from her fretting and her disapproving. She’d been right and she’d been wrong, and either way was just more trouble for somebody. It’d be nice if she could figure out just how she got to this quiet. Now she was content to sit and wait for the juice to cool off enough to pour into the jars. She might tighten up again, but for now she was unfolding, easy as that.

Yes, I’d like to,” Elsie said, “but look, there’s a sort of crisis going on and I’m pretty much … I’ll give you a call when things settle down.”

She’d never heard Walt’s voice on the phone. He sounded like his father.

“Yeah. I heard Phoebe talking to Dad. So you’re into all that, too. Wait. Dumb of me. I guess you’re right in the middle. I’m used to thinking of you off in the woods on your own.”

“In the woods — don’t I wish. But right now I really do have to get going.”

When she hung up she kept on pressing the phone down as though that would seal him off. The afternoon in the tower room could have been years ago, should have been years ago, shouldn’t be a piece of the puzzle in her mind. She’d been trying to think about who could have some influence on Jack. Sally was still away with Jack Junior. Johnny Bienvenue had returned her phone call. He’d said, “It sounds ugly, but I can’t jump in without some homework. I’ll send someone down to the township office to see what they say. At least that’ll let them know I’m taking an interest.” A dime when she’d asked for a dollar. Johnny might not have sold his soul to Jack, but he might worry about crossing him. It could also be that Patty Scanlon was rationing his help to an old lover.

Could Captain Teixeira do anything? Not with Jack but maybe with Johnny — promise him every vote in his extended family, speak up for him in the Portuguese community.

Rose had fired her one shot, but Mary Scanlon had convinced Rose — and May agreed — that Rose should go ahead and sing.

May had told Elsie that Phoebe Fitzgerald was persuading Mr. Salviatti to work on Jack. Elsie felt a pinch of competitive envy. Elsie felt bad about this envy, then felt an even more alarming envy that Phoebe, whom she’d dismissed as a giddy flirt showing her pretty legs to the boys, had turned out to be the hardheaded one, while she herself had nothing to offer but outrage and a day of fruitless phone calls. And now that she’d just got off the phone with Walt, she might as well cut a switch and lash her own bare legs.

Out of the house. Not down the hill to Miss Perry’s. Straight into the woods. Plenty of daylight left. A good hard hike until she owned her own body, until she was her own motion. Nothing splendid about this neck of the woods, close-packed second growth fighting it out for a hold in the rocky soil, a few pines pushing up fast and spindly to get to the light. She had to circle a patch of barberry, damn foreign barberry, even more bristly and thorny than the native. On the other side was a bit of surviving meadow — all these hills were cleared of old growth by the colonists so sheep could graze. In the twentieth century it had gone back to scrub. The beautiful trees were pets of the big houses.

She felt better being sour about the woods than sour about herself.

She felt even better in the middle of the small meadow, seeing the blue summer sky. There were a few black locusts that had managed to grow tall on the edge of the clearing. She saw a bird flit out of a hole in the trunk. Female bluebird, just the tail blue. It swooped down and around the tree, then fluttered back up to its hole. It did it again, and this time Elsie saw what it was up to. A blacksnake was climbing the locust, taking advantage of the deeply ridged bark. How did the bird know? Did it hear something? Did it smell something? Had it just come out of its nest by chance? For that matter, how did the snake know there was a nest up there? Did the snake actually calculate that a hole was likely to have a nest in it? It was a long way to climb just to see. Or did the snake keep an eye out for birds bringing food back?

The snake was moving slowly, inching up. Hard to tell its length, since it was curving and recurving. Now only a few feet from the hole. The bluebird was fluttering, peeping near the snake’s head. The snake kept climbing.

Elsie threw a stick at it. Way short. She found a rock. It hit the tree above the hole. It frightened the bluebird more than the snake.

When she watched a mayfly struggle out of its case in a streambed and swim to the surface, she didn’t root for the mayfly more than the trout coming after it. What was the difference? Pretty bluebird, ugly-ass snake? What was in the hole, anyway? Eggs or nestlings?

Too late, anyway. The snake was in the hole, only six inches of tail hanging out. The bluebird fluttered up and down. Why didn’t it start pecking at the snake’s tail? If it wasn’t going to do anything but chirp and flutter, to hell with it. Elsie looked around the sky, hoping a hawk might show up and spy the snake’s tail. But even to a hawk’s eye the tail might look like another ridge of the soot-gray bark.

Elsie sat down. After a while the snake pulled in its tail. The bluebird perched on a twig, certainly tired out after all that frantic swooping and hovering. Elsie wondered what it felt. Was grief a word that translated? Resignation? Did the bird picture what was going on inside? Elsie herself wasn’t altogether sure. Did the snake bite the three or four nestlings to death and then unhinge its jaw to swallow them at leisure? Or did it eat one while the others squirmed? Did the live ones know what was going on?