John Casey - Compass Rose

How long before she turned into Miss Perry? Mixing nature and myth, teaching at the Perryville School, bird-watching and botanizing with a pet student, surrounding herself with nice old men? Elsie felt the bark forming on her skin.

“Diana,” Mr. Salviatti said. “She is the goddess of the hunt, isn’t she?”

“Yes, that, too. Although she did something terrible to a hunter. He saw her skinny-dipping, so she turned him into a stag, and his hounds tore him to pieces.”

Mr. Salviatti said, “A drastic fairy tale. I wonder what is the point — to make men fear the sight of a naked woman?”

“Well, he was a Peeping Tom. Of course, you’re right, she was drastic. But all the gods had their bad days. Think of Zeus and all the women he raped. Even Apollo was going to jump on Daphne — she had to turn herself into a tree.” Elsie couldn’t stop; footnotes were sprouting from her like leafy twigs.

Mr. Salviatti said, “I envy you your knowledge of these gods. They are human, at least. As a boy I was instructed in the lives of saints and martyrs. Saint Francis throwing himself in a thornbush to rid himself of desires of the flesh. How sad and inhuman …”

Two waitresses carried in the suckling pig and started around the tables. Rose jumped up and put the yachting cap on top of the holly wreath.

“Right, right,” Jack said. “We’ll make him a member, and then we’ll eat him.”

He made room for the waitresses to put the pig in front of him, but Mary waved them on. She said, “They’ll carve it in the kitchen. Just time enough for Rose and me to sing. Come on, Rose. We’ll stand over in your corner so everyone can look out at the boats. The barcarole from The Tales of Hoffmann. ”

Mr. Salviatti said to Elsie, “A barcarola is a boat song.” So he was leafing out, too.

Rose started singing. Mary leaned toward her, put an arm around Rose’s waist, and joined in, “Oh, how lovely is the evening, is the evening …”

How Mary loved Rose; how Rose loved Mary. Elsie looked around at all the faces tipping with attention and pleasure. How everyone loved Rose and Mary. Elsie watched them sing, watched them sway together, watched them breathe. She could hear their voices go up and down, she could hear the rhythm and see them swaying in time, but it was as if everyone else glided with them like fish while she wallowed.

Applause, applause. Walt whistled. Phoebe said, “Walt. Really.”

He said, “Come on, Phoebe. Let the good times roll.” He cocked his head and yelped.

Rose patted him on the head and said, “Down, boy.” Tom and Deirdre laughed.

Elsie felt left behind by rowdiness, too. It wasn’t that she disapproved. She wasn’t Phoebe, for God’s sake. She used to be the one to start trouble. She’d said she wasn’t in the mood for a party — that was turning out to be an understatement. It wasn’t that she was sour on these people — she was sour on herself.

Patty said, “Aunt Mary, how about one of your Irish songs?”

“Maybe later.”

Jack said, “Quite right. There’s an order to this … to these festivities.”

Walt got up and began working a book out of the side pocket of his jacket. His cuffs rose halfway up his forearms. Elsie guessed he was wearing a suit of Eddie’s, a size too small. It made Walt appear even larger.

“What?” Jack said.

“I’ve got a little present for Elsie.”

“Walt,” Phoebe said, “not in the middle of—”

“There are a number of presentations,” Jack said. “I’ll be sure to call on you when the time comes.”

Years ago Elsie had been at a dinner table at which there were three men she’d slept with. She’d had several reactions almost simultaneously — a thrill, a sadness that whatever desires she’d had were gone, and a fear that somehow everyone would know. Her reactions had been to all three men as one group. This was different. Walt was an embarrassment. Johnny was a sigh. Dick was part of her life. This time there was no thrill, no wonder at the transience of desire. There was only the fear that Walt would blurt out some galumphing remark that would strip her naked.

Walt said, “It’s your party, chief.”

Rose and Tom laughed. Encouragement from that corner of the room. Jack and Phoebe trying to shut him up. Stirring Walt up both ways.

Dick had said, “We live in South County.” All right — she got that part. She could see almost all of the people she knew in South County sitting in this room. Why wouldn’t Dick see that they could sit in a roomful of South County without anyone knowing anything — without knowing anything worse than what everyone already knew? There wasn’t a soul here who didn’t know that Dick was Rose’s father. But that brought her hard against Dick’s notion that his sleeping with her was violating a taboo because she was Rose’s mother. God knows fishing-boat captains had their superstitions — they had their logbooks and their charts, but as often as not they’d decide where to fish using some sense they couldn’t explain. All right, then — she wouldn’t reason with him. She’d find a way to drift into his mind as another sign, as gently irresistible as the wind in his dream.

Mr. Salviatti raised his glass to Mary, seated across the pots of ferns and hollyhocks. “Exquisite! The singing and the pig.”

The waitresses cleared the plates. Jack stood up. “And now we’ll hear something from our new neighbor, who has written a poet … a poem. A poet who has written a poem. Mr. Kelly.”

Mary said, “It’s Callahan.”

“Yes,” Jack said. “Mr. Callahan.”

“ ‘Wading in Sawtooth Pond,’ ” JB said, and went on in a conversational tone. “The pond is like an oculus …”

Elsie hoped for more from JB. In the few up-to-date nature poems Elsie had read, the poet saw something and right off the bat it reminded him of something else, usually about himself. At least JB was committing his offenses against nature on paper. Jack was actually fucking it up.

“ Marsh-elder leaves sift sun and shade ,

And on the shallow maze of rocks

A leopard changes spots. ”

Elsie looked at JB. Hearing this prettiness from this large man was like watching a bear crochet. People shouldn’t write about nature until they’d been bitten by something larger than a tick. Now she sounded like Deirdre O’Malley showing her scars.

JB continued his processional wading around Sawtooth Pond.

“ Pierce Creek brings in a haze of silt .

The light sinks in — goes flat — until

It gilds a sunken stone with shafts—

Child’s drawing of the sun. ”

It was hard to tell when it was over, since JB hadn’t been standing up. Phoebe peeked at him and then patted her hands together, setting off a polite clapping. Phoebe raised her glass and said, “I love it. It’s so … It’s so relatable to.” She emptied her glass.

Walt got up again, holding his book. Jack waved at him to sit down. Walt said, “I’ll just slip in here in the middle of the order, and then you get to bat cleanup.” Walt put a finger on the cover. “Can you see? This woman warrior here … I’ll pass it around.” Even ten feet away Elsie saw the picture. A woman in a fur skirt and halter was pointing a spear at a man cowering beside a swan with an arrow in its breast. Walt said, “This really happened. Elsie caught my dad when he killed a swan with his crossbow. And what’d she do? She let him go. So here’s to Elsie, for knowing what’s what and for letting Dad bring home Christmas dinner.”

Eddie said, “I wasn’t the only one going after some free-range meat. One time Elsie was onto Dick for poaching clams right over there in the nature sanctuary.”