Compass Rose Part 4

"Yes." Elsie reached under the covers to slide her down. As Elsie touched her, Miss Perry's eyes opened. She said, "I remember. When it was odd, I called the telephone. I called you."

"Yes. Let me take your gla.s.ses off."

Miss Perry's eyes were blurry for a moment, then grew distinct. "You came. I said ... Did I say thank you?"

"I'm sure you did."

"You talked. You said trees. The same trees."

"That's right."

"I remember the men came. The ... car. Not a car. What is it?"

"Ambulance. We'll talk tomorrow. You'll remember it all tomorrow."

"And the baby."

Elsie said, "Yes, that's right," as if Miss Perry were a child trying to put off bedtime by saying to the grown-up reaching for the light switch, "I remember ..."-what she saw at the beach, what she ate that day that was good for her, the end of a fairy tale.

chapter thirteen.

Elsie was to meet Mr. Bienvenue at Miss Perry's house at eight in the evening. She sent the night nurse, Nancy Tran, to babysit Rose. Elsie set out the memoranda, appointment books, and letters on Miss Perry's desk. She laid a fire in the fireplace. She was still in her uniform, thought of going back to change, thought Mr. Bienvenue might arrive. She decided to go up to tell Miss Perry what was going on; Miss Perry would wonder when she heard a man's voice.

Miss Perry was speaking more clearly now, and the doctor was pleased at how much she'd improved in a month. Miss Perry still had difficulty with prepositions. She had a theory that her grasp of prepositions would improve as she began to move around.

Elsie said, "A lawyer's coming over this evening."

"Is it Jack? I should very much like to see Jack."

"No. It's someone Jack recommended. We're just going to go over some papers."

Miss Perry said, "I see," but after a moment she said, "What does 'over' mean?"

"Oh. Sorry. Go over, look over. Over is like on. You remember on."

" 'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.' But you said, 'Over.' 'A lawyer is coming over.'"

"I should have just said a lawyer is coming."

"Very well. A lawyer is coming. Am I to meet with him?"

"No. He and I are just going to put a few things in order. I thought I'd tell you so you won't worry when the doorbell rings."

"All this fuss." Miss Perry suddenly glared at Elsie. "It is tiresome. Now please go change your clothes. What will he think when you open the door? He'll think you're the cleaning woman. Your clothes are covered with something, I don't know what."

"It's just bark. I brought wood in for the fire."

"The fire is not ... You look slubben ... slubbenly." Miss Perry closed her eyes and clenched her fist. She beat her forearm on her hip, not hard but over and over. She stopped and opened her eyes. "Slovenly."

It was the feebleness that evaporated Elsie's spurt of anger. She said, "All right. I'll take care of everything."

Elsie got to the bottom of the stairs and sat down. She felt dumb. What did she know that could change anything? How had she ever thought she knew what was going on? How had she imagined that anyone could do anything but mumble a few words about what little they knew? Jack's lawyer's words, the doctor's what-we-know-about-the-brain words, her own wonders-of-nature chirps. They all might as well be Miss Perry exhaling stale poems and Latin prepositions and then a burst of bad temper. Every living thing had a few bubbles of one kind or another going in and out one kind of hole or another. When the in and out was over, it was back to matter. She saw it-particulate matter fluttering down through darker and darker water toward the seabed. A stupor spread through her, weighing down her arms, her chest, her head. She reached across her chest and put her fingers in the grooves of the newel post. They fit smoothly. She rested her cheek on the back of her hand, smelled her skin. She ran her fingertips up and down the grooves until another thought came to her. Not cheerier but on a smaller scale. d.i.c.k had told her she was spoiled, called her house "the toybox"-of course, that had been part of his pleasure as well as his irritation. He should see her now. He should get down on his d.a.m.n knees and think of her taking care of his baby, taking care of his friend and protector Miss Perry ...

The truth was ... The truth was she'd be doing everything she was doing anyway. She'd wanted a baby. She'd loved Miss Perry since her first Latin cla.s.s. She wasn't bossed into this by d.i.c.k. She wasn't bossed into this by Jack. Maybe this paperwork she was about to do with some bozo protege of Jack's-that was something Jack owed her for.

When she opened the door to Johnny Bienvenue she didn't get a good look at him. He was wearing an overcoat and scarf, and a hat with a brim. He pulled off his glove to shake hands, then turned toward the coatrack. She started off toward the library before he was through hanging up his things, and she was lighting the fire when he followed her in. She said, "I hope you don't mind the uniform. I haven't had a minute to change since I got off."

"You're a Natural Resources officer, right? Jack calls you the warden of the Great Swamp, but that's not the official ..." He stopped, probably because she was staring at him so intently. The Queens River. He was the man who'd caught the trout, made the fire, and drunk the wine-the man she didn't arrest. She tucked her hair back and blushed. And then, thinking that she'd thought of him from time to time, when she pedaled her Exercycle or when she fit back into her uniform, she blushed again. "Yes. I mean, no. Warden of the Great Swamp is what the guys at work say. Kind of a joke." And then more coolly-after all, she'd seen him, he hadn't seen her-"But I get around other places. The salt marshes. The Queens River."

But he'd put on reading gla.s.ses and started to look over the papers on the desk. He said, "Jack says Miss Perry is recovering. Do you think she'll be able to manage her affairs on her own?" When Elsie didn't answer right away, he looked up. He said, "I know. It's hard to say. Does she strike you as knowing what's going on?"

"Yes."

"Does she understand numbers?"

"I don't know. We talk, but numbers haven't come up."

"On this list of books here-gifts to Charles and Thomas Pierce-where do these figures come from?"

"I found the receipts. The first figure is what Miss Perry paid for each book. I called a rare-book dealer and he gave me a rough idea of what they're worth now-that's the second figure. The dates I got from her appointment books-Charlie and Tom's birthdays."

"But I understand these books are still here."

"Yes." Elsie pointed to the gla.s.s-paned bookcase. "She gave them reader's copies. She always said the same thing-it was sort of a joke after a while. 'If you don't scribble in this book or tear the paper I'll give you a new one when you're grown up.' What's in the bookcase are first editions of the same books. Some of them are worth two or three thousand. But Jack told me there's no problem if the gifts are under ten thousand in any one year."

"That's right. But the donor-Miss Perry-said, 'If you don't scribble in them.' An outright gift has to be unconditional. This wouldn't be a problem if the total was under ten thousand. But each boy's collection is worth ..." He scribbled on a notepad. "Roughly twenty-five thousand."

"It was a joke! Maybe when she started saying it, when Charlie was six or seven, maybe she meant it then. I was there for their birthday-not this year but before-and Miss Perry laughed and the boys laughed. The reason she was giving books this way was that if she'd said to the boys' father that she was going to pay for them to go to college, he'd have said no. He's very ..." Elsie saw them, saw the day, Miss Perry catching a flounder, reciting a bit of Beatrix Potter. d.i.c.k and the boys, not May, May was fixing the cake, Miss Perry and d.i.c.k and the boys in the skiff. The late-afternoon light on the water, the summer-green spartina. A year later, the boys' next birthday, they were at Charlie's baseball game, Miss Perry innocently attentive, May rigid with pain.

Elsie sat down, closed her eyes. She saw May. She saw May looking at her. She felt May. She felt a s.p.a.ce in herself fill up with cold astonishment. And then a sense of desolation-as if she were May looking at her house after the hurricane, the broken corner posts, the roof sagging, the wall gaping open, the things inside strange, hers but not hers.

"Are you okay?"

Elsie said, "Just a minute."

"We can do this another time."

"No. Let's go on."

Elsie looked at one of Miss Perry's appointment books, found the dates of Charlie's and Tom's birthday party. "There. Look at that one. 'Gave Charlie Pierce Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Sloc.u.m. First edition, mint. Gave Tom Pierce Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana. First edition, good condition.' "

Then she started crying. It was a sudden burst, her body bent forward, her face jerking in her hands, the appointment book at her feet.

When she half recovered and was wiping her cheeks with her fingertips, she heard herself say, "I've never cried. I mean, I've never cried in uniform." That was a bit of babble that normally would have made her laugh. At least she stopped crying. She said, "Oh, G.o.d. You must think I'm ..."

"No, no. I can guess it's been ..." He bent down to pick up the appointment book from the floor. His hair was cut short or the half-curls would have been ringlets. He pulled a small packet of Kleenex from his briefcase. He puzzled over how to open the cellophane. He had thick fingers, a heavy, broad face. A general width-when he finally broke the wrapping and pinched out an edge of Kleenex, she felt as if she was being tended to by a bear.

He said, "I guess you've felt a lot of strain. Jack said you're like a daughter to Miss Perry. So look. I can take the appointment books and the Everett Hazard folder, xerox them. We don't have to wrap everything up right now."

Elsie didn't want him to go. She wanted him to sit by the fire and pay attention to her. She said, "Let me just look in upstairs. You're going ... where? Woonsocket? And that reminds me. Phoebe Fitzgerald wants to talk to you."

"Oh, yeah. The tenant."

"I could make you a cup of coffee. For your drive. You can smoke your pipe if you'd like." He looked surprised but said, "I'm only going to Providence. But sure. A cup of coffee'd be nice. Black."

When she came back he was looking at the books in the boys' bookcases. She put his coffee on the table between the two armchairs facing the fireplace. She sat down in one of them, tucking her legs under her, a kittenish pose she hadn't struck for a long time. He sat in the other armchair, planted his feet. "So tell me something about Miss Perry," he said. "But first tell me how you know I smoke a pipe. Some sort of Sherlock Holmes thing? Or was it something Jack told you? Probably not Jack. He doesn't notice details. At least not about men."

"Oh?" Elsie was surprised by this bit of spin on his serve but was pleased to bat it back. "Of course, that's true of men in general."

"I don't think so. But let's not get into one of those men-in-general talks. The pipe ..."

"I'll tell you a little bit about Miss Perry. We'll get back to the pipe." He stretched out his legs. So this wasn't going to be one of her old daredevil encounters, nothing like her fantasy of wading across the Queens River, having him at her mercy.

She told him school stories, about being Miss Perry's prize student in Latin and natural history. A glimpse of herself as a tomboy. "My sister was the great beauty, so I took to the woods." He raised his eyebrows but didn't make a courtly objection. "I would have been just sullenly thras.h.i.+ng around, but Miss Perry took an interest. Just asked a question or two at first. Then asked me to take her to where I'd seen something extraordinary. The first thing was a lady's slipper. On the way she pointed out other things. One time she slit open a little swelling on a twig and inside there was a nymph."

"Oh, sure, nymph. Like a maggot or a grub. Good bait for trout."

"So you're a trout fisherman."

"When I was a kid, Grandpere used to take me. Now it's rare." The rs in grandpere were trilled French-Canadian rather than lightly gargled French-French.

"Did you grow up speaking French?"

"Some. My father's family's from Trois Rivieres. They speak Quebecois. You hear it about half the time in Woonsocket-au coin. When the governor gives a speech up there in our corner, I do the introduction in French and English."

She said, "So what are you doing here? This little job ..."

"I'm a lawyer. And I owe Jack. He tell you I worked for him? I'm not the kind of guy Jack usually hires for his firm. I didn't make partner, but I learned a lot in five years. Now I run my own shop-an office in Woonsocket and one in Providence. Run-of-the-mill cases, but I'm seeing more people."

"So, being a governor's aide-how does that fit in?"

"I'm not ruling out doing something in politics."

" 'I'm not ruling out'-that usually means someone's dead set on it. I hope you don't imagine Miss Perry's a moneybags who'll bankroll your campaign."

He smiled. "You look a lot like your sister, but you talk a whole lot different."

Elsie felt both flattered and stopped. He sat there smiling pleasantly. She wondered if he was really so at ease. She wasn't used to being the one who wondered. She wondered if he was at ease because there she was in her uniform, a state employee, and he was a big cheese. She said, "So, if you get stopped for speeding, you let the cop know you work for the governor? Is there some little something on your license plate?" She held up her hand and said, "Never mind. I don't know why ..." She gave up the idea of playing her little trump card-trout, fire, wine. She felt her edge grow dull. She'd relied on that edge for years. When she was at Sally and Jack's she was the daring gadfly. In the woods she had her badge. And although she'd worked at being just-folks, one of the guys, she had to admit she'd never quite given up the privileges of cla.s.s. She'd denounced them when she saw them in someone else, most usually in Jack. She sometimes thought that her life had leached them out of her. She sometimes thought that the whole idea of cla.s.s was fading, the radioactive emissions were weaker and weaker. Nothing like the Boston or Newport of a hundred or fifty years ago. But deep inside her, sometimes hidden even from herself, there was a trace. One of the chief privileges was the a.s.surance of being the final judge of all other claims of worth-money, power, beauty, fame, intellect, or even good works. She'd used it-it wasn't just her sa.s.sy talk or body that set men off. Her college English prof had imagined he was f.u.c.king Daisy Buchanan. The striving lawyers at Jack and Sally's parties, not quite as literate, still sensed an allure of risk. When they were through she might turn on them, remind them that s.e.x was pleasant enough but now that she was herself again she could see they weren't quite the thing.

And now-as if her bursting into tears in front of this bearish man was as physically intimate as f.u.c.king-she'd felt the old urge to put him in his place. And she'd started-"I hope you don't imagine Miss Perry's a moneybags ..." The breezy way she mentioned money, the poke at his ambition from her position above ambition, the backward tilt of her head as if she'd finally bothered to pay attention. (One of the minor privileges-no one was really there-of course there were always people around, but no one was really there until you decided to notice.) She didn't have it in her anymore. She hadn't debated it, hadn't examined her conscience. In fact, she'd been about to make another entrance in that role. Performance canceled.

She hadn't crossed the Queens River because she'd looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy. With all her Exercycling and her fish-and-vegetables diet she was on better terms with her body-she didn't mind that her feet were a half size bigger, her hip bones a bit wider, and of course her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bigger.

He was staring into the fire. Without looking up he said, "No, it's okay. I ask myself that. I'm as suspicious of my ambition as I am of anybody else's. I won't give you the speech about caring what happens to people. But is there a part that wants the applause? The deference? The special treatment?" He shrugged. "I can't say there isn't some of that. But so long as it stays in the corner ... The part of myself I question more is curiosity. I applied to Jack's firm out of curiosity. What would I see in there? What would I see from there?"

"And what did you see?"

"At first work was work. But after a while I saw they didn't want to change much. They work hard, but it's to keep things in order. They're less corrupt than some of the state politicians because they aren't desperate. Why should they be? They're sailing along in a big s.h.i.+p. You know Jack. Half of what he says is like he's the captain of a big s.h.i.+p."

"Why didn't you make partner? Did Jack tell you?"

"Yes. When I worked for one partner or another I was competent at research and writing briefs. The firm's main income is from two sources-there are corporate clients like Ciba-Geigy or Electric Boat, and there are some rich families. I wasn't good at attracting clients of either kind. In fact, one of the few clients I took on was some guy in an accident. The insurance company got him to sign a release for peanuts. There were more things wrong with him that they wouldn't pay for. I won the case, on the grounds that the boilerplate form doesn't represent an agreement between two parties in equal bargaining positions. The firm doesn't represent that particular insurance company, so there wasn't a conflict of interest, but the precedent has been a thorn in the paw for all the insurance companies, and some of them are clients of the firm. When I did it again I guess they thought 'plaintiff's attorney,' the polite way of saying ambulance chaser. Of course, that's a story that makes me a good guy. David beating Goliath. There were other times when I did an okay job when I should have done a very good job. I have no grievance. And when I was on my way out, Jack suggested to the governor that I could be useful."

"But Jack's Republican. A right-wing Republican."

"Jack knows lots of people. A law firm can't be attached to one party or the other. Jack's views are no secret, but he manages to keep on speaking terms with whoever's in. Sure, he can be ... overemphatic."

"That's delicate."

"Okay. He can put his foot in his mouth, but that's when he's on his own time. When he's at work, he focuses. But there's another thing. He likes to know what's going on-not for work, just stories. He knows odd things about every corner of the state."

"That's because he thinks it's his."

He looked up. Out of amus.e.m.e.nt at first but then a slower satisfaction. She guessed he didn't spend much time talking like this, certainly not a lot of time talking to women. He looked like someone surprised by a small pleasure, like a woman stroking the sleeve of a silk blouse.

When he finished his coffee and gathered up the folders, she walked him to the door. As he put his overcoat on she had an impulse to touch his back. She resisted it-he had enough to think about. He shrugged to settle the collar, turned around, and said, "You're okay, are you?"

"Oh, yes. That was just ... I'm fine."

"So I'll be in touch." He tipped his head at his briefcase. He put his hand in his overcoat pocket. She read the lift of his face.

"Your pipe," she said. "Maybe next time. I'm afraid I have to let you go now."

After he left she suddenly didn't know what to make of it. Had she embarra.s.sed herself? Or had she had the pleasure of pleasing? She'd certainly gone into female display-in fact, several variations of it. She puffed her cheeks and popped a breath out. Now all she was was tired.

She slogged up her driveway, checked on Rose, paid Nancy Tran, and waited up for Mary, the comfort of telling Mary.

When Elsie was done, Mary said, "Aw, go on. You're awful hard on yourself. By tomorrow Miss Perry will be all apologies. And so what if you busted out crying in front of the lawyer?" Mary laughed. "Were you still sniffling when you said, 'I've never cried in uniform'? I'll bet that charmed the socks off him."

chapter fourteen.

Phoebe was now taking her lunch hour with May once or twice a week. May liked this arrangement, especially now that Phoebe worked her way through her own complaints more quickly and cheerfully. There was Eddie's roughneck son, Walt, but the bright side was that Eddie was beginning to notice Walt's erratic comings and goings. There was that awful rent increase, but Phoebe was making more money. "Eddie and I are really a very good team. You remember you asked me about that strange glow you've been seeing over at Sawtooth? It's an inflatable cover for a lighted tennis court. Jack Aldrich put it up because the tennis players wanted it, but then he saw it at night and he said it looked like a giant sea slug. So he called Eddie, and Eddie and I went over there to meet with Jack and Mr. Salviatti.

"Somehow it came up that Mr. Salviatti has relatives in Westerly, and I said, 'Oh, where they make those beautiful statues.' I happened to have seen an exhibit at RISD. I gushed about them. Especially the angel statues, and it turns out they were loaned by guess who. He invited me to come see them again-they're in his garden. So that got us off on the right foot. And then Eddie was good with Jack. The problem with the inflatable thing is that it's a great success. It's booked every night. Now that it's fall a lot of people can only play after work, and Jack doesn't want to shut it down while we build something that's not so ugly. He's making an awful lot of money. As I well know, and I only play twice a week. Anyway, Eddie walked around the outside and said he could put up a building around it. Something that would look like a traditional barn. Mr. Salviatti thought that was fine. Jack, who had asked us to come, was the naysayer at first. He said a barn would get too hot during the summer and it would cost a fortune to air-condition. At least he could deflate the inflatable thing and have an extra outdoor court. Eddie said that the lights would bother the cottage owners. A barn would keep the light inside. As for the heat, we could put two ventilation towers on it, same as a barn. He said, 'That way the sea breeze'll suck the hot air right out the top. No sense in paying for something that nature'll do for free.' So then we went inside and there was Elsie b.u.t.trick all by herself batting back b.a.l.l.s-there's this machine that shoots them out. Jack called out, 'Ahoy, there, Elsie! Can't find anyone to play with?' She ignored him, hit another ball, but then the machine was out of b.a.l.l.s so she came over, probably to say h.e.l.lo to Eddie; she's very fond of Eddie. But Jack said, 'I hear you and Johnny Bienvenue hit it off.' As if we weren't there or as if we don't matter, as if Eddie and I don't know ... Then Jack said, 'I knew you'd get along. Diamond in the rough. I'm thinking of making him a member. He said he doesn't play tennis, so I gave him a three-month guest card, told him he should learn, get his game up to a weekend level. It'd be nice if you took him under your wing. Fun for both of you.' Elsie looked very uncomfortable. My guess is that it wasn't just from Jack's bossing her around. I have a sixth sense, and I think she already has her eye on this fellow as a new beau. I thought that might ease your mind."

No. It didn't ease her mind. No, she shouldn't have told Phoebe if Phoebe was going to make it her business. And no to Elsie. Elsie should know to keep to herself, not go prancing around as if she was free as air, as if she could flit back to Sawtooth Point as if nothing had happened. Elsie was the mother of d.i.c.k's daughter; that baby was Charlie and Tom's sister. If there wasn't a baby, she and Elsie could have been ghosts to each other, but there was no pretending away flesh and blood.