Noah's Compass

  Liam said, “Eunice, this is Kitty, my daughter. Kitty, this is Eunice, um …”

  “Dunstead,” Eunice said. She was sitting almost sway-backed now with her hands folded under her chin. She looked a little bit like a chipmunk. “It’s such a thrill to meet you, Kitty!”

  “Hi,” Kitty said flatly. Then she turned to Liam. “I’ve reached the end of the line, I tell you. I’m not staying under that woman’s roof another minute.”

  “Well, why not have a piece of chicken,” Liam said. “Eunice here was kind enough to bring a—”

  “First of all, I am seventeen years old. I am not a child. Second, I have always been an extremely reasonable person. Wouldn’t you say I’m reasonable?”

  “Should I go?” Eunice asked Liam.

  She spoke in a low, urgent voice, as if hoping Kitty wouldn’t hear. Liam glanced at her. In fact, he did wish all at once that she would go. This was not working out the way he’d imagined; it was getting complicated; he felt frazzled and distracted. But he said, “Oh, no, please don’t feel you have to—”

  “I think I should,” she said, and she rose, or half rose, watching his face.

  Liam said, “Well, then, if you’re sure.”

  She stood up all the way and reached for her purse. Kitty was saying, “But some people just take this preconception into their heads and then there’s no convincing them. ‘I know you,’ they say; ‘I don’t trust you as far as I can—’ ”

  “Sorry,” Liam told Eunice as he followed her toward the door.

  “That’s all right!” she said. “We can always get together another time. I’ll phone you tomorrow, why don’t I. Meanwhile, you can be looking through those materials I brought. Did I give you those materials? What’d I do with them?”

  She stopped walking to peer down into her purse. “Oh. Here,” she said, and she pulled out several sheets of paper folded haphazardly into a wad.

  Liam accepted them, but then he said, “Actually, Eunice … you know? I really don’t think I’ll apply there.”

  She stared up at him. He took another step toward the door, meaning to urge her on, but she held her ground. (He was never going to get rid of her.) She said, “Are you saying that just because Mr. C. forgot he had met you?”

  “What? No!”

  “Because it means nothing that he forgot. Nothing at all.”

  “Yes, I understand. I just—”

  “But we won’t go into the particulars,” she said, and she slid her eyes in Kitty’s direction. “I’ll phone you in the morning, okay?”

  “Fine,” he said.

  Fine. He would deal with it in the morning.

  “Bye-bye for now, Kitty!” she called.

  “Bye.”

  Liam opened the door for Eunice, but he didn’t follow her out. He stood watching her cross the foyer. At the outer door she turned to wave, and he lifted the wad of papers and nodded.

  When he went back inside he found Kitty sitting at the table, grasping a chicken breast with both hands and munching away at great speed. She said, “Any chance you’ll be going by an ATM any time soon?”

  “I hadn’t planned to.”

  “Because I spent my very last dollar on the taxi.”

  “You came by taxi?”

  “What do you think, I carried all this luggage on the bus?”

  “I gave it no thought at all, I suppose,” he said, and he dropped back down on his chair.

  Kitty set her chicken breast on the bare table and wiped her hands on a paper napkin. The napkin turned into a greasy shred. “That woman’s younger than Xanthe,” she told him.

  “Yes, you’re probably right.”

  “She’s way too young for you.”

  “For me! Oh, goodness, she’s got nothing to do with me!”

  Kitty raised her eyebrows. “Think not?” she asked him.

  “Good Lord, no! She came to help with my résumé.”

  “She came because she has this big huge crush on you that sticks out a mile in every direction,” Kitty said.

  “What!”

  Kitty eyed him in silence as she took a carrot from the bag.

  “What a notion,” Liam said.

  He didn’t know which was more shocking: the notion itself, or the slow, deep sense of astonished pleasure that began to rise in his chest.

  6

  Now he saw that Eunice had certain subtle attractions. In looks, for instance, there were qualities that might not be apparent at first glance: the creamy, cushiony softness of her skin, the pale matte silk of her unlipsticked mouth, her clear gray eyes framed by long brown lashes. The dimple in each of her cheeks resembled the precisely drilled dent that forms at the center of a whirlpool. Her nose, which was more round than pointed, added a note of whimsy.

  And wasn’t her occasional lack of grace a sign of character? Like an absentminded professor, she concentrated on the intangibles. She was too busy with more important matters to notice the merely physical.

  She showed a kind of trustfulness, too, that was seldom seen in grownups. The way she had rushed after him on the street, and flung herself into his problems, and thought nothing of coming alone to his apartment … In retrospect, Liam found that touching.

  It had been years since he had had any sort of romantic life. He’d more or less given up on that side of things, it seemed. But now he remembered the significance that a love affair could lend to the most ordinary moments. The simplest activities could take on extra color and intensity. Days had a purpose to them—an element of suspense, even. He missed that.

  He rose too early the following morning, after a restless night. Kitty was still asleep in the den. (That much he had insisted on: he wasn’t forfeiting his bedroom a second time.) At first he contented himself with making a great deal of noise over breakfast, but when she hadn’t appeared by seven thirty, he tapped lightly on her door. “Kitty?” he called. He opened the door a few inches and peered in. “Shouldn’t you be getting up?”

  The blanket on the daybed stirred, and Kitty raised her head. “What for?” she asked him.

  “For work, of course.”

  “Work! It’s the Fourth of July.”

  “It is?” he said.

  He thought a moment. “Does that mean you have the day off?” he asked.

  “Well, duh!”

  “Oh.”

  “The plan was, I’d get to sleep as long as I wanted,” she said.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  He closed the door.

  The Fourth of July! So, well, what about Eunice? Would she call anyhow? And was Kitty going to hang around all morning?

  He poured himself another cup of coffee, even though it would give him the jitters. In fact, maybe he had the jitters already, because when the telephone rang, he actually jumped. The coffee sloshed in his cup. He picked up the receiver and said, “Hello?”

  “Liam?”

  “Oh. Barbara.”

  “Is Kitty with you?”

  “Why, yes.”

  “You might have thought to tell me,” she said. “I got up this morning and looked in her room: no Kitty. And her bed had not been slept in.”

  “I’m sorry; I thought you knew,” he said. “I gathered you two had an argument.”

  “We did have an argument, and she flounced off to her room and slammed the door. And then I had to go out, and it was past midnight when I got home so I just assumed she was in her bed.”

  Another time, Liam might have asked what had kept Barbara out so late. (Not that she would necessarily have deigned to answer.) But he wanted to free the telephone line, so he said, “Well, she’s here, and she’s fine.”

  “How long is she staying?” Barbara asked.

  “She’s not staying at all, as far as I know, but why don’t you ask her about that? I’ll have her call when she gets up.”

  “Liam, you are in no condition to take on a teenage girl,” Barbara said.

  “God forbid; I wouldn’t think of taking—Condition?” he said. ??
?What condition do I have?”

  “You’re a man. And also you lack experience, since you have never been very involved in your daughters’ lives.”

  “How can you say that?” Liam asked. “I raised one of my daughters, entirely by myself.”

  “You didn’t even raise her through toddlerhood. And it was nowhere near by yourself.”

  A rush of emotions swept through him—a combination of injured feelings and frustration and defeat all too familiar from their marriage. He said, “I have to get off the line. Goodbye.”

  “Wait! Liam, don’t go. Wait a minute. Did she tell you what we argued about?”

  “No,” he said. “What did you argue about?”

  “I have no idea! That’s the thing of it. The two of us are just flying apart, and I don’t understand why. Oh, we used to get on so well together. Remember what a sweet little girl Kitty was?”

  Liam had barely known Kitty as a little girl, to be honest. She’d been one of those last-ditch efforts—a save-the-marriage baby born late in their lives, only she hadn’t saved the marriage (surprise, surprise), and within the year he’d become a visitor to his own family. And not so frequent a visitor, at that—least frequent of all with Kitty, since she had been so young.

  Well. No point dwelling on the past.

  He told Barbara, “She’s going to be fine; don’t worry. This is only a stage they go through.”

  “Oh, yes, I know,” Barbara said on a long sigh. “I know it is. Thanks, Liam. Do have her call me, please.”

  “I will.”

  He hung up and looked at his watch. It was almost eight o’clock. Why hadn’t he informed Eunice last night that he was an early riser? She could have phoned him an hour ago.

  He cleared away his breakfast things and loaded the dishwasher, taking care to be quiet now because if Kitty wasn’t leaving for work, he would just as soon she went on sleeping. But while he was sponging the counter, the door to the den opened and she came shambling out, yawning and ruffling her hair. She wore striped pajama bottoms and what looked to him like a bra, although he hoped it was one of those jogging tops instead. It was so difficult to tell, these days. “Now what?” she asked him. “I’m wide awake and it’s not but eight in the morning.”

  “Don’t you have any plans?”

  “Nope.”

  “Nothing going on with Damian?”

  “Damian’s in Rhode Island,” she said. “His cousin’s getting married.”

  “Well, your mother would like you to phone her. I hadn’t realized you didn’t tell her where you would be.”

  “Wouldn’t you think she could figure it out?” Kitty asked. She opened the refrigerator and gazed into it for a long moment. Liam hated it when she did that. He could practically feel the dollars whooshing past her and disappearing. He held his tongue, though, because he wanted to fare better with her than Barbara had. Eventually Kitty reached for a carton of milk and then shut the door. “I really think Mom might be cracking up,” she told Liam. “Maybe it’s change of life.”

  “Change of life! Wouldn’t she be done with that?”

  Kitty shrugged and took a box of cereal from the cupboard.

  “I believe menopause hits in the late forties. Or fifties, maybe,” Liam said.

  “Oh, menopause; sure. I’m talking about change of life.”

  “What?”

  An uncertain look crossed Kitty’s face. “Do I mean midlife crisis?” she asked.

  “Only if you’re expecting her to live to a hundred and twenty.”

  “Well, I don’t know; I just feel like she’s acting crazy. Every little thing I do, it’s ‘Kitty, stop that,’ and ‘Kitty, you’re grounded,’ and ‘Kitty, how often must I tell you.’ Senile dementia; maybe that’s what I mean.”

  “Do you suppose it has to do with her boyfriend?” Liam asked. “What’s-his-name?”

  Kitty shrugged again and sat down at the table.

  “How is that going, anyway?” Liam asked.

  There was only the faintest chance that Kitty would answer, but it never hurt to try. Before she could draw in a breath, though, the doorbell rang. Liam said, “Now, who—?”

  He went to the front door and opened it to find Eunice. She stood looking at him with a solemn, oddly dubious expression, holding her purse primly in front of her with both hands. “Why, Eunice!” he said. “Hello!” He was thrown off a bit by her glasses, which he had somehow forgotten—the huge size of them, the smudged lenses.

  “Your phone number’s unlisted,” she said.

  “Yes, it is, actually.”

  “And you didn’t write it down for me.”

  “I didn’t?” he said. “Oh!”

  “I told the operator I knew you but she still wouldn’t give out the number.”

  “Yes, that’s … kind of the idea,” Liam said. “I apologize. I honestly thought I wrote it down. Freudian slip, I guess.”

  “Why?” she asked him.

  “Why?”

  “Why Freudian? You didn’t want me to call?”

  “No, no … It’s just that I hate to talk on the phone.”

  “Oh, I love to talk on the phone!”

  She took several steps inside, as if propelled by a gust of enthusiasm. “It’s one of my favorite occupations,” she said.

  She was wearing pants today, wide gauze pants gathered at the waist and gathered at the ankles but ballooning at the hips. He believed that was called the harem style. She would have been better off in a skirt, he felt. But she did have very creamy skin, and the dimples were showing in both her cheeks.

  “I forgot it was the Fourth of July,” he told her. “I hope you haven’t changed any plans.”

  “I was glad to change my plans,” she said. “My parents always throw this lawn party and I’m supposed to be helping them set up.”

  She gave a little chuckle—a warm, infectious sound—and the dimples deepened. He smiled at her. He said, “Won’t you come in and sit down?”

  On her way to one of the armchairs, she trilled her fingers at Kitty. “Hi, Kitty!” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “I see I’m interrupting your breakfast.”

  “Not really,” Kitty said. Which was true; she remained hunched over her cereal bowl, shoveling in Honey Nut Cheerios.

  Liam said, “Kitty, weren’t you going to call your mother?”

  “I’ll do it in a minute,” she said.

  “Do it now, please. I promised her you’d call as soon as you were up.”

  Kitty gave him a look, but she set down her spoon and pushed her chair back. “It’s not like it’s a national emergency,” she said as she went off to the den.

  “She didn’t leave word where she would be last night,” Liam told Eunice. (It seemed a nice, safe, neutral topic.) He settled across from her, in the rocker. “I hadn’t realized that till her mother phoned this morning.”

  “So the two of you get along?” Eunice asked.

  “Oh, yes, as well as can be expected. Considering she’s an adolescent.”

  “Her mother is adolescent?”

  “What? No, Kitty is. Kitty’s the adolescent. I’m sorry; you were asking about her mother?”

  “I just meant … you know, do you talk with her mother on the phone and all.”

  “We have to talk on the phone; we’ve got three daughters,” Liam said. “But I should be offering you coffee! It’s already made. Would you like a cup?”

  “I’d love some,” Eunice said. She had a way of drawing back slightly when something pleased her. It gave her a bit of a double chin, which was surprisingly becoming.

  She stayed in her chair while Liam rose and went to the kitchen. “Cream? Sugar?” he called.

  “Just black.”

  He could hear Kitty on her cell phone in the den, even through the closed door—the “Na-na, na-na” of some protest or accusation. To drown her out, he said, “So! Eunice. Tell me about your job.”

  “There’s not a whole lot to tell,” she said.
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  “Well, what exactly would you do in the average day, for instance?”

  “Oh, I might go around to different places with Mr. C. Drive him out to check on a project, say. Or we attend a meeting of some sort.”

  Liam brought her coffee in a cup with a real saucer, part of a matched set that he used so seldom, he’d had to wipe the dust off first. He sat back down in the rocker and said, “You stay with him through the whole meeting?”

  “Yes, because I need to take notes. I take separate notes just for him, in a big ring binder that fills up every month or so. And also, well, if he gets a notion to leave, I’m the one who reminds him it’s not time yet.”

  “I see,” Liam said. Then he said, “These notes are like regular minutes?”

  “No, they’ve got, you know, tabs that are color-coded.”

  “Aha!”

  Eunice looked startled.

  “Different colors for different memories,” he suggested.

  “Or for different categories of memories, really. Like, red is for things that he’s already said about certain proposals, so that he won’t repeat himself, and then green is for personal information he might want for his conversations. Say somebody at the meeting turned out to have a son who went to school with Mr. C.’s son. That kind of thing.”

  “Does that actually work?” Liam asked.

  “Well, no,” she said. “Not very well.” She took a gulp of her coffee. “It’s just all I could come up with. I’m trying different approaches.”

  “What else are you thinking of trying?” he asked her.

  “I’m not sure.” She gazed down into her cup and said, “I’m probably going to get fired.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “There are such a lot of categories! Life has so many things in it that people need to remember! And Mr. C. is falling farther and farther behind. I’m working as hard as I can, but even so … I suppose pretty soon he’ll have to retire.” She gave Liam a brief, perky smile and said, “So we’d better get busy, right? I won’t have an inside track with Cope Development for much longer.”

  She placed her cup and saucer on the lamp table and bent to rummage through her purse. “First I’ll just jot down some of your facts,” she said. She brought forth a steno pad and a ballpoint pen.