Noah's Compass

  “No,” Liam said.

  Then he said, “I turned sixty on my last birthday.”

  “I know,” Eunice said.

  “Do you think somebody sixty is too old for somebody thirty-eight?”

  When she looked at him now, the light was hitting her glasses at a different angle and he could see directly into her eyes, which were wide and steady and radiant. Her mouth was very serious, almost trembling with seriousness.

  She said, “No, I don’t think it’s too old.”

  “Me neither,” he said.

  8

  Damian came back from his cousin’s wedding with his arm in a cast. He said there’d been a little “contretemps.” Liam was so surprised by his wording that he gave Damian a second look. Was there more to him, perhaps, than met the eye? But Damian sat slouched in his usual C shape on the daybed in the den, his good arm tossed carelessly across Kitty’s shoulders, long ropes of greasy black hair concealing most of his face. They were listening to a song with very explicit lyrics. All Liam had to hear was a single line and he felt himself growing rigid with embarrassment. In addition, this was, after all, an actual bed they were sitting on, and an unmade bed at that. Liam said, “Wouldn’t you two be more comfortable in the living room?” But they just gaped at him, and rightly so; there was no couch in the living room. He’d been noticing that, of late. People couldn’t sit close together there.

  Liam and Eunice couldn’t sit close together either. They had to occupy separate chairs and smile across at each other like fools.

  Although sometimes, as often as possible, Liam would venture to perch on the arm of whichever chair Eunice was inhabiting. He would bring her, say, a Diet Coke and then as if by accident, while talking about nothing much, he would settle on the chair arm and rest one hand on her shoulder. She had soft plump shoulders that exactly, satisfyingly filled the hollows of his palms. Sometimes he would bend to breathe in the scent of her shampoo; sometimes, even, he would bend lower and they would kiss, although it was an inconvenient angle for kissing. She had to crane upward to meet his lips, and if he wasn’t careful, he could nick a cheekbone on the sharp-edged frame of her glasses.

  He didn’t see her nearly as much as he would have liked. She showed up at his apartment at odd hours during the day, and then she came over most evenings, but in the evenings Kitty was usually around and they had to be more circumspect. (What had Liam been thinking, letting Kitty stay with him? Except, of course, that he’d had no way of predicting the turn that his life would take.)

  They couldn’t go to Eunice’s place, because right now she didn’t have a place. She was living with her parents. Her father had suffered a stroke in March and she had moved in to help out. Reading between the lines, Liam guessed that this was less of a sacrifice than it seemed. She didn’t earn much of a salary at Cope, and she was clearly not the home-making type. Besides which, there was something of the only child in her character—an air of perennial daughterliness, an excessive concern for her parents’ good opinion of her. Liam cataloged this trait as he did her others, with scientific interest, without passing judgment. They were still in that stage where the loved one’s weaknesses, even, seemed endearing.

  Unfortunately, Damian’s broken arm was his right arm, immobilized in a right-angle cast from his wrist to above his elbow. Since his car—really his mother’s car—had a stick shift, this meant that he couldn’t drive. And Kitty couldn’t drive either, because it turned out that the extra insurance was way beyond Liam’s means. He had honestly thought he’d heard wrong when the agent told him what the premium would be.

  This put a real crimp in things. Sometimes, Kitty took the bus to Damian’s house directly after work, requiring Liam to pick her up at the end of the evening. Most times, though, Damian’s mother dropped Damian off at Liam’s, and then it was up to Liam to deliver him back home. (Damian’s mother, a widow who seemed much older than her years, refused to drive after dark.) Either way, it seemed Liam was called upon to chauffeur far more than he liked. There were a few blessed occasions when high school friends pitched in, but many of them were off working in Ocean City for the summer, while others were restricted by complicated new laws about driving with peers in the car. Often what happened was that Eunice would volunteer to return Damian on her way home, which was nice of her but it made her leave earlier than Liam wanted her to. And meanwhile, they would have spent the evening with Kitty and Damian; not one minute on their own.

  It was no picnic, living with teenagers.

  At moments, Liam felt he’d gone back to his teens himself. There was the same lack of privacy, the same guilty secrecy, the same tantalizingly halfway physical relationship. The same lack of confidence, even, for Eunice alternated between shyness and startling boldness, while Liam himself … Well, face it, he was a little out of practice. He had some concerns about looking old, or inadequate, or fat. It had been a long time since anyone had seen him without his clothes on.

  Let things proceed at their own leisurely pace, he decided with some relief.

  They liked to talk about their first meeting. Their two different first meetings, really. Liam recalled the waiting-room scene; Eunice recalled their coffee at PeeWee’s. Liam said, “You seemed so professional. So expert. So in charge.”

  Eunice said, “You asked me more about myself in one conversation than most men ask in a year.”

  “You told Ishmael Cope, ‘Verity,’ and it sounded like a pronouncement handed down from the heavens.”

  “Even in the midst of a job hunt, you wanted to know about my life.”

  “How could I not?” he asked, and he meant it. He found her fascinating and funny and complex. She was a perpetual astonishment. He studied her like a language.

  For instance: She was chronically late everywhere, but she fantasized that she could outwit herself by keeping her watch set ten minutes ahead.

  She acted completely besotted whenever she met a small dog.

  Direct sunlight made her sneeze.

  Among her most deep-seated fears were spiders, West Nile disease, and choral recitals. (She suffered from the morbid conviction that she might suddenly jump up and start singing along with the soloist.)

  In fact she disliked all formal occasions, not only recitals but plays, lectures, symphony concerts, and dining in upscale restaurants. Given a choice, she preferred to stay in, and if they ate out she opted for the humblest café or hamburger joint.

  She cared little about food in general—made not so much as a gesture toward cooking, and never seemed to notice what he gave her to eat.

  She wasn’t used to alcohol and grew charmingly silly after a single glass of wine.

  She never wore dresses; just those peasant skirts or balloony slacks.

  Nor did she use cosmetics.

  She’d had only three serious boyfriends in her entire life—not a one of them, she claimed, worth discussing in any depth.

  But her girlfriends, as she called them, numbered in the dozens, reaching all the way back to nursery school, and she was forever rushing off to bachelorette parties or girls’ nights out.

  She hated spending money, on principle. She drove illogical distances for the cheapest gasoline and she insisted on taking her leftovers home even from McDonald’s.

  She had a cell-phone plan that gave her one thousand free minutes a month, but the only time she answered it was when it played Mr. Cope’s special ring—the “Hallelujah Chorus.” The rest of the time, she ignored it.

  She was addicted to bad TV—to reality shows and game shows and spill-your-guts talk shows—and confessed to falling asleep every night to the all-night shopping channel. She couldn’t understand why Liam didn’t own a television set.

  She made a habit of leaving love notes for him to find after she left, always signed with a smiley face topped by a curl and a hairbow.

  She was refreshingly indifferent to domestic matters. She didn’t try to rearrange his furniture, or spruce up his wardrobe, or balance his diet. She
thought his tightly made bed was comical. She demonstrated (standing discreetly outside the threshold of his bedroom) the shimmying motion that she imagined he must have to use in order to worm his way between the sheets every night. Liam had to laugh at that.

  He laughed a lot, these days.

  He knew that many of her traits (her lateness, her over-cuteness with the smiley faces and the little dogs) would ordinarily have called forth his most scathing sarcasm, but instead he found himself laughing. And felt, therefore, a bashful sense of pride. He was a better man than he’d realized.

  She routinely left stray belongings behind at the end of the evening, sprinkled about like Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs—an umbrella and a stack of bracelets and her glasses case and once, even, her purse. A homely black cardigan of hers stayed draped over a chair back for days, and whenever he passed it he found an excuse to straighten a sleeve or smooth the fabric before he moved on.

  Barbara phoned to ask how things were going with Kitty. It was a good three weeks, by then, since Kitty had moved in. “Very well,” Liam said. “No problems whatsoever.”

  “Is she keeping to her curfew?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you’re not leaving her and Damian unchaperoned.”

  “Certainly not,” he said.

  Or not any more than he could help, he added privately. He failed to see how anyone could be chaperoned every everlasting minute.

  “How about you?” he asked. “Everything going okay?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I guess it feels odd to be living on your own,” he said. For the first time, it occurred to him that on her own, she could see more of Howie the Hound Dog. He gave a light cough. “Are you managing to keep busy?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said again.

  She was a fine one to complain about other people’s unforthcomingness.

  It was difficult to tell, from her tone, whether she knew about Eunice. Had Kitty happened to mention her? But he wasn’t sure that Kitty and Barbara even kept in touch these days. Of course, Louise could have said something. He definitely sensed that Louise had her suspicions.

  One evening toward the end of July, Louise and Jonah dropped in unannounced. She claimed they had been shopping at the mall across the street. Well, obviously they had been shopping; Jonah was wearing a new type of combination sneaker and roller skate that he took great pride in showing off. But dropping in was not Louise’s usual style. She arrived as Liam was setting the table for supper. He had placed an order for Indian food—Kitty’s idea—which hadn’t come yet. Eunice was sitting in the living room, reading aloud from the want ads. (Even though they had abandoned the résumé pretext, Eunice made a point of swinging into job-hunting mode whenever Kitty was in earshot.) “Experienced medical assistant,” she read. “But really, you wouldn’t need that much experience if all you had to do was assist somebody.” And Kitty and Damian were in the den, where Kitty’s radio was shouting something like I want it I want it I want it.

  When Louise rang the doorbell, Liam assumed it was their food. Then while Jonah was struggling to demonstrate his roller skates on the carpet, the doorbell rang again and it was their food, and Liam had to spend several minutes dealing with it. By the time he had spread an array of curry-smelling foil containers across the table, Louise was deep in her interrogations. “You don’t like to cook?” she was asking Eunice.

  Very clever: the question implied that Eunice played a regular role in this household, which she would have to either confirm or deny. But Eunice was too cagey for that—or maybe just oblivious. “Cook?” she said, looking bewildered. “Who, me?”

  “I don’t feel Dad gets enough vegetables,” Louise told her.

  Although, in fact, Louise was never around during Liam’s meals and had no inkling what he ate.

  Liam said, “There are plenty of vegetables in Indian food, might I point out.”

  “Listen to this,” Eunice said, raising her newspaper. “Wanted: Driver for my 90-year-old mother. Days only; flexible hours. Must be sober, reliable, punctual and HAVE NO PERSONAL PROBLEMS! OR IF YOU DO, DON’T DISCUSS THEM WITH HER!”

  Liam laughed, but Louise didn’t seem to see the humor.

  “You could do that,” Eunice told him.

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” he said.

  Jonah had decided to try his skates on the kitchen linoleum. He was holding on to the sink while his feet slid away from him in opposite directions. “Help!” he called. By now Kitty had emerged from the den, although Damian was still in hiding, and she rescued Jonah by one elbow. “Hey, Louise,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  The doorbell rang a third time. Jonah said, “Maybe that will be some better kind of food.”

  But already the door was opening (a sure sign it was one of Liam’s daughters; they never waited to be admitted), and in walked Xanthe. She still had on her social-worker clothes, matronly and staid. “Good grief,” she said. “What have you got going here, Dad, some kind of salon?” She gave him a peck on the cheek and then stepped back to study him. “That’s healed up nicely,” she told him.

  For a second, he couldn’t think what she was talking about. Oh, yes: the last time she had seen him, he was still in bandages. “What brings you here?” he asked her.

  “I came because I’ve been phoning for days and the line is always busy. I thought you might be dead.”

  She didn’t seem to have lost any sleep over it. She trilled her fingers at her sisters. Then she turned to Eunice, who had lowered her paper.

  “Xanthe, meet Eunice,” Liam said.

  Xanthe cocked her head. “A neighbor?” she asked Eunice.

  Eunice said, “Sort of,” which was not just cagey, it was an outright lie. (She lived in Roland Park.) She smiled at Xanthe blandly. From where Liam stood, it seemed her glasses were doing that opaque thing they did with reflected light.

  Xanthe turned back to Liam and said, “I called several times last night, and then I called twice this evening. Is something wrong with your phone?”

  “It’s the Internet,” Kitty told her.

  “Dad was on the Internet?”

  “No, I was,” Kitty said. “He doesn’t have broadband and so I have to dial up.”

  “But why are you doing it here?”

  “I’m living here.”

  “You’re living here?”

  “I’m spending the summer.”

  Xanthe seemed about to say something, but at that moment Damian appeared. He looked a little sheepish, and no wonder. Probably he’d figured out he would be discovered, sooner or later, skulking in the den. “Yo. Jo-Jo,” he said to Jonah. He tipped sideways against the wall, jammed his hands in his jeans pockets, and stared defiantly at the others.

  Xanthe said, “Damian.”

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hello,” she said. She made it sound as if she were correcting him.

  Then she turned to Liam and said, “I’ll be going now.”

  “You just got here!”

  “Goodbye,” she told the room in general.

  She walked out.

  There was a silence. Liam looked from Louise to Kitty. Louise shrugged. Kitty said, “Well, so anyhow, Lou. Do you have your car?”

  “Of course I have my car.”

  “Could you give me and Damian a ride to Towson Commons?”

  “Sure,” Louise said.

  “And then pick us up when the movie’s done?”

  “What? No! What kind of life do you think I’m living?”

  Adjusting seamlessly, Kitty turned to Liam and said, “Poppy, could you pick us up?”

  “What time?”

  “The movie lets out at eight forty.”

  “I guess I can do that.”

  Damian straightened up from the wall and said, “Okay!” and Kitty told Louise, “Let’s go, then.”

  “This minute?” Liam asked. “What about your supper?”

  “We’re in a hurry. Come on, Jonah.”

&nb
sp; “I can skate much better outdoors,” Jonah told Liam. “Your floors are all wrong.”

  “You should show me the next time you come,” Liam said.

  “I’ll bring my coloring book, too. Yesterday I did Daniel in the lion’s den.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “Come on, Jonah,” Kitty said. “Bye, Poppy. Bye, Eunice.”

  Then everybody was gone. Louise was the last one out and she let the door slam behind her.

  Liam looked at Eunice. Eunice refolded her newspaper and laid it on the coffee table.

  “So that was Xanthe,” she said in a musing tone.

  “You’re thinking it’s a misnomer, aren’t you,” Liam said.

  “What?”

  “Xanthe. It means ‘golden.’ ”

  “Well, I’m sure she’s very pleasant as a rule,” Eunice said.

  Liam had been referring to Xanthe’s coloring—her brown hair and level dark eyebrows. He was so accustomed to her manner that he hadn’t felt the need to comment on it, but now he said, “She was upset on account of Damian, I guess. She thinks he was the one who attacked me.”

  “Damian?”

  “That’s what she thinks.”

  “He wasn’t, was he?”

  “No, of course not,” Liam said.

  In a grudging way, he was beginning to like Damian. And he’d seen enough of such boys at St. Dyfrig to know he wasn’t bad at heart.

  “Maybe it’s me,” Eunice said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Maybe Xanthe was upset to find me here.”

  “Oh, that can’t be it. Not at her age.”

  “If it came as a surprise, it could,” Eunice said. “But wouldn’t someone have told her? Do she and Kitty not talk?”

  “I don’t think any of them talk,” Liam said. This struck him as odd, all at once. He said, “But I may be mistaken.”

  “At least I can say now that I’ve met your entire family,” Eunice said.

  He didn’t know why he felt a momentary impulse to correct her. He wasn’t thinking of his sister, surely. Was it Barbara? No, how ridiculous. He said, “So you have.” Then he said, “And I’ve met exactly zero of yours.”