Taking a Chance on Love (4 page)

I met the Union Steamship on Friday evening. Their many Lady boats called in at the Landing daily, with an extra sailing on Friday evenings for the weekend visitors. I stood in the shadow just inside the wharf shed, waiting for Doug to come down the gangplank, go up the wharf and disappear. Then I would come out and join the rest of the crowd.

There was no mistaking him. He was the only passenger in uniform who was standing on the deck as the
Lady Cynthia
docked. A young woman stood beside him with her arm tucked under his. It hadn't taken him long to find another girl. He looked directly over my way, as if he had seen me, then turned to the woman and said something. Their laughter floated over the air towards me.

It was impossible to hear what they said, but my imagination went wild: “There's the young kid I thought I'd fallen for.” I stepped back further into the shadow of the shed and stayed there until I saw Doug and the woman come down the gangplank and disappear up the wharf.

I needed to talk to Amy. Just as I thought that, Amy appeared at the shed door.

“Why are you hiding in here? Robert Pryce told me that his youngest brother is on the boat. You don't want to miss this. That must be him coming down the gangplank.”

“The one in the blue V-neck sweater?” I asked. “He doesn't look much like Robert, or the other Pryce brothers. He's fair, they're all dark.” He was taller than the other Pryce men and moved with a certain grace.

“He's seventeen. Name's Glen,” Amy said. “Half-brother, really. Different mother. He's been at a private school back east, and they get out earlier than we do. Think you could go for him, Meg?”

“No. I don't like the Pryce men. They're nothing but trouble.”

“Well, I think he's cute. But if you're not interested …”

“Meaning?”

“I am. He's a Pryce.”

By mid-June, the summer visitors began to arrive. The swimming float was brought over from behind Shelter Island, where it had been anchored over the winter. It was tied to a huge log that lay at the back of the swimming beach. A long, narrow, wooden walkway joined the float to the beach.

Rowboats, inboards, and outboards were scraped and painted and tied up at the end of the float. Trim sailboats lay anchored further off. Yachts began to arrive.

One day after picking up the mail, I wandered up to the tennis court to see if its wooden floor had been repaired. It's not that I ever played tennis, but it was something to do other than go home. Amy had arranged to get out of school a week early and had gone into Vancouver to stay with her father for a month, and I was on my own. The summer people had built the court above the creek, a raised wooden platform partially hidden in the cedars. Dances were held there, too. Once Labour Day was over, the court was deserted for the winter.

Someone had been cleaning up around the tennis court. The pathway had been cut back from the encroaching ferns and blackberry bushes. New planks glistened in the floor, as yet unpainted. I closed my eyes, imagining what it would be like to dance with a full moon rising over Keats Island, the whole scene visible through the cedars.

“Hi! Don't let me scare you,” a male voice said behind me. My eyes snapped open, and I turned around.

It was the boy I'd seen on the
Lady Cynthia
a few days before, Glen Pryce. The sound of his footsteps must have been muffled by the pine needles on the path. Without thinking, I moved towards the few steps leading down and away from the tennis court. I had to pass him on the path, but he didn't step back to make room.

Instead, he said, “Don't go because of me.”

“I was going, anyway.” I started to edge past him. A blackberry vine tore at my leg. I could feel the heat radiating from his body.

“Aren't you even going to let me introduce myself? I already know who you are because I asked my brother, Robert. I'm Glen Pryce, and I'm from Ontario.”

He reached out his hand and placed it on my arm. It felt too heavy. I brushed it away and kept moving. Fast.

Reaching the bottom of the path, and in clear sight of the road, I called back, “I don't like your brother, Robert, and I don't want to get to know you. So do me a big favour and just leave me alone.”

He was down the path in one bounding leap and beside me almost before I knew it. Out of breath, he said, “For such a pretty girl, you're sure a spitfire. I'm not like my brother. I can guess why you don't like him. But why can't you give me a chance? I'm not as bad as you think. We could be friends.”

Friends
. “Can a boy and a girl just be friends?” I said.

“I've never tried it, but I don't see why not,” he said. His eyes were blue and piercing. “Let me walk with you. I'm not going to bite. What exactly did my brother do that put you off?”

I didn't know how to answer, so I just kept on going. Down the path, through the trees to the road and turned left for home.

“You walk fast for a girl,” he said, right beside me.

“That's from trying to keep up with my brothers.”

“Brothers? How many brothers do you have?”

“Two. Sam is twenty-two. Dan is thirteen.”

“I have four brothers. Well, a couple of them are half-brothers. Same father, different mothers.”

He stopped walking. I stopped, too, and looked up at him. The sunlight caught in his eyes, and, just like that, I fell for Glen Pryce.

We talked about families and school and our favourite songs, as if we were already friends. I told him about moving to the Landing from Calgary and how lonely I felt leaving all my friends behind. By this time, we'd reached the bridge over the creek that ran by his brother Robert's house.

“This is where I turn down,” he said.

I didn't want him to go.

“Wild strawberries grow by the creek,” I said. “And water cress.”

“Would you like to go out with me sometime?” he said.

Below, the creek murmured as it ran over its bed of mountain stones. A squirrel chattered from a nearby alder. The air was moist and cool on my cheek.

“My mother says I should wait a while before I start to date.”

“You don't look too young to me.”

“I thought we were going to be just friends.”

“Friends can date. Besides, we won't call them dates. We'll just accidentally meet. Like now. You know, just to talk. Do you play tennis?”

“I've never tried.”

“Back home, my father runs a resort hotel, and I've learned to do everything. Had to, to help entertain the guests. I've taught them dancing, tennis, golf … Do you want to learn how to play tennis?”

“You mean you'd be my teacher?”

“Teacher, friend. When I'm gone, you'll have all these talents, and once you're ready to date, you'll always have as many as you want.”

“Dates?”

“Dates. Friends. Both sexes. They're called social skills. It doesn't look as if you have much chance to learn any, living in the backwoods like this.”

“What about the summer people? They're not going to like us using their tennis court.”

“Wait until I bring all my records to play on their record player at the dances. As long as you're with me, you'll be okay.”

Did he mean I'd be going to dances with him?

“So your first tennis lesson is tomorrow morning. Early. Nine o'clock. I'll bring the racquets and balls.”

“Okay.”

When he smiled, his eyes were even larger, bluer, and more direct. Friend, at the very least, I thought.

Wow
.

“You're away early this morning,” Mom said to me after I'd done the dishes and was heading out the back door.

“Glen Pryce is going to teach me how to play tennis.”

“Another Pryce? I hadn't heard about this one.”

“He's the youngest brother. Seventeen. He's visiting from Ontario.”

“That's nice,” she said, absently. “Would you bring two quarts of milk back with you when you come home? Here, I'll get you the change.”

“You need to hold the racquet like this,” Glen said, and he took my hand and placed it closer to the end of the racquet. Perspiration broke out on my forehead, even though the morning sun had not yet warmed the air. “The same way you'd hold the handle of a frying pan.”

He moved over to the other side of the court and bounced his tennis ball off his racquet a few times. “I'll lob a few over to your side, and you hit them back. Later, when they put the net up, I'll show you how to hit them so that I can't reach them.”

The next hour was spent batting balls back and forth to each other. “Let's stop for a break,” Glen said. “I saw a water tap down near the end of the path.”

After we'd had a drink, he said, “It's cooler down here. Come sit on the log.” I sat. “You're nice to be with, Meg. I wish I'd known you before, like all my life. It might have helped.”

“Helped what?”

“Being left by my mother. Yeah, when I was three.” He began to dig his heel savagely into the layer of pine needles that cushioned the path. “I hate my father. I hate him! Don't look so shocked, I have good reason. My father's been married before. My mother was wife number four. When I was three years old, he kicked my mother out, and I never saw her again.”

“I didn't think fathers could do that.”

“Mine did. He's a pretty powerful man.”

“How, powerful?”

“Money powerful. He knows the right people.”

I thought of my own mother. She would never in a million years let anyone make her leave a child of hers.

“What did your mother do that was so bad your father made her leave?”

Glen mumbled something about “another man.” His eyes had dimmed.

“You must have missed her. Miss her. But, Glen, now that you're grown up, you could always find her and get to know her.”

“He won't tell me where she is.”

“Find out some other way,” I said.

“I'm trying. One of my father's friends might tell me. He's a good guy. He helped me out once before … It's like I've got this big hole in me that I can't fill up with anything else, no matter how I try. Did I tell you I was pretty much an alcoholic by the time I was fifteen? Plenty of booze around the hotel.”

“How did you stop?”

“I'd left home and was living on the streets. Even stole in order to eat. One day, it just hit me that I was going to be dead before I was twenty if I kept drinking. Got a job with a nice guy — the man I mentioned.” He pulled out his wallet and showed me a snapshot. “We still keep in touch,” he said. “Anyway, when I got on my feet again, I decided to go back to school. That meant living with my father again.”

“What grade are you in? You must have lost at least a year.”

“No, not that long. I caught up. No trouble. I've got a photographic memory.”

We heard the Union Steamship's whistle sound out across the water as she prepared to dock at the Landing: one long, two short, and one long. “It's later than I thought,” I said. “The mail will be in soon. I should go.”

“How do you like tennis so far?” Glen asked, getting up. He reached down and took my hand to help me stand.

“I like it. You're a good teacher.”

“How about swimming lessons?”

“I can swim already, thanks.”

“Dancing? I could bring my portable radio to the tennis court one evening.”

“Afternoon would be better,” I said, thinking of my mother.

“How about today?”

“Okay.”

By the time I went back to the tennis court that afternoon, I felt almost giddy with knowing Glen.

“That colour suits you,” Glen said, coming towards me. “It makes your eyes look even greener … I've found one radio station that plays big band music all day long. Do you know how to dance?”

“My older brother — the one that's away in the Air Force — taught me, but I haven't had much practice lately.”

“Let's start with the two-step.” He held out his arms. “Let me hold you right for starters. Closer than that. Okay? ‘I Can't Get Started With You' is one of my favourites.”

Taking my hand, he put it on his shoulder, then put his hand on the small of my back. The trumpet solo filled the air, and the tennis court became a different place, a magical place. We fit together perfectly. Even though he was much taller, my head seemed just right for his shoulder.

By the time the sun began to slide down the western sky, I knew that I'd been away too long and that Mom was going to be furious.

“I'm sorry, Mom,” I said, coming in the back door. “I lost track of time.”

“Didn't you get hungry? You've never been so late coming home for supper. It's there on the table, but it's cold and dry by now. Where have you been all this time?”

“I was up at the tennis court learning how to dance.”

“Who were you with?”

I hesitated. “The summer kids use it for dancing, you know.”

“Yes, but the summer people can't usually be bothered with the locals. I hope they weren't playing that darkie music, that jazz, or whatever it's called. It gets people too worked up … Come along, don't dawdle. You can clean up the kitchen after you're done … I've got some good news for you. Mrs. Hanson at the guest house is looking for help. She's booked up solid for the season, she says. I tell her it's because of her cooking. She wants you for two hours in the morning and two hours in the late afternoon … Why the long face? You're the one who wants to stay on in school, and it's up to you to buy your own school clothes and books.”

“No, I want the job,” I said. Would I still have time to play tennis?

“Meg, you know that you don't really have to go on in school. It's the boys who need the education, not girls. They're the ones who have to be able to find a good job to support their families. You're only going to get married and stay home to take care of the children.”