Taking a Chance on Love (9 page)

“I can drive. My brother, Sam, taught me.”

“Next time.”

“You're all dressed up,” said Mom. “Are you going to the dance again?” I was wearing my new red, short-sleeved sweater and white cotton skirt patterned with crimson roses.

“Yes, and Bruce Hanson is giving me a ride home … It's not like it's a date or anything,” I hurried to explain as I saw a look of disapproval begin to cloud her eyes. “It's his sister Anna. She wants him to go to the dance. She's got a date, and she wants to spend all her time with him. She told me that Bruce won't dance with the summer girls there because he doesn't know them, and he doesn't want to get to know them.”

“Bruce is that way. Always a bit standoffish. It's been worse since the woman he was engaged to in Halifax dumped him. She broke off their engagement soon after his ship was torpedoed.” Mom grimaced. “Burns all over,” she said, running her hands down the front of her body to indicate the extent. Then she clapped her hands to both ears. “Even inside his ears. He wasn't expected to live, let alone live any kind of normal life. Mrs. Hanson was beside herself. The whole thing was just too bad. Some don't blame the young woman for not wanting to marry him — the shape he was in — but he took it hard. Very hard. I'm surprised he's dancing again. Of course, when his sister Anna makes up her mind about anything, it gets done. So if Anna has decided that Bruce is going to get back to some sort of social life, then it's going to happen.”

“I didn't know all this.”

“We don't tell you children everything … Don't stay out too late. You're working in the morning.”

The dance floor was almost full when Bruce and I arrived. Amy and Glen were dancing in the corner of the room, heads bent towards each other like two birds. I spotted Anna and her date, a tall man in a soldier's uniform. He was holding her tightly, and she had a dreamy smile on her face.

Once we started to dance, I forgot all about everyone except Bruce. To be moving with the music in the soft summer night, his hand firm on my back, was my idea of heaven. They were playing Benny Goodman's “Taking a Chance on Love.” Yes, I thought, you take a chance when you fall in love.

The set finished about twenty minutes later, and Bruce and I stood there waiting for the next one to begin. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amy leave Glen and head straight for us.

“Meg, I'd like to be introduced to your partner,” Amy said. “And you can dance with Glen.” Amy stepped in closer to Bruce and smiled up at him.

Bruce stepped back. The music started. Without even a glance of acknowledgement to Amy, Bruce took my hand, and we were out on the floor dancing before I had a chance to really register what had happened.

I watched Amy turn and head back in Glen's direction. Her spine was rigid. She held her shoulders so high they almost reached her ears.

She was too late for Glen. He was already up and dancing with a summer girl, an older girl about eighteen. Her family came up to the Landing every summer in their yacht. I won't have to worry about Amy again tonight, I thought. She'll be too intent on getting Glen back.

Just then, Robert Pryce came in the door with his wife and Glen's mother and stepfather. They all began to dance. Dr. Barras, a big man, was surprising graceful.

Without warning, the loud sounds of a man's shouting came up the path and in the open doorway. Everyone looked over that way to see Sylvia Ballard's husband stumble inside. He looked wildly around, his eyes finally settling on Robert Pryce.

Mr. Ballard made a beeline for Robert.

The next thing I knew, Bruce was pulling me through the door and outside. He took my hand and folded it around a key. “Go down to the truck, lock the doors and stay there. Ballard needs my help right now before he does something stupid. I'll be with you as soon as I can.”

Inside the truck, I could hear the music from the tennis court. It seemed a long time before Bruce came, but it probably wasn't more than ten minutes. He had Mr. Ballard with him.

Mr. Ballard was weaving all over the path and into the bushes. Bruce struggled to hold him upright. I saw Mr. Ballard stumble. He almost took Bruce down with him.

I unlocked the doors, got out and helped Bruce guide Mr. Ballard into the passenger seat. Then I climbed in beside him. Bruce staggered to the driver's door and fell into the seat. He had trouble turning on the ignition. In the light from the dashboard, I could see that he had a cut over his right eye and a swelling in the same cheek, extending up to the ear. He was pale, and his face held an unhealthy sheen of perspiration.

“I'm driving, Bruce,” I said.

I got out of the passenger side and slid in beside Bruce.

He didn't argue, but moved over and let me in behind the wheel. Easing the truck down to the main road, finally I had it headed in the direction of the Ballards'. Once there, in spite of grinding the gears a few times, I leaned on the horn until Mrs. Ballard came to the front door.

“Hurry,” I called to her from the open truck window. “Come get your husband.”

She stared at me from the lighted doorway.

“Hurry!” I shouted. Finally she walked over slowly. I helped her get her husband inside their house.

I didn't say anything to Bruce all the way back to the Hansons'. For one thing, I needed to concentrate on driving. For another, his breathing had become rapid and shallow. Parking in front of the Hansons' and turning the engine off, I said, “Bruce, I'm going in to get your mother. Stay here.”

I went into the Hansons' and heard Mrs. Hanson's voice coming from upstairs. She was talking very loudly, and her voice was not her usual calm and placid one. This was her strictly no-nonsense tone, the kind she used with the Co-op grocery store in Gibson's if they were late with their delivery.

“I must ask you both to calm down,” she said. “I cannot have this disturbance. I have other guests, and they must be considered.”

Glen's mother answered in a conciliatory way, “You must excuse my husband, Mrs. Hanson. He's had a very trying evening. Family business, you know. You understand how that can be. We will be leaving tomorrow on the noon boat … No, of course we don't expect a refund. Again, my apologies.”

I waited until Mrs. Hanson came downstairs, her footsteps a heavy thud on the steps. Her face was red, and she was breathing hard. “Really,” she muttered, slamming her way into the kitchen.

“Bruce's outside in the truck,” I said quickly. “I'll need help bringing him inside. He's been staggering. I think he's in pain, too.”

She looked at me, worry sharp in her eyes. “What happened?”

“I don't know, except I think he was trying to stop a fight between Mr. Ballard and Robert Pryce.”

“That's like Bruce, all right … Maybe one of them accidentally hit Bruce's bad ear, the ear that was burned. Once we get him in bed, I'll phone Dr. Casey. Pray God that he's not out delivering a baby somewhere up the peninsula.”

Bruce staggered even more once we got him into the bright kitchen. The hall to his bedroom was dimly lit, as was his room, and he seemed to walk better with less light. I knew where his bed was located — I'd made it often enough — and we soon had him there and lying down. Mrs. Hanson left to phone the doctor.

It was hard to see clearly without the light on, but the grimace of pain was easing from Bruce's face, and he seemed more like himself. As I was leaving him to join Mrs. Hanson in the kitchen, he said quietly, “You're a sweetheart, Meg.”

Mrs. Hanson was still talking on the phone. “Just a minute, Dr. Casey, and I'll check … No, no vomiting … No, not dizzy … Some staggering. Pain, yes … His right ear … Yes, the one that was burned in the explosion … Yes, I'll bring him up to you immediately if there are any more problems … All right, tomorrow morning at ten. Thank you, Dr. Casey.”

By the time I got home, it was late. “I'm not happy about this, Meg,” Mom said.

But when I told her what had happened, she softened. “You did well,” she said. “As for Mrs. Ballard … Well, what we do affects other people, and she's too old to have been acting up the way she has.”

On my way to work the next morning, I called in on Amy to ask her about the fight between Robert Pryce and Mr. Ballard the night before. Mrs. Miller met me at the door, still in her pale blue baby-doll nightgown.

“Amy's gone out in the boat with the Pryce boy,” Mrs. Miller said. “No, I'm sorry, I don't have any idea when she'll be back.”

There was no sign of Bruce when I went into work. Anna looked up from rolling out a pie crust and smiled at me. She eased the pie crust carefully into the waiting pie plate and began to trim it, humming as she did so.

“Your date turned out okay?” I said.

“Better than okay.”

Upstairs, I found three suitcases outside the door of Dr. Barras' room. The door was slightly ajar, and the sounds of a quarrel carried out into the hallway. Although Dr. and Mrs. Barras were trying to whisper, the voices seemed to carry even further than if spoken normally. It was all the sibilants, I decided. They sounded like snakes hissing.

The doctor's voice was angry. “No, I do take it seriously. Seriously, I say. Rob Pryce being attacked by an outraged husband at the dance last night. His brother, your son, Glen … acting like a randy teenager. The girl hanging onto him … no better. I don't want your son bringing this kind of chaos into our household. Think of our children.”

Glen's mother's voice was soothing. “Don't upset yourself, Harold. Think of your blood pressure. Leave it to me. I'll take care of everything.”

That afternoon when the
Lady Cecilia
called in on her return trip to Vancouver, I made sure I was sweeping the porch outside. From there, I could see the gangplank. Glen was there with his mother. But instead of following her up onto the ship, as I'd expected, he bent his head and kissed her on the cheek, as if in goodbye.

I didn't see Bruce until later that day. He looked much better and wanted something to eat. I cut a slice of homemade bread, toasted it and slathered on the butter. The coffee was newly brewed, and I poured him a cup, adding extra cream and sugar. He looked tired, and the bruise in front of his right ear was an angry purple. But at least he was no longer staggering.

“Thanks for last night,” he said quietly. “You came through like the trooper I know you to be.”

From then on, every time we met he'd smile briefly, or give me a thumbs-up.

“I'm worried about Bruce,” Mrs. Hanson said to Anna a few days later as she kneaded the bread dough. “I don't think he should be out fishing. The glare off the water could make him dizzy, and he's out there all alone. Dr. Casey did tell me that with Bruce's ear injury, bright light could bring on a spell of dizziness. But he needs to be doing something. He's getting impatient waiting for this last skin graft.”

“Did the doctor say it's okay for him to go dancing?” Anna said.

“I asked, and he said, ‘Yes, encourage him to do it.' You remember what the burn doctor said when Bruce was first in the hospital? That burn victims need to be encouraged to get back with people, back to being social? ‘So many of them,' he said, ‘think that they are too disfigured for people to want to be with them.'”

Bruce disfigured? That small patch on his chest? Where else? Was that why he sometimes seemed blunt, even ungracious? “How is Alfred Kallio?” asked Mrs. Hanson, giving the dough a good
thump
to knock out the air bubbles. “Did you have a nice time last night? I heard you come in. It was very late.”

“He's asked me to marry him,” said Anna.

“That was fast.”

“He says that they're being shipped overseas after they finish basic training.”

Mrs. Hanson sighed. “Will there ever be an end to this war? There's not a family on this peninsula who hasn't someone in the services. Well, it's not as if you haven't known Alfred for a long time. And he's from good stock. I knew his mother's people.”

“We thought we'd get married at the end of August. We'll take a weekend for a honeymoon before he has to go back to base. And things will be slowing down here at the guest house. It seems like a good time.”

“I don't know, Anna. To get ready for a big wedding in that short a time …”

“No big wedding, Mama. A trip to City Hall and an overnight stay at the Hotel Georgia, that's all we've planned.”

“Bruce, do you think I could go out fishing with you?” I asked the next time we were alone in the kitchen drinking coffee. “I'd like to learn.”

“Learn to fish?” he said, suspicion in his rising voice. “There's not much to it.”

“I'd like to learn how to handle an inboard, too. I thought you were going to be a big brother to me, since mine's away in the Air Force. He'd teach me if I asked him.”