Taking a Chance on Love (10 page)

“Meg, you're not fooling me. You think I'll get dizzy out in the boat with the sunlight glaring off the water … My mother has put you up to this.”

“No, she hasn't. Why are you so miserable all the time? Can't you believe that I like to learn things? Or even that I like being with you?”

He put his coffee cup down with a rattle.

I'd gone too far. “As a friend,” I hurried to add.

“Friend?”

“Yes, friend. What's the matter with that? As a friend, I want to be with you if you need my help, like, say you do get dizzy …”

For a moment, I thought he was going to push his chair back and leave, but then his eyes lost their sharpness and even softened. “It will mean you'll have to set your alarm. I like to be out on the water when the tide changes. I'm talking five o'clock tomorrow morning. If you're not at the float on time, I'm leaving anyway.” I could hear the naval officer in the way he spoke.

I couldn't remember ever getting up that early before. The sky was beginning to lighten in the east as I left home quietly and made my way to the wharf. Bruce was already down at the float with the fishing gear, water and an extra can of gas.

The ocean was absolutely flat, and we made our way out to Salmon Rock in good time. We used live herring for bait, and the salmon hit almost immediately. Bruce had me tend one line while he took care of the other. In an hour and a half, we had caught seven good-sized coho.

The water had begun to pick up a chop, and the sun bounced off the waves, reflecting like a hundred mirrors. I was relieved when Bruce put on sunglasses and pulled the peak of his cap down lower.

I had watched how he handled the boat and thought I knew a few basics, though I wasn't sure about starting the engine if I had to. I saw that Bruce had turned the flywheel over by hand, and I thought I could do that. The engine had its own sound.
Two bits two bits two bits
, it putted across the water. Bruce said it was an Easthope. “Single cylinder, water-cooled. I like the Easthope better than a Briggs and Stratton.”

“So do I,” I said.

“Meg, you're full of it,” he said, but he grinned.

We got back to the Landing without any trouble. After we had tied up at the float, Bruce began to clean the salmon. He picked one up, slit the belly open with one swift cut of his knife and dropped the guts into the ocean beside us.

“Want to try?” he asked, leaning back on his heels.

“Sure.” He handed me the knife. I found that it wasn't as easy as it looked. I finished one salmon and handed the knife back. “I'll do two next time,” I said.

Mrs. Hanson smiled with pleasure at the sight of our catch. “Our new guests will rave about my sour cream and onion salmon,” she said. “Come, sit down, the two of you. For you, I'll make pancakes, bacon and eggs. The coffee's freshly made.” She filled two cups and placed them before us.

“Do you like fishing that much, Meg, that you'd get up so early for it?” she asked as she busied herself at the stove.

“I like being out on the water,” I said. “Fishing's just an excuse to be out there. I don't even like the taste of salmon that much.”

“Wait until you've eaten my special baked salmon. A Norwegian neighbour gave me the recipe years ago. I'll save some for you from dinner tonight.”

I felt sleepy after the huge breakfast, and I didn't know how I was going to stay awake for work in an hour. Mrs. Hanson caught me nodding.

“You can catch a few winks in one of the bedrooms upstairs in the attic,” she said. “I keep a couple of rooms ready there in case of an emergency. I see you brought a change of clothing. But mind you take off your shoes. My mother made those quilts. I'll wake you in time for work.”

The room was small but cozy. On the bedside table, a family album lay open to two pictures of Bruce. In one, he was about three and held a cat. He was holding it carefully, its head supported, cradling it in his arms. In the other, he looked about seven and held a baby, his cousin Rita, according to the writing on the back. His blond head, perfectly shaped, was bent over the baby in a caring way. This was the Bruce I sensed was there under his often abrupt manner. My days were full, yet I missed Amy. She was always with Glen. Every few days I would stop by to see her.

One early afternoon, I knocked and knocked at her front door and had finally given up and turned away when the door opened. Amy stood there, swaying. She looked dazed. Sleepy-eyed. Face slack.

Beyond the open door, I saw Glen lying on the couch with the same stunned look on his face. I must have interrupted their lovemaking, I thought. The air was thick with their sexual tension. I fled, mumbling something about coming back another time.

The scene stayed with me for days. It seemed that everywhere I looked, I saw people in love, falling in love, making love. It made me curious, excited, with strong, unexpected yearnings. But I also felt uneasy, not really ready to know any more about this new world.

These feelings grew even stronger when my brother, Sam, came home on a one-week leave from the Air Force with his girlfriend Olive, a newly graduated nurse. “I want to wait until after the war before we get married,” she told my mother.

“Very sensible,” Mom commented.

“Meg must come and visit my family some time,” Olive said. “I have two sisters, and they would love her. She would fit right in. They are fifteen and eighteen.”

“It would be good for Meg to be with girls,” Mom said. “There's only one girl here in the Landing, and she's a — well, should I say a bit too mature for her age?”

Olive helped dry while I washed the dishes. “I think yellow would be a good colour on you,” she said. “Especially with your dark hair and eyes. Are they hazel or brown? My eighteen-year-old sister loves makeup, and I think she'll want to show you all she knows. Promise that you'll come and stay with us for a weekend before you start school in September.”

Sam came outside to talk to me one morning when I was hanging up the weekly wash on the clothesline. “Mother says you're working at Mrs. Hanson's Guest House,” he said. “How are they treating you?”

“Fine.” I reached for a pillowcase. “Couldn't be nicer.”

“Bruce, too?”

“Yes. He's fine, too. Why do you ask?” I reeled out the clothesline.

“I went to high school with him. I didn't much like him. He thought he was better than anyone else.”

“Sometimes he acts that way,” I said.

“He went off to university. Did well. There was no putting up with him after that.”

“He lost a lot of his shipmates when his ship was torpedoed. And you know that he got badly burned. He told me that it changed him a lot,” I said.

“It would, yes … I used to think that his mother and sister made too much of him. So did the teachers.”

“Well, he's okay with me, Sam. And I'm making good money and have a chance for more work off-season.”

“I'm just warning you not to go getting a crush on Bruce. He's kind of old for you, anyway.”

I glared at him. “Oh, mind your own damn business! Stop acting like a big brother!”

But maybe I
was
getting a crush on Bruce Hanson. I found I was thinking about him all the time. From the moment I woke up until it came time to lay my head on the pillow at night, he was there in my mind.

When we were out fishing and he was baiting a hook, I saw how the sun glistened in the hairs on his arms, making them golden. I noticed how his shirt stretched across his shoulders when he pulled up a salmon. Often he hadn't shaved before we went out on the boat, and I wondered if the stubble would scratch against my cheek.

That he didn't know what I was thinking, I was sure. His manner towards me remained much the same. He was often brusque, sometimes silent, occasionally warm, always protective.

“I want to talk to you about something that's been on my mind,” he said one morning, just before we headed the boat back to the Landing. Our catch lay on the floorboards between us, their scales shining like miniature rainbows in the sun. “It's about Amy.”

“Oh, yes. My friend, Amy.”

“She's not really a good friend for you, Meg. I think she uses you. She says ‘come,' and you do. She says ‘go,' and you do that, too.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I notice things,” he said. “Once that Pryce boy goes into Vancouver to work, she'll want you dancing attendance on her again. Not that he's any prize either. What he needs is a good stint in the services to make a man out of him.”

“I guess.”

“Meg, what you should be doing is applying to different universities for their scholarships. There must be ones available for girls. UBC isn't the only university. Write to McGill, Queen's …”

“I've got all year to do that,” I said. Sam, now Bruce, bossing me around …

“But if there is a scholarship for someone making the highest marks in English, or history, you could be doing extra reading and studying right now. There are government correspondence courses you could take that would broaden your knowledge.”

“Why are you so ambitious for me, Bruce?”

“Because you're intelligent, hard-working, and I think you could make your mark on the world with the right education …”

“Bruce, I think your line's moving.”

He turned quickly to check it. “No, it isn't.”

He looked back at me. “I care about you, Meg.”

“You care about me?”

“Well, yes, I care about what happens to you … I'm ambitious for you. I'm ambitious for me, too. One more skin graft to go — the most important one — and when that's done and finished with, I'm going after a degree in law. I intend to stay with the Navy and make it my career.”

But I was still thinking about, “I care about you, Meg.”

At the end of July, Amy told me that Glen was leaving the Landing to live with his mother, stepfather and their children in Vancouver. “He had his doubts,” she said, “but his mother begged him. He says he'll visit me on his day off from caddying at the University Golf Course.”

When Glen came, he and Amy didn't have much time to visit. The Union Steamship came into the Landing at noon, continued on up the Sound to Seaside Park, and returned to the Landing three hours later to pick up passengers bound for Vancouver.

For those three hours, no one saw much of Glen and Amy. They pretty much had the Miller house to themselves. Mrs. Miller was spending most of her time with new friends she'd made at Sechelt. The friends had a car and would call for her.

August brought bad news. Robert Pryce's wife was being sent to the TB Sanitarium at Tranquille. She'd had TB when she was younger, and recent X-rays showed a large shadow on her left lung. She would need to be at the “San” for at least a year.

All of this was told to me by Amy, who was waiting for me almost every day when I got off work at 5:00. Bruce still disapproved of her and said so. “Now that she doesn't have that young boy around, she wants your company,” he said.

“What does it matter to you?” I said. He had been particularly irritable all week, and I wondered if it was something I'd done, or said.

“Just warning you, that's all. I don't like to see you being used. Your nature's too trusting.”

I kept silent.

“Okay, sorry. Sorry about being so cranky, too. It's not your fault that I can't wait to get this surgery over and done with. I want to get on with my life … Go ahead, Meg. Amy's waiting for you right now. Just don't say I didn't warn you.”

One afternoon, when Amy called for me after work, she said, “Just thought I'd walk home with you.” Along the way, she kept sighing and pulling at her hair. A couple of times she started to say something, but broke off abruptly. All the while, her face grew more and more anxious.

Finally I stopped in the middle of the road and faced her. With autumn coming on, the leaves in the forest behind Amy had started to change colour. Some were as yellow as the sweater she wore. Her eyes were the same shade of blue as the mountains in the background. She had never looked so beautiful — except for the worry lines in her forehead.

“What's the matter, Amy? Tell me.”

“Oh, Meg, I think I'm pregnant.”

“Does Glen know?” I asked.

“Not yet. I'm waiting another week before I go to see Dr. Casey. But my period's already three weeks late, and my breasts are starting to tingle.”

“Oh, Amy! What are you going to do?”

“We could get married.”

“But Glen is going to UBC.”

“He could still do that. I'll stay here and finish grade twelve, and he can come up once a week, the way he does now.”

She counted off on nine fingers. “April. The baby would be due in April. Glen would be finished at UBC by then. We'll be fine.”

She made it sound so simple.