Gypsy Magic (The Little Matchmakers) (23 page)

“Is that heavy?” he asked, his face expressionless.

“No,” Gypsy replied, trying to sound unconcerned, trying to understand the change in him, but knowing that it was all finished between them before it had even begun. “I can manage,” she said, and swung around past him, walking fast.

Later, standing on the deck and watching the wake lead back to the island, Gypsy felt Kevin’s hand slip into hers. She smiled down at him, blinking back the tears that had been in her eyes.

“Why are you sad? He asked. “Don’t you want to go home?”

Unaware of Lance, who had approached and was standing close behind them, she said, “Not really, Kev.” She spoke truthfully.

“Then why don’t you come home with us?”

“I can’t do that, honey. You know I can’t!” Why did he have to keep reminding her?

“Because you going to marry that man?” He didn’t like that idea at all.

“No. I won’t be marrying him, Kevin,” Gypsy said, again speaking truth, for she had told him once that she would never lie to him and anyway, what would be the point in lying… even to herself? “I won’t be marrying anybody. But I do have a job to go back to.”

“Mr. Hopkins told his wife it would be a long time before you’d be modeling again so why don’t you marry my—”

“Kevin!” Lance roared and jerked Kevin right off his feet. “Keep quiet!” Kevin began to cry and Lance set him down. “Go see Mrs. Hopkins.” To Gypsy, he said, not quite looking at her, “Gypsy… Oh, Gypsy, I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t be, Lance. I understand. Second best would never be any good, would it?”

“I thought it would, but when it came right down to it, I found it was no go.” When she would’ve left, he stopped her. “What will you do now? I mean when you get back to the city?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” she said, shaking her head to bring her hair down over the scar which she now knew to be offensive to him. “I’ll be all right. The only thing that worries me is getting from Weldon Harbor back to Vancouver. All my identification and credit cards were in my wallet, which disappeared with my makeup case when it was lost.”

Lance was silent for a long moment. “No,” he said at last on a long breath. “No, Gypsy. It wasn’t. I have it. But I didn’t want you worrying about that scar on your face when there was nothing could be done about. It’s down below, under my sketch pads in a Pacific milk box.”

He let her go then and Gypsy rushed into the cabin found the right box and carefully lifted his sketch pads and unearthed her makeup case. In the clear bright ocean light shining through a porthole she stared in horror at her image in the mirror. Her left cheek was bisected by a wide, irregular red line, puckered at both ends, the top end pulling her lower eyelid down so that she looked like a drunken clown. She squeezed her eyes shut to block out the image of her devastated face, knowing that no amount of makeup would ever cover that horrible disfigurement. Slamming the lid shut she bent over and put her head on top of her knees, too sick with grief even to weep.

When the boat docked, Gypsy arose white faced and outwardly composed, joined Kevin on deck, and chatted with the Hopkinses while Lance made arrangements for a plane to take them to Victoria. When that had been done she reluctantly accompanied him and Kevin to a small store at the top of the wharf, keeping a curtain of hair over her marred face.

The chartered seaplane rose with frenetic speed out of the water and sped toward a steep hillside, clearing it by what seemed to be a dangerously narrow margin. Gypsy sat holding Kevin’s hand and staring at the back of Lance’s neck, wishing the interminable trip was over, pleating and unpleating the fabric of the skirt which Lance had bought for her in Weldon Harbor

“Call it a babysitting fee,” he had said over her protest that she had credit cards to use. The same went for her airfare from Weldon Harbor to Victoria. A babysitting fee! Can one ever be paid for loving a child?

The plane slid toward the water and landed with a bump to bounce its way across Victoria Harbor and nudge in against a float where two men in bright yellow jackets waited to assist the passengers ashore. One, reaching out help Gypsy, smiled admiringly until she inadvertently turned her left side to him, whereupon the smile froze in place until it finally died sickly away.

It happened again in the hotel where she was to spend the night, and in the dining room at the same hotel where Kevin and Lance joined her for a farewell dinner before returning to their home in the suburbs… and Lorraine.

They had steaks, beautiful juicy and red, something Gypsy had not realized she’d had missed until it was placed in front of her and the delicious aroma wafted up. All three ate in silence for a while, Gypsy aware of the bittersweet pleasure of this, her last meal with Lance and Kevin. The child nibbled a French fry, looked at Gypsy for a time and then his eyes flooded with tears. “Do you fry the bacon first?” he asked his chin trembling

“What?”

“For the clam chowder. I’m going to make it when I’m big.”

Gypsy nodded, too overcome to speak while Lance said with great gentleness, “We’ll ask Auntie to make it, okay?”

“No. She won’t make it if she knows it’s something I ’specially like.”

“Of course she will!” Lance said heartily, rubbing Kevin’s head affectionately. “You just ask politely, and you’ll see.”

“Yes, Daddy.” Kevin hung his head.

Lance turned to Gypsy. “I need to get him home soon. Would you be all right?” His voice, his eyes were full of sympathy, compassion, and what might’ve been subdued pain.

“Of course. I won’t keep you any longer. Thank you, Lance, for… for everything, and good luck.”

They both stood, Gypsy longing to run but knowing she must see this through. He took her hand and held it wordlessly until she pulled it back and then crouched to hold Kevin close for a moment. As she knelt by the child, Lance’s hand rested for a brief, heart stopping moment against her cheek. The
right
side. The unmarred side.

“Goodbye, Kevin,” she whispered around a throat almost too full of tears to form words. “I have my two green glass net floats and all my clamshells, and my biggest abalone shell with all the lovely rainbows inside.” She swallowed hard. He’d insisted she have the biggest one. “When it’s raining I’ll think of you and know you’re thinking of me. Be a good boy and grow up to be a fine man, just like your dad.” And then quietly, quickly before she could burst into tears Gypsy whirled and fled to the shelter of her room three floors above.

~ * ~

The publicity engendered by her return from “the grave”, as one reporter put it, was mercifully short-lived and Gypsy was left with the business of trying to straighten out her tangled affairs.

Frederick Halliburton was delighted to see her back, but as he explained, until she had her face looked after, of course Gypsy would have to take a leave of absence. With pay, he assured her, since she had been injured in the line of duty, so to speak.

“Of course, I understand,” Gypsy said, meaning it. She, herself, would not want to be photographed with her face in this condition, although, as one of the other models pointed out, there was nothing wrong with her right profile. “And you do have Vanessa for the Skippy Togs deal,” she added, standing from her chair across from Halliburton’s desk. “I always thought she was far more suited to those sporty clothes than I am.”

Halliburton gave her a startled look. “But no! She isn’t coming back,” he said bewilderingly. This was the first Gypsy had heard the Vanessa leaving.

“Why not? Where she gone?”

Frederick Halliburton looked desperately uncomfortable. “On her honeymoon. She said he didn’t want her to go on working.”

“She’s married?” Gypsy sat back down. “I didn’t know. How nice for her.” Gypsy’s voice was flat. It was hard to be enthusiastic about someone else’s happiness when she was so far from happy herself.

Halliburton sat up straighter in his chair, bald head reflected upside down in the shining surface of his desk, as he regarded her very solemnly. “Have you talked to Tony since you got back?”

Gypsy frowned. She had reluctantly called him the first day she returned, but there’d been no answer at his home and he hadn’t returned her call. The next morning, she’d called his office had been told by a receptionist, who obviously didn’t recognize her voice—or, it seemed her name—vacation replacement, she assumed, he was away. With a sigh of relief she had hung up without leaving a message. Breaking her engagement was not something she wanted to do, for she did not dislike him, she simply did not love him and therefore had to call it off, and she certainly had no intention of doing it over the phone, even if he had been in his office.

“When I called, I was told he was away,” she told Halliburton.

“He is, Gypsy, darling, and I don’t want to be the one to have to tell you. He’s… with Vanessa.”

“But she’s on her”—the truth smacked her in the face. “Tony married Vanessa?”
Before I was cold in my “grave”?

He nodded, offered sympathy which she brushed aside, uncaring. With a brief word of thanks she stood and strode from his office.

~ * ~

The plastic surgeon’s news encouraged her. “It may take a few months and more than one operation, Ms. Gaynor, but will have your face almost as good as new before too long. I’d like to be able to promise that there will be no scar all, but I don’t lie to my patients. That word, patients Ms. Gaynor, has a homonym—patience, and I will want you to bear that in mind. We will both require a good deal of it, you, far more than I, but I think by Christmas you’ll be much happier with your appearance.

It was a day in early September when Gypsy was released from the hospital. She was amazed to find how large and green the world looked, how noisy the children’s voices, the traffic, as she walked, suitcase in hand to her little rented home a few blocks away from the hospital. Her former apartment, upon her “death” had been rented to someone else, and her furniture put in storage for her mother to deal with later. Her mother, of course, was still away, still unaware, so Gypsy reclaimed her belongings and moved into a condo she didn’t much care for. It would do for the moment, however because of its proximity to the hospital and her surgeon’s office. He required frequent follow-up visits.

She opened the door and went at once to the mirror in the hallway to examine her face away from the harsh light of the treatment room in which the dressing had been removed. Here, in the more subdued lighting, it looked even better, and the thing which had most pleased her at first was still evident—her eyelid was back in place.

Gypsy went to check her mailbox and found it stuffed full of circulars and addressed to “Occupant.” She threw them on the coffee table and as they scattered, a postcard fell out from between the sheets. Picking it up she saw a small, shaggy puppy on the front and turned over to see the scratched out address above the one at which she now lived. She read it with an aching heart.

“Dear Gypsy. I miss you. I wish I had a puppy just like this one. Mickey’s mother is writing this for me. She found out where you live from a big book. Love… And neatly printed, all lines straight and even, except for the e, which was a little out of whack “Kevin.”

First Gypsy smiled a smile forbidden by her doctor and then she sat down and wept equally forbidden tears, using the muscles which he had said must be used as little as possible until she was fully healed.

The next day she searched pet shops, then animal shelters, until she at last found a replica of the puppy on the postcard and installed him in her bedroom, spending three nights on the floor beside his basket to keep him from crying before, on the fourth night, she gave up and let him share the mat by her bed with her slippers. When the strata council learned she had a pet, she received polite notice to rid herself of same or vacate the premises. She vacated.

Three weeks later another card arrived, also written by Mickey’s mother, readdressed twice from her original location, and the following week, the front of her card bore a familiar looking squirrel. Lance’s square, neat initials just underneath it. And on the back, clumsy printing which was Kevin’s own. “I am in Grade One. I can print. I miss you. Do you miss me. My class is going on a ferry boat to feed the seagulls.

Again Gypsy wept forbidden tears and the next day Dr. Prost told her she was not healing as fast as he had hoped, and the operation scheduled for the end of November would have to be postponed for a month. He wondered why his patient showed such a marked lack of consternation at the news.

Gypsy awoke in the night, hearing Gumdrop, the puppy, whimpering. “Oh, you little nuisance,” she muttered. “Can’t you ever find your own way back?” When Gumdrop went out of her bedroom in the night to use his paper in the bathroom, he often got lost in the vast reaches of the hallway and kitchen, slipping and sliding on the polished floors until, completely turned around and bewildered, he sat down and squealed until Gypsy rescued him.

Climbing warily from her warm bed, she padded into the hall and switched on the light. There was no sign of Gumdrop, nor was he in the kitchen, and when she returned to the bedroom, there he was, curled in a tight little ball, fast asleep. Shrugging, Gypsy walked out to flip off the light and heard the whimpering again.

Giving Gumdrop a questioning look, she went bent near and found he was not making the noise at all. In fact he was snoring gently.

It came again, and Gypsy followed it, the sound drawing her to the kitchen. She turned on the outside light which illuminated the back patio and peered out the window, there, huddled by the back door, as close as he could get to it was—

“Kevin!
Kevin!
”

She flung the door open and gathered him up in her arms. Oh how cold and shivering he was! Oh, how wonderful his skinny little arms felt around her neck and oh! how she loved him as he huddled in her lap, nuzzling his dark head against her as he cried. “I rang and rang and then I come around here and rang some more but you didn’t come and I got sleepy and I woke up and it was all dark and I thought you hadn’t come home!”