Taking a Chance on Love
Read Taking a Chance on Love Online
Authors: Mary Razzell
TAKING A CHANCE ON LOVE
OTHER BOOKS BY MARY RAZZELL
Snow Apples
, Groundwood, 1984; 2006
The Secret Code of DNA
, Penumbra, 1986
Salmonberry Wine
, Groundwood, 1987
Night Fires
, Groundwood, 1990
White Wave
, Groundwood, 1994
Smuggler's Moon
, Groundwood, 1999
Haida Quest
, Harbour Publishing, 2002
Runaway at Sea
, Harbour Publishing, 2005
Dreaming of Horses
, Dragon Hill Publishing, 2013
Mary Razzell
RONSDALE PRESS
TAKING A CHANCE ON LOVE
Copyright © 2016 Mary Razzell
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, or, in Canada, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency).
RONSDALE PRESS
3350 West 21st Avenue, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6S 1G7
Typesetting: Julie Cochrane, in Minion 12 pt on 16
Cover Art & Design: Elisa Gutiérrez
Paper: Ancient Forest Friendly “Silva” (FSC)â100% post-consumer waste, totally chlorine-free and acid-free
Ronsdale Press wishes to thank the following for their support of its publishing program: the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, the British Columbia Arts Council, and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Book Publishing Tax Credit program.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Razzell, Mary, 1930â, author
Taking a chance on love / Mary Razzell. â First edition.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-55380-455-0 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-55380-456-7 (ebook) / ISBN 978-1-55380-457-4 (pdf)
I. Title.
PS8585.A99T35 2016Â Â Â jC813'.54Â Â Â C2015-906728-6Â Â Â C2015-906729-4
At Ronsdale Press we are committed to protecting the environment. To this end we are working with Canopy and printers to phase out our use of paper produced from ancient forests. This book is one step towards that goal.
Printed in Canada by Marquis Printing, Quebec
for Nina Ruman, the best of friends
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With special thanks to Helen Shore, BScN, for her recollections of the burn ward at the Vancouver General Hospital in 1944â45. And to Joe Holmes of Richmond, B.C., collector and restorer of Easthope engines.
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is coincidental.
I was the one who found the first note. My friend Amy and I had just been dropped off from the school bus and were dawdling along the road to my house when I had to take a short trip into the woods to answer nature's call. The sun shone on the new leaves of alder trees, and on the way back to Amy, I stopped to smell the freshness of the spring air.
There it was, partially tucked under a flat rock, a small piece of white paper torn from a notepad and folded in half. It couldn't have been there long because the paper wasn't wet, and it had stopped raining only half an hour before.
I read it quickly and called to Amy as I came out to the road.
“You'll never guess what I found!”
Amy Miller and I were the only two girls living in the Landing. We went to high school by bus to the next village up the coast. Once school was out, and we were back home, we had only each other to rely on for company. Amy and I were both seventeen and in grade eleven.
Amy knew all about clothes and makeup. She looked like Hedy Lamarr, except she was blonde. She had the same gorgeous figure: a small waist and high, rounded breasts that made all the men in the village stop and follow her with their eyes. The women frowned.
Ever since the summer before, when Amy had moved to the Landing, we had seen each other every day. She was a good listener, and I could talk to her about anything. The very worst thing that I could imagine would be to lose Amy as my friend.
I read aloud the note I'd found. “What happened to you yesterday? I waited as long as I could. R.”
“Let me see, Meg,” said Amy, her face clouding. “It sounds like a love note.”
“Could be.” I gave her the note. “Do you recognize the handwriting? I think it looks like a man's. Heavy scrawl and messy, just like my brother, Sam's.” Sam was my oldest brother and away in the war. He had joined the Air Force in 1940, soon after Canada had declared war on Germany.
Amy's face crumpled, and she looked ready to cry. She kept smoothing the note over and over with her right index finger, as if she were trying to erase the words. I couldn't understand why she was upset.
“It could be Rob Pryce,” she said. “He gave my mother a card on April Fool's day. He wrote on it, âJust for fun.' The writing looked like this.”
“I don't like him,” I said. “I hate the way he looks at me, as if he's taking off all my clothes.”
Robert Pryce. He and his family had moved to the Landing just after Christmas. We thought they must be rich. No one in their family seemed to work, and they had the nicest house in the village. A creek ran the length of the property, right down to the beach, and their view went all the way out to the Gap, and beyond, to Vancouver Island. Rob had a pretty wife, a little younger. She was from a prominent Toronto family. Some said that Rob was a writer, or an artist, or maybe both. Others said he was a Communist. He was the handsomest man on the peninsula in an Errol Flynn sort of way. He had brothers who visited occasionally, and they were all good-looking. There was a sister, too, but the good looks didn't work as well on her. Everyone on the peninsula took note of the Pryce men.
Robert Pryce reminded me of my own father, who was away in the Air Force on the East Coast. Dad had always had an eye for the women. Mild flirtations going on whenever a chance presented itself. I had long ago decided I didn't like men like that.
“I could check under the rock every time I go by here,” I said now to Amy. “It's close to my house. And I'll keep a lookout for whoever is walking this way.”
“I wonder who it could be? But maybe it doesn't mean anything.” Amy's face relaxed at the thought.
“Probably not.”
“Let's keep the note anyway, Meg. Just to see what happens.”
“You keep it,” I said. “My mother's always looking through my things, and she'd find this. She would throw a fit.”
“No, you keep it.”
I looked at her in surprise. “Why?”
But she wouldn't tell me, and I let it go.
As soon as I got home, I put the note in my new hiding place, under a loose floorboard in my bedroom.
Neither of us expected to find a second note the very next day. We'd missed the school bus because of basketball practice and had to walk home, so we were later than usual. Only a corner of white paper showed from under the rock.
“It looks like it's been torn from the same notebook,” said Amy.
We read it out loud together. “S, please get in touch.”
“Maybe he knows someone took his first note,” I said.
“No initial âR' this time,” said Amy. “Is that an âS' or a â5'?”
“Who would start a note with a â5'? Can you think of a female within walking distance whose first name starts with âS'?”
Amy shook her head.
Ours was a small fishing village along the B.C. coast, and it didn't take long to think of all the women under the age of fifty whose name started with “S.” We came up with three. All of them were married.
“Let's watch them,” said Amy. “See where they go out walking. Are they buying new clothes? Wearing more makeup than usual?”
“Sylvia Ballard,” we both said.
“Did I tell you that last week Mrs. Ballard was wearing Evening in Paris perfume in the store?” said Amy. “As if she were going on a date afterwards. Maybe it was a date with Robert Pryce.”
“How was she dressed?”
“You know that red angora sweater she has, the turtleneck?” Amy said. “Someone should tell her that she's too old to wear that colour. Too bright. Makes her look haggard. She'd be better off with a soft coral. It's more becoming to all ages.”
“I think red's okay for evening,” I said. “The last time I saw her wear it was when she went out to the movies with her husband, and I was babysitting. I thought she looked okay.”
“If we take this note, he probably won't leave any more,” Amy said. “Should we leave it?”
“Leave it,” I said.
“No, I have an idea,” said Amy. “This one I'll keep.”
The next morning on the school bus, Amy seemed upset. She was scowling and kept twisting her hair around her finger.
“Guess who was at my house after I left you yesterday?” she said. “Robert Pryce. It seems he's always there. Said he was helping my mother fill out some forms for the government. Why couldn't she wait for my dad to help her? He'll be up this weekend. Anyway, I checked out Robert Pryce's handwriting on the forms, and it's the very same handwriting that's on the notes.”
“Have you noticed how he's always super helpful to all the women?” I said. “Anyway, when Robert Pryce sees your dad is home, he might back off. At least, you know that âS' isn't your mother, not with a name like Norma. Once we find out who âS' is, maybe we can do something about it and show Robert Pryce up for the creep he is.”
After school that day, I came home to find my mother sitting at the kitchen table reading the first note Amy and I had found.
“What's this all about?” she said. “It must be important for you to hide it away. I want to know every detail, don't leave anything out. And by the way, it wouldn't hurt you to mop under your bed.”
“Mom!”
“I would never have found it if the cat hadn't been sneezing with all the dust under your bed. Thick as a blanket. The floorboard was loose.”
“Amy and I found the note in the woods, and we've been trying to figure out who âS' is.”
“It's nothing for you to involve yourself in, Meg. You or Amy.” She glanced at the note again. “But it does make you wonder.” Her eyes sharpened. “I have half a notion it has something to do with one of the Pryce men. I've never liked their looks. Half the women in the village are acting dotty because of them. I hope you'll take this as a warning and not let yourself be one of them.”