The Bungalow (12 page)

“Oh, you can’t do that,” I said. “What a lonely life that would be!”

“Why would you call it lonely?” he countered. “I’d have everything I could possibly want. A roof over my head. A bed. The most beautiful scenery in the world. Some might call that paradise.”

I thought about what he’d said about settling down and raising a family right there on the stretch of beach before us. “But what about companionship?” I said a little shyly. “What about . . . love?”

Westry grinned. “Easy for you to say. You already have that.”

I looked at my feet, burrowing the tip of my shoe into the sand, which was so hot I could feel it radiating beneath the leather.

“Well,” he continued, “I suppose I’ll find her. Out there somewhere.”

“What if you don’t?” I asked.

“I will,” he said, smiling at me confidently.

I turned away quickly.

“Now,” he said, “let’s hear about
you
.”

I tugged at a loose thread on my bag until the silence felt strange. “Well, there isn’t much to tell.”

“I’m sure there is,” Westry said with a leading smile. “Everyone has a story.”

I shook my head. “I was born in Seattle. I lived there all my life. I got my nursing license, and now I’m here.”

“And there you have it,” he said dramatically. “An entire lifetime in three sentences.”

I felt my cheeks get hot. “Sorry,” I said. “I guess my life isn’t quite as exciting as yours.”

“I think you’re bluffing,” he said, sizing me up with his eyes. “The man you’re engaged to,” he continued, pointing to the ring on my hand, “why didn’t you marry him before you left?”

How dare he ask me such a question?
“Because I . . .” My voice trailed off without an answer. I thought of all the practical reasons: I didn’t want to rush things; because Mother wanted a big affair at the Olympic Hotel; because . . . ; and yet, none were satisfactory. If I’d wanted, I could have marched down to City Hall, just like Gerard had suggested, and made it official. I could have become Mrs. Gerard Godfrey without a yearlong odyssey to the South Pacific as a hurdle that stood between us.
Why didn’t I?

“See?” Westry continued. “You do have a story.”

“I assure you,” I retorted, “you’ve created drama where there is none.”

Westry winked. “We’ll see.”

Kitty wasn’t in the room when I returned, so when the mess hall bell rang, announcing dinner, I walked out of the barracks alone, making a quick stop in the infirmary to check on Mary, whom I was happy to find sitting up and sipping orange juice through a straw.

“Hi, Anne,” she muttered from her bed. Her voice, still quite weak, had perked up. There was strength in it that hadn’t been there this morning.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m headed to dinner. I was just wondering if I could bring you anything. You must be tiring of the liquid diet.”

“I am,” she replied. “A roll and a few packages of butter would be divine.”

“I’ll take care of it,” I said, smiling.

I walked back out to the path that led to the mess hall, passing the hibiscus bush where Kitty and I had plucked flowers that first night. I kept walking until I could see the recreation dock. A dozen canoes bound by rope tethers bobbed on the water, waiting for off-duty soldiers to take them out to sea. Few did, even though Bora-Bora was a relative safe haven from enemy attack—so far.

I looked closer and spotted two figures climbing out of a canoe. The tousled curls could have belonged to no other but Kitty, but the man helping her onto the dock wasn’t Lance. I gasped when I saw instead the face of
Colonel Donahue
. She smiled sweetly at him as he stowed the paddles inside the canoe. They walked together, arm in arm, back up to the lawn, where he bid her adieu, and Kitty hurried along the trail back to the women’s barracks.

Should I run after her?
I decided not to; after all, she hadn’t told me the truth about her date, and it was most likely because she thought I’d disapprove,
and I did
. But I couldn’t have her thinking I was spying on her. No, she’d tell me in her own time. Instead, I turned back to the mess hall and spoke to the cook about getting a tray made up for Mary.

“How’s Lance?” Stella coyly asked Kitty at breakfast.
Did she see her with the Colonel too?

“Fine,” Kitty said, picking at her scrambled eggs and grits, both the consistency of rubber. “We’re seeing each other tonight.”

Stella shook her head jealously, a gesture that might have put me on the defensive the day we met, but I had come to learn quickly that it was merely Stella’s way. “My, do you have luck with men,” she said, before sighing in defeat. “I’ve given up on Elliot. His head is much too tangled up with that woman from back home. He’s either by himself taking photographs on the beach or holed up in the barracks writing poetry about her. She must be something else, that woman. Anyway, I met an airman last night. His name is Will, and he isn’t half bad.”

Liz approached our table with a tray and set it down. “Is Mary still on the mend?”

“Yes, thank God,” I said. “She’s much stronger today.”

Liz gazed intently at an envelope she held in her hand. “This came for her today,” she said cautiously. “And I can’t help but notice the name on the return address. Didn’t she say her ex-fiancé’s name was
Edward
?”

I nodded. “Let me see it.”

I held the envelope up to the light, unable to make out anything significant, just that the sender was indeed Edward. Edward Naughton, with a return address in Paris.

“Anne!” Kitty scolded. “You shouldn’t read her mail. It’s private.”

“I will if I think it’s going to compromise her recovery,” I said. “Listen, if this man could leave her, almost at the altar, and send her into such a tailspin that she banished herself to a far-flung island on the other side of the world, imagine what a letter from him could do to her.”

The other women nodded in agreement, and Kitty softened.

“Look,” I said, “I’m not going to read it; I’m merely tucking it away until she’s ready. Her heart is weak. She needs to regain her strength first. I won’t let this letter conflict with her recovery.”

“All right,” Kitty said. “But you really shouldn’t meddle when it comes to love.”

I scrunched my nose in displeasure and tucked the envelope into the pocket of my dress for safekeeping. “I’m not
meddling
,” I said directly to Kitty. “This is a matter of health.”

Kitty pushed her plate aside. “Well, girls, I don’t think I can stand another bite of these overcooked eggs. I’m heading to work. Nurse Hildebrand says we’ve got a live one coming in today.”

I stewed about Kitty’s comments as we walked to the infirmary that morning, but forgot about the interaction entirely when we got word that a medic had radioed from another island that a wounded pilot was en route. The pilot would be our first real patient, aside from Westry, who was mine alone.

The airman arrived at a quarter past ten. It was as serious a case as any one of us could have imagined—shrapnel wounds to the head. Kitty, first to wheel the soldier into the operating area, worked alongside the doctor with steady hands, removing bits of blood-covered metal and piling them on a plate beside the operating table. Liz excused herself to vomit, yet Kitty didn’t flinch. She handled the procedure with such skill and ease that the doctor requested she stay on for another hour to assist with the patient’s care. She quickly agreed.

After our shift ended, I walked back to the barracks, eager to escape the sterile infirmary and relax in the comfort of the bungalow. I packed a little bag and tucked in scissors, a needle and thread, and a bolt of pale yellow fabric I’d found in a trash barrel outside the infirmary. Perfect for curtains, I’d thought, snatching it up before the enlisted men could haul it away with the garbage collection.

Westry wasn’t inside when I arrived, so I retrieved the key from the book, remembering how he’d thought of the hiding place, and unlocked the door, setting my bag down on the old mahogany chair.

I immediately got to work on the curtains, measuring the width of the windows and calculating the length and width of each panel. I laid out the fabric on the floor, shooing a baby lizard away as I did, and commenced cutting. I listened to the birds’ songs as I hemmed the curtains. I didn’t have an iron to press them, but the seams would be fine for a beach hut, and in time, the warm, misty air would soften their creases.

As I stitched, I thought of Westry, so spirited and spontaneous, so unlike Gerard and his consistent, measured ways.
Why can’t Gerard be more free, more of a lover of life?
And yet, as I pushed my needle and thread through the fabric, I realized the concerns I had harbored about him in Seattle seemed only to fester in the tropics. In particular, his ability to sidestep the war gnawed at my conscience.
Why didn’t he disagree with his father’s wishes and do the honorable thing?

I remembered the painting resting under the bed as I fitted the rod into the first set of curtains on the window. I wondered about the subjects of the canvas, but mostly I wondered about the artist.

Who lived here so long ago? A man like Westry, with adventure in his soul?
I pictured Westry spending the rest of his days here on the island. Maybe he’d marry a native girl, like the one we’d met with Lance and Kitty at the market.
What was her name? Yes, Atea. But would he be happy then? Would a woman like that make him happy?
I grinned.
Yes, happy in
one
way, certainly, but would they be on the same intellectual plane?
Passion fades, yet love lives on. It’s what I wished Kitty would come to believe.

Darkness fell on the bungalow just then, and I looked out the open-air window at gray, rain-soaked clouds looming in the sky, ready to drench the land below, whether it obliged or not. I scanned the beach, hoping I might see Westry bounding toward the bungalow, which is when I remembered the mailbox, or rather, the creaky floorboard in the corner. I walked over and lifted it, peering inside, and a white envelope caught my eye.

I tore it open with anticipation.

I giggled to myself, opening the drawer to find an orange. Its shiny, dimpled skin looked brilliant against the darkness of the mahogany drawer frame. I held it to my nose and inhaled the floral citrus scent before turning the letter over and writing a message to Westry: