The Bungalow (7 page)

“Oh no, no,” I said. “You’re not implying that Kitty fainted intentionally, are you?”

“It’s exactly what I’m saying,” the auburn-haired nurse replied, clearly the alpha of the pair. “Scenes like that don’t happen
spontaneously
. She staged it.”

“She most certainly did not,” I said in protest. “If you ask me, I think you’re jealous.”

The dark-haired nurse gasped, as the other woman shrugged confidently. “You’ll thank us someday,” she said.

“For what?” I asked suspiciously.

“For warning you of what your little friend is capable of. I wouldn’t trust that one as far as I could throw her around any man of mine.”

I shook my head and continued walking, as fast as I could with two heavy bags, one more so than the other.

“How rude of us,” the auburn-haired nurse spoke up. But the apology I had anticipated wasn’t coming. “I almost forgot to introduce myself. I’m Stella, and this is Liz,” she said, pointing to her brunette friend.

I kept walking, disregarding the introduction.

“And you are?”

“Anne,” I barked, marching onward without turning around.

Our quarters in the nurses’ barracks were simple, meager at best, just two crudely constructed beds, a dressing table, and one closet for the two of us to share. The flimsy cotton drapes, discolored to a pale yellow from the hot sun, seemed inadequate to block the light or the men’s line of vision. I arrived to find Kitty standing on one of the beds, hammering a nail into the wall. “What do you think of this spot for a picture?” she asked, tilting her head a little. “I was thinking of hanging a photo of Mama and Papa.”

I set her bag down with a thud and wiped my brow. “I think it’s fine,” I said blankly. “You’re feeling better, I see.”

“Yes, thanks, dear,” she said. “I feel badly for leaving you in the crowd like that. But Colonel Donahue insisted.”

I was beginning to dread the sound of
the colonel
’s name, but I was careful not to let it show. “I’m just glad you’re OK.”

Kitty flitted like a spring bird around our little second-story room, chattering on about how we’d fix the place up. A spare sheet would make a perfect valance, she crooned, and we’d certainly be able to locate a coffee table, somewhere, for tea.
Certainly.
And the walls, weren’t they such a lovely, soothing color?
Yes, infirmary beige—very soothing.

In my view, however, the room was dank and strange. The two navy-blue-and-white-striped mattresses were bare and speckled with visible stains. Stacks of threadbare linens sat folded in neat little piles atop each. I longed for Maxine then, even though the thought made me feel childish. She’d have jumped in and made the beds, settling each of us with a calming cup of tea.

I was on my own now.

“Anne, can you believe there’s going to be a dance tonight? A dance! And Colonel Donahue wants to dance with
me
!”

There was that name again.
Why does it affect me so? Do I distrust his intentions, or are my feelings misplaced?
I remembered what Stella and Liz had said on the tarmac. They were jealous. I hated to think that I was too
.

Kitty had a way with men that I would never have. I thought of Gerard and twisted my engagement ring around my finger, which was swollen from the heat.

“Yes, won’t that be fun?” I chimed in, working hard to sound cheerful.

“I’m going to wear my yellow dress,” Kitty said, running to her suitcase. She looked great in yellow, especially in the dress she held up for my approval. I’d seen her wear it a half dozen times—on the last occasion with Mr. Gelfman’s arms wrapped tightly around the bodice. Funny, she’d been so heartbroken about the man when we left Seattle, but the island seemed to have erased her memory. I vowed to keep mine intact.

Kitty looked into the mirror, pressing the dress to her body, smoothing out the wrinkles, which the island humidity would soon erase. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I should wear the blue one, the one we bought at Frederick and Nelson’s last spring. It’s a bit more conservative, I guess.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said, thinking of Liz and Stella. I was determined to prove—to myself, anyway—that I was not jealous, that I was being the best friend I could to Kitty. It’s why I followed her here, I reminded myself. “Wear the yellow one. You look stunning in it.”

Kitty would be the most beautiful woman at the dance. She’d have the time of her life. And I’d be happy for her.

The infirmary, a white building with a red cross painted above the entryway, smelled of soap and ipecac, with a touch of rubbing alcohol thrown in for good measure. Kitty and I, the last two to arrive that afternoon, nestled into the circle of women watching Nurse Hildebrand as she demonstrated, on a nurse’s arm, the art of wound care in the tropics. Bandages were to be wrapped, she said, counterclockwise, not too tight, but snug enough to stop the bleeding. “The wound needs to breathe,” she said. “Too much or too little air, and you get infection.” She paused, looking out through the windows at the distant hills. “Especially in this godforsaken place.”

We spent the rest of the session rolling bandages into tight little bundles, then tucking them away in crates pulled off the plane. I laid out the big bolts of taupe linen on the table, trying not to dwell on the wounds they would one day cling to. Kitty took one end, and I another. After an hour, my fingers ached.

We worked in silence, mostly in fear of Nurse Hildebrand, for we all had plenty to say. But when she left to attend a matter in the mess hall, the women began to find their voices.

“She’s a tough one, that Nurse Hildebrand,” said a woman to our left. A few years older than Kitty and me, she had hair the color of straw, freckles dotting her nose, and large, friendly eyes. Her smile revealed crooked teeth, which she tried, unsuccessfully, to keep hidden behind pursed lips.

“She is,” I said in agreement. “I don’t understand—if she hates this place so much, why did she volunteer?”

“She has a past here,” she said.

“What do you mean, ‘a past’?”

“All I know is what another nurse told me on the mainland.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “She was here before, a very long time ago. And something bad happened.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know exactly, but it’s some kind of scandal.”

“You can’t mean that she’s a criminal!” Kitty exclaimed.

The woman shrugged. “Who knows? But I wouldn’t want to be caught on Nurse’s bad side,” she said. “I’m Mary,” she continued, nodding to Kitty and me.

“I’m Anne.”

“And I’m Kitty.”

Mary tucked another rolled bandage into the crate on the table. “What brings you here?”

Kitty opened her mouth, but I spoke first. “Service to our country,” I said simply.

Mary smirked. “Isn’t that what we all say? No, why are you
really
here? We’re all running from or searching for something. What’s your story?” She looked down at my engagement ring, perhaps because I was tugging at it.

But this time, Kitty responded before I could. “Anne was engaged,” she began, but I cut her off.

“
Is
engaged,” I corrected her.

“Yes, Anne
is
engaged, but she delayed the wedding to come with me.” Kitty nuzzled her shoulder against mine, a gesture of gratitude. “I was in a horrible romantic mess before we left. I felt I needed to escape.”

“Me, too,” Mary said, holding up her bare left hand. “My fiancé broke off our engagement. He came by one day and told me he didn’t love me. Now, what were his exact words, again?” She looked up at the ceiling as if to scan her memories. “Yes,” she continued. “He said, ‘Darling, I love you but I am not
in love
with you.’ If that wasn’t enough, he then announced that he was going to marry my best friend. Apparently they’d been seeing each other for months. I’ll be honest, girls, it almost sent me to the loony bin, that ordeal. When I was coherent enough to think about my next move, I knew I had to leave town. I wanted to go to the farthest corner of the world to dull the pain. Our wedding was going to be in the fall, at the Cartwright Hotel in San Francisco.” She looked down at her hands and sighed. “It was going to be
grand
.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Thank you,” she replied. “I don’t mind talking about it now, not really.” She began working on another bandage roll. “We were going to move to Paris,” she continued. “He was—well, is—joining the Foreign Service.” She shook her head wistfully. “I should never have fallen in love with Edward. Mother was right. He was much too good-looking for me.” She shrugged, replacing the hurt in her eyes with practicality. “And now I’m here. And you?” She looked at me. “Do you love the man you’re going to marry?”

“Of course I do,” I said a little more defensively than I had planned.

“Then why are you here and not at home with him?”

Why
am
I here and not home with him? Is the answer really that simple?
I pondered the question for a moment.
Is it adventure that I, like Kitty, seek? Am I listening to Maxine’s words and giving myself a chance to wait for something—God help me, for
someon
e—to come along before I seal my fate?
I shook my head, destroying the thought.
No, I am here for Kitty. Yes, that’s it, plain and simple.

“Because my friend needed me,” I said, squeezing Kitty’s hand.

“That’s sweet,” Mary said. “You’re lucky, you know—to have each other. I don’t have a friend like that.”

Kitty, ever the generous spirit, smiled warmly at Mary. “You can have us.”

Mary’s charming grin revealed her imperfect teeth. “I’d like that,” she said, tucking another bandage into the crate. We’d rolled at least a hundred, give or take. It was a small feat, yes, but I was proud of our accomplishment. A mountain of bandages on our first day on Bora-Bora. We were
doing something
. We were really living.

The nurses had two designated tables in the mess hall, a plain building with long cafeteria tables packed in rows. We were not to eat with the men, said Nurse Hildebrand. Even so, we were aware of their every move, as they were of ours. Their eyes bore into us as we ate—Spam and beans.

“This food is
awful
,” Mary said, stabbing a green bean with her fork and holding it up to the light. “Look, this thing is petrified.”

“We’ll come home perfectly thin,” Kitty said, smiling, ever the optimist.

Stella and Liz sat across from us, but after their comments about Kitty earlier in the day, I dismissed their presence. “Well, well,” Stella said with dramatic flair, pointing to a corner table where three men sat. “Get a load of that!”

Mary and Kitty, unaware of my grudge, turned to see what the fuss was about. “He’s the spitting image of Clark Gable,” Kitty said in agreement. “I wonder who he is?”

“His name’s Elliot,” Stella said. “The corporal who carried my bag today introduced us. Isn’t he dreamy?”