| still at home volume 4 part 1 - 1961 june-july | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
June 22 Went. Left Dawson Creek 11:30 am. Had a sumptious elegant dinner with Tom Shannon, a wonderful fabulous day. June 23 Got to Clearbrook about 11 a.m. today. Saw a lot of my peoples at a wedding. Aunt Lucy, et all. June 24 My first day of picking. For one small berry patch, the man situation is quite good. The one I like is Frank. He is twenty one and very attractive in an unconventional way. He wears a wool touque out there in the sun, over his piquant face. It is a European face with high cheek bones, thick lashes, blue eyes, and what they call a faintly mocking smile. He isn't tall. His technique is very intriguing. I wandered in with a flat to get checked off. "Moccasins are sure comfortable, aren't they" he remarked conversationally. "I wear them on Sundays when I want to loaf around." That was a mild beginning. I liked to catch his eye and half-smile because I like him. The next time he said, unexpectedly, as he punched my ticket, "Hey, what makes you tick anyway? You must like to smile or something." Fascinated, I said, "Just a naturally happy personality I guess." "Oh," he said, "one of those." He stacked the baskets from our carriers. We looked into each other's eyes. "Brown eyes and all" he said meditatively. He told me later about the dream he has about getting an Angus ranch "up country" (cute expression). I was interested, and not sham-ly. He's something I haven't met yet. There is a touch of the physical too. He's too attractive to avoid it. I was sitting on the ground with my legs crossed while the rest stampeded into the back of the truck. He walked up to me. All I could see was his blue-jeaned legs. I felt shy and I didn't look up. "Hi," he said softly. "Hi," I said, not looking up. He bent down, curved his brown fingers around one of my crossed arms, and lifted me onto my feet. He lifted quickly and impulsively, I think, and my arm hurt for a while where his fingers had been. "Why don't you sit in the front? Keep me company," he said. "Should I? Do you want me to?" I asked. I don't remember what he said or if he said anything. But someone else was there so I sat in the back and stared at the profile of the side of his face; a sharp cheek-line and a hard chin. I think he would kiss very well. I want to know him better. I want to talk to him all day. I want to say as slowly and meditatively as he did, "What makes you tick, Frank?" and I want him to tell me and I want him to like me. I think he does, but I want him to like me the same way I like him, with curiosity and wonder and admiration and a little bit of wistfulness. Maybe I'll put him into a story. Part of it, conversation and all, is scribbled into this story. Frank Doerksen Junior. I have to make six and a half flats tomorrow. June 26 I don't know if I'll ever get back to writing about the bus trip. It was all Frank today. I came to the corner when the truck was already there. Janet was in the front and I was just a little jealous. As I told Frank slyly, I'm in the doghouse with Janet today because I wore pink gloves with a mauve coat and wear weeds (pretty yellow flowers and daisies) in my buttonhole when I'm picking. Intermission - as I'm writing this I'm sitting on a half decayed and blasted stump, knobby with moss. Mount Baker is serene among the clouds. The birds are chirping, "come here, come here." Back to Frank - there was nothing spectacular all morning. I yakked with the boys, Milt and Bill and Barry, flirting around - I am a flirt, it's in my nature, isn't that a fabulous find? - we giggled a lot, and that kinda' stuff. And then, at dinner, I sat among them while the girls ate in the truck's cab. I had an old "tuche" that Grandma sent along for a table cloth and I took a swig off everybody's pop. Frank sat a ways away as he had been all morning and didn't say much. He's not as light hearted as the others, he's an adult and apart. I'm both - the light hearted and the adult. So we yakked back and forth and I looked at Frank out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes he looked back. Bill is coming around. He moved over so he could sit next to me and we smiled at each other. Milt, at the moment, is a little too sensible. But there are days and days left. Frank - I'd like to call him Dirk - Dirk said to me, "the guys all seem to go for you." And when he said it, they weren't important any more. But it won't hurt him to see me flirting with them. Not at all. I am quite a popular girl out on that berry patch, you know. Much more than Janet or Marge or Marlene. After noon I went out earlier to start picking. Frank came out too. We stood by the shack, me with my arms full of carriers, and Dirk just looking at me. I asked him why he wears the touque and when he explained a little defensively assured him that I like people who like to be different. So we began to talk absorbedly and before we went out everyone else had gone out. "Say, you pick on one side of my row for a while and I'll help you with yours after a while, okay?" he said. We walked out together and we came back together and went out together again. I walked beside him and picked across from him and he filled up my baskets when his were full so that we'd be done at the same time. And we talked. I got a tight, frightened feeling in my stomach and I felt his actual physical nearness with an intensity that surprized me. It was real communication, real fellowship of minds and the other thing that is called personality. Sometimes I felt as though I wanted to cry. He would say something, and I would look at him, and my heart would flop over onto its side. It is electricity. His face has such strong lines, and his chin is like clefted marble. Solid, smooth, curved. His lashes are thick and perfectly straight and lighter at the ends. His face is kind of tanned and his hair is dark - what I see of it is. His blue touque hides it. Maybe I'll see it someday. But the electricity is in his eyes. When I look at him, or I look up when he is looking at me, our eyes just seem to pull at each other and lock. His eyes are unexpectedly blue, almost a solid pastel blue in his dark face. I can't tear my eyes away. It is as though a spark jumps and then my heart thrashes against my ribs again. I always escape those eyes after a while. I flee from them and bend my head into the strawberry plants to look blindly and fumble for the warm red globes under the leaves. "This morning you were laughing and talking away," Dirk said, "but you're so different now. Why?" Why? Because, you, Dirk, have me so churned and confused, wonderfully and ecstatically confused, that I can't laugh all the time. He's marvelous. The way he talks and the way he thinks. Suddenly, while unloading my strawberries, he said, "Gee you have little feet. What kind of soap do you use?" "Co-op detergent, why?" "Well, because when you're upwind from me I get a whiff of something that smells so nice and fresh." (Oops! I thought, that's Aunty's eau de cologne [4711].) "Let's go mountain climbing next Sunday." "You'd just about have to pack me up on your back." "I wouldn't do that, but I would take your hand ...," And all I could think of to say was "m-m-m." We talked about being happy. He told me matter-of-factly that he isn't happy, not ever, and that his main motivation is the search for happiness and a peace. "I love the land," he said. "My father can't understand that. Sometimes on Sunday I like to go out and just feel it." "Rub it between your fingers?" "No, just to feel it. There have been wars and people have been born and died but the land is always there and it gets better if you treat it right." "So do people." "People don't. No matter how you treat them they always come back for another hand-out." "If you had an ideal environment everyone would be an ideal person ... The land is so permanent. Is that why you like it?" "I guess so. It's the most permanent thing there is." "Know something? You're nice to talk to. You talk like an adult." "This will sound flat because you just complimented me, but you are exceptionally good company." "I get a fiendish pleasure out of it" I said about something. "Fiendish? You don't hear that word very often any more. I use it myself." "Do you like words? Just to juggle them around?" "Sometimes if I repeat a word to myself for a while it becomes meaningless." I thought it over. "And then you wonder how such a strange sound ever came to mean anything," I suggested. "Yeah! You wonder how it ever got a meaning." Refering to the murder of a family in Vancouver, he said "if anybody ever did that to my sister I'd have just one purpose the rest of my life. I love my family, especially my sister. If anybody killed her I'd track him down." "And what would you do when you caught him?" I was afraid and my question was almost too quiet to hear. "I'd calmly kill him." "And then what would happen to you?" "I wouldn't care if they strung me up." He frightens me, and he worries me and he confuses me. I feel an overwhelming mother tenderness for him and then I feel a tearing affection for him, and then he frightens me. "What would you look like in lipstick? Do you wear lipstick?" "I had a few smokes over the weekend so now I'm all right for a long time. Are you shocked?" "No; I don't smoke myself because I don't think it's practical, but I don't think it will keep anybody from going to Heaven, if that's what you mean. Did you want me to be shocked?" "Well, no, I just wanted to be honest." I ran back from the toilet and the truck was waiting for me. Dirk was leaning against the door. Barry yelled out "No room back here." "I guess I'll have to go in the front," I said, with one eye on Dirk. "Do I have to go in the front, Frank?" I looked at him and that peculiar feeling flashed between us again. Did he want me to? I was halfway into the cab when he said, "If you want to." Barry said, "Hey, we were just kidding, there's lots of room." "You should wear a hat," Dirk said. "I almost can't control myself. I want to run my fingers through your hair." Impulsively, and for just an instant he let go of his footloose and fancy-free philosophy. I was bending over quite far to get some strawberries when just for the very barest second he dropped his head so that his cheek was brushing my forehead. And then he backed away again and I didn't dare look at him. Once he picked up my hand and moved it when I was picking too many small ones. His fingers were gentle. "One of these days when I haven't got anything to do" - my heart bounded - "I'll comb my hair and put on a white shirt." It sank back into place. "And I'll come and see you." I was surprised to move my heart around at all. I wish he would. I'm just intensely hoping he will. June 27, Tuesday I made 6 flats today, and two baskets. It was a breathless day - odd and shining and wonderful. I sat beside Frank in the morning, with Janet beside me so that I could be closer to him. I didn't look at him then, just thought of him and felt him near me. I talked about inconsequential things to Janet. We picked together again. He let me know, right from the beginning, that he had been thinking of me last night. I didn't tell him about my thinking of him, but I mentioned that he was in my diary. It was a breathless day. I said that before. We were walking back with our second flat when he said, "You're limping. Is it too heavy?" The thrashing codfish in my chest stopped and wilted. "Haven't you noticed anything before?" my voice was wilted as the poor fish was, and in spite of brave words I was wincing. I bent over to put the baskets into their flats and my lip was trembling. I had to tense myself to keep from crying. I stared at the boxes. "Did you have polio or something?" I doggedly piled my boxes into the flats. "Yes." "When was that?" "When I was two." "You could have died on me." "I nearly did. So they tell me." My boxes were all packed. I leaned against a pile of flats and methodically arranged the berries in their boxes so they were tidy and even. He came very close to me so that our elbows touched on the piles. One of my stained hands was leaned against the carrier handle. He reached out and hooked my little finger with his, squeezing it. I looked up and there were these incredible blue eyes looking at me in that incredible face, and I dropped my eyes. He leaned over and brushed the side of my face with his; his fingers curled warmly over mine on the handle of the basket. My heart floundered awkwardly and helplessly. I had a furtive thought about what they would say in the patch, and I peeked over the top of the flats to see if anyone was looking. Nobody was. I looked back (choke) into those startling eyes and the spark jumped. "A mile long and a mile wide," I said. "Can't I do anything to convince you?" he asked and he grinned and said, "Come on. You have to get six flats today." We went out to our row. I was hunched across from him, closing my fingers around the juicy berries and dropping them listlessly into the baskets. "Does the fact that you had polio ever bother you" he asked, "or don't you want to talk about it?" "Does it," I said. Perhaps I sounded bitter. "Ellie, I just wanted you to know that it doesn't make any difference to me at all." I bit my lip and concentrated on the berries so that he wouldn't see that I was almost ready to cry. "Maybe I should change the subject." "No. I'm glad you talked about it. Then I won't have to worry about it." "Sometimes something like that, that makes you feel inferior, the way I used to feel about my shortness, makes you go places and do things an ordinary person never could." "I know. Sometimes I'm glad." June 28 A painfully funny day. Frank and I had planned a date for after Young Peoples but Grandma outfoxed us - she's uncanny! - so it had to be just a rendezvous on the road. Auntie Lou came home. I got a job picking in Yarrow. Grandma is probably going to Coaldale. Yippee! June 29 They did go. Frank took everybody else home first so we had a coke and sat in our driveway. I hung out a red flag to tell him Grandma was gone but that didn' work. June 30 We ate under a tree together. It was a dogwood, and its many stems rose like curved, glowing poles. The bark was greyish purple and there were lichens on it that spread lacy green and lavendar patterns. Above us, the whole body of the branches swayed and the leaves soughed against each other. We lay on the ground where the grass had been pressed down flat, and the gangling long-stemmed daisies tripped over each other to nod at us. Pressed flat against the earth I felt slender and nymphlike. We ate. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, and with touchingly folded hands said a quiet grace. And when we were finished eating we just sprawled with our heads on our arms. Sometimes I'd see his blue eyes questioning me when I looked up. Then I would bury my head in my arms and feel my warm breath steaming against my face while I listened to my heart beating. He reached over and I felt him touch my hair. And then he covered my fingers with his warm ones. I didn't look up. "You have such little hands," he said. "No, I guess they aren't so small but they seem so fragile." I looked up and grinned mockingly at him. I wanted to move my elbow and touch his arm with my head. I wanted to very badly, but I didn't. He covered my fingers completely with his. We heard Bill and Barry go by, hooting and tromping. He held my hand very tightly for a while and then just warmly. I thought he didn't believe in holding hands. I was afraid he didn't, I was thinking. But I wasn't disappointed. He looked up and ferretted out my reluctant eyes with his delving ones. He laughed. "You know, twelve year old kids do this," he said. "So?" I said. He laughed again. "So we're twelve year old kids." I slid away my elbow and leaned my head on his arm. He pressed his head against it for a while and there was a deep peace, a deep swaying calm like the calm of the branches above us. I didn't think, then, of what he had told me before. "Did you have fun last night, Frank?" Marlene hollared to him. I wish I could remember what he said. "Do you know what she's talking about?" he asked. "No, I haven't a clue." "Well, I'd better tell you before you hear it from somewhere else. I don't think I should, though. I like you too much to tell you. Let's put it this way ...," pause, "I'm too fond of you." "That sounds awful," I interrupted, "maybe you shouldn't tell me." "I think I should. I'll just trust to luck that you'll understand. No - I can't do that; I'll have to trust you." "Okay." "Well, it's just this: on Tuesday a week ago I made a phone call and made a date to go boating. So we went boating, and then we went to a café, and then we went home. That's all. If it wouldn't be so impolite I'd have called it off." "Why?" I didn't look up, and my hands scrounged around the leaves for the small berries. "Well, for one thing, it wasn't a very nice evening. I sat around and thought about you." "Did you?" I looked up, directly into his eyes. "Yes." I didn't say anything for a while, feeling abstract and wishing I could say something that would reassure him that I didn't mind, but still did. You know. But I was helpless so I said nothing. "Hey have you decided not to ever speak to me again or something?" he asked. "No," I said, and I laughed and we were alright. He didn't say anything else to me after that, about It. (Its name is Leona.) July 1 Went "roller skating" in Linden with my two uncles and two of their friends. They bought a flat of stawberries and soft ice cream and we played Spanish records and had a ball!!!! July 1st The episode of last night was interrupted abruptly. I had been sitting by the kitchen table, writing and watching my dim reflection in the window. Also watching the clock because Frank was over after 1:30 p.m. He stayed until about 8. We had fun for a while but Auntie was panicy. We had a long tearful talk but do feel better. July 4 I'll never catch up. Just one notation today. "Das Madchen hat schmutzige Hände and busherische Har' aber sie ist doch cute." That was dear Frank. July 5 It rained this morning. We were on the patch and it dripped continuously out of a sodden sky. I had on a big jacket and the water dribbled over the edge of my sun hat. (That's irony. I never wear my sun hat in the sun.) I picked a flat, then we decided to head for shelter. The shed was crowded and damp. We steamed a little. Marge looked out with her so pretty eyes from under her flat sunhat, Janet shook the water from her hair after taking off Brian's cap, Brian running his fingers through his wet hair, Frank looking at me with his smiling eyes and hair curling from his touque. He smiles at me warmly. We're crazy about each other. It's nice. We ate under a different tree yesterday because Janet and Marge were under ours. So we found a skinny little maple beside a big stump. And after we ate we sprawled at queer angles with our heads at the vertex, holding hands. Sometimes we hold hands tightly. It was never like this before. We don't just limply touch palms. It's more friendly. It says, "I like you a lot." This reminds me of something else he said. I had just "calmly" informed him that he isn't very emotional. "I'm not?" he said. "No." "I'll show you sometime. Just before you go home to Alberta. Well maybe not just before you go. The last good chance I get." "You will?" "I will. For about five seconds. No, two seconds." I can hardly wait, that's the unrespectable part of it. I suppose he'll kiss me. But I don't think he will until then. That's all right. I don't want him to until then. It will be special. He said, "I don't think you should kiss all kinds of girls ..." "All kinds of times," I put in. "Yeah, all kinds of times. I think it should be something special, only for special occasions. You know, Ellie, if you kiss all kinds of girls all kinds of times, it just doesn't mean anything anymore." - I fell into a back-tracking here. I think I left us smiling at each other in the shack. Frank finally relented and decided to take us home. OOPS! He just called me and we talked for - oh, a long time - all about all sorts of things. That was nice. I knew he was going to, and when the phone finally rang I jumped 2 feet into the air and dashed for it. His voice sounds young and eager on the phone. We talk endlessly about anything. July 6 Grandpa and grandma came home - I called Yarrow to see about my raspberry job but it's out. So I have to find a new one. July 7 I've got a raspberry job in Yarrow. Went there with G and G. Our last day tomorrow. [Yarrow BC] July 9 "No dates, no flirting. Be good," said Grandma. I didn't say anything. That's what you think, I told myself determinedly. I left with a light heart. Clearbrook was becoming oppressive. Grandma was becoming unbearable. The tidyness was stifling. Frank and the lovely carefree berry patch were havens. I'm so glad to be gone. The room I'm in is a cell, completely white and austere. There are tall trees outside. The house is old and clean but not waxed and polished. Frank came. I had just washed my face; my nose was shiny and my hair bedraggled. I was looking around for a chance to escape Mrs Willie who is gabby and giggly. The door rattled as someone knocked on it. I skipped gleefully into my room while she went to see who was there. "Does a picker named Ellie Epp live here?" It was his voice. I dashed into my room, dashed out again. I was in my socks. I skidded to the door. down the steps at the porch door his face smiled around the door corner. "Hi!" I said. There was a paper bag in Mrs Willie's hand. She gave it to me. I took it automatically and went down the stairs past her to him, in my socks (there was a hole in the heel) and bedraggled. There were cherries in the bag. Yesterday was a sad day and a dizzying day and a frightening day. But a lovely day. Lovely because it was so poignant, so full of so much feeling. We picked for a while at the Czak's patch, and then left to go to Doerksen's patch and finish there. I met his mother, who is young-looking and brisk. I met Judy, who is more cute than pretty, and gay. I met Margaret, who is so attractive from the front and whose eyes are so nice. I met Dave and Jonathan. At dinner Dirk and I ate under a very tall spruce. The boys came and tumbled after us. Then Bill and Barry appeared with their guilty raspberry-filled hands behind their backs and chased Dirk all over. He got through unscathed but I got a face wash. He helped me clean up and held the mirror while I combed my hair. The sun was bright. We picked among the raspberries later, all of us on one row, helping Marge. Barry wouldn't let me pass him. His back was a beautiful brown and his chest was hairy. He backed me into a bush and put his arms backwards around my shoulder and squeezed. "That's what you call a Barry-hug" I told him sagely. Robin got snuggly on the way home. He pretended to get sleepy and put his head on my shoulder. I dropped my chin onto his head and loved him. He and Jimmy are both so pert and cute and winsome and starved for affection. Dirk dropped me off at the corner beside Czak's. I rambled along the trail to the back with my shoes off. I tied my blouse up more. I rolled my pants. I picked and picked. Frank cleaned up. When he came over to talk to me he touched the only bare toe I'd let him see. I think he understood. After a long time I got my flat and two baskets. Frank finished the same time. We went to sit under the dogwood tree and eat my half pineapple. I asked him to carve my initials on the tree in the lovely pattern of bark and fungi. I took the knife then and wanted to begin to carve his beside them but he said, "Hey, what are you doing?" and put his arms around me and squeezed. The knife slid out of my fingers. He squeezed. He never holds me gently, he crushes. I could see his face close to mine: a little pale, stubbly, his touque had fallen off and his eyes were solemn. "Ellie," he said. His voice was low and tremorous. It sounded odd. "M-m-m?" I said. He was quiet for a long time. Then he said it quickly and almost brokenly. "Ellie I just want to tell you I love you." I felt sad and old and I wanted to say to him, "Why Frank? Why do you love me? What does it feel like? How do you love me?" "I don't understand how I ever met you; I don't know why." He said it still in that funny way. It sounded as though he might cry, as though he was on the edge of crying. I could have cried too. "Can I carve my initials beside yours?" "Sure." My voice sounded faltery too. He hugged me again. "Later," he said. He carved out FD above the EE. He didn't put in any "and" sign. I didn't suggest it. I picked up a tiny rectangle of wood for a souvenir. He looked up, squawked. There were the cows, bony and big-eyed varmints. They had been looking over my shoulder when I had my face against his shoulder. I had put my fingers on the stubbly sides of his face. "I won't kiss you," he said, "I like you too much for that." It's an odd idea. The cows fled with their tails penduluming. Half my berries were eaten, the others tilted into the grass. I laughed hysterically while Dirk glared after the cows. "She laughs!" he exclaimed. "But it's so silly," I said between shouts. Subdued shouts. We walked to the gate to pick more berries. "Those initials will be there a long time," he said, "I wonder how long." "By next summer you'll have taken an axe and chopped them out," I interrupted. "Why?" "Oh you'll find out something really horrible about me." "It'll probably be the other way around." "But I've already heard some horrible things about you and so far I've only said, so what." "No Ellie, I won't chop them out. You're special. You're one in a million." He stopped and put his arms around me again. "And you're only sixteen. You've got two years left of high school and three years of university " I'll never marry you, Frank, I thought. Under the tree he had mumbled something into my shoulder as I moved with his chest and deep breaths. "Pardon?" I said prosaically. "I won't let you forget me," he said. He sounded fierce. "I'm not going to forget you," I said. July 8 $56.30 cheque. Met Judy and others in F's family. G and G and Auntie are icy. I want to get out. July 9 Came to W.Reimers after going to Mount Baker with Auntie Lou and Uncle Ben. Have a room in the house. July 10 My first day of raspberries with a measly 118 pounds. It was too hot. July 12 105 degrees F in the shade. July 12, Wed evening I cashed my cheque today and they gave me a beautiful wad a willow-green twenty, three fashionable mauve tens, a tea-orange two, and a leaf-green ordinary little one, plus a handful of change. Yesterday when I woke up I said to myself, Today! I had a date, the first real one, with Dirk. I was polished up by 7:30 because I'd forgotten to remember what time he was coming. Although it was hot I had on nylons, a nylon slip, my crinoline, my red cotton print skirt with the cumberbund, and my white blouse with the three-quarter length sleeves plus shoes, the old black ones. I need new ones! (White, with little heels, perhaps.) And my white purse was all polished up. My Lloyd C Douglas book wilted as I waited. Then I heard a motor. Mrs Reimer called "Ellie!" and I dashed to meet Dirk. I think he was wearing dark pants with an open-throated white shirt. We drove in Al's car, a Chev, I don't know what color. We went to the Paramount and saw a movie called "The Circle of Deception." It was a war drama, quite ordinary. Suzy Parker was a very pretty heroine. There was some gore, a few scenes of torture. During these Dirk put his arm around me and his hand over my eyes while I listened to the shrieks. He really took very good care of me. At the door I hezitated. "I think the girl goes first," he said and I felt a little silly until I remembered that the girl does go first when there is an usher. Otherwise not. Har, Frank. But I won't tell him. We sat on the main floor and when the screen lit up I could see that there weren't many people there. It was cool and breezy, air-conditioned. Al and Judy sat on the aisle. I couldn't really see them. Frank didn't reach for my hand until a lot of it was already over and the suspense was screaming around us. "Relax Ellie, it's just a show," he told me twice. Then we felt around for a comfortable position. After a while his arm was behind me. We had prawns and chips after, at Peter's Drive-In. And some cold Cokes too. Dirk looked different without his touque - younger, less determined and a bit queer. Queer in a cute way. Curly hair, unruly. High cheekbones, pointed chin. He looks almost cherubic. But not quite. I didn't bother to move farther than the middle on the way home (the middle of the car seat, silly) and we got quite close after a few corners. It was comfortable and so peaceful. When we got into Yarrow we turned down a road unfamiliar to me, a street. Wilson Road, perhaps. We stopped. "Do I live here?" I asked. Al guffawed. Judy slid even a little closer to him. "Shall we go for a walk?" Dirk said to me. I was beginning to see the picture. So we walked to the end of the street and back. Nearly at the car we stopped and leaned against a picket fence and talked. "Tell me something, Frank. Did you feel any connection between Paul Raine and yourself?" "That was 1946 and this is ...." "An emotional connection." "Well, I think I would rather have killed myself than tell, too." We always talk so effortlessly, without any strain, about everything from impotency to German machine guns. He's a tremendously good friend. But not anything else, I don't think. I wish he was. I like him. I admire him. I am in awe of him. He is alive; he isn't hard and he isn't a rock. There was emotion in his voice when he explained to me about his uncles who had come home from the war bitter and broken. I have another date for Friday. July 13 I have been thinking too much today, and reading too much, and it has been too hot. This narrow white bed in this chaste white room frowns in its sultriness when I lie on this bed with so few clothes on. I can feel the length of my brown body stretching over the sharp bones in my hips, and I caress them reflectively, glad that I am slender and hard, or feeling, at least, that I am. And when I am conscious of this, strangely I think of Frank and I hear his bewildered tremulous voice saying, "Ellie, I just want to tell you I love you." and then I wish for tomorrow because tomorrow I will see him again. I have been thinking broken thoughts, actually driftwood, all day. Fragments of philosophy and theology and among them thoughts of Frank. I don't really know how I feel about him. I have been wondering. This morning I said, He is a very, very good friend of mine. We get along beautiful. We never have frightened silences. Even our silences are communication. He is just a friend though. This is not love. And I remember how I could feel myself emotionally moving away and out of myself when he climaxed our tete-a-tete on Saturday. It was a remoteness, a watching and not participating. I felt calm, and yet my voice shook. I felt cool and empty. But on Tuesday night I did feel snuggly, just a little. And I did - just tentatively - snuggle a little. It seemed natural and spontaneous, to relax against his shoulder and be "warm, soft and scented." And basically feminine of course. Very feminine. I remember that there was a cold breeze coming through the window and I was cold. He wrapped his jacket around me solicitously and was very dear. Once I sat up dignifiedly and moved my head from his shoulder. "Leave it there," he said. I had been uncertain but he had reassured. I said, "Maybe I should curl up in my little corner now?" he just laughed and hugged me joyously as he always does when I say something silly. He looks different on a date. I am always surprized. It is almost as though he were a stranger, someone unfamiliar. But we still speak the same language. I like him very much. Love? I don't know. Once, the first day I knew him, I felt such an electric attraction and such an intensity of feeling that I steadied my wobbling heart and said sternly to it, You can't fall in love with him. He's smooth and he's practiced and he has a line a mile long. But he doesn't. I know he does mean it all. He's not practiced and smooth. His voice trembled and he held me very tightly I wonder now if I would feel different if I had not been so stern with my heart. July 14 It makes me so mad! Last time I was tenderly talking about love and now it's pure venom. This has been such a lovely Grandmotherless week. I've breathed deeply and sighed blissfully and loved living. There has been so much peace, last night and Tuesday. But now, I have been transported bodily and without a by-your-leave, to the agonizing ultra-civilization of Clearbrook. I thought fleetingly of rebellion but I was already teary-eyed and I just don't have the courage yet, or the years. The picture I had of my meeting with Aunt Lillian was ironical. I saw myself in baby heels and a white dress, gracious and tall, leaning casually against the desk in the dining room. But as it was, I was in bobby sox and a dirty white blouse, ready to go to Cultus Lake. It was a long tale, and doleful. Auntie was in bermudas, even more buscher-Kopf than I with a hairdo like a little Russian boy in a windstorm. They informed me that I was going home for the weekend. I was buffaloed. I turned on the juice. I went back into the house and sobbed a bit to dear Mrs Reimer. And then walked out, a bit sullenly and with red eyes. Uncle Herman was in the back. That was humiliating. The whole thing was humiliating. I was irked and anxious about my big plans for tomorrow afternoon. They seemed to have been thoroughly briefed about Frank. Complete history, etc. But Auntie was tender and patted my head in a way indicated to make me feel about 6 years old, and was philosophical and understanding har, har, har not funny har, irony har. July 15 Horribly, I was dragged off to Clearbrook for the weekend. Aunt Lill and Uncle and Jennett, Geo and Hilda, Neil, Unc. Pete and kids, Uncl Kid, Auntie Lou, all 'arest. July 17 Grandma Epp has finally gotten to the wolf-wolf angle too and told me about The Wickedness of Men. Had supper with Auntie and Uncle Willie. Grandma sent me some food along. July 18 I whooped loudly when i found that my 6 flats had 100 pounds. Bought a white pleated Arnel skirt and 8 rollers (hair stuff) July 19 I was 2 pounds under 150 today. I've improved my style and all so it really helps. July 21 Went to iron at and visit with the grandparents. July 22 Now again I am waiting. If nothing happens "nothing" being an ill-timed (before 6:20 p.m.) visit from my grandparents I will see Frank in 2 hours and ten minutes. I haven't seen him since Sunday night. It has been a long time. Sunday was lovely. My aunts and uncles joined forces to convince Grandma that there would be no danger in my going with Frank and Judy to Stanley Park. I was just home from church and gabbing with Neil on the chesterfield. (It was very dry. Neil kept saying, "very good. Very good.") "Ellie!" someone called. Auntie Lill was just leaning dangerously to look out of the window "Are you going in that ..." she began, but I was past and clattering down the steps. He came toward me and I nearly took a deep breath. He was terribly handsome. Funny, whenever I see him coming toward me from a car when he comes to get me, I say to myself, he's really much better looking than I thought. Sunday it was even more like that than usual. He was wearing his Sunday-go-to-meeting suit and he had a haircut and that chin is always there ... The suit was dark and fit him perfectly and very expensive looking. He was wearing a red tie, sort of knit and silky and very pretty. Grandma looked at him through the window and came down the steps to meet him. He looked so respectible, so groomed. She patted her hair before she said hello to him and when she did speak to him her voice was dripping maple sugar. I thought the little side show was very amusing. Judy was in the truck. It was shined up and he'd gone to a lot of work. I resented Auntie's inflections in her phrase, "Are you going in that?" I thought angrily, yes! I'm going and gladly and proudly. So there. We went to Doerksen's while he changed. Judy decided to go with Owenis and Dan to Mount Baker instead. I was a bit disturbed, knowing Grandma wouldn't like it a bit, but I guess what she doesn't know, and I don't think she does know, won't bother her. But all the same, I still don't feel too good about it. We had a hamburger in a paper bag at a drive-in for dinner. And we stopped at a fruit market to get a box of Bings. While Frank went to get them I leaned out of the window and I remember hearing someone whistling "Michael."
There was much map searching amid cherry-eating when we reached the bridge at New Westminster. We stopped often in shady streets to check the map. When the tall buildings and the waterfront came into view I felt the usual excitement creeping up into my head (?) and I slid to the edge of the street and stared. We were in a good mood, gay and easy. We drove up Kingsway until it turned into Main, and then cut off across the Georgia Viaduct to Georgia Ave. Georgia is a marvellous street - first you can only see the blackened backs of old warehouses; then it widens into a lovely route with silk prints in sort of a banner style on both sides, and a huge post office, hotels, Chinese shops, an Art Gallery, and a theatre of fine arts with abstract sculpture in front of it. I stared ecstatically. We reached Stanley Park and drove slowly, slowly past walking sailors and pretty girls and parked sports cars and glimpses of a beach with driftwood. We parked the truck, the shiny red half-ton pickup. (About it, Frank said, "I've noticed people give me funny looks. When I drive up in this thing, people expect some kind of a hayseed to get out. Then they see this beautiful girl sitting in it and they think, 'How does he do it?'") Then he opened my door for me and I emerged, dark skin, glowing green-blue dress with ruffled sleeves, dark shiny hair and swinging white purse. We'd walked a ways under the big trees when we decided to go back and park closer to the post office (not the gov't kind). While I was waiting for Frank outside some Italians looked me over and said something I didn't catch. We wandered around. Saw a guy and a girl smooching a la Paris, saw some clown-eyed Beat girls, saw a group of ladies in saris and pyjama pants, saw fish and ducks and seals and penguins and "big game." Saw trees and roses and lovers and queer looking people, saw an old "Model A" with a convertible top and a seat in the trunk, rumble-seats, I think they're called (Frank took my picture in front of it), saw old couples sprawled on the grass with inverted waistlines, saw caves under the branches of trees big enough to raise, or start but I didn't tell Frank that, a family, saw the Lumberman's arch and the Totems, saw a girl walking on the beach in a sweater and slims and sleek blonde hair looking perfect and exquisite, saw a little boy with a starfish, saw colored little boys tumbling on the lawn in front of an elegant café with outdoor tables, saw so many eyes and faces and pretty bare legs, saw a Negro girl with a sort of haughty chic sitting on a bench in a very suave royal blue outfit with her legs showing 'til there ("Probably working at her job," Frank said. Oh. But a very sophisticated prostitute, anyway). We heard music coming from the bandshell across the lawn. "Wouldn't it be a sensation if someone started to tango right here on the lawn?" I said, my feet already bouncing. Frank looked down from the heights of his twenty one year old sensibleness and said, "Takes two to dance." We sat on a lawn for a while, by a plaque announcing that the tree we were under was named "Tragedy." He stretched out and I sat beside him with my skirts spreading, blue against green and bright. We even held hands. I made him be very good tho'. And then we walked some more. On the way back to the truck we crawled warily down a very steep, very narrow stairs to the beach. The bottom step was gone. Frank lifted me from the last one to the pebbly beach. There was sea-weed growing along the rock wall, and the rocks were slimy. Frank turned over the rocks, teazing the anxious, scuttling little crabs that were all he could find instead of the starfish he wanted for me. We walked around a point of land, and he had to hold my hand to keep me from slipping. Above me I heard a whacking. I looked up. "It's alright. You can go past," a jovial voiced fisherman called down to me during a pause in fish killing. There were some logs and then another steep stairs to the top of the sea-wall. The bottom step was gone here too. I waited for Frank. Suddenly, he picked me up and lifted me "Don't, Frank!" I shrieked, seeing idiotic visions of him stepping up the stairs carrying me, slipping backwards, falling But he set me down when I got a toe-hold on the last step, and then we went up together. I had brought a little black clam-shell with me and I have it now. We drove around blocks wildly trying to find a parking space. On one corner, a group of Chinese boys was cleaning up vegetables in front of a corner grocery shop. I smiled. They smiled too. Next time we went around their grins were even broader. Next time they were gone. The Bamboo Terrace had a big door leading right off the street into the café. We climbed a stairway into the upper level. There were tables with white table-cloths and little Chinese handle-less cups. No cutlery but forks. There were hoards of people there, and noisy children. "They're the labouring class," Frank said. "So are we," I reminded him. "No Ellie. You'll never look like these people and neither will I." I wonder what he meant. We had an argumentative speculation about whether the girl in the next table worked out or whether her chic was the direct result of a Saturday night shopping spree. He said spree, I said out. He ordered Chicken Chow Mein, an oyster-vegetable dish, and we had tea. It was good. The tea was scented and light, not sugared at all. I poured too much sauce on my Chicken Chow Mein so it was salty but the vegetable deal was very good; strange, the oysters tasted like mushy sardines. We left. I looked in a mirror and saw that I looked a bit tumbled of hair, but normal. Still not beautiful. We drove home. At Clearbrook I moved a bit away from him and we drove staidly into the yard. He came in with me, looked at some photos, listened with a cynical ear while Grandma told an extended medical history of her "schlimmes Bein," to a dumpy visitor. Grandpa took me off to talk to me about Reimers, "die lieben das nicht," after being pushed into the room by Grandma. Frank, meanwhile, went outside to wait for me and heard most of Grandpa's speech in a muddled way. We took a shorter route home, in a dusking evening. He pulled me over close to him and drove with one hand. Honestly and truly, there wasn't much traffic and he's a very good driver. In Yarrow Reimers were already asleep. It was about eleven o'clock. He left me at the steps and didn't even touch me, but put one foot higher, leaned forward, and tooked completely Old World Spanish in lines. We talked about picking after we'd gone to the tap for a drink. Then he left and I watched him go to the road through the porch window. July 22 Went to see "Gone With the Wind" in Vancouver. Home at nigh 4 a.m.!!! July 25 It is so discouraging. I have watched my face in the mirror as it got uglier and uglier until the tears rolled down my cheeks. I am in bed now, chewing a sour apple, and my eyes are still very wet. It's not just any one thing; it's an accumulation. All the stress and the tenseness and amalgamated worries and tensities of all the other grandmotherly people. Or perhaps sixteen is another crying year. 13 was. But there has been so much clawing frustration. Two things brought it to a climax - one was a grandmotherly word from Mrs Reimer. She just told me, directly, when I came in from watching them weigh up, that she thought it made me look like an "unverschamdes Madchen." "Ich sag' dir das gans ..." I've forgotten the word she used but I think it meant respectful, oh yes, "anschtendich, du bist die Jungens zu zier hinteran." Her lept-upon conclusion was partly right - I had gone out partly to see the guys but only partly, because I'd also gone to see how the weight tallied up because Mr Reimer usually loses about 20 pounds. I felt as though I'd been slapped. I made only very few protesting noises and then I fled. Irene came after. She told me then that her grandmother had just been telling her what an "unverschamdes Madchen" I am and how I am too "fresh." "Fresh?" I queried horrifiedly. "Uh-huh. I don't know what she meant." Fresh ...! I laugh weakly. It was a forced laugh of course. I had counted on telling Frank about it. I'd counted on some reassurance. I was dressed and ready. He was going to come, just to talk, at about eight. It was ten past. I was wondering. He had been here earlier in the afternoon and left some blueberries. He had telephoned fifteen minutes before I got home. He had said he'd call again. Now the telephone rang and I leaned against the door while I listened to Mr Reimer talk. "Elfreda Epp? You want to talk to her?" At this point I burst in and he handed it to me. "Here. You take it." As if handing over something slimy. Something "unverschamd" perhaps. "Hello?" My voice sounded forlorn. I was surprized. It mirrored my feelings exactly. He sounded far away. Far away in Abbotsford. "Did you get my message?" "No." "Didn't you?" "What message?" "I guess it's cut-here, then. I told Mrs Reimer to tell you that I wouldn't be over tonight." "Oh. She didn't tell me." So I am in bed, and I sobbed a few extra-loud sobs for the especial benefit of les Reimers. I have to talk to her tomorrow to find out just exactly why and wherefore, and perhaps, explain. I don't know why I should care what they think of me. I've carefully coaxed myself to believe that it doesn't matter, really. I've said convincingly that Scarlet O'Hara wasn't approved of either and that if I have Scarlet O'Hara tendencies, which I hope I do, I should be willing to be thought of as I am, as a fair part of it. I have said, "These are only simple, peasant, Mennonite people. Why should I, I who am young and have a beautiful future, care what these bumpkins think?" Mrs Reimer is an old, homely, peasant Mennonite. She's a bit dense and way behind the times. But I admire her. Perhaps I love her. and I do care. Is it true? Am I a shameless pants-chaser? If I am, how did that happen. If they don't think much of me, and I know they don't, are they right? Am I cheap and low and lazy and completely unloveable? What if it is all true? Maybe that fear is the real reason for my tears. July 27, Friday, 7:30 a.m.? It was nearly ten past eight when he came. I was beginning to be afraid that he wouldn't come. But I kept writing to Karen, and then, suddenly, a souped up heap painted green rolled over the pebbles in the driveway. I peeked through the lace curtains. There was a blond boy driving, and beyond him, a sharp profile. I dashed for the door. He was just walking past the window to the back door so I rapped on it (I'm gonna rap on your window sill! If you don't come out tonight / when the moon shines bright) and he rushed to the door. He was there before I opened it. He looked at me a long time and then he kissed my cheek just above the corner of my smile. "What happened?" I asked. It was the typical feminine question, I guess. We walked down the steps to the car and just when we'd passed it he grabbed my hand. I looked towards the windows, looking for accusing eyes to say "unvershamdes Madchen." The seats in George's heap are soft and bouncy. It's almost like trampolining when you plop down into them. George said "hi" and grinned. He was wearing a white tee shirt and his hair was slicked back stiffly. He's so spontaneous and boyish that he's hard not to like. I enjoyed him. Whenever Frank and I would be seriously discussing something he'd put in a remark about the car or the weather. Goofy and nice. Like a small boy. Frank was in a peculiar mood - amourous, and yet silent. Sort of intense. I was in a peculiar mood too - wanting him to be amourous, also intense and "listening." (That isn't the word I want. Perhaps it is "sensitive" or "receptive". Perhaps "sensitively perceptive.") And a mite morbid too. We matched moods beautifully. George was far away, as far as mood goes, and that gave us a certain privacy he couldn't enter. The car wouldn't start. George had no key so he tried with a penny. Not even a grumble from the motor. So Frank and he jumped out, shoved, jumped in, and the motor started. I have to confess that, even tho' it is kiddish, I like the way George drives, fast corners, peel-off starts, screeches from the tires. I told him so, and he was pleased. We drove to Cultus and Frank made use of the corners. Well, I couldn't sit right on the hump, could I? And one mustn't crowd the driver, really one mustn't. We found a parking lot we could push the heap from. And then wandered out to the roller rink to watch them. There was some beaty swaying music, and the skaters were good. There was a girl with orange slims and floating long hair who skated as I wish I could skate. I don't know if she was actually such a good skater but she skated with a certain atmosphere, arms stretched out in a floating pose, singing a whispered song nobody else knows the words to, and gliding dreamily around and around. We listened to the music, me absorbed in watching the girl, Frank leaning against the fence and watching me. He suggested walking to the lake. So we did. There was a haze over it in the distance, and the treeline was blurred. Shadows slid in slow, soft strips across the water with the waves. The lake was clear, and at the bottom were flat, colored pebbles. He held my hand, and I felt warm, dreamy. "You'll want to go back and watch them," Frank said. He started to walk back along the pier. "'Kay, but what do you want to do?" "That doesn't matter." "Does so." "Sometimes I like to just stand and look for a while." "Then let's just stand and look for a while." We turned around and looked back over the lake. We talked a little more about the "unvershamdes Madchen." I had told him about it casually on the way to Cultus, but now I let him see how I really felt about it. "Don't let it bother you," he said. "I know. I've told myself and told myself all day, yesterday too, that I don't care. But I do care." George bounded up behind us, young, enthusiastic, and coltish. We walked back with him. We went to see the swimming races, watched a few plump girls diving, looked into the deep water, speculated about its actual depth, giggled about a boy whose hair was dyed a streaky lemon-yellow, and went back to the roller rink to see if George was on the trampoline yet. We stood in a little corner made by the fences in the trampolining area and around the roller rink. The music was good. The girl I'd been watching was still there. So was a girl in tight orange shorts whose legs were firm and curvy and beautifully tanned. I leaned against the fence and watched her going around. Her legs moved smoothly, without effort, swaying and beautiful. They moved around and around passing me and moving on. "She has pretty legs," I said to Frank. He didn't say anything. "I always notice that. It's a sort of obsession." "Obsession?" he asked. "Mm-hmm." He didn't say anything for a long time. My face was hidden by the bend in my arm, and I was looking past the fence to those swaying slender legs. He turned my face with his hands and looked into my eyes for a while. I think he was looking for tears. But there weren't any. He was looking for words. "Do you think it makes her happy?" he asked. "No." The legs floated past again. "But maybe ..." I said speculatively. "No Ellie. I think it's like everything else. You want it very badly, but when you get it it's empty. There's a girl who lives quite close to us. Her age doesn't matter but she's about twenty five. She's beautiful. Her waist must be about 22 or 21, and she's tall. But she doesn't have a personality." I knew what he meant, and I was so glad he cared enough to try to make me feel better about it. "I know about that. It happened to me once," I said, referring to wanting something very badly. "Tell me about it," Dirk said. "If you can." "Oh, it doesn't bother me," I said, "but I feel so silly about it. And I can't explain it without bragging a little." "Go ahead and brag. It will be good for you to brag a little bit today." So I told him about the Governor General's medal. "I wanted it very badly, so I worked for it, and I got it. And when I had it, it was empty," I concluded. The legs went past again. "But I would have been miserable if I hadn't," I said as an afterthought. We smiled at each other and there was a perfect understanding. As we'd been coming up the hill from the lake, George had said to me, "Hey, howcome you're limping?" I hadn't said anything. Frank hadn't said anything. "Are you just putting it on or something?" "Like a duck, you mean," I said lightly. I looked at Frank. He was looking at the ground and he wouldn't look up. "No," George said. "It's authenic, all right," I finally said. Before I could explain further George interrupted. "Oh yeah, I know now. You don't have to explain." I think he was a little embarrassed. He was walking a few steps ahead of us. Frank squeezed my hand, hard. I squeezed back, and it was a wordless communication. We stopped to try to find something to eat. "A banana split. Something frivolous." While George was outside Frank put his arms around me and I felt my face against his stubbly cheek. He squeezed, and held me in a grip that was overpowering. It is like the way you feel about a kitten, I think - you hold it in your arms and it is soft. You love it very much. Something makes you want to squeeze it, to crush it against yourself. I think that is how Frank feels about me. I could feel his hands on my back. My sweater had slid up a little, and he was touching my bare skin. I wondered whether I should perhaps feel indecent, "unvershamd" but I didn't, really. I sat up a little. Then it was almost like a sort of compulsion. My head felt heavy, I couldn't quite hold it up, and it sank to Frank's shoulder. It reminded me of a big sigh. I don't know why. He found my face with his hands. Going to kiss me. But I didn't let him. I know he is still determined not to and I'm going to help his determination, not fight it. It is a good idea. It puts the way we feel about each other on a different level, away from the tawdry and the messy. We didn't find what we wanted there. We drove on down. I was closer, actually, to Frank than I should have been in order to keep my dignity but he is so special. Something shouted wildly inside me, "Frank, Frank, I love you so much." How silly really. But I do love him. At least today I do. Honestly and wonderingly. When George was waiting in a café for our banana splits, the idling beat of the motor got mixed up with the beat of his heart. I couldn't find the sound I was looking for. Perhaps they were at the same speed. Synchronized. He was looking for my pulse. "I can't find it," he said. "Maybe I lost it," I said. "Maybe I gave it to somebody." "I wish I had it." "Maybe you do." George came then and handed our splits to us through the window. "I gave you the one with the blue spoon to match your sweater," he said with a grin. Frank always notices that sweater too. He had stared for a while when I got into the car, leaning back against the dash. "Y'know, that sweater does something for you. It really does. Remember that. No - maybe you'd better not. It could be dangerous." I was semi-wrapped when we went over the railroad tracks. My head was somewhere under his chin. We went over them at about 60 miles per hour. There was a gorgeous bump. Frank hit the ceiling, but I was safe and laughing. It was fun. Frank left me at my door. He stood on the bottom step again. "I guess I'd better stay down here," he said. Then he left and I sneaked in, not too quietly, because it was only ten p.m. Early! I thought the whole evening was wonderful. We didn't actually do anything but we had a good time. It was like that the other night too. My, I'm so glad for Frank. He's a dear. He's sweet, he's a certain personified Strength. He has a force that frightens me but thrills me. He's not a kid. He's a man grown. July 28 Cheque for $72.30 from Mr. Reimer. We only picked 'til noon and then @ 2:30 I went to Matties' to pick beans. Mrs. Willie hezitantly semi-apologized for the harsh words. July 29 Goodbyes which are stretched are occasionally amusing! Dirk walked me to the back door, I leaned against the porch wall, he leaned toward me. George backed the car, turned it toward us, blinked the lights on and off. Being mischievous. I reminded Frank about a certain obligation. I've appointed him my guardian. He's 21 and it's almost legal. "Soon," I said to him, "you will be saying, "No, Ellie. I won't allow you to see that Frank Doerksen any more. He looks like a wolf to me and he has a bad reputation." George drove to the other side of the house. "Discrete, but not quite necessary." But I was wrong. Possibly also because all of a sudden while we were chatting idly, I think about Mrs Reimer, I found myself putting my arms around him. It's horrifying. I don't know why. Just suddenly. It wasn't at all planned. A mechanical reaction inside that moved me forward one step, raised my arms, and contracted the muscles of my fingers while my mind stood back a step or two, watched, and then joined in the fun. Not "fun," more like "fray," but peaceful. We heard steps in the porch after a while. I slid away to a lady-like distance quite adroitly. There was a wide-skinny crack between the sash and the blind. I could see two bare white feet. They turned and went away. "I might even miss you." "I know I'll miss you." "Okay, then. You can start missing me now. Goodnight, Frank." So he said one "See you" and went. In the car, not until we were half way home, I did relax and slide over to him on a favorable corner. He does make use of them. So with my face against his neck and his chin against my forehead, and at least one arm, a warm arm, holding me, I could close my eyes and say to myself, "Peace, absolute and utter peace. Peace." He is forgetting his determination. I remind him by eluding. "Your hand doesn't stop me because of its strength," he said, "because I love you." Right in front of George. (He was probably grinning.) "How do you know?" I murmered. "How do you know you walk? I could ask you that and you'd say, 'I just do.' I can give you the same answer. I just do." "Then I'll think of another hard one. Why?" "Why what?" "Why do you?" "Because you're you. That's all I know." He laughed. After those guys had showed up to help me pick in the afternoon Mrs Matties consented to letting me go boating on Cultus. I'd been in the beans, and we had been picking a long time. We were finishing the patch. I was bent over pulling off beans. Noiselessly, a mocassin moved into view. It looked familiar. I looked up. Frank. I'd known he was coming. George was there too. We had a Hi-Spot. I got 225 pounds. I picked about 100 alone this morning. We wanted to go boating but when we were there we found that the office was closed. So we rodded off to Chilliwack to see what was showing. "Nikki, Wild Dog of the North." We saw it, complete with boxes of popcorn. It was woodsy and dull to a cosmopolitan like me. Frank loved it. It was a call of the wild. "The call of the wild is strong in me," he said. He wanted, right at the moment, to have a cabin in the woods and no civilization. I told him he'd be lonesome. He agreed. We had, for eats at the A&W: George, chips and a jumbo root beer, Dirk, baby burger and small sized root beer, Ellie (the glutton) a mamaburger and jumbo sized. Good! George leaned over once during the movie. Nikki and the bear cub were fighting. "You call that a bear hug," he explained grinning. I grinned back companionably. When I looked back at him a little later he was looking at me so we grinned again. A warmth was there. There I was, Saturday night in a lovely green JD-looking heap with trampoline
seats. Not only one guy, two. And good looking. I'm a lucky girl.
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