Dancing in the Rain (11 page)

Carolyn kept a smile fixed on her face. She had heard about the schedule and had been surprised at the time. Carolyn doubted she would like a woman who didn’t enjoy surprises and who planned every aspect of her life. But of course, it didn’t matter whether she liked Louise. Carolyn would never meet her. It was Dwight who would spend the rest of his life with her. For her part, Carolyn couldn’t imagine having such a regimented life, and she most certainly could not understand picking out her own Christmas gifts. Where was the fun in that? Christmas morning was a time for shaking and sniffing and guessing the contents of a package before it was unwrapped. But she said nothing more than, “There must be a delay in the mail from the States.” She wouldn’t tell Dwight that her sisters’ letters arrived regularly.

Furrows appeared between his eyes. “Unless something’s wrong. Perhaps she’s ill.” He shook his head, dismissing that thought. “Her mother would tell me if she were ill.”

There had to be another reason for the delay. “Did Louise say anything unusual in her last letter?”

Dwight was silent for a moment, appearing to consider her question. “Only that the Tin Lizzie needed another repair.”

Carolyn couldn’t help it. She laughed. “That’s not unusual,” she told him. “My sister Emily spends half her time fixing ours.”

For the first time since they’d started the conversation, Dwight’s face brightened. “Your sister works on automobiles?” he asked, clearly incredulous.

Carolyn smiled, remembering her younger sister’s antics. “Emily always did whatever Theo did. You remember that they’re twins, don’t you?” When he nodded, she continued. “Emily wasn’t very good at baseball because the boys wouldn’t let her play on their team, but she’s even better than Theo at figuring out how things work.”

“You’re an amazing family.” Dwight’s words were tinged with admiration.

“The others are,” Carolyn corrected him. “Martha’s smart. She can teach anyone anything. Theo’s the most athletic person I’ve ever met, and I’ve told you Emily’s a mechanical genius.”

Dwight looked only moderately impressed by the list of her siblings’ accomplishments. “What about you?”

“Me?” Carolyn thought that was obvious. “Everyone in Canela calls me the decorative one.”

Dwight nodded. “I can’t argue with their eyesight. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” There was no flattery in his words, only what appeared to be a statement of facts. For some reason, Carolyn was more pleased by that than she had been by any of the fulsome compliments she had received from men at home.

“That’s the problem,” she told Dwight.

This time there was no doubt that she had surprised him. “I don’t understand. I thought every woman wanted to be beautiful.”

“I don’t! Not if it means that everyone thinks that’s all there is to me.” When Dwight didn’t seem startled by her outburst, she continued, “That’s one of the reasons I volunteered for the war. I wanted to prove that I could be useful, not just a decoration to be brought out for parties.” It was important that he understood.

To Carolyn’s surprise, Dwight leaned across the table and took her hand in his. His hazel eyes darkened as he said, “Don’t ever sell yourself short, Carolyn. You’re smart and you’re strong and you can do anything you set your mind to. I knew that the first time I saw you.”

Carolyn stared at him, astonished. Not only had no one ever said that to her, but she had never thought of herself that way. Could it be true?

Chapter Seven

C
arolyn wakened to the now familiar sound of Helen’s morning sickness. The poor woman! This happened every day, without fail, and although Helen never complained, Carolyn could see the strain the nausea and the need to conceal it from the rest of the hospital staff were taking on her roommate.

Slipping her arms into her dressing gown, Carolyn padded toward her friend, who was sitting on her bed, wiping her face with a damp cloth. Carolyn lit a lamp, then poured a glass of water for Helen. “You and that son or daughter of yours sure know how to start the day.” Carolyn kept her voice light, hoping either the water or her own cheerful attitude would help Helen feel better.

Her roommate swallowed carefully. “I’ve heard it will be over soon. I just hope that’s true.” For the first time, Helen’s voice betrayed her discomfort. Though she had been so stoic about the continuous sickness that Carolyn had declared Helen was trying to prove that she possessed the stiffest of the proverbial English stiff upper lips, today that stiff upper lip was trembling.

“Think about it this way,” Carolyn encouraged her. “You can tell everyone the baby has Glen’s black hair and your green face.”

As she had hoped, Helen laughed. Bending over, she wrapped her arms around her stomach. “How can you do that to me?” she demanded, her voice still suffused with laughter. “Don’t you know that it hurts to laugh?”

“Maybe so, but your cheeks are a more becoming color now.” Though pale, they had lost the greenish hue that nausea gave them.

Helen took another sip of water, then fixed her gaze on Carolyn. “I wonder what the baby will look like.” She touched her face self-consciously. “I hope he doesn’t have my nose.” Though Carolyn saw nothing wrong with Helen’s nose, her friend complained about the fact that its tip turned up. She had even asked whether Carolyn thought a clothespin might cure the problem.

“Your baby will be beautiful,” Carolyn said. Weren’t all babies beautiful? That’s what her sister Martha claimed.

“So will yours, when you have one.”

Her baby. Carolyn closed her eyes for a second, trying to imagine herself as a mother. She could picture herself cradling an infant in her arms. It would be a little girl with brown hair, hazel eyes, and … Carolyn’s eyes flew open as she realized that she had conjured the image of a miniature Dwight. How annoying! Her daughter would not look like Dwight. She would have Ed’s red hair and green eyes. It was totally absurd to be imaging a child that looked like Dwight. Propinquity, Martha would call it. The effect of spending so much time in Dwight’s company. It was that, nothing more.

“When are you going to tell Glen about the baby?” Carolyn asked, as much to take her mind off the thought of her own imaginary child as to help Helen focus on something other than her traitorous stomach.

A fond smile crossed Helen’s face. “Christmas,” she said. Carolyn knew that—like everyone else in the hospital—Helen hoped that there would be a holiday truce. If that happened, she and Glen would both be able to take leave and spend a few days together.

“Your news will be the only gift Glen remembers this year,” she predicted.

“I hope so.”

An hour later, Carolyn stood next to Dwight in the operating theater as the orderly carried in their first patient. The chart indicated that Corporal Frederick Seymour had a badly shattered femur and that amputation was recommended.

Carolyn uncovered the man’s leg, then looked up at Dwight. Though she doubted Corporal Seymour noticed it, she knew Dwight’s moods well enough to read concern in his expression.

“I’m gonna lose it, ain’t I?” the man asked as Dwight examined the wound. Corporal Seymour’s voice was filled with the resignation she heard so often, a mixture of relief that he was still alive and regret that life would never be the same.

To Carolyn’s surprise, Dwight shook his head. “I won’t lie to you, Corporal. That grenade did a lot of damage to your leg. I think I can save it, but I can’t promise you won’t have a limp.”

Though he winced when Dwight touched a fragment of bone, the young man’s face brightened. “You think so?” he asked, almost as if he were afraid to hope.

Without waiting for Dwight’s reply, Carolyn smiled at their patient. “Six months from now, you’ll be dancing the Castle Gavotte.”

As she had hoped, her words distracted him from Dwight’s manipulation of shattered bone. “What’s that?” he asked. “Me and Molly danced the Turkey Trot back home, but I never heard of no castle dance.”

“You mean you haven’t heard of Vernon and Irene Castle?” Carolyn thought everyone was familiar with the most famous dancers of the decade. They had started trends in everything from dancing to clothing to hairstyles. In fact, Carolyn’s own short hair was modeled on Irene Castle’s. “They’re Americans,” Carolyn explained, “but they got their real start in Paris on their honeymoon.”

According to the newsreels, Irene had been wearing her wedding dress when she and Vernon had been asked to dance at one of the most famous clubs in Paris. Hampered by the slim skirt, she could not execute the steps of the popular Turkey Trot or Bear Hug. Instead, she and Vernon had improvised. The resulting dance with its more graceful movements became wildly popular, not only in Paris but across America.

The chloroform was taking effect, and Corporal Seymour’s speech was starting to slur. “You don’t say.”

“I do. You and your Molly will like the Gavotte. I promise.”

Dwight continued to examine the leg as Carolyn held it steady. When the corporal flinched again, Carolyn gave him a quick smile. Though by now he should be anesthetized, it appeared he was fighting to stay awake. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “If you go to sleep and trust Doctor Hollins to fix your leg, he and I will dance the Castle Gavotte for you on Christmas Day.”

The man’s eyes closed. “Deal,” he muttered.

For the next half hour, Carolyn handed Dwight instruments, sutures, and bandages, neither of them speaking of anything other than Corporal Seymour’s leg. But when the final dressing was applied, Dwight turned to Carolyn. “I’m a doctor, not a dancer,” he said, as if the intervening half hour had not occurred and they were continuing the conversation she had had with the patient.

It was hard to read Dwight’s mood. Though he did not sound angry, he was not smiling. Of course, Carolyn reminded herself, he rarely smiled, particularly here in the operating room. She bit the inside of her lip, wishing not for the first time that she had thought before she had made the impulsive offer. It was one thing to commit herself, another to make Dwight part of her scheme. Still, a promise was a promise. She would have to convince Dwight to help her deliver this one.

“My granny always said Christmas was a season of miracles.”

Dwight nodded, his face as impassive as ever. “It’ll take one of those to get me to dance.”

He didn’t want to do it. That was obvious. But he hadn’t refused. Carolyn took comfort from that. “What you need are lessons, not a miracle,” she countered.

The suspicion of a smile lit Dwight’s face. “Are you proposing to teach me?”

“Of course!” How else was he going to learn? “I love to dance.”

“You love dancing; you love shopping. Let me guess. You love Christmas, too.”

Carolyn nodded. “Don’t you?” Though she had once called him Hollow Heart, Carolyn no longer believed that was true. He was a man who cared deeply about people. It was simply that he saw no reason to display his emotions to the world at large.

Dwight shrugged. “I won’t pretend that I’m Scrooge. Normally I like Christmas. It’s just that this year …”

The sadness on his face made Carolyn think he was remembering happier holidays. Perhaps his nostalgia was because a year ago he had spent Christmas with Louise, while this year they would be apart. To cheer him, Carolyn finished his sentence. “This year you’ll be dancing the Castle Gavotte.”

“Are you ready?”

Dwight turned, surprised to see Carolyn standing in the doorway of the small room that the hospital staff had turned into a lounge. Before the war, it had been a library, its walls lined with books, its floor covered with a fine Persian rug. Though the shelves remained, the books were gone, sold—or so it was said—to an American millionaire who wanted his newly constructed home to have the trappings of old money, and the rug had been placed in the attic for safekeeping. But the comfortable leather chairs remained, giving the doctors and nurses a place to seek a few moments of respite.

“Ready for what?” he asked. He hadn’t heard the arrival of another convoy of wounded, and Carolyn’s expression was playful, not as somber as it would be if she were summoning him to surgery.

“For your first dancing lesson.”

The dancing lesson. He had hoped she had been joking when she made the promise to the patient. Even afterwards when she had offered to give him dancing lessons, he had told himself she would forget it. Although why he would think such a thing wasn’t clear to Dwight. For all her impulsiveness, Carolyn Wentworth was as determined as he. She reminded him of a terrier he’d once seen—playful as could be, but once he smelled a bone, nothing and no one could distract him until he’d unearthed it.

Dwight wrinkled his nose as he looked at Carolyn. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” Though he phrased it as a question, he knew the answer.

“Indeed, I am. I know you won’t let me disappoint Corporal Seymour.” Carolyn crooked her index finger. “Come with me, Doctor Hollins. I’ve found the perfect place for us to dance.” Dwight found that hard to believe. There were no perfect places in the hospital and certainly none for dancing.

When she led him into the hallway next to the ambulatory patients’ wards, then stopped, Dwight regarded her with misgiving. “Here?” he asked. Though the corridor was empty of stretchers now, it was a public place where anyone could see them. Even worse, the wall that led to the courtyard was lined with long windows, meaning he and Carolyn would be visible to anyone crossing the courtyard.

“It’s the only place with enough space,” she told him.

There had to be a way out of this. “There’s no music,” he protested. Dwight knew that the hospital had a Victrola, but he had no intention of telling Carolyn that, not when the absence of music could work in his favor.

“I’ll hum.” The woman was determined, no doubt about that.

“You’re not going to give me a reprieve, are you?”

Carolyn feigned a pout. “You act as if dancing with me would be a horrible fate.”

“It’s not dancing with you,” he explained, remembering the insecurity she had shown when speaking of her siblings. “It’s dancing itself that I dread.”

Carolyn looked at him as if she could not imagine how anyone would use the word
dancing
in the same sentence as
dread.
“Think of it this way: if you learn to dance, not only will you be able to entertain the patients, but you’ll be able to dance with Louise at your wedding.”