WATCHING BRAD
Part 210
Part 210
I glanced at Cameron Bennett to gauge his reaction to David's little disruption, but I wasn't exactly sure what to make of it. I was quite certain he couldn't have been entirely pleased with it, but I couldn't tell a thing from his expression. He simply stood there, looking down at David as he carried on with his little tirade with what appeared to be mild amusement on his face. In another place and time, I might have stepped in to take charge and to rescue my friend from what I thought was a serious mistake, but David had already made it known to me that he was in charge and that this was his battle to fight, so I remained silent and let him have at it.
David gave a ‘so be it' shrug of one shoulder and raised his eyes to meet Cam's. He even managed something of a lopsided smile, but his voice sounded sad and defeated. "It's okay, Mr. Bennett. Really. I understand. I'll start looking for another sponsor next week and I'll find one eventually. I was just hoping. . ." He left the sentence dangling unfinished and breathed in a huge sigh. "Well, it's just that I was really looking forward to working for you so I could help my friends here build their new house. I came here in July to visit my niece and her family and Ted and Brad took me into their family, too. I can't remember ever feeling this happy, and I don't think I've ever felt so comfortable being me. Maybe I just wanted this too much. I really. . ."
David Left his sentence dangling again, gave another shrug of his shoulder, and concluded, "If you don't mind, I'd like to stop in at your office one more time to apologise to Barb for being such a pain in the ass these past few weeks." Barb, I guessed, was Cameron Bennett's secretary.
David's silence finally gave Cam the chance to speak again: "Are you quite finished, Mr. Curtis?" he asked hopefully.
"Yes, Sir," David replied somewhat sheepishly as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and averted his eyes down to his feet. Completely uncharacteristic for him, I thought. "Sorry, Sir."
"I hope," Cam continued, "that you don't plan on interrupting me after you start working for me full time."
David looked up into Cam's face once more and began shaking his head back and forth. "Oh, no, Sir. I was just a little disappointed. That's all. I wouldn't. . ."
And then his face seemed to go blank as his mind began to process Cam's words. His eyes gaped in sudden realisation and he said, "What?"
A smile began to form on my contractor's hardened and weathered face. He held out the white envelope to David. "It's all filled out and ready to be sent in."
A rather stunned David looked down at the envelope but made no move to take it until Cameron pushed it closer to him, indicating that he wanted David to take it. Only then did our friend, his jaw hanging and his eyes staring intently at the envelope, pull his hands out of his pockets and take it in his grasp. "I don't understand," he said as he looked back up into Cam's face. "You said. . ."
"I didn't have much of a chance to say much of anything, now, did I?" Cam said lightly. "You were too busy feeling sorry for yourself to let me finish. What I started to say was that I'm sorry I had prejudged you and dismissed your application and résumé so quickly without even giving them the consideration they deserved. That was a mistake on my part."
David didn't respond. He stood there, looking down at the white government envelope now clenched tightly in his fingers. His chest and shoulders were rising and falling very quickly and the envelope trembled slightly as if fluttering in a gentle, off-shore breeze.
"It's all filled out and ready to go, David," Cam continued, but it was almost as if David wasn't listening. He just stood there, staring down at he envelope in his hands. "All you have to do is seal it and send it off to Ottawa. By the way, it was Barb's idea to let you send it in yourself. She figured you'd appreciate it after everything you've been through to get it."
Still, David said nothing. I'd never heard him at a loss for words. It was Justin who actually brought him out of his stupor. When his uncle didn't move or say anything, Justin finally leaned forward in my arms and reached out a hand to lift the flap so he could look inside.
"It's paper," he said as he settled back in his previous position.
David lifted his head and looked at my son. "Yes, it is," he said with a trembling voice. His eyes were rather moist. "Wanna see?"
Justin grinned and nodded his head affirmatively.
David slid the fingers of his right hand into the opening and withdrew the application. With great care and tenderness, he leafed his way through the papers, scanning each one and pausing at the end so he could look at the names signed at the bottom of the last page: David N. Curtis and Cameron R. Bennett.
"What is it?" Jeremy asked curiously.
David looked at my other son, smiled, and replied, "It's my future." Justin and Jeremy didn't know what that meant, but the rest of us did.
After Cam and Grant left, I thought David was going to jump into my arms. As soon as the cars disappeared from our view, David wrapped his arms around both Justin and me, hugging us tightly and pressing his warm cheek against my upper chest. When he finally let us go, he gave both of us a kiss on the lips, a few happy tears rolling down his cheeks. He repeated the process with Brad and Jeremy. We had little choice but to hug him back and share his joy.
"I did it, guys!" he said excitedly, if not tearily. "I really did it!"
"Sure did," Brad grinned.
Justin and Jeremy often clapped and giggled when there was an accomplishment, and they suspected that their newest uncle had achieved one. Uncle David received a boisterous round of high-pitched giggles and applause and the twins both received a special bonus hug and kiss from their uncle in return.
David looked once more at the signature on the last page of his application and repeated in a much more subdued and mellow voice, "I did it." And then, with the care of a father putting his newborn child into to bed, David replaced his cherished application into the envelope, peeled off the clear strip of plastic on the inside the flap which protected the sticky glue beneath, and firmly and finally sealed the envelope with several sweeps of his fingers and thumb.
"Gonna phone Brook and tell him?" I asked.
David looked at me with a decidedly lecherous grin on his face, winked lewdly and licked his lips with a rather suggestive sweep of his tongue, and said, "I think I'll let him know when I get home."
I got the distinct feeling that Brook would be walking with curled-up toes for the next few days.
After one more round of hugs and kisses and an invitation to Brad and me to join him and Brook in Toronto for dinner and the night out on Saturday - as his guests, of course - and David hurried to his car. He threw us a final wave and the biggest, happiest smile on his face that I had ever seen since we'd met him, before opening the driver's door and climbing inside. The car engine roared to life and, with a final ‘beep beep' of the horn, David drove off. Even over the receding noise of his car engine, though, we could still hear a hearty and victorious "Yahoo!!"
* * * * *
Saturday morning meant a shopping trip downtown to pick up a few more things which the kids discovered they needed for school.
We also made a little trip to the local public library for Lindsay and decided to get the twins their own library cards instead of using ours. The young lady in the children's department, standing in front of a computer console, guided them through the process. The boys grasped the edge of the desk, standing on their tiptoes, in order to provide her the information she needed.
She smiled at Jeremy and asked cheerily, "What's your name?"
"Jeremy de Villiers."
"Oh, my," chirped the young lady. "That's a big name. How do you spell it?"
"We don't spell it," Jeremy replied matter-of-factly. "We say it."
Out of the mouths of babes, as they say.
It was Brad's suggestion where we would have lunch when we were discussing where to go. We were still parked in the library parking lot and the kids were perusing one of the new books they'd picked out and checked out themselves.
"Ever been to the bowling alley diner?" he asked casually.
"We used to go bowling there all the time but we haven't been there for a few years," I said. "Not since our separation." I knew the twins had never been.
"They used to make the best burgers in town," Brad continued. I could almost hear him salivating. "They used real ground beef, too. Not those frozen patties. And real cheese. Not those slices. And they used to make their own home-made wedge fries."
"Worth a shot. We can bowl a few games afterwards, too," I suggested. "How does lunch and a game of bowling sound?" I called out over my shoulder.
Of course, the twins were eager for anything new and exciting and responded with their own version of their Uncle David's resounding "Yahoo!!"
"Sweetheart?" I called.
She replied with her own question. "Can I invite Daniel?"
I glanced at Brad. He merely shrugged his indifference.
"I suppose so," I told my daughter as I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and held it back for her. She unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped forward beside Jeremy and reached out her hand to take it from me. "If he wants to come, why don't you ask if his parents would like to join us, too?"
Lindsay froze where she stood. "Could you do that for me, Daddy?" she asked hesitantly.
I smiled at her and nodded. "Sure. You invite Daniel. If he can come, tell him I want to talk to his mother or father, okay?"
Lindsay smiled back at that and took the phone, hurrying to the back bench to phone her boyfriend. She secured Daniel's permission to come with us, including lunch, and quickly returned the phone to me. As promised, I asked to speak to his mother or father and ended up talking to Dan Phillips. Not only was I surprised that he accepted our invitation, but there was another surprise as well. Dan and his wife were avid ten-pin bowlers but were not averse to bowling five-pin for the afternoon. I would never have pictured Dan to be a bowling type of guy. I pictured him more as someone who would try to dribble a ten-pin bowling ball down the lanes or to use the bowling pins to smash skulls.
The Phillips family met us at the bowling alley and we were going to push two tables together to make room for all of us but Lindsay and Daniel wanted to sit alone at their own table. The rest of us sat beside them at one of the larger tables. The canteen still made the same home-cut wedge fries, and the burgers were still made from real ground beef, but they now prepared the beef patties and the fries ahead of time and cooked them from frozen. Still, they were fresh and tasted much better than the processed, prepackaged commercial burgers and fries and cheese slices you usually get from those other places. There was still a home-cooked flavour to them and they were still delightfully delicious.
In writing this story, I was surprised to learn that five-pin bowling is something of a Canadian game and isn't very well know outside the country. A brief explanation, then, might be in order. The lanes are the same as those used for ten-pin bowling but the balls are smaller and easily held in the palm of one adult hand. There are no finger holes in them. There are only five pins of course, encircled with a solid rubber ring where the ball hits it, set into a ‘V' formation. The lead pin is worth five points. The next two are worth three points and the two pins on the outside are worth two points each for a total of fifteen points. Three balls are bowled per frame instead of two ball for ten-pin games and each frame can score a maximum of forty-five points for three strikes instead of thirty points. A perfect game in five-pin scores four hundred and fifty points.
Since even very young children can carry a five-pin ball, it is more of a family game than its ten-pin counterpart.
We split ourselves up into two teams for bowling on adjacent lanes. Brad and I took the boys and took the left lane. Lindsay bowled with Daniel and his parents on the right lane. We had such fun watching Justin and Jeremy trying to figure out how to throw the ball down the lane. After several frames of experimentation, they both decided upon the usual method of bowling which most children employ.
Grasping the small ball in both hands, they walked down the approach, stopping at the foul line. Then, spreading their feet apart and bending their knees, they bent over at the waist and swung their arms backward between their legs before thrusting them forward again as hard as they could, releasing the ball and sending it down the lane in hopes that it might hit one of the five white pins at the far end of the alley.
As expected, their balls spent more time rolling down the gutters than on the lane for the most part, but there were such squeals of delight and excited jumping up and down, such happy faces and such avid applause each time the ball actually knocked down a pin that it was well worth the cost of rented shoes. My only regret was that we didn't have a camera with us to record it.
Dan Phillips, who was sitting to my right at the scoring table, was watching Jeremy lob the ball down the alley. Justin stood at the edge of the approach, watching. Brad stood near Jeremy. "Kids are great, aren't they?" Dad asked off-handedly.
"Can't beat ‘em," I replied without looking at him.
"They remind me of Danny when he was learning to bowl."
I glanced over at Daniel in time to see him in fine form, releasing the ball and holding his follow-through for a moment before relaxing and watching the spinning ball head toward the right-hand gutter before curving sharply to the left and aiming itself directly for the space between the ‘five' and ‘three' pins. It slammed into the ‘five' pin, deflecting to the right again and bowling down the ‘three' pin which, in turn, took down the ‘two' pin. The ‘five' pin, meanwhile, flew diagonally to the left, slamming into the other two pins on the other side of the ‘V' and knocking them both down. Strike!
"His form's improved," I commented lightly.
"Yeah," Dan said and fell silent again.
I got out of my chair when Jeremy and Brad were finished and Justin and I bowled our frame. When we finished and I was seated again, Dan was bowling a three-two spare, which he completed with great finesse. He returned to the chair beside me.
"Nice," I commented.
"Thanks," he replied and we fell into our usual silence. And then, as if his voice was meant for only me to hear, he said, "Danny really likes your kid, you know."
My eyebrows raised as I looked at him. He was watching his wife take her turn.
"Lindsay likes Daniel a lot, too," I said just as quietly, anxious to know where he was going with this.
He was looking at Tilly, but I could see that he wasn't really watching her. Finally he nodded his head and, without moving his head, said, "I don't have a problem with that anymore." He paused again, but only for a moment before adding, "Or with you."
And then he turned toward me and looked into my eyes. He extended his opened hand to me. "You take care of my kid and I'll take care of yours. Deal?"
I took his hand and we shook them in firm grips, knowing full well how very much he had said in those words, and how very difficult it must have been for him to say them.
"Deal," I said.
* * * * *
By six o'clock that evening, Brad and I were in my car and on our way, heading west on the freeway toward the Don Valley Parkway and downtown Toronto.
Lindsay was safely ensconced for the night with her Grandma and Grandpa Hayes. In Maple Grove, Justin and Jeremy were fed and would soon be getting ready for their nightly bath. Later, Ouma and Oupa would be tucking them warmly and safely in their bed. The van was there, too, in case Mom and Dad needed it to drive the twins around someplace.
In Toronto, we would share a celebratory dinner and a night out with our friends, Brook and David, and, later, with the fun of the evening drawing to a close, a very comfortable and very private hotel room awaited us where Brad and I would finally and truly be alone for the first time in a very long time.
It felt nice to be getting away from it all. . . if only for one night.
To Be Continued
