Their chat concluded, Bernice invited Buddy out into the backyard ‘to meet Harry.’
The way she said it, the uncertainty, you’d think I was about to meet the Hunchback of Notre Dame, he thought.
“He’s grouchy but has a good heart,” she explained, sensing Buddy’s uneasiness. “I have to be honest, Mr. Buddy, Harry’s not reconciled to the idea of having a companion on the property. He doesn’t think it necessary.”
“So why do you?”
“Harry will be one hundred next year; I’m following close behind. Jennifer, our daughter, helps us as much as she can, but she’s seventy-plus herself and getting ready for late retirement. I don’t want her saddled with the responsibility of taking care of us; I want her to be free to travel, take up some hobbies, enjoy herself.”
“I see.”
She led him through a small cloakroom, out into a triangular, flagstone courtyard, hemmed in by a laurel hedge. In the far corner, a fountain gurgled, its concrete cherub perched precariously on one toe beside a rivulet that emptied into the scene’s toilet-size bowl. “The place is a little barren right now,” Bernice apologized, looking round. “But in the spring and summer, it’s our little bit of Eden…
“Harry!” she called. “Harry, where are you?”
Her voice dissipated into the emptiness like the cry of an escaped exotic bird. Buddy didn’t understand why she was calling out at all. It was perfectly obvious no one was there, in the yard.
“Oh, the stubborn stick,” she harrumphed. “He’s probably taken Mr. Beasley for a walk. Shall we pursue? He can’t have got very far.” Without waiting for an answer, she hustled across the courtyard toward a leafy arch in the hedge, which concealed a cedar gate. She unlatched it and marched through, leaving it open for Buddy to close. “Harry!” she called out into the street. Then, pointing toward the park and ocean shouted, “There he is!” and set off after her errant mate.
They caught up to him just as Harry was parking his walker and easing himself onto a bench, which looked out over Stuart Channel and the lighthouse islet about a hundred yards offshore. Mr. Beasley sat beside him, taking in the view with his best of friends.
“Harry!” Bernice called out to him. “I’ve brought Mr. Hope over to see you.” Harry grunted. Mr. Beasley wagged his tail submissively. “You could at least offer the courtesy of a ‘how do you do’?” Bernice scolded.
“Don’t need taking care of,” he grumped.
“Maybe you don’t, but I do,” Bernice countered. “Let’s just leave it at that, shall we? And if you want a say in the matter, now’s your chance to introduce yourself and ask a few questions. I think you’ll change your mind once you get to know Buddy.”
“Buddy Hope? What kind of name is that?” The old man glared from under bristling, white brows.
If looks could kill, I would have shrivelled up like an ant under a magnifying glass, Buddy thought.
“Remember Bob Hope, the comedian. He’s my uncle,” he quipped.
“You’re lying!”
“Yes, but my bogus credentials got your attention didn’t they, Harry?” Buddy paused. “And my little ruse has taught me something about you,” he added.
There’s a mindset to empathic listening that Buddy had learned in his years as a reporter. Don’t fake it; really listen and try to understand. Most interviews can feel sincerity like the warmth from a radiator in a cold room.
You had to make a gift of your questions.
“Want to know what?” he prodded.
Only the truly obdurate can hold out more than a few seconds against the pressure of an expectant silence. So Buddy continued waiting. Patiently. Attentively.
“What!” Harry finally demanded indignantly.
“You like things the way they are, and you’re not going to take any guff or bossing from anyone. There! Now you know something about me.”
“And what would that be?”
“I’m pretty good at reading what people want and what they don’t, and I know you don’t want bullshitting, bossing, or anyone messing with your routines.
“You might know something else, too,” Buddy offered gingerly.
“Oh yeah? Tell me more, Mr. Mind Reader.”
“That, if you’re going to have a companion-handyman living in your camper, I’m a pretty good fit—consider me someone who wants to be your friend, Harry, not your handler.”
Harry grunted with finality; Mr. Beasley wagged his tail a little more fervently; Bernice sighed apologetically.
Buddy looked at her and thought as hard as he could, It’s okay! It’s okay! until he felt sure she got it. He knew in that instant he would be staying, that he couldn’t leave until they’d seen things through: me, Bernice, Harry… and Mr. Beasley, of course.
“Will you accept the offer?” Bernice asked as they walked back to VORLand’s End.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“Good,” she clapped her hands gleefully. “Then come along. I’ll show you your accommodations.”
“Oh! You mean the RV suite?”
“Yes, I’m sure you’ll be happy there. It’s not just any old camper you’re moving into, Mr. Buddy!” Is she putting on a salesman’s shtick, or what? he wondered. Is this rig really something special?
“Built right here in Canada, in the Okanagan, actually, a lovely part of the world. You may find the truck tending in that direction if you ever take the Looner Module out for a drive—you know, like a horse heading for its barn?”
“The Lunar Module?”
“Not L-U-N-A-R as in the big rock that orbits the earth and influences our tides, Buddy, but L-O-O-N-E-R as in that most graceful of all birds, whose cry we sometimes hear, quavering over Stuart Channel or up at Chemainus Lake on a misty morn…
“Oh!” she flustered. “Do excuse again the retired English teacher in me, Mr. Buddy. I wax poetic in my dotage!”
Sure you don’t mean Looner as in L-O-O-N-Y? he thought.
“You taught high school?”
“Yes,” she said, offhandedly. “For forty-odd years. I suppose that explains quite a bit about me, doesn’t it?”
Next: Moving In