Second Chances in Lavender Bay (The Lavender Bay Chronicles #3)

28. Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

D iana walked back from the canteen at the end of her lunch break, readying herself to sidestep Creepy Les, the assistant foreman. He was so named because of the way he treated the women at the plant. He opened his mouth to say something as she passed, but she picked up her pace. On the advice she’d received early on from some of the other women she worked with, she steered clear of him.

“Hey, Diana!”

Diana turned and caught sight of Sally, whose job it was to paint the American insignia on the planes, waving to her. She waited until Sally caught up.

“There’s a dance Saturday night at the Lavender Bay Pavilion,” Sally said. “Are you going?”

“You can bet on it,” Diana said with a smile. She loved dancing. She loved jitterbugging. She went out every chance she got. And Saturday, she was on the day shift, so that would be perfect.

“Great! I’ll meet you there.”

With a smile and a wave, Diana trotted off to her post. The bell sounded, signaling lunch break was over and work was to commence.

She arrived at her buffer, breathless, and turned it on. As it started, she put her hand on her head, realizing she’d forgotten to put her headscarf back on. She pivoted to grab it off the workbench where she’d left it, her hair swinging behind her as she turned. That’s when she felt it: the pull on her scalp as her hair wound into the buffer. She screamed, instinctively reaching out for something to hold on to, and then suddenly she was free. It all happened so fast. Her workmate saw it happening and lunged to turn the machine off, but it was too late.

Diana felt something wet draining down the side of her head and onto her shoulders. She put her hand up to her head, and it came away covered in blood. She turned slowly. Her workmate stood there with her hands covering her mouth, stifling a scream. Diana looked at the buffer. A section of her long hair—her beautiful, golden, honey-colored hair—was wrapped around the buffer with a large piece of pink flesh dangling from the end of it.

Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she hit the floor.

The next thing she was aware of was someone kneeling at her side, patting her hand.

“Diana! Diana!”

She swam back up to consciousness, out of the blackness and into the harsh lighting of the factory. For a moment, she wondered how she got on the floor. There was an incredible pain on the side of her head. She reached up to touch it.

“Don’t touch it, honey,” advised a woman she didn’t know, someone who didn’t work in her department.

“Ambulance is on its way,” someone else said.

“You girls are told a million times to wear your headscarves.” She recognized the voice of Creepy Les.

“Shut up, Les,” said a female voice.

Things on the edge of her field of vision began to go from light to gray to black, and she could feel herself sinking back into unconsciousness. She almost welcomed it.

To the woman who was holding her hand, she said, “Can someone get my hair? It’s on the machine.”

The woman patted her hand and gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about a thing, honey. We’re going to get you to the hospital, right away.”

The plant foreman, George Treadwell, arrived and looked down at her. His face paled and his expression was grim. Diana started to cry.

The crowd parted, and the woman holding her hand let go and stood up. Diana’s good friends from her carpool, Laura and Joy, appeared, stopping short when they saw Diana. They were careful to keep their expressions neutral, but their eyes said it all. They rushed to kneel on either side of her.

“We’re here, Diana,” Joy said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

Diana looked at them through her tears. “Is it bad?” she wailed.

“It’s going to be fine,” Laura said, and she patted her hand.

“You’ll be fine, honey,” Joy said, “but we need to get you to the hospital.”

A crowd had gathered around them, which meant that all work had come to a standstill in the plant. Diana closed her eyes.

Laura removed her own headscarf and laid it over the side of Diana’s head. The pain was incredible. She fought to stay conscious. It might be a blessed relief to go under, but she was too afraid she might not wake up.

Two ambulance attendants arrived, pushing through the crowd with a stretcher. The incident was explained to them, and one pulled away the headscarf to assess the wound. His eyes met Diana’s and all she saw in them was pity. She closed her eyes and cried as she was carted off, wishing she could turn back the clock and put that headscarf on.

Once she arrived at the hospital, things happened quickly. Apparently, they were waiting for her, having been notified ahead of time. Later, her recall of that time would be blurry, with only impressions.

Doctors and nurses surrounded her. She was grateful that she was the only patient in the room. One of the doctors leaned forward to examine her head wound.

“We’ve got a partial scalp avulsion,” he said.

A nun stood at the foot of the bed, and Diana wondered how bad it was if they needed a religious figure present. At least it wasn’t a priest.

“Diana? I’m Dr. Pellman,” said the doctor. “We’re going to get you into surgery to stop the bleeding and clean the wound up.”

She nodded. She wanted the pain to go away.

Dr. Pellman addressed the nurse. “Prep her for immediate surgery.” He looked back at Diana and said, “You’re one lucky young woman. You could have been killed.”

Of all the words out there, Diana would never have picked “lucky.”

In the operating suite, the doctor explained that he was going to give her something to put her to sleep, and as things started going black, she’d never been so grateful.

When she opened her eyes, things were blurry for a bit and then came into focus. The ceiling above her had a water stain in the corner, the color of tea. Her eyelids felt heavy, and she fought to stay awake. Tentatively, she lifted her hand to the side of her head and felt around gingerly, but it was covered in bandages. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her hair falling down over her right shoulder. But nothing fell over her left. The pain had lessened; they must have given her something. Her eyes continued to close, and she gave up, thinking that sleep might be better than being awake.

In fact, over the next few days, Diana wanted nothing other than to remain asleep. But the doctors and nurses encouraged her to stay awake. Her mother visited every day. Laura and Joy came regularly. The doctor said more than once how lucky she was, and she felt like punching him in the face.

She was in a ward with five other women, who were there for sundry things. She saw the pitying looks on their faces and heard the whispers to their visitors accompanied by not-so-subtle nods. She wanted to go home.

She’d just had her second skin graft. The first one had failed, and they took her back in, removed skin from the back of her other thigh, and were hopeful that this one would take. Dr. Pellman had explained to her that the skin graft was necessary to replace the lost skin and to help the wound heal faster. He’d made it sound like she couldn’t do without it.

On the day they removed the bandages, Dr. Pellman came in with another doctor and a nurse. The nurse pulled the privacy screen around the bed.

“Let’s take a look at the graft,” Dr. Pellman said to Diana. He gently unwound the bandages, peeling them away, and smiled. “It’s healing nicely. No sign of infection. If it continues on this course, you should be able to go home in a few days.”

She couldn’t wait.

“Will my hair grow back?” she asked.

The doctor hesitated before shaking his head. “I’m sorry. No.”

She nodded, swallowing hard. “Can I see it?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. He nodded to the nurse, who disappeared behind the screen and returned almost immediately with a handheld mirror.

Diana drew in a deep breath and took the offered mirror. She closed her eyes and held it up in front of her face. When she opened her eyes, she came face to face with her new reality. On the left side of her head, the wound extended from the top of her ear to where her part used to be. There was no hair left on that side. The golden locks she’d been so proud of were gone forever. In their place was a large piece of skin sewn into place with big, black stitches.

It was beyond ugly. It was hideous.

She dropped the mirror in her lap and leaned over the side of the bed, vomiting all over the doctor’s nice wingtip shoes.