Harvest Moon. Sharon Struth
he was married.”
“You need to broaden your horizons. No offense, but Jim is boring. Not really your type.”
“Geesh, tell me how you really feel.” The man she’d been seeing for six months didn’t make her heart soar, but they usually had fun going out. She sat at the round kitchen table.
“I’m sorry, but he’s so, well…” Emily stopped cutting, lifted her slender chin, and squinted while she thought. “Straight-laced.”
The word dangling on the tip of Veronica’s tongue about Jim was—safe. The single trait had been her primary criteria for the men she dated, at least after meeting Gary.
“So what if he’s straight-laced? Look, Jim’s quiet, a bit reserved, but treats me nicely. Our dates are pleasant.”
Emily rinsed her hands, dried them on a dishtowel, and came over to the table, plunking in a seat across from Veronica. “If Jim were a flavor, he’d be vanilla.”
“What’s wrong with vanilla? It’s a solid flavor choice. You know what you’re getting.”
“Exactly. Predictable, lacking in any excitement.”
“Jim is nice. The pickings get slim once you pass thirty-five. It’s companionship. If I don’t mind the lackluster taste of vanilla, why do you care?”
“Because you’re my sister and I want the best for you.”
Emily wasn’t completely wrong. Besides being predictable, Jim could be a snob about movies and only read nonfiction books recommended by the New York Times. He didn’t like to dance and scoffed at any music not classical or more traditional, unlike Veronica who enjoyed all forms. And then there was the bedroom. Bland as vanilla ice cream and yet, it was ice cream.
“Jim’s not the only fish in my pond.”
Emily’s brow rose while she sipped her wine. She lowered the glass. “I’ll assume that isn’t some weird sexual euphemism.”
Veronica rolled her eyes. “Do you want to know more or not?”
“Hell yeah. So tell me, who else is in your so-called pond?”
“There’s a man I talk to regularly. We’ve grown quite close.”
“Someone from Northbridge?”
“No.” She stared into Emily’s questioning gaze and readied herself for the reveal. “We talk through e-mail. A lot.”
“Dear God! Are you…oh what’s that called…sexting with someone?”
Veronica laughed. “No! You need to take a step into the new millennium. I know your store still uses those old cash registers and you hate computers, but maybe your husband or kids can bring you up to speed on how the rest of us use technology for socializing.”
Emily dismissed her with a sweeping hand. “I don’t need the devices the rest of you use. The old way works fine for me. So it’s not sexting?”
“No, it’s not. It’s e-mail, which you can find on your computer. You text on a cell phone.”
“Ahhhh…” Emily thought for a second. “Well, I may be challenged, but talking to someone on the computer isn’t real.” She leaned close, lowered her voice. “Do you ever talk about dirty stuff?”
“No! Maybe I should be glad you’ve chosen to stay in the dark with these devices. Our conversations are about life and music, books. Things we like and don’t like.”
Emily scrunched her brows together. “Wait. How does a man simply show up in your inbox?”
“He didn’t. One day I happened to stumble on his blog.”
“His blog?” She opened her eyes wide and her jaw unhinged. “Okay, that right there sounds dirty.”
“A blog is a webpage on the Internet. Where you write regularly about topics and readers can leave comments about what you’ve written. He writes about music. His blog is called ‘Eclectic Expressions in Music.’”
“Music? And you found him how?”
“I was searching on the Internet one day for some music info for my chorus director and stumbled on the blog. I signed up and started to read his posts regularly, even left comments sometimes. He’d respond to them. Then one day he wanted my opinion on a song he wrote so we exchanged e-mail addresses.”
“Why not just hand him your house key, too?”
“It’s not like that at all. We decided to keep our personal lives private, so we didn’t exchange our real names or other details. I gave him an e-mail address I use for anything not personal, like signing up for newsletters and what not. He had a blog e-mail address.”
Emily made a throaty sound of displeasure. “I don’t approve of these computer meeting things.”
“When did you become such a judgmental worrywart?”
“When my kids asked for Facebook accounts.” She lifted the wine glass. “The Internet is creepy.”
“Don’t you see commercials for online dating sites? People can meet that way.”
“But they’re usually predators on Dateline.” She paused, the glass inches from her lips. “Thank God Jack the Ripper isn’t alive today. You’d probably be his first victim.”
“He was British. There’s a whole ocean keeping me safe.”
“You know what I mean. Don’t you want to meet a real man? And by ‘real’”—Emily made air quotes with her hands—“I mean one with flesh and bones, not the Brawny paper towel guy. There’s a new sales rep at Walt’s office. He’s in his early forties, recently divorced, loves to kayak and hike—like you. Oh, and Walt says he’s pretty nice looking.”
“Oh well, if he’s Walt’s type then—”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m fine. I don’t need a fix up.”
“No, but maybe you’re still caught up in the past. It’s been a long time since you and Marc split up and…”
The breakup with Marc after dating for almost two years had been the reason her family believed she’d returned from graduate school “not herself.” Words they’d used on her more times than Veronica could count.
Emily reached out, rested her hand on Veronica’s forearm. “Don’t you think it’s time to let go of the hurt?”
Yes, sometimes she did. But what she needed to let go of wasn’t about Marc. Three weeks after the breakup, when she chose to leave a party with Gary, the axis of her world had spun out of control.
Her twenty-year-old secret. Now might be a perfect time to set the record straight and tell someone the truth about Gary, a man she had met at a campus party, who’d walked her home and raped her.
The same pyramid of emotions always present when the word crept into her head toiled inside her, a mixture of rage, remorse, fear, and shame. Veronica worked hard to hide it from Emily.
Her sister removed her hand, leaned back, and folded her arms. “Ronnie, I don’t want you to wake up one day and wonder why you passed up so many chances in life.”
Too late. Veronica looked past her sister and stared at the blue striped kitchen wallpaper, a pattern reminding her of the prison she’d locked herself in for twenty years. Only lately, thanks to the conversations with Ry, did she recall how she used to sometimes feel around a man she really liked a lot. The way her first love, Marc, had made her feel. The way she’d first felt when she met Gary, although the idea he could solicit the sensation now made her nauseous.
Veronica swallowed her pain