Swept Away. Gwynne Forster

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      She decided to tease Enid. “I didn’t see anything but hunks. If you’re looking for one who’s different, go over and take your pick. Of course, you might have to take their ideas about women right along with them. I had a fling, but it was an affair with freedom, you might say. Me and Mother Nature all alone. It was incredible.”

      Enid cocked her head to one side. “Then why’d you come back so soon? If I’d been in your shoes, girl, the people in this town wouldn’t know where I made my last tracks. They don’t deserve you.”

      Months ago such a compliment would have pleased her, but now she shrugged it off. “That’s behind me, Enid.” She told her friend about her mother but nothing more.

      “Seen Mr. Henderson since you’ve been back?”

      Had she ever! “I knew you’d ask that. Anything new with him?” She hoped Enid wouldn’t catch her evasion. “Who’s he after now?”

      Enid’s dreamy-eyed expression brought a sheen of perspiration to Veronica’s forearms. Was what she felt for Schyler merely the usual reaction of the average woman? His regular due?

      “Girl, I wish he was after me,” she heard Enid say.

      She didn’t want to watch Enid drool over Schyler Henderson. She sipped the last of her coffee, gave Enid and Wilma the tiny porcelain Swiss yodelers she’d bought for them in Interlaken and bade her friend goodbye.

      “Let me know where you’ll be, honey,” Enid said.

      Veronica wrote her name, address and phone number on a piece of paper. “In case it’s been erased from your computer, here it is, but be careful who gets hold of it.” She started off, turned back and hugged her friend. “See you.”

      Enid ducked her head, but Veronica had seen her tears. “Don’t worry about me, Enid. I’ll be all right. But there’s so much I haven’t done, seen and felt, things that I’ve dreamed of since childhood. Now may be my only chance to live fully. To the hilt. And I’m not letting it slip by. I’ll stay in touch.”

      Enid nodded and walked away.

      Veronica stopped in Kmart, bought a jumbo-size umbrella with a long handle and headed for the train to Owings Mills. When she reached the train station, she crossed Reisterstown Road and turned the corner.

      “Ronnie! Ronnie! I knowed you’d come back. I just knowed it. I missed you a whole lot, Ronnie. People don’t talk to me when they past here. I ’preciate every single penny people gives me. Lord knows I do. But you don’t throw money at me like you was ’fraid to touch me, Ronnie. You comes to me and hands it to me and talks with me. While you was gone, weeks went by and nobody said a word to me lessen I went to buy something. And then they didn’t say nothin’ if they could help it.”

      The woman’s anguish drifted through her like a throbbing ache, for she had never before heard Jenny complain or even show dissatisfaction with her predicament. Yet, she couldn’t get Jenny to motivate herself enough to receive real assistance.

      “You don’t belong out here,” she told her. “I told you I’d help you get a place if you’ll only fill out that form I gave you.”

      “I’m gon’ do that, Ronnie. Honest. I just dreads them slammin’ them doors in my face.”

      Veronica stepped closer and patted Jenny’s shoulder. “If you’ll trust me, that won’t happen. Here’s something for you.” She handed her the umbrella. “This will keep you dry, and it’s good for shade, too.”

      Jenny’s wide grin lit up her face. She grabbed the umbrella and ran her fingers up and down it, feeling it, caressing it. “So pretty, Ronnie. And it’s new. Brand-new. Well, can you beat that? I don’t know when I last had anything that hadn’t been throwed away. Real new. Well, I declare.”

      Such a small thing, that umbrella. Jenny’s pleasure in it humbled her. She folded some bills and handed them to the woman.

      “Oh, no, Ronnie. You keep that.” She patted her coat pocket, still secured with the two safety pins. “I still got some of what you gave me before you left. I’ll let you know when I run out. You know I thank you, don’t you, Ronnie?”

      Veronica nodded. “See you next time, and you fill out that form.”

      “I hope you ain’t out here in the middle of the day ’cause you sick or somethin’.”

      Veronica couldn’t help smiling with pleasure at Jenny’s concern for her. “Nothing like that. I’m on leave.” She looked at her watch. “I have to get my train. Bye now.”

      “Bye and thanks. I’m gonna fill out the paper. You hear?”

      Veronica walked into the town house that she’d worked so hard to get and in which she’d always taken such pride. Sunlight streamed through the living room’s large bay window, its brilliance giving the room an added cheerfulness and an elegance that complimented her achievements and her personality. For a minute she let herself glory in it, but a few seconds later the picture of Jenny on the corner with her shopping cart of junk and her joyous acceptance of the one new thing she’d had in years undercut her pride in her home and her possessions.

      Discomfited, she wandered through the house, flicked on the television to a Senate debate, sucked her teeth in disgust at the hypocritical posturing and shut if off. She turned on the radio, and a Mozart concerto flowed around her. Her favorite, but not on that morning. Schyler. Schyler. If only she didn’t care. She walked into the kitchen and looked out of the window and at a blue jay flitting from limb to limb on her prized cherry tree. She couldn’t help remembering the soul-searing trek over the meadow in the Swiss Alps.

      Schyler. Schyler. She didn’t want to go to the singing group that she loved; didn’t feel like knitting the mittens and caps that she always created as Christmas gifts for homeless children; and she couldn’t work up an interest in the state’s foster care system. She wanted what she couldn’t have. She wanted that wild, hot, unearthly feeling she’d gotten when he had her in his arms. If only she could feel his hands, his lips, his body…Oh Lord, what was wrong with her!

      Without thinking, she did as she’d always done when she stood at a precipice and needed balance. She called her stepfather.

      His voice blessed her with the solace that he’d always represented in her life. “I was hoping you’d call, Veronica. I don’t like not knowing where you are.”

      “I’m home.”

      “Good. I know you’re upset about your mama being gone and all that, but she’s better off now, and we have to be glad for that.”

      “I’m handling it, Papa. What about you?”

      “I’m doing fine. When are you going back to work? When I called Enid, she said you had three months’ leave to use up. That doesn’t make sense. You can lose a lot in three months, including your job.”

      She didn’t want to distress him. He’d think she didn’t appreciate her blessing. And besides, she wanted him to know she’d always be there to help him if he needed it. “I haven’t had a vacation in years, Papa, and that trip to Europe just whetted my appetite.”

      He knew her so well that he probably suspected СКАЧАТЬ