Oh, God! I just wanted to hide! I wished with all my heart that the Earth would just open up and swallow me. This must be a dream. How could I have ever gotten myself into a situation like this?
Tawdry! Unseemly!
Look at them out there. Four young men dressed in their work jeans and boots leaned on their picks and shovels - Boys, really. They were all in their late teens or early twenties. Each was shirtless on this unexpectedly hot and humid day in early September. The sun gleamed off of their youthful sweaty bodies.
Jerry was the oldest at twenty-four and the other three were standing around him and listening with what appeared to be almost hero worship. I couldn't hear what was being said as I peered out from between the curtains of my bedroom, but I had a pretty good idea.
The three younger men (I never did learn their names) each listen wide eyed. Every now and then one or another would glance at the house and I swear that I could feel their eyes penetrating these very walls. I never felt so vulnerable and exposed in all my life.
In a way I suppose my sister is the one to blame for this mess that I now find myself in. I had come to the house on Loon Lake to spend a nice quiet, peaceful week before returning to my job as a fourth grade teacher. The home has been in our family since my grandfather purchased it almost sixty years ago. Everyone in the family took turns vacationing here and I always cherished the time that I could spend here.
Unfortunately for me, the reason that I was able to get the camp on this particular week was because my uncle had decided that the leach field needed replacing and he had hired a crew to come in and dig up the entire back yard and take care of the problem before the cold weather set in.
With the workers here it wasn't as peaceful as I would have liked, but I was still enjoying my stay. I spent most of the days down at our dock soaking up the sunshine and devouring a bag full of romance novels that I had brought with me or writing in my private journal. There was a boat tied to the dock for our use, but I was always afraid that the motor would act up on me and leave me stranded and helpless out on the lake. For me, it was much safer to just relax on my lounge chair on the dock and not take any chances.
On the day before my vacation was to end my sister came to visit. Meg was ten years younger than my forty-three years. People who knew us were always surprised to learn that we were only separated by ten years. Meg was always the more beautiful and her vibrant, bubbly personality made it seem as if she were much younger.
I suppose that I was always a bit jealous of my youngest sister. She was so full of life that people naturally gravitated to her. She had always had tons of friends and more boyfriends than anyone could ever keep track of. I wished that I had been born with just an ounce of the self confidence and nerve that she had in such abundance.
I'm not saying that I had an unhappy childhood at all. Being the oldest of seven, my parents were always much more strict on me. I guess they were just too worn out to enforce so many rules by the time that Meg came around.
To be fair, it wasn't my parents' strictness that had made me the way I am. I was always naturally quiet and more serious. I had friends while I was growing, but I was never Miss Popular. Dating? That was something that was forbidden by my parents. There were a few boys that I had kind of liked, but I could never allow any of them to get too close because I knew my parents would not approve.
The first date that I ever had was for my Senior Ball. Jimmy Martin had taken me to the dance and I remember feeling so grown up in my pretty dress. After the dance, we had parked near the lake. We made out for a while and that was really nice. However, when Jimmy had started getting a little too forward, I called a halt to the evening and asked him to take me home.
I can still see the look of disappointment and even a hint of anger in his eyes when I rebuffed him. I knew what other girls did with their dates after the Ball and I have to admit that a small part of me was curious. But I couldn't take the chance. I would always hear my mother's favorite condemnation when discussing matters of sex --
Tawdry! Unseemly!
I had several serious relationships through the years. I lost my virginity with Richard Haskins during my college years. He had been my first real boyfriend. It had been awkward and embarrassing. I pretended to really enjoy it, but after a few attempts, Richard left me and started dating a French major with long legs and an apparent dislike of bras.
Richard had been followed by Stephen Gelph. I started dating Stephen in my senior year and I really believed he was "the one". We were very serious about each other and had talked about getting married. I gave my heart to him completely and I could not imagine a future without him. My world came crashing down around me when we got the news that Stephen was killed in an automobile accident.
I retreated into my shell and it was the darkest period of my life. I didn't date again for another seven years. I felt that to do so would have been a betrayal to Stephen's memory and I just couldn't allow myself to do that. Instead, I threw myself into my teaching career.
Eventually, I met a fellow teacher, Scott Gregory. He was five years older than my 31 years of age and had been married once before. We used to laugh about it being the longest courtship of all time. It started out as a nodding acquaintance that slowly gave way to a shy smile and the occasional exchange of a few words. Only later did it progress to the point where he would stop by my classroom after school where we would sit and discuss our days.
We finally started seeing each other outside of school and I felt for the first time Stephen's death that I was starting to rejoin the living world. Naturally, as our relationship deepened it led to making love. This was a huge step for me and I have to admit to being too private of a person to share my innermost feelings. I knew that it was wrong to withhold my fears, but I just could never find a way to let them out.
We had sex many times, but I never really let myself go while making love. I still felt as if I was somehow betraying Stephen and the love that we had for each other. I always held myself back. I was accommodating and I "oohed and ahhed" in all the right places. However, accommodating and mechanical is hardly the attributes that one looks for in a lover.
Scott never said so, but my inability to allow myself to let go was what led to our breaking up. He, naturally, started to withhold part of himself from our relationship and we slowly grew apart.
Then came the call that my father had had a stroke. It was out of love, but also my sense of duty that I made the decision to move back to my hometown so that I could help my mother in taking care of my father. The fact that this move would all but seal me off from the rest of the world was never a thing that I consciously thought about and I would have argued vehemently if anyone had ever suggested it. However, moving back to a town of 300 people definitely had that effect.
So, here I was at the ripe old age of forty-three, a single woman who had had a grand total of three lovers in her life and no prospects at all on the horizon. But I wouldn't say that I was unhappy. I loved my job and the town in which I lived. I wouldn't have traded anything for the chance to help my mother in caring for my father until a second stroke had taken his life.
I had pretty much given up on finding that one grand love. Stephen had been that to me and my heart would always belong to him. Friends and family had set me up on dates on a few occasions. I always complied, but for the most part the dates were awkward and completely lacking any spark.
I was a normal, healthy adult female who had all of the same desires as any other normal, healthy adult female. My romance novels and my journal were my main outlets in matters of sex. Often I would find myself caught up in some of the steamier scenes --
Tawdry!
- in the books and I would masturbate as I imagined myself as the heroine. That may sound sad to you, but I had long ago come to accept this as a perfectly healthy way of relieving those feelings of longing.
My journal was an even more private matter. I had always kept journals since the time that I was a little girl. For someone who was very introverted and who found it difficult to ever share her innermost thoughts and feelings, my journals were a place that I could express them --
Unseemly!
- without ever having to face any recrimination or disapproval. No one was ever permitted to read the things that I recorded there and I was always careful to keep it locked away. These thoughts were my own and were not to be shared with another living soul.
On the last full day of my stay at the cabin my sister, Meg, came to visit. We hadn't seen each other in nearly a year and I hadn't realized how much I missed her until she had called and said she was coming up. I smiled to myself as I saw her climbing out of her Jeep Liberty. She was already talking a mile a minute and practically bouncing with all of her energy.
I walked out onto the porch as she bounded up the steps. We gave each other a big hug and I was instantly so glad to see her. As always, she looked gorgeous. Marriage, the third time around, seemed to be agreeing with her. Arm in arm we walked inside the cabin and plopped ourselves down on the comfy sofa.
Although it had been almost a year since we had seen each other, it was as if it had been only yesterday. Meg was so excited as she told me all about her new life. I found myself again a bit jealous of my little sister as I listened to her and saw the fire and energy that she possessed in such abundance.
She brought out her pictures of my niece and nephew, both of whom I absolutely adore. She had me in stitches as she described some of the antics that they had been up to. Seeing how excited and full of love she was when talking about her children made my heart ache. I had never shared this thought with another soul, but not having children was the one big regret of my life.
We talked and drank Diet Cokes for the longest time. After a while we went for a walk down by the dock and sat in the sunshine. Eventually there came a lull in our conversation and that is when Meg almost shyly asked me about my love life.
"To tell you the truth, Meg, I'm always so busy with my job that who has time for a love life?"
It was a well practiced answer that was usually (and correctly) interpreted by others that this was not a subject I was comfortable with at all. Meg was quiet for a few minutes and I thought that I was clear of this hurdle. Then she turned to me and took my hand.
"San, I love you more than anyone in the world. You know that, don't you?"
I smiled, nodded, and shifted uncomfortably.
"I wish so much that you would get out there a little more. I know how much you have to offer and I want to see you happy."
I looked out over the lake, not wanting to make eye contact and simply said, "Meg, I know you care. Its -- Its just not as easy for me as it is for you."
Meg laid her head on my shoulder and I tilted my cheek until it rested against her hair as she said, "San, I only wish that for just once you could see yourself through someone else's eyes. You've never seen yourself as someone with so much to offer. You're smart. You're funny. You're pretty."
