On Tenterhooks (10 page)

Chapter
1
3

Veronica
looked
at the clock on her computer:
7:14
.
She had a
nother successful
twelve-hour
day under her belt.

“Seriously, time to go home,” she told herself.

She
knew she
sh
ould have been happier about her day
.
The budge
t presentation had gone well
—
b
etter than well
.
John had been on fire
and
Veronica
witnessed some of the
board
members nodding along when he had presented their
division’s
capital budget ideas for next year
.
The meeting had run long, but only because of the excited litany of questions about
their
ideas
for growth via
online
marketing
.
Both she and John had walked out
of the
boardroom
with telltale “can’t stop smiling” faces.

Then, e
arlier
that evening, John had stopped by and pleaded with her to join
him
and his wife in a celebratory dinner
.

“Come on,
Veronica
,”
he had said
.
“
Amy and I will need some help
celebrating
.
My treat
—
rare steaks and the fin
est c
abernet that
Fezziwig’s
has to offer! You can’t pass that up!”

“Believe me, John, it’s
very tempting, and very sweet of you to offer, but I’ve got too much to get done here.”

“
Come on, please?
What could you possibly have to do here that would be more fun than
a
night out on the town
with the two of us?”

“I didn’t say
it was
more fun
;
j
ust that it needs to be done.”

John sighed.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“So there is nothing I can do to convince you come?”

“
Nope.
”

“Pleading?”

“Negatory.”

“Serenading?”

“
Absolutely not
,” she replied, shaking her head
and smiling
.

“Look,
Veronica
,
a
re you okay?”

“Yes, seriously
,
Joh
n
.
I promise
,
I’m
fine
.
Please, go have fun and
tell your lovely wife ‘hello’
from me.
I’m fine. I’ll be leaving after I take care of a few more things here,” she said, gesturing to her computer.

“Okay,” said John,
“I give
, I give
.
”  He held up his hands in mock surrender. “
If you change your mind, maybe you could come meet
us
for dessert. You know where we’ll be. Take care, okay?
”

“Always
.
”

He smiled, saluted
silently
and left her in her office.

She felt the familiar tiny
twitching
of guilt
.
John had
consistently
been a good partner to her at work, and
his wife
,
Amy
,
was
good company
.
Veronica
knew that he always meant well, wanting to include her in things with his own family. She had a standing invitation to any holiday dinner or festivity they held
,
and she had taken him up on his offer
o
n a few occasions
, but only to be polite
.

W
henever he offered to take it beyond the doors of the office, she always
felt like the third wheel
.
She imagined herself as Scrooge when the Ghost of Christmas Present whisked him away to the Christmas merriment in the Cratchit household
.
She was
the outsider looking in.
This
was an image and a role
that
she
did not care
for.

Veronica
was
45
and
single
.
She had no regrets, only
curiosity
about how
different decisions in her past might have altered her life
.
W
eekend trips
were her favorite luxury. She used them to
explore her active hobbies: kayaking, scuba diving,
and spelunking
.
She
even
reserved the last w
eekend of the month to drive upstate
,
where she was
a competitive (and successful) pistol target shooter.
Lately though, since her mother’s passing, her active pastimes had be
come
simply that
—
things to pass the time
.
E
ach week, she decided that
the idea of staying in
town for an entire weekend without a plan to focus on was too much
“
unknown
”
to take.

One of
her
greates
t pleasures
had been scuba diving
.
She
had earned her certification
as an open water diver four years ago
,
and
now
it was an obsession for her
.
Once a month
,
she would board
a
three-hour
commuter
flight
from JFK
down
to Miami or Ft. Lauderdale. From there she’d hop on a
one-
or
two-
day
excursion to Freeport, Lucaya or another
nearby
Bahamian stop
to explore the aquatic underworld
.

Among all of
her activities,
Veronica
relied
on the scuba diving
.
To her it was like a recharge for the soul
.
She liked to imagine how the warm tropical waters on her skin were pulling the toxins, the stresses and bad karma right out of her pores
,
when she submerged for each dive
.
The water surface was a barrier that no
board
member’s voice, no blaring horns,
or
ringing
smartphone
could penetra
te
.
She was
immersed
,
mind and body
,
in a world that was all her own
.
The steady rhythm of her respira
tor
kept her at peace. T
he occasional chirping
of a
nearby
bottle
-
nosed
dolphin
,
or
the gentle hum of
a boat’s propeller treading through the water
above
,
provided
the only
other
sounds
in this world
.
There were always other divers with her, but she liked to pretend that she was all alone and that the beautiful colors of the reef, the gentle rhythm of the current against her body and the menagerie of intricate sea life were there for her and her alone
.

No matter where she chose to dive
,
Veronica
did her best to avoid disturbing her sacred world. In some
locations
, divers were
permitted
to remove shells as souvenirs
.
She
had seen
beautiful shells, often easy to spot on the sandy ocean floor
.
Pointy conchs and the
fan-
shaped coquilles were popular souvenirs for the casual tourist,
but she never had the urge to take them with her when she left
.
Bringing something
from this majestic world
to the surface and back home
to her was
sacrilegious
.
Anything that looked beautiful
in the water
would look tawdry, cheap and out of place in the world above
.
A
year
ago,
she had invested in an expensive
underwater camera with
a
waterproof housing and
all the attachments
.
Now s
he could take pictures
to remind her of the places and the things she had seen
.
The clownfish staring back at her from her computer monitor was one such trophy she had bagged on a long-weekend getaway to
Cozumel, Mexico
,
during the past
winter.

And it was from
Cozumel
that she had
gotten the call about her mom
six weeks ago
.
The call came at 3
:35 on a
Wednesday
afternoon
. S
he had been in her office when the phone rang.

“Hello, this is
Veronica
Ryder.”

“
Hola
, Ms. Ryder,” said a man’s voice on the other end, in
a
distinctly
S
panish
accent. “Is this
Veronica
Ryder, daughter of Helen Ryder?”

“Yes, it is,” said
Veronica
.
“Why, is something wrong?”

“The d
aughter
of the
H
elen Ryder, of Elysburg,
Pennsylvania
?” asked the man.

“
Yes, yes,” said
Veronica
.
“
S
he’s my
m
om
.
Why?  Who is this?”

“
Señorita
,” said the voice, hesitating, “t
his is
Commander Guillermo
De Hoyos
with the Cozumel
Police Department
, in Mexico
.
I am sorry to inform you
,
but there
has been a terrible SCUBA accident
.
I am afraid your mother has passed.”

Veronica
breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

“
Um
, look,
Commander,
” said
Veronica
, “t
here’s some sort of mix-up here
.
My mother has never been to the
Caribbean
,
and she certainly doesn’t SCUBA dive.”