It Happened on Maple Street

The key in the lock opened the door on the first try. The door swung open, revealing a generic hotel room like thousands of others like them in the city. Two queen beds. Clean, blue commercial carpet. A built-in dresser with a TV on top.

The door swung shut. James set our bags down and clicked the security chain into place.

I was hot. And cold. Panicked. I wanted to call my mother. Reached for the phone.

And James came around the bed, grabbing my arm before I could get to the receiver.

He pulled—harder than necessary—and I was flat on my back on the bed, staring up at him while he pulled at the dress slacks I’d worn for the dinner we’d talked about having.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s best just to get this over with,” he said. “You aren’t going to like it anyway. And this way we can get on to the second time, which will be better for you. Besides, I’ve waited long enough.”

“No,” I tried to sit up. He pushed me back down.

“I want to eat first. We said we were going to dinner . . .”

“We will.” He had his pants undone and yanked mine off, and before I’d even realized his intention, he was forcing himself inside of me. There was no touching, no attempt at lovemaking.

It was done in a matter of seconds. I burned between my legs. I was dead in my heart.

And sick to my stomach.

Racing for the bathroom, I threw up.

Fifteen

IN AUGUST OF 1981, TIM BARNEYGRADUATED WITH A degree in electrical engineering. With a job lined up, he was on top of the world as Emily met him after graduation. They were going camping for the weekend before he started work on Monday.

Emily loved camping as much as he did, and they had the site set up, using a tent until he could afford the pop-up camper he had his eye on. While he chopped up the wood he’d brought for the fire and got the thing burning, she cut up potatoes and put them in foil with butter and onions and salt.

He’d bought T-bone steaks to celebrate.

And a twelve-pack of beer.

“To you, Cowboy,” Emily said later that night, as, dinner done, they were sitting by the fire with fresh beers. She tipped her bottle and drank.

“To you, too, Teach. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

She hadn’t helped with the studying. He’d managed that fine on his own. But when he’d had a run-in with a professor who’d tried to tell him that credits weren’t going to transfer as he’d been told and he’d been ready to quit school altogether, she’d calmed him down and convinced him to hang in there.

He was glad she had.

They were sitting side by side in camping chairs, and Tim pulled her closer to him, putting his arm around her and pulling her into his chest.

“A campfire, a full stomach, a beer, and sharing it all with the woman I love,” he said softly. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Her silence fit the campground that had quieted as families put their children to bed and husbands and wives moved like shadows in the darkness.

“It does get better, Cowboy,” Emily said. It took him a minute to figure out what she was referring to. He’d had an Eagles song running through his head. “Take It Easy . . .”

He took another long swig of beer. Taking it easy.

“It gets better when we’re a family, too,” she said, motioning toward the camper next to them—a couple not much older than them with a two-year-old son. They’d met them earlier that night when the boy had thrown a big plastic ball their way.

Tim had thrown it back and started an impromptu game of catch with a two-year-old that lasted fifteen minutes.

The swig of beer got stuck on the way down.