Perfect Strangers

"That would be great, I'm looking forward to it," Veronica said. Nancy pushed her cart around, continuing down the aisle. She disappeared around the corner and Veronica relaxed her face. She looked down in her cart. The durian fruit sat there, alone among the boxes and cans. Veronica picked it up and shoved it onto one of the shelves, pushing cans of soup backward. Leaving it there, she made her way to the checkout line, waiting for her turn to pay.

~~~

When Veronica got home she figured that she should eat something, so she put some sliced tomato on toast and ate that before tackling the chores. She put the groceries away, vacuumed the living room, cleaned the upstairs bathroom, tidied up the TV room, and did a little gardening. When she had finished all of that she decided to sit down and read a bit to take the weight off of her legs.

A few years ago she went to a church book fair and found a cheesy harlequin romance novel. She held it up to show Greg as a joke and he said that stuff like that was written for women who couldn't get laid anymore. When he turned away Veronica lowered it, looking at the cover. It showed a handsome, muscular man holding a woman in his arms. They looked to be from about the 1800s, and when she read the synopsis on the back it turned out to be about a pirate who swept a rich woman off her feet.

She decided to buy the book anyway, partly because she was interested and partly because of what Greg had said. He didn't mention it on the car ride home, and when they got back she ended up stacking it on the shelf with the other books where it sat, forgotten, until just last week.

As Veronica was dusting the bookshelves she came across it again and the memory of it came flooding back. She decided to try reading it, picking away at the story bit by bit whenever she was bored or needed a chance to escape.

The woman on the cover, it turned out, was Lady Violet Winchester, wife of Sir Roland Winchester. In the story she gets kidnapped by pirates and taken for ransom on their ship. While there, Lady Violet finds herself developing strong feelings for one of the pirates, Emmanuel. Veronica knew it was all silly fluff, but it was still fun to escape into a life that she knew would never happen.

Veronica read until well into the afternoon. When the clock struck four she began to put dinner together. Greg liked his meals to be ready and on the table the moment he walked through the front door, which was typically around a quarter after five.

Veronica cooked up some vegetables and sliced chicken, deciding that they could have an oriental-style meal tonight. Every now and again she tried to steer away from the types of meals that she and Greg normally had. He was a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy and frowned upon change, but Veronica didn't always like having the same thing over and over.

At ten after five Veronica was setting the table, the food being kept warm in the oven, and at a quarter after five Greg walked through the door, right on time. When Veronica heard the door open she felt her grip on the utensils start to slacken, but she put them in place and went to go greet her husband, a smile on her face.

"Hi sweety," Veronica said.

"Hi," Greg responded, taking off his coat.

"Did you have a good day at work?" she asked, taking the coat from him and hanging it up in the closet.

"Ah, the usual bullshit. Sampson didn't want to turn in his report, saying that he didn't approve of the quality of the product he was supposed to be rating. Well, we told him it wasn't about the product, it was about the customer. But then he said ..."

Veronica nodded along, waiting for Greg to finish ranting. Every day he complained about his work, and every day she waited for him to finish before they could continue into the house and have their dinner. She couldn't remember the last time he asked her how her day was.

"... made him do it," Greg finished. He stared at Veronica, his face unsmiling. She realized a second too late that he was waiting for a response.

"Oh, wow," she said, "that sounds like it was tough."

"It was tough!" Greg agreed, and he pushed past her into the dining room as Veronica followed. "Anyway, that's what I had to deal with today. Where's dinner?"

"It's in the oven, sweety, let me just go get it."

Veronica left for the kitchen, listening to Greg's chair as he scraped it back over the floors. He settled his weight into it and let out a sigh. Veronica took the food back to the table and served it on their plates.

"Honey, what is this?

" Greg asked, watching as she doled out spoonfuls of vegetables, chicken, and rice.

"It's chicken stir-fry," Veronica responded, already knowing where the conversation was going to end. "I got the recipe from that cook book your mother gave me at Christmas."

"You know, honey, sometimes you get an idea in your head and it hardly ever works out."

"Yes, well, tomorrow I'll do something you recognize," she said, putting down the serving plate and sitting to her own meal.

"I'm looking forward to it," he said, and the two began to eat in silence.

The soft scrapes of forks against the plates and the occasional burp were all that filled the air. Greg kept his eyes on his food, chewing and swallowing without a word. Veronica watched him out of the corner of her eye as she pushed her food around on the plate, not particularly hungry. She took a sip of water, the glass clinking against the table as she put it back down.

"So I ran into Nancy today at the grocery store," Veronica said, breaking the silence.

"Who?" Greg said, not looking up from his plate.

"Nancy Callihan, from the walking group," Veronica said. "I've mentioned her before."