Free Rain Song by Alice J. Wisler Page B

the same word to describe Monet as Ducee once did. In my mind I saw her ketchup-stained face, her one-legged stances, her puckered lips. I let out a light laugh but was not sure I agreed to charming .
    Then I closed my eyes, pressed the paper clip to open the attachment, let out one single breath, opened my eyes, and was face-to-face with a man of more or less average build seated on a stone bench by a pond framed in foliage. He was wearing dark blue jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt that brought out the blue in his deep-set eyes. His hair was brown and cut short. His eyes were alive with a smile and his lips parted to show two rows of white teeth. I searched for his shoes, but his feet were hidden by the cattails growing beside the pond.
    I studied his face and then found the fish’s white-and-red spotted back, barely visible in the pond. My eyes moved to Harrison’s face again.
    It was then that I had the urge to tell someone about Harrison. If only I had a girlfriend, I could call to say, “Guess what? Harrison sent me a picture of himself. Come over and see!”
    Oh, I knew I could call Ducee. Ducee has always let me know she wants to be right in the center of my life, but telling Ducee wasn’t the same. Besides, I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk to Ducee about this. What would my grandmother say? “You met him online? Isn’t that very dangerous? Yes, that’s it, yes.”
    Aunt Iva would throw in that she knew someone who had met a guy online and was now at the bottom of the Neuse River as fish bait. Cousin Aaron would likewise tell me to beware of a stranger. His pastoral warning would sound something like, “Beware, Nicole. God’s given us discernment for times like these.” Or would he be glad that I was finally dealing with the Japan part of myself ?
    Carefully, I went over every aspect of the photo from the pond to the cattails to Harrison’s face. I concluded that Harrison was not a movie star, but sure as the sun, neither was I. He did have a cuteness to him, though.
    In the quiet of my house that night, I moved from my computer to plan my lessons for Monday’s seventh- and eighth-grade classes. I opened the literature textbook. Half an hour later I’d read nothing from any of the pages. But I had written Harrison’s name in bold letters on a page in my lesson planner.
    Back at my computer, I clicked on the photo attachment again.
    Harrison does have nice eyes, I told myself. They are blue and a little crinkled at the edges due to his smile. They seem to embody a cross between warmth and ease, and something else, something I couldn’t quite place.
    Grandpa Luke always said when you met someone for the first time not to neglect his eyes. His instructions were to hold the eye contact and see what your gut told you. “When I met Ducee,” he told me, “I locked my eyes with hers and saw into her pretty and strong soul. Yes, I thought, by golly, this is the woman for me!”
    As I fed my fish, I said to them, “His eyes are kind. They’re blue like the ocean. I bet they’d gloss over when he was told a sad story.”
    My angelfish and clownfish just opened and closed their button mouths.
    Yet I didn’t say a word to Harrison about my birth in Japan or Mama. I simply replied that I was very glad to get the picture and that his outdoor fish pond looked great.
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    On Sunday afternoon after I get home I write until the sun sets. I answer Harrison’s questions about teaching, why I became a teacher, and why I like living in Mount Olive. “It’s tiny and quaint. Have you ever been to the South?” I tell him about the family reunion in July, the food we’ll make, including pineapple chutney. “We use an ancient recipe my grandmother says comes from Ireland, although we know there are few pineapples, if any, in Ireland.” I say that the green bean casserole is made with heavy cream instead of milk, which adds about five thousand extra calories to each serving, but somehow, on reunion Saturday