In Love With An Older Man 27

"Guess what!" Carly shouted excitedly as she walked into the living room where Gary and Cindy sat watching TV while the twins played with their Legos. "One of the synagogues in Ben's town needs a temporary part-time cantor for the rest of the summer. Their regular cantor is going on maternity leave, and they're not sure if she's even going to come back! Even if she does it would be great experience for me! I must mailed my resume in to them - wish me luck!"

"So you spoke to Ben this morning?" asked Cindy.

"No, he sent me an email about it."

"A what?"

"An email - electronic mail on the computer."

Cindy was instantly captivated. "How do you send electronic mail on a computer?"

Carly laughed. "Come on. I'll show you."

Cindy followed Carly into her bedroom, where Carly turned her computer on and briefly demonstrated how to check, compose, and send email.

"So it's that easy!" Cindy exclaimed.

"Yep. No stamps or stationery to buy, and the recipient receives the email immediately."

"I want an email address!"

Carly laughed and went to the site where she had received her own email address. "Of course, sending and receiving email is only one of the many things you can do on the Internet," Carly told Cindy.

"The what?"

"The Internet - the world wide web. Here, I'll show you." Carly positioned the mouse on a word on the screen. "This is called a 'search engine.' You use it to navigate the web. Anything you want to learn about, anything at all, it's all right here. What would you like to look up first?"

"Um...music?"

Carly entered the word 'music' in the space beside the search engine, clicked on the search engine, and instantly a highlighted list appeared on the screen.

"Wow!" Cindy exclaimed.

"Click on any of the highlighted words and you'll find a wealth of information," Carly told her. "And that's not all. There are newsgroups, chat rooms, message boards - the list just goes on and on."

"Chat rooms? Message boards?"

"You can communicate with anyone at all, anywhere in the world, instantly," Carly said.

Mesmerized, Cindy took over the mouse and began to explore the world wide web. It seemed to be an absolutely endless source of information and resources, far more than even a dozen libraries could hold.

"Hey, it's my computer." Carly's voice suddenly snapped Cindy back to reality, and Cindy turned to see Carly and Gary standing together a few feet away from her, laughing.

"I'm obviously going to have to buy a computer, and soon," Gary remarked.

With great reluctance Cindy managed to tear herself away from Carly's computer.

That night Cindy was so excited that she had a very difficult time going to sleep.

"Just imagine, Gary - all you could ever want to know about anything in the world, right there at your fingertips!"

"If I promise to buy you a computer tomorrow, will you please be quiet and go to sleep?" Gary groaned.

The next day Gary took Cindy shopping for a computer just as he had promised. Knowing almost nothing about electronics herself, Cindy let Gary take care of all the details of the purchase.

"This is going to cost you a couple of extra mornings a week of work at the radio station for a loong time," Gary told Cindy, but she knew that he was just teasing her.

At home Cindy waited impatiently as Gary set the computer up, and as soon as she could she went directly online. Lost in a world of her own, Cindy lost all sense of the passage of time until she heard Gary calling her. "Cindy...oh, Cindy..."

She turned to look at him.

"Are we having dinner tonight?" he asked.

"Huh?"

"Do you know what time it is?"

Cindy glanced at the clock and gasped. "Oh my God! I'm so sorry!"

As soon as the twins were bathed and tucked into bed, Cindy was right back online, surfing the web with gusto.

"What time are you coming to bed, Cindy?" asked Gary.

Cindy looked at the clock, then quickly turned the computer off and went to bed.

"I found this great online group for moms," Cindy told Gary a few days later. "I met this woman named Faith Silverman who lives in Pennsylvania, and she and I seem to have an incredible amount in common. She has a son named Leith who's only a year older than the twins and a daughter named Jamie who's going into the fifth grade. She offered to send me some of Leith's outgrown clothes for Jonathan."

"That's nice." Gary sighed heavily.

"What's wrong?" asked Cindy.

Gary just shook his head sadly and walked away.

"Phone for you, Cindy," Carly called from the kitchen.

"I'll take it in the bedroom," Cindy told her. She picked up the receiver and heard her mother's voice.

"What's happened to you, Cindy? You seem to have literally dropped off the face of the earth lately!"

"Why, nothing, Mom." Cindy was puzzled. "I suppose I've just been busy lately."

"Too busy to take the twins to Justin's birthday party?"

"What birthday party?"

"Lacy said she sent you an invitation in the mail."

"I don't remember...let me check..."

Cindy went to the stack of mail and looked through it. Sure enough, halfway to the bottom of the stack, she found the still-unopened birthday party invitation. Eager to get back to the computer, she had tossed it on the stack of mail with barely a glance. Deeply ashamed, she returned to the phone.

"Lacy did send me an invitation," she told Carla. "I just never opened it."

"Why not?"

"I have no excuse except that I just didn't place enough importance on it to open it and see what it was," Cindy admitted. "I'll call Lacy and apologize right away."

"That's all right. Don't worry about it," Lacy said breezily when Cindy called her. "There will be other parties."

"Thank you for being so understanding," Cindy said.

"It's no problem at all," Lacy told her.

As soon as she was off the phone, Cindy burst into tears.

"What's wrong, Cyn?" Gary was there right away, embracing her, comforting her.

"Oh, Gary, I've been so wrong!" Cindy wailed miserably. "I've let the computer take over my entire life. Now the twins have missed their cousin's birthday party because of me."

"I was wondering how long it would take for you to realize that," Gary said wryly.

"Why didn't you get on to me about it, Gary?"

"I knew that nagging would do no good, that it was something you'd have to come to realize on your own."

"Can you ever forgive me?"

"Of course I forgive you. Everyone makes mistakes, and this was a perfectly understandable one."

"Oh, Gary, I love you so much!" Cindy threw her arms around her husband and hugged him as tightly as she could.

"I love you too, sweetheart." Gary chuckled and patted his wife's back.

"I promise, the computer's staying off for the rest of the night," Cindy vowed.

"Good." Gary smiled. "We can watch a movie together instead."

Cindy grinned. "That sounds like an excellent idea!"