by R. W. Jones
When my wife to be got accepted into Hickory a few months into our senior year at New River, she decided to wait until her parents came to visit to tell them. To me and her, it was so clear that I would be heading to Hickory with her that the topic never even came up between us. It was just fact. However, her parents didn’t share the same thoughts.
“Well, you certainly have an exciting time in your life coming up, and this will be a good opportunity for both of you to meet new people. I’m sure you’ll miss each other, but you’ll be so busy with your new lives…” her dad said, suggesting this would be the end of our relationship.
Without missing a beat my future wife said, “No, he’s coming too. He already found a job and an apartment close to campus.”
While I smiled, her parents seemed to be at a loss for words. Her mom simply said, “That’s nice.”
At first thought it wouldn’t seem that this exchange would be so important in our history, but to me it was everything. It was one of the first times that she had ever professed her need and desire to be around me in front of her parents. If I considered our first kiss on the slide the moment we became boyfriend and girlfriend, I considered this moment as the one we became something even deeper. I realized I wanted us to be forever.
That was all well and good, but as I was quickly learning, a woman liked something a little more official than an exchange of words. The teen I had known that was so against labels was now looking for the ultimate label – married. I figured she initiated our relationship with a phone number on a book store receipt; the least I could do was solidify our relationship with a diamond ring.
In order to do that, one has to have money. Much to my wife’s surprise I decided to get a paying job our final semester, instead of the editing I had been doing at the school’s paper, The New River Times. I had already trained the next guy in line on how to do the job, and if I stuck around for the final semester it would be as little more than a figurehead. Not being a figurehead for The New River Times wasn’t going to break my heart, so I began my next job as a pizza delivery driver. It was for a local joint that I suspected could have had an owner with a much higher investment in another illegal business, though I could never confirm this. All he needed to tell me was that the pay was under the table and I would bring home cold hard cash every night.
I suspected that most of the deliveries would be between the store and the five dorms on campus. For the most part this was true, but not as much as I suspected. It turned out that we delivered up to 15 miles away. The majority of people who lived this far away were Amish. I learned that Amish folk tipped better than any other group of people that I had the privilege of delivering to those during those three or four months. I always suspected that having very little access to the outside world was the main cause of this, as they most likely didn’t know what was standard. Luckily, for me at least, they had heard of tipping.
However, they were also some of the nicest people I have ever encountered, often times inviting me into their house for a minute or so if it was cold. If it was raining they would hand me a towel to dry off and apologize for having me stand in the rain, though most times it was usually for only a few seconds. After all, I’m pretty sure it was pretty easy to tell when their pizza was coming as I was generally the only car for miles when I was in that part of town. I loved making these deliveries because the tips were almost always great and the drive would sometimes take upwards of an hour because of the slower speed limit back towards their communities.
I didn’t have a date in mind when I wanted to get engaged, instead waiting for my bank account to determine the date. By the time we left New River, I hadn’t made enough yet because we had spent a sizable portion of my earnings on the move and getting a new apartment. When we moved to Hickory, with my new degree in hand, I landed a job as an assistant editor at the local paper. In reality I think my pizza job paid better, but working for the Hickory Herald would surely make for better resume filler in the future, I reasoned. After a few months of editing stories on small town politicians and local business owners I had enough to buy an engagement ring that I felt appropriate.
I knew very little about wedding rings, so I went with what I knew about my wife to be at that time. She was a big fan of princess movies growing up, like most little girls, so when I heard the jeweler mention princess cut, I agreed. I also knew she liked white gold based on her other pieces of jewelry, so that was a must. Finally, I was pretty sure she liked diamonds, like 99.9 percent of her kind on the planet, so naturally that was the final, but most important, requirement.
The town of Hickory had exactly one jewelry store, and being too impatient to wait to buy a ring in a bigger city, I chose Dominique’s Diamonds smack dab in the middle of Hickory’s Main Street, not unlike that of New River’s Main Street. When I walked in, an immaculately dressed old man, who I was guessing was not Dominique, paid me little attention. When he found out I had $3,000 in my left jeans pocket, he took me a little more seriously.
21
Keeping a secret has never been one of my strong qualities. For example, a few weeks before my sister’s 16th birthday my parents told my sister some fib about what they were doing and went out car shopping for her. Because my sister had some plans, she was unable to babysit me, so I went along with my parents. Multiple times on the drive to the car dealership they told me I couldn’t tell my sister a word about the car, because, of course, it was a surprise for her birthday. I told them I wouldn’t.
After my parents picked out a nice, used, reliable automobile – a Ford four door of some sort that was about eight years old – they stored it in their friend’s garage a few miles from our house. From the short ride from that garage to our house, I remember thinking I was going to burst if I didn’t tell her the secret. At the age of 12 I hadn’t yet comprehended that I could possibly be ruining a big surprise for her. I just wanted to tell her she was getting a car. I think I thought this would mean we would get along better. I knew she thought of me as the bratty little brother that I was, but I always looked up to her as kids and by telling her the secret I felt we would grow closer, even though in hindsight we we’re pretty close already.
I briefly considered locking myself in my bedroom until her birthday surprise was delivered, but with three weeks to go until her birthday, I figured I’d get hungry. Plus, more importantly, the only television with cable was in the family room. When she came home that evening I nearly burst through my door and down the stairs to greet her.
When my parents told us to run upstairs and get ready for dinner I followed her like white on rice, nearly tripping her up the stairs. Of course, this annoyed her, but when I slid into the room just narrowly missing the door she was attempting to slam in my face, she knew something was up.
“I got a secret,” holding out the first “e” for about three seconds.
“That’s great, what could you possibly know that I would care about,” she answered in the way teenagers spoke at that time.
“But this one’s good. I promise”
“Okay, spill it.”
Wanting to really tell her, but enjoying the brief upper hand in our game of “I know something you don’t know,” I answered, “What’s in it for me?”
She replied, “Nevermind then. I don’t care,” and began heading for the door.
“Okay. Wait. Mom and Dad got you a car for your birthday, but you can’t tell I told.”
Trying to suppress her excitement from turning into a roar and alerting our parents, she asked details about the car, but all I could tell her at the time was the color. Before we went back down for dinner I asked her three more times in about 12 seconds to not tell our parents.
Little did I know that the main topic at dinner that night would be my sister’s report card. Specifically, how bad it was. I was only halfway paying attention, planning in my head my evening activity, which was either watch TV or play with my Ninja Turtle action figures, when the conversation got a bit louder
. Still, I never expected this next exchange.
“If you keep talking to us like that young lady we will seriously reconsider you having your birthday party here.”
Then in the ultimate act of brother-sister back stabbing my sister replied, “I already know you got me a car, so don’t even try it.”
Stunned, I dropped my fork onto the plate as I watched three pairs of eyes fall on me. Thanks, sis.
She still got the car and birthday party, and I don’t recall anything happening to me punishment wise, but it was the last time I remembered anyone telling me a secret. About 10 years after attempting to keep a secret from my sister, I now had my future wife’s engagement ring in my pocket. With age, I hadn’t gotten any better with secrets.
Despite how much I wanted to blurt out to my future wife what I had purchased and propose I held out for something I figured was a little romantic. Plus, from our talks I knew that the proper thing in her family was for me to ask her father for permission before I popped the question. If my homecoming dance and meeting her parents were number one and two on my all-time list of nerve producing things I had done, this came in a close third.
The day after I bought the ring, she had gone to class, leaving me alone in our apartment with my cell phone and a very important phone call on my mind. I waited until I thought her dad would surely be at work because I didn’t want her mother to not only be there, but listen in. Talking to just her dad would be nerve-wracking enough. Through the few years my wife and I had been dating my relationship with her father had gotten better. It turned out we had some things in common, including a love for reading anything we could get our hands on. That usually provided us enough to talk about during those increasingly less awkward meetings with her parents.
I didn’t take nearly as long as I thought I would to pull up the courage to make the call. I knew that I wanted to marry her, and this was just another step to get to that goal. He answered the phone on the first ring, quicker than I expected, but still I wasted no time getting into the reason I called for fear I would pass out.
“Hello, sir, I called to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”
“Okay, do you want her whole body in marriage, or just her hand?” He asked. I was so put off by the question I didn’t know how to handle it, hardly noticing this was his attempt at a joke. Instead, I asked the question more clearly, or as clearly as I could at that point.
“No. I. Um. I wanted to ask your permission to make sure I had your blessing in marrying your daughter.”
“What if I said no?”
My heart dropped. If I wouldn’t have been already sitting on the couch, I would have dropped too.
“Well, um…” Then I heard him break into a laughter which at that moment was one of the best things I had ever heard.
“Ha, ha, ha! I really got you; you must have been sweating as bad as the first time you met us!” I hadn’t realized our relationship had reached that level of humor, but I was obviously thankful he had just been joking. Or, testing me.
He continued, “Her mother and I sort of expected this sooner rather than later. Her mother’s request is that you let her finish school, and I stand by that as well, but we both think you will make our daughter very happy, and of course, we expect it.”
I appreciated the joke, in time, but also was sure to hear the seriousness in his voice when he gave me his answer. After wiping the sweat off the receiver, I assured him it was our plan for her to finish school, and then have a wedding a few more months after that.
“I guess you expect me to pay for that too, huh?” this time letting me hear the sarcasm in his voice, figuring he had pulled me through the ringer enough.
Upon hanging up, and with one of the hardest parts over, I now had to work on doing something more romantic then just blurting out “Will you marry me?” when she walked in the door after working with horses all day.
I finally figured out how I wanted to propose. It wouldn’t be for a few weeks, but still I thought it was perfect, even if the wait seemed impossible. We were planning on going to my house for an annual Cherry Blossom Festival my little town holds during the last week of April. Generally my town had a population of a few thousand. During that weekend our population grows to about 10,000. This was the weekend I decided I would propose to my wife to be.
Leading up to that trip I might as well have just put duct tape over my mouth because I hardly spoke for fear of ruining my surprise. A few times my quietness came up in conversation, but I just made an excuse about how someone at my job was bothering me and I was dwelling on that. I hated lying to my wife to be, but I knew that I would be more upset if I ruined the surprise I had in store.
After what seemed like an eternity, the day came when we would be heading to my parents house for the festival. I don’t think I ever packed a car so fast, eager to get to my proposal destination. I was tempted to see how fast our little Toyota could go once we hit the highway, but not wanting to look overly eager, I tried my best to hold my composure for the five hour drive, not wanting to spoil the surprise.
After the longest drive in my life, we arrived at my parents’ house at about two in the afternoon. The festival would still be open until six o’clock, which was plenty of time to see my plan unfold, but I was still predictably nervous and anxious to get on with it. After exchanging quick pleasantries with my parents, so quick my soon-to-be fiancée said I was rude; I was ready to drag her out the door. I had told my parents I was going to propose, and assuming I called them in an hour or so and she said yes, they would have a small get together in celebration.
A few weeks before heading home I had called one of my parent’s friends, Peggy, who I knew would be working a booth at the festival. The festival was entirely volunteered based, and Peggy was well known for her volunteering efforts in our town. The problem was I didn’t know which booth she would be operating until I called.
“I’ll be operating the goldfish booth. You know, the one where you throw ping pong balls into the bowls and win a goldfish,” she told me.
I pondered for a second how I could use this in my proposal, but after a few minutes of bouncing ideas off of Peggy, I had come up with something. After getting the plans in order, I thanked her, and told her I’d see her in a few weeks.
Finally, we were heading into town to go to the festival. I was hoping I would recognize Peggy and her booth right away within the dozens and dozens of games, food trucks, and crafts that made up the event. I had no luck. Of course, my wife wanted to stop at every booth, and I impatiently dragged her from place to place. She was a bit perturbed, and I was starting to fear she would get angry and be in a bad mood during my proposal, so I tried to relax. After about an hour and a half I spotted Peggy at the goldfish booth.
When we reached the booth I told my wife to be I wanted to try my luck. I handed Peggy a five dollar bill, which gave me 50 chances to secure a three cent fish. Peggy did a wonderful job of acting like she had never seen me before. It was showtime!
First, I had to get one of the balls into a bowl. I had played basketball in high school, so I figured this would be fairly easy. Wrong. After about 40 balls I was 0-for-40. I detected that my wife to be was getting a bit bored with the waiting, and was even questioning why I was so interested in winning a goldfish.
Growing impatient and nervous myself, I lifted the basket that was now down to about ten balls, and threw them all at once in the direction of the bowls. I watched in slow motion as one of the ping pong balls danced around the edge of a bowl before dropping in. On cue, Peggy told me congratulations and reached for a bag. My wife to be seemed relieved we would be moving on, and I had to hold her hand to keep her close by. I dropped to my knee, she didn’t notice that either.
“What is that in the bag?” I asked Peggy as she handed it to me. My wife hadn’t turned around yet. I tried again, this time a little louder.
“What is this in the bag?” I asked, while tugging on her hand lightly.
F
inally, she turned around, and looked down at me. Inside the bag was the engagement ring, the fish swimming happily above it.
“Will you marry me?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, yes!” she replied, dropping to her knees to hug me.
I handed the bag to Peggy, who opened it and put the fish into another bag, cleaned off the ring and dried it, and handed it back to me while looking at it closely and saying, “Nice job!”
I placed the ring on her left ring finger. When I did this, the crowd I hadn’t been aware of, applauded for us.
“We are going to keep the fish too, right?”
“Of course, what should we name it?” I asked.
“Bliss,” she answered.
22
We decided to have the wedding in September, just five months after getting engaged. This allowed her to finish school in May, upon her parent’s request, which she did, with honors. She was able to find a job just a few minutes away from my parents’ house and we rented an apartment just a few miles from them.
The wedding was beautiful. Her dad did end up paying, thankfully, but on the condition we have the wedding in their hometown in North Carolina, an hour south of Hickory University. I had put up a brief argument with my wife about how I had no ties to North Carolina, but not being a very religious man, and being more concerned with just marrying her than anything else, the argument sputtered out quickly. I was getting exactly what I wanted since that first day I saw her in the campus bookstore. I would have married her on Mars if that had been her family’s request.
My wife had just started her job at the local veterinary clinic so she didn’t have much time for a honeymoon. Because of the small town we lived in, it was very hard for her to find relief; still, we managed to rent a very nice cabin in the Poconos Mountains. I assume the weather was lovely, but we enjoyed the inside of our cabin most of the weeklong honeymoon.