Amore Accelerando
I finished work early that Friday afternoon in anticipation of the twelve hour drive ahead. I’d never driven to Washington before and depended on Mary’s finely honed navigational skills—developed through several trips to and from her home town in Sumner, WA—to know the way. It must have been about four-o-clock when we tossed our things into the back of the shinny little Fiesta and pulled from the parking lot.
I was ready for our relationship to move to the next level but I wasn’t sure quite how to approach the subject. We talked and laughed and I told stories about whatever came to mind as we trudged through the mountains in northern Utah and headed toward Idaho. Mary and I had never kissed. We were still “just friends” but she was the best friend I had, and she had the potential to be the best friend I would ever have. Mary’s eyes were glued to the road with her hands firmly gripping the steering wheel at ten and two. As the passenger, I could spend most of my time watching her and I enjoyed the view.
It was somewhere near Burly that I finally got up the nerve to broach the subject on our dating situation and offered the idea;
“I’ve been thinking that maybe we could just date each other exclusively.”
The car swerved back and forth between the lines as Mary first agreed and then recklessly attempted to maneuver out of the path of the pink elephant sitting between us in the car.
“Yea . . . I mean, uh . . . I mean, well . . . maybe, uh . . . we’ll have to see.”
I’m not quite sure how the conversation even got rolling again after the awkward moment, but I was certain I had been getting little signals that our relationship was nearly to the next level. Where had I gone so wrong?
It was probably somewhere near Boise—after the air in the car had simmered to a comfortable temperature—that I stretched my arm toward her head rest and fiddled with her hair. It started with just a few strands between my fingers and then I reached the hair at the back of her neck. It was obvious that she was enjoying my touch as she began to lean into my hand. Suddenly she pulled away.
The car swerved again. “Stop,” she said in that ‘don’t some more’ tone I learned to love.
“What?”
“Don’t do that?” she said with a smile on her face as she squirmed away and struggled to maintain the stability of the car.
I waited a few minutes until she sat upright against the headrest where my hand still relaxed. Once more I ran my fingers through her hair.
“You’re making my eyes cross,” she said as she slowly leaned away. “I can’t drive.”
I laughed, “Your eyes crossed?”
“Yes . . . I can’t concentrate when you do that.”
That was more like it. The kind of response I had expected from my earlier question. So what was the hesitation? What had stopped her from wanting an exclusive relationship? Were other guys still an issue? Why was she so upset when I questioned the trip to Washington on the bike? There were still so many unanswered questions about this girl. How would I ever find all the clues? She still worked at the theater with Steve. Was he still an item?
It must have been after we fueled up in LeGrand, Oregon that Mary’s eyes started to droop. I had taken the helm at the steering wheel and had little idea of the detailed directions to Sumner, WA. Mary was soon sound asleep. It was well after midnight and I had not learned the proficiencies of night time driving, especially with the subliminal suggestion that someone in the passenger seat offered by falling fast asleep.
I pulled the car into a gas station near Pendleton, Oregon to get a soft drink, take a potty break, and then tried to shock my fuzzy brain back to the task of driving. Mary woke up just long enough to ask where we were. I scoured the convenient store shelves until I found a small box of No-Doz. I had heard that it could help keep me awake but never experienced its affect. As a central nervous system stimulant it works by stimulating the brain. I failed to read the cautions; “side effects such as problems sleeping, nervousness, jitteriness, or anxiety may occur.” Two of the little power packed pills seemed sufficient for the additional five hour drive.
I resumed the drive, but it soon seemed I was on the wrong road and headed toward Portland. I woke Mary and tried to figure out where I made an erroneous turn. She gave her best attempt to help me figure out where we were and which way we should go. By the time I got us back on the right road we’d lost at least two hours. By about three am I realized that my brain was willing to keep driving but my body was weak. I added two more little No-Doz to my arsenal, thinking it would help wake me up.
Mary woke by six that morning mostly refreshed. I was as frazzled as I had ever been, but way too macho to admit it. When we finally arrived at her parent’s house—at about seven in the morning—it was all I could do to stand on my own two feet. I remember vividly thinking ‘I cannot stay awake one moment longer.’ Wrong, the body was willing but the brain was not.
Steve’s bedroom had been vacant while he was serving a mission in Portugal. Steve’s bed was sending me on a sleepless mission impossible. The bed must have been as old as Steve and I’m quite certain that Steve slept in the exact same position, every night, through those entire nineteen years he owned it. The bed was custom formed fitted to Steve’s sleeping style, and it certainly didn’t match mine. It wasn’t just the bed; it was the jumbo jet airplane that was buzzing about the room and bumping into the sunlit windows that was the most annoying. In fact it was every sound, from the plants that were growing in the sunlight just outside the bedroom window, to the cars passing on roadways for miles around, to the toilet that leaked in Steve’s bathroom and continued the flushing, over and over again. I was wired. My normal caffeine free system was in a state of overload.
After two hours of shear torture I crawled out of bed, showered, and put on a sunshiny face, but my head was still throbbing. Mary was sleeping so I made my way to the garage where Mary’s dad, Jack, was sorting and cleaning. Although we had formerly met when we arrived that morning, we still needed to get the manly order of business behind us.
“So what do you do for a living,” Jack asked.
“I own an auto body and custom paint shop.”
“Mary’s car looks nice. Did you do that?”
“It’s just a clear coat.”
“You did a nice job,” he said as he pulled a filter wrench from his tool box. “Why don’t you come with me? I’m going to the parts store to get oil and a filter for her car.”
We climbed into Jack’s little VW pickup truck and headed for the parts store. We spoke of the weather, where I stood with religion, minor economic opinions, and plans for the day’s Forth of July celebrations. I was being checked out and I wasn’t quite sure why. I wondered if I was the first guy Mary had ever brought home or if something had transpired in their conversations after I had tried to catch a restless morning nap.
Finally we put the last touches on the oil change and the detailed thirty point checkup on Mary’s little car when Jack unzipped his coveralls and pulled them from his shoes. “Mary told us about her plans to travel to Europe with her friend Steve,” he said as he folded them neatly and stacked them on the shelf. Jack didn’t even look up to see my reaction. He simply continued cleaning the oil from filter wrench with the rag he’d had tucked in the pocked of his coveralls. “How do you feel about that?”
I was a little taken back. I thought Steve was out of the picture. “I don’t like it very much,” I said.
Jack nodded. “We don’t like it much either,” Jack said as he placed the wrench in his tool box and turned to face me.
“I have a solution,” I began. “I’ll just marry her and take her there on our honeymoon.”
Jack’s head moved thoughtfully up and down as he continued, “Mary’s mother and I spoke about that after you went to bed this morning, and we think that would be just fine.”
I had just asked Jack for Mary’s hand in marriage and my request had been granted—two down only one to go.
The morning continued with pancakes and bacon, and a quick cleanup of the kitchen before Mary was ready to go. We first went to meet Mary’s sister Dianne and husband Rob, and their two children. It didn’t take long before Rob and I had become friends. We chatted about the old rig he was restoring. I don’t remember what vehicle it was, maybe a Willies Jeep, but I gave him a few professional tips. Meanwhile, Dianne was grilling Mary about the new guy—me.
“Where did you meet him, how long have you known each other, is it serious?”
Mary explained we were just friends, but Dianne wasn’t convinced.
As the morning turned into afternoon we had watched the military air show in Seattle and then the entire family—and friend—settled on the hillside in the park for the afternoon picnic. It was all fine; with the exception of the fact that I was still just running on the three ten minute segments of sleep I had stolen between the automatic toilet flushes at seven thirty am. To my good fortune, the NoDoz was finally out of my system and my brain was ready to unwind.
By mid afternoon we returned to the living room where I settled down on the couch, to relax. Mary soon joined me and sat on the edge where I was laying.
“I’m so mad at my dad,” she said, “I could scream.”
I crossing my hands behind my head and leaned forward. “Why?”
“He said the exact same thing you said about Europe,” she replied.
“I know.”
Mary turned toward me with a puzzled look on her face. “What do you mean you know?”
“He told me that the two of you talked about it this morning.”
With a slightly defiant tone Mary asked, “Why would he tell you?”
“He asked me how I felt about it.”
“What did you say?” Mary’s tone was already rising as she anticipated my answer.
“I told him I could marry you and take you to Europe on a honeymoon. . . . He agreed.”
Mary looked bewildered. My heart was pounding as I fiddled in my pocket. She attempted to change the subject but struggled to find a topic that suited the situation. After the awkward pause I pulled my hand from my pocket with a diamond engagement ring perched precariously on my index finger.
“I’m quite serious,” I said calmly as my heart pounded furiously within my chest.
Mary nearly fell off the couch and then struggled to catch her breath. She glanced frantically between the ring and her little brother who sat oblivious to our conversation in the other room. Mary tried to speak and finally mustered, “put that thing away.”
I continued to stand my ground and held the ring firmly near her face. I knew it would be a shock to her system, but the timing and conversation couldn’t have been better if I had planned the moment.
“Put that thing away,” she said again in a frantic whisper.
Mary was still worried about her brother, but more worried someone might see the ring. I lowered my hand and waited while she regained her breath and composure. Somehow I already knew exactly what she would say next. I waited for the answer and I knew what my reply would be.
“I haven’t even prayed about this yet,” she whispered.
“Maybe it’s time you did.”
It was the walk along the railroad tracks that gave it time to all sink in. Mary had dozens of questions. How do you think we’ll get along, how many children do you want, when would we start a family, would she be a stay-at-home-mom or would she work, and so on. I had already purchased a home and had rented it with the idea I would move in after I was married, so we already knew where we could live. The conversation was comfortable. It fit the two of us, like all the other comfortable conversations we’d had so many times before. Obviously I had a great deal more time to process the idea of marriage. Enough time to shop for and purchase a ring, time to think about a marriage proposal—if the timing was right—and I had already had time to think through many of the questions Mary was just then contemplating.
I suppose that was our first real romantic date, holding hands and imagining a future together. The budding love was revealing its first beautiful colors that afternoon on the tracks in Sumner, Washington. We were both so young and the outlook of our lives seemed so full of promise. I’m sure that Mary started to ponder the thought of growing old with me, bearing my children, raising those children together, and maneuvering our way through life’s little obstacles. I am certain that neither of us ever thought about breast cancer.
The following day—Sunday afternoon—Mary gave me her official answer; a resounding yes! She told me that she had been sitting in church, holding my hand, watching the little family sitting on the pew in front of us when the question of her own prayer was answered. She imagined the two of us, with little stair step children sitting at our side. It was a wave of comfort that gave her the sweet reassurance our union would be blessed.
Our Monday drive home is when the real planning began. It was the first time in my life I’d ever had such an intimate conversation with a woman, but it too was comfortable. Mary beamed as we planned a wedding date, the twenty second of August. It would be her mother who would cringe at such a short notice. We’d been ‘dating,’ or should I say, growing our friendship for nearly four months and there didn’t seem to be any reason why we should have a long engagement. Newness, excitement, anticipation, and adventure all combined to make a twelve hour drive seem like time was standing still. It must have been the most awkward moment of our engagement that evening, standing at Mary’s front door step—our first kiss—maybe not the romantic, passionate, true love ideal of the very first kiss; the kind of kiss every girl might dream of, but the start to a new and exciting part of our continuing friendship.
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