I'll Marry You...Someday

     When asked to share the story of how my husband proposed, I always answer, “Repeatedly.”

     We were barely kids when we met, 17 and 18 and on the college campus for the first time, each of us scheduled to see the same academic adviser during orientation week. Our appointments were ten minutes apart and scheduled right after lunch. The adviser, perhaps for the only time in his life, was late in arriving and the rest is family history.

     Roger, now my husband of 44 years, made up his mind quickly. I was a bit tougher to persuade. Although I knew how much I cared about him, I was unsure of myself. Was I old enough to be thinking of marriage? I had barely begun dating. I was also unsure of us. Neither of us had ever lived away from home; what did we know about running a household?

     The first time he said, “Marry me,” I said, “Maybe someday” and that was my answer for most of a year. In October of our sophomore year when I said yes, it took a moment for the answer to register. Each of us had begun to believe in the other and in the possibility of “forming a more perfect union,” but we both found the prospect intimidating.

     We were married the following June when I was 19 and he was a month short of his twentieth birthday. His father had to sign a permission slip for us to get our license.

     Do I recommend teen marriage? Not on your life. We made it work and we’re happy with the outcome, but I won’t pretend it was easy. Determined to complete our education, we graduated on the same day. There’s a picture of the two of us in our caps and gowns, a toddler on his lap and a baby bump on mine.

     I eventually went on to earn a graduate degree. We both established careers while at the same time building our family. It worked. Still, when our eighteen-year-old high school senior eldest came to us with the announcement that he and his girlfriend were planning to marry the month after he graduated, we did our best to discourage them. We knew what an uphill battle they were facing. 
     We joke that we raised each other, but it isn't really a joke. Though there were rough times, our bond was real and our commitment solid. One day a few years ago, I was at lunch with girlfriends, both of whom were speaking of "my second husband" or "my third marriage." I told them I had also had three marriages but only one husband; we keep renewing our contract as our lives change.

     This July, our eldest and his bride will celebrate their Silver Anniversary two months after their eldest, at the age of twenty-three, is married to his own young sweetheart. It seems young marriages run in our family and, so far, they’re run very well.
     Maybe we've been lucky. Maybe we've been well tutored; Golden Weddings run in both our families. No, I wouldn't recommend young marriage, but for the right couples, they can be some of the sweetest of all. 

Susan Aylworth is the author of 13 published novels and has part in three boxed sets, all 16 titles available now. Mother to seven, she is "gramma" to 23. She lives in northern California with Roger, her husband of 44 years, and the two spoiled cats they serve. She loves hearing from readers at  www.susanaylworth.com, @SusanAylworth or susan.aylworth.author@gmail.com. You can also follow her on Pinterest and Instagram.

The Five Dollar Happily Ever After

by Gina Ardito

I was a five dollar bet. He was trying too hard.

The year I turned twenty-two, a friend of mine forgot my birthday. Because I was (and still am) a bit of a smarta**, I told him he could make it up to me by showing up at a local club that Friday night, buying me several drinks, and dancing the night away. This particular friend is not much of a dancer so I knew there was a very good chance he wouldn't show up. Bearing that in mind, I brought another friend, Margaret, to the club with me that Friday night.

Margaret was the dance fiend among friends. She hit the dance floor that night and never returned. Since I was the designated driver of the evening, I took a seat at the bar (another friend was the bartender--always helpful!) and ordered up a club soda. The first guy to approach me showed up with a posse of his friends backing him up. He proceeded to tell me his dad was a driving instructor and he could get me free lessons if I'd date him. (Wow! What a deal! What a catch!) Luckily, my bartender pal scared him and his posse away. 

I was sipping my club soda, scanning the dance floor for Margaret, when a husky voice whispered in my ear, "You're not having a good time tonight, are you?"

I turned and came face-to-face with a pair of golden eyes that made my heart stutter. He offered to buy me a drink. I told him I was drinking club soda, which was free. He offered to buy me a free club soda. Okay, I thought, we've got great eyes and a sense of humor. Two checkmarks for him. I must have smiled, encouraging him. He pulled up the barstool next to mine and kept chatting. He told me he was a stockbroker and part-time ski instructor. He had a boat he'd love to take me out on. He routinely flew to Europe on business. The more he told me, the more I knew he was lying. And yet, as odd as it might seem, his lies charmed me. He was trying so hard to impress me, I felt flattered. Or maybe he had me hypnotized with those eyes. 

We talked for hours. We danced. And at the end of the night, despite his insistence I leave with him, I gave him my phone number and went home with Margaret. She, of course, gushed about this guy who seemed so interested in me. "When you marry him," she said, "I better be invited to the wedding." I told her, "When I marry him, you get to be in the bridal party."

You can pretty much guess the rest. He called me. On our first date, he confessed he wasn't a stockbroker or a ski instructor. He didn't have a boat and had no plans to go to Europe. In fact, he'd only recently graduated college and was about to start his first "real job" a few weeks later. Why had he lied? Because I looked so perfect, so special, he thought he wasn't good enough. Yeah, I fell. Hard and fast. Lucky for me, so did he. We dated for two years and on the second anniversary of the day we met, we married.

Over time, he taught me to ski. He took me sailing. And we traveled to Europe. So maybe he was more prognosticator than prevaricator. 

The five dollar bet? I found out about that after we were engaged. His friend, Mike, who was with him at the club the night we met, revealed all. "Didn't he tell you? He spotted you when you came in that night, said you were perfect for him, and bet me five bucks he'd leave the club with you."

He lost that bet.

But, in the end, we both won. Mike was the best man at our wedding; Margaret was a bridesmaid. It's been thirty+ years since that night in the club. His eyes still make my heart stutter. And every time he tells me, "I love you," I fall in love all over again.

Happy belated Valentine's Day! 

I Am Not A Leg-Rubbing Hussy!

This month's topic, “how you met your spouse” would make for some pretty dry reading. I met him through his brother, with whom I worked. It was game night. A box of Trivial Pursuits. What can I say? It was the late 80s.

Instead, I wanted to tell you about the first “date”, which wasn’t so much a date as an arranged (by me) group purchase of tickets to Les Miserables, some tactical maneuvering (by me) to make sure I was sitting beside my future husband, followed by the twenty-three-year maligning of my character, (by him).

In recounting the story of our first not-quite-date-with-a-group-of-people-who-all-happened-to-purchase-a-block-of-tickets-to-Les-Mis, the love of my life maintains that I, “kept rubbing my leg against his” through the whole performance, making it impossible for him to be unaware of my blatant interest in him.

I protest!!! First, let me just say, I never, ever, EVER made the first move. But if I did decide to go outside my comfort zone and be the leg-rubbing-hussy that I’ve been accused of being, I would have been more creative than that. Sheesh! I write fiction, for cryin'-out-loud!

Just as an “off-the-top-of-my-head” scenario, it would have gone something like this: After jockeying for the ticketed seat beside his, I would have done something clever, like drop my program, waited for him to bend to pick it up, then gone down a fraction of a second later and head butted him into unconsciousness. Then it would simply have been a matter of dragging all six-foot-five-inches of him down a couple of flights of stairs, (no elevator in that theater), propping him up in a shadowy alcove while I drove the car around from the parking garage, and shoving his unconscious bulk into the backseat. Voila.

Or what if I had let that other woman in our group have that ticketed seat beside his, and I just marched down the aisle with an “excuse me. Pardon me. Excuse me,” checked my ticket, and told her, “there seems to be some sort of mistake here. I believe you have inadvertently received the ticket beside my future husband. Sorry. We’ll have to trade seats.”

(Rubbed my leg against his through the whole show. Pffft.)

A couple of years ago, we gave my daughter tickets to see Wicked. It was in the same theater where my husband and I saw Les Miserables so many years ago. I got to be the parent who got the other ticket and drove our pre-licensed teenaged daughter to see the show while my husband stayed at home with the too-squirmy-to-sit-through-the-show younger sibling. It was fabulous! It was “WICKED”. It was… cramped! 

During intermission, everyone stood, if not to race to the line forming at the restroom, then at least to stretch. There was a lovely gentleman seated beside me – his family fanned out down the aisle on his opposite side. As we all stood, stretching, he shook out his leg, and flexed his toes, cursing a cramp in his calf. He turned to me and said, “I am so sorry. The seats in this theater are so cramped. I promise you, I’m not intentionally brushing your leg with mine.” He was about the same height and breadth as my husband.

I should have had him write it in a note. Then I’d have written proof that I am not a leg-rubbing hussy!

Epilogue: The next day (after the first not-quite-a-date-with-a-group-of-people-from-work), my husband called me at work to invite me out for lunch. It was lovely, giddy, and ended when he walked me back to my office and left me with a hug and a promise to get-together again soon. ;) The rest is twenty-three years of history.