How We Met - Part 2 of Probably 3

OK, so I left off with friend (B) being warned not to set me up again.

Her boyfriend moved to another city near Niagara Falls. He had graduated HS and was driving a cab and living back at his father's. She wanted me to drive her to see him.

Now, I drove a 1982 Pontiac Parisienne. It was March of 1990, I was 17 and in Grade 13, which was mostly for people preparing for university. I had sent out my applications and was waiting. I already knew I wanted to go to the closest - I wasn't ready to move away by myself, even though I had applied to a school in Sudbury.

Anyway, the Parisienne was pretty rough. I was having trouble with oil leaking and the alignment would go off sometimes. So I told her I couldn't do it. She said "Don't worry, I've got a friend that will drive, but you come too." I smelled setup, but I was between boyfriends, which was kind of unusual for me. Even being a freak, I never had to wait long before someone would ask me out. (I don't think I ever turned anyone down if they asked me to go out. I'd been snubbed a lot because of my age and status as teacher's pet and I didn't like other people to feel as left out as I did.) I'd been working in restaurants since I was 14, so there were always guys from other schools at work for me to date. They had to be from other schools. Well, OK, 2 guys who *did* go to my school were new and hadn't been there in Grade 9. The third was Steve from Part 1.

OK, so here I am, waiting for B and this guy (G) to pick me up so we could head down to see H. Who I didn't really like, because he was all about his car and putting speakers in it. She showed up with some guy driving a Suzuki Samurai. Yeah, the ones that tip over if you take a corner too hard. She made me sit in the front with him. He didn't talk much, but that's OK, because I did. I tried to talk to B, but she "fell asleep" in the back. Pfft.

G was a nice guy. Quiet. He was 22. He drove a straight truck for a furniture company and was a volunteer firefighter in the small town where he lived. Anyway, I waited for him to try talking to me or something. He didn't. We got to the town H worked in and headed to the 7-11 parking lot where all the cabbies waited to be dispatched out. We chatted with them. We got $0.17 Slurpees. It was not a bad way to spend a day.

We three traveled several times to visit H over the next couple weeks. G taught me how to drive a standard. Man, was he patient. I just couldn't get the hang of it. At one point, I was trying to get through a stop sign at the top of a hill. So many cars ended up having to pass us. I was so embarrassed, but he said not to worry about it.

Eventually, he and I started going out without B. We'd go out for dinner or drinks. I was rarely carded. It amazes me how few servers ask for ID. Anyway, he was gentle and sweet and didn't push me. Even when we would go down to the Bay and sit on the rocks and look out over the water. It was very dark and there was no-one around, but he just talked with me. The day we kissed for the first time, he asked me to see him exclusively and gave me a ring with a blue stone when I said yes. Don't tell him I said this, but he couldn't kiss. Kissing is a favourite pastime of mine. I like nothing better than a good kiss. I think only 2 others had been worse. Fortunately, he was a quick learner.

My mother's eyes went very sharp when she saw the ring. Very sharp. That was April 30, 1990.

Some time thereafter, I jumped his bones. I was used to guys wanting to have sex with me. I was on the pill and was no longer being discriminating (see "Jim" in Part 1) and hey, we were a couple, so why not? We had a lot of sex. If it's true that he had to be shown proper kissing technique, he sure didn't need lessons in other things. Damn. Even still, I gave us a couple months, at the most. Mostly because he had decided that he loved me and was going to marry me. Gack.

Did I mention I was a freak by then? Not your average black-eyelinered red-lipped, white-faced freak, either. No, I was a whole other kind with my skintight jeans with rips in the ass, sashes, bandanas, belts and vests, mostly purchased at The Groovy Kingdom, a second-hand store (selling what is now referred to as "vintage clothing") that kept an incense stick burning non-stop, probably to mask the smell of pot. I wore liquid eyeliner in hooks that stretched to the eyebrow over pink, purple and blue stripes of eyeshadow. You would not believe the effort I put into making my lips blue or purple. They just didn't make those colours of lipstick in those days.

In spite of the way I looked, G's mother didn't bat an eye when he introduced me. We would hang out at the apartment he shared with his mother. His father had died of a heart attack when he was 17 and his mother had simply given up. G had graduated soon after and immediately taken a job to support himself and his mother. He joined the army just long enough to complete basic training. During that time, he sent his cheques to her. After a while, she had found herself a job at a local Timmy's.

He took me off-roading a lot that summer. I think he just liked to hear me *not* shriek. Ever tried to scream with your mouth shut? That one hill was a 70-degree angle! We watched Jeeps give up and try to get down backwards. But my nutjob boyfriend would just give it a bit more gas, and up the stupid hill we went. Granted, it was a great view from the top. I kept a death grip on the oh shit bar on the back down too. "Don't worry", he told me the first time, "that's what the roll bars are for."

I started university in September. Had I chosen to go to Sudbury, I would have broken up with him, I think. But I went to the local university and kept one of my jobs. By this point, of course, Mom had decided she didn't like him. By this point, I had decided that maybe I more than liked him, but I didn't say so.

Since it was such a big deal to me, you'd think I'd be able to remember the day I told him I loved him for the first time, but I don't. I imagine it was late November.

December rolled around and I invited him to come with us to some family gatherings over Christmas. Mom was tense. She let me invite him to my birthday dinner and was tense. Later, G and I went out for New Year's Eve. He asked me to marry him and presented me with a beautiful diamond ring with a simple white gold setting. I exchanged the ring he had given me before for the new one. We talked about timing and I said I wanted to finish university. He absolutely agreed, telling me how important he thought education was. He himself had jumped around from school to school and was the only one in his family to get a HS diploma. So it was to be a long engagement.

At home, I hid the ring for a couple months, but eventually I forgot to take it off and my mother saw it. She decided I needed a little talking to. She sat me down. Now, let me say that maybe a just-turned-18-year-old girl shouldn't be wearing an engagement ring. So I kind of see where Mom was coming from. However. She decided to tell me that I had to give the ring back. I needed to complete university. I had only accepted the ring as a backup plan in case university got too hard. I was a quitter and always had been - remember how I'd quit piano lessons and gymnastics? She knew, because she'd done the same. I've never been so offended in all my life. I didn't say anything, but I'm pretty sure I was shaking visibly.

Even still, I gave back the ring. I told him we'd still get married, but that I wanted a bit of peace at my house. I started going to his place after school instead of home. He was the man I was going to marry. Period.

To Be Continued Again...