Everybody Except Me

To make a long story short, I'm glad I didn't have a weak heart, or it might have been a dead body floating to earth, but it was an amazing experience that I'm glad I did... just once.

Several of us newbies hung around after our jumps and kind of celebrated together, drinking Cokes and razzing each other about our style... or rather, lack of it. I was on my second Coke and eating some vending machine M&Ms when a screeching munchkin entered the garage, obviously still wound up like the rest of us, but several inches shorter and several octaves higher. She had a little trouble getting her helmet off, but when she did a curly blonde mop came tumbling out first, finally clearing off to reveal big lavender-blue eyes and a smile that came straight out of a dental practice advertisement. For the second time that day, I was afraid my heart was going to stop.

I actually almost choked to death on my candy when she peeled off the jumpsuit. It was a warm day, and she had worn a tight T-shirt and really tight jeans, and I mean tight with a capital "T." Wow tight. Whoa tight. Tight, get it?

She looked to be about 30, although I found out later she was 44. I also found out later her name was Evie Abraham.

Maybe it was because she was so petite, she seemed to be even more animated than the rest of us, and I couldn't take my eyes off her as we all sat around a table and related our experiences. I finally realized I was staring and hoped to hell I wasn't drooling as well.

I hoped I was subtle as I looked to see if she had a ring on her left hand. She didn't.

We all hung out for a while afterward before Evie got up from the table and started walking toward the parking lot. I wasted no time rising and following after her.

I left the airfield that day with a lifetime memory and a date for the following Saturday night.

I took her to a Chinese restaurant for our first date and she spent the first 10 minutes at the table chattering wildly about her first jump. I got that completely, so we had that shared experience thing going for us. Later on, we moved onto our personal lives with me telling her about my ex-wife and my two children and she telling me about her late husband and her two children. She was widowed at 34 when a drunk driver killed her husband in a wreck and she wound up raising her two children by herself.

She got very quiet after telling me her story. I watched the tears well up in her eyes, but she worked very hard to keeping them from falling.

"I promised myself that I wouldn't cry for myself anymore after the first year he was gone," she explained. "I know I was crying for myself, feeling sorry for me and the kids, but that's not what Dan would have wanted. He was the kind of guy to say, 'That's enough crying. Time to move forward and get on with life.' So that's what I did. We'll never forget Dan, but we'll honor him every day by moving forward and living good lives."

I was choked up myself when she was done. I didn't tell her, but I had shed a lot of tears through the years for myself over the loss of my wife.

"He sounds like a smart man, able to give advice to someone he hadn't even met," I said quietly.

She tilted her head to the right and gave me a broad smile. I would come to know that as one of her tells when something pleased her.

Because she had to be both mother and father to her children, she had become a bit of a tomboy in her 30s. She had learned to throw a baseball and football with accuracy and bragged that she could hold her own on hockey skates with a stick in her hand. Although she hadn't played sports as a child, she learned to be a supportive parent of two athletic children... and that meant learning everything an involved parent needed to know about various sports, including how to take care of the various cuts and scrapes her kids got.

"I can butterfly cuts with the best of them and I can wrap body parts in ice like a pro," she said proudly.

Armed with that information, I took her to a Cincinnati Red baseball game for our second date. She took my program, turned to the scorecard and proceeded to score the game. Hell, most guys I know can't score, but here was this munchkin doing the card like a pro. I was very impressed.

"My son played baseball and my daughter played softball. I became the official stats 'guy' for both teams," she said, using air quotes for the word 'guy.'"

She was five-foot-nothing of bouncy and enthusiastic. She favored tight tees and jeans and sneakers, and she gradually fit into my world as easily as she fit under my arm when I held her close.

I got a chaste kiss on the cheek at the end of our first date. Then I got a soft kiss on the lips several times on our second date. The kissing got more intense after that but I never quite felt the moment was right to go further with her until we were finishing our sixth date... and she made the move.

"Do I not do it for you, Josh?" she asked as we made out on her living room sofa. "I mean, you've never laid a finger on me yet... and I so want more than just a finger from you," she said as she tilted her head to the right and smiled.

I felt myself blush. I suddenly felt like I was back in high school.

"It's been a long time for me... no, not for that," I said, looking up to see Evie grinning like a Cheshire cat. "I think we could have something special... and I guess I'm afraid I might ruin it," I answered as my heart thumped in my ears.

"Oh, honey, that's not going to happen... at least from my end. Now how about you show me how fast you can get naked," she said, her eyes aglow.

We got engaged six months later and had a small wedding six months after that, with just her two kids, my son and Sergio present. AJ, although invited, chose not to come since I didn't invite her new husband, Jorge, who was divorced by Carrie almost immediately after she found out about him sleeping with her daughter.

Not surprisingly, we didn't go to Spain for our honeymoon.