The Wedding Gauntlet

"Obligations all taken care of?" Colleen asked as I sat again.

"I believe they are. Drink?"

"Beer, please."

I got us a couple bottles of Corona, and we watched the bouquet toss and the garter thing, and then the dancing started in earnest. I felt pretty good, so after another beer I asked Colleen to dance. We weren't very good -- to be honest, I think we were actually terrible -- but no one was having more fun. We stayed out for three fast songs, and then the DJ went to a slow one. I begged off, needing to give the beer back to the universe. She laughed and headed to the bar for refills.

I'll never know if it was an accident or not, but when I came out of the bathroom, my hands still a little damp, Kathy was standing in the middle of the hallway. I was two steps away before I realized she was there, and I stopped abruptly.

"Hello, Paul," she said. Her lavender dress favored her complexion, but she'd put on nearly thirty pounds in the years since I'd seen her last, and she had deep lines around her mouth and her eyes. Her hair was lighter than I remembered, so maybe she was coloring it. I could tell it was my ex-wife, but this woman was nevertheless a stranger to me. My heart was beating faster, but not out of control.

"Kathy." I nodded and went to go around her. She put her hand on my forearm, which stopped me.

"Christi made a beautiful bride today, didn't she?"

"She did indeed. She's a beautiful young woman."

"I've missed you, Paul."

"Let's not do this, Kathy. You got what you wanted. Everything you wanted and with your true love too. Please leave me be."

She laughed, but it was harsh. A sad, mournful laugh. She sounded so different than Colleen.

"Karl isn't my true love, he's my first love. And I didn't get what I wanted, Paul. Not even close. I just did the best I could with what was left to me."

"Well, that's still more than I got, Kathy. Enjoy your life."

And then I did move around her. I was surprised that I wasn't more upset. I found Colleen at our table and took a big pull on the beer she got me.

"Everything okay, Paul?"

I smiled at her. "It's great. Thanks for the beer."

"My pleasure. Any chance I'll get a slow dance with you this evening? We need to up our game or I'm afraid they won't invite us back, and I'm not sure we've got the chops for the fast ones."

The woman really did know how to make me laugh. And right on cue, a slow dance started. I put down my beer and offered Colleen my hand with an exaggerated bow. It's very hard for a really tall woman to curtsy gracefully, and Colleen didn't even come close. She looked like a stork swinging a hula hoop. It didn't bother her in the least.

We swayed together, her right hand in my left, my right hand on her hip. She moved closer to me, so I had to look up a little higher to enjoy her sparkling eyes.

"So your ex-wife found me earlier. I think she might have jumped to conclusions about us."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"She told me you were the best man she's ever known and to take good care of you."

"Not sure why she'd say that."

"I may have told her that we met before the wedding and that we had a date for a baseball game in September."

"You like to stir things up, don't you?"

"Moi?" She batted her eyelashes. Coquettish she wasn't. "How could you say such a thing?"

"Careful observation."

Her smile dazzled me and her laugh bubbled right up. I was enchanted. It had been a long time since anything affected me like her laugh. And she noticed. And blushed. She pushed her face into my shoulder, but I could feel her smile get bigger. Which made me a little bigger as well.

I kept her out for another song so I wouldn't embarrass myself at my daughter's wedding. Then I got us both another beer, since someone had cleared the table of our half-empty bottles.

"Remember that I need to give you a ride back to your car," she said. "Let me know when you're ready to go."

I looked around and saw that Christi and Roy were on the dance floor with a group of their friends. I loved seeing them enjoying themselves. The world needed a lot more unrestrained dancing among friends. I didn't see Kathy, and there was no one else at her table either.

"I think your ex has already left."

"How do you know?"

"While we were dancing I saw her go over and hug Christi and Roy, and then she went out the main door."

"You see a lot."

"I have a crow's-nest view."

That smile. Those eyes. She was so far out of my league.

"Let's say goodbye to the happy couple and then get out of here."

I'd already said everything I needed to Christi and Roy, so I just hugged them, affirmed my love, and told them to enjoy their honeymoon. They were going to San Diego for four days before a short 3-day cruise to Baja California.

As Colleen drove me back towards the church I realized that I didn't want the evening to end just yet.

"Can I buy you a cup of coffee?"

She didn't take her eyes off the road, but I could see by the light of the dashboard that the corners of her mouth turned up.

"I'd like that."

"Do you know a place? I'm not from around here."

It brought another smile from her.

* * * * *

We had to pull over and consult Google, and we ended up at an all-night diner since the boutique coffee shops had long since closed. The playfulness left us, but our comfort remained. I ordered decaf and she went with mint tea. Apparently caffeine after dinner affected us both.

We settled into silence. I didn't feel any pressure from her, but we both knew that I'd asked for the time, so the agenda was mine. I wanted to tell her what was on my mind, but I needed to order my thoughts. She waited patiently, sipping her tea and watching me with her sparkling eyes. The words weren't coming though. Finally I decided to trust my mind and my mouth to work as a team.

"I'm feeling pretty melancholy right now. I got a backstage pass to my own family show this weekend, and what I saw bothers me. Maybe I'm not the guy I thought I was. You know, fighting the good fight. Being a stand-up guy. Owning my actions. I outsourced the hardest thing that I've ever had to face to a couple teenagers without a second thought. And I kept doing it. So I feel pretty crappy about that.

"But then I also met a warm, smart, funny, really beautiful woman who delights me. I haven't felt so good with anyone in a very long while. But it's been so long since I felt an attraction to anyone I feel like damaged goods, and I think as soon as she realizes it she'll leave me too. And that scares me."

And there it was. I loved Kathy, and I wasn't good enough for her. How could I be good enough for Colleen?

"Tell me more about this beautiful creature. She sounds too good to be true."

"Oh, she's just about perfect."

"Just about?"

"Well, she's not a great dancer." She raised her eyebrows, but her gentle smile gave the lie to her outrage. "We've only known each other a little more than a day, but she pays attention to me, watches out for me, and she does it so naturally I can just tell she's a kind and generous person. Plus she's hot. Tall and lean, which has always been my ideal."

"Really? Do go on." I could see her eyes were getting bright with moisture.

"She's also very smart and so witty. She makes me laugh all the time. She teases, but she's never mean. And when I need to tell her something important, she really listens. I wish I'd met her when I was in better shape."

"I'd watch out for her. She sounds too good to be true," Colleen said. Her eyes held her tears, but of course she was smiling. "Or maybe she's just been lonely for a long time too. Maybe she sees decency and sweetness in a guy she's just met, someone who always puts the people he loves first. Someone good enough that people who know him are happy to sacrifice a little because he sacrificed for them. Now a guy like that could make a lonely old woman feel pretty special when he shows her some attention. Especially since he's in much better shape than he knows. She might even be willing to dance with a guy like that, and she knows how badly she dances."

Could it really be this simple? Boy meets girl. Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Then what? There's a script when they meet in their twenties, but what's the script for meeting at fifty, with a trunkful of baggage too?

"You might be overthinking this, Paul," Colleen said gently. I guess my poker face needed work.

"I'm sorry, Colleen. I haven't done anything like this in a long while. I don't have a clue what to do."

She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. "I know. I may not be everything you see in your mythical woman, but I am patient and I am reliable. Let's just see where this takes us. I'm not on any deadline. I do enjoy your company, and that's good enough for me."

"It's good enough for me too." I drank some coffee. "And thank you. My life has changed pretty dramatically in the past two days -- for the better -- and it all started when I met you."

"I'm a really tall good-luck charm."

I laughed again. And then, as I looked at her, I was struck by her beauty. Her eyes, of course, but also her hair, so soft, and her nose that I thought at first was too sharp and her wide mouth and those flashing teeth. Her neck, long like the rest of her but also smooth and elegant, I suppose like the rest of her. It was as if she transformed before my eyes, but I knew it was my eyes that were letting me see beauty that I had shut out of my life for more than a decade. And her beauty went right to my heart.

Except that wasn't right either. Her kindness and compassion started in my heart, healing it from the inside out. Her inner beauty filled my heart until I couldn't help but see just how lovely she was. Love? Maybe. I hoped so. I could certainly see it with this unusual and delightful woman.

"I'd like to spend more time with you," I finally said to her. "But I don't know how to do that. We live in different cities a couple hours apart. And I haven't been on a first date in thirty years."

"I hate to break it to you, but your last first date started a half-hour ago." Her smile was addictive. "I don't suppose you could relocate the property you support to my place, could you?"

I shrugged. "Not likely. I don't suppose you could move your data center near me?"

"Sorry." She smiled though, so I knew she had something up her sleeve. "Have you ever been to the Milton Abbey?"

That perked me up. Milton was a tiny town roughly midway between our two cities. A developer had renovated an old abbey on a small lake and turned it into a rustic resort. It had rowboats and canoes and kayaks and lots of hiking and biking trails through the woods around the property. It also featured a top-rated restaurant that was supposed to be the most romantic spot in the state.

"I haven't. But I am intrigued."

"Me either. But let's meet there for a long weekend as soon as we can arrange it. We'll know everything we need to know about each other by that Sunday."

"Just how long can we make the weekend?"

"I like the way you think, Mr. Matthews." She reached across and held my hand loosely. "Among other things."

I smirked at her. I couldn't remember the last time I smirked. "Oh, you don't know just how much I enjoy those other things."

"Promises, promises."

I loved how she made me laugh. I knew exactly how badly I was overmatched by this wonderful, charming woman. And for the first time in far too long, I cared not at all.

* * * * *

We flirted every day for the three weeks or so it took to align our schedules for our extended weekend at Milton Abbey, mostly on the phone but sometimes by texts and occasionally via e-mail. In the end, our rendezvous was five days of heaven. Colleen validated everything I suspected about her, and she added passion and physical creativity to the mix as well.

We arrived on Wednesday. Check-in wasn't until three o'clock, but we decided to meet for lunch because we couldn't stand to be apart a minute longer. The restaurant was fabulous, although we might have been too enamored with each other to give the meal our full attention. Colleen and I were both pretty controlled people, but that day we were so combustible that anyone watching us knew that we'd be fucking as soon as we left the table. Maybe sooner if the check was slow.

Once the bags had been delivered to our suite and the door locked behind the bellhop, we swallowed each other for our first real kiss. Clothes flew away from us, and a single minute later I impaled her in the middle of our king-size bed. Her long legs wrapped around my hips, and we pounded out our first coupling in record time. It had been more than 13 years for me, and about half as long for Colleen, which is the excuse I gave her for climaxing long before she could.

My recovery time was excellent though, and with my fingers and tongue I evened the orgasm count before we shared a less-frantic session that lasted a nice long time and ended well for us both. Sated, we luxuriated in each other's company, stroking and caressing and kissing and pressing together. I was pleased that we were so compatible in bed.

After a quick shower we went for a hike, arriving back just as the sun fully set. We didn't have a reservation for dinner at the resort, so we drove into town where we found a local bar that served burgers and fries and local craft beer on tap.

It didn't seem to matter where we were. We held hands and talked so easily it felt like we'd always been together, even as we discovered new and interesting things about each other. We were both college basketball fans, and we were intrigued by the ideas around communal capitalism coming out of Scandinavia (though she was less convinced of their merits than I was). She had a phobia of spiders, while I really, really didn't like mice and rats. I was musically promiscuous, randomly listening to anything from opera to heavy metal, while she strongly preferred jazz and roots music like bluegrass and folk. I read nonfiction, while she had a thing for romance novels, even though they rarely featured towering heroines.

I was so smitten.

We made slow, tender love before dropping into sleep that first night, mostly because we were a little sore from our earlier session. Rather than have me spoon around her from behind she wanted to sleep facing me, burrowing into my chest even though she was longer in the bed than me. She slid her top leg between my knees for the extra closeness it brought. As long as I was holding her I didn't mind in the least. We made love every night of our getaway, sometimes twice, and slept nude. We didn't want anything between us.

We spent the two weekdays hiking around the woods or paddling a canoe around the lake. Saturday we found the local farmer's market, and Sunday we visited a couple antique stores and the town's book shop. After checking out of the resort, we ate an early dinner at the Abbey's restaurant, but again we were too focused on each other to appreciate what I'm sure was incredible food.

"So what's next for us, my willowy goddess?" I'd taken to using extravagant endearments because they made her smile and blush.

"I've never had a better time, Paul," she said, smiling and blushing. "I love spending time with you."

"I feel the same. I want to spend more time with you."

"You do?"

"I do. Do you?"

"Yes. How can we do that?"

"I'll look for work in your city, you look in mine, and we'll see what happens. Deal?"

Colleen's eyes shone brightly. "Done deal."

We kissed, and drove off in opposite directions, heading back to our respective homes. I lasted ten minutes before I called her.

"I miss you," I said when she answered. I loved to hear her laugh.

"I was about to call you," she said.

We talked all the way home, and she called me again at bedtime to tell me she didn't like sleeping alone. I agreed with her.

* * * * *

I guess there are more commercial buildings that need maintenance directors than there are data centers that need IT managers, so it was me who made the move to her city about three months later. We had enough time to pick out a house together, a three-bedroom craftsman in a cute neighborhood with a small shopping district a couple blocks away. The first night we spent in our new house was a Friday, and after an easy dinner of pasta primavera (even though it was autumn) I brought a bowl of ice cream in to Colleen while she surfed Netflix for our movie.

She took the bowl absently and didn't notice that I knelt next to her. I stayed where I was, and after a few moments she clued in and looked at me quizzically. When I produced the diamond ring her ice cream went flying, her arms went around my neck, and she knocked me off my center and tipped us to the floor. She was as graceful as ever. I'm not sure I got a coherent 'yes' from her, but I understood the answer regardless. We made love twice that night.

The next day we told my children the news. I had a fleeting notion to stiff Jason because of his elopement, but then I reconsidered. He and Jess were thrilled for us, though they disagreed about whether Colleen or I was getting the better deal (I sided with Jason that I was the luckier one). Colleen did admit she was using me to get a grandchild without working for it.

We called Christi and Roy next.

"Hi, sweetheart. Is Roy around? Please put us on speaker."

"Hi, Dad. He's right here."

"You're not calling to tell us you're pregnant, are you, Colleen?" Roy had a pretty good sense of humor.

"Not yet!" Colleen was still the champ though. I decided to grab the reins of this conversation before the Kirkpatricks hijacked it for their amusement.

"No babies in our house unless they're grandchildren. And we'll talk about that in a moment, since you guys have now been married six months. But first we wanted you to be among the first to know that we're getting married."

"Oh, Daddy! That's the best news ever!"

Roy was laughing, but happily. "That's great news! Congratulations to you both."

"I think you're supposed to wish me good luck," Colleen said. "Though I'll say I've already been lucky once today."

"TMI! TMI!"

"When's all this going to happen?" Roy asked.

"Probably after the new year. We've still got to get settled in our house, and then we've got the holidays. And unless your grandfather decides to take a shotgun to me, we're not in any rush," I replied.

We chatted for a couple more minutes before hanging up. Colleen called her brother and sister, and they were excited for us as well. I was listening to her side of the animated conversation when my phone rang again. I saw it was Christi.

"Hi, sweetheart! What's up?" I heard quiet crying. "Are you okay? Is something wrong?"

"No, Daddy. Nothing's wrong. Everything's right. Finally."

"But you sound upset."

"I'm not upset. I've wanted you to be happy for so long, and I was so afraid you'd never be happy again. But Colleen is perfect for you, and you've been able to put what happened with Mom behind you, and I just can't stop smiling for you.

"I saw every day how deep that wound was for you. And still you did everything for Jason and me. I know Mom was hurt too, but she brought that on herself. You didn't do anything to deserve your pain. And now Colleen is healing you, and I'm just so thankful to see you becoming that man I knew when I was a kid. You deserve so much joy, and I can't believe you're getting it. And I can't stop crying because it's about time."

Well, I didn't have an answer to that, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway because I couldn't get one out. I did love my little girl. So I told her that. She kept crying, and maybe I did too. Colleen didn't interrupt her call, but she watched me with shining eyes and that smile that told me she also loved me.

For many years after Kathy left I'd just focused on surviving. I'd given up on happiness, let alone love. But thanks to a woman who was generous and patient and steadfast, I found them both again.