Our Story, Part 3

This is cheesy, but hey, that's how it goes.



On May 5th, I hitched a ride back from a big get-together at the bishop’s house. The sky was cloudy and it had just been raining. Surely a bad omen. I had wavered between canceling and going, and by continuing to waver I inadvertently committed to going. As I sat in the back seat of the car, staring out the window, I knew it was wrong. I shouldn’t go. How could I, when today was supposed to have been my wedding day? I should be at home, I thought, with a friend and Ben and Jerry’s. I wouldn’t have a good time and my date wouldn’t have a good time and it would be a mess of a night.

“Any plans for tonight?” the girl sharing the back seat asked me.

“Yeah, I have a date. We’re supposed to go canoeing, but it’s not looking like great weather.”

“Oh, who’s your date?”

“Um, Nathaniel is his name, I think.”

“Oh, he’s really cool. And funny. You’ll have a good time.”

This was encouraging. Maybe tonight wouldn’t be such a disaster after all.

I was right about the rain – there would be no canoeing. Nathaniel called and said that we were just going to do dinner and play games at his place. I was glad; this meant I could wear whatever I wanted. I threw on some clothes, fluffed my hair a bit (because that’s how my hair had to be: fluffy), and re-did my make-up, just like I did for all dates. Nathaniel came to the door. I answered.

He probably looked good, but I remember absolutely nothing about that moment.

I do remember, as we were walking toward his car, that he found I had just finished my first year of law school.

“What?” he asked, surprised. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Man, I’m 23. I guess it takes longer when you go on a mission.”

This was my favorite moment of introductions.

“I served a mission, too.”

“Are you serious? Man, how did it take me so long?”

With that excellent beginning, we learned more about each other. I learned that he wanted to go to law school, that he came from a family of nine(!) kids, and that he had two more years of undergrad left. And he loved to read. He didn’t just read books for school. He read for pleasure. He read all sorts of books. He read all the time. That was hot.

We went to Los Hermanos for dinner. It was Cinco de Mayo and very crowded. I noted the numbers of people waiting for a table.

“Don’t worry, I was thinking ahead and made reservations.” Wow, that was kind of a cocky voice.

“Wow, you are so smart! Who would have thought of such a thing? Making reservations? You have got to be the most brilliant person alive!” I’m usually not good at sarcasm, and I know this sounds dumb, but here it really worked. And it got the reaction I wanted.

He talked back to me. He was standing close to me. I liked it.

At dinner, I asked Nathaniel all the usual questions, but not because it was polite or it was the right thing to do or to fill in the silence. I asked because I was dying to find out more about this person. More about this book reader with gorgeous blue eyes and a perfect smile, who liked Linkin Park but felt a bit guilty listening to them, who was proud of his grades, who loved cheese, and who held my attention with a grip so strong I forgot about the two other couples who accompanied us at dinner. I forgot about my food. I forgot about the masses of people around us. I forgot about everything except the way Nathaniel pondered before answering a question, the way he laughed, and the way he listened to me as though I was the only person in his world, too.

When dinner was over, we headed back to his apartment for games and ice cream. Looking at the display of games on the table, I knew which I wanted to play. Battleship. Two players. Just Nathaniel and me.

For some reason, playing Battleship, I was a complete ditz. Perhaps it was because I didn’t want to focus on dumb numbers and sinking ships when right in front of me there was there was a human being that I had to know everything about...if I could think straight when I was looking into his eyes.

“B7.” I said with conviction.

“B7? You just said B7. It was a miss.” Nathaniel looked at me, laughing, with a look that was half amusement and half “I can’t believe you just said something so stupid, again.”

“Oh. Right.”

One of his roommates asked Nathaniel something. I couldn’t hear it, or maybe I can’t remember it, but I loved Nathaniel’s response.

“Nothing. I am just talking to my date.” He was looking at me.

Something about the way he said “my date” made me think he liked me. I hoped he did.

When Nathaniel dropped me off, my roommate asked me how the date went.

“Really good!” My voice was a mixture of happiness, excitement, surprise, and confusion. An amazing date was the last thing I had been expecting that night. I tried to figure out why I had such a great time. We hadn’t done anything particularly exciting. The food was mediocre. Battleship was kind of a dumb game. The ice cream we ate after games didn’t look good; I didn’t have any. When we tried to watch Office clips, it didn’t really work on the huge, 1970s era TV.

But Nathaniel. Nathaniel was amazing. As far as I could tell, there was nothing wrong with him. There was no requisite I had for a significant other that he didn’t meet. His three goals in life were to be a good husband, be a good father, and honor his priesthood. He was intelligent. He was funny. He was not socially awkward. He was impressed, not intimidated by the fact that I was in law school. He was okay with his mistakes because he was comfortable with himself.

As I lay in bed that night, I couldn’t sleep. Something wasn’t quite right. I wasn’t supposed to be feeling like this, whatever “like this” was.

And then it hit me. Today was my wedding day. Today was the day that I was supposed to be married and I hadn’t thought about it for a moment until then.

I drifted off to sleep, amazed.