Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
T he ass stood in the middle of the road, munching on a tuft of grass poking up out of the dirt. It lifted its head and stared at us. It never stopped chewing.
“Look.” Gary stopped and pointed.
“Can I pet it?” Kyle asked.
Janet and I had already stopped. That was on purpose. We were both wearing long dresses and high heels. Not exactly the kind of outfit you would want to be wearing if you found yourself in a situation where you had to run for your life. If the ass charged, we were going to need a head start.
“Careful,” I warned. “It might have rabies. Or get drool on your suits.” I wondered if the color red made all farm animals want to charge at you, or if that only applied to bulls. Gary’s tie was the same shade of red as my dress.
Undeterred, Gary walked right up and patted the animal’s head while Kyle stroked its fur along the side.
Janet looked at her watch. “We should get moving. I told Mike we would taste test his latest creations before the ceremony.”
“Oh, you did, did you?” I noticed a familiar twinkle in Janet’s eye.
Mike had generously offered to supply the beer kegs, at cost, for Dick and Mabel’s wedding. He had been experimenting with new beer and cider recipes for a festival he was hosting to celebrate FoxPaw Brewing’s three-year anniversary, FoxFest. Business was booming. So good, in fact, that he hired me to scope out commercial real estate so he could build a second location.
“It’s not like that,” Janet insisted. “Just doing a favor for a friend.”
“Friends, huh?”
“I’m still scarred from the whole Jack-Ass debacle. I told you, I’m never dating another man again.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
“I do say so.”
“So you said.”
Speaking of asses, Gary scratched his. The animal I mean. Then he thumbed over his shoulder toward the big red barn at the end of the road. “You want to keep going?”
I looked him dead in the eye. “I do.”
* * *
The ranch looked amazing. After the unfortunate reunion incident, the ranch owner banished all the farm animals to the other side of the property for events. Thankfully, down wind.
Mabel looked stunning in her dress. Ethereal. Breathtaking.
Dick cried like a baby during the vows.
It was awesome. Everything. All of it.
The wedding cake had ten different layers. There were more flowers than a Swiss hillside during a yodeling festival. And best of all, enough FoxPaw beer that everyone signed up for a turn on the karaoke machine.
By popular request, Gary and Janet did an encore of their Dirty Dancing routine.
Edna pulled out her now infamous Rod Stewart.
I went with “Baby” by Justin Bieber. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
As the night began winding down, toward the end of the reception, it was finally time for the main event. The moment of truth. The thing that everyone had been waiting to see. It was time for the bride to toss the bouquet.
Janet, Karen, and I jostled for position. My strategy was going to be that when Janet jumped for it, I would take out her legs.
Mabel turned away from us, poised for her big throw. It seemed like the bouquet sailed through the air in slow motion.
The flower girl, Mabel’s granddaughter, initially seemed to be in the right place at the right time. I may have taken her out with a hip to the solar plexus. Accidentally, of course.
To this very day, I would argue that Janet had the better position. She could have caught it if she really wanted to. But somehow, magically, it slipped right out of her hands.
And right into mine.
I stared down at the flowers in disbelief. When I looked back up, I caught sight of Gary standing across the yard, smiling.
Above us, a shooting star streaked across the night sky.
* * *
A few months later, Gary came over to the house. My house. He was taking me out on a surprise date. When I asked him where we were going, he wouldn’t tell me. “Wear comfortable walking shoes.” That was my only hint.
Well, that and the fact he asked me to drive - “Since your car has all wheel drive.”
After taking my house off the market, things were pretty tight. But once I repurposed my renovation time into finding new clients and making more sales, my real estate career was revived.
I could have kept Charlotte if I wanted to, but I traded her in for a Subaru instead. Better gas mileage, more affordable, and it didn’t break down on I4 in the middle of an afternoon thunderstorm.
Charlotte was a fun ride while she lasted, but after she was gone, I didn’t miss her one bit.
The surprise date was a surprise all right, but not the good kind of surprise. He took me to the nature center, using the annual passes we had won.
Yay.
He told me he had planned a special hike.
Double yay.
“Oh look,” Gary said. There was an information kiosk just outside the nature center. A sign read, “Today’s Trivia - All About Trees!” “We should play!” Clearly, it was my lucky day.
Different trees were planted all along the boardwalk. Pines. Oaks. Cedars. Signs listed the tree names and various facts and figures. Gary filled out the trivia sheet as we walked. It was my job to stop at each sign, look for clues, and then answer the questions.
The answer to the first question was Willow. As in the willow tree.
The answer to the second question was Yew. As in the yew tree.
Gary and I had been happily dating for almost six months by then. Six months longer than I had happily dated anyone else in my entire life.
As agreed at the beginning, we had taken it slow. But it didn’t take me very long to realize that he was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And every day we were together, I fell in love with him a little bit more.
It was a shame I was going to have to dump him now because he was forcing me to learn about trees.
“Here’s the next question.” I wondered if Gary had a secret double life as a closet arborist. “And this one is super easy. Write your name.”
“My name?”
“That’s what it says.” Gary shrugged his shoulders.
“My name or your name?”
Gary considered carefully, even rubbing his chin. “I’ll just put yours down.”
“Fine. Whatever.” I didn’t really care what Gary wrote, as long as he hurried up and got the stupid trivia game over with. “How many questions are left on this thing, anyway?”
“This next one is the final one.”
“There’s only four questions?”
Gary shrugged again. “I guess.”
I assumed the trivia game was designed for three-year-olds. Or extremely bored, lonely adults who had the patience of a saint, and had nothing better to do than learn about trees.
When I looked back over at Gary, he was biting his lower lip and fiddling with something in his pocket. His face was flushed, and I could see little beads of sweat on his forehead, even though it wasn’t even that hot since all the boring trees created a lot of shade.
“Everything okay?”
“Hmm? What?”
“I asked you if everything was okay. You’re acting funny.”
Actually, Gary was acting like he had just bonged a gallon sized jug of espresso. Maybe all the oxygen the God damn trees were pumping out into the troposphere had made him lightheaded.
“Let’s do the last question,” Gary said, deftly changing the subject. He read the question from the trivia sheet. “The Eastern white pine is a majestic conifer known for its towering height and historical significance.”
Ugh, more tree stuff.
I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers to my temples, rubbing them gently to ward off the coming migraine. Just when I thought the morning couldn’t get any worse, Gary had found a way to combine history facts and tree facts together.
“Its soft, workable wood and minimal resin content fueled a booming lumber industry and, in 1895, became this state’s state tree.”
In their latest annual report, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, reported over one hundred tree related fatalities in the United States last year. Most were from wind blown falls or accidents people had while climbing. Mine was going to be the first tree related death linked to tree trivia boredom.
I looked at the tree in front of me. It was a fine-looking tree, as far as trees go. Majestic seemed like a bit of a stretch.
“Maybe it says it on the sign,” Gary offered. By this point, he looked like he was shooting up espresso through an I.V., plugged directly into his veins. And whatever it was in his pocket, he was fiddling with it constantly.
I read the sign. “Maine,” I said. “It’s Maine’s state tree.”
“What are Maine’s initials?”
“I have no idea. Just write Maine.”
“I’m pretty sure we can only put down the abbreviation,” Gary said.
“Well, we wouldn’t want the tree trivia police to come and arrest us now, would we? Fine. I’ll Google it.” I googled it. “The letters M and E.”
“And we’re finished!” For some reason, Gary’s voice had gone a couple of octaves higher. I really thought maybe he was coming down with something.
“Here, maybe you should double-check my answers,” Gary said. He handed me the sheet.
“I’m sure they’re fine.” I began heading back down the path.
“I really think you should check them,” Gary said again. “In case I made a mistake.”
“I trust you.” I kept walking. As soon as we got back to the nature center, my plan was to throw the stupid trivia sheet in the trash anyway.
“Mary.”
I stopped and turned.
“Read back the answers on the sheet. Please.”
“Fine,” I grumbled. I looked down at the answers Gary had written. Apparently, it was a good thing that I was double-checking after all. “You forgot the O and the W at the end of the word willow,” I said. “You wrote will instead of willow , and then yew, Mary, and an M and an E. Hand me the pencil and I’ll fix it.”
When I looked back up, Gary was down on one knee. At first I thought his shoe was untied. Then I saw he was holding something. When I looked closer, I saw he was holding a ring.
“Read it back one more time,” said Gary.
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely see the words on the page.
1. Will
2. Yew
3. Mary
4. M.E.