This is one of those stories that requires a substantial prologue. So here it goes;
Growing up, my family wasn't big on the traditional holiday experience. I don't mean this in a judgmental way, in terms of bad or good - they just weren't. Specifically, I don't ever remember a time when I actually believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. That illusion was just never perpetuated in my household. The one symbol of yuletide jubilee that we did tolerate - the Christmas tree - became nomore as we started spending the holidays in south Florida when I was a teenager. Most of my birthdays consisted of a drive into town so I could pick out something from the mall.
I went to high school out of state. I went home during the holidays of my freshman and sophomore years, but after that? I just mostly hung out at school.
Even now, with my family scattered between the west, midwest, southeast and western Europe, I usually just take the holidays as an opportunity to hole up and relax.
And now on to the story.....
I spent most of the year 2001 doing some contract work for pharmaceutical company. As far as the nature of the work went, it was pretty mindless for me. Even then, I just wasn't well-suited for rush hour commutes, cubicles and performance reviews. Just not my thing.
But there was one thing that I DID like - the company softball team.
Now, I wasn't technically an employee of the company, but considering that 90% of the people who worked there made Stephen Hawking look like Mark McGwire, they made an exception for me.
It was pretty much a beer league - not very competitive by any measure. But it was coed.
And that's where I met Leah.
At the time, I was working exclusively in HR while she worked in Research. So the only time we ever crossed paths was on the softball field. It was hard for me to get a bead on her. The contrast between her jet black hair against her pale pale skin made it hard to tell if she was Snow White or Meg White. But that was kind of my thing at the time. I was a fool for the goth chicks (which sucked for me since I was about as attractive to goth chicks as a Touched By An Angel marathon).
And she just worked me. I'd catch her eyeing me from across the infield as she played second and I played third. She'd stretch out right in front of me before our games. She'd sit just far enough away from me on the bench. And she'd brush by me to grab a beer at the bar afterwards.
But she never approached me. She never came on to me. She never dropped a clue.
She made me work for it.
And right around the start of the playoffs, she finally broke me. She completely wrecked me.
I asked her out. She said yes.
Things went well, to say the least. Given the nature of my job at the time, we had to keep things on the down-low at work, but I think that only served to add to the intensity of out relationship. The simply act of passing her in the hall turned into... I don't know. It was something else. She just had a way.....
So this goes on for a few months. Through September. Through October. Through November.
Then came December.
Were were laying in her bed when she asked me to spend Christmas with her at her folks house outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. I don't think we had talked about my predisposition for non-traditional holidays, but it seemed like she knew in advance how to sell it - we'd just spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day at her parents house, then we'd spend a few days at Greenbriar all by ourselves. No big deal, right? Besides, I didn't have any other plans.
So we went.
Looking back at it now, she spent the whole drive down there preparing me for what was going to happen - her parents were kind of old-fashioned so I was going to sleep in her brother's old room, there will probably be some of her aunts & uncles there too, she was the only daughter so her brothers were probably going to give me a hard time (but they mean well), etc.
So I should have seen it coming.
What I pictured was something out of a suburban Addams Family, but what I got was something more out of a de-pigmented Cosby Show.
I spent the morning of Christmas Eve playing "flag" football with her brothers, cousins & uncles. Well, not so much "flag football" as it was "throw the ball to Assclown then let everybody pile on top of him". But it was kind of a blast. I got my ass beat, but I was a good-natured ass-beating. After we showered and changed, Leah and I ran into town real quick to do some last minute shopping for a few of her cousins that she didn't know were going to be there. We were looking through the boys clothing at the Abercrombie & Fitch when she took me by the hand, led me to a corner in the back, pushed me against the wall and put her right hand over my mouth.
"I'm going to tell you something, and you're not going to say a word in return, ok? You're just going to listen and shut up about it, right?" she said.
Before I could even nod out a yes, she told me that she loved me.
I started to say something......... but she raised her eyebrows, muffled my words with her hand and led me back into the store.
When we got back to the house, there were even more family there. Grandparents and nieces and Aunts and in-laws. And I had to be introduced to every single one. What did I do? How did Leah and I meet? Where do my parents live? Did I go to UVa? Etc, etc, etc.
I spent most of the night catching glimpses of her as the swinging butlers door opened and closed. A half second of her licking a mixing spoon. A momentary glimpse of her whispering in her mother's ear. A flutter of her looking towards me.
We sat next to each other at dinner. We held hands under the table as her father said grace, giving thanks for the blessings of his friends and family. About 20 minutes into the meal, he father gives me a smile and says, "Soooo, Leah tells me that you're a consultant. How does that work - do you just go from company to company, doing your thing until a better offer comes around?"
She shook her head in his direction, but I answered the question he was really asking. I hoped he took comfort in my answer.
We went to the candlelight service at their church, then came back to put the younger kids to sleep and go downstairs to just have a few drinks.
Or so I thought.
Until her aunt busts out the karaoke machine. It was worse than I could have possibly imagined. Her goateed uncle sang Bad to the Bone. Her Dad sang Luck Be a Lady. My heart stopped as Leah sang Killing Me Softly. Her mom wanted to a duet with her father, but he was too tired to get up from his chair. So she drug me up to the microphone and we sang Baby, Its Cold Outside.
It was about as Norman Rockwellian of a moment as I've ever experienced.
And I spent the entire two days alternating between sheer bliss and unbridled fear.
I waited two weeks after we got back to break up with her.
I just don't know if I could be that person. Certainly not then. And maybe it's too late for me now.
