The Antelope in the Living Room: The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life (3 page)

Needless to say, I stood out in this land of Geritol, and they were fascinated with me. There were nights I would go out and arrive home long after the ungodly hour of ten thirty. Perry would walk me to my door, past all the clotheslines hung with large girdles, and we would see thirty-two sets of miniblinds throughout the courtyard pop open as they watched the only entertainment they considered better than
Walker, Texas Ranger
.

Lee Vernon was the neighbor I knew the best. Mainly because I had to walk past her apartment every time I went to my car, and she spent most of the day sitting in a lawn chair right outside the door with her oxygen tank and her Chihuahua named Penny. Within two days of my move into the complex, she knew
everything about me and, most important, everything about Perry. I suspect she had some sort of CIA connections, based on the amount of information she was able to gather about us in such a short amount of time.

I soon learned she was the eyes and ears of Village Oaks. She knew everything about everyone and would tell you about it whether you wanted to know or not. It became part of my after-work ritual to stop by Lee’s apartment and catch up on the latest gossip, which usually included juicy information about whose Social Security check had yet to arrive in the mail or who the Bradford widow was trying to seduce. I determined the main reason she always sat outside in her lawn chair was to ensure she didn’t miss anything. It was reminiscent of how the paparazzi camp out whenever there’s a chance they might spot Britney walking barefoot out of a 7-Eleven or Kim Kardashian buying diapers for baby North (make it stop), except she was waiting to see if Dorothy Nowacek and Evelyn Moore were going to get into a fight over eminent clothesline domain.

Lee was the first person to find out Perry and I were engaged. He proposed to me in my apartment, and as we left for dinner, we shared the news. By the time we returned, everyone in the complex had heard about our newly engaged status and celebrated by staying up late to watch
Murder, She Wrote
while intermittently peeking through their miniblinds to see how late he’d stay at my apartment.

Since my parents lived out of town, and since I wanted to see if I could make five hundred square feet seem even more claustrophobic by packing the place with silver gift-wrapped boxes filled with breakable items, I arranged for all our wedding gifts to be delivered to my apartment. Every day when I’d return home, there
was a porch full of boxes waiting for me. I’d carry them into my apartment while being careful not to trip over the punch bowl set with matching cups that I was using as a doorstop. (Incidentally, that was the last time it was used for anything.)

Lee appointed herself watchdog of all my delivered gifts. She had a clear view of my second-floor apartment from her lawn chair and kept lookout all day to make sure one of her fellow senior residents didn’t try to make off with a shiny new toaster oven, because everyone knows those octogenarians love nothing more than some toast.

One day I had to work late and then I met some friends for dinner, so I didn’t get home until after midnight. When I walked up the steps to my apartment, I was relieved to see I didn’t have any packages to be hauled in. I fell into bed and slept until the shrill ringing of the phone woke me at 6:00 a.m.

Reaching past the boxes of new towels, I grabbed the phone and sleepily said, “Hello?”

The raspy voice on the other end said, “Honey, it’s Lee. I got worried when you weren’t home at your usual time last night, so I picked up all the packages that got delivered yesterday and brought them down to my place. You know these people around here won’t hesitate to steal something.”

Yes, I have no doubt I was living in an apartment complex that served merely as a front for an elderly crime ring specializing in pawning stolen wedding gifts to pay for their denture cream and support-hose habit.

Lee continued, “Honey, you can come down here and get these gifts whenever you want. I’ll be here all day.”

I had no reason to doubt the validity of her statement, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. When I finally woke up around
10:00 a.m., I threw on some clothes and went to retrieve the gifts. I walked down the stairs, marveling that she’d managed to make it up to my apartment, collect the gifts, and get them back to her place
 
—all while toting her oxygen tank. It made me shudder to think about what a precarious journey it must have been.

Lee was stationed outside her front door as usual, but she stood when she saw me coming and led me inside to get the packages. There were about three or four things sitting in her living room. As I picked them up to carry them upstairs, she told me I’d need to come back down because there was one more gift in her refrigerator.

Her refrigerator? Did someone send me a ham? Did Perry register for a selection of Hickory Farms smoked meats when I wasn’t looking? I walked back down to her place, and she brought the box out of the refrigerator. Sure enough, it was a big cardboard box with the words “Refrigerate immediately” stamped all over it. I couldn’t imagine what was in there.

I thanked Lee for taking care of my gifts and then ran upstairs with the package because the curiosity was killing me. Normally I waited until Perry and I were together to open a present (or at least that’s what I told him, but in my defense, he really didn’t show the enthusiasm I was looking for whenever we received another crystal vase or a set of steak knives), but I couldn’t wait to see what this was, not to mention there was no way the whole thing would fit inside my refrigerator.

As I delicately ripped open the box, I continued to speculate about what might be inside. Maybe some bacon? Imported caviar? The first installment in a membership to a cheese-of-the-month club? (Please God, let it be a membership to a cheese-of-the-month club.) I pulled out the tissue paper to reveal a perfectly refrigerated wooden salad bowl with matching tongs.

Apparently someone had packed and mailed their gift using whatever box they had on hand. Thanks to Lee, our new wooden bowl had remained perfectly chilled all night long.

Bless it.

I’d finally found someone as enthusiastic about our wedding gifts as I was and vowed that when the time came for Perry and me to pour the first drinks from our new crystal decanter, we would make a special toast to Lee. Unfortunately, we didn’t receive a crystal decanter, so the only toast we ended up making was the kind we could make in our shiny new toaster oven.

Which really worked out, because I believe that bread covered in butter and grape jelly is actually more festive than whiskey anyway.

CHAPTER 2

I
FEEL LIKE
I
SHOULD BACK UP.
Because at least two of you might be wondering how Perry and I ended up together.

But first I need you to know that I spent most of my teens and early twenties with an approach to dating that resembled playing a competitive sport. I could have won a silver medal for my flirting abilities and taken the gold for my skills in pursuing the absolutely wrong guy.

And I would have taken last place in protecting my heart. Because I spent a lot of time being in love with the idea of love and not putting nearly enough thought into whether or not the object of my affection was worth it.

It didn’t help matters that Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsen from
Grease
influenced most of my thoughts on love and relationships
during my formative childhood years. I mean, is there a worse example of changing who you are to make someone love you? Even if the whole thing is done to incredibly catchy songs, you have to know it probably isn’t going to work out long term.

But I loved the drama of it all. The red Candie’s shoes. The tight black leather pants. The fun house. And, mostly, the chance to say, “Tell me about it, Stud” while dramatically putting out a cigarette with the toe of my shoe.

And then as I grew older, more mature, I decided I wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara. Because that’s healthy.

Scarlett and Rhett had passion and fireworks. They ran hot and cold. And they were completely and totally dysfunctional. She wanted him only when she realized she couldn’t have him. And I did my best to follow her example for many years. I realize it’s probably shocking to learn this just managed to create a lot of heartache for all involved parties.

A big part of the problem was that I had no idea who I was or what I wanted out of life. Or maybe it was that I knew those things but was too insecure to admit them.

During my sophomore year of college, I sat next to a girl who eventually became one of my dearest friends and asked her what she was majoring in. She answered, “Sports management, but all I really want to do is be a wife and a mother.” I was shocked that she actually said it out loud. It’s one thing to think it, but on the outside, weren’t we supposed to act like we aspired to be important businesswomen who speak Japanese and wear suits? Or was that just me?

On the inside, all I really wanted to be was a wife and a mother. Which is great. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a wife and a mother, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be an
important businesswoman who wears business suits and speaks Japanese, although you should know that Japanese is an extremely hard language to learn and you might possibly make a D in your second semester. And for the love of cherry trees, or
sakura
, as they call them in Japanese, they have three separate alphabets. Or maybe that’s just what they tell naive girls from Texas to see if they’ll actually believe it.

(To this day the only tangible thing I got from struggling through two semesters of Japanese is to understand that “
Domo arigato
, Mr. Roboto” translates to “Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto.)

(I’d say that was tuition money well spent.)

The problem was that I was looking for a man to complete me. It was all very Jerry Maguire-ish before
Jerry Maguire
ever came out, and we’d all be better off if we leaned more toward
Bridget Jones’s Diary
and found someone to love us “just as you are.” I was filled with fear and insecurity about what was waiting for me in the real world, and I thought if I could skip over that whole single-career-girl thing and get straight to the house and the minivan and the 2.5 kids, then life would be a lot better. I would be complete and whole and secure. The problem was that I wasn’t seeking God in any of this, which led to a series of bad decisions, including a messy broken engagement.

Because here’s the thing: I was a bit of an emotional, insecure wreck, and marriage wasn’t going to change that. After sixteen years of being married, I can safely say that marriage tends to amplify whatever junk is in your life, because you have someone who may or may not point it out to you and call you on it, but you have to love them anyway because you’ve pledged to be bound to them until death do you part. Plus, hypothetically speaking, you may have a child who looks just like that person and yells out, “See
ya later, losers!” when you drive by a line of cars stuck in traffic, which is God’s way of helping you remember why you fell in love with him in the first place.

At some point, I found myself at the bottom of my pile of issues and disappointments and began to realize that only God could heal me and make me feel whole. So I let him. It was a gradual process, but I just kept letting go and then letting go some more. Ultimately, when God brought Perry into my life, it was just as a good friend.

We met through Breakaway Bible study at Texas A&M. Perry hosted a small prayer group in his apartment, and my friend Jen dragged me there one night because she knew I was at a point where I desperately needed to be surrounded by good influences. After my broken engagement a few months earlier, I was raw and hurting and broken.

When I walked in the door that evening, feeling shy and insecure, Jen introduced me to Perry. He was sitting in the corner of the living room, wearing the equivalent of Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses, yet they weren’t sunglasses because they had clear frames. As he began to explain the purpose of the meeting to me in intricate detail, I just nodded at him, trying to figure out why anyone would wear glasses that looked like sunglasses yet provided no protection from dangerous UV rays. It was a mystery that turned out to be a result of his lack of interest in going to the optometrist.

Since we’d just met, I had no idea that the detailed explanation was part of his charm. To this day, he loves nothing more than to lecture on a variety of topics. A few of his more classic offerings are “Why You Should Always Lock the Back Door,” “Tools
Should Never Be Left Out on the Back Table,” and my personal favorite, “The Importance of Turning the Closet Doorknob the Right Way.” They never get old. And by never getting old, I mean that if I have to hear them one more time, I may pack my bags and move into a hotel for the weekend. Or a year.

Anyway, there was something about Perry that intrigued me. He was different from other guys I’d met
 
—more sure of himself or something. And he had a heart for God that I hadn’t seen in many other guys. It’s shocking the things I don’t remember from college, but I remember every minute of that first meeting. I remember what he said and what he prayed, and looking back, I think that was God’s gift to me because he knew this man was going to be my husband and these were things I’d want to remember.

We both left Texas A&M a couple of months later as acquaintances. He moved back home to San Antonio, and I moved in with my parents in Houston while I looked for a job. And the job I eventually found landed me in San Antonio. It was a sales job helping people invest their retirement benefits in a variety of mutual funds, and I feel like now is a good time to apologize to anyone who was a victim of my lack of expertise. Nothing like a girl who failed Personal Finance 301 in college to help you plan your financial future.

After a few lonely months in San Antonio, I called my friend Gregg, who had been the leader for Breakaway. He listened to me as I cried about how miserable I was in this new city where I knew no one, and he reminded me that Perry Shankle had also ended up here.

And so, in an act of social desperation, I called Perry. We made plans to meet at a local restaurant later that week. When I told my best friend, Gulley, I was going to meet a friend, her initial
response was to exclaim that I didn’t have any friends in San Antonio. Then, after I filled her in on who it was, she said, “I can see it now. Mrs. Perry Shankle.”

I replied, “Umm. I don’t think so. He’s not my type.”

Prophecy has never been one of my gifts.

The truth was he intimidated me a little. He was so good and strong and just seemed like more than I deserved. God probably had a good girl all picked out for him. A girl who did things like sing in the church choir and play Putt-Putt golf.

But against all odds, we became best friends over the next several months, which was exactly what I needed. I wasn’t trying to impress or be something I wasn’t
 
—I was just me. And Perry liked me for me, not because I tried to transform myself into some version of what I thought he wanted. Which is a good thing because sixteen years would be a long time to keep up that kind of charade and might also require me to get up and go hunting at 5:00 a.m. in the freezing cold.

I still had moments when I felt like maybe he was too churchy or spiritual for me, but then there came a day when all my fears were relieved. He’d driven me down to his family’s ranch to spend the day, and we were in his Ford Bronco crossing a pasture, when all of a sudden a huge group of wild hogs went running across the road. And Perry loudly exclaimed about the size of the male anatomy of one of the hogs in graphic detail. I’ll spare you the exact words because I think it might cause controversy, but suffice it to say it sealed my love for him in some weird, inexplicable way. He became real and a little salty
 
—two qualities of which I’m a big fan.

And so after months of friendship and just genuinely falling in deep like and eventually love, we had the DTR talk. Otherwise known as Defining the Relationship.

I was ready because God had brought me to a place where my security and worth were found in him. Perry didn’t complete me. He complemented me and made life more fun, but I didn’t have that same sense of desperation I’d had for so long. (Although there were still times I could fall back into old patterns. I don’t want you to get the impression I’d conquered it once and for all. Old habits die hard and all that.)

I’m not one to offer advice, because that requires, you know, wisdom on a particular subject. And I was no poster child for how to really live a great single life. But here’s what I learned along the way.

Someone can look great on paper; your friends may love him; he may have the best job, a cool car, and not wear jean shorts
 
—but that doesn’t mean he’s the one. (I really did have a list of qualities I wanted in a husband written out in one of my many journals and
no jean shorts
was number four on the list along with number six,
must know how to dance
. And number eight,
he cannot have a mustache
.)

(So I essentially ruled out being married to Kid Rock.)

And while all those shallow qualities I listed on paper are obviously essential to finding someone who is socially competent and well groomed, what you really need is someone you’d want next to you in battle, someone who can make you laugh even in the tough times, someone who will encourage you to be the best that you can be. Because, apparently, marriage is like being in the army.

I think it can be easy to settle for less than you deserve just because less is right in front of you and the best may still be unseen. But I guarantee there are many women in marriages who are so lonely that they long for their single days when at least they had the hope of finding someone who would understand them, love them, and care for them.

Looking back now, I can see that being single gives you the freedom to do whatever it is you want to do without having to answer to anyone else. If I could change anything, I wish I would have embraced it more instead of wishing it away. When it’s all said and done, it seems like a mere blip on the radar of life, and it’s hard to imagine a time when the most romantic thing in your day didn’t involve someone telling you they don’t mind eating leftover chili for the second night in a row. I’m not kidding. I adore a man who is willing to eat leftovers two nights in a row.

And you know what I realize now? That we’re all waiting on something, no matter where we are in life. It’s the human condition. Being married and having kids is wonderful, but I guarantee that every person who is reading this has some secret desire in their heart that they would like to see fulfilled. I have so many things in my life to be thankful for, but there are other things that I dream about and hope for, and honestly, I don’t know if those things will ever come to pass or not.