The Antelope in the Living Room: The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life (5 page)

     
You are awesome in this place, Abba Father.

     
You are worthy of all praise.

     
To you our hands we raise.

     
You are awesome in this place, Mighty God.

After all the bad dating decisions I’d made over the years, the relationships that didn’t work out, the tears I’d cried, the enormous mistake of almost marrying the wrong person, I looked at Perry standing at the end of the aisle, waiting for me, and I’d never felt more sure that God had traded my ashes for beauty. And I wanted him to be exalted in that sanctuary because he had done this
 
—he had given me the incredible gift of a man who loved me for exactly who I was at age twenty-six. Which was significantly better than who I’d been at twenty-two but not nearly as stable as I hope I am
now. (With the exception of the days when PMS takes over and I have to pop Midol pills like they’re Skittles.)

When I was little, I used to watch
The Sound of Music
on TV every year like it was a religious event, because this was back in the day when we didn’t have VCRs or DVDs and could only watch our favorite movies one time a year during a very special network broadcast as if we were cave people. I regret to inform you that my sister and I used to anxiously await each year’s showing of
The Wizard of Oz
as well, and I would lay out an old yellow blanket on the floor of the living room and demand that she follow me around on her hands and knees so she could be Toto to my Dorothy. And occasionally bark.

It’s a wonder she still speaks to me. But in my defense, she was known to bite on occasion, so it wasn’t completely out of the ordinary to cast her as a dog.

But back to
The Sound of Music
. I’d watch it every year and swoon in all my little-girl swooniness over the scene where Maria walks down that long aisle to Captain von Trapp with her gorgeous train trailing behind her. I may have even wished I could have a chorus of nuns sing “How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?” even though that would have been a little awkward since my name isn’t Maria. So between that and the fact that I rose at dawn as a ten-year-old to watch Lady Diana Spencer marry Prince Charles in a cream puff of a dress, it’s safe to say I’d always dreamed of a dramatic walk down a long aisle.

Which was part of the reason I loved the Methodist church we chose for our wedding. The center aisle was incredibly long, and while we are normally fans of the nondenominational, more contemporary church service, you have to know that their modern folding chair configurations with no center aisle, some fake
greenery to hide the sound equipment, and an enormous set of drums behind a Plexiglass screen don’t lend themselves to dramatic wedding ceremony moments.

But as I walked down that long center aisle at noon on Saturday, August 16, 1997, no walk had ever felt so long. My legs were shaking, my cheeks hurt from smiling, and my eyes were on overload as I mind-over-mattered myself not to cry and ruin my eye makeup. It’s no wonder Princess Diana got Prince Charles’s name wrong during their vows; I could barely remember my own name by the time I got to the front of the church.

Yet there I was. Standing before God and everyone, taking Perry’s arm, and hearing my dad give my hand in marriage. The preacher began to speak, and all I could think about was how heavy my bouquet felt and that this was really happening. The next thing I knew, I was looking into Perry’s eyes as I heard the words, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

Which I believe is the wedding day equivalent to “Please fasten your seat belts. We are about to take off.”

CHAPTER 4

A
FEW YEARS AGO
I walked out on our back porch one evening to feed our dogs. When I moved the large can that holds the dog food, a small snake slithered out from under it. I ran back into the house screaming, “THERE’S A SNAKE! A SNAKE! A SNAKE ON THE PORCH!”

Perry looked up at me calmly from where he sat on the couch and asked, “What kind is it?”

Hi. Have we met?

In what realm of his imagination did he believe that I was going to see something that was clearly a reptile and stop to examine it more closely? I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I asked him before ending with, “It’s as if you don’t even know me.”

And that pretty much sums up marriage.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this book.

The end.

The day after our wedding, we’d “only just begun to live . . . ,” in the words of the Carpenters. And we’d also gotten a glimpse into how crazy each other’s families could be as we’d planned a wedding, made toasts, and experienced one domineering family friend order us to “CUT THE CAKE RIGHT NOW” because he was ready to go home but didn’t want to leave without his share of dessert since he’d bought us a ten-dollar wedding gift and had it coming. If the purchase of four napkin rings doesn’t earn you a piece of chocolate cake, then I don’t know what does.

We still had rice (or the more politically correct and environmentally friendly birdseed) in our hair from the day before, and our wedding rings were shiny and new with nary a scratch as we boarded a flight to the Bahamas for our honeymoon. I’d already been caught slightly off guard after the reception when we’d driven away in a darling vintage Rolls-Royce, waving good-bye to all our friends and family, and Perry asked the driver if he’d mind making a detour by our new town house because he’d forgotten to pack a bag to take to the hotel where we were staying that night.

The driver pulled up to our new home, and Perry ran inside while I waited in the car. (It seemed like the best option, considering I was still wearing a wedding gown and a veil and didn’t exactly blend into the surroundings.) And then I watched my beloved new husband come running back to the car carrying one of those plastic grocery sacks tied in a knot. I’m almost embarrassed to tell you what was in the bag.

A pair of boxer shorts and a toothbrush.

We were heading to a hotel room at four o’clock in the afternoon, my husband was wearing a tuxedo, and all he thought he
needed for the next twenty-four hours was a pair of boxer shorts and a toothbrush. He didn’t even attempt to pretend that maybe we’d go out to dinner.

God love him.

I guess that’s what happens when true love waits.

So the next morning, Perry made the walk of shame in his wrinkled rented tuxedo as we left the hotel in time to go back to the apartment and grab the suitcases we needed for our honeymoon trip before heading to the airport. But at least his teeth were brushed. And he had on a fresh pair of underwear.

We got settled into our seats, enjoying the fact that Perry’s godmother had managed to get us upgraded to first class, and I pulled out the large novel I’d bought specifically for the trip. Meanwhile, Perry pulled out two Cabela’s catalogs. He flipped through them while I opened my book and immediately became engrossed in the story.

(I wish I could remember what I was reading. It’s not really important, but it seems like I would know.)

(This is what fifteen years and the forties do to your mind. The old memory isn’t what she used to be. Along with many other things.)

(Had I known then how much would change, I would have worn my bikini on the plane. It was the last time I was ever that thin.)

After about five minutes, he put the Cabela’s catalogs in the seat-back pocket in front of him, turned to me, and said, “Well, I’ve finished those.” I put down my incredibly interesting (even though I can’t remember it now) book and asked, “Did you bring anything else to read?”

And he uttered words I’ll never forget: “No. I don’t really like to read.”

Oh, my word. I have married a stranger. Possibly an illiterate stranger.

How did I not know he didn’t like to read? We’d been together for two years. It seems like that would have come up. I guess I spent all my time being dazzled by his charm and his wit and how cute he looked in his jeans and boots.

So I put down my book because I was a new bride and felt the need to provide him with some sort of in-flight entertainment. We worked on the airline magazine crossword puzzle for a little bit and made a poor attempt at sudoku, because what in the world? You could give me from now until the edge of never and I couldn’t tell you how to fill in all those numbers. I know it’s supposed to be good for the brain, but not if it causes your brain to explode. That seems counterproductive.

We spent our honeymoon on the Exuma islands in the Bahamas. Perry chose it specifically because it is known for its bonefishing. I agreed to it because it involved sand and the ocean. And so I spent my days lying on the beach while Perry caught fish and topless Europeans ran over to examine his latest catch. (My retinas still haven’t recovered from all the freedom people felt to display what God gave them in spite of size and shape. They had body joy like I’ve never seen.) We ate lobster every night and drank rum punch and lived like kings. Kings who had to go back to reality in six days, but kings nonetheless.

After a few days we decided to rent snorkeling equipment so we could explore all the coral reefs that were practically right outside our hotel room. The first day, we swam out to a private plane that had crashed years before, where multitudes of rainbow-hued fish had since claimed the wreckage as home. We found huge conch shells, giant starfish, and all kinds of incredible things.

It was fun, but every time we got to the edge of the wreckage, we could see where the ocean dropped off and became that deep, dark blue. This was in the days before I had seen
Finding Nemo
1,842 times and knew what a terrible place the drop-off really is, but even so I knew it was eerie, and just thinking about it right now makes me want to curl up in the fetal position. Eventually a barracuda made his way to where we were swimming, and because we value our limbs, we decided to call it a day.

The next day we decided to stick closer to home. There was a big bay of water that had huge rock formations on either side, creating a cove. After spending the morning lying in the sun, we decided to put on our snorkeling equipment and swim out to a big coral reef we could see in the distance. We started swimming and soon realized it was farther away than it originally looked, so we stopped to tread water and discuss whether or not we were going to keep heading out.

About that time, a small boat appeared out of nowhere and pulled up next to us. The elderly man who was driving said, “You kids probably need to head back to the shore. There’s a twelve-foot hammerhead shark that’s been swimming around this cove all morning.”

Umm, yeah, you know those scenes in cartoons where the characters literally run on top of the water? That’s about what we looked like. Between that and the fact that he referred to us as “You kids,” it was like we were living in an episode of
Scooby-Doo
. We turned tail and swam like we’d never swum in our lives. And when we finally got to the edge of the water, we collapsed on the beach, panting for air. Then we looked out to wave our thanks to the man in the boat. But he was gone.

(Please insert a Duh Duh DUN sound here.)

I’m telling you, there is no way he could have gotten the boat out
of that cove by the time we swam to the shore. And as we strained our eyes to catch a glimpse of him in the distance, all we saw instead was a huge, shadowy figure about twelve feet long swimming right in front of the coral reef we had been heading toward.

I don’t know how many other times in my life I’ve been saved from certain peril by guardian angels, but I have no doubt that on that day in August of 1997, Perry and I were guided by an angel wearing an enormous fishing hat. Because everyone knows the best angels enjoy appropriate accessories. Gabriel might have been wearing a hat when he told Mary she was with child.

I’m just glad neither of us was eaten by a shark on our honeymoon because DOWNER. I realize that every year during Shark Week on the Discovery Channel some professor of sharkology will say that most of the time a shark isn’t interested in eating you
 
—it’s just tasting you. Oh yeah? Tell that to the girl who used to have a left leg. Something tells me she doesn’t find solace in the fact that the shark was just confirming she wasn’t a wounded seal. Sharks have sharp teeth and will EAT YOU ALIVE if given the chance. I firmly believe this to be true no matter what the “experts” try to make us believe. Don’t try to tell me a shark has “feelings.” All it feels is HUNGER.

We made it home from our honeymoon with all limbs intact and agreed that we were ready to settle into our little town house, unpack our wedding gifts, and get ready to resume real life as grown-up married people. Even though neither of us had any idea what that looked like.

Two days after we returned from our honeymoon, Princess Diana was killed in that tragic car accident in Paris, and Perry made the
unfortunate discovery that I possess a remarkable ability to sit in front of the TV for a week straight and cry for someone I don’t even know. By the time the actual funeral procession was broadcast, I think he was ready to stage an intervention. Perhaps the tipping point was when I suggested maybe we could go get Harry and Wills and raise them as our own.

I just wasn’t sure Prince Charles was going to be able to raise them with the warmth and tenderness that Diana would have wanted. Although it now appears he did a lovely job, for no other reason than the fact that Prince William chose the lovely Kate Middleton as his bride. I’m slightly obsessed with her, too, but that’s material for an entirely different book. A book that might put me on some sort of watch list in the UK. Let’s just say she has now joined a prestigious list that includes Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Aniston, and Connie Britton, which I refer to as the Celebrities Who Would Be My Best Friend if We Ever Met list.

Anyway, eventually all the media coverage on Princess Diana settled down, and I began to focus on more important matters, like getting out of my bathrobe and cooking dinner and doing laundry and not crying. Because apparently I equated marriage to time traveling back to June Cleaver’s house, even though the only set of pearls I owned were fake ones I’d bought at Stein Mart and we had wood floors so I couldn’t have vacuumed them even if I’d been so inclined.

I was eager to use all my new cookware and serve dinner on our new dishes set neatly on our new place mats. I’d received several cookbooks at various showers and spent the evenings poring over them, dog-earing pages for things that sounded good. I went grocery shopping and bought things like saffron and paprika. I’d never felt more like a grown-up in my whole life.

And for the most part, the cooking went really well. With the
exception of the night I made bite-size quiches and tried to pass them off as a main dish. I don’t know why I didn’t realize how tiny they were going to be, given the size of the muffin tins I baked them in, but I knew I was in trouble the minute I pulled them out of the oven. Perry isn’t the type of guy who would consider a full-size quiche consisting merely of spinach and eggs to be a real meal under the best of circumstances, much less a plate full of twelve tiny quiches that I placed in a circle around the perimeter like they were about to perform in some sort of mini-quiche rodeo.

Then there was the night my sister, Amy, was visiting and I decided to show off and make jambalaya. Which was all good and fine, until it almost killed Perry.

We were sitting around the table, enjoying our dinner and visiting, when it became clear he was choking. Pretty much only because he was giving us the international sign for choking. Apparently, a round slice of sausage had gotten caught in his throat. It was approximately thirty seconds later that my sister and I made the unfortunate discovery that neither one of us possessed an adequate working knowledge of the Heimlich maneuver.