Eventually most kids—especially girls I would think—ask Mom and Dad some questions. How did you two meet? What was your first date? And how did Daddy propose?
Clare hasn’t asked yet, but I’m going to tell you anyway. You’ll figure out why I'm telling the story today.
The answers are: Sometime in 1982…maybe…or 83 or 84. Couldn’t tell you. And it’s a long story. (And I do mean long, so grab a drink first.)
Clare’s Mom and I went to high school together. It was a regional Catholic high school, we came from different towns, and had a class of about two hundred fifty students, so we didn’t know everybody—at least not right away.
I think that she and I had English together Freshman year, but she doesn’t remember that. We know that we had the same teacher, but he had two classes at our level. By junior year though, we knew everyone in our classes and Clare’s Mom and I sat together at lunch occasionally. She was drawn to my charming personality, sharp sense of humor, and dashing good looks (yeah right…trust me when I say I wasn’t very good looking in high school…I had glasses and acne and weighed about 110 pounds). I was drawn to her because she gave me cupcakes and laughed at my jokes. She has beautiful eyes and a great smile too, but I’m not sure when I first noticed those.
After high school, we went to different colleges—she in Vermont and me in Massachusetts. We kept in touch and would sometimes get together when we were back in Connecticut over school breaks, usually going out with another friend or two. I’m sure that it was just the two of us going out to a movie a few times, but I never really considered it a date.
When I moved to Manhattan for grad school at Columbia, we still kept in touch. And when I moved into an apartment of my own, I invited her down many times. She’d send care packages for holidays or my birthday, and when she’d visit she'd bring a bag of bottles she bought at cheaper Connecticut liquor stores. We’d have rum and Cokes, frozen margaritas made in an old 60s blender that I took from home, and gin and tonics in the summer. I’d usually invite friends over and then we’d go out with them until about 4 am.
With the encouragement of a friend and a few drinks, I got up the nerve to kiss her in a bar one night.
Somewhere along the line, I had fallen in love.
I remember a cab ride from the lower east side to the upper west early one morning when I told a friend of mine that I was going to marry Clare’s Mom (who, of course, wasn’t Clare’s Mom yet). He was a few years older and was still waiting to meet the girl he’d eventually marry. He asked how I knew she was the one. I told him it was because I couldn’t ever imagine spending my life with anybody else. When life was great or I had a funny story to share, she was the one I wanted to be with. When life was bad, she was the one who would stick by me and make me smile. She still does.
In my last year of law school at Fordham, I invited her down for the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day. On March 14, 1997, we went to a school party at a bar called Indigo and, sometime during the night, I asked her to marry me. I don’t even remember if I had planned it out or not.
According to Clare’s Mom, I had asked her to marry me a few times before this. That may be true, but this time I was serious. I even encouraged her to apply for a job in Manhattan and move down—which she did. Thanks to the help of my doorman, she got an apartment in my building. We lived in studio apartments three floors away from each other—her in 10E and me in 14E (there’s no 13 in many Manhattan apartment buildings).
Being a poor student looking at student loans that we’re still paying, I couldn’t afford any ring that didn’t come out of a gumball machine or a Cracker Jack box. Even going into law, I knew that I didn’t want to work at any big firm—I had interned with a judge and with an organization of lawyers that volunteered their time to help artists. My first job was with a small-time entertainment lawyer who couldn’t pay well, and I also knew that I eventually wanted to go back to work in theater. My mother knew my predicament and offered a family ring.
It wasn’t until going back to Connecticut for Memorial Day weekend that I got the ring. It had to be cleaned and polished, so I didn’t want to give it to Clare’s Mom yet. I also thought that I’d have to leave the ring somewhere for it be cleaned well. Stupidly though, I told Clare’s Mom that I had it, but wasn’t going to give it to her yet. Romantic, isn’t it?
Then, after getting the ring cleaned at a jewelers (which took just a few minutes), I officially proposed on June 7, 1997. One year later, and two months before our wedding day, I gave her this poem:
Three days before St. Patrick’s
At Fordham’s Indigo arrangement
Could have been the day
We remember our engagement.
Or one day past Memorial
On May the twenty-seventh,
If I’d known the ring could polish
In just a couple seconds.
Instead we got another day
And that one topped by none—
It’s one day after D-Day
Because we are D plus one.
How did I know she was the one? Because I couldn’t ever imagine spending my life with anybody else.
I still can’t. Happy Anniversary, Clare’s Mom. I love you.
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