Feels Like the First Time (26 page)

Everything was exactly the same once we passed the office. We made it to the top of the hill and curved to the right. The cemetery stretched out before us. This was our sacred ground–the site of the best moments of our lives. I coasted to the bottom of the cemetery and parked in our spot.

I looked at Dawn.

“Can you believe we used to have the nerve to come here and get naked together?”

“We were young.”

“Yeah.”

“Adventurous.”

“Yeah.”

“Horny.”

I laughed, lifted my eyebrows, and shot her a look.

“Not on your life, Patrick Shawn Inmon. I am not a teenager anymore. I’m not that flexible either.”

I sighed with mocking exaggeration. I was kind of glad she shut me down because I don’t think my back would have withstood that. I smiled and felt wondrously happy to be sitting in this spot with my girl. In all our years apart, I never let myself dream of a day this good.

The CD player started to play Warren Zevon’s career coda,
Keep Me In Your Heart,
and the funniest thing happened. Raindrops began to gather on our windshield and I felt the moment overwhelming me. I hopped out of the car and scrambled over to Dawn’s side. Unlike the first time I did this, I didn’t let a little mud stop me from doing it right. I got down on one knee in the grass. Dawn was smiling easily, confident that I was joking around.

But I wasn’t joking. I was less prepared than the first time I asked her to marry me. I didn’t even have a ring. I was broke and my career was in the toilet. I was a worse marriage prospect than I was back in ‘78. But I didn’t care. I did have one thing: the certainty that Dawn was the one I was supposed to be with forever.

I took her hand and looked deeply into her eyes.

“Dawn Adele, I have always loved you. I will always love you. Will you marry me?”

Her smile faltered as her eyes grew wide. She finally understood I was completely serious. She seemed to consider her options for about a second and a half. It felt like a lifetime. She reached out and ran her fingertips across my cheek.

“Yes, Shawn. I will marry you.” It was the second time I heard her say those words.

It began to rain harder. As I leaned in to kiss her, rainwater ran off the roof of the car and down my neck. It felt wonderful. I met her eyes and smiled a smile that started at my toes. Another weight–another lifetime uncertainty–was lifted away. I felt as happy as a kid on the last day of school. A lifetime of possibilities opened in front of me.

“Shawn.”

“Yes, baby?”

“You’re getting wet.”

“Don’t care.”

At that moment, I didn’t care about that or anything else in the world. In ninety days I had gone from an inch-by-inch death to feeling more optimistic and content than ever.

There was another parallel between the first time I asked Dawn to marry me and this time around. We still had a few hurdles to jump, just as we had in 1978. Adinah and I had agreed on how everything would proceed with our divorce. I agreed to pay the cost of the proceedings, but I didn’t have the money yet. Also, Dawn hadn’t so much as spoken to Rick in five years, and I knew that the prospect of negotiating the end of their marriage filled her with anxiety. What’s more, I was sure we would have to pay for that too.

There was also the question of the wedding. We had three options: elope; have a small backyard family wedding, or throw a full bash with 150 of our closest friends. We immediately scratched off the eloping. We couldn’t conceive of making this commitment without our daughters there.

Ultimately, we decided to have the full wedding on a budget. The only downside was that we had no idea how we would pay for it. Dawn wanted an autumn wedding, so to give us a little more time to get our divorces settled and raise some money, we set our date for October, 2010. It was more than a year in advance.
 

In late September 2009, I looked at the calendar and saw an opportunity. October 16
^th
would be exactly one year before our wedding day, and it fell on a Friday. I dubbed this our
pre
-
versary
and scheduled a celebration. I got a great rate on a room at Hyatt Place in downtown Seattle.

I had lived in Seattle from 1978 through 1985, and spent much of that time wandering through the city, thinking of Dawn. I wanted to erase those sad memories once and for all. I had a feeling that Dawn had never seen the city through my eyes.

Early on the morning of the 16
^th
, I texted Dawn in Chehalis and told her to hurry up so we could start our adventure.

It was afternoon by the time we got to Seattle, and we were able to check into our room at Hyatt Place. We walked into the elegant lobby feeling like teenagers who had ditched our chaperones. Our room was on the 20
^th
floor and had a view of the Seattle skyline.

While Dawn was in the bathroom getting unpacked, I opened my suitcase and took out the dozen roses I had bought that morning.

I quickly arranged the roses, and hustled around the room laying out votive candles in little candle holders. I unpacked my iPod and started the playlist I made just for the trip. This was romance on a budget. When Dawn emerged from the bathroom, she was surprised by my preparations and agreed that my pre-versary idea was alright after all.

I was thrilled to find that Laserium was still around, just as it was when we tried to go in ’78. That meant I could finally fulfill my promise to take Dawn.
We left the Hyatt and walked across the street to Westlake Center to catch the monorail to the Seattle Center. On our way to the monorail station, we wandered into a funky little clothing store where I saw a patchwork hoody jacket emblazoned with peace signs. Dawn’s fashion sense leaned toward ‘70s casual, so I asked her to try it on. The sleeves dangled past her fingers. It was adorable on her, so I bought it for her while she continued to browse.

We boarded the monorail, which was built for the 1962 World’s Fair, just like Seattle Center. Two minutes later, we got off at the base of the Space Needle and walked to the Pacific Science Center. I purchased two tickets to see
Laser Floyd
and saw that we were first in line. We would get our choice of places on the floor to lay and watch the show. When I was young, I thought that only old people sat in the seats. Now that I was one of those old people, there was no way I wasn’t going to lie flat on my back.

The planetarium had aged pretty well. The carpet was a little worn, but it looked almost exactly like I remembered it from thirty years before. The lights dimmed just after we lay down, and Pink Floyd’s
Dark Side of the Moon
began. Dawn rested her head on my chest.

I’ve heard
Dark Side of the Moon
from start to finish hundreds of times. I know every word, every musical flourish, and every odd sound effect. I believed I had sucked all the musical marrow from that bone. But lying there with Dawn next to me, I was overcome with emotion. When Clare Torry unleashed her otherworldly banshee wail on
The Great Gig in the Sky,
I felt lifted up out of my body toward the laser images on the ceiling. I have never done drugs, but I managed my own little trip that night. I was drained when the show was over. I also felt like we had somehow connected another circle we left open thirty years ago.

I finally had a nice little spurt of real estate activity in the first quarter of 2010. These bursts were few and far between. I knew this might be the only one I would get before our wedding, so I had to make every dollar count.

The first thing I did was begin looking for a ring. I began haunting Craigslist in search of the perfect ring. After several weeks of checking every few hours, I found what I thought was the perfect ring. I showed Dawn the listing to see what she thought. As soon as I saw the expression on her face, I knew it was the ring for us.
It was going to be hard to surprise her with the ring after showing it to her, but I did my best. I told her the ring had already been sold. That was true, it had been sold–to me.

With the wedding rings finally in hand, I set about planning a surprise for Dawn Adele. I asked her to get Valentine’s Day weekend off. Since our forced separation had happened on Valentine’s Day weekend, I told her I wanted to celebrate our first one back together in style. In truth, I had more than that planned. Ever since my impromptu proposal at Doss Cemetery in September I had wanted to ask her again in a more formal setting. My budget was a concern, but thanks to Priceline and Groupon, I was able to put everything together.

Once again, I got a great price on a beautiful room. This time it was the Grand Hyatt in downtown Seattle. I knew that the Grand Hyatt was right next to one of my favorite restaurants, Ruth’s Chris Steak House. The final piece fell into place when I got a Groupon for a half-price helicopter tour of Seattle.

We got to the Grand Hyatt early on the afternoon of February 13
^th
. When I told the very sweet girl at the check-in counter what I was planning to do that night, she tapped a few keys.

“In that case, I would like to do something special for you. Let me see what I’ve got available.” Moments later she said smiled at me, handed me a key card and said, “I think you’ll be very happy with this room.”

She was right. For the price of a rock-bottom Internet bid, she upgraded us to a full suite, with a kitchen, dining room, huge master bedroom, and a gorgeous marble bathroom. Who says romance is dead? I hadn’t told Dawn we were getting a suite like this, because I didn’t know. When I opened the door to our suite, Dawn’s eyebrows shot up.

“Is this really our room?”

I acted as if this had been the plan all along, and we took a tour of what would be our home for the next 24 hours. There were huge windows looking out on the Seattle skyline and the Space Needle. Everything in the suite was incredible. There were elegant furnishings, a flat-screen TV, and a beautiful kitchenette with granite countertops. It was bigger than my first two apartments put together. We didn’t have too much time to enjoy it, because I had scheduled a helicopter ride over the city.

We drove through downtown and along Boeing Field to the Seattle Helitours building. Dawn questioned me more and more as we cut through the industrial section of town. I wouldn’t answer her, which drove her crazy.

We got to Seattle Helitours and I finally broke down and told her my plan. I was a little nervous about whether she would want to go, since she’s afraid of heights. But she smiled and said she couldn’t wait.

Seattle Helitours used classic helicopters. Ours was old, but it was cool looking. The pilot was a great tour guide. We flew over Lake Washington, the Ballard Locks, and circled the Space Needle. We even buzzed Bill Gates’ house. I’m sure he loved being part of the itinerary. I had brought our rings in case I was again overcome with impatience and asked her to marry me again while we were up in the air. As anxious as I was, I managed to keep the rings in my pocket for the whole flight.

We returned to the hotel after our tour. I changed into my suit and Dawn put on a new dress. We cleaned up pretty well. Dawn glowed with the same inner light and beauty that she always did. I felt privileged to be her escort, as I did on our Prom night.

I had called ahead and spoken to the
maître d’
at Ruth’s Chris, so everything was ready for us when we got there. It was 8 PM on the Saturday night of Valentine’s Day weekend, so the lobby was packed with people waiting to be seated. We were having a blessed day, and we would have been happy to wait all night.

I felt nervous again once we were seated. I’ve come to accept that this is an unavoidable side effect of being around a girl I care about so much. I calmed myself down enough to enjoy our surroundings and the fabulous food we ordered. We both ordered a rare petit filet mignon, and shared a Caesar salad. After dinner, we ordered a dessert to split, since calories don’t count on special occasions. Once our table was cleared, Dawn glowed with happiness. I saw my opportunity.

I stood up and moved around to the side of the table. Dawn asked me where I was going, but I just shook my head. I couldn’t speak. I got down on one knee, completely blocking the aisle. All around us, I heard conversations stop and the whispers begin. I ignored them and focused on the only person in the world who mattered.