Un-Connected (11 page)

The grandkids had stayed with them a lot on
weekends and summers while they were growing up. Once they learned to drive,
the longer stays slowed down a little. But Otis would fill their cars up with
gas when they drove out, so they managed to get there a least two weekends a
month, rolling in on fumes. They didn’t stay as long but probably came more
often.

Everyone who worked at the truck stop was
family. Otis’s brother, Will, and Will’s wife, Barbara, were partners. They had
a sister, Betty, who was also a partner but didn’t work there. She came once a
week to fill her Escalade and pick up all the receipts. She was their
bookkeeper. So Otis pretty much ran the place with his brother, who was pulling
some third-shift store duty and doing daytime repairs. Their nephews and nieces
were in and out working and helping all the time.

Tilly had several sisters, who we scattered
all over the place as she said, but when we asked where they were, it seemed
from her description the most distant one was on the other side of Phoenix. It
was obviously a matter of perspective. Deb and I laughed about it later. “All
over the place” to us would be thousands of miles apart and maybe one outside
the country. Tilly’s most distant sister couldn’t be more than 150 miles away
and probably more like 100.

They had been totally engaging and open to
us. We were in a real quandary because we didn’t have much to share and even
less we were comfortable sharing. I thanked Otis and Tilly profusely. I told
them they had been so good to us that they made us feel a part of the family. I
let them know I had just proposed to Deb after being an over-the-road driver
with her for almost three years. She had accepted. We told them neither one of
us were close to our family.

Deb told about her marriage and life in
Cherry Hill and how her husband found a new girlfriend and ended their
marriage. She had been willing to forgive him and go to counseling, but she
went twice and he hadn’t shown up yet. So with her high-end real estate
remodeling business DOA because of the real estate economy, she started driving
a truck.

She’d driven almost two years when she picked
up this wet stray puppy and gave him a chance. She said he still wasn’t much of
a driver, but he worked for food, and she couldn’t afford to upgrade. She had
intended to do it, though, the first chance she got. So when he proposed she
felt she could straighten him and accepted his offer. Otis and Tilly laughed
and laughed at her rendition.

“Have you been married before?” Otis asked
looking at me.

“Yes, but it didn’t work out.”

Otis asked when we planned to get married.

Deb and I looked at each other.

 “We’d been talking about it and really
didn’t have any family we wanted to be there.” I said looking Deb in the eye. “So
it would likely be something really small. We might even go to a JP. It would
be fine for me, but I didn’t want Deb to feel slighted so, it was totally up to
her.”

“I had a nice wedding to a jerk and now would
settle for getting married with a JP if it was to you.” She said leaning over
and getting in my face. “I will take this man any way I can get him.” She said
to Otis and Tilly.

I was embarrassed and thrilled all at once.
She was looking deep into my eyes when she said it, and it was sincere and
powerful. She almost took my breath away with what she said.

Otis laughed a big out-loud laugh. “That is
great. I have a cousin who is a JP in this county. I bet if I gave him a tank
of gas, he would come out here with the marriage application and license and
marry you right away.”

“Wow,” I said to Otis, “this is quite an
offer. I don’t know how I can refuse it because I certainly want to be sure she
doesn’t get away. Let me talk to her and make a plan. We’ll give you an answer
in a few minutes.”

I took her hand and we walked outside. I told
her I had hoped for something more romantic, but I wanted her to be my wife.
Whatever she wanted, I would do the best I could. I asked if she wanted me to
marry her as Sam or Ben.

She said I wasn’t Ben any longer. I had
needed to change and I had.  She told me my driver’s license said Sam. Deb
wanted her last name to be Adams, and she wanted me to be her man. And she
didn’t want me to use any name as an excuse to stop loving her. So there were
no excuses now and never would be.

She was OK with getting married as quickly as
possible without any planning or anything nice, just us, the witnesses, and a
JP.

We went in to tell Otis what we had decided.
He said it was great. He had already talked to his cousin, and he could be
there in about an hour with the marriage application as well as the
certificate. Otis would sign the blood test required by the state, and we would
be married today. No, he wasn’t a doctor.

Otis asked if we had any wedding rings. I
guess the blank looks on our faces told him all he needed to know. He told us
to wait right there and ran out of the room showing he was excited too.

Tilly clapped her hands and smiled. “This
will be fun. Wait right here on Otis. I’m going to make some phone calls.” Then
she stopped. “We want so badly for the young people in our family to be happily
married, and it seems so hard these days. We want our kids to see weddings
between people who really, really love each other. We can tell you two do, so
we don’t want to barge in on you or intrude. But this could be really good for
our family.”

 We didn’t know what to say, so we just
smiled and said it would be great.

Otis returned with a ring that was obviously
old. It had about a carat diamond with smaller stones on both sides. The
wedding band had been soldered to the engagement ring a long time ago. Otis
asked us to please take it. It had been his mother’s, and no one in the family
wanted it.

Deb protested, saying she couldn’t take
something out of their family.

“Nonsense,” Otis said. “Besides you are
family now. Just make me god- grandfather if you have any kids.”

The ring was a little big but she put a
little tape on the back for today and we would get it resized later.

Deb said she had to do something with her
hair and makeup, though I thought it a waste of time. 

“You look beautiful to me.”

She went shrieking off to the truck to see
what she could put together. She dragged a bag full of stuff in to find Tilly,
and they disappeared.

An hour later, she and I were standing under
a canopy with the beautiful mountains as a background and a salty old JP. Deb
was beautiful—as an understatement. She was Cherry Hill with attitude in a
skirt that was a little above her knees and shorter than any dress I had seen
her wear before. She had low string heels as she called them.  She had painted
her toe nails a beautiful deep red.  She wore a deep red bra with a little more
transparent blouse than I had seen before.  Her hair was pulled back a little
on one side to be different than every day and looked great as always.  She was
delicious.

The JP asked us if we wanted to be together
forever, if we would be faithful through good times and bad, and be there each
for the other.  He asked if we would cleave to each other and keep ourselves
only for each other.  We both did, and she became my wife. Tilly had a good
crowd of grandkids, nephews, nieces, brothers, sisters, in-laws, and more.
Probably one hundred people stood there for the ten-minute ceremony. Then we
got a few pictures of Deb and me and then some with us and a few others
including Otis and Tilly. There were some young couples who wanted pictures
with us.

Then we went inside, and Otis said the ice
cream and drinks were on the house. People looked at Deb’s ring and oohed over
it, though I’m sure several had turned down the offer of owning it.

Otis thought it was well over one hundred
years old. Lots of people came and introduced themselves and thanked us for
letting them come to our wedding. A couple of young bucks told me if I didn’t
take good care of her, they would be willing to. They said it with enough
enthusiasm I was sure there was some truth to it. Then one of them asked me how
I was feeling. He didn’t want to wish me any harm, but if I got sick, he wanted
to be the first one to know about it.

When most everyone was gone, Tilly thanked us
as well. She said she wanted the best for all the kids, as she called them, and
she wanted them to take life and marriage seriously. She said our wedding with
the obvious love we had for each other would help them make good choices in
life.

We headed off to the motel in a Jeep we
borrowed from Will. Before we had gone many miles, Deb told me to “pull over
because we needed to talk.”

I kind of smiled on the inside, because it
was a little like what I said to her just before I proposed. I hoped this would
be good news as well.

Then Deb turned to me with this real serious
face. “OK, here’s the deal. I grew up Catholic, and I have never taken birth
control as the Church says. I used to use the rhythm method of birth control
when I was living with Larry but haven’t had to in a while.  When I was trying
to save our marriage I just threw the rhythm thing out the window.   You know
about my life and my ex.  So after a very few flings since then, here I am. You
can have me as often as you want for the next three days and then for about
five days after that you can’t unless we make other arrangements. I don’t want
to get pregnant even though I don’t think I can, and I would love to have your
children in a normal world but not now. So right now I think you ought to tell
me again how much you love me and how pretty you think I am.”

The remaining ten minutes to the motel seemed
to take an hour.

If I have to tell you about that afternoon
and night, you need help. Sydney Sheldon wrote a novel I never read, but the
name was
Morning, Noon & Night
. Dr. Pepper used to say 10, 2, and 4.
The next three days went by too quickly. Our cell phones were off. We paid for
everything with cash. We had no contact with the outside world. But it would be
happy rest and relaxation.

One day Deb shrieked.  “I didn’t tell mom and
dad.  It happened so fast I didn’t think about it.”

She called and her mother answered. “Mom I
have a confession to make.  Is dad there?”

“Yes he is here.  What is it dear?”

“Mom I have been telling you about Sam that
is driving with me.  Well he and I have become good friends as I told you and
…. We got married.”

We heard her dad loudly say in the
background, “I told you so.  I knew it was going to happen!”

“We are so excited for you honey.  Your dad
has been telling me for over a year that it was going to happen.  When will you
be back this way so we can meet Sam?”

“I don’t know yet mom but we will try to make
it before too long.” There was a pause and she said, “Mom I need to go but I
love you and am sorry I didn’t wait for you to be here.”

“Don’t worry about that.  We just want you to
be happy.” She said.

After a week or so, we decided to drive back
out to the truck stop and see what was going on.

We hung around there awhile and guessed they
thought we were getting bored. Otis offered us the use of an old car anytime we
wanted to go into town to a motel or movie or whatever. There was a little town
that was closer than Phoenix that had a small theater with two screens. They
usually had four to five movies showing in rotation. Tilly volunteered to call
and find out what was showing if we wanted. We had no other plans, and I sure
wasn’t going to get back in the truck and read a book.

Tilly had written down the movie choices,
which really was a waste of time, because only one would be considered an “A”
movie. The rest I had not seen and didn’t intend to see. So we went off to the
movies in the late afternoon and sat in a theater with about twenty other
people. We saw a movie we’d seen before, but we were so happy. It was the
cheapest movie I had ever paid for. Admission was three dollars, and we were so
full of lunch and ice cream, we would not likely be eating supper. But I was so
happy to have Mrs. Adams with me nothing else really mattered. She was calling
me Mr. Adams now. She was bossing me around a little too.

“Mr. Adams, why don’t you save us a seat
while I go to the bathroom.”

And then she giggled as if she were a kid. I
had never seen her so happy. I hoped I could keep her that happy always.

After the movie we were walking to the car,
and I started to take her to the passenger side

 “No, Mr. Adams. Where I will be sitting will
be closer to the driver’s door, and it is where I want to get in.”

I was so glad to have her as my wife and so
glad we had those relaxing few days because it was changing fast, again. When
we got back to the truck stop, Otis motioned us into the three-car repair
garage. He closed the garage door immediately behind us. My heart was in my
throat.

Otis explained how a black SUV showed up and
a guy was asking questions about a couple coming through. They didn’t show any
interest or ask any questions about the truck, which was the only one in the
parking lot and more than in plain sight. They had bad old pictures of both of
us and wanted to know if he had security tapes or knew if we had stopped there.
The niece who was at the cash register was the best liar of the bunch,
according to Tilly. She told them no one fitting that description had been
through there, and she said she would remember because they hadn’t had many
customers all day.