Chapter 77
They lay together in bed staring out the window at the stars in the chilly night sky, his arms around her as she rested her head on his shoulder. It had been a momentous day for both of them and finally it was over. They were alone at last with nothing but their thoughts as company.
“Sweetheart,” Gen smiled and lifted her head to look in his eyes, “this isn’t all because of the baby, right? I’m not just imagining that I’ve married the man of my dreams only to find out he’s just a jerk who wanted to do the right thing, am I?” She had a slight giggle in her voice. She knew perfectly well this wasn’t true but at that moment, she just needed to hear him say it.
“Babe, you know that’s not the case,” John smiled as he placed a tender kiss on the top of her head. “I mean, I guess the way I proposed and the timing of it had something to do with that….” His words trailed off dreamily as he rested his cheek atop her head. His finger traced a line along the edge of her face and eventually traveled from her neck, down her arm, finally coming to a rest at her hand, where he laced his fingers between hers. “But Genevieve, I married you because I found the girl who made me happier than anyone else ever has. You know perfectly well that you’re the woman that I want that I want to spend the rest of my life with.” He raised her delicate hand to his lips and planted a gentle kiss there too. “And I’d known that for a long time before I actually asked you, y’know. I wanted to propose to you lots of times before.”
“But you didn’t,” she teased.
“I tried, darlin’, I tried.”
Gen giggled. “Oh, you did, did you? How come I don’t remember all these proposals?”
“Well,” he grinned, “remember New Year’s Eve? How I got down off the stage at midnight? Auld Lang Syne playing in the background?”
“Yeah.”
“I was about to say something to you when the song ended, wasn’t I?”
“Could be. I mostly remember the hands reaching around me, trying to grab you.”
He moved to look at her, his brows raised; his head pitched forward slightly- trying to communicate where he felt words were unnecessary.
“You mean that’s what you were gonna say?” she smiled. “Really? You mean… you had the ring and everything?”
He nodded with a grin, “In my pocket.”
“Wow!” Gen mused, still astonished.
“Yeah, and then on Valentine’s Day… remember how I kept saying we’d do something special?”
“Uh huh,” she nodded. It amazed her that these opportunities had gone by without her noticing.
“At first I thought we’d go somewhere nice. I mean really nice. Like Giovanni’s or something. I had reservations and everything… and believe me, getting a table at the best place in LA on Valentine’s Day ain’t easy,” he smiled. “But, I figured only the finest restaurant would do.” He casually began to twirl a strand of her hair around his finger as he spoke. “But then I got to thinkin’, y’know. We can go places like that anytime. Nothing’s really keeping us from going whenever we want. So I started to think about something that would be really special to both of us.” He chuckled at the recollection of what he was about to say. “Hell, I even called Katie to ask her opinion. She’s really good at coming up with creative ideas, y’know.”
“So that’s how she knew. She was so curious about what we did!”
“Yup,” he nodded. “But I swore her to secrecy, so she’s the only one who knew the whole plan.”
“And, what was the whole plan?”
“The plan was we were going to Zeno’s. I figured we’d have the best pizza on earth.”
“Zeno’s? You’re kidding! We only ever eat that as take out…it’s so crowded.”
“That’s the thing… we were gonna have the whole place all to ourselves that night. I reserved it just for us. It was supposed to be the most incredible gift I could give you, y’know. Nothing pretentious or snobby… Something that was really us.”
“But you got sick,” she added glumly.
“I got sick,” he repeated.
She sighed and snuggled a little closer to him. He was really quite the romantic, even if none of his romantic plans ever materialized.
“Then, I thought about taking you to Paris this spring. Y’know, pop the question at the Eiffel Tower.”
“Wow!”
“Yeah, I figured it’d been a lucky place for me in the past. If you said yes to me there before, maybe you’d do it again, y’know.”
“Like you had anything to worry about,” Gen commented slyly.
John shrugged. “We can still go if you want. I was thinking of going in April or May, so we still can you know.”
“Maybe,” she smiled.
“Actually…” he began with a sigh. “You wanna know the closest I ever came to asking you?”
She laughed. “Closer than all those other ‘close calls’?”
“Well, yeah. I really wanted to do it the night after the music awards back in January, y’know. It was perfect! We had the champagne, we were lying there on the floor in front of the fire, I had you in my arms, you were starting to feel better, y'know, and I was on top of the world. I couldn’t think of a better time… it just felt right.”
“But…” She let the word hang there in the air, waiting for him to take it up and finish his thought.
“But… I kept remembering something one of my sisters told me a long time ago.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I was… oh, probably 17 or 18 at the time. On my own, anyway. And one of my sisters, I don’t even remember which one, took me aside and gave me a lecture that’s stuck with me all these years.” He paused and chuckled to himself. “One of her friends had just gotten engaged, but she was mad because he’d proposed to her in the shower, y’know. So I got a speech about how I’d better think twice before I do anything stupid like that. ‘Don’t ever propose to a girl when she’s naked because it’s a story she’s gonna want to tell her family and her friends and someday your children and you don’t wanna embarrass her by doing something like that!’”
“I’d never thought about it, but I think that’s good advice,” Gen laughed.
“Well, it pissed me off at the time. I remember thinking, ‘I’m never getting married, so why the hell are you telling me this?’ But I listened because I knew they all tried really hard to bring me up as best they could, y’know.”
“I think they did an alright job.”
‘Yeah, I guess,” he smiled. “But it cost you an engagement ring that night. Think about it,” John smiled as he slid their intertwined hands down to rest just below her bellybutton, “our timing would’ve been perfect, Gen.”
“If only I hadn’t been naked, right?” she giggled.
He grinned back at her. “Well… the nakedness had something to do with the rest of our good timing, I think.”
She sighed. Slowly, she was adjusting to the idea of having children. It wasn’t that she never wanted that, it’s just that she didn’t expect it so quickly. But John’s enthusiasm for becoming a father made her adjustment to the sudden changes a little easier to swallow. He’d been remarkably supportive of her during her emotional upheavals. Patiently, he would sit with her, drying her tears and comforting her while she cried over just about any and everything. Tenderly, he would hold her close and ease her mind when she confessed her fears of being pregnant and becoming a mother. Calmly, he would listen to her rants when she was angry, and then try really hard to make her happier without doing the typical guy thing by trying to solve all of her problems for her. She knew this wasn’t easy for him to do. In fact, she doubted that he even knew that she was aware of his loving kindnesses as they were being served, but that made the little things he did for her seem that much more precious. Leisurely, she turned her eyes from the starry sky outside the window to once again peer at her husband. “Does it ever bother you that this has all come so quickly for us? I mean, it does me… I completely understand why people were a little freaked out tonight.”
He sat silently for a
moment before delivering a well thought out answer. “Yeah, it does,” he
nodded slowly. “This isn’t how I’d expected things to turn out either. I
mean, sure, eventually, y’know, but not yet.” His fingers gently
caressed her cheek. “But Gen, I’m not unhappy with how things turned out for
us. I see it as kind of a gift, really.”
“An unexpected gift,” she smiled.
“Well, yeah. But everything that’s happened in the past year has really made me look at my life, y’know. Reevaluate things… Put priorities in order… grow up a little. And I really think this is where I need to be. God, y’know, it’s like fate or something.”
“You think so?”
“Well shit, Gen, yeah! I mean, think about it. A year ago, you were a name on a piece of paper. And for some reason, I felt really drawn to you. So I picked you. And as I recall, you were reluctant to even submit it, y’know. But something made you do it… against your better judgment. Why do you think it happened if it isn’t fate?”
“But how do you know you’ve made the right choices? Y’know, we’ve both thought we were doing the right thing once before and we know how that turned out.”
He smiled reassuringly at her. “I guess you never really know, do you? But realistically, I think we both know a little better what we’re getting into now than we did back then. Right?”
“I suppose. I know I do. In retrospect, I barely knew the jerk I married before. With you, I know pretty much what I’m getting. And I know you’re not perfect,” she giggled.
“See,” he laughed, “we’re even. You see me for the horrible bastard that I am, and I’m perfectly aware of what a bitch you can be. We’re made for each other!” He tickled her side as he moved to kiss her. "I love you, Genevieve Redlin. I'm glad you're my wife."
"I love you too, and I'm glad you're my husband, Johnny Rzeznik. In fact, I'm probably the happiest woman in the world right now."