The Antelope in the Living Room: The Real Story of Two People Sharing One Life (4 page)

So I try to keep my eyes on the one who knows everything in my heart and trust that he knows what’s ultimately the best for me and will bring all things to pass in their time. He hasn’t let me down yet, because like it says in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him” (
NLT
). He knows what’s best for me.

He certainly did the day he brought Perry into my life. In all my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined him because, honestly, he still surprises me almost daily.

CHAPTER 3

I’
M GOING TO GO
ahead and tell you the only reason I agreed to and was able to plan a wedding in three months was because Pinterest didn’t exist yet. For the love. What fresh scourge hath Pinterest wrought on our society?

(I believe Shakespeare first said that.)

(Actually, I said it. Right after I saw another pin of cupcakes made to look like melting snowmen.)

I don’t know how a bride these days ever manages to wade through the myriad of hairstyle options and wedding favors and whether or not to have her bridal portrait taken in the back of an old vintage truck or in a field of sunflowers. I would have had to put my head between my knees and stay that way for the rest of my life had I known about all those things. It took me a full two
weeks just to decide if I wanted the baked Brie or a fruit plate at my reception. The option of cookies iced with my new monogram would have sent me into a seizure.

I am not a woman equipped to handle a world where I have to hold a small chalkboard with our wedding date written in some sort of handcrafted calligraphy.

And all the pressure to come up with creative ways to ask your friends to be bridesmaids and then sending out save-the-date cards? You want to know how I did that back in ye olden days of 1997? I called them on the phone (probably a phone with a cord that couldn’t find the nearest Starbucks if its life depended on it) and said, “Hey, make sure you put August 16 on your calendar because I’m getting married and I’d love for you to be a bridesmaid.”

That was it.

No chalkboard. No balloons filled with white and silver confetti. No creative photos of my new diamond ring or Photoshopped pictures of a bubble coming out of my mouth that read, “I said yes!”

Not to mention the whole “trash the dress” phenomenon. The other day on the news I saw a feature about a girl who set her wedding dress on fire WHILE SHE WAS WEARING IT and then ran into the ocean as someone photographed the whole thing. Trust me when I say this is a terrible idea. The future just called and said thank you for not giving yourself third-degree burns in exchange for some edgy photographs.

Looking back, I feel like our big day was just a hair shy of the lack of pomp and circumstance when Nellie Oleson married Percival in
Little House on the Prairie
. In the late ’90s, none of us knew it was even an option to get a portrait made in your wedding dress while sitting on a mattress in a river somewhere. It was a simpler time.

We had the church and the reception site booked within twenty-four hours. (It’s easy to pick a wedding date when met with the stipulation that it can’t be during hunting season. Perry has always been a romantic fool.) And then, just two days into our engagement, I was offered a new job. A great job in pharmaceutical sales. A job I couldn’t turn down even though it meant I was about to spend seven weeks of my three-month engagement out of town at training meetings learning about the respiratory system and various medications and how to spend your days taking doctors to play golf.

So the next three months consisted of my flying home on various weekends to attend wedding showers and parties, check on wedding details, and then fly back to various nongarden spots all over the United States for another grueling week of training and getting up early and sitting all day in a “classroom,” which was basically just a fancy term for a hotel room with tables and chairs instead of a bed and a nightstand with a lamp bolted down on it.

There came a point in this process when I was so exhausted I could barely function. Unfortunately, this came on the morning my training class was meeting with a Department of Public Safety officer for mandatory defensive driving tests.

The officer had us file into a plain, white-walled room and lined us up to check our driver’s licenses. And when he walked up to me, he informed me that I wouldn’t be able to complete my driving course that morning because I was clearly still drunk from the night before.

“Umm, officer? I didn’t drink last night.”

“Young lady, it’s obvious you did. Your eyes are bloodshot, and you can barely focus. It appears you’re having a hard time just standing up.”

Yes. I call this particular affliction 7:00 a.m. Some would say it’s embarrassing, but I just say it’s an excuse to explain why I can’t commit to any activity that begins before 8:00 a.m. I have an early-morning disability. It’s a real thing, even if it’s only in my head.

The good news is, I was able to convince him that, yes, while I wasn’t fit for public consumption, I was okay to drive, and he let me take the test. The bad news is, I still had two more weeks of training left. By the time I got home for good, a week before my wedding, I had a full-blown case of bronchitis. And what bride doesn’t appear even more radiant when she sounds like a six-pack-a-day smoker?

So I hauled myself into the doctor’s office to get every antibiotic known to man because I didn’t want Perry to think he was marrying an octogenarian named Hazel who came complete with an oxygen machine. Although I never would have fit in better at the Village Oaks apartments. I was one large girdle and a
Murder, She Wrote
episode away from finally being one of them.

By Friday night it was time for our rehearsal dinner, and thankfully I was feeling like a human being again. And there is nothing like the adrenaline that comes with knowing everyone you love is on their way into town to celebrate one of the biggest days of your life with you. I could have lifted a bus off the ground.

A few weeks earlier, I’d called my Me-Ma and Pa-Pa to see if they were going to be able to make the trip. They were both in their late eighties at the time, and I knew the four-hour journey might be too much for them. But Pa-Pa answered the phone with his usual “BIG MEL!”

We talked for a while, and he assured me that he wouldn’t miss the wedding for the world. Then he asked me if I wanted to talk
to Me-Ma or, as he called her, “my cook.” I said I did, and as he handed the phone to her, I overheard her ask, “Who is it?”

And he replied, “Heck if I know!”

So basically he’d just spent ten minutes reassuring someone he didn’t know that he wouldn’t miss her wedding for love or money.

But that Friday morning my aunt and uncle called to let me know they’d packed up Me-Ma and Pa-Pa and were indeed on their way to San Antonio to see their oldest grandchild get married.

The whole day was a flurry of hugs and friends and family. It was filled with the excitement that comes only a few times in life, when you know you’re on the precipice of a whole new beginning. Perry and I sat at our rehearsal dinner that night, surrounded by everyone we loved, and I know neither of us had ever felt more grateful, because not only had we found each other, but we’d also been given the gift of some of the best friends in the world who had taken the time to come celebrate with us and occasionally point out that they knew it was true love when they saw a picture of me dressed in camo and holding a gun.

Because listen, sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do to reel in Mr. Right Who Wears Snake Boots and Makes His Own Ammo.

The next morning dawned bright and early. I hadn’t slept much at all the night before because one of my special talents is the inability to sleep before any type of life occasion. This explains why I’ve spent most of my birthdays, Christmas mornings, and final exams in a blank, yawning stupor with bags under my eyes.

But I had an appointment to get my hair styled at 8:30 a.m., which made me seriously question what genius thought a noon
wedding was a good idea. My other talent is committing to things that seem like a great idea at the time and regretting it later. The irony is that Perry had almost called the noon wedding a deal breaker when his mother told him he and his groomsmen would have to wear morning coats and possibly gloves, and I talked him into doing it at that ungodly hour with the promise he could wear a plain black tuxedo. Can you imagine what the Dowager Countess of Grantham would have to say about that? Americans are so crass. Was this a wedding or a barbecue?

In case you don’t know (Because I didn’t. I had to research “morning coats.” And this was in the days before Google existed. So I guess I just looked in the encyclopedia under “wedding attire.” How did we live like that? It’s so primitive.), a morning coat is basically a coat with tails but usually in a nice shade of gray. Think Prince William or Harry at a formal daytime affair. And yes, it’s a dapper look if you are the future king of England, but if you’re a good old boy from South Texas who rarely has on anything dressier than a Columbia fishing shirt, it’s a little much. Especially the version that calls for a top hat. I really didn’t want a groom that resembled the evil magician on
Frosty the Snowman
.

Anyway, I headed over to the beauty shop so my hairdresser could attempt to make my hair look like a picture of Paulina Porizkova that I’d torn out of one of my many
Modern Bride
magazines, because apparently I decided my wedding day was a good day for my hair to be as close to God as possible in a configuration of curls and bobby pins that defied gravity and several basic laws of science. A few of my bridesmaids met me at the salon, and then we all headed to the brides’ room at the Methodist church to finish putting on our makeup and eat delicate little sandwiches filled with cucumbers, because people on church committees believe
that’s what brides are supposed to eat on the big day. I would have preferred a Frito pie made with chili straight from the can because I am very sophisticated. And also because I have a stomach made of iron. But I had to settle for a half a cracker with a delicate spoonful of chicken salad. It was totally satisfying.

The next few hours were a blur of navy bridesmaids dresses, complete with big bows in the back, and passing out bouquets and posing for somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty-four hundred pictures. The whole thing felt like an out-of-body experience. I’d always been the bridesmaid, not the bride. And it was surreal to be the one dressed like Italian Bride Barbie, waiting for the moment to walk down the aisle.

Finally, the wedding coordinator signaled that it was time. She ushered my bridesmaids out of the room, leaving me alone with my dad. Clearly, this was one of those moments that inspired God to invent waterproof mascara, because all of a sudden it hit me. I looked at my dad
 
—my dad who has always set the standard for all that is good and right and true, who has always loved me unconditionally and provided for me even when it included ridiculous things like giving me the money to road trip in an RV all the way to Florida with a bunch of other college girls to watch Aggie baseball
 
—and realized that I was leaving his roof for a new roof with my new husband.

I mean, yes, technically I hadn’t lived under his roof in years. But he’d continued to be my provider and protector even though I was living two hundred miles away. And now I was really leaving, taking a new name, starting a new life.

And it took everything in me not to cry my eyes out. I knew Perry was absolutely the man for me, but there is something incredibly poignant about leaving behind the old and familiar
and heading to the new. Even when the new is exciting and shiny and full of amazing possibilities and the hunter green bath towels you think you want because you don’t know any better.

I hugged my dad and told him how much I loved him. I hope I thanked him for everything, but I honestly can’t remember. So, Dad, if you’re reading this (which I know you will be since you have to because you’re my dad), thank you for everything. Including the wedding. It was amazing, and you’re welcome that it was at noon and I saved you the expense of an open bar.

The music began to play in the sanctuary, and I heard the soloist start to sing “You Are Awesome in This Place,” which is a song I knew I’d have sung on my wedding day when I’d heard it more than a year before during an Easter church service, because it exemplified everything I wanted my wedding day to be.

     
You are awesome in this place, Mighty God.