The French Connection

My poor husband has been more than patient with me when I’ve used his lack of gift-giving skills in past posts. I’ve discussed The Five Love Languages and used his score of zero in gift-giving as an example of how we’re wired so differently. Just a reminder, the first Valentine’s Day gift he gave me as his wife was a .99 cent plastic toothbrush travel holder. Thankfully, he’s got a great sense of humor and is able to laugh at himself.

But yesterday morning as I was cleaning our little dinette table for the gazillionth time, I was reminded of the first gift he ever bought me, and we weren’t even officially dating then. Our romance started with a comment I made to my teacher-friend, Cindy, standing outside our classrooms. I told her that I really liked my chiropractor—I thought he was incredibly sweet and good looking. He’d been kind of flirting with me but hadn’t come out and actually made a move to connect.

Another teacher, Don, stepped into the conversation. “Are you talking about Chris Sienes?”

I felt a little exposed and had no intention of sharing my new-found infatuation with anyone except my friend (and my sisters, of course). But I was intrigued that Don knew who I was talking about. “Yes,” I told him. “Why?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s available. You should ask him out.”

“I don’t think so,” I said with a snort.

“Why not?”

“Because when he says, ‘No,’ I’ll be so humiliated I’ll have to find a new chiropractor, and he’s really good.”

“You just need the ice to be broken,” He said and walked away.

The next morning when I showed up at school, I booted up my email. There was one from Don. He wrote, The ice has been broken. I groaned. Great. What had he done? It turned out he was also Chris’s patient and had called him the night before to tell him I would be his perfect match. While I was sputtering about how embarrassed I was, Don assured me Chris would call, although it could take a few weeks. He was getting ready to go to France with his parents and sister, and Don didn’t figure he’d call until he returned. I wasn’t sure he was going to call at all!

Don was wrong (and so was I). Chris phoned that weekend. It was May 22, 2005. We had a pre-date—just a casual early morning run. It was a touchy thing to ask a patient out, and Chris never wanted to be inappropriate. I knew he lived just outside of Volcano, but I met him at a local trail. Volcano is in Northern California, so we basically ran through the woods—stone hopped across creeks, jumped over fallen logs and avoided cow pies. When we finished, he invited me to have a cup of coffee at the restaurant in town. Coffee turned into breakfast, and we talked for hours.

The one thing that stood out to me was a comment he made about his parents. “It may sound corny, but they’ve been married over fifty years, and they’re my role models.” To a woman whose husband abandoned her after nearly 23 years of marriage, Chris’s confession only increased my respect for him.

As we got ready to depart, he asked if he could email me while he was in France. I drove the half hour back to my house in Sutter Creek, giddy as a schoolgirl. He returned from France three weeks later, and our second “date” was attending church together and breakfast at a quaint coffee shop in downtown Sutter Creek. We went back to my house so he could show me his pictures from France, but first, he had a gift he wanted to share. It was a beautiful round tablecloth with purple irises and yellow daffodils amidst swirls of red and cream. He purchased it specifically for me from a vendor in Paris. I’ve never had a table it would fit, but I kept it tucked away hoping an opportunity would eventually reveal itself.

Then yesterday, I realized our small dinette table in the kitchen, although not round, would be the perfect place to display this gift—more than fifteen years later. Our 14^th wedding anniversary is this month—and again in August. We were married twice in six days. But you’ll have to tune in next Monday for that story.

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