Chapter 1012:
After meeting the dad it’s safe to say I was 78.3% less excited to meet the sister, an event I was hoping to face sometime after the year 2031. And as a reminder, the lady did not grow up with her sister, she found out about her in college and tracked her down. They have, however, both worked to maintain a sister-level relationship ever since and the daughter affectionally refers to her as “Auntie” and she has been there for her since she was born. The sister grew up wealthy and still lives that way, thanks in part to her husband who is a former MLB player who now runs a sports marketing and memorabilia company. She has a liberal view of the world afforded by never really living in it. Not the way most people have or have to. I will say this though, she looks a heck of a lot like the lady, both of whom appear younger than their actual ages, are always well dressed and always have an air of fanciness about them.
We arrived at the restaurant, and I again got to experience watching a Valet drive away with the car, thankfully this time I knew better and left Charlene at home. This was also another fine dining establishment I had never been to and would likely never go to again. I believe you had to be a member to dine there. Once inside the sisters hugged and kissed each other’s cheeks as I shook the hand of the husband, who was pretty sturdy and well dressed. Then we switched and hugging the sister was a nearly identical physical experience to hugging the lady. I saw her in pictures but in person the lady and her sister look even more alike, sound alike and I am betting they wear the same sized clothing. It was a touch freaky. We were seated and the team of staff assigned to us were johnny on the spot, bringing out drinks and fresh fruit plates as we explored the menu. Most of the conversation was just pleasant catching up and light exploratory questioning. I was, of course, asked what I do for a living even though I would have expected that the lady already provided that information. Feeling slightly better prepared I said, “I’m a professional troubleshooter. I expedite problem solving activities for collaborating law firms”. Yeah, I came up with that one boring day of watching a stripper. That was that for me, but I did get to hear all about the sports marketing and memorabilia business, sales numbers, revenue estimates, etc. He also dropped a lot of names I never heard of, but I don’t really follow sports-ball so it was every bit as boring as it sounds. Although I am confident he makes a whole lot of money. The sister also has an event planning business, which sounded more like the upscale hobby of someone with a lot of money. I walked away feeling like these ‘events’ were actually well-to-do social cause fundraisers and congratulatory events where someone is given an award for something most people wouldn’t care about.
After our expensive food arrived and was partially consumed, we got to what I presume was the main point of this meet up, the status of our relationship. The lady was very bright and smiley as she held my hand and announced that we are very much in love and making plans for the future. That’s when I found out that we had allegedly been dating longer than we really have. The sister said “That’s happening pretty fast, you have only been seeing each other for what? 6-7 months or so?”. The lady just squeezed my hand as if to say, ‘smile and nod’ and said, “Something like that. But that doesn’t matter, when you know you know”. The sister turned to me and said “I hear dad has already given you the go ahead to get married. That was surprising, very much out of character.” I hit her back with “Oh, I wasn’t surprised at all. He’s not the first father who has tried to marry his daughter off to me”. Then I laughed lightly, concealing the fact that he was indeed the very first father who has ever mentioned the words marriage and approval to me. The sister pressed for more relationship details but didn’t really get the answers she wanted, other than finding out I was now living with her sister, and we were house shopping together. Seemed like a lot for her to take in all at once. I could sense some real concern until the lady just stopped the whole line of questioning with “I appreciate how much you care, and yes I have made mistakes when it comes to matters of the heart before. Mistakes I have learned from and will never make again. The very best day I ever had with [dentist], does not even compare to an average day with [me]. He completes me in a way I never thought possible. As far as I am concerned, he is my soulmate, and every day of my life leading up until we met was just preparing me for when we did.” That statement even caught me like ‘holy ****’. I looked over and saw a tear in the lady’s eye, which made her sister tear up, which made them get up and hug each other as they dabbed at tears with their cloth napkins. The baseball player just sat there like it was normal stuff, which to be fair is what I did too. The two ladies returned to their seats and the sister looked right at me and said, “Well then, welcome to the family”. After that we all went back to pleasant breakfast chatter and polite getting to know each other conversation. I can’t recall learning anything worthy of writing down. Politics never reared it's ugly head, even though I kind of hoped it would.
Once the meet up, the meal, the evaluation and the conversation were over, everyone exchanged hugs, kisses and handshakes again. Mr. Baseball covered the meal and I offered my thanks, offering the obligatory “It’s on me next time” knowing that next time I was going to suggest we meet at Chick-fil-A. The ladies started to chat about Thanksgiving but fortunately the Valet showed up with their Bentley. As soon as they were off the Audi showed up and the lady and I started the fun part of our day. And while I am not going to write about it in detail, it was indeed a lot of fun and was full of loving looks, hand holding, kisses and a **** ton of me carrying bags as she drug me from store to store. Next time I will suggest she save the shopping portion as a mother-daughter activity and we book and extra 2 hours at the speakeasy.