When Worlds Collide. . .as told by Tess

Okay, so I’m being a bit dramatic, but I have to say when my dad met my mom two different people falling in love you just couldn’t imagine. Sure my dad was a real cowboy on the force, but believe it or not, when it came to the ladies he was downright catatonic. Yeah, I know, I know; when he met Peg in Chapter Ten of Close to Perfect he didn’t exactly go into a fetal position, but he’d had decades of my mom’s love to give him confidence, not to mention a few years of grief over her passing to make him lonely enough to try again. I’m sure his Carlie was looking down on him that night and smiling that he’d found Peg. That’s the way my mom was. . .carefree and simply gorgeous, while my dad’s by-the-book and not exactly Brad Pitt.

Just a sec. Josh read what I wrote and now he’s telling me that I better delete the Pitt reference before my dad goes ballistic. Not a chance. It’s not like my dad thinks he’s the most handsome guy around (or even wants to be) and if I say that he is in this blog he’ll have to hire a female bodyguard to protect his ‘assets’ from all those predatory ladies, just like Josh had to hire me to protect his. Okay, now Josh is laughing and leaving the room, so let’s get real. My dad’s okay looking, not a ghoul by any means, but without great looks and being as shy as he was, he never thought he’d have a chance with my mom.

Of course, they only met because she was supposed to teach him the tango and other Latin dances for one of his cases. Weird, huh? But at the time my dad was an undercover vice officer investigating a high-class prostitution ring operating out of this upscale club, and he needed to know all the right moves so he wouldn’t stick out like he had two left feet. I mean, his shyness worked for him because the call girls kept swooping down asking if he wanted a ‘date’, but he couldn’t be a total loser or they would have wondered what in the hell he was doing at the club when he couldn’t dance.

Since he couldn’t admit any of that to my mom, given that his assignment was undercover, he took one look at her and blurted that he was a clod and that he needed her help. Later, when I was a teen, my mom told me that she really struggled not to laugh because she didn’t want to hurt my dad’s feelings. Here was this big guy – six feet tall and muscular – looking down at little Carlita Rodriquez, who was barely five feet, and his face was dotted with sweat and his hands were shaking.

At that moment, my mom started to fall in love. She said his reaction to her was so endearing that it meant more than having him flirt or if he had brought her flowers and gifts. And my mom would know. In those days, she had a lot of guys chasing her – awesome-looking guys who promised her the world. She didn’t want that. She had seen how her own dad, who was great-looking and had all the right moves with the ladies, had treated her mom. So, what she craved more than anything was a guy who respected and really loved her. In other words, a guy who started sweating and shaking when they first met because he was so overwhelmed by what he was feeling.

And that guy was my dad. In Chapter Three of Close to Perfect, I touched upon this very thing:

That meeting, according to Carlie Franklin, had been magic, and the reason they had endured.

“It’s all in that first moment,” she had said for as long as Tess could remember. “In how a man and a woman meet.”

She had that right. After their first dance, my mom and dad were hooked. Beauty and the Beast I like to call their romance, and my dad wouldn’t be offended at all. He knows he was lucky to have her, and she was lucky to have him.

In the last blog my dad wrote: “Sure, we hit it off right away, but like Josh and Tessie we were from two different worlds. That made it hard, but fun too.”

To be honest, I never saw the hard part of it, but then I was a kid. Maybe being married to such a beautiful lady is daunting for any man. Maybe being married to a guy who isn’t exactly a free spirit is a challenge to a woman who is. All I know is that my mom gave him confidence and my dad gave her security. Pretty awesome, wouldn’t you say?

Yeah, it’s all in that first moment. . .in how a man and a woman meet. Just like my mom and dad. Just like me and Josh.

Of course, a man and woman’s first night together is pretty damned special, too, even if they’re not sharing the same bed.

Next time Josh will tell you what he did that first night I spent at his mansion while I thought he was asleep; something he just confessed to me the other day. Bad, bad boy.

(ClickArt – Broderbund Image)