One time, Graeme streaked-I mean completely nude streaked-across the living room while a couple of nice, older missionaries sat on the couch, talking about Jesus.
Thankfully, Graeme was only three years old at the time.
Also, thankfully, this spontaneous display of nudity did not affect their opinion of him, and twenty years later, they found him a nice wife.
A most-of-the-time nice wife. I am usually more precious than rubies, but wake me up too early and you will realize I am still missing a few fruits of the spirit. Whew.
Tim and Roberta still don’t want to take full credit for having set us up, but they TOTALLY SET US UP. It was sneakily and successfully done.
I was young and sweet, only seventeen, and I could feel the beat from the tambourine, oh yeah. But not really because I was living with my parents
and they weren’t about to let me go out at night whether or not I was in the mood for a dance.
Speaking of ABBA, did you know they’re releasing new songs? I have so many questions about this.
First of all, why? Did they run out of money? What did they spend it on? Weren’t they all married to each other at one point? How can you divorce someone and then get together forty years later to sing a little bit? And what do 80-year-olds write songs about?
“Well I can dance with you honey
If you think it’s funny
Do the nurses know that you’re up?”
Anyway…we were living in the quaint little Mexican town of Valle de Bravo, in a house by the edge of a lake. The sunsets were amazing, and the weather was perfect, but there was absolutely nothing else to do besides eat and look at the sky.
Now, I am an expert at boredom management, but this was a whole new level and my pants were getting super tight. So I was excited when a neighbor told us about a nearby church whose pastors, Tim and Roberta Rovenstine, were American.
I was eager to meet them since my past experiences with Americans had always proved to be interesting. For example, it was my American friends in school who introduced me to:
– Brownies
– The Princess Bride
– Fruit Roll-Ups
– The possibility of drinking tap water without dying
– Quilts
– Infrequent hair washings
– Even less frequent hair brushings
– Chapstick
– Being snarky and getting away with it by saying you had a bad day
– Smelly candles
– Home baking. Instead of storing extra pots in their ovens, they made things in them. So magical.
– Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
– French toast
– Thanksgiving
– Cotton candy dum-dums
– Making terrible faces for pictures on purpose
So I was pretty hopeful about this church and meeting the pastors. If nothing else came from this friendship, at least I’d get some brownies.
The first time I attended their church, the Rovenstine’s grandkids were visiting. I scanned the crowd, secretly hoping one of the grandsons
was at least eighteen, but no luck. The oldest boy was shorter than me and just beginning to develop his first batch of pimples. Sigh.
Tim and Roberta have lived in Mexico for over thirty years and are more Mexican than I. They can eat at the shadiest taco stand in the shadiest
part of a shady Mexican town and not get sick. Brave and naive family members visiting from the states have come along for these shady meals
and there are a lot of stories involving airports and vomit. But Tim and Roberta don’t get sick anymore. They are invincible, blue-eyed, 6′ tall Mexicans. And in true Mexican fashion, they invited me over to their house regularly.
I grew very fond of them, despite their lack of eligible grandsons, and my parents and I spent many afternoons in their cabin, drinking spicy Good Earth tea and chatting for hours. I watched The Sound of Music for the first time in their living room. Like I said, good things come from my American friends-and-relations.
It was during one of these visits that Roberta casually mentioned an upcoming visit from one of those brave family members who get diarrhea. I was helping clear the table after lunch when she suddenly stopped making eye contact with me and told the fridge that the visitor is a nephew and he’d be arriving tomorrow. A young nephew, but not too young.
Still looking away inconspicuously, she mentioned how he might enjoy talking to me since I speak English. You know, it might be nice. And then she shared a few choice tidbits about him:
His name is Graeme.
He makes a lot of his own meals in a crockpot.
He is very low maintenance. She has never seen him dressed up in really nice clothes or anything…very causal guy.
He makes all the groceries disappear.
At this point, my mom and I were looking at each other with nervous excitement, while Roberta inspected an interesting plant. Tim, not being capable of slyness, told her not to stir the match making pot, and she appeared confused, like it hadn’t occurred to her at all.
As soon as I got home that night, I scanned Roberta’s Facebook friends and found a guy in a canoe named Graeme. The guy, not the canoe. Blue eyes, nice. No mention of girlfriends or crockpots, and he seems to have gotten through the pimple production stage. But he might be weird. He might not be very nice. He might make terrible faces for pictures on purpose.
I tried not to be, but I was still excited, despite this:
The next day was Sunday and we got to church early for the first time since that year we forgot about Daylight Savings. My parents were also curious about this nephew with the weird name.
As we got out of the car, I spotted a tall guy with wavy brown hair,
all dressed up in a blue suit, standing by the front doors. Darn. Can’t avoid him there. In true teenage fashion, I wanted to meet him and I also wanted to stay as far away from him as possible in case he liked me or not. He looked rather uneasy himself, and as I walked past him, we said hi and then looked away real quick.
I found out later that Tim, elderly Christian pastor Tim who had just been telling Roberta to calm down, had also been telling Graeme, and I quote directly:
“You should meet this hot chick that sings in church.”
And that explains why we were both slithering around, trying to avoid each other, all the while wondering if the chick really was hot, and if the nephew really was eligible.
Graeme wants to add at this point that when he first saw me, he had three thoughts: 1) She’s too cute to be interested in me, 2) Why is she so white? I thought she was supposed to be Mexican, and 3) She doesn’t look very friendly.
I was interested, so he was wrong about that one, but I can confirm I have a very white, unpleasant face.
The whiteness, due to my French and English heritage, and the unpleasantness just due to bad luck, man. I am warm and kind on the inside, but my face is unamused by default. My BFF Wren says I am the nicest person in the world, and anyone will like me if they can just get past my face (I added that second part; Wren knows it’s true but won’t admit this).
The heart is happy, but the face don’t know it. RBFS is a real thing, man. #rbfsawareness #itsnotyourfault
Anyway, my family and I went to lunch at the Rovenstine’s house after church that Sunday and, seeing as we were sitting across from each other, Graeme and I were finally forced to talk. Suddenly and casually, everyone got up and left us alone at the table.
It was November and I told Graeme about my plans to go to Australia the following April. My brother David lives there and was secretly hoping I’d visit, eat a crocodile burger, fall in love with one of his friends, and stay in Australia forever. David was going to pay for the trip and my parents had already agreed to it. Graeme thought it sounded great and said I should definitely go. Definitely.
We spent the rest of the day together, and became Facebook friends that evening. Getting serious, now.
The main reason Graeme had come to Mexico at all was to attend a men’s conference that was either cancelled, or never existed. I’m still not entirely sure to this day and Roberta won’t say.
Seeing as he still had a week left in Mexico and nothing else to do, we managed to see each other every day.
On Monday, Graeme was helping fix up a house for a single mom. This wasn’t the first time he had used his construction and carpentry skills in Mexico. Years before, he had built a house for an old lady who had been living in a hut with a dirt floor. This time he was removing fallen tree limbs from the front yard, and fixing windows. I casually showed up with my rough, calloused hands to help, because I have a gift for that sort of rough work. Must be from all the years of reading in my room.
On Tuesday, he showed up at a women’s meeting in church, with absolutely no excuse for being there.
While all the ladies discussed holy things, Graeme and I sat outside chatting and laughing loudly enough to annoy one of the ladies, who shut the front doors and gave us a nasty look.
I was still expecting him to do or say something unpleasant at any moment, but instead found we had a lot in common. We had already known each other for three days, so it seemed like the right time to talk about important things, such as, did he want to homeschool his hypothetical children? And also, what are my thoughts on marriage?
The Shoebridges are an efficient people.
On Wednesday, we had a playdate. Roberta drove all the way into town to drop Graeme off. Very silly, this. We met up in a parking lot, Graeme got out of her car, and into ours. I can’t remember now if Roberta gave him a pat and told him to be a good boy or not, but while we smiled at each other nervously, my mom and Roberta agreed on a time for Graeme to go back home. Like I said, it was a playdate.
My dad walked with us to the edge of the lake, and then abandoned us there. For the first time in my life, my dad let me be alone with a man.
Graeme took a kayak out on the lake, and I sat under the gazebo, watching him get smaller and smaller. Once he was far enough away, I did something naughty.
I looked in his wallet.
What a creep, man. I totally looked in his wallet. Thankfully, I didn’t find anything interesting. I hear some men keep interesting things there.
He started making his way back and I took one last look at his driver’s license. He reminded me of Mr. Tumnus a little bit. I like Mr. Tumnus. He is a nice faun and didn’t mean to kidnap Lucy.
Looking back now, I realize we were already in love that Wednesday. He came back, sat next to me, but not too close, and told me he was very impressed by me.
Thank goodness my emotions and my face work independently of each other, because there was thunder and lightning going on in me at that moment, and it was about to get better.
This is when Graeme gave me the best compliment of my life. I’d had many guys compliment me before. They liked my face. I smelled good. My hair was nice. I shouldn’t pluck my bushy eyebrows because they were sexy. All silly things.
I will never forget the first compliment Graeme gave me because he didn’t say I smelled good (he doesn’t lie) or had pretty hair. In his very calm manner, he looked me in the eye and said:
“You carry yourself with grace.”
That’s when I decided for the third time in three days that I was going to marry him.
He said he would like to come see me again in the summer, and my heart sank a little because summer was seven months away.
On Thursday, I washed his underwear.
Graeme hadn’t showered at all since his arrival in Mexico because the Rovenstines hadn’t had running water for a while. He had been wearing stinky clothes for days, and I offered to do his laundry. So I’ve been washing his chones since before we were married. This is true love.
Thursday evening, we went to a small group meeting. Graeme had prepared some things to say, and although his Spanish is really good, I guess it wasn’t good enough that day, because we sat together and I translated for him.
That night, I made him a card that said:
“I feel kinda like when you went out onto the lake
I was sad to see you go
Missed you while you were gone
But knew you would come back”
Graeme went home and I found out later he called his mom from the airport to say, “I think I found my wife.”
The story continues and it involves chicken pox, a hilariously cringy wedding, and a shot in the butt. Keep reading our weird love story over HERE.
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