By the time you get to your junior year of college, when you're taking lots of classes in your major, you start seeing the same people in multiple classes. That's how I met Shelly. We were both working toward our Accounting Degree, and we were in multiple classes together. I know what you're thinking: "Wow! Not one but TWO accountants! I'll bet you guys were the most exciting couple in the world!"
Go ahead and make your jokes. The truth is we were pretty damn exciting.... Okay, you're right. We were pretty strait-laced people. SOME people might even call us boring. But my roommates thought I was normal and fun. Of course, both of them were engineers, so I guess it's all relative.
Most people would not describe Shelly as a beautiful bombshell, but no one would call her unattractive. She had a simple, cute look. But I was attracted to her immediately. She had long, brown, straight hair that always looked like it was just brushed. She had large, brown eyes that could be very expressive. But her best feature was her smile. When you saw her smile, it was simply impossible not to feel good and smile back.
She had a thin body with small breasts. But they looked appropriate for her small body. Whenever she wore a form-fitting shirt, I had to force myself not to stare at her.
One day after class, I asked her if she wanted to get coffee. I was thrilled when she said yes. We walked across campus to a local coffeehouse, and that's when I started to fall in love with her. She never stopped smiling the entire time. We talked about music we liked, films we liked, and our families. Okay, we also talked a little bit about the tax issues we discussed in class, but MOSTLY we just talked about normal stuff. We were both surprised when we realized we had been talking for almost three hours, and Shelly said she had to go.
We walked out together, and just as she said goodbye and turned to head to her apartment, I asked if she wanted to go out for dinner the next day. She looked at me, with no expression, for the longest five seconds of my life. Then she broke into that killer smile.
"Yes. I'd like that. A lot!"
I started breathing again as I returned her smile. We exchanged phone numbers, and I said I'd figure out where to meet. She said goodbye again, smiled, and left.
The next day I texted her, suggesting we go to Pasta House. It was a well-known Italian restaurant (duh) on campus. It was a
little
upscale, but certainly not fancy. I asked if I should stop by her apartment or if she wanted to meet me there. She opted for the latter.
I decided to put on a shirt with buttons - my definition of dressing up - and walked to the restaurant. I spotted Shelly when she was about a block away, and I could already see her smile. When she got closer, I was blown away.
"Wow, you look fantastic!" I gushed.
I had never seen her with makeup, and it completely changed the way she looked. She wasn't wearing a lot, but she sure knew how to apply it. Her eyes, which always looked good, really popped. Her cheek bones, which I never really noticed before, suddenly stood out. And her lip gloss made them look VERY kissable.
"Thanks," she said. "I take it you used to think I DIDN'T look fantastic?"
Her expression was not one of appreciation.
"No, No," I started to protest. "It's just that..."
And then she started laughing. A loud, infectious laugh. When she finally stopped laughing, the big smile returned.
"Honestly, I hardly recognize myself. My roommate did this to me. I didn't want her to, but she said I had to do something if I wanted to impress the guy I was going out with."
"Did you want to impress the guy?" I asked, half tongue-in-cheek, half wanting to know the real answer.
Again, there was a painfully long five second stare before she quietly answered, "Yes."
Now it was my turn to have a giant smile.
"Well, tell your roommate that it worked."
Shelly smiled. I took her hand, and said, "Let's go in."
Dinner was great. I mean, the food was good, but the conversation was better. Shelly was really easy to talk to, and there were no accounting conversations tonight. After two hours, we finally got up to leave.
"Can I walk you home?" I asked.
"Yes, please."
When she reached out to hold my hand, a warm feeling spread throughout my body. This was the best first date I had ever had. When we got to her apartment, she stopped at the sidewalk.
"This is it," she said. "I had a wonderful time, Larry. Thank you."
"I had a wonderful time, too, Shelly."
Before I could say anything else, she gave me a tight, short hug.
"Goodnight," she said, and she skipped - yes, skipped - up the walk to her apartment. She turned one last time before she opened the door and waved. I waved back, and she was gone.
That's the night I fell in love with my future wife.
Shelly and I dated for almost two months before she slept with me. She wasn't a virgin, but she clearly had limited experience. She was raised in a very conservative household, and unlike the girls who rebel against that by becoming sex addicts, Shelly remained very conservative when it came to sex. I'm not really complaining... well, maybe just a little bit. She clearly enjoyed sex - I'm not complaining about the frequency. But "plain vanilla" would not be simple enough of a term to describe our sex life. The only position allowed was missionary. I convinced her to dry doggy once, but she felt like her butt hole was too exposed. NOTHING NEAR THE BUTT HOLE! She wouldn't even let me go down on her, because she was afraid my tongue would get too close to her anus.
But I loved her. And we still had sex, albeit the same way every time. But I was certainly willing to live with that.
We got married shortly after graduation. I went to work for a large accounting firm while she went to work for a smaller firm which was owned by a friend of her father's. We made a very comfortable income, and life was good.
Three years later, our daughter, Melissa, was born. Life went from good to great. Shelly took maternity leave, and then we enrolled Melissa in a local day care program that was highly recommended by some friends.
Five years later, Shelley's boss - her dad's friend - wanted to sell his business. He was ready to retire. He asked Melissa if she and I would like to buy it. He knew me well, and he liked both of us. He wanted to sell to someone who would take care of his clients, many of whom had been with the firm a long time. After much discussion with Shelly, her father, and some of my current managers, we decided to go for it. My current firm was very encouraging, and they said they would even recommend our firm for clients who weren't really big enough to afford top tier rates. Likewise, they knew that I would recommend them for projects that were too big for us to handle.
The terms of the purchase were very reasonable - probably because of the friendship between the owner and Shelly's father. It wasn't long before we were making money and expanding it into a very nice business.
Like Shelly and me, our daughter also met the man who would become her husband during her junior year of college. They, too, married shortly after they each graduated with Business degrees in Information Systems. And like us, three years out of school, they had a daughter. We met Emily at the hospital, just a few hours after she was born. We were ecstatic! Since Melissa lived close to us, we saw her - and more importantly, Emily - often. Since her other grandparents lived out of town, we were the primary babysitters. We loved every single minute we spent together.
But our entire world blew up two years ago when Shelly was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. And three months later, she was gone. Because of our business, Shelly and I spent almost every waking hour together. I really didn't know if I could go on living. I went into a deep depression for a long time.
But, as happens with most people, I eventually started to accept my new life. I was still depressed and I still missed her terribly, but I knew that life had to go on. Going to work, however, without her, was too difficult. I sold the business and retired before I turned 60. I took on a new, unpaid, part-time job that was incredibly satisfying: I became my granddaughter's after-school chauffeur.
I'd drive her to soccer practice, to ice skating, to gymnastics, or anywhere else I could take her. Yes, like many of her friends, she was terribly over-programmed. I loved the time we spent together in the car, just talking about school, her day, or her friends.
Emily really liked soccer and ice skating, and she was a pretty good athlete - at least for a 9-year-old. She gave up gymnastics because soccer practices were taking up more and more time. She was on a travelling team, and, even at this young age, the coaches took it seriously. So did the parents. At some of the games, if you heard the parents yelling at the referee, you'd think these kids were playing for the World Cup finals. Sometimes they had to be reminded the kids were only 9-years-old!
Emily continued skating because it didn't take up too much time. I'm not sure how much SHE liked skating, and how much her MOTHER wanted her to keep skating, since she skated all through high school.
When Emily was 10, she wanted to try competing in skating. Melissa was thrilled, remembering how much fun she had at competitions. I drove Emily to her regular ice-skating lesson and to her private lesson. Her private lesson coach was a college student who grew up at the same rink. In fact, Melissa used to give her lessons during the two years she worked at the rink.
The first time I took Emily for her private lesson, she introduced me to her coach, Stacy. She was a cute girl with beautiful hazel eyes and long black hair. She was fairly tall, but I can't tell you anything else about her body shape. All the time I saw her at the rink, she was wearing a long winter coat with the rink's logo on it, like all the other teachers. Each week, Stacy would say hi to me before getting on the ice, and she'd give me a quick progress report after the lesson.
One afternoon, I went to Starbucks and saw Stacy about to order a drink. She was the only one in line, so I walked up behind her. As soon as the cashier mentioned the price, I stuck my phone in front of the barcode reader.
"I've got this," I said.
Stacy turned around and smiled.
"Larry! What are you doing?"
"Can't a guy buy a girl a drink?"
She laughed.
"Thank you! That's very nice. I was just going to relax before I head back to the rink. Wanna keep me company?"
"It would be my pleasure," I said.
I ordered and paid for my drink, and then we both went outside to enjoy the warm weather.
"You know, I almost didn't recognize you without your puffy rink jacket," I said, causing her to laugh.
She was wearing leggings and a stretchy top that let me see her body for the first time. She was thin with small breasts - a typical skater's body.
"Besides the jacket, you're a LOT shorter than I thought. I've never seen you when you weren't wearing skates," I said.
This caused her to laugh again.
"Hey, I'm five foot two AND A HALF," she said defensively.
