Black Pioneers Quotes

I've been lucky enough now in my life to meet all sorts of extraordinary and accomplished people - world leaders, inventors, musicians, astronauts, athletes, professors, entrepreneurs, artists and writers, pioneering doctors and researchers. Some (though not enough) of them are women. Some (though not enough) are black or of color. Some were born poor or have lives that to many of us would appear to have been unfairly heaped with adversity, and yet still they seem to operate as if they've had every advantage in the world. What I've learned is this: All of them have had doubters. Some continue to have roaring, stadium-sized collection of critics and naysayers who will shout I told you so at every little misstep or mistake. The noise doesn't go away, but the most successful people I know have figured out how to live with it, to lean on the people who believe in them, and to push onward with their goals.

I missed the anonymity-the ability to run to the market without running into my third-grade teacher. I missed the nightlife-the knowledge that if I wanted to, there was always an occasion to get dressed up and head out for dinner and drinks. I missed the restaurants-the Asian, the Thai, the Italian the Indian. I was already tired of mashed potatoes and canned green beans. I missed the culture- the security that comes from being on the touring schedule of the major Broadway musicals. I missed the shopping-the funky boutiques, the eclectic shops, the browsing. I missed the city.

My head rested on his shoulder, my heart rested entirely in his hands And in a whisper, my words escaped: "I love you." He probably hadn't heard them. He was too focused on the movie. But he heard me; I could tell. His arms enveloped me even further; his embrace tightened. He breathed in and sighed, and his hand played with my hair. "Good," he said softly, and his gentle lips found mine.

to be useful, to be pleasant with our playmates, respectful to superiors, just to all, black or white, good to the poor not showing pride or selfishness but kindness and good will . . . and to see to it that we looked to our own, more than to others’ faults.

Of course, the fact that a single biblical text can mean many things doesn’t mean it can mean anything. Slave traders justified the exploitation of black people by claiming the curse on Noah’s son Ham rendered all Africans subhuman. Many Puritans and pioneers appealed to the stories of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan to support attacks on indigenous populations. More recently, I’ve heard Christians shrug off sins committed by American politicians because King David assaulted women too. Anytime the Bible is used to justify the oppression and exploitation of others, we have strayed far from the God who brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, “out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2).

There were many deficits in our swamp education, but Grandpa Sawtooth, to his credit, taught us the names of whole townships that had been forgotten underwater. Black pioneers, Creek Indians, moonshiners, women, 'disappeared' boy soldiers who deserted their army camps. From Grandpa we learned how to peer beneath the sea-glare of the 'official, historical' Florida records we found in books. "Prejudice," as defined by Sawtooth Bigtree, was a kind of prehistoric arithmetic--a "damn, fool math"--in which some people counted and others did not. It meant white names on white headstones in the big cemetery in Cypress Point, and black and brown bodies buried in swamp water. At ten, I couldn't articulate much but I got the message: to be a true historian, you had to mourn amply and well.

[Walmart]s largest innovation consists in getting rid of the central Fordist principle of paying the workers enough so that they can afford to buy what they manufacture. Instead, WalMart has pioneered the inverse principle: paying the workers so little that they cannot afford to shop anywhere other than at WalMart. It might even be said, not too hyperbolically, that WalMart has singlehandedly preserved the American economy from total collapse, in that their lowered prices are the only thing that has allowed millions of the “working poor” to retain the status of consumers at all, rather than falling into the “black hole” of total immiseration. WalMart is part and parcel of how the “new economy” has largely been founded upon transferring wealth from the less wealthy to the already-extremely-rich.

He was going to be my own private playground for the rest of my life. I almost felt guilty, like I was taking something away from the world.

What are you both going to do, long term, to nurture each other’s creativity?” I didn’t have an answer for him there. But deep down, I knew that, somehow, gravy would come into play.

People, even if they are so thoughtless as to be born black, do not come into this world merely to provide mink coats and diamonds for chattering, trivial, pale matrons, or genocidal opportunities for their unsexed, unloved, and, finally, despicable men—oh, pioneers! There will be bloody holding actions all over the world, for years to come: but the Western party is over, and the white man's sun has set. Period.

Think of how Patti Smith, Joan Jett, and Pat Benatar, women pioneers in rock music, presented themselves to the world: leather, black blazers, denim. Our eyes accepted them as women tough enough to take on a role meant for a man.

At home, the Barker children were being raised, as one daughter, Catherine, would remember, “to be useful, to be pleasant with our playmates, respectful to superiors, just to all, black or white, good to the poor not showing pride or selfishness but kindness and good will . . . and to see to it that we looked to our own, more than to others’ faults.

Some historians, in fact, suggest Hartford recruiters may have pioneered strategies that spurred the great migration of Southern rural blacks to Northern cities.

He walked me to the door, and we stood on the top step. Wrapping his arms around my waist, he kissed me on the nose and said, “I’m glad I came back.” God, he was sweet.

He wasn’t acknowledging my self-diagnosis at all. What kind of doctor is this?

You’re mine,” Marlboro Man said, his strong hand caressing my knee in such a way that I considered asking the cab to return to the hotel.

And as I turned my head toward the front of the church, my eyes went straight to him--to Marlboro Man, who was standing dead ahead, looking straight at me.

I who had loved the image of old Geulincx, dead young, who left me free, on the black boat of Ulysses, to crawl towards the East, along the deck. That is a great measure of freedom, for him who has not the pioneering spirit. And from the poop, poring upon the wave, a sadly rejoicing slave, I follow with my eyes the proud and futile wake. Which, as it bears me from no fatherland away, bears me onward to no shipwreck.

As I go off into the big black abyss of my future, I have to admit that I am terrified and also a bit insecure in my decisions. But, I also realize that anyone who has ever gone off into uncharted waters must have felt similar to the way I feel now, which gives me a small ounce of comfort. I don’t know how to do what I am doing, I have no way of knowing if this is the right way or not. But I guess I’ll never know until I get there. So, this is me, being a pioneer.

I was half asleep--tipsy on his musky fumes--when I felt Marlboro Man gently nuzzle his face toward my ear. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled, his chest falling--the words I love you escaping from his mouth so quietly, I wasn’t sure whether I’d dreamed it.

Women of the baby boomer generation faced these same constraints in all professions. There was no other blueprint to work from other than to show that a woman could do the job as it had always been done, by a man. Follow our model, be tough, prove yourself by the standards we set. You weren’t even supposed to look like a woman. Dress like a man’s version of a woman. Our eyes can handle that. Think of how Patti Smith, Joan Jett, and Pat Benatar, women pioneers in rock music, presented themselves to the world: leather, black blazers, denim. Our eyes accepted them as women tough enough to take on a role meant for a man. Woman with a guitar. Woman with a gavel. Woman with a podium. Woman with an oval-shaped office. Women with objects of power. It has taken time for our eyes to adjust to them.

I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, and hey…if I don’t answer the door right away it probably means I’m doing some weight training or something.” “Gotcha,” Marlboro Man answered, humoring me. “And hey--don’t pull any muscles or strain yourself. We’re getting married in less than a week.

Today, one must dig to uncover the history of Black Fort Greene, whose pioneers seem in danger of being forgotten. Dr. McKinney’s former brownstone at 205 DeKalb Avenue—the site of her thriving medical practice—would be listed for sale in 2016 for nearly $2.7 million, without any mention of its history. Instead, the names of Brooklyn’s slave-holding families dominate the terrain. Boerum Hill (named for Simon Boerum, a man with three slaves). Wyckoff Street (Peter Wyckoff, enslaver of seven). Ditmas Park (four slaves). Luquer Street (thirteen). Van Brunt Street (seven). Cortelyou Road (two). Both Van Dam and Bayard streets are named for the owners of slave ships, while Stuyvesant Heights is named for the man who governed the New Netherland colony of the Dutch West India Company, which shipped tens of thousands of slaves. Even the McKinney school began with a slave-owning name. Back when Dasani’s grandmother was a student, this was still the Sands Junior High School, named for Joshua Sands (enslaver of six) and his brother Comfort Sands (three). None of this is known to Dasani, whose parents only talk about the slavery of their Southern ancestors. The North is where they came to be free.

Hello?” I answered the phone. “Hello…Ree?” The strong male voice on the other end said. “Hey, Walrus!” I shrieked enthusiastically. There was a long, silent pause. “Walrus?” I repeated. The deep voice began again. “You might not remember me--we met at the J-Bar last Christmas?” It was the Marlboro Man.

The mythic American character is made up of the virtues of fairness, self-reliance, toughness, and honesty. Those virtues are generally stuffed into a six-foot-tall, dark-haired, can-do kind of guy who is at once a family man, attractive to strange women, carefree, stable, realistic, and whimsical. in the lore of America, that man lives on the Great Plains. he's from Texas, Dodge City, Cheyenne, the Dakotas, or somewhere in Montana. In fact, the seedbed of this American character, from the days of de Tocqueville through Andrew Jackson, Wyattt Earp, Pony Express riders, pioneers, and cowboys to modern caricatures played by actors such as Tom Mix, Gary Cooper, and John Wayne has aways been the frontier. It's a place with plenty of room to roam, great sunsets, clear lines between right and wrong, and lots of horses. It's also a place that does not exist and never has. The truth is that there has never been much fairness out here.

I can’t wait till tomorrow,” he said, backing me against the door of my car, his lips moving toward my neck. Every nerve receptor in my body simultaneously fired as his strong hands gripped the small of my back; my hands pulled him closer and closer. We kissed and kissed some more in the hotel parking lot, flirting dangerously with taking it a step--or five--further. Out-of-control prairie fires were breaking out inside my body; even my knees felt hot. I couldn’t believe this man, this Adonis who held me so completely and passionately in his arms, was actually mine. That in a mere twenty-four hours, I’d have him all to myself.

We drove a couple of miles to a pasture near his parents’ house and met up with the other early risers. I rode along with one of the older cowboys in the feed truck while the rest of the crew followed the herd on horseback, all the while enjoying the perfect view of Marlboro Man out the passenger-side window. I watched as he darted and weaved in the herd, shifting his body weight and posture to nonverbally communicate to his loyal horse, Blue, how far to move from the left or to the right. I breathed in slowly, feeling a sudden burst of inexplicable pride. There was something about watching my husband--the man I was crazy in love with--riding his horse across the tallgrass prairie. It was more than the physical appeal, more than the sexiness of his chaps-cloaked body in the saddle. It was seeing him do something he loved, something he was so good at doing. I took a hundred photos in my mind. I never wanted to forget it as long as I lived.

Come out today,” he said the next morning. “You can come help me finish burnin’.” I smiled, knowing he didn’t need my help at all. But I loved it when he phrased it that way. “Oh, okay!” I said, rubbing my eyes. “What should I wear?” Marlboro Man laughed, probably wondering how many years would pass before I’d quit asking that question.

Bye,” he said with a gentle smile. And with that, his delicious boots walked right out of the J-Bar, his dark blue Wranglers cloaking a body that I was sure had to have been chiseled out of granite. My lungs felt tight, and I still smelled his scent through the bar smoke in the air. I didn’t even know his name. I prayed it wasn’t Billy Bob.

It was so dark outside, I forgot where I was. I had no sense of geography or time or space, not even when he took my face in his hands and touched his forehead to mine, closing his eyes, as if to savor the powerful moment. “I love you,” he whispered as I died right there on the spot. It wasn’t convenient, my dying the night before my wedding. I didn’t know how my mom was going to explain it to the florist. But she’d have to; I was totally done for. I’d had half a glass of wine all evening but felt completely inebriated. When I finally arrived home, I had no idea how I’d gotten there. I was intoxicated--drunk on a cowboy. A cowboy who, in less than twenty-four hours, would become my husband.

Still lying on the ground, half tingly, half stunned, I held my left hand in front of my face and lightly spread my fingers, examining what Marlboro Man had given me that morning. I couldn’t have chosen a more beautiful ring, or a ring that was a more fitting symbol of my relationship with Marlboro Man. It was unadorned, uncontrived, consisting only of a delicate gold band and a lovely diamond that stood up high--almost proudly--on its supportive prongs. It was a ring chosen by a man who, from day one, had always let me know exactly how he felt. The ring was a perfect extension of that: strong, straightforward, solid, direct. I liked seeing it on my finger. I felt good knowing it was there. My stomach, though, was in knots. I was engaged. Engaged. I was ill-prepared for how weird it felt. Why hadn’t I ever heard of this strange sensation before? Why hadn’t anyone told me? I felt simultaneously grown up, excited, shocked, scared, matronly, weird, and happy--a strange combination for a weekday morning. I was engaged--holy moly. My other hand picked up the receiver of the phone, and without thinking, I dialed my little sister. “Hi,” I said when Betsy picked up the phone. It hadn’t been ten minutes since we’d hung up from our last conversation. “Hey,” she replied. “Uh, I just wanted to tell you”--my heart began to race--“that I’m, like…engaged.” What seemed like hours of silence passed. “Bullcrap,” Betsy finally exclaimed. Then she repeated: “Bullcrap.” “Not bullcrap,” I answered. “He just asked me to marry him. I’m engaged, Bets!” “What?” Betsy shrieked. “Oh my God…” Her voice began to crack. Seconds later, she was crying. A lump formed in my throat, too. I immediately understood where her tears were coming from. I felt it all, too. It was bittersweet. Things would change. Tears welled up in my eyes. My nose began to sting. “Don’t cry, you butthead.” I laughed through my tears. She laughed it off, too, sobbing harder, totally unable to suppress the tears. “Can I be your maid of honor?” This was too much for me. “I can’t talk anymore,” I managed to squeak through my lips. I hung up on Betsy and lay there, blubbering on my floor.

A statistician for the Prudential Insurance Company predicted the imminent extinction of Black people in his epic book that relied on the 1890 census figures. Unlike the Plessy ruling, Frederick Hoffman’s Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro received plenty of attention in 1896. Packed with statistical tables and published by the American Economic Association, the book was a pioneering work in American medical research, and it catapulted Hoffman into scientific celebrity in the Western world as the heralded father of American public health. At “the time of emancipation,” he wrote, southern Blacks were “healthy in body and cheerful in mind.” “What are the conditions thirty years after?” Well, “in the plain language of the facts,” free Blacks were headed toward “gradual extinction,” pulled down by their natural immoralities, law-breaking, and diseases. Hoffman supplied his employer with an excuse for its discriminatory policies concerning African Americans—that is, for denying them life insurance. White life insurance companies refused to insure a supposedly dying race. Yet another racist idea was produced to defend a racist policy.3

We had way too much romance to take care of when we were together, and besides that, Father Johnson had explicitly told us we couldn’t work on the collages in each other’s presence. This was fine with me: sitting upright at a table and cutting our magazine photos was the last thing I wanted to do with such a fine specimen of a human. It would have been a criminal misuse of our time together.

But I was stuck--stuck in a delicious, glorious, beautiful, inescapable La Brea tar pit of romance with a rough, rugged, impossibly tender cowboy. As soon as I’d have any thoughts of escaping to Chicago to avoid my parents’ problems, within seconds I’d shoot myself down. Something major would have to happen to pry me out of his arms. Marlboro Man filled my daydreams, filled my thoughts, my time, my heart, my mind. When I was with him, I was able to forget about my parents’ marital problems. On our drives together, preparing our dinners, watching our VHS action movies, all of those unhappy things disappeared from view. This became a crutch for me, an addictive drug of escape. Ten seconds in Marlboro Man’s pickup, and I saw only goodness and light. And the occasional bra-and-panty-wearing grandma mowing her yard.

In the meantime, I tried my best to acclimate to my new life in the middle of nowhere. I had to get used to the fact that I lived twenty miles from the nearest grocery store. That I couldn’t just run next door when I ran out of eggs. That there was no such thing as sushi. Not that it would matter, anyway. No cowboy on the ranch would touch it. That’s bait, they’d say, laughing at any city person who would convince themselves that such a food was tasty.

I looked at him, giggled like a schoolgirl, and asked, “What have you been doing all this time?” “Oh, I was headed home,” he said, fiddling with my fingers. “But then I just turned around; I couldn’t help it.” His hand found my upper back and pulled me closer. The windows were getting foggy. I felt like I was seventeen. “I’ve got this problem,” he continued, in between kisses. “Yeah?” I asked, playing dumb. My hand rested on his left bicep. My attraction soared to the heavens. He caressed the back of my head, messing up my hair…but I didn’t care; I had other things on my mind. “I’m crazy about you,” he said. By now I was on his lap, right in the front seat of his Diesel Ford F250, making out with him as if I’d just discovered the concept. I had no idea how I’d gotten there--the diesel pickup or his lap. But I was there. And, burying my face in his neck, I quietly repeated his sentiments. “I’m crazy about you, too.

I was just beginning to wrap my mind around the way daily life unfolded here: wake up early, get your work done, eat, relax, and go to bed. Repeat daily. There wasn’t a calendar of events or dinner dates with friends in town or really much room for recreation--because that just meant double the work when you got back to work. It was hard for me not to wonder when any of these people ever went out and had a good time, or built a snowman. Or slept past 5:00 A.M.

What are you doing?” “Coming to pick you up in a little bit,” he said. I loved it when he took charge. It made my heart skip a beat, made me feel flushed and excited and thrilled. After four years with J, I was sick and tired of the surfer mentality. Laid-back, I’d discovered, was no longer something I wanted in a man. And when it came to his affection for me, Marlboro Man was anything but that. “I’ll be there at five.” Yes, sir. Anything you say, sir. I’ll be ready. With bells on.

Good morning, Mike,” I mumbled, making a beeline for the coffeepot. “Oooooh!” he teased again. “Someone is getting married tonight! Woooooooo…” “Yep,” I said, taking that first glorious sip of java. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Mike put his hand over his mouth and snickered. Then he asked, “So…are you guys gonna do some…some kissin’?” “I certainly hope so,” I said. This only served to make Mike laugh harder. “Ooooooh!” he squealed. “Are you gonna have a baby?” Oh, Lord. I took another hit of Gevalia and answered, “Not today.” Mike cracked up again. He was clearly on a roll. “What’s so funny this morning, Mike?” I asked. “Your s-s-s-stomach is gonna get so fat,” he answered. Mike was quickly approaching manic stage--the result of a large, busy weekend and his routine being disrupted. Soon the inevitable crash would come. I just hoped I was on the plane to Australia when it happened. It wasn’t going to be pretty. “Oh, whatever, Mike,” I answered, feigning indignation.

Later, when the party had thinned out and Betsy and I ran to the ladies’ room to primp, she remarked on Marlboro Man’s chivalry, sighing over his sweet display of kindness. Then she moved closer to me, zeroing in and focusing on the general area of my chin. “Oh…my…God,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand. “What’s wrong with your face?” My stomach fell to the floor. I found a bottle of Jergens on the bathroom counter and began rubbing it in, determined to beat the flaking skin into submission.

I fell asleep at nine that night and didn’t move until nine the next morning, waking up still dressed and wrapped like a pupa in the Park Hyatt’s comforter. Marlboro Man wasn’t in the room; I was disoriented and dizzy, stumbling to the bathroom like a drunk sorority girl after a long night of partying. But I didn’t look like a sorority girl. I looked like hell, pale and green and drawn; Marlboro Man was probably on a flight back to the States, I imagined, after having woken up and seen what he’d been sleeping to all night.

John watched the pale black road, and he remembered a single moment during his time away in the wilderness. He wished he had told Doris about it-a single moment in Needles, California, months and months ago, facing west in the late afternoon. There had been a heavy rainstorm over just a small, localized patch of the desert, and from the patch beside it, a dust storm blew in. The sun caught the dust and the moisture in a way John had never seen before, and even though he knew it was backward, it seemed to him the sun was radiating black sunbeams down onto the earth, onto Interstate 40 and the silver river of endless pioneers that flowed from one part of the continent to the other. John felt that he and everybody in the New World was a part of a mixed curse and blessing from God, that they were a race of strangers, perpetually casting themselves into new fires, yearning to burn, yearning to rise from the charcoal, always newer and more wonderful, always thirsty, always starving, always believing that whatever came to them next would mercifully erase the creatures they'd already become as they crawled along the plastic radiant way.

That night we got dressed up--Marlboro Man in his snug Wranglers and handsome black button-down shirt, me in a flowy taupe dress and black heels--and headed out for the restaurant that a tour booklet had told us was the most sublime dining experience in all of Sydney. We snuggled in the cab to the high-rise whose top floor housed the place. “You’re mine,” Marlboro Man said, his strong hand caressing my knee in such a way that I considered asking the cab to return to the hotel. My hunger for a substantial meal was the only thing that propelled me onward to the restaurant.

Marlboro Man’s call woke me up the next morning. It was almost eleven. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?” I hopped out of bed, blinking and stumbling around my room. “Who me? Oh, nothing.” I felt like I’d been drugged. “Were you asleep?” he said. “Who, me?” I said again, trying to snap out of my stupor. I was stalling, trying my darnedest to get my bearings. “Yes. You,” he said, chuckling. “I can’t believe you were asleep!” “I wasn’t asleep! I was…I just…” I was a loser. A pathetic, late-sleeping loser. “You’re a real go-getter in the mornings, aren’t you?” I loved it when he played along with me.

One of the most pathetic pages in the history of Christian missions is that which describes the scene when Judson was finally released and returned to the mission house seeking Ann, who again had failed to visit him for some weeks. As he ambled down the street as fast as his maimed ankles would permit, the tormenting question kept repeating itself, “Is Ann still alive?” Upon reaching the house, the first object to attract his attention was a fat, half-naked Burman woman squatting in the ashes beside a pan of coals and holding on her knees an emaciated baby, so begrimed with dirt that it did not occur to him that it could be his own. Across the foot of the bed, as though she had fallen there, lay a human object that, at the first glance, was no more recognizable than his child. The face was of a ghastly paleness and the body shrunken to the last degree of emaciation. The glossy black curls had all been shorn from the finely-shaped head. There lay the faithful and devoted wife who had followed him so unwearily from prison to prison, ever alleviating his distresses and consoling him in his trials. Presently Ann felt warm tears falling upon her face and, rousing from her daze, saw Adoniram at her side.12

I arrived back home just before midnight, and Marlboro Man met me at the car. I could hear nothing but cows and crickets when I climbed out of my car and into his arms, which were strong and warm and comforting. I was a wreck--sick to my stomach and even more sick in my heart--and Marlboro Man helped me to the house, as if I were crippled by a terminal illness. I was completely beat, hardly able to finish my shower before I fell into bed with Marlboro Man, who rubbed my back as I tried with all my might to keep from throwing up, breaking down, and completely saturating my red floral pillowcase with tears.

My cold-weather gear left a lot to be desired: black maternity leggings under boot-cut maternity jeans, and a couple of Marlboro Man’s white T-shirts under an extra-large ASU sweatshirt. I was so happy to have something warm to wear that I didn’t even care that I was wearing the letters of my Pac-10 rival. Add Marlboro Man’s old lumberjack cap and mud boots that were four sizes too big and I was on my way to being a complete beauty queen. I seriously didn’t know how Marlboro Man would be able to keep his hands off of me. If I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the feed truck, I’d shiver violently.

It sets one dreaming—to interchange thoughts with beings whose thinking had an organic background wholly different from ours (other senses, other appetites), to be unenviously humbled by intellects possibly superior to our own yet able for that very reason to descend to our level, to descend lovingly ourselves if we met innocent and childlike creatures who could never be as strong or as clever as we, to exchange with the inhabitants of other worlds that especially keen and rich affection which exists between unlikes; it is a glorious dream. But make no mistake. It is a dream. We are fallen. We know what our race does to strangers. Man destroys or enslaves every species he can. Civilized man murders, enslaves, cheats, and corrupts savage man. Even inanimate nature he turns into dust bowls and slag-heaps. There are individuals who don’t. But they are not the sort who are likely to be our pioneers in space. Our ambassador to new worlds will be the needy and greedy adventurer or the ruthless technical expert. They will do as their kind has always done. What that will be if they meet things weaker than themselves, the black man and the red man can tell. If they meet things stronger, they will be, very properly, destroyed.

Early the next morning, I was driving westward toward the ranch. Marlboro Man had called the night before--a rare evening we’d spent apart--and had asked me to come out early. I’d just turned onto the highway that led out of my hometown when my car phone rang. It was dewy outside, foggy. “Hurry up,” Marlboro Man’s voice playfully commanded. “I want to see my future wife.” My stomach lurched. Wife. It would take me a while to get used to that word. “I’m coming,” I announced. “Hold your horses!” We hung up, and I giggled. Hold your horses. Heh-heh. I had a lifetime of these jokes ahead. This was going to be loads of fun.

Ms. Altar Guild gently coaxed my father and me toward the door. “It’s time,” she whispered. My stomach fell. What was happening? Where was I? Who was I? At that very moment, my worlds were colliding--the old world with the new, the past life with the future. I felt my dad inhale deeply, and I followed his lead. He was nervous; I could feel it. I was nervous, too. As we took our place in the doorway, I squeezed his arm and whispered, “I love thee.” It was our little line. “I love thee, too,” he whispered back. And as I turned my head toward the front of the church, my eyes went straight to him--to Marlboro Man, who was standing dead ahead, looking straight at me.

The next day, I started getting dressed at three for the rehearsal. The beautiful cherry red suit had black stitching, and I had taken the skirt to a seamstress to have it shortened to a sexy upper-midthigh length--an unfortunate habit I’d picked up while watching too much Knots Landing in the late 1980s. I was relatively slender and not the least bit stacked on top, and my bottom was somewhat fit but wildly unremarkable. If I was going to highlight any feature of my anatomy, it would have to be my legs. When I arrived at the rehearsal at the church, my grandmother kissed me, then looked down and said, “Did you forget the other half of your suit?” The seamstress had gotten a little overzealous.

A few hours later, lying on a mat during rest time, Vladimir embraced the tiny curled-up creature beside him, his first best buddy, just as Mother had promised. Maybe tomorrow they could go to the Piskaryovka mass grave together with their grandmothers and lay flowers for their dead. Maybe they would even be inducted into the Red Pioneers side by side. What good fortune that he and Lionya were so alike and that neither of them had siblings...Now they would have each other! It was as if Mother had created someone just for him, as if she had guessed how lonely he had been in his sick bed with his stuffed giraffe, the months spinning away in twilight gloom until it was June again, time to go down to sunny Yalta to watch the Black Sea dolphins jump for joy.

Two days before our wedding, we were making out in a dark, hazy movie theater. It was one of the most romantic moments of my life. Until Marlboro Man’s whiskers scratched my sensitive face, and I winced in pain. When we returned to my parents’ house, Marlboro Man walked me to the door, his arm tightly around my waist. “You’d better get some sleep,” he said. My stomach jumped inside my body. “I know,” I said, stopping and holding him close. “I can’t believe it’s almost here.” “I’m glad you didn’t move to Chicago,” Marlboro Man whispered, chuckling the soft chuckle that started all this trouble in the first place. I remember being in that same spot, in that same position, the night Marlboro Man had asked me not to go. To stay and give us a chance. I still couldn’t believe we were here.

Still lying on the floor of my bedroom, I took a deep breath and looked at my hand. I felt strange and tingly, almost separated from my body. I wasn’t really here, I told myself. I was in Chicago, and I was watching all of this happen to someone else. It was a movie, maybe on the big screen, maybe cable. But it couldn’t be my life…could it? My phone rang again. It was Marlboro Man. “Hey,” he said. I heard the diesel engine rattling in the background. “I just dropped Mike at the mall.” “Hi,” I said, smiling. “Thanks for doing that.” “I just wanted to tell you that…I’m happy,” he said. My heart leapt out of my chest and shot through the roof. “I am, too,” I said. “Surprised…and happy.” “Oh,” he continued. “I told Mike the news. But he promised he wouldn’t tell anybody.” Oh, Lord, I thought. Marlboro Man obviously has no idea who he’s dealing with.

Any chance you might be pregnant?” I knew that wasn’t it. “Well, it wouldn’t be impossible,” I humored him. “But I know that’s not what it is. I got this same thing on our honeymoon, just as soon as we got to Australia. It’s definitely some kind of vertigo/inner ear thing.” I swallowed hard, wishing I’d brought along some Froot Loops. “When was your wedding?” he asked, looking at the calendar on the wall of the exam room. “September twenty-first,” I answered. “But again…I know it’s my ears.” “Well, let’s just rule it out,” the doctor said. “I’ll send the nurse in here in a minute, okay?” Waste of time, I thought. “Okay, but…do you think there’s anything we can do about my ears?” I really didn’t want to feel this way anymore. “Marcy will be in here in just a second,” he repeated. He wasn’t acknowledging my self-diagnosis at all. What kind of doctor is this?

I hoped there weren’t any vomit chunks in my wavy auburn locks. That would be sure to ruin Marlboro Man’s dinner. “You okay?” Marlboro Man asked when I returned to our table. He’d ordered a Coke, and his bread plate was covered with crusts. I’d been gone over ten minutes. “Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry; I just…I just got a little sick all of a sudden.” “What’s wrong?” he said, by then probably alarmed by the green tinge of his new wife. “I have no idea--it just hit me like a ton of bricks,” I explained. “I’m fine now, though!” “Maybe you’re pregnant,” he said with a sly grin. I knew enough about the timing of conception and morning sickness to know that pregnancy likely wasn’t the problem. “I don’t think that’s it--,” I began. Then it hit me again even more violently than before, and I ran back to the bathroom, where I lost it again--this time in a different stall. Sydney, we have a problem.

William Stead recognized the power of the fair immediately. The vision of the White City and its profound contrast to the Black City drove him to write If Christ Came to Chicago, a book often credited with launching the City Beautiful movement, which sought to elevate American cities to the level of the great cities of Europe. Like Stead, civic authorities throughout the world saw the fair as a model of what to strive for. They asked Burnham to apply the same citywide thinking that had gone into the White City to their own cities. He became a pioneer in modern urban planning. He created citywide plans for Cleveland, San Francisco, and Manila and led the turn-of-the-century effort to resuscitate and expand L’Enfant’s vision of Washington, D.C. In each case he worked without a fee. While helping design the new Washington plan, Burnham persuaded the head of the Pennsylvania Railroad, Alexander Cassatt, to remove his freight tracks and depot from the center of the federal mall, thus creating the unobstructed green that extends today from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. Other cities came to Daniel Burnham for citywide plans, among them Fort Worth, Atlantic City, and St. Louis, but he turned them down to concentrate on his last plan, for the city of Chicago. Over the years many aspects of his Chicago plan were adopted, among them the creation of the city’s lovely ribbon of lakefront parks and Michigan Avenue’s “Miracle Mile.” One portion of the lakefront, named Burnham Park in his honor, contains Soldier Field and the Field Museum, which he designed. The park runs south in a narrow green border along the lakeshore all the way to Jackson Park, where the fair’s Palace of Fine Arts, transformed into a permanent structure, now houses the Museum of Science and Industry. It looks out over the lagoons and the Wooded Island, now a wild and tangled place that perhaps would make Olmsted smile—though no doubt he would find features to criticize.

I now pronounce you husband and wife. I hadn’t considered the kiss. Not once. I suppose I’d assumed it would be the way a wedding kiss should be. Restrained. Appropriate. Mild. A nice peck. Save the real kisses for later, when you’re deliciously alone. Country club girls don’t make out in front of others. Like gum chewing, it should always be done in private, where no one else can see. But Marlboro Man wasn’t a country club boy. He’d missed the memo outlining the rules and regulations of proper ways to kiss in public. I found this out when the kiss began--when he wrapped his loving, protective arms around me and kissed me like he meant it right there in my Episcopal church. Right there in front of my family, and his, in front of Father Johnson and Ms. Altar Guild and our wedding party and the entire congregation, half of whom were meeting me for the first time that night. But Marlboro Man didn’t seem to care. He kissed me exactly the way he’d kissed me the night of our first date--the night my high-heeled boot had gotten wedged in a crack in my parents’ sidewalk and had caused me to stumble. The night he’d caught me with his lips. We were making out in church--there was no way around it. And I felt every bit as swept away as I had that first night. The kiss lasted hours, days, weeks…probably ten to twelve seconds in real time, which, in a wedding ceremony setting, is a pretty long kiss. And it might have been longer had the passionate moment not been interrupted by the sudden sound of a person clapping his hands. “Woohoo! All right!” the person shouted. “Yes!” It was Mike. The congregation broke out in laughter as Marlboro Man and I touched our foreheads together, cementing the moment forever in our memory. We were one; this was tangible to me now. It wasn’t just an empty word, a theological concept, wishful thinking. It was an official, you-and-me-against-the-world designation. We’d both left our separateness behind. From that moment forward, nothing either of us did or said or planned would be in a vacuum apart from the other. No holiday would involve our celebrating separately at our respective family homes. No last-minute trips to Mexico with friends, not that either of us was prone to last-minute trips to Mexico with friends. But still. The kiss had sealed the deal in so many ways. I walked proudly out of the church, the new wife of Marlboro Man. When we exited the same doors through which my dad and I had walked thirty minutes earlier, Marlboro Man’s arm wriggled loose from my grasp and instinctively wrapped around my waist, where it belonged. The other arm followed, and before I knew it we were locked in a sweet, solidifying embrace, relishing the instant of solitude before our wedding party--sisters, cousins, brothers, friends--followed closely behind. We were married. I drew a deep, life-giving breath and exhaled. The sweating had finally stopped. And the robust air-conditioning of the church had almost completely dried my lily-white Vera.

When I finally walked out into the bedroom, primped as I could hope to be at six in the morning, Marlboro Man was standing near my bed, holding the two collages in his hands and looking them over. “Oh, you’re in big trouble,” he said, holding up the collage I’d made on his behalf. “In trouble?” I smiled. “With you or Father Johnson?” “Both,” he said, lunging at me and tackling me onto the bed. “You were not supposed to do that.” I laughed and tried to wriggle loose. He tickled my ribs. I screamed. Three seconds later, when he felt I’d been adequately punished, we sat up and propped our heads against the pillows of my bed. “You did not do my homework assignment for me,” he said, grabbing the collage again and looking it over. “I had insomnia,” I said. “I needed a creative activity.” Marlboro Man looked at me, seemingly unsure of whether to kiss me, thank me…or just tickle me some more. I didn’t give him a chance. Instead I picked up the collage and took Marlboro Man on a tour so he’d be prepared for our appointment.

He meant business; I could hear it in his voice. Marlboro Man was talking about Chicago, about my imminent move. I’d told him my plans the first time we’d ever spoken on the phone, and he’d mentioned it once or twice during our two wonderful weeks together. But the more time we’d spent together, the less it had come up. Leaving was the last thing I wanted to talk about while I was with him. I couldn’t respond. I had no idea what to say. “You there?” Marlboro Man asked. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m here.” That was all I could manage. “Well…I just wanted to say good night,” he said quietly. “I’m glad you did,” I replied. I was an idiot. “Good night,” he whispered. “Good night.” I woke up the next morning with puffy, swollen eyes. I’d slept like a rock, having dreamed about Marlboro Man all night long. They’d been vivid dreams, crazy dreams, dreams of us talking and playing chess and shooting each other with Silly String. He’d already become such a permanent fixture in my consciousness, I dreamed about him nightly…effortlessly.

With the nausea gone, evenings with Marlboro Man slowly began resembling the way they’d been before. We watched movies on the couch together--his head on one end, my head on the other, our legs in a tangled mess of coziness. He’d play with my toes. I’d rub his calves, which were rock hard and tough from day after day on horseback. After the purgatory of the previous weeks, things were officially delicious again. Marlboro Man was delicious again. After a love-drenched honeymoon in Australia, we’d returned home to a bitter reality that had put a screeching halt to what should have been the most romantic days of our lives together. Since my nausea had been so bad that the mere smell of skin made me sick, it had been difficult for me to lie in bed with him some nights--let alone entertain any other thoughts. It had been a cold, frigid autumn in more ways than one. If Marlboro Man hadn’t been so happy about his child developing in my body, I imagined he might have taken me back for a refund. I was so glad that this time had finally passed.

What are you doing?” “Coming to pick you up in a little bit,” he said. I loved it when he took charge. It made my heart skip a beat, made me feel flushed and excited and thrilled. After four years with J, I was sick and tired of the surfer mentality. Laid-back, I’d discovered, was no longer something I wanted in a man. And when it came to his affection for me, Marlboro Man was anything but that. “I’ll be there at five.” Yes, sir. Anything you say, sir. I’ll be ready. With bells on. I started getting ready at three. I showered, shaved, powdered, perfumed, brushed, curled, and primped for two whole hours--throwing on a light pink shirt and my favorite jeans--all in an effort to appear as if I’d simply thrown myself together at the last minute. It worked. “Man,” Marlboro Man said when I opened the door. “You look great.” I couldn’t focus very long on his compliment, though--I was way too distracted by the way he looked. God, he was gorgeous. At a time of year when most people are still milky white, his long days of working cattle had afforded him a beautiful, golden, late-spring tan. And his typical denim button-down shirts had been replaced by a more fitted dark gray polo, the kind of shirt that perfectly emphasizes biceps born not from working out in a gym, but from tough, gritty, hands-on labor. And his prematurely gray hair, very short, was just the icing on the cake. I could eat this man with a spoon. “You do, too,” I replied, trying to will away my spiking hormones. He opened the door to his white diesel pickup, and I climbed right in. I didn’t even ask him where we were going; I didn’t even care. But when we turned west on the highway and headed out of town, I knew exactly where he was taking me: to his ranch…to his turf…to his home on the range. Though I didn’t expect or require a ride from him, I secretly loved that he drove over an hour to fetch me. It was a throwback to a different time, a burst of chivalry and courtship in this very modern world. As we drove we talked and talked--about our friends, about our families, about movies and books and horses and cattle.

I’d been reborn since Marlboro Man had entered my life; his wild abandon and unabashed passion had freed me from the shackles of cynicism, from thinking that love had to be something to labor over or agonize about. He’d ridden into my life on a speckled gray horse and had saved my heart from hardness. He’d taught me that when you love someone, you say it--and that when it comes to matters of the heart, games are for pimply sixteen-year-olds. Up until then that’s all I’d been: a child masquerading as a disillusioned adult, looking at love much as I’d looked at a round of Marco Polo in the pool at the country club: when they swam after me, I’d swim away. And there are accusations of peeking and cheating, and you always wind up sunburned and pruney and pooped. And no one ever wins. It was Marlboro Man who’d helped me out of the pool, wrapped a towel around my blistering shoulders, and carried me to a world where love has nothing to do with competition or sport or strategy. He told me he loved me when he felt like it, when he thought of it. He never saw any reason not to.

What if Mike pitches a fit at the reception? What if he causes a scene? Did I pack enough shoes for the honeymoon? What if I don’t like living in the country? Am I supposed to plant a garden? I don’t know how to saddle a horse. What if I feel out of place? I never learned how to square dance. Is it do-si-do or allemande left? Wait…is it square dancing? Or two-stepping? I don’t even know the dances. I don’t belong out there. What if I want to get a job? There IS no job. Does J know I’m getting married today? Does Collin? Does Kev? What if I pass out during the ceremony? I’ve seen it on America’s Funniest Home Videos dozens of times. Someone always passes out. What if the food’s cold when we get to the reception? Wait…it’s supposed to be cold. Wait…some of it is, some of it isn’t. What if I’m not what Marlboro Man’s looking for? What if my face flakes off as I’m saying “I do”? What if my dress gets caught inside my panty hose? I’m so shaky all of a sudden. My hands feel so wet and clammy… I’ve never had a panic attack before. But as I would soon find out, there’s a first time for everything. Oh, Ree…don’t do this now.

I want you both to show me how much you know about each other,” he began. “I want you both to make me a collage.” I looked at him for a moment. “A collage?” I asked. “Like, with magazine pictures and glue?” “That’s exactly right,” Father Johnson replied. “And it doesn’t have to be large or elaborate; just use a piece of legal-size paper as the backdrop. I want you to fill it with pictures that represent all the things you know about the other person. Bring it to your session next week, and we’ll look at them together.” This was an unexpected development. I made the mistake of glancing at Marlboro Man, who I imagined had never felt more uncomfortable in his life than he did once he faced the prospect of sitting down and working with paper and glue in an effort to prove to someone else how much he knew about the woman he was going to marry. He tried to keep a straight face, to remain respectful, but I’d studied his beautiful features enough to know when things were going on under the surface. Marlboro Man had been such a good sport through our series of premarital training. And this--a collage assignment--was his reward.

Eric, my German hairdresser, was waiting for me in the large dressing room upstairs. He’d cut my auburn hair since I was six and had seen it through tragic self-trimmings of my bangs, unfortunate summers of excessive Sun-In use, and horrible home perms gone terribly wrong. He’d never shrunk from haughtily chastising me through my follicular antics and had thrown in plenty of Teutonic life coaching along the way, on every subject from pimply high school boys to current events and politics. And he’d pretty much made me feel equal parts stupid and uncultured on more than one occasion with his superior knowledge of theater and art and opera. But I loved him. He was important to me. So when I asked him to come to my wedding to transform my hair into an elegant and sexy and uncontrived but polished updo, Eric had answered, simply, “Yes.” And the moment I sat down in the chair, he chastised me for washing my hair right before I arrived. “Ees juss too smooz,” Eric scolded. “I’m sorry,” I begged. “Please don’t ground me, Eric. I didn’t want my head to stink on my wedding night.” And for the first time ever, I saw Eric crack a relaxed, mellow smile. I loved it that Eric was there.

But before my eyes, in a matter of a few short months, sushi had metamorphosed into steak, and nightclubs had changed into the front porch of Marlboro Man’s quiet house in the country. I hadn’t felt the reverb of a thumping club beat in months and months. My nervous system had never known such calm. That is, until Marlboro Man called one morning that August with his simple request: “My cousin Kim is getting married next weekend,” he said. “Can you come?” An uncomfortable wave washed over my body. “You there?” he asked. I’d paused longer than I’d intended. “Yeah…I’m here,” I replied. “But, um…will I…will I have to meet anyone?” Marlboro Man laughed. The answer, obviously, was yes. Yes, I’d have to meet “anyone.” In fact, I’d have to meet everyone: everyone in his extended family of cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends; and his family, by all accounts, was large. We’d talked about our families before, and he knew good and well that I had all of three cousins. Three. He, on the other hand, had fifty. He knew how intimidating a family wedding would be to an outsider, especially when the family is as large as his. He knew this would be way out of my comfort zone. And he was right.

I’d gone on dates with every flavor of cute boy under the sun. Except for one. Cowboy. I’d never even spoken to a cowboy, let alone ever known one personally, let alone ever dated one, and certainly, absolutely, positively never kissed one--until that night on my parents’ front porch, a mere couple of weeks before I was set to begin my new life in Chicago. After valiantly rescuing me from falling flat on my face just moments earlier, this cowboy, this western movie character standing in front of me, was at this very moment, with one strong, romantic, mind-numbingly perfect kiss, inserting the category of “Cowboy” into my dating repertoire forever. The kiss. I’ll remember this kiss till my very last breath, I thought to myself. I’ll remember every detail. Strong, calloused hands gripping my upper arms. Five o’clock shadow rubbing gently against my chin. Faint smell of boot leather in the air. Starched denim shirt against my palms, which have gradually found their way around his trim, chiseled waist… I don’t know how long we stood there in the first embrace of our lives together. But I do know that when that kiss was over, my life as I’d always imagined it was over, too. I just didn’t know it yet.

I brushed my teeth like a crazed lunatic as I examined myself in the mirror. Why couldn’t I look the women in commercials who wake up in a bed with ironed sheets and a dewy complexion with their hair perfectly tousled? I wasn’t fit for human eyes, let alone the piercing eyes of the sexy, magnetic Marlboro Man, who by now was walking up the stairs to my bedroom. I could hear the clomping of his boots. The boots were in my bedroom by now, and so was the gravelly voice attached to them. “Hey,” I heard him say. I patted an ice-cold washcloth on my face and said ten Hail Marys, incredulous that I would yet again find myself trapped in the prison of a bathroom with Marlboro Man, my cowboy love, on the other side of the door. What in the world was he doing there? Didn’t he have some cows to wrangle? Some fence to fix? It was broad daylight; didn’t he have a ranch to run? I needed to speak to him about his work ethic. “Oh, hello,” I responded through the door, ransacking the hamper in my bathroom for something, anything better than the sacrilege that adorned my body. Didn’t I have any respect for myself? I heard Marlboro Man laugh quietly. “What’re you doing in there?” I found my favorite pair of faded, soft jeans. “Hiding,” I replied, stepping into them and buttoning the waist. “Well, c’mere,” he said softly. My jeans were damp from sitting in the hamper next to a wet washcloth for two days, and the best top I could find was a cardinal and gold FIGHT ON! T-shirt from my ‘SC days. It wasn’t dingy, and it didn’t smell. That was the best I could do at the time. Oh, how far I’d fallen from the black heels and glitz of Los Angeles. Accepting defeat, I shrugged and swung open the door. He was standing there, smiling. His impish grin jumped out and grabbed me, as it always did. “Well, good morning!” he said, wrapping his arms around my waist. His lips settled on my neck. I was glad I’d spritzed myself with Giorgio. “Good morning,” I whispered back, a slight edge to my voice. Equal parts embarrassed at my puffy eyes and at the fact that I’d slept so late that day, I kept hugging him tightly, hoping against hope he’d never let go and never back up enough to get a good, long look at me. Maybe if we just stood there for fifty years or so, wrinkles would eventually shield my puffiness. “So,” Marlboro Man said. “What have you been doing all day?” I hesitated for a moment, then launched into a full-scale monologue. “Well, of course I had my usual twenty-mile run, then I went on a hike and then I read The Iliad. Twice. You don’t even want to know the rest. It’ll make you tired just hearing about it.” “Uh-huh,” he said, his blue-green eyes fixed on mine. I melted in his arms once again. It happened any time, every time, he held me. He kissed me, despite my gold FIGHT ON! T-shirt. My eyes were closed, and I was in a black hole, a vortex of romance, existing in something other than a human body. I floated on vapors. Marlboro Man whispered in my ear, “So…,” and his grip around my waist tightened. And then, in an instant, I plunged back to earth, back to my bedroom, and landed with a loud thud on the floor. “R-R-R-R-Ree?” A thundering voice entered the room. It was my brother Mike. And he was barreling toward Marlboro Man and me, his arms outstretched. “Hey!” Mike yelled. “W-w-w-what are you guys doin’?” And before either of us knew it, Mike’s arms were around us both, holding us in a great big bear hug. “Well, hi, Mike,” Marlboro Man said, clearly trying to reconcile the fact that my adult brother had his arms around him. It wasn’t awkward for me; it was just annoying. Mike had interrupted our moment. He was always doing that.

I turned my focus to clothes, immediately endeavoring to find just the right dress for the occasion. This was huge--my debut as the girlfriend of Marlboro Man--and I shopped with that in mind. Should I go for a sleek, sexy suit? That might seem too confident and brazen. A floral silk skirt? Too obvious for a wedding. A little black dress? Too conservative and safe. The options pummeled my brain as I browsed the choices on the racks. I tried on dress after dress, suit after suit, outfit after outfit, my frustration growing more acute with each zip of the zipper. I wanted to be a man. Men don’t agonize over what to wear to a wedding. They don’t spend seven hours trying on clothes. They don’t think of wardrobe choices as life-or-death decisions. That’s when I found it: a drop-dead gorgeous fitted suit the exact color of a stick of butter. It was snug, with just a slight hint of sexy, but the lovely, pure color made up for it. The fabric was a lightweight wool, but since the wedding would be at night, I knew it would be just fine. I loved the suit--not only would I feel pretty for Marlboro Man, but I’d also appear moderately, but not overly, confident to all his cousins, and appropriate and proper to his elderly grandmothers.

Before I knew it, the first animal had entered the chute. Various cowboys were at different positions around the animal and began carrying out their respective duties. Tim looked at me and yelled, “Stick it in!” With utter trepidation, I slid the wand deep into the steer’s rectum. This wasn’t natural. This wasn’t normal. At least it wasn’t for me. This was definitely against God’s plan. I was supposed to check the monitor and announce if the temperature was above ninety-degrees. The first one was fine. But before I had a chance to remove the probe, Tim set the hot branding iron against the steer’s left hip. The animal let out a guttural Mooooooooooooo!, and as he did, the contents of its large intestine emptied all over my hand and forearm. Tim said, “Okay, Ree, you can take it out now.” I did. I didn’t know what to do. My arm was covered in runny, stinky cow crap. Was this supposed to happen? Should I say anything? I glanced at my sister, who was looking at me, completely horrified. The second animal entered the chute. The routine began again. I stuck it in. Tim branded. The steer bellowed. The crap squirted out. I was amazed at how consistent and predictable the whole nasty process was, and how nonchalant everyone--excluding my sister--was acting. But then slowly…surely…I began to notice something. On about the twentieth animal, I began inserting the thermometer. Tim removed his branding iron from the fire and brought it toward the steer’s hip. At the last second, however, I fumbled with my device and had to stop for a moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that when I paused, Tim did, too. It appeared he was actually waiting until I had the thermometer fully inserted before he branded the animal, ensuring that I’d be right in the line of fire when everything came pouring out. He had planned this all along, the dirty dog. Seventy-eight steers later, we were finished. I was a sight. Layer upon layer of manure covered my arm. I’m sure I was pale and in shock. The cowboys grinned politely. Tim directed me to an outdoor faucet where I could clean my arm. Marlboro Man watched as he gathered up the tools and the gear…and he chuckled. As my sister and I pulled away in the car later that day, she could only say, “Oh. My. God.” She made me promise never to return to that awful place. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d found out later that this, from Tim’s perspective, was my initiation. It was his sick, twisted way of measuring my worth.

What would you do if Ree became gravely ill?” Father Johnson asked Marlboro Man. “Well, sir,” Marlboro Man replied, “I’d take care of her.” “Who’s going to do the cooking in your household?” Marlboro Man smiled. “Ree’s a great cook,” he answered. I sat up proudly in my chair, trying not to remember the Linguine with Clam Sauce and the Marinated Flank Steak and whatever other well-intentioned meals I’d massacred early in our relationship. “What about the dishes?” Father Johnson continued, channeling Gloria Steinem. “See yourself helping out there?” Marlboro Man scratched his chin and paused. “Sure,” he said. “Honestly, these aren’t really things we’ve sat down and talked about.” His voice was kind. Polite. I wanted to crawl in a hole. I wanted to have my gums scraped. I wanted to go fight that huge prairie fire from a while back. Anything would be better than this. “Have you talked about how many children you’d like to have?” “Yes, sir,” Marlboro Man said. “And?” Father Johnson prodded. “I’d like to have six or so,” Marlboro Man answered, a virile smile spreading across his face. “And what about Ree?” Father Johnson asked. “Well, she says she’d like to have one,” Marlboro Man said, looking at me and touching my knee. “But I’m workin’ on her.

Did you recently take a long flight?” I told her we’d flown from Oklahoma to Los Angeles, then from Los Angeles to Sydney. “Did you sleep a lot of that time?” she continued. “Pretty much the entire time,” I answered. My concern grew. Could it be something terrible and communicable? TB, perhaps? The flu? A terrible strain of airborne malaria? “What’s wrong, Doctor? Give it to me straight; I can take it.” “I believe what you have,” she said, “is an inner ear disturbance--most likely brought on by the long flight and the sleep.” An inner ear disturbance? How boring. How embarrassing. “What would sleeping a lot have to do with it?” I asked. As the daughter of a physician, I needed a little more data. She explained that since I hadn’t been awake much during the flight, I hadn’t yawned or naturally taken other steps to alleviate the ear popping that comes from a change in cabin pressure, and that my ears simply filled with fluid and were causing this current attack of vertigo. Fabulous, I thought. I’m a complete wimp. It was a real high point. “Is there anything she can do to make it better?” Marlboro Man asked, looking for a concrete solution. The doctor prescribed some decongestant and some antinausea medication, and I crawled out of her office in shame.

It didn’t take long for us to realize, though, that we hadn’t eaten since the eggs twenty-four hours earlier. Eating was the one desire of the flesh we hadn’t fulfilled. I remembered seeing a McDonald’s near the entrance of our hotel, and since I needed a little exercise I offered to dart out for some safe and predictable American food, which would tide us over till the dinner we had reservations for that night. Our blood sugar was too low to comb the city, looking for a place to have a quick lunch. I knew Marlboro Man was a ketchup-only guy when it comes to burgers, and that’s what I ordered when I approached the counter: “Hamburger, ketchup only, please.” “Sar…you only want kitchipinmite?” the innocent clerk replied. “Excuse me?” “Kitchipinmite?” “Uh…pardon?” “You jis want a hamburger with kitchipinmite?” “Uh…what?” I had no idea what the poor girl was saying. It took me about ten minutes to realize the poor Australian woman behind the counter was merely repeating and confirming my order: kitchip (ketchup) inmite (and meat). It was a traumatic ordering experience. I returned to the hotel room, and Marlboro Man and I dug into our food like animals. “This tastes a little funny,” my new husband said. I concurred. The mite was not right. It didn’t taste like America.

Marlboro Man was out of town, on a trip to the southern part of the state, looking at farm ground, the night I began conceiving of the best way to arrange the reception menu. I was splayed on my bed in sweats, staring at the ceiling, when suddenly I gave birth to The Idea: one area of the country club would be filled with gold bamboo chairs, architecturally arranged orchids and roses, and antique lace table linens. Violins would serenade the guests as they feasted on cold tenderloin and sipped champagne. Martha Stewart would be present in spirit and declare, “This is my daughter, whom I love. In her I am well pleased.” Martha’s third cousin Mabel would prefer the ballroom on the other end of the club, however, which would be the scene of an authentic chuck wagon spread: barbecue, biscuits and gravy, fried chicken, Coors Light. Blue-checkered tablecloths would adorn the picnic tables, a country band would play “All My Exes Live in Texas,” and wildflowers would fill pewter jugs throughout the room. I smiled, imagining the fun. In one fell swoop, our two worlds--Marlboro Man’s country and my country club--would collide, combine, and unite in a huge, harmonious feast, one that would officially usher in my permanent departure from city life, cappuccino, and size 6 clothes.

When we pulled up to Marlboro Man’s house, I saw my Camry sitting in his driveway. I didn’t expect it to be there; I figured it was still on Marlboro Man’s parents’ road, sitting all crooked in the ditch where I’d left it the night before. Marlboro Man had already fixed it, fishing it out of the ditch and repairing the mangled tires and probably, knowing him, filling the tank with gas. “Oh, thank you so much,” I said as we walked toward the front door. “I thought maybe I’d killed it.” “Aw, it’s fine,” he replied. “But you might want to learn to drive before you get in it again.” He flashed his mischievous grin. I slugged him in the arm as he laughed. Then he lunged at me, grabbing my arms and using his leg to sweep my supporting leg right out from under me. Within an instant, he had me on the ground, right on the soft, green grass of his front yard. I shrieked and screamed, trying in vain to wrestle my way out of his playful grasp, but my wimpy upper body was no match for his impossible strength. He tickled me, and being the most ticklish human in the Northern Hemisphere, I screamed bloody murder. Afraid I’d wet my pants (it was a valid concern), I fought back the only way I knew how--by grabbing and untucking his shirt from his Wranglers…and running my hand up his back, poking at his rib cage. The tickling suddenly stopped. Marlboro Man propped himself on his elbows, holding my face in his hands. He kissed me passionately and seriously, and what started as a playful wrestling match became an impromptu make-out session in his front yard. It was an unlikely place for such an event, and considering it was at the very beginning of our night together, an unlikely time. But it was also strangely perfect. Because sometime during all the laughing and tickling and wrestling and rolling around in the grass, my worry and concern over my parents’ troubles had magically melted away. Only when the chiggers began biting did Marlboro Man suggest an alternate plan. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “I’m cooking dinner.” Yummy, I thought. That means steak. And as we walked into the house, I smiled contentedly, realizing that the stress of the previous twenty-four hours had all but disappeared from view. And I knew it, even then: Marlboro Man, not only that night but in the months to come, would prove to be my savior, my distraction, my escape in the midst of troubles, my strength in the face of upheaval, my beauty in times of terrible, heartbreaking ugliness. He held my heart entirely in his hands, this cowboy, and for the first time in my life, despite everything I’d ever believed about independence and feminism and emotional autonomy, I knew I’d be utterly incomplete without him. Talk about a terrifying moment.

When I arrived, I immediately saw the mother of an ex-boyfriend, the kind of ex-boyfriend that would make you want to look as good as possible if you ran into his mother at a shower when you were several months pregnant. She saw me, smiled politely, and made her way across the room to visit with me. We hugged, exchanged pleasantries, and caught up on what we’d both been doing. As we talked, I fantasized about her reporting to her son, my ex, the next day. Oh, you should have seen Ree. She was positively glowing! You should have seen how wonderful she looked! Don’t you wish you had married her? Deep into our small talk, I made mention of how long it had been since she and I had seen each other. “Well…I did see you recently,” she replied. “But I don’t think you saw me.” I couldn’t imagine. “Oh really?” I asked. “Where?” I hardly ever came to my hometown. “Well,” she continued. “I saw you pulling out of McDonald’s on Highway Seventy-five one morning a few weeks ago. I waved to you…but you didn’t see me.” My insides suddenly shriveled, imagining myself violently shoving breakfast burritos into my mouth. “McDonald’s? Really?” I said, trying my best to play dumb. “Yes,” my ex’s mother replied, smiling. “You looked a little…hungry!” “Hmmm,” I said. “I don’t think that was me.” I skulked away to the bathroom, vowing to eat granola for the rest of my pregnancy.

I fell asleep at nine that night and didn’t move until nine the next morning, waking up still dressed and wrapped like a pupa in the Park Hyatt’s comforter. Marlboro Man wasn’t in the room; I was disoriented and dizzy, stumbling to the bathroom like a drunk sorority girl after a long night of partying. But I didn’t look like a sorority girl. I looked like hell, pale and green and drawn; Marlboro Man was probably on a flight back to the States, I imagined, after having woken up and seen what he’d been sleeping to all night. I made myself take a warm shower, even though the beautiful marble bathroom was spinning like a top. The water hitting my back made me feel better. When I came out of the bathroom, refreshed and wearing the Park Hyatt robe, Marlboro Man was sitting on the bed, reading an Australian paper, which he’d picked up down the street along with some orange juice and a cinnamon roll for me in hopes it would make me feel better. “C’mere,” he said, patting the empty spot on the bed next to him. I obliged. I curled up next to him. Like clockwork our arms and legs began to wrap around each other until we were nothing but a mass of flesh again. We stayed there for almost an hour--him rubbing my back and asking me if I was okay…me, dying from bliss with each passing minute and trying to will away the nausea, which was still very much hovering over our happiness.

We took the long way back toward his house and drove past the northernmost point of the ranch just as the sun was beginning to set. “That’s so pretty,” I exclaimed as I beheld the beauty of the sky. Marlboro Man slowed to a stop and put his pickup in park. “It is, isn’t it?” he replied, looking over the land on which he’d grown up. He’d lived there since he was four days old, had worked there as a child, had learned how to be a rancher from his dad and grandfather and great-grandfather. He’d learned how to build fences and handle animals and extinguish prairie fires and raise cattle of all colors, shapes, and sizes. He’d helped bury his older brother in the family cemetery near his house, and he’d learned to pick up and go on in the face of unspeakable tragedy and sadness. This ranch was a part of him. His love for it was tangible. We got out of the pickup and sat on the back, holding hands and watching every second of the magenta sunset as it slowly dissipated into the blackness underneath. The night was warm and perfectly still--so still we could hear each other breathing. And well after the sun finally dipped below the horizon and the sky grew dark, we stayed on the back of the pickup, hugging and kissing as if we hadn’t seen each other in ages. The passion I felt was immeasurable. “I have something to tell you,” I said as the butterflies in my gut kicked into overdrive.

Extract from 'Quixotic Ambitions': The crowd stared at Katy expectantly. She looked at them - old women in black, exhausted young women with pasty-faced children, youths in jeans and leather blousons chewing gum. She tried to speak but the words wouldn’t come. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, she blurted out her short speech, thanking the people of Shkrapova for their welcome and promising that if she won the referendum she would work for the good of Maloslavia. There was some half-hearted applause and an old lady hobbled up to her, knelt down with difficulty, and kissed the hem of her skirt. She looked at Katy with tears rolling down her face and gabbled something excitedly. Dimitar translated: ‘She says that she remembers the reign of your grandfather and that God has sent you to Maloslavia.’ Katy was embarrassed but she smiled at the woman and helped her to her feet. At this moment the People’s Struggle Pioneers appeared on the scene, waving their banners and shouting ‘Doloy Manaheeyoo! Popnikov President!’ Police had been stationed at strategic points and quickly dispersed the demonstrators without any display of violence, but the angry cries of ‘Down with the monarchy!’ had a depressing effect on the entertainment that had been planned; only a few people remained to watch it. A group of children aged between ten and twelve ran into the square and performed a series of dances accompanied by an accordian. They stamped their feet and clapped their hands frequently and occasionally collided with one another when they forgot their next move. The girls wore embroidered blouses, stiffly pleated skirts and scarlet boots and the boys were in baggy linen shirts and trousers, the legs of which were bound with leather thongs. Their enthusiasm compensated for their mistakes and they were loudly applauded. The male voice choir which followed consisted of twelve young men who sang complicated polyphonic melodies with a high, curiously nasal tenor line accompanied by an unusually deep droning bass. Some of their songs were the cries of despair of a people who had suffered under Turkish occupation; others were lively dance tunes for feast days and festivals. They were definitely an acquired taste and Katy, who was beginning to feel hungry, longed for them to come to an end. At last, at two o’clock, the performance finished and trestle tables were set up in the square. Dishes of various salads, hors-d’oeuvres and oriental pastries appeared, along with casks of beer and bottles of the local red wine. The people who had disappeared during the brief demonstration came back and started piling food on to paper plates. A few of the People’s Struggle Pioneers also showed up again and mingled with the crowd, greedily eating anything that took their fancy.

When I exited the bathroom this time, Marlboro Man was standing right outside the door--just as he’d been at his grandmother’s house when I’d had my flop sweat episode at his cousin’s wedding. He put his arm around me as I dabbed the corners of my eyes with a Kleenex. The gagging had sent my tear ducts into overdrive. “What’s wrong, honey?” It was the first time he’d called me that. I felt married. “I have no idea!” I said. “I must have picked up a stomach bug or something. I’m so sorry!” “It’s okay--we can just head back to the hotel.” “No! I want you to eat…” “I’m fine--I just ate a whole basket of bread and had two Cokes. I’m good to go.” The nausea hit again, and I ran back into the bathroom. After vomiting again, I decided to take him up on his offer. Exiting the cab back at the hotel, I found walking to be difficult. I hadn’t ingested a single drop of liquor, but I suddenly couldn’t walk in a straight line. Grabbing Marlboro Man’s arm, I used him to steady myself until we got to the room, where I immediately fell on the bed and wrapped myself in the comforter. “I feel so sorry for you,” Marlboro Man said, sitting down on the bed beside me and gently playing with my hair, a gesture that proved to be too much for me. “Could you please not do that?” I said. “The motion kinda makes me sick.” I was a complete and utter mess. I was a nauseated loser. It was Marlboro Man who deserved the sympathy.

I told my best friend in the world, my sister. “Okay, so I’m not going now,” I told Betsy over the phone. I’d awakened her from a deep collegiate sleep. “Going where?” she asked groggily. “Chicago,” I continued. “What?” she shrieked. That woke her up. That woke her up but good. “I’m, like, totally in love,” I said. “I’m totally in love with the Marlboro Man.” I giggled wildly. “Oh, God,” she said. “Are you gonna get married to him and move out to the boonies and have his babies?” “No!” I exclaimed. “I’m not moving to the boonies. But I might have his babies.” I giggled wildly again. “What about Chicago?” Betsy asked. “Well…but…,” I argued. “You have to see him in his Wranglers.” Betsy paused. “Well, so much for this conversation. I’ve gotta go back to sleep anyway--I’ve got class at noon and I’m exhausted…” “And you should see him in his cowboy boots,” I continued. “Alrighty, then…” “Okay, well, don’t worry about me,” I continued. “I’ll just be here, kissing the Marlboro Man twenty-four hours a day in case you need me.” “Whatever…,” Betsy said, trying hard not to laugh. “Okay, well…study hard!” I told her. “Yep,” she replied. “And don’t sleep around,” I admonished. “Gotcha,” Betsy replied. She was used to this. “And don’t smoke crack,” I added. “Righty-oh,” she replied, yawning. “Don’t skip class, either,” I warned. “You mean, like you did?” Betsy retorted. “Well, then, don’t go all the way!” I repeated. Click.

I opened the front door of my parents’ house the next evening. His starched blue denim shirt caught my eye only seconds before his equally blue eyes did. “Hello,” he said, smiling. Those eyes. They were fixed on mine, and mine on his, for more seconds than is customary at the very beginning of a first date. My knees--the knees that had turned to rubber bands that night four months earlier in a temporary fit of illogical lust--were once again as firm as cooked spaghetti. “Hello,” I answered. I was wearing sleek black pants, a violet V-necked sweater, and spiked black boots--a glaring contrast to the natural, faded denim ensemble he’d chosen. Fashionwise, we were hilariously mismatched. I could sense that he noticed this, too, as my skinny heels obnoxiously clomped along the pavement of my parents’ driveway. We talked through dinner; if I ate, I wasn’t aware of it. We talked about my childhood on the golf course; about his upbringing in the country. About my dad, the doctor; about his dad, the rancher. About my lifelong commitment to ballet; about his lifelong passion for football. About my brother Mike; about his older brother, Todd, who had died when he was a teenager. About Los Angeles and celebrities; cows and agriculture. By the end of the evening, I had no idea what exactly I’d even said. All I knew was, I was riding in a Ford F250 diesel pickup with a cowboy--and there was nowhere else on earth I wanted to be.

Marlboro Man’s call woke me up the next morning. It was almost eleven. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?” I hopped out of bed, blinking and stumbling around my room. “Who me? Oh, nothing.” I felt like I’d been drugged. “Were you asleep?” he said. “Who, me?” I said again, trying to snap out of my stupor. I was stalling, trying my darnedest to get my bearings. “Yes. You,” he said, chuckling. “I can’t believe you were asleep!” “I wasn’t asleep! I was…I just…” I was a loser. A pathetic, late-sleeping loser. “You’re a real go-getter in the mornings, aren’t you?” I loved it when he played along with me. I rubbed my eyes and pinched my own cheek, trying to wake up. “Yep. Kinda,” I answered. Then, changing the subject: “So…what are you up to today?” “Oh, I had to run to the city early this morning,” he said. “Really?” I interrupted. The city was over two hours from his house. “You got an early start!” I would never understand these early mornings. When does anyone ever sleep out there? Marlboro Man continued, undaunted. “Oh, and by the way…I’m pulling into your driveway right now.” Huh? I ran to my bathroom mirror and looked at myself. I shuddered at the sight: puffy eyes, matted hair, pillow mark on my left cheek. Loose, faded pajamas. Bag lady material. Sleeping till eleven had not been good for my appearance. “No. No you’re not,” I begged. “Yep. I am,” he answered. “No you’re not,” I repeated. “Yes. I am,” he said. I slammed my bathroom door and hit the lock. Please, Lord, please, I prayed, grabbing my toothbrush. Please let him be joking. I brushed my teeth like a crazed lunatic as I examined myself in the mirror. Why couldn’t I look the women in commercials who wake up in a bed with ironed sheets and a dewy complexion with their hair perfectly tousled? I wasn’t fit for human eyes, let alone the piercing eyes of the sexy, magnetic Marlboro Man, who by now was walking up the stairs to my bedroom. I could hear the clomping of his boots. The boots were in my bedroom by now, and so was the gravelly voice attached to them. “Hey,” I heard him say. I patted an ice-cold washcloth on my face and said ten Hail Marys, incredulous that I would yet again find myself trapped in the prison of a bathroom with Marlboro Man, my cowboy love, on the other side of the door. What in the world was he doing there? Didn’t he have some cows to wrangle? Some fence to fix? It was broad daylight; didn’t he have a ranch to run? I needed to speak to him about his work ethic. “Oh, hello,” I responded through the door, ransacking the hamper in my bathroom for something, anything better than the sacrilege that adorned my body. Didn’t I have any respect for myself? I heard Marlboro Man laugh quietly. “What’re you doing in there?” I found my favorite pair of faded, soft jeans. “Hiding,” I replied, stepping into them and buttoning the waist. “Well, c’mere,” he said softly.

Most of the guests left the rehearsal dinner at the country club; the remaining group--a varied collection of important figures in both of our lives--had skittered away to the downtown hotel where all of the out-of-town guests were staying. Marlboro Man and I, not ready to bid each other good night yet, had joined them in the small, dimly lit (lucky for me, given the deteriorating condition of my epidermis) hotel bar. We gathered at a collection of tiny tables butted up together and wound up talking and laughing into the night, toasting one another and spouting various late-night versions of “I’m so glad I know you” and “I love you, man!” In the midst of all the wedding planning and craziness, hanging out in a basement bar with uncles, college friends, and siblings was a relaxing, calming elixir. I wanted to bottle the feeling and store it up forever. It was late, though; I saw Marlboro Man looking at the clock in the bar. “I think I’ll head back to the ranch,” he whispered as his brother told another joke to the group. Marlboro Man had a long drive ahead, not to mention an entire lifetime with me. I couldn’t blame him for wanting a good night’s sleep. “I’m tired, too,” I said, grabbing my purse from under the table. And I was; the long day had finally set in. The two of us stood up and said our good-byes to all the people who loved us so much. Men stood up, some stumbling, and shook hands with Marlboro Man. Women blew kisses and mouthed Love you guys! to us as we walked out of the room and waved good-bye. But no one left the bar. Nobody loved us that much.

When the attendant at Britz Rentals of Australia whipped around in our prepaid-in-full honeymoon car, my eyes grew wide and I knew we were in trouble. It was an SUV, yes, and a Toyota Land Cruiser at that--just as Marlboro Man had ordered. It was white and clean and very shiny. And painted in huge bright orange and royal blue lettering across the hood, the roof, all four doors, and the tailgate of the vehicle, were scrawled the enormous words: BRITZ RENTALS OF AUSTRALIA. I could see Marlboro Man’s jaw muscles flex as he beheld his worst nightmare playing out in front of his eyes. He could hardly even bear to gaze upon such an attention-grabbing abomination, let alone conceive of driving it all over an entire continent. Unfortunately, our last-minute attempts to trade to another vehicle proved to be futile; even if Britz hadn’t been completely booked that week, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Every single car in their fleet was smeared with the exact same orange and blue promotional graffiti. Having no other transportational alternative, we set off on our drive, a black cloud of conspicuousness and, in Marlboro Man’s case, dread following us everywhere we went. Being an attention-seeking middle child, I didn’t really mind it much. But for Marlboro Man, this was more than his makeup was programmed to handle. As far as he was concerned, we were the Griswolds, and the Land Cruiser was our Family Truckster. It was a pox on what might have been the perfect honeymoon. Except for my inner ear disturbance. And the vomiting. And the slightly marsupial undertone to the hamburgers.

Soon it was time for us to leave; the clock had struck midnight, and we had miles to go before we slept. After throwing my bouquet and saying good-byes, Marlboro Man and I ran through the doors of the club and climbed into the back of a smoky black limousine--the vehicle that would take us to the big city miles away, where we’d stay before flying to Australia the next day. As we pulled away from the waving, birdseed-throwing crowd at the front door of the club, we immediately settled into each other’s arms, melting into a puddle of white silk and black boots and sleepy, unbridled romance. It was all so new. New dress…new love…a new country--Australia--that neither of us had ever seen. A new life together. A new life for me. New crystal, silver, china. A newly renovated, tiny cowboy house that would be our little house on the prairie when we returned from our honeymoon. A new husband. My husband. I wanted to repeat it over and over again, wanted to shout it to the heavens. But I couldn’t speak. I was busy. Passion had taken over--a beast had been unleashed. Sleep deprived and exhausted from the celebration of the previous week, once inside the sanctity of the limousine, we were utterly powerless to stop it…and we let it fly. It was this same passion that had gotten us through the early stages of our relationship, and, ultimately, through the choice to wave good-bye to any life I’d ever imagined for myself. To become a part of Marlboro Man’s life instead. It was this same passion that assured me that everything was exactly as it should be. It was the passion that made it all make sense.

How much do you know about each other?” was Father Johnson’s final question of the day. Marlboro Man and I looked at each other. We didn’t know everything yet; we couldn’t possibly. We just knew we wanted to be together. Was that not enough? “Well, I’ll speak for myself,” Marlboro Man said. “I feel like I know all I need to know in order to be sure I want to marry Ree.” He rested his hand on my knee, and my heart leapt. “And the rest…I figure we’ll just handle it as we go along.” His quiet confidence calmed me, and all I could think about anyway was how long it would take me to learn how to drive my new lawn mower. I’d never mowed a lawn before in my life. Did Marlboro Man know this? Maybe he should have started me out with a cheaper model. Just then Father Johnson stood up to bid us farewell until our session the following week. I picked up my purse form its spot next to my chair. “Thank you, Father Johnson,” I said, standing up. “Wait just a second,” he said, holding up his hands. “I need to give you a little assignment.” I’d almost made a clean getaway. “I want you both to show me how much you know about each other,” he began. “I want you both to make me a collage.” I looked at him for a moment. “A collage?” I asked. “Like, with magazine pictures and glue?” “That’s exactly right,” Father Johnson replied. “And it doesn’t have to be large or elaborate; just use a piece of legal-size paper as the backdrop. I want you to fill it with pictures that represent all the things you know about the other person. Bring it to your session next week, and we’ll look at them together.” This was an unexpected development.

I’d better go,” Marlboro Man said, leaning forward and kissing my cheek. I still grasped the diamond ring in my warm, sweaty hand. “I don’t want Mike to burst a blood vessel.” He laughed out loud, clearly enjoying it all. I tried to speak but couldn’t. I’d been rendered totally mute. Nothing could have prepared me for those ten minutes of my life. The last thing I remember, I’d awakened at eleven. Moments later, I was hiding in my bathroom, trying, in all my early-morning ugliness, to avoid being seen by Marlboro Man, who’d dropped by unexpectedly. Now I was standing on the front porch, a diamond ring in my hand. It was all completely surreal. Marlboro Man turned to leave. “You can give me your answer later,” he said, grinning, his Wranglers waving good-bye to me in the bright noonday sun. But then it all came flashing across my line of sight. The boots in the bar, the icy blue-green eyes, the starched shirt, the Wranglers…the first date, the long talks, my breakdown in his kitchen, the movies, the nights on his porch, the kisses, the long drives, the hugs…the all-encompassing, mind-numbing passion I felt. It played frame by frame in my mind in a steady stream. “Hey,” I said, walking toward him and effortlessly sliding the ring on my finger. I wrapped my arms around his neck as his arms, instinctively, wrapped around my waist and raised me off the ground in our all-too-familiar pose. “Yep,” I said effortlessly. He smiled and hugged me tightly. Mike, once again, laid on the horn, oblivious to what had just happened. Marlboro Man said nothing more. He simply kissed me, smiled, then drove my brother to the mall.

In an internal panic, I picked up the phone and hurriedly pushed redial. I had to catch Rhonda the Realtor, had to tell her wait, hold off, don’t let it go, I’m not sure, hang on, give me another day…or two…or three. But when the numbers finished dialing, I heard no ringing; instead, in a perfect moment of irony, coincidence, and serendipity, I heard Marlboro Man’s voice on the other end. “Hello?” he asked. “Oh,” I replied. “Hello?” “Hey, you,” he replied. So much for calling Rhonda the Realtor. Three seconds into the phone call, Marlboro Man’s voice had already taken hold. His voice. It weakened my knees, destroyed my focus, ruined my resolve. When I heard his voice, I could think of nothing but wanting to see him again, to be in his presence, to drink him in, to melt like butter in his impossibly strong arms. When I heard his voice, Chicago became nothing but a distant memory. “What’re you up to?” he continued. I could hear cattle in the background. “Oh, just getting a few things done,” I said. “Just tying up a few loose ends.” “You’re not moving to Chicago today, are you?” he said with a chuckle. He was only halfway joking. I laughed, rolling over in my bed and fiddling with the eyelet ruffle on my comforter. “Nope, not today,” I answered. “What are you doing?” “Coming to pick you up in a little bit,” he said. I loved it when he took charge. It made my heart skip a beat, made me feel flushed and excited and thrilled. After four years with J, I was sick and tired of the surfer mentality. Laid-back, I’d discovered, was no longer something I wanted in a man. And when it came to his affection for me, Marlboro Man was anything but that. “I’ll be there at five.” Yes, sir. Anything you say, sir. I’ll be ready. With bells on.

It had been almost exactly four months since we’d met; four months since we’d locked glances in that bar; four months since his eyes and hair had made my knees turn to overcooked noodles. It had been four months since he’d failed to call me the next day, week, month. I’d moved on, of course, but the rugged image of Marlboro Man had left an indelible mark on my psyche. But I’d just begun my Chicago planning before I’d met him that night and had continued the next day. And now, at the end of April, I was just about set to go. “Oh, hi,” I said nonchalantly. I was leaving soon. I didn’t need this guy. “How’ve you been?” he continued. Yikes. That voice. It was gravelly and deep and whispery and dreamy all at the same time. I didn’t know until that moment that it had already set up permanent residence in my bones. My marrow remembered that voice. “Good,” I replied, focusing my efforts on appearing casual, confident, and strong. “I’m just gearing up to move to Chicago, actually.” “No kidding?” he said. “When are you going?” “Just a couple of weeks,” I replied. “Oh…” He paused. “Well…would you like to go out to dinner this week?” This was always the awkward part. I could never imagine being a guy. “Um, sure,” I said, not really seeing the point of going out with him, but also knowing it was going to be next to impossible for me to turn down a date with the first and only cowboy I’d ever been attracted to. “I’m pretty free all this week, so--” “How ’bout tomorrow night?” he cut in. “I’ll pick you up around seven.” He didn’t know it at the time, but that single take-charge moment, his instantaneous transformation from a shy, quiet cowboy to this confident, commanding presence on the phone, affected me very profoundly. My interest was officially ablaze.

Dearly beloved: We have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony. The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church, and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people. The union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and, when it is God’s will, for the procreation of children and their nurture in the knowledge and love of the Lord. Therefore marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God. I glanced at Marlboro Man, who was listening intently, taking in every word. I held his bicep in my hand, squeezing it lightly and trying to listen to Father Johnson despite the distraction of Marlboro Man’s work-honed muscles. Everything else was a blur: iron candlesticks attached to the end of each pew…my mother’s olive green silk jacket with the mandarin collar…Mike’s tuxedo…Mike’s bald head… Will you have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live? “I will.” I breathed in. The scent of roses…the evening light coming through the stained-glass window. Will you have this woman to be your wife; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live? “I will.” That voice. The voice from all the phone calls. I was marrying that voice. I couldn’t believe it.

Marlboro Man and I walked together to our vehicles--symbolically parked side by side in the hotel lot under a cluster of redbud trees. Sleepiness had definitely set in; my head fell on his shoulder as we walked. His ample arms gripped my waist reassuringly. And the second we reached my silver Camry, the temperature began to rise. “I can’t wait till tomorrow,” he said, backing me against the door of my car, his lips moving toward my neck. Every nerve receptor in my body simultaneously fired as his strong hands gripped the small of my back; my hands pulled him closer and closer. We kissed and kissed some more in the hotel parking lot, flirting dangerously with taking it a step--or five--further. Out-of-control prairie fires were breaking out inside my body; even my knees felt hot. I couldn’t believe this man, this Adonis who held me so completely and passionately in his arms, was actually mine. That in a mere twenty-four hours, I’d have him all to myself. It’s too good to be true, I thought as my right leg wrapped around his left and my fingers squeezed his chiseled bicep. It was as if I’d been locked inside a chocolate shop that also sold delicious chardonnay and french fries…and played Gone With the Wind and Joan Crawford movies all day long--and had been told “Have fun.” He was going to be my own private playground for the rest of my life. I almost felt guilty, like I was taking something away from the world. It was so dark outside, I forgot where I was. I had no sense of geography or time or space, not even when he took my face in his hands and touched his forehead to mine, closing his eyes, as if to savor the powerful moment. “I love you,” he whispered as I died right there on the spot. It wasn’t convenient, my dying the night before my wedding. I didn’t know how my mom was going to explain it to the florist. But she’d have to; I was totally done for. I’d had half a glass of wine all evening but felt completely inebriated. When I finally arrived home, I had no idea how I’d gotten there. I was intoxicated--drunk on a cowboy. A cowboy who, in less than twenty-four hours, would become my husband.

Will you have this man to be your husband; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to him as long as you both shall live? “I will.” I breathed in. The scent of roses…the evening light coming through the stained-glass window. Will you have this woman to be your wife; to live together in the covenant of marriage? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live? “I will.” That voice. The voice from all the phone calls. I was marrying that voice. I couldn’t believe it. We faced each other, our hands intertwined. In the Name of God, I take you to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow. He stood before me, his face serious. My heart leaped in my chest. Then I spoke the words myself. In the Name of God, I take you to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow. Marlboro Man watched me as I spoke, and he listened. My voice broke; emotion moved in. It was a beautiful moment--the most beautiful moment since we’d met. Bless, O Lord, these rings to be a sign of the vows by which this man and this woman have bound themselves to each other. We kneeled, and Father Johnson administered the blessing. Most Gracious God…Let their love for each other be a seal upon their hearts, a mantle about their shoulders, and a crown upon their foreheads…Bless them in their work and in their companionship; in their sleeping and in their waking; in their joys and in their sorrows; in their life and in their death…Send therefore your blessing upon these your servants, that they may so love, honor, and cherish each other in faithfulness and patience, in wisdom and true godliness, that their home may be a haven of blessing and peace. My heart pounded in my chest. This was real, it was not a dream. His hand held mine. I now pronounce you husband and wife.

Hey…you okay?” Marlboro Man repeated. My heart fluttered in horror. I wanted to jump out of the bathroom window, scale down the trellis, and hightail it out of there, forgetting I’d ever met any of these people. Only there wasn’t a trellis. And outside the window, down below, were 150 wedding guests. And I was sweating enough for all of them combined. I was naked and alone, enduring the flop sweat attack of my life. It figured. It was usually the times I felt and looked my absolute best when I wound up being humbled in some colossally bizarre way. There was the time I traveled to my godmother’s son’s senior prom in a distant city and partied for an hour before realizing the back of my dress was stuck inside my panty hose. And the time I entered the after-party for my final Nutcracker performance and tripped on a rug, falling on one of the guest performers and knocking an older lady’s wineglass out of her frail arms. You’d think I would have come to expect this kind of humiliation on occasions when it seemed like everything should be going my way. “You need anything?” Marlboro Man continued. A drop of sweat trickled down my upper lip. “Oh, no…I’m fine!” I answered. “I’ll be right out! You go on back to the party!” Go on, now. Run along. Please. I beg you. “I’ll be out here,” he replied. Dammit. I heard his boots travel a few steps down the hall and stop. I had to get dressed; this was getting ridiculous. Then, as I stuck my big toe into the drenched leg of my panty hose, I heard what I recognized as Marlboro Man’s brother Tim’s voice. “What’s she doing in there?” Tim whispered loudly, placing particularly uncomfortable emphasis on “doing.” I closed my eyes and prayed fervently. Lord, please take me now. I no longer want to be here. I want to be in Heaven with you, where there’s zero humidity and people aren’t punished for their poor fabric choices. “I’m not sure,” Marlboro Man answered. The geyser began spraying again. I had no choice but to surge on, to get dressed, to face the music in all my drippy, salty glory. It was better than staying in the upstairs bathroom of his grandmother’s house all night. God forbid Marlboro Man or Tim start to think I had some kind of feminine problem, or even worse, constipation or diarrhea! I’d sooner move to another country and never return than to have them think such thoughts about me.

My phone rang at midnight, just as I was clearing my bed of the scissors and magazines and glue. It was Marlboro Man, who’d just returned to his home after processing 250 head of cattle in the dark of night. He just wanted to say good night. I would forever love that about him. “What’ve you been doing tonight?” he asked. His voice was scratchy. He sounded spent. “Oh, I just finished up my homework assignment,” I answered, rubbing my eyes and glancing at the collage on my bed. “Oh…good job,” he said. “I’ve got to go get some sleep so I can get over there and get after it in the morning…” His voice drifted off. Poor Marlboro Man--I felt so sorry for him. He had cows on one side, Father Johnson on the other, a wedding in less than a week, and a three-week vacation in another continent. The last thing he needed to do was flip through old issues of Seventeen magazine for pictures of lip gloss and Sun-In. The last thing he needed to deal with was Elmer’s glue. My mind raced, and my heart spoke up. “Hey, listen…,” I said, suddenly thinking of a brilliant idea. “I have an idea. Just sleep in tomorrow morning--you’re so tired…” “Nah, that’s okay,” he said. “I need to do the--” “I’ll do your collage for you!” I interrupted. It seemed like the perfect solution. Marlboro Man chuckled. “Ha--no way. I do my own homework around here.” “No, seriously!” I insisted. “I’ll do it--I have all the stuff here and I’m totally in the zone right now. I can whip it out in less than an hour, then we can both sleep till at least eight.” As if he’d ever slept till eight in his life. “Nah…I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning…” “But…but…,” I tried again. “Then I can sleep till at least eight.” “Good night…” Marlboro Man trailed off, probably asleep with his ear to the receiver. I made the command decision to ignore his protest and spent the next hour making his collage. I poured my whole heart and soul into it, delving deep and pulling out all the stops, marveling as I worked at how well I actually knew myself, and occasionally cracking up at the fact that I was doing Marlboro Man’s premarital homework for him--homework that was mandatory if we were to be married by this Episcopal priest. But on the outside chance Marlboro Man’s tired body was to accidentally oversleep, at least he wouldn’t have to walk in the door of Father Johnson’s study empty-handed.

We danced to John Michael Montgomery’s “I Swear.” We cut the seven-tiered cake, electing not to take the smear-it-on-our-faces route. We visited and laughed and toasted. We held hands and mingled. But after a while, I began to notice that I hadn’t seen any of the tuxedo-clad groomsmen--particularly Marlboro Man’s friends from college--for quite some time. “What happened to all the guys?” I asked. “Oh,” he said. “They’re down in the men’s locker room.” “Oh, really?” I asked. “Are they smoking cigars or something?” “Well…” He hesitated, grinning. “They’re watching a football game.” I laughed. “What game are they watching?” It had to be a good one. “It’s…ASU is playing Nebraska,” he answered. ASU? His alma mater? Playing Nebraska? Defending national champions? How had I missed this? Marlboro Man hadn’t said a word. He was such a rabid college football fan, I couldn’t believe such a monumental game hadn’t been cause to reschedule the wedding date. Aside from ranching, football had always been Marlboro Man’s primary interest in life. He’d played in high school and part of college. He watched every televised ASU game religiously--for the nontelevised games, he relied on live reporting from Tony, his best friend, who attended every game in person. “I didn’t even know they were playing!” I said. I don’t know why I shouldn’t have known. It was September, after all. But it just hadn’t crossed my mind. I’d been a little on the busy side, I guess, getting ready to change my entire life and all. “How come you’re not down there watching it?” I asked. “I didn’t want to leave you,” he said. “You might get hit on.” He chuckled his sweet, sexy chuckle. I laughed. I could just see it--a drunk old guest scooting down the bar, eyeing my poufy white dress and spouting off pickup lines: You live around here? I sure like what you’re wearing… So…you married? Marlboro Man wasn’t in any immediate danger. Of that I was absolutely certain. “Go watch the game!” I insisted, motioning downstairs. “Nah,” he said. “I don’t need to.” He wanted to watch the game so badly I could see it in the air. “No, seriously!” I said. “I need to go hang with the girls anyway. Go. Now.” I turned my back and walked away, refusing even to look back. I wanted to make it easy on him. I wouldn’t see him for over an hour. Poor Marlboro Man. Unsure of the protocol for grooms watching college football during their wedding receptions, he’d darted in and out of the locker room for the entire first half. The agony he must have felt. The deep, sustained agony. I was so glad he’d finally joined the guys.

Marlboro Man and Tim were standing in the hall, not seven steps from the bathroom door. “There she is,” Tim remarked as I walked up to them and stood. I smiled nervously. Marlboro Man put his hand on my lower back, caressing it gently with his thumb. “You all right?” he asked. A valid question, considering I’d been in the bathroom for over twenty minutes. “Oh yeah…I’m fine,” I answered, looking away. I wanted Tim to disappear. Instead, the three of us made small talk before Marlboro Man asked, “Do you want something to drink?” He started toward the stairs. Gatorade. I wanted Gatorade. Ice-cold, electrolyte-replacing Gatorade. That, and vodka. “I’ll go with you,” I said. Marlboro Man and I grabbed ourselves a drink and wound up in the backyard, sitting on an ornate concrete bench by ourselves. Miraculously, my nervous system had suddenly grown tired of sending signals to my sweat glands, and the dreadful perspiration spell seemed to have reached its end. And the sun had set outside, which helped my appearance a little. I felt like a circus act. I finished my screwdriver in four seconds, and both the vitamin C and the vodka went to work almost instantly. Normally, I’d know better than to replace bodily fluids with alcohol, but this was a special case. At that point, I needed nothing more than to self-medicate. “So, did you get sick or something?” Marlboro Man asked. “You okay?” He touched his hand to my knee. “No,” I answered. “I got…I got hot.” He looked at me. “Hot?” “Yeah. Hot.” I had zero pride left. “So…what were you doing in the bathroom?” he asked. “I had to take off all my clothes and fan myself,” I answered honestly. The vitamin C and vodka had become a truth serum. “Oh, and wipe the sweat off my neck and back.” This was sure to reel him in for life. Marlboro Man looked at me to make sure I wasn’t kidding, then burst into laughter, covering his mouth to keep from spitting out his Scotch. Then, unexpectedly, he leaned over and planted a sweet, reassuring kiss on my cheek. “You’re funny,” he said, as he rubbed his hand on my tragically damp back. And just like that, all the horrors of the evening disappeared entirely from my mind. It didn’t matter how stupid I was--how dumb, or awkward, or sweaty. It became clearer to me than ever, sitting on that ornate concrete bench, that Marlboro Man loved me. Really, really loved me. He loved me with a kind of love different from any I’d felt before, a kind of love I never knew existed. Other boys--at least, the boys I’d always bothered with--would have been embarrassed that I’d disappeared into the bathroom for half the night. Others would have been grossed out by my tale of sweaty woe or made jokes at my expense. Others might have looked at me blankly, unsure of what to say. But not Marlboro Man; none of it fazed him one bit. He simply laughed, kissed me, and went on. And my heart welled up in my soul as I realized that without question, I’d found the one perfect person for me.

You okay?” Marlboro Man called out. I didn’t answer. I just kept on walking, determined to get the hell out of Dodge. It took him about five seconds to catch up with me; I wasn’t a very fast walker. “Hey,” he said, grabbing me around the waist and whipping me around so I was facing him. “Aww, it’s okay. It happens.” I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted him to let go of me and I wanted to keep on walking. I wanted to walk back down the hillside, start my car, and get out of there. I didn’t know where I’d go, I just knew I wanted to go. I wanted away from all of it--riding horses, saddles, reins, bridles--I didn’t want it anymore. I hated everything on that ranch. It was all stupid, dumb…and stupid. Wriggling loose of his consoling embrace, I squealed, “I seriously can’t do this!” My hands trembled wildly and my voice quivered. The tip of my nose began to sting, and tears welled up in my eyes. It wasn’t like me to display such hysteria in the presence of a man. But being driven to the brink of death had brought me to this place. I felt like a wild animal. I was powerless to restrain myself. “I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life!” I cried. I turned to leave again but decided instead to give up, choosing to sit down on the ground and slump over in defeat. It was all so humiliating--not just my rigid, freakish riding style or my near collision with the ground, but also my crazy, emotional reaction after the fact. This wasn’t me. I was a strong, confident woman, for Lord’s sake; I don’t slump on the ground in the middle of a pasture and cry. What was I doing in a pasture, anyway? Knowing my luck, I was probably sitting on a pile of manure. But I couldn’t even walk anymore; my knees were even trembling by now, and I’d lost all feeling in my fingertips. My heart pounded in my cheeks. If Marlboro Man had any sense, he would have taken the horses and gotten the hell out of there, leaving me, the hysterical female, sobbing on the ground by myself. She’s obviously in the throes of some hormonal fit, he probably thought. There’s nothing you can say to her when she gets like this. I don’t have time for this crap. She’s just gonna have to learn to deal with it if she’s going to marry me. But he didn’t get the hell out of there. He didn’t leave me sobbing on the ground by myself. Instead he joined me on the grass, sitting beside me and putting his hand on my leg, reassuring me that this kind of thing happens, and there wasn’t anything I did wrong, even though he was probably lying. “Now, did you really mean that about not wanting to do this the rest of your life?” he asked. That familiar, playful grin appeared in the corner of his mouth. I blinked a couple of times and took a deep breath, smiling back at him and reassuring him with my eyes that no, I hadn’t meant it, but I did hate his horse. Then I took a deep breath, stood up, and dusted off my Anne Klein straight-leg jeans. “Hey, we don’t have to do this now,” Marlboro Man said, standing back up. “I’ll just do it later.” “No, I’m fine,” I answered, walking back toward my horse with newfound resolve.

We went to dinner that night and ordered steak and talked our usual dreamy talk, intentionally avoiding the larger, looming subject. When he brought me home, it was late, and the air was so perfect that I was unaware of the temperature. We stood outside my parents’ house, the same place we’d stood two weeks earlier, before the Linguine with Clam Sauce and J’s surprise visit; before the overcooked flank steak and my realization that I was hopelessly in love. The same place I’d almost wiped out on the sidewalk; the same place he’d kissed me for the first time and set my heart afire. Marlboro Man moved in for the kill. We stood there and kissed as if it was our last chance ever. Then we hugged tightly, burying our faces in each other’s necks. “What are you trying to do to me?” I asked rhetorically. He chuckled and touched his forehead to mine. “What do you mean?” Of course, I wasn’t able to answer. Marlboro Man took my hand. Then he took the reins. “So, what about Chicago?” I hugged him tighter. “Ugh,” I groaned. “I don’t know.” “Well…when are you going?” He hugged me tighter. “Are you going?” I hugged him even tighter, wondering how long we could keep this up and continue breathing. “I…I…ugh, I don’t know,” I said. Ms. Eloquence again. “I just don’t know.” He reached behind my head, cradling it in his hands. “Don’t…,” he whispered in my ear. He wasn’t beating around the bush. Don’t. What did that mean? How did this work? It was too early for plans, too early for promises. Way too early for a lasting commitment from either of us. Too early for anything but a plaintive, emotional appeal: Don’t. Don’t go. Don’t leave. Don’t let it end. Don’t move to Chicago. I didn’t know what to say. We’d been together every single day for the past two weeks. I’d fallen completely and unexpectedly in love with a cowboy. I’d ended a long-term relationship. I’d eaten beef. And I’d begun rethinking my months-long plans to move to Chicago. I was a little speechless. We kissed one more time, and when our lips finally parted, he said, softly, “Good night.” “Good night,” I answered as I opened the door and went inside. I walked into my bedroom, eyeing the mound of boxes and suitcases that sat by the door, and plopped down on my bed. Sleep eluded me that night. What if I just postponed my move to Chicago by, say, a month or so? Postponed, not canceled. A month surely wouldn’t hurt, would it? By then, I reasoned, I’d surely have him out of my system; I’d surely have gotten my fill. A month would give me all the time I needed to wrap up this whole silly business. I laughed out loud. Getting my fill of Marlboro Man? I couldn’t go five minutes after he dropped me off at night before smelling my shirt, searching for more of his scent. How much worse would my affliction be a month from now? Shaking my head in frustration, I stood up, walked to my closet, and began removing more clothes from their hangers. I folded sweaters and jackets and pajamas with one thing pulsating through my mind: no man--least of all some country bumpkin--was going to derail my move to the big city. And as I folded and placed each item in the open cardboard boxes by my door, I tried with all my might to beat back destiny with both hands. I had no idea how futile my efforts would be.