Of the seven servers at the restaurant three of them are women -all of them attractive and pleasant to work with but each with a completely different personality. The guys are pretty laid back, again each distinct but with a roughly similar sense of humor. There is plenty of joking and teasing getting flung around at any given moment but sometimes things can turn serious and they did for me this week.
Antonia is a very cute young lady with asian features whom hails from a Slavic country. She can seem confused at times but underneath her timid exterior is a brilliant young lady who is trying to figure out how to lead the life she wants and juggle the expectations of her homeland at the same time. A few days ago Antonia approached me during some down time and asked me, “Robert would you marry for money?”
I responded “No way, If I ever tie the knot it will be for love.”
She sighed and looked down at her toes. After a second she raised her head again and asked, “I mean would you marry me if I pay you, my visa is expire soon and I do not want to leave this country. If you yes you would be hero to me”. She explained a little bit more of the details to me but they were not really getting into my head, I was waiting for the big obvious glaring reason to not do it to rear its ugly head… it didn’t. I mean yeah I would have to stay married to her for 2 years so she could remain afterwards but that didn’t mean I couldn’t keep living my life and dating like normal. She was willing to pay me a small amount but it wasn’t about the money, she was obviously desperate for help so I told her I’d think about it. The funny thing is I’d already made up my mind to say yes.
That night I dreamt of kissing her. It was not a sexual dream it was just a nice pleasant kiss that was backed with a hefty amount of emotion. It was akin to a kiss you’d give your significant other on your wedding day. I woke up and for a second I was thinking that the proposition and the kiss were all a dream. Then I realized that, no, Antonia had actually asked me to marry her and I was going to tell her yes.
We had drinks after work to confirm my answer and discuss the details. I told her some background information about me and why I was okay with the idea and then I looked her in the eye and said, “yes, I’ll do it”. The look on her face was not quite what I expected at first. For an instant she looked like she didn’t believe me or that she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I gave her a wincing smile –the kind you give to someone when you’re asked a question and you reluctantly nod in the affirmative. Then it came, a pleasant smile laced heavily with gratitude. “Wow, right there,” I thought, “if all I get out of this is that one smile I’ll be okay with it.”
We then began the process of getting to know each other a little more. We each took turns aimlessly flinging questions at each other knowing that we needed to know everything to sell this act so we might as well ask anything. The topics jumped around from ideas of love, to places to travel. We discussed our backgrounds, and faults and personal philosophies but each time we scratched the surface of a topic we moved on –having no context to keep us on a linear conversational path.
I told her she was beautiful.
She blushed.
'If I’m going to marry a woman, for whatever reason, I’m going to tell her how beautiful she is every chance I got.' I’d decided –I was making a lot of decisions tonight.
We walked home towards the T stop and I told her I was going to stop in the restaurant to confirm something with our boss. She looked disappointed so I said screw it and walked her to the T. I was headed the same direction anyways and when I got on the T with her she smiled brightly and exclaimed “You come on train with me too!?” I smiled back and nodded. I wanted to wrap my arm around her but didn’t. We talked about who we’d invite and I was about to ask her what flavor wedding cake she would like when we got to my stop, I offered to ride home with her then backtrack but she said that’d be silly and I departed feeling strange. When I got to my final T stop I walked in to the nearest bar and ordered a shot, I threw it back, tipped the barkeep a buck and sparked a cigarette before I was even completely outside.
You see it in movies and comedy shows where people will take a drink when they hear crazy news to “take the edge off”. That was first time I had ever l had a drink literally for that purpose. I’m glad it worked long enough for me to fall asleep.
To be continued…
-Raw
That's just wrong! Please tell me you did not go through with it.
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