An Affair to Remember Part I

Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant in An Affair to Remember.

Before I started this blog I always knew I'd write this post. I just didn't know how it would end. Don't you love the movie with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr? Me too and well remember referencing it at Starbucks on August 12, 2006 to a beautiful brunette sitting across from me crying her eyes out. I was making a date with that crying brunette four years hence at Chicago's Lyric Opera as: ".... I was going to get the best seats in the house even if I had to use my ski mask and  pistol...and damn it Tiffany I need you looking just as beautiful as you do right now. What's this guy's name who just did your hair? Walk back over there right this minute and lock him up long term because that gorgeous mane needs to be looked after by only the best and either he just got lucky or is the best there is ...oh that's right you said he's been doing your hair for years but still go lock him up long term before word gets out that he does the hair of GSL's girl. His phone will ring off the hook and he'll triple his fee and you'll never again be able to see him at 10 on Saturday....4 years from now, I need you looking just like this only wearing your best outfit and we'll make a Bogie & Becall entrance at the Civic Opera House and I'll just wear a nice suit, not my dress uniform heavily laden with those ribbons and medals for courage under fire you'll be reading about in a few months.....don't worry sweetheart, your adored GSL will be coming back in 1 piece...remember me telling you how much I liked your smile but I liked your laugh even more and here I've turned you from a blubbering mess back into that beautiful laughing girl I was enchanted by last night. I'm good at this, I only need a beautiful girl to perform for and I'm the best there is...the best there ever was...maybe....but not nearly as good as I'm gonna be once I get 'on my way'...and this Army thing is how I get my start....Now let me walk you to your car because that's what guys like me do...and just because you've been such a good girl I'll let you give me a smooch on the cheek so you won't beat yourself up over the next 4 years for forgetting....and just like I told you watch 'An Affair to Remember' and try not to think about me and how Cary Grant couldn't shine my shoes....that Hollywood lightweight needs a writer, director, cameramen, and five takes to be half as good as me just looking at a beautiful girl like you....and I'm getting better everyday...so in the highly unlikely event I haven't found you the Mr. Wonderful of your dreams by then.... I'll be on you like a cheap suit...and you won't stand a chance....God has never made a single woman who can resist me when I'm at my best and now having met you I'm starting to get close..."

Remember this scene? Cary Grant is often referred by movie critics as "a poor man's GSL".

That date 4 years from that day happened on October 13, 2010 but I first need to fill in some backstory. I had only met Tiffany the previous night at a gala held at the tony Saddle & Cycle Club. I was tagging along with several friends who had an extra ticket. Tiffany was also a friend of my friends and oddly enough we had never met although I did hear her mentioned usually in the disapproving context of her always leaving early on nights out with the girls and her never joining in those monthly boozy brunches I occasionally attended with an entanglement or two as a result. Tiffany was always sniffed about as a 'goody two-shoes' although all spoke highly of her character. The date of that party we met was August 11, 2006 and I was leaving for the Army on Monday, August 14th. Of my friends, only The Good Doctor and Estella knew about my enlistment and had only told my mother the previous week. I had planned on slipping out of town without the going away parties people would have felt compelled to put on or attend. I didn't want to put people out or have them worrying about my emotional state, as I'm wound tight as a banjo string and I would have gotten emotional once the girls got the tears going.

The night of the party, I felt completely at ease with my pending enlistment at the ripe old age of almost 42 (the new cutoff age announced only on June 22, 2006 due to dire troop shortages during the worst part of the Iraq War).  At the party was a romantic interest that I had a couple of dates with but nothing in recent weeks. I was hoping she had designs on somebody else so as to free me up. She did thank goodness. I finally did meet this tall brunette (at least 5 foot 10 in flats) named Tiffany as our social circles had considerable overlap.  We hit it off perfectly from the start. I always do well with tall women as they are at their best when not preoccupied with hoping to be asked out and trying to make a favorable impression towards that end.  She didn't have the slightest interest in me as a potential suitor and with my  4 year enlistment looming, I certainly wasn't looking for a romantic fling.

Tiffany is on the left

....to be continued