Chance Encounter: My Last First Kiss

So, it's been a while.
Just two posts and I lost my mojo, as they say. This whole blog thing isn't the same as keeping a diary, which, I find is both easier and harder to write for the same reason -- no one will read it.
This afternoon and evening, I could not rest until I wrote something. Anything. I found myself wishing I didn't have to wait until June 3 for my next graduate course to begin. Found myself wishing someone would give me something to write about. So, Kara Eller, a fellow English teacher, did just that. "What's your most interesting accidental encounter? Go."
This, of course, is not an easy question to answer. After a momentary paralysis of memory, encounters I hadn't thought about in years surfaced for contemplation. There is the woman I met at the grocery store last Wednesday. Freshly widowed. On food stamps. Talked to me about everything because I was listening. There is the man I met (at the same grocery store) who remembered not only my face, but also my name, from a class we took together over a year ago.There was the war veteran (same grocery store... This is getting weird) sitting unassumingly on his little whirring electric grocery store wheelchair, perplexed by the self-checkout lanes. Other customers rushing around him. Not noticing. So busy. Too busy. Places to go, places to be. (I've already written an essay about him, though, so writing about him here would be cheating the assignment in a way.) There is my best friend. We were both lost when we met -- but I've written about that, too. I could talk about the girl I met at the river, whose husband my husband then met while buying and selling items on Craig's List. I could talk about the girl I met at the last race I ran, and how we always seem to be where we are most needed. But that is too fresh. Too recent. Haven't yet had adequate time to reflect on it.
So, here is where the real blog entry begins. Where I actually address the assignment Kara gave me. (I'm a windbag, aren't I? If you don't think so yet, just look at how long this entry is.)
Before you read this, consider it a rough draft and remember I churned it out in one sitting and already think it's crap in terms of writing -- but is probably good at least for some entertainment. I have spent so many years simplifying the story for the sake of telling it, that fleshing it out isn't as easy as I'd like.

"I have this manager at work, Amanda, who you would think was so cute," said my sister Anne one summer several years ago. "But he has a girlfriend."
I had a boyfriend. Didn't give it a second thought. Besides, single or not, this manager lived in Virginia and I was only here for the summer. In August, I'd be back in Michigan.
Several months, 32 credits, a first love and heartbreak later, and I was back in Virginia for spring break. The store where my sister still worked was having its spring sale. My mom offered to take me shopping. Not only would I receive the sale price, but I would also be able to take advantage of my sister's employee discount. So, to the mall we went.
I chatted with my sister. Spent some time in front of a mirror in the dressing room. Eventually settled on a couple pairs of pants and some shirts. Made my way to the disappointingly long lines at the checkout register. Disappointing, that is, until I happened to glance up and see the boy working the register. Red T-shirt. Tattoo peeking out from one sleeve. Skinny. Shaggy brown hair. I could wait. It would be my turn eventually, and I planned to take full advantage (I have no idea how; I just know I felt confident that this encounter would be a positive one).
But then it didn't happen.
I was just one person shy of my turn for his attention when a girl I had known from high school opened up the register next to his. 
"I can take the next customer."
That was me.
She rang me up, we exchanged happy pleasantries and I was on my way. Didn't give it a second thought.
Until my sister came home. Then I remembered.
"Anne," I said, "who was that boy working the register?"
"In the red shirt? That's Matty. He's the one I told you about."
She had been right. I did think he was "so cute."
"He asked about you, too," she said.
And then the butterflies. The last time I had felt this -- well, giddy, really -- was right before I had fallen in love the first and (so far) last time (which was right before I got my heart broken the first time).
"Well, next time you work together, tell him I said -- hi." (Because I am that smooth.)
So, she did. And the next time she came home from work, she had this message for me:
"Matty says hi."
This went on for about a year. Sometimes, Anne would call me in Michigan to let me know Matty said hi. Sometimes, she would send e-mails on his behalf. When I went home for winter break, I went to "visit Anne at work," a convenient euphemism. Generally, she would tip me off as to what his schedule was and I would show up on the pretense of visiting her. Once, she even set up a mock shoe fitting to try to force us to actually talk to each other -- instead of using her as our middleman. Matty and I stood there in the shoe section, awkwardly looking at each other. I think we might've gotten as far as hi before one or the other of us got too uncomfortable and found a way out of the situation.
So, another several months of "Matty says hi/Amanda says hi" continued, like a long-distance game of peek-a-boo. Then, Matty got transferred. So, no more hellos. I shrugged it off, but was inwardly disappointed. I'd get over it.
I went home for the summer. This would be Anne's last summer at the store. She would be leaving for her first year of college soon. Her last day was set to be just a week or two before I would head back to Michigan for my last year of college. 
She came home that day -- her last day -- smiling.
"Matty says hi," she said.
I looked at her, a little puzzled. Hadn't he switched stores?  Hadn't we said our last hello? (Today it occurs to me -- we had always only said hi; never goodbye.)
"He called my store today. On my last day. He happened to call my store. I happened to be the one who answered. I told him he had to call you and I gave him your number. I told him he better call you fast, because you go back to school in two weeks."
I didn't expect him to call. 
He called the next day.
We planned a date and I started to get nervous. This whole saying hi through Anne thing had been so nice and fun. What if an actual date ruined the sweetness of the simple hellos? What if it left a bad taste in our mouths and turned what would otherwise have been a sweet little memory into something to be forever repressed? Well, the plan was made, anyway. Too late now.
A few days later, I dressed myself in a pair of jeans I had bought the first day I saw Matty and T-shirt. Not too flashy. I didn't, after all, want to give him the idea that I needed to try to impress him.
My sister did not approve of my choice.
"Aren't you going out with Matty tonight?" she said.
"Yes."
"You want to borrow some clothes for me?"
I ended up in a short black skirt and a lacy black tank top. Before I left, Anne said,
"Matty would make a great brother-in-law." She's always been subtle. A few weeks after our first date she said, equally as subtly, "No pressure or anything, but if you marry Matty, it will make my life."
Matty and I met for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. He ate his first tomato (I'm serious; before our first date, Matty had never eaten a tomato). He dabbled his fork in guacamole and touched it to the tip of his tongue. He had never tried guacamole either. He liked neither the tomato nor the guacamole, but I guess he must've enjoyed me well enough, because when we stood up from dinner, he offered dessert. We found ourselves at the Cheesecake Bistro, where we ordered two over-sized desserts (cheesecake sundae and brownie sundae). We ate until we both thought we might barf, which is not desirable on a first (or any) date, and then I went home. The next time we saw each other, we shared our first kiss. I doubt either of us knew it in that moment, but that first kiss would be the last first kiss either of us would ever share with anyone. Just four months after our first date, at Maymont Park in Richmond, Matty proposed. Since then, I have dragged him all over the country and across the Atlantic Ocean. He likes to joke that I made him chase me all over the world before I stayed still long enough for a wedding. Now, both restaurants of our first date are closed. It used to make me sad. The first time we went to the Mexican restaurant was also the last time. But then it occurred to me: That's okay. That date was the first and last time I ate there, but that's appropriate. It was the dinner I ate at that restaurant that lead to my last first date and my last first kiss.

Above: Matty and I at MSU, November 2005.
Above Top: Matty and I on one of our first dates, August 2005.

Matty and I at a gala, April 2011.