Before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge that I have recently written my 100 000th word in this blog!
Last November, a friend that I hadn't spoken to in more than three years called me up out of the blue to tell me that she was getting married. I was hoping that she had found a different boyfriend in that time. She had, and it's an interesting story. The old boyfriend, who I shall call King David, was with her for about four years in all. I faded from her life about one year into that relationship. I can't say that I was all that fond of King David, or his family (these are all Italians, so when you deal with one, you deal with all of them). The bride-to-be, who I shall call Tina, was scheduled to go to Italy with King David some time around August. Her best friend, who was also quite close to the king, got wind that he was about to propose marriage to her. Tina was miserable in the relationship and didn't know what to do about it until that moment. She left him right then and there.
I had accepted when she called, but I had no passport, no birth certificate to get one, and not a whle lot of money to pay for the trip. And since Rose could not come with me, I would have likely had to get a single occupancy room, which would have cost me and extra $500. So I waited until the last moment for someone to drop out of the trip. I got my birth certificate on February 3, my passport on February 9 and left two days later.
On February 11 I finally left for Cuba. Rose stayed awake until I left at 3:15 am. Taking the 361 down to Berri station, I was going to wait until 4:05 to take the bus, but I was able to then talk a cabbie into taking me to the airport for $20 instead of the usual rate of $35. Thinking that I had plenty of time (I got there two hours before my flight), I was pretty impressed with myself, although I was rather tired (I never slept). I was thinking that Tina would see me, we'd hug, talk a little and then get back in line. Maybe we'd talk again after we check in our baggage. Besides her and her family (which I barely remembered at the time, it took 90 minutes for me to remember their names), she was the only one I knew. Instead, what I got was:
"Mr. Parker! Here's your ticket. Fill out this form. Don't make any mistakes."
"Nice to see you, too, I thought." I later realized (as in, a few hours ago) that I may have been contacted to ensure a nice group rate, which explains why I didn't know anything until November. Luckily, it turned out that it would not matter at all. More in the coming posts.
Quite the cliff-hanger. Can't wait til the next post.
I feel somewhat cheated by this entry. It's like a movie teaser.
Let's get to the meat, Mr!
Wow... I can see how this story is just going to get worse and/or crazy! Waiting on tenterhooks (they hurt!) for the next entry.