Preface

Clearly I am a slow learner but Peter and I had an upcoming wedding and I still clung to the dream of a happy family and in-laws, dream wedding, etc. Hope springs eternal.

At this time, Peter was not estranged from his father but they were not very close. Part of the distance was due to the fact that Peter used his middle name as his last name in business. Nancy held such animosity towards Peter’s father after all of those years (approximately 11 years post-divorce) that when she asked Peter to join her in business, she would not permit him to use his last name. Peter used his middle name as his last name. It was beginning to dawn on me that she would not let me use my married name in the shop either.

Nancy told me that I could just continue to use my maiden name but I didn’t really like that idea. She began to tell me some pretty bad stories about Peter’s paternal side of the family. She claimed Peter’s grandfather had stolen a jar of silver quarters from her when she and Peter’s dad were staying with him (a complete lie.) Some of the other stories she told me are too horrible to repeat and they are lies anyway, so I won’t write them.

A really crazy story she told me was that Peter’s aunt was a brilliant student who graduated first in her class from Stanford Law School (the previous part is true) but her first client hung himself and she never practiced law again. If I were to write Peter’s aunt’s name, you could look her up online and discover for yourself that she has practiced law for years and is a very distinguished attorney who has represented major corporations and even counties very successfully. In Google today, there are well over 150 listings regarding her cases.

However at that time, I thought it was an impossibility that Nancy was lying about family stories. After all, within a year’s time they would be my family too and it would be easy to debunk lies. I assumed that the stories were at least mostly true. For a few weeks things were relatively quiet.

Nancy was complaining that no one had ever thrown her a birthday party. Well, in the spirit of the upcoming wedding and family peace, I began planning a birthday party for her. She only had one friend in Cincinnati so I asked my parents to attend and I asked Peter what we should do about the paltry guest list. He said that Nancy and her one friend had met a couple of guys who shared an apartment in the same complex. They had chatted a few times with each other and seemed somewhat friendly. I thought what the heck, they show up, eat the free food, drink the free wine, hopefully bring a card or present, and they fill out the guest list. After a lot of effort I was able to get the phone number for these 2 guys who said they would be happy to attend.

The night of the party arrived and my parents came, complemented the food and wine and tried talking to Nancy and her friend. The 2 guys hadn’t shown up yet and I was beginning to feel the party going down the drain. Nancy was being her usual self, curt answers to questions from anyone but her girlfriend. I could tell that my parents were counting the seconds until they could politely leave.

The doorbell rang and the 2 guys were there. It was my parents cue to leave, and they nearly ran out the door. The night deteriorated as Nancy proceeded to pretty much finish an entire bottle of Courvoisier on her own, after the wine at dinner. It was her birthday and she is not the first person to get drunk, but what followed was beyond embarrassing and hurtful.

As she became more and more intoxicated, she kept taking me aside to ‘talk.’ Most of it did not make any sense whatsoever but it was clear she was trying to explain something, I had no idea what. I redirected her back to the party a few times and she began flirting with one of the guys. Her friend had to leave but Nancy wanted to stay. The other guy began flirting with her too. She was in hog heaven and kept chatting and flirting with both of them.

It was getting late and I went upstairs to make sure the sheets on the guest room bed were fresh. I went back down and told her she could just spend the night with us. She said that she was going to get a ride home with the 2 guys. I told Peter there was absolutely no way that I could send her home in that state with 2 guys we hardly knew. The guys kept insisting everything was fine because they lived in the same complex and would make sure she got home safely.

I asked Nancy again to spend the night at our house, but she refused and put her arm around me saying something I could not understand. I told the 2 guys that I did not feel that great about this plan, but Nancy had already walked outside and climbed into the backseat of their car. Peter said, "Hey it’s her birthday, she’s an adult, if she wants to go home with 2 guys, we should let her."

We stood on our front porch watching 2 smiling strangers driving off with a drunk Nancy in the backseat who by now was whooping and yelling and doing her "Queen’s wave" out the window. The whole night had been a complete disaster.

The next morning we called her to make sure that everything was okay. She said she was hung over but pretty much okay. She was very concerned about what she said to me while she was drunk. I told her that she told me nothing. She asked if she had said anything mean or anything that hurt my feelings. Asking a question like that was so out of character for Nancy, it would be akin to a snake asking if it hurt when he bit you. I realized that she thought she spilled the beans about her true feelings about me.

I couldn’t believe that after all of the trouble to plan a party for her and all of my attempts to get along with her, she still hated me. I briefly debated making something up and having her grovel, but I just said the truth, which was that I couldn’t understand a word she said. She curtly said, "Good, can I talk to Peter?" She thanked him for the party and said she was going back to bed.