@eve55,
eve55 wrote:
That's a pity. Sounds like movie scenes.
Actually it wasn't a pity at all. It was a great adventure, knocked some much needed sense into me and put the final nail in the coffin of a terminally ill relationship that, frankly, never had risen much beyond immature and destructive.
I was, though, foolishly counting on a Hollywood scene wherein the girl sees the boy loves her so much he's flown all the way to Paris to reclaim her, realizes she love him and only him, rushes into his waiting arms and they live happily ever after. I thanked God on numerous occasions thereafter that I got "What are you doing here?" instead, and that when I returned to America the much smarter, funnier, kinder, and more beautiful girl I risked losing by going, somehow understood why I had done it and forgave me. I truly didn't deserve her. We were married less than a year later and have remained so for 45 wonderful years. So there was a very happy ending after all.
In fact when I decided to return I had the gall to send her a telegram and ask her to pick me up at JFK airport. After I deplaned and cleared customs I found no one waiting for me. Still, I was a ridiculously overconfident fool and called her home. Everyone but her 10 year old sister was out of the house so I tried to get my future sister-in-law to take down or remember my message with gate info. The girl was pretty dizzy so I hung up the phone with little hope of her conveying the message or if she did, properly.
I had hardly any cash left, so getting a cab back to Long Island was out of the question, and I didn't want to leave anyway, just in case she might be coming. I asked one of the airport employees if it would be alright if I slept on one of the lounge chairs overnight and started planning how I would get home the next day. I figured it would require hitchhiking the approx 70 miles back to where my parents lived, and I couldn't call them because they were in California and they would probably have told me to walk home anyway.
I don't remember how long I sat in the lounge or what I did to pass the time, but it seems like in very little time, I heard someone calling my name. I looked up and there she was, coming towards me with a beautiful radiant smile on her face. It really was one of the four happiest moments in my entire life (I have three kids). So in the end I also got my Hollywood moment and the love of my life.
Epilogue: My wife had brought with her two friends. One was the s.o.b. who started the whole mess by revealing my girlfriends infidelity. Without going into all the details I had come to learn that his revelation was malicious. He was hopelessly in love with the girl, who would become my wife, knew she had been developing feelings for me and hoped to get me out of the way. He had no real chance even if I had remained in France for the rest of my life, but such was the magical beauty of the girl who preferred me over him. He actually reached me first and threw out his arms to embrace me. I pointed down and told him "Your fly is open." When he looked down I swept past him and to the young women who were just behind him. That was the end of that
friendship.
It also turned out that my future mother-in-law had intercepted the telegram and threw it away before my wife could see it. I never blamed her at all, and we eventually became very close.
