We drove to Tony’s house and packed up. I hauled my boxes to the car and Tony threw some clothes into an old suitcase. Tony drove all day and all night to get me home in time for Meredith’s party. We pulled up to the house and I hesitated.
“What do you think your dad will say?” he asked.
“You can expect all the… expected questions.”
“But do you think he’ll approve?”
“Give him time. He doesn’t know you. I didn’t even know you when the semester ended. He’ll come around, just like I did. Mom’s already convinced you’re a saint.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Just be friendly, have a plan in mind, and ask him if his laptop is working better.”
“He’s really a nice guy,” he said.
“He is. He just cares a whole lot. And he’s never done this before.”
The front door bumped open and Meredith bounced down the steps.
“Traditional house,” Tony said. “It even has a porch swing.”
“Yes, and it’s wonderful on cool nights.”
“Gwendolyn! You’re home!” Meredith said as soon as she reached the car window.
“Traditional,” Tony said of Meredith’s greeting. “I enter the realm of… THE TRADITIONAL.”
“You can lose the alien voice.”
“Okay.”
“You must be Tony!” Meredith said.
“And you must be Meredith.”
Meredith blushed. “Gwendolyn told me about you.”
“Happy Sweet Sixteen!” Tony said and gave Meredith a shoulder hug.
“Gwen, will you do my hair?”
And I stepped back into the realm of the traditional. I styled Meredith’s hair for the big event. She was so lucky. She had long bouncy hair and big blue eyes. Her dress fit her wonderfully and made her look like a young woman.
Dad was quite taken aback by Tony’s hair and cargo shorts, but when Tony spoke intelligently of computers and geocaching and companies that were looking for aspiring programmers Dad fell into the traditional role of the father figure. Tony played soccer with my brother. He even sat through all of an animated movie about an enchanted princess who had to find a serum before her mother died of some horrible curse. And my mother did her best to show Tony what a real mother was like. She doted on him as if he was royalty. She was amazed at the party when Tony knew how to do the twist. I think some of his spontaneousness rubbed off on my family and he was able to see that a traditional family wasn’t quite as rigid as he had come to believe.
We were married the summer after that fateful contest. It was a traditional wedding. I wore an elegant white gown and Tony wore a tux… with black and white basketball shoes. At the reception Tony showed a movie he had made of our geocaching adventures. My brother thought the bears were cool. My sister thought the asylum was creepy. Picture after picture moved across the screen and I found myself on the edge of my seat.
“How many mice did you count?” I whispered to Tony.
“Four, but I’m sure there were more.”
“Yeah, like the one in my pants,” I whispered.
I never did find a college major I wanted to stick to. Tony continued his Computer Science studies and I spent many evenings in the library reading and studying Anything 101. We found over a thousand geocaches, my biggest achievement of the whole school year. I saw shady lanes and rushing rivers, the insides of fence posts, guard rails and lamp post skirts. And all along the way I grew in my wonder of the world around me, thanks to little hidden containers and the people who hide them in places they hope other people will enjoy. In fact, I know of a little grotto that isn’t too far from parking. We discovered it while geocaching but there wasn’t a cache there. I think I’ll hide a cache there.