I met my husband on an airplane in August 1997. We were assigned seats next to each other and were the last two to board a flight I almost missed and that he nearly didn’t take.
Peter was forty-three, a successful British businessman, twice divorced, and the father of two grown children. I was twenty-five—just getting my career underway as a press secretary on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.—and going through what I call a quarter-life crisis, a period of anxiety and confusion that most young women have after college (ladies—the crisis ends, believe me).
While I was open to meeting someone, I was fairly career focused, and Peter thought he would never marry again. Besides, we lived on different continents. Neither of us planned on falling in love on that flight from Denver to Chicago, but that’s what happened. I call it “love at first flight.”
Our romance was quick and intense. We were lovesick. For ten days after we met, I couldn’t eat or sleep or concentrate at work. I couldn’t even read the novels I checked out from the Library of Congress.
Peter had fallen hard for yours truly, and was waiting for me to respond to an e-mail he’d sent, but his office’s new server had kicked it back without him knowing. Over a week later, he was on vacation when he found out about the server. Worried, he drove out of his way and miles longer than he intended that day just to resend the e-mail to me. He had a feeling I was going to get over him before he even had a chance to woo me.
Peter was right. Back in D.C., I was worried that my love connection on that plane was just a fantasy. After not hearing from him for nearly two weeks, I decided that I had to push him completely out of my mind. It was a hot August day and I went down to the courtyard in the Rayburn House Office Building and sat outside and read The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone (the title was appropriate for my mood).
At 1 p.m., I closed the book and went upstairs, feeling free and refocused on my job. I booted up my computer and, you guessed it, there was Peter’s e-mail. It hadn’t been too late.
The rest was quick history. From October to May, we wrote romantic letters—yes, real handwritten letters with stamps and everything. They go through this service called “the mail” and it’s the most amazing thing! And we spoke every day, too (the phone bills were high but Peter never complained or commented on the cost).
Peter came to the United States nine times, and I went over to visit him twice, the second time to pick out a flat where we’d live (yes, I was already calling it a flat). I came back and got up the courage to resign from my Capitol Hill job and tell my parents I was moving to the UK. To my pleasant surprise, everyone was supportive (once they revived my father). I was energized and relaxed, confident and contented. This was love. This was being a grown-up.
While he worked during the day, I read books and surfed the Internet. (I didn’t realize that at that time in England you paid by the minute for dial-up service. Peter gently asked me to be more conservative with my browsing.)
I took to cooking vegetarian meals out of the Moosewood cookbook (because meat was expensive and I really didn’t know how to cook it), and I still have the chart Peter made for me for easy reference between Celsius and Fahrenheit when I needed to use the oven.
I learned how to make Greek pilaf, polenta pizza pie, and black bean soup. To this day if you ask Peter what his favorite meal is that I make, he says quesadillas. Imagine! He’d never had one, so he thought I was the Julia Child of Mexican cheese sandwiches.
On weekends, he took me to all the places I’d read about—Windermere in the Lake District, Durham Cathedral, Tintagel Castle where King Arthur is said to have met with the Knights of the Round Table, and the Roman city of Chester with its beautiful Tudor buildings. (I think he figured it was cheaper to take me with him than to leave me home with the expensive Internet service.) On occasion, I traveled with him to visit clients all over Europe, and it was on one of those trips that we found our next mutual love: the Vizsla.
Both of us had been wanting a dog but were trying to keep an open mind on the breed. Peter was partial to a black lab and I was into Weimaraners (I love William Wegman’s photographs).
On a visit to Switzerland, Peter had a meeting with a client named Heiner (German for Henry). He invited us to his chalet and said I could play with the dogs while they met. (I felt a little indignant—I mean, I used to advise members of Congress and now I was reduced to babysitting the dogs! However, the dogs were better listeners.)
We pulled up and there were two russet hounds that had the shape of a pointer, like a red Weimaraner. One of Heiner’s dogs was seven years old, the other just a three-month-old pup.
“What kind of dogs are these?” was our first question.
“These are Hungarian Vizslas. To me, they are the best dogs in the world,” he said.
I don’t remember much of the business meeting. I spent time playing with that puppy and kissing its head. Heiner told us all about the breed. We asked if he knew any breeders. He did; in fact, one of the breeders lived in Scotland and had a new litter (that is, the breeder’s dog had a new litter).
We hadn’t even left Heiner’s driveway when Peter phoned the Scottish breeder, Helen MacCauley. She had one male pup left.
“We’ll take him,” he said, cutting her off when she tried to explain the attributes of the puppies and how they’d make for excellent show dogs. The sire had won Best in Breed at Crufts the year before, and she thought we might want to show our dog.
“We just plan to love him,” Peter said, giving me a thumbs-up and one of his biggest smiles. We were getting a puppy.