Asking Chantal's Parents for their Blessing
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Chantal's parents (Susie and Don) dancing for joy
at the prospect of me marrying Chantal. |
This is Curtis and since Chantal really wasn't that involved, or aware, of this story, I get to tell it…
Chantal is so subtle. OK, stop snickering. Her subtlety just comes in different forms. For example, "Do you feel like dessert?" means that she wants dessert. "Aren't you cold?" means she's cold. "I hate that old Jerry Rice football jersey," means, well, it means she hates my old Jerry Rice football jersey. You get the picture.
So when we started having those first obtuse conversations about getting married, you know the ones where hints start getting dropped about other women's engagement rings, she was consistently coy in communicating to me her preference for talking to her parents prior to proposing. Actually, not so coy. She told me that she really liked the tradition of the man talking to the woman's parents in advance and recounted the entertaining stories of how her brother-in-laws had met with her father. She went on to tell me that the only part of that tradition that she didn't like was that moms typically get left out. Not surprisingly, I was given a stern directive – I was to include both parents in anything I did.
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My cover: summer at The Cape. |
So when I decided to concoct this plan, I thought that it was important to do it in person. Problem is that I live in Oakland and Chantal's parents live in Boston. At first I started thinking about ways to go to Boston for a day in the middle of week, because with Chantal living in San Francisco, we weren't seeing each every day, anyway. Seemed too risky, though. Luckily, each August Chantal's parents host their immediate family and grandchildren at their house on Cape Code for a week. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.
The prior year I had gone out to Washington, DC to work for part of the week, GetActive has an office out there, and flew up to Boston to meet Chantal before driving down to The Cape. My plan this year was to propose the same thing, but in actuality, fly to Boston a day earlier to talk to Chantal's parents. So, I suggested that Chantal book her flight first, so that I could schedule around it, playing to her desire to always plan early and often. After I got her itinerary, a scant 30 minutes after asking her to book her flight, I then planned my trip – Sunday flight to DC and a Tuesday night flight to Boston. She wasn't flying into Boston until Wednesday.
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Mike and David asked for Don's permission to marry
into the family and survived. A good sign. |
Next, I needed to get in touch with Chantal's parents. I sent an email to her father, Don, letting him know that I would like to take himself and Chantal's mom, Susie, out to dinner Tuesday night, but that no one could know about it. Having been through this twice before, I'm sure it didn't take him more than the time to read my email to figure out what I had in mind. Swapping emails a couple of times, we made plans and they graciously offered to put me up Tuesday night, so I wouldn't have to stay in a hotel.
The plan was set and it was now just a matter of execution.
Tuesday evening my flight from DC to Boston was delayed and I didn't get into Boston until probably around 7:30 or 8:00. Earlier in the week, Don had let me know that he would be traveling for business Tuesday night so we would have to have our big "meeting" over lunch on Wednesday. This meant that I wasn't too worried about getting in late. Apparently, the planning gene is strong in this family, though, and plans had already been made for me for Tuesday night.
When I arrived at Don and Susie's home in Boston, I was greeted by a hurried Susie and her sister, Becky, who was in town from the Bahamas. Apparently, we had dinner plans at Walter's and because my plane was late, we were now late. This meant I had to drop my luggage and quickly get in a car to drive over to Walter's.
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Walter: surprise
dinner host. |
"Hmm," I thought. Walter. Now that name is familiar. It finally dawned upon me. "Susie, isn't Walter the family priest that married your first two daughters?" I asked. Susie dismissed my concerns, "Well, yes, but it's no big deal. We have to go because Walter has been waiting and we're late."
So I hadn't officially asked for a blessing from Don and Susie, but I was heading over to a Catholic church to meet with the man whom would presumably marry us. Interesting. I'm not a particularly religious man, so I started running through all sorts of scenarios. What if he started asking me about my views on God? What if he asked me if I had thought about converting to Catholicism? Could these topics and ensuing conversations totally derail my carefully designed plan? In a way, I was more nervous about this dinner than I was about the morrow's lunch.
Well, my worries were unfounded. Walter was a delightful host and excellent chef (we had delicious BBQ'ed beef). We talked about Chantal, Italy, Laurie grandchildren and many other topics. The only problem with the night was that my delayed flight pushed out dinner in Walter's traditional bedtime hours, he regularly gets up at 5:30 AM, and he may have nodded-off once or twice.
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McCormick and Schmick's:
a great place for any
monumental conversation. |
The next day Don, Susie and myself went out for a nice lunch at McCormick and Schmick's. I told them that I intended to ask Chantal to marry me and I wanted to get their blessing first. I'm not sure if I had finished my sentence before Susie said, "Of course, yes," and reached across the table to give me a kiss. We had a wonderful lunch, talking about marriage and hearing the stories of Chantal's two brother-in-laws asking for blessings from Don's point of view. He really seemed touched by these previous gestures.
After having "bent the truth" to Chantal Tuesday night about being in DC, when I was in fact in her parent's house, it was time to pull off the bigger deception. I packed-up my bags and took a cab to the airport, telling the cab driver to take me to baggage claim. I had told Chantal that my flight got in about an hour earlier than hers, and I would meet her at her baggage claim. I sat there for an hour, paying to get Internet access to check my GetActive email. When she arrived, I pretended that I had just flown in from DC that day. She then called her mom to pick us up at the airport and to take us all to The Cape.
When her mom and Becky arrived, the three of us had to pretend that we hadn't seen each other in months. I think we did a pretty good job! In fact, Don, Susie and Becky all managed to keep the secret safe for the rest of our stay at The Cape and for a couple of months after, too. There were definitely a couple of slip-ups that we noticed and fretted over, but nothing to which anyone else would have given a second thought. Just little comments about topics we had discussed Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, but nothing tipped-off Chantal. I did have Susie and Becky coming-up to me during our stay to occasionally remind me of how excited they were and how good they had been at keeping the secret. They were right!
Thus began our relationship founded upon deceit. I mean love and understanding. I've been told that employing such deception in the future is only permissible if it involves large and/or expensive gifts. Since Chantal didn't hear this story until minutes after our engagement, I'm afraid that she may associate any surprises and subterfuge from me with diamond encrusted baubles. Little does she know that it will more likely involve laundering our own money to pay for my golf habit. Surprise!
Thanks again to Don, Susie and Becky for keeping the secret. I really had a lot of fun planning and pulling this off!
