tdalec / Member

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Yet Another Ode to Jillian.

Jillian loved to tell this story; that is, until everybody had heard it and told her to stop.

It was four days after our wedding and the second day of classes.

Jillian had graduated college and was beginning graduate school. But, being 19, she could easily have been mistaken for a freshman. The walk home to our apartment from campus took her along fraternity row and she could tell from his body language, as he came up to her, that Frat Boy was going hit on her.

Some experiences at college had taught Jillian a healthy disrespect for Frat Boys.

You couldn't really blame Frat Boy for trying, though. She was the same pretty girl with long blonde hair, blue eyes and perfect legs that had turned my head at the Fourth of July party three years before. Except that, instead of the white Keds, khaki Bermudas and white blouse with a Peter Pan collar she had worn then, this day she was wearing flat sandals, tight denim shorts that barely covered her butt and a green halter top.

Frat Boy came up on Jillian's left shoulder and fell into pace with her. "Hi," he said. Jillian gave him her sweet little smile. "Do you mind if I walk with you?" he asked.

Jillian's mother is Australian and Jillian had picked up enough of her accent to sound vaguely "British". It made her sound as if she wasn't-from-around-here, even though she was born here. When Jillian wanted to sound even more exotic she tossed in some idiom. "I shouldn't mind it at all," she answered. Frat Boy was smiling now, too, and probably trying not to drool.

Then Jillian stopped, turned toward Frat Boy, disengaged her left arm from under the notebooks she was carrying and wiggled the third finger in front of Frat Boy's face, "I'm afraid my husband would mind, though. Terribly," she said as she turned and walked away. She regrets not being able to turn and see the look on Frat Boy's face. But, she thought it would ruin the effect,

When she told me the story later that day, she said that more than the compliment of being hit on, more than the pleasure of deflating a Frat Boy, the best thing about the encounter was that it was the first time she had the opportunity to say, "My husband." I still think the answer is "A".