Two Weeks Later

I was sitting inside my father’s car. It was parked near the seaside. I was listening to music trying not to think about my recent breakup until I met someone quite unexpectedly. It was my friend Tom Collins. As I saw him, I stepped outside the car to shake hands with him and asked:

“What are you doing here? When did you arrive here?”

“I was just passing by until I saw your car. So, I came here to say hi!”

“Oh, well that’s great… Come on in, sit with me.”

“Sure!”

Next minute, we both were seated inside my car. We were talking casually until he came up with this:

“You know what you should do Aaron? You should get married.”

“What? You’re kidding, right?”

“I mean it. The kind of pain that you are going through right now has only one solution.”

“I don’t know; I mean I want to but I can’t get married.”

“This woman dumped you. And she didn’t do that because she was not satisfied or bored with this relationship. In fact, she had been planning to end this since the beginning of this relationship. I’m sorry to say but for her this relationship was just a…”

“Okay,” I interrupted him as I didn’t have the courage to hear the bitter truth that he was about to reveal. “Don’t go there please. I don’t want to think of her anymore.”

“Good, but in order to move on you must have a partner. A companion who would be willing to commit to this relationship. And the only way you can find that out is by knowing that your partner is willing to marry you.”

“Oh come on, where will I find somebody like that so soon? It’s not that simple.”

“I know a place where you can.”

I got a little interested and asked:

“Okay, where?”

***************

Next afternoon, Tom and I were at some other city of the same state. We had driven all the way from my house. The moment we stepped outside my car, he showed me the marriage council by pointing his finger towards it.

To be very honest, I went there to get married as soon as possible. Tom said to me:

“Today, you can register your name here and tell them about the kind of woman you are looking for. The next time we come here, you can meet her and talk in person. And then on our third and last trip, you can finally get married.”

“What do you mean third and last? This is my first and last trip here. I can’t wait that long. I just want to get married as soon as possible.”

“Look, you have to be patient here.”

“I am not going to drive all the way here again and again. If it requires more days, then it’s better for me to find some marriage council at our home city.”

“Those marriage councils charge. And they charge a lot. This marriage council does not charge you a dime.”

I was a bit stunned as I heard this.

“Look, just relax” Tom spoke, “take your time and wait for the right person. You don’t want to regret this marriage for the rest of your life, do you?”

I gave his words a consideration and spoke:

“You’re right, let’s go inside…”

What happened next was really long. In next three hours, after a long wait, I got myself registered and told the agency about my family back ground and the kind of woman I was looking for. They understood my situation and asked me to wait for a week. I politely refused this and said:

“I need to see someone now. I want to meet whoever you can show me. I am willing to marry her right now.”

“Look, we understand,” one of them replied. “But you’ll have to wait for one day at least…”

“No, I can’t…”

Tom said to me in my ear:

“Can you come outside with me for a while?”

“Okay.”

As I went outside with him, he said to me as if trying to calm me:

“Aaron, just give yourself a break, ok? You need to calm down before I say the next thing.”

“Okay I’m calm, go on…”

“I will book us a room in some hotel nearby. We will go and stay there. You just need to give them one day to find someone for you.”

I gave it a consideration and spoke after a while:

“Alright, just one day?”

“Yes, not more than that…”

“Okay.”

He asked me to wait outside and went back inside. He came back after a minute and spoke:

“Alright, let’s go!”

“So do you know any hotels around here?”

“You bet I do…”

We left the place and drove towards some distance.

***************

Next morning, while I was sleeping in the hotel room, I heard my cell phone ringing and woke up. I answered the call from an unknown number,

“Hello?”

It was a call from the marriage agency and they had called me to come and meet the woman they had found for me.

I jumped out of my bed and after taking a bath, I left the hotel room without informing Tom. I was so excited to meet this woman that this hastiness made me forget almost all the important stuff such as my cell phone and my wallet.

Anyways I finally reached the place and made my way straight to their office. While I was sitting on the chair, one of the two lawyers said to me:

“Alright, we’ve found this woman. Her name is Lindsay Martinez. She is desperate like you because she is recently divorced. But she is two years older than you.”

“I’m fine with that. Where is she now?”

“She’s in another room. The way you’re going to meet her is supposed to be according to our terms. You’re going to go and sit outside on that public bench.”

“Okay,” I agreed though it sounded a bit weird to me. “And then?”

“Then after one minute, your partner, which means your future life partner will show up and sit right next to you”

“Okay, then?”

“Then you can talk or get to know each other, whatever…”

“Oh,” I answered feeling kind of uneasy. “So should I go now?”

“Yes, you may…”

I stood up and walked feeling ridiculous about their policy but I played along and sat over the public bench.

One minute later, a good looking woman with blonde hair came and asked:

“Are you Aaron Tribiani?”

“Yes,” I replied as I looked up. “Yes, I am.”

She sat right next to me and spoke:

“Hi, I’m Lindsay Martinez…”

I don’t know why but I felt a bit nervous so I just spoke:

“Great, so how are you?”

“I’m good, yeah, and how are you?”

“I’m…” I couldn’t speak maybe because of my nervousness.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m good,” I answered avoiding eye contact. “I will come straight to it, ok? I’m here just to get married. You see I’ve been through a tough breakup.”

“Oh, my God!” she was a little uncomfortable with what I just spoke. “I think it’s too soon. Maybe, we should introduce ourselves first.”

“Alright, why don’t you start first?”

“Okay, I am as you know recently divorced which is why I might be able to understand you completely. Other than this, I am a high school teacher here. I have done masters in English. Besides this stuff, my family history goes back to…”

“…Hold on, sorry to interrupt you but there’s one thing you need to hear out first.”

“Okay, what is it?”

“My name is Aaron Tribiani and I am not interested in history.”

I got silent and she responded:

“Okay, is that it?”

“Yes!”

“I’m sorry, I failed to understand why you brought this up.”

“You were about to tell me about your family history which was why I had to tell you that history is of least concern to me. I would rather like to know about your future as compared to…you know.”

“Oh, I get it. So anyways, I live here in this city but I’m willing to leave the city if you want me to settle with you.”

“Oh no, we don’t have to. I mean I want to stay away from where I came for. For at least a month. So anyways, what do want to know about me?”

“Well, your job and your education would be enough for now.”

“I am working as a part time typist at some firm and I have done bachelors in business management.”

“Oh well, that’s great!”

Now, there was a moment of awkward silence. We both were expecting each other to speak and no one was. So after a long pause I looked at the view in front of us and asked her:

“So do you like sunrise or sunset?”

“Oh, I like sunset.”

“As a matter of fact, I also like sunset at sea.”

“Oh, that’s great!”

Now her constant, ‘Oh’ was annoying me but I felt what the hell, let’s go with it. So I asked:

“So, what else do you like?”

“Well, I like to cook. I took cooking classes several years back, and today I can cook almost everything.”

“That’s lovely. I’d love to taste what you’d make.”

We kept on talking and getting to know each other. And I got to admit, she was a really kind and sweet spoken person.

And guess what, we finally got married. Yes, we got married and we started making our future plans. It all happened so sudden. Within forty eight hours, we met, we got married and then we moved to a small apartment. I asked my friend Tom to go and inform my family about this. I don’t know how they took it but the good news is that I was married and had forgotten about my recent break up. Life was about to get worse, I had no idea back then.

***************

One morning, I woke up and looked at my wife who was sleeping. While looking at her I kind of realized that how lucky I was to have a wife like her. She was so kind and polite. She understood me completely. And on the right time, I married the right woman. I suddenly realised that I was in love. I loved my wife more than any other person.

These were one of my best days. I was really happy since I was away from the stories of my ancestors and I had also completely forgotten about my recent breakup.

Two hours later, when we were having breakfast, she asked me:

“What do you say I show you the city today?”

“The city? What exactly do you mean?”

“I mean to say how about you and I go for a city tour.”

“Well, I would love that but do you think we can? I mean we don’t have a car or anything like that.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. We’ll arrange a bus or something. I know a place where we can spend the evening.”

“I see!”

“Yeah, we can watch the sunset together.”

“Great, so when should we leave?” I asked getting delighted.

“You tell me; we can leave anytime you want…”

This was our relationship. Kindness and politeness on every word. My married life was actually better than I had dreamed of.

Every next day, we travelled to different parts of the city. I was really happy and it appeared that she was too. My family’s tragic stories of past were far away from me. The word Octaland was not even in my memory those days. But tragedies worse than Octaland’s were about to happen.

It was my second month with Lindsay. We were planning to find some other cheaper hotel, since the prices were getting higher and we needed a place that was unaffordable. She unexpectedly asked me while we were leaving the hotel room:

“Why can’t we stay at your place?”

To be honest, I had no answer for that but I spoke anyway:

“We will move there one day. You see I don’t want to expose you to our family feuds.”

“Family feuds?”

“Yeah!”

“You never tell me the details about those disputes. I have a right to know what’s going on.”

“Lindsay please, I am really far away from all these. I don’t want to face all those troubles again.”

“Not ever?”

“No, I will go back some day. In fact, we’ll go after few months.”

“…Okay,” she spoke after a while.

As I looked at her she didn’t seem to be satisfied, so I decided that I must take her to my home some day and settle there with her.

***************

My father Shawn and my brother Gabriel were seated together at the balcony. They both were disappointed about something. My father said:

“Aaron was really upset with his life. I think it’s better to let him marry whoever he likes.”

“But Dad, this guy knows nothing about our family values and norms. He doesn’t take any interest in our family’s background.”

“We can’t force him. He is independent and I once allowed him to do whatever he likes since he was heartbroken.”

“You have, but I won’t. I won’t make his marriage easy for him. I will put him through a test.”