The Paper

The Paper

We got a daily paper when I was a teenager. Probably even before that, truthfully, when I was fourteen is when I noticed.

The delivery person was my age, a bit older, he rode a bike. The moment I saw him I was smitten. In case you don’t know what smitten means, I was instantly in love with the guy! I’d never even seen him before. However as I sat on the porch step that day, he rode his bike up the sidewalk and just as he was about to toss the paper in our yard, he saw me and said, “Oops! Didn’t see you there!” Then he got off his bike, walked up our sidewalk and handed it to me. “Here you go!” he said, smiling. Then he turned and left. As he started away, he looked back at me and gave me a wave. I was smitten.

I was out there every day after that for a month! Some other guy, in a broken down Chevy, delivered the paper, and never got out of the car! He just flung it out through the car window, and drove on. I couldn’t even ask him about the bike guy because he never actually stopped. I was heartbroken. It was a nice place to do my homework though, so even though the bike guy broke my heart, I kept going out there daily to wait for the paper, just in case...

By the time I was a senior, it was such a habit I’d almost forgotten how it started, my break from the house. Then one day the old Chevy drove up, but this time it stopped, a guy got out. The brother of the regular guy, and unbeknownst to me, and him, and to anybody that day, my future husband.