“Great Stories Happen to Those Who Can Tell Them”
My favorite souvenirs from traveling are the stories I bring home with me…and my favorite thing about the stories are that many of them happen out of nowhere and without warning. This is a collection of the moments that changed my life.
This story takes place on the rental car shuttle bus in West Palm Beach, Florida. The drive from the rental car drop-off area to the terminal is roughly 5 minutes, so how much excitement can you really encounter in that short of time?
A lot, apparently.
Initially, the journey started out very uneventful. I dropped my car off. The shuttle bus came over. I handed the driver my suitcase to load onto the bus. I sat down, and we were off to the airport. It was your typical rental car experience.
The driver glanced up at me in the rear-view mirror. “You headed back up north to the cold?” he asked.
“Unfortunately,” I said, and laughed. “It’s been so nice down here in February.”
“You know,” he said, “I didn’t have the confidence to approach women when I was younger. Most men don’t. I wasn’t able to talk to them…ask them out…anything like that.”
I glanced up at him, not entirely sure what possessed him to say that. It had nothing to do with anything he had just said before. Regardless, I was intrigued.
There were a million things I could have said in response to his statement. I could have given him encouragement, or even advice, but I had a feeling he didn’t need it. This man was older (I would later find out he was 77), and I knew there was going to be more to this story. So I chose to listen.
“I knew a lot of pretty girls when I was younger,” he continued, “but there was one girl that was unlike all the rest. Her name was Monique. She was something else…the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. She would walk to the laundromat sometimes, and I would see her walking as I was driving. I drove a nice car…a Corvette. Every time I would see her, I always wanted to stop and ask if she wanted a ride, but I never did. I just kept going. I was afraid of rejection from girls…but especially rejection from her. Even something like her saying ‘no thank you’ when I was simply offering her a ride would have defeated me. So I never asked.”
“I bet she would have said yes,” I told him.
He laughed. “Well, you know, it’s funny. I never asked her, and then eventually I met the woman I would end up marrying. The night before my wedding, me and a few guys were down at the corner bar, you know…just out celebrating one last time before I got hitched. At some point, Monique showed up. She walked right up to me and kissed me out of nowhere. Kissed me as if she’d wanted to do it for years. It was crazy. And what was I supposed to do…call my wedding off? I was getting married in less than 24 hours. She knew that, too. She knew I was engaged. But she did it anyway. I guess she figured this was her last chance and she was brave enough to take it.”
“Well DAMN…” I thought, but refrained from saying it out loud. I was already obsessed with this story.
“I ended up marrying my wife,” he continued. “And we’ve been together for more than 50 years. But I’ll tell you something…I still think about that girl. I think about her all the time. I wonder what she’s doing…where she is…if she’s happy. I would love to ask her. I would love to see her again, even just for 10 minutes, and catch up with her.” He paused, then softly admitted, “sometimes I’ll even cry when I think of her.”
By now, we were pulling up to the terminal. I had so many questions I wanted to ask him, but I knew I didn’t have time.
“Which airline?” he asked.
“Allegiant,” I said.
“No problem…it’s right up here.”
He pulled up to the drop-off area and put the shuttle in park. He opened his mouth as if he was going to tell me something else, then softly laughed and shook his head. I felt the energy shift, and wondered for a moment if he was going to cry now. It kind of looked like it. I held my breath, not really knowing what I’d do if it happened.
“You know…” he finally said, “you’re the only one I’ve ever told this story to.”
For some strange reason, I believed him.
“I’m gonna go home and kiss the boy I like now,” I told him, and he laughed.
I thought about everything he told me on the 2 and 1/2 hour flight home. I thought about the dualities of his story: how what happened was technically wrong yet somehow understandable. I thought about how Monique shouldn’t have kissed him, but was admittedly impressed with her bravery. Part of me felt sorry for his wife, who perhaps had no clue this woman even existed. Part of me also felt sorry for him for not feeling like he was worthy of the love of his life, only to find out the opposite was true when it was too late.
What if he would have called his wedding off? That’s what I really wanted to ask him. “Do you regret not calling your wedding off?” It would have been a loaded question. I don’t have a gut feeling of what his answer would have been, either. He seemed to love his wife, but also seemed to love Monique. He just loved them both differently. I thought about the boys I have loved in my life and how I loved some of them differently than others. It made sense to me in strange way.
My brain continued to spiral on the drive home. How many people want something…someone…but never act on it? How many people wish they would have done something differently? I kept thinking how Monique probably has no clue that he still thinks about her 50 years later. I wondered if she still thinks about him, and if so, what her narrative is. “There was this boy I always liked, but he never felt the same. Then one night, the last chance I had, I knew I had to let him know how I felt…”
Nowadays, we hear so much about having “main character energy” and being the main character in our own story, but we don’t think often enough about the characters we play in other people’s stories. How many times do we play characters we don’t even realize we’re playing? How many of us are Monique’s to the men and women we thought moved on and forgot about us? How many impressions have we left on people we’ve never even met? How many stories have we been a part of that we’ll never even hear?
It made me wonder: Whose memory have I unknowingly lingered in? Who tells a story about me that I don’t even know exists?
Monique definitely has no clue that I now know about her, or that I decided to write a story about something she did 50 years ago. To her, it might have just been a fleeting moment at the bar, but to me, it became 5 minutes of my life that I will never forget.
I went to bed that night, knowing we’ll always be the main characters of our own stories…but we’re also supporting characters, plot twists, and turning points in stories we may never get to read. And if we’re lucky, we are the characters who may have appeared briefly but somehow changed everything.
To Monique: if you ever read this, please know that a girl from West Virginia who hopped on an unsuspecting shuttle bus now thinks you’re a legend. And to everyone else: you should probably kiss the boy you like.
