You are about to read the prologue of 'It Starts With a Kiss' if you like what you read, be sure to click the external link and purchase a copy from Amazon
PROLOGUE
On my wedding day, which should have been the happiest day of my life, I committed myself to a truly wondrous man. If only he’d been my husband. I hadn’t planned it that way, although my Uncle Bill’s little bombshell in the car en route to the church didn’t exactly help. “You don’t have to go through with it, you know. If you’ve got any doubts I’ll instruct the driver to turn the car around and we’ll go for a beer and a steak instead.” Who was he kidding? The invitations had been printed, the congregation had gathered and the honeymoon in Acapulco was booked. “I’m really not joking,” he said. “Nothing is certain but death and taxes. Weddings are a piece of cake.” If only my father had been alive to give me away. And it wasn’t like I’d been harbouring any serious doubts about my husband-to-be either. In fact, I’d been longing for this day ever since I’d first met him. I wouldn’t claim it was love at first sight, I just knew ideal husband material when I saw it – Greg Green, so strong, so sensible, and above all a good, kind-hearted man. Looking back, I didn’t think I really deserved him then, so I
thanked my lucky stars that this handsome all-American boy had chosen me. Besides, I’d had enough of those wild, irresponsible, devil-may-care guys. Not that I’d been exactly overwhelmed with suitors, as ‘plain’ was how I would have described myself in 1986. “But you’ve got a great personality,” my mother would constantly try and reassure me. She meant well. Our limousine continued its relentless glide towards the church. Almost everybody, except my uncle and me, were already there. “You’ve never liked Greg, have you?” I challenged him from the back seat of the car. “I don’t have to spend the rest of my life with him, do I? Whereas you are about to make a lifelong commitment.” “Drive around the block,” I instructed the chauffeur as I saw the church coming into view. “What’s up, Jen?” I could see Jacqui, my head bridesmaid mouthing as we drove away from the Plymouth Episcopal Church at speed. The clock was ticking, yet I needed time to think.
***
So what if Greg wasn’t exactly my dream guy? I’d already met that man. You see, once upon a time I’d had this dream, so vivid that when I awoke it still felt ridiculously real to me. In sleep, I had encountered this mesmerising figure, as if while unconscious I had truly found the most perfect man imaginable. I could even taste him – like
prime beef – such was the power of this supposedly illusory being; Latino dark, WASP tall and worldwide handsome. He talked of important events and magical places he’d visited, but what’s more, he actually listened to me like I mattered, as I expressed my hopes for all that I might do and achieve in the life ahead of me. And then he kissed me – devoured would have better described it. If it had all been for real I would never have been the same again. So I’d been an 18-year-old girl who’d had a dream. Hardly Martin Luther King, was I? Time to get real; this was my wedding day after all, and I wasn’t about to forsake my husband for a fantasy. And truly, I wanted to marry Greg anyway.
***
“Shall we go steak or chicken?” my uncle said. “Wedding cake,” I replied. “But not quite yet,” I cautioned the driver. “I need time to think. Greg’s a good man. If I hadn’t heard that commitment for life stuff you were going on about I would be walking up the aisle by now. You could put a girl off marrying Richard Gere.” “Sorry cupcake. I just wanted to test your resolve. You might have thanked me one day. Next stop, church,” he then advised the bewildered driver as I nodded my agreement. If I had any doubts they soon deserted me as I prepared to make my grand entrance into the church. Even so, I’d never enjoyed being on display, and my uncle knew it.
“Happy?” I nodded. “Then let your face know it,” he whispered into my ear as we awaited our signal to enter. So I unleashed what I considered to be a killer smile, glad to be going where I was meant to be, alongside Greg, who looked at me in a way which can only be described as adoring. “I don’t deserve you,” he whispered into my ear. “Stay with me forever.” “I will,” I later vowed, not a seed of doubt in my mind as the service progressed. “Those whom God has joined together let no man put asunder,” the Minister proclaimed, and then, duly satisfied that nobody in the congregation objected to our union, he pronounced us man and wife. Hallelujah! I rejoiced inside. What’s not to rejoice when everything in the kitchen tasted that delicious? “Smile. Say cheese!” the photographer instructed the assembled guests for the group shot outside. “I wonder what the French say when they are having a photo taken. Fromage doesn’t exactly cut it,” I overheard my uncle say when I momentarily took leave of my senses. “Over here!” Uncle Bill shouted to this apparently random passer-by who just happened to walk past the church. “The stranger at the feast. It’s good luck. Come and join us,” he commanded this unknown, unprepossessing average Joe, dragging him off the sidewalk to stand between me and Greg.
I couldn’t have cared less about him; just another of my uncle’s irritating little pranks to be endured. “You may kiss the bride,” my uncle advised him. How dare Uncle Bill dictate who I could and couldn’t kiss? This was 1986, after all. And yet I chose to take the easy option and go along with Uncle Bill’s absurd wedding tradition, otherwise he would never have let me forget it. And only as I turned to the stranger did I fully comprehend who it was I’d been invited to kiss. This ordinary guy had only managed to transform himself into the man in my dream. You know the one; Latino dark, WASP tall, and worldwide handsome. The man of whom I had once said, had he kissed me in real life, I would never be the same again. I looked at him in disbelief, at this beyond-handsome guy, enchanted by the contrast between his broad, muscular shoulders and his extravagantly long, almost feminine eyelashes, while his deep brown eyes enveloped me, observing me quizzically as he hesitated, awaiting my consent. You so don’t need to ask. Wedding or no wedding, just kiss me, I wanted to tell him, I’m now ashamed to admit. “Go on. Don’t be shy. Kiss her,” my Uncle Bill urged him one more time. God bless you Uncle Bill. So he did. On the lips. Inappropriately, yet thrillingly, and as surely as Isolde loves Tristan, Juliet Romeo or Rachel Ross, I knew I had found the one. He tasted sublime as the full force of him
pressed down upon me. I stepped back in astonishment, overwhelmed by his maleness. “Where have you been all my life?” (I can’t believe I actually said that.) “I would have come sooner,” he replied, gently brushing back a tendril of my hair which had fallen into my eyes. “You’re too late,” said my wise and wonderful mother, intervening to take the stranger by the arm and send him on his way. I yearned to chase after him – how excruciating would that have been? – but my mother held me back. “Let him go. It will pass. No good will come of it,” she urged me, as if she already knew of his power. He was gone in seconds and nowhere to be seen, as if our kiss had never happened. In my dreams? So what else could I do except turn to Greg and attempt to kiss his confusion away as the crowd cheered, mostly in relief. But please don’t imagine I was kissing Greg just for show – I was not going to sacrifice my marriage for one moment of madness with an illusory man, and in time, I even began to doubt whether the stranger ever existed anyway. From that moment on I gave our relationship my very best shot, truly I did. And yet, however much they say you have to work at a marriage, all work and no play had eventually, 24 years later, made Greg and Jennifer a dull boy and a dull girl
