"Oh my God!" she laughed. "You won't believe what your sisters are saying!" She was wrong there. I knew them and had for over 50 years. She had only had to put up with their shenanigans for like 30.
"What now?" I asked.
"Well, Jema (her mother) has been saying you're engaged to somebody but none of them can figure out who!"
"Oh, it must have been my joke on Facebook. I put a photo of this ring (I showed her the tastefully done cz ring I'd purchased at a local box store for 8$ on sale.) I had posted, "Sometimes a ring is just a ring."
"Hey, that's nice!" she said. "Looks real, too. That must have stirred the girls up. Hee hee hee."
"Must be they have someone stalking my pages again. Nothing else to do, I guess."
"Yup. They need to get a life!" she said, sucking down the contents of her plastic cup with ice cubes.
We laughed. She had been my friend ever since she was little and just walking around. She got me.
She filled me in on what her mother and my other sisters had been saying. That if I was being secretive, I must be hiding something...
"They have two theories. Get this: either you're seeing a married man or a woman."
"Wrong on both counts," I said.
"Well that's what they're trying to prove...You're not gonna like this but at first they thought it was Mr. Bartlow, your old English teacher from high school."
"What?" I asked.
"Yeah, they say that's why you're trying to buy that condo! Apparently he lives in that area!"
"Well, this means war!" I said through my teeth. (As a certified English teacher, I was never so insulted!)
It was true that I had posted a bunch of lovey dovey crap about true love and whatnot on FB. You know, quotes from George Bernard Shaw and Will Shakespeare. Then I downloaded and pinned a ton of bride and groom pics. I even posted a photo of a wall plaque I had taken at an Air B N B in Toronto--- Happily Ever After.
So I wasn't at all surprised when I'd gotten the call from my youngest sister, the leader of the Sister Gang.
"Hey! Heard you're getting hitched, Evie."
"What? Who told you that?"
"I have my ways," was her sly retort. "I know everything that goes on in this family."
"I don't know what you're talking about, " I said. And for emphasis, "I gotta go!" And hung up.
So I had laid down that foundation. No wonder they had it down to those two possibilities.
"We need to think up a lie, Eliza said. "We need to spread a rumor about you. Throw them off the scent."
"Yeah," I said. "Smoke them out of their fox hole!" (We high 5ed on that one.)
We decided that the best candidate was a "mildly famous celebrity" who was a) single b) a man and c) around my age.
"I've got it! Rusty Deweese!" she finally said, almost choking herself to death with her drink.
"The logger?" I asked her. (For those of you who don't know, he is a stand up Vermont story teller from the Stowe area. Red headed and very pale skinned. Does a Vermont dialect that I don't recognize but I was only raised here and lived here all my life.)
"Perfect," I said. "It's settled." ANOTHER HIGH FIVE.
Eliza was to go see her mother the next day and tell her that she had tried to get Antie Eve to admit to who she was seeing, but she got nothing. She was to say she had seen me outside Black Cap Coffee in Stowe holding hands with some dude, who looked like the Logger but couldn't have been.
That I had gotten in my car and given him a smootch. She could have been wrong, but she THOUGHT it was him. She was to tell her mother, "DO NOT TELL YOUR SISTERS," which would ensure her telling them the truth of the lies and adding on a few more juicy details.
Just for good measure I "friended" the Logger on Facebook, downloaded two of his photos and "liked" a bunch of his posts. Replied to some. I even shared an upcoming charity event he had planned in Enosburg Falls High School which was, coincidentally, where I used to teach.
In the end I was busy the night of the event and one of my older sisters, Ty, did go and said THE GIRLS didn't show. Eventually my sister Marina phoned from North Carolina saying the girls were all wound up about who I was going to marry! That they wouldn't stop obsessing about it.
So I had to tell her the truth---that the whole thing was nothing but lies.
"Good for you!" she said. "They deserve what they got. They need to learn to mind their own business."
They've left me alone ever since. :)
"What?" I asked.
"Yeah, they say that's why you're trying to buy that condo! Apparently he lives in that area!"
"Well, this means war!" I said through my teeth. (As a certified English teacher, I was never so insulted!)
It was true that I had posted a bunch of lovey dovey crap about true love and whatnot on FB. You know, quotes from George Bernard Shaw and Will Shakespeare. Then I downloaded and pinned a ton of bride and groom pics. I even posted a photo of a wall plaque I had taken at an Air B N B in Toronto--- Happily Ever After.
So I wasn't at all surprised when I'd gotten the call from my youngest sister, the leader of the Sister Gang.
"Hey! Heard you're getting hitched, Evie."
"What? Who told you that?"
"I have my ways," was her sly retort. "I know everything that goes on in this family."
"I don't know what you're talking about, " I said. And for emphasis, "I gotta go!" And hung up.
So I had laid down that foundation. No wonder they had it down to those two possibilities.
"We need to think up a lie, Eliza said. "We need to spread a rumor about you. Throw them off the scent."
"Yeah," I said. "Smoke them out of their fox hole!" (We high 5ed on that one.)
We decided that the best candidate was a "mildly famous celebrity" who was a) single b) a man and c) around my age.
"I've got it! Rusty Deweese!" she finally said, almost choking herself to death with her drink.
"The logger?" I asked her. (For those of you who don't know, he is a stand up Vermont story teller from the Stowe area. Red headed and very pale skinned. Does a Vermont dialect that I don't recognize but I was only raised here and lived here all my life.)
"Perfect," I said. "It's settled." ANOTHER HIGH FIVE.
Eliza was to go see her mother the next day and tell her that she had tried to get Antie Eve to admit to who she was seeing, but she got nothing. She was to say she had seen me outside Black Cap Coffee in Stowe holding hands with some dude, who looked like the Logger but couldn't have been.
That I had gotten in my car and given him a smootch. She could have been wrong, but she THOUGHT it was him. She was to tell her mother, "DO NOT TELL YOUR SISTERS," which would ensure her telling them the truth of the lies and adding on a few more juicy details.
Just for good measure I "friended" the Logger on Facebook, downloaded two of his photos and "liked" a bunch of his posts. Replied to some. I even shared an upcoming charity event he had planned in Enosburg Falls High School which was, coincidentally, where I used to teach.
In the end I was busy the night of the event and one of my older sisters, Ty, did go and said THE GIRLS didn't show. Eventually my sister Marina phoned from North Carolina saying the girls were all wound up about who I was going to marry! That they wouldn't stop obsessing about it.
So I had to tell her the truth---that the whole thing was nothing but lies.
"Good for you!" she said. "They deserve what they got. They need to learn to mind their own business."
They've left me alone ever since. :)
