Part 2 Beloved's Version of When We Met

*Beloved just sent me this from work. He said the 3rd and final part will be done tonight or tomorrow at the latest. I will get a picture of him typing it up, so you all don't think I'm making this up. lol ;0)*
Needless to say I was shocked. Something like that had never happened before. As my bus stop approached, I went to the stairs and departed. I wanted to see her one last time before the bus pulled away (and to see if she was looking in my direction) so I decided to casually glance up and look in her direction. And, much to my delight, she was looking. Much to my chagrin, I gave her a not so nice look in return.
Unfortunately , NY 16 years ago was a little different than it is now. So as a young teenage male, it was common to walk around with a half scowl on your face. When I got off the bus, I put this face on without realizing it. All I could think of was, great, I can't speak to her, and now she thinks I want to steal her purse. Way to go, Casanova!
I was not Christian at the time, but was raised by good Catholic parents. I remember walking the one block home from the bus stop and thinking, I have got to pray. I don't know why I felt that way, but, I did. I got home, got on my knees and recited the Our Father along with this simple request, "God, if you don't do anything for me the rest of my life, let me marry that girl on the bus." I know, it probably sounds pretty desperate to you all. I had never done anything like that before (nor since, that would be pretty bad) but it was a strange feeling that was impressed upon me.
I now had a bigger problem, in order to see this young lady again, I would have to hang around the school in order to catch the same buses and try to meet up with her again. What I did not know at the time, was that my lovely wife had basically run out of the school that afternoon, caught the first train, then the first bus on her way home. So where I was waiting around, my wife was running her own version of the 100 yard dash to the subway station.
So I made up my mind right then and there that I was going to get this young lady. Sure enough I saw her again, and decided to approach her. Once again, I had brain to tongue paralysis. Could not say a word. And this time it was worse. She was/is the only person to ever have this effect on me. This went on for a span of 3 months. On top of this, I was feeling compelled to pray every time I got home. By the way, some would say my prayers were getting more and more powerful, others would say they were getting more and more pathetic. At the end of the first month my prayer probably sounded something like this, "God, just get the first word out, I will do the rest." By the end of the second month it was probably like, "God, just have her smile in my direction, let us bump into each other or something, and I can take it from there." By month 3, I am sure it was something like, "God, let me catch on fire and have her spit in my direction, I got it from there." Well the Bible does say, "Pray without ceasing.", not so sure my method of prayer was a fulfillment of that verse.
Now we get to the all important date, January 5th, 1990. I truly could not take it anymore. As I mentioned before, I went to Vocational High School. Vocational is another way of saying, This school has absolutely no females within a 500 yard radius. The good thing about this, is that the students in the school knew every All Girl school within a 60 mile radius, and the female students could be identified by any member of our school by the pattern of the skirts, colors, pleats, local mass transit, lunch schedules, etc., etc.
I remember asking the guys at the school what All Girl Catholic / Private school wore burgundy socks, grey skirts with a few pleats and blue stripes going across and that you needed to take the #2 or #5 train uptown to get to was, and after some internal discussion with the "Council" it was determined to be a school right off of Williamsbridge Road in the Bronx. I was also fortunate because a fellow student agreed to be my "wing man" in order to speak with my future wife's friend who was always with her on the bus.
To Be Cont.