Mysterious Woman…

A couple years ago I attended a friend’s wedding in L.A.  I didn’t really know most of the people who were there because I was a friend of the bride who lived in Baltimore but got married in L.A. because that’s where he was from.  A few of her really close friends came out, but the vast majority of the people at the wedding were the groom’s friends.  I was able to be there because I had a business trip to the area that week anyway.  Through the course of the wedding I got to meet several of the groom’s friends by name and was able to have interesting chats with them.

The wedding was nice and the reception was really fun.  They had a live jazz trio that took requests.  A girl I knew there wanted to swing dance, so I requested some swing music.  She told me that to make her happy all I had to do was keep spinning her (overhand, underhand passes).  I was happy to oblige, but it was tiring.  But it was fun too.  I knew she was having fun because she actually let out a “wheee!” as we were dancing – a benchmark I have yet to duplicate. 

After all the parents left, there was just us “under 35” crowd left over, and we had some fun hanging out and reminiscing.  As the evening was ending the diehard last 15-20 of us were just standing around in the lobby of the dimly lit reception hall.  We were kind of standing in a large circle not unlike the ones that somehow mysteriously form at Korean American weddings on the dance floor because no one wants to dance one on one with anyone.  I was talking to a someone to my left, minding my own business when suddenly I felt someone’s left hand grasping my right, fingers interlocking.  It was the kind of hand-holding that one does with their significant other, not the kind you do when you just want to get someone’s attention or lead them somewhere.  And I could tell it was a girl because of the size of her hand.

Well, my first thought was… “I bet this is just one of my friends trying to get a reaction out of me.  Maybe it’s my dance partner for the evening.” 

If anyone knows me, they know that I’m definitely not one to back down from a good joke, and that I may even escalate it.  So whoever it was, I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of being one up on me.  So I didn’t even flinch and continued talking to the person on my left.  All the while I was going through the list in my head of all the women I knew who were still there who could possibly be doing this.

Then something odd…  as I was going through my list, I realized that anyone who would have the gumption to do this was either already gone or in my line of sight.  So naturally, I turned around to my right to see who this person was who was holding my hand.  Her eyes were turned away to her right because she was either looking at something or talking to someone, but I could see at least a part of her face.  And I realized at that point that this was definitely not one of my friends. 

For a moment, I thought, “Could this be someone I used to know a long time ago and is just now playing this joke on me to embarrass me about not recognizing her earlier in the evening?”

So I tugged on her hand to get her attention and queried, “Do I know you?”

This is when she finally turned to me and gave me the most surprised look I’ve seen in a long time.  She instantly let go of my hand and started turning beet red.  Then I recognized her.  She was the wife of a friend of the groom – who just happened to be standing directly across from us in this circle we were in.

He came over laughing his head off.  He had been watching the whole thing transpire from across the room and thought it was quite amusing.  Apparently, she had approached me from behind and thought I was him.  We were about the same height and build and wore similarly colored suits.  Then she started slapping his arm saying, “Why didn’t you SAY anything!?!”

He just smiled and said, “I just wanted to see what would happen.”

This was followed by more slapping and yelling from his wife.

Later we all had a laugh about it.  In fact, later on as a joke, she tried to hold my hand again.  I just pointed her to her husband and said, “That’s his job.”