A/N I know I've kinda mentioned it before but since chapter 50 I haven't planned out the story. I've mostly just been letting it write itself and let the characters be themselves and taking to what seems to be a natural conclusion. The Russian part Ch 40-49 I really planned and thought about and took about 9 months just to write those nine chapters. But since then I have just let the story come and it just keeps coming. So here is more Stephanie and Ranger.
As always: Thank you for reading and reviewing! I appreciate and enjoy all your reviews and as I work to write the last two chapters; they help to inspire me.
Chapter Sixty-two
Tuesday April 22, 2014 – Day 161
Stephanie POV
Tuesday morning Julie and I were busy packing. Carlos had dug out two suitcases for himself, because he now needed to pack for Las Vegas and a weeklong Mexico honeymoon. Ella was planning on flying in Friday night to see the wedding and would be bringing Carlos's tuxedo.
He laughed at me and said we didn't need to pack anything for the honeymoon because we were just going to run around naked in the 10,000 square foot villa, and on the private beach all week. I knew that we would get hungry and get dressed to go out and get food and I also knew that naked beach time got sand in places that weren't very pleasant, so I was bringing two bathing suits.
I also packed a few of my designer dresses that Ella had purchased for me thinking Carlos would take me out dancing while we were here in Miami. I knew I needed a dress for our dance lessons on Thursday and brought along two more in case we went out to some nice places for dinner with the family. I didn't see us having time to be going out and having a lot of alone time or dancing time, but maybe, while we were there, we would go see a show.
Carlos was also busy on his computer. His email had filled up with family members RSVP'ing to come and some sending their apologies that they couldn't make it. In less than 24 hours his family count was up to 53 people. My family count was nine, plus Mary Lou and her family, Connie and Lula making our current total 69.
Then my phone rang, and I answered it.
"Hello?" I was curious because I didn't recognize the number.
"Hello, this is Janice from Viva Las Vegas Weddings. I was calling to give you some information and confirm a few things."
"Wonderful, what questions do you have for us?" I asked as I switched to speakerphone so Carlos could hear.
"I was calling to let you know that your three nights hotel stay at the Palms Place Studio Suite on the 21st floor overlooking the Las Vegas strip has been booked and you can check in on Thursday. It will cover you till your honeymoon Saturday night and your flight leaves Sunday at eleven thirty am and you will arrive at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where you have a choice to rent a car or be picked up and driven to the Villa. If you want a rental car it is better to rent it at the airport and return it on your flight home. You will fly back to Las Vegas on the following Saturday, leaving at nine thirty am and you can book a connecting flight from there." Janice started.
"We have our own private plane that we will be taking to Mexico. So, we don't need commercial flights," Carlos insisted.
"Um, well the flights have already been booked," Janice said.
"Well, unbook them. We are paying you to make this celebration to our specifications. I will be bringing at least ten men along and they will all be armed. You can't carry weapons on a commercial flight," Carlos was extremely specific.
"Fine." She sounded flabbergasted. "Do you want the hotel?"
"Which hotel was that again?" Carlos asked.
"Palms Place Resort and Spa," Janice told him.
Carlos interrupted, "The Palms Place Resort? Is that close to your location?"
"It is less than three miles away."
"Can you give me their number and our reservation information? We are flying in tonight and I would prefer to not have to switch hotels partway through our stay. Plus, we have a lot of people flying in to celebrate with us; it would be nice if we were all at the same hotel," Carlos said, and he was right.
It would be much better to stay in the same hotel all week and have my parents and his parents at the same hotel. I didn't know if they would have enough rooms for everyone; but surely, they would have enough rooms for the immediate family and bridal party. I would book a room for Connie and Lula and a suite for Mary Lou and her family.
Janice quickly gave him that information and then got down to business.
"I will be ordering the flower arrangements today for your wedding. We would like to offer you the option to have a deluxe arrangement for your wedding bouquet of nerine lilies mixed with fuchsia roses and mini spray roses for a more complex and beautiful arrangement."
"Oh, sure that sounds good." Actually, I loved the way lilies looked in arrangements as they cascade down towards the floor.
"We would also like to offer you matching flowers, to go on the ends of the aisles that you will walk down and matching arrangements for the tables at your reception."
"Definitely, and I would like the fuchsia flowers mixed with white roses." I could see it now beautiful fuchsia flowers mixed with white roses all over the place. Beautiful flower arrangements were always my mother's thing and I knew having wonderful arrangements all over the place would please her very much.
"Yes, the arrangements will have white roses. We have two special deluxe arrangements, that can be ordered to be on each side of the alter for you. We can also add arrangements to fill the reception room, and for you and your families to take pictures in front of." She offered.
"Sure, my mother loves flowers, so the more the merrier," I said saucily knowing that my mother would be impressed by this. The hors d'oeuvres, the flowers this was turning into a big production; but I was a millionaire. I was marrying the man of my dreams and we were only going to do this once. I wanted it to be a day to remember.
And I wanted my parents and especially my mother to know it was bigger and better than my first wedding. Just like my groom was bigger and better than the Dick ever could be especially in all the places it mattered. I would marry the man for his fingers and his tongue alone, and if that were all he had, he would be worth marrying. But his extra-large appendage was a bonus that kept on giving night after night to both of us as we cried out our pleasure together.
"We can also have flowers on the carriage that you will ride in on," she suggested. I wasn't sure what she meant. I was wondering if she meant for the limo like the coordinating displays and hood ornaments, I had picked up to go on our cars for Val's wedding.
"Yes, I guess," I answered. "Like I said, my mother loves fresh flowers so, the more arrangements we can have the better." What the heck were a few more arrangements? We could take them back to the hotel and have fresh flowers in our room for after the wedding
"Do you want the small three bud rose arrangement that is made for you to throw?" Oh yeah, she is thinking of everything now. Of course, she does this professionally, so she knows everything we need.
"Definitely, I'm not throwing my big bouquet." I was not one that had keepsakes, but I knew my mother would dry these out and keep them for me.
"You mentioned your mother. Is she going to be attending? Would you like a corsage for your mother?" She was fishing now but she didn't know how fast this was coming together.
"Yes, definitely. In fact, we need four mother corsages for my mother, my grandmother, the groom's mother and his grandmother."
"How big is your bridal party? How many bride's maids' bouquets do you need and boutonnieres for the men?" She asked, wanting to make sure we had everything we would need.
"Ok we have two flower girls and we want baskets and flowers real or fake for them to throw. I have a junior bride's maid, two regular bride's maids and a matron of honor. For boutonnieres we have a ring bearer, the groom and three grooms' men, the father of the bride and the groom's father so seven boutonnieres."
"Make that eight, Babe. You have four bride's maids' and I'll have four groom's men," Carlos added.
Sure, that way they could walk down the aisle together or however this was going to work. I had thought it would be better for Julie to walk down the aisle unescorted but if he had four groom's men it would probably just look better for them to walk down the aisle in pairs. Now I wanted to slip into the church just to watch the procession.
"Do you need a pillow for the ring bearer to carry?" Janice wondered.
"Yes, that would be great!" I was surprised at all the things she was thinking of that we didn't have to worry about.
"Do you need a book for guests to sign in at the reception?"
"I'm not sure. We know everyone that will be there. It's going to be all family." I was unsure.
"Yes, we'll take the guest book. It's one of the things my mother saves," Carlos said definitely.
"We have a special photo album of your wedding and reception that we put together for you with sixty-five shots that you pick out. Would you be interested in this?" Janice offered hopefully.
I knew my mother would make a photo album of my wedding but that would be for her. I knew she made an album of Val and Albert and the kid's trip to Disney World for them so I know she could make an album for me if I asked. Maybe if she made one for me, I could give this one to the Manoso's, I was sure Abuela Rosa would love to have a photo album of our wedding. Then again if they made them professionally, we could just get theirs.
"Carlos, what if we got two? One for us and one for Abuela Rosa?" I wondered.
"Actually, Babe, Abuela Rosa loves to make photo albums. In fact, that can be a good activity for you, Mamma and Abuela Rosa. You three can get together and pick out what pictures you like the best and put photo albums together. No thanks Janice we don't need any photo albums. We just want all the digital photos on a disk that we can use," Carlos clarified.
"Yes, we have two photographers set to capture your day and as requested, all the photos will come to you. You get a website where your video will be streamed. We can also make available photos, on that site, for people to look at or order if they are interested."
"Sure, I guess." I sighed. I was paying close attention. There were so many little details to a wedding that it didn't take much for me to start feeling overwhelmed by all the decisions that needed to be made and all the choices for each. But having a wonderful wedding was really important to me. Well to all of us and I only had to do this for one week. It was like our mission this week was to plan our wedding, and I would do it as expertly as I planned Julie's and mine escape from Miami. And I didn't have to do it alone, I had Carlos and Julie to ask their opinions. Especially Carlos, he seemed to know exactly what we needed and what he wanted.
"Do you know how many people will be attending because last night you gave me the number of 10?" Janice was really wondering. I think she was as surprised as I was at how fast this was coming together.
"Right now, we have a total of sixty-nine people that are flying out to see the wedding." Carlos assured her and just hearing it made me feel better about what we were doing. Basically, we were eloping to Las Vegas and inviting all our family and friends to come watch.
"Janice, do you have much more because we are busy packing and have to leave soon to catch our flight?" I told her because honestly, I felt like we had been productive, but it was already eleven thirty we had to be leaving soon. Of course, the reality was, our flight would wait for us. It's not like they would take off without us. But it was a long flight and we wanted to get to Las Vegas before it got to be too late.
"Sure, the flowers were the important thing today. I just want to remind you to have as close to a final guest list and food numbers ready for your appointments on Thursday." She suggested and then we ended the call.
While I was finishing the call with Janice, Carlos called the Palms Place Resort and Spa and booked rooms for us for tonight and tomorrow night. Then we raced off to the airport. Well actually a RangeMan SUV came and gave us a ride to the airport. The flight to Las Vegas was uneventful. Because we were on the corporate jet, we had internet, and Julie worked on homework, while Carlos and I just sat there holding hands and occasionally smiling at each other.
So many things were happening soooo fast. But getting married this week felt right. Actually, it felt like the best decision we had made since we drove that car off the bridge, and I faked my own death; and we all know how that worked out. I smiled over at Carlos and he leaned over and kissed me until I was wet, and my panties were clinging. Damn what this man did to me!
I was so proud of Julie, that she was determined to finish the school year as soon as she could. She took time each day to get her homework done. When we arrived; there was a shuttle from the airport to our hotel. At the front desk, Carlos talked to the woman at great length about the rooms that had been reserved and paid for us by Viva Las Vegas Weddings and how we could get into those rooms now.
For an extra charge, she agreed to make another suite available for us that would last the week and was two rooms so Julie could stay with us; and put the amount paid by Viva towards our total. This was much better than us having to repack and move rooms in two days. Carlos also verified all the rooms he had reserved earlier in the day. Two rooms for his parents and Abuela Rosa, two for my parents and Abuela Edna and a suite for Val, Albert, and their crew. I went ahead and reserved rooms for Lula, Connie and Mary Lou and her family for Thursday through to the next week.
We got all settled into our rooms and went downstairs to the restaurant for dinner. We were buzzing with the excitement of it all; ready for the big day to be here already, and anxious about all the things that still needed to be done. I wanted to go start dress shopping tomorrow with Julie, but Lula had called me and begged me to wait until we could all go on Friday.
Still I thought Julie and I might scope out a few stores and at least figure out where we would go to look. Besides if I let Lula pick out my dress it would be skintight and covered in sequins and that wasn't the look I wanted. I wanted a classic and classy dress with a small train that was beautiful. I didn't have a clear picture in my mind, but I knew once I saw it, I would know it.
RSRSRSRSRS
Wednesday April 23, 2014 – Day 162
The next morning, I was standing in the bathroom staring at my face in the mirror. With this hair I was just never going to look like me. It was a great disguise when I needed it, but everyone had seen me now and knew what I looked like. But I didn't look like me. Every time I saw myself in the mirror; I thought of Anton.
It was true that I had been straightening my hair for the last four months, but part of that was so people wouldn't recognize me, from the pictures on the news. But this dark color and long hair was just not me and every time I saw myself, I had to say, 'oh yeah that is me now'. It's just that I would never have grown my hair out this long and I never would have dyed it this color.
This was all Anton's doing, and as much as I appreciated it at the time, for my wedding I wanted to look like me, not like Anton wanted to see me. I had been happy wearing wigs for my disguises while we were on the run, and in some ways having my hair straightened made it easier to deal with wearing a wig; but this hair was so long it was always in the way. Every time I look in the mirror it reminds me of Anton, and years from now when I looked at our wedding photos, I wanted to see me. I wanted my kids to see and recognize me. I don't want to think of Anton. I want to look in the mirror again and recognize the face and hair that is looking back at me.
Carlos walked in the bathroom and saw me standing there staring at myself in the mirror. He watched me for a few minutes then walked up behind me and took me into his arms. I melted into him because in his arms I always felt like me.
"What's going on Babe? You're staring at yourself like you want to erase your face. Like you have big red pimples or something that needs removing or covering up." He observed.
"No, it's my hair." I said sadly thinking that it had only been a few weeks since all this was done to my hair and I would have to wait a few months to get it changed.
"What about your hair?" He seemed actually curious as he ran a hand through my hair lifting it up and then smoothing it back down.
"I never told you the story, but Anton made an appointment for me with the spa at that hotel and told me they knew what to do. So, I go down there, and they put me in a cape, and tell me they will get me all done or fixed up or whatever. It's just that they didn't tell me what they were doing they just did it and when I was done; I was shocked. I didn't know they were going to straighten my hair or add a hair piece on to make it so long or die it this color." I held a length out to show what I was talking about.
"These were all choices Anton made and I, at the time, was happy with it. I looked good and it was a good disguise. That is what this hair was supposed to be: my disguise. But now everyone has seen it, and know it is me, and I don't need a disguise anymore; because I'm not hiding from the law and no one is trying to kill me." I trailed off not sure how to say what I needed to say and I was quiet for a few moments staring at us in the mirror, and thinking that until I looked like me; it was never going to really look like us.
"It's just that this hair isn't you, and you want to look like yourself again." He finished for me.
"Yeah, especially for my wedding. I'm going to be looking at these pictures for the rest of my life and I want to look like me. I don't want to look at the pictures and think of Anton because he is the one who decided to do this to my hair. I would never have had them color my hair this color and I would never grow my hair out this long." I repeated, sounding like a recording that was stuck. "It is always in the way, and I constantly tie it back because if I don't it is always in the way." I sighed deeply thinking I just needed to figure this out and move on. I was getting married in three days, and we didn't have time to deal with my neurosis. It was just that maybe we could do something to make me look more like me again.
Perms were always too tight compared to my natural curls but maybe if we cut it a little shorter. Long but not so long and dye it back my natural color. I didn't know what they could do. It had only been a few weeks since it was straightened and dyed, and I know hair can only take so many chemicals on it before it all falls out. That was the last thing I needed: for all my hair to fall out and be bald for my wedding. I was getting more depressed over it. Carlos put his hand under my chin and lifted my eyes up to meet his.
"I miss the curls. Your wild and crazy curls were always a part of who you are. I don't know what they can do for you, but the name of this place is the Palms Place Resort and Spa. They have a full spa downstairs of professionals who, I'll bet, can make you look like you used to." He smiled at me and without releasing me, pulled out his phone, and called the front desk. They transferred him to the spa, and he got me an appointment with Marcillio at ten o'clock.
After breakfast, we got Julie started on her homework and Carlos walked me down to the Spa. When I walked up to the girl at the front desk her name tag read Julie. I smiled and told her I was here to see Marcillio. He was walking up to the desk, at that moment, and told me to come right this way with a wide flourish of his arm.
He led me back to a stylist chair and studied my hair. He lifted several strands and examined them and asked. "What are we doing?"
Carlos had followed us in, and said, "she made a dramatic change to her hair a few weeks ago for a disguise. But the disguise is no longer needed, and she would like her hair returned back to normal." Normal he made it sound so simple. I just wanted to be normal again.
"What is normal?" Marcillio who was wearing highly polished black shoes, flamboyant purple pants and a bright multicolored shirt that was open at the top showing a very buff chest. There was no doubt he was flaming gay as he flourished my hair in his hand, fanning it out and examining it more closely. Instead of long hair, Marcillio's hair was short dark spikes with blond tips on the ends. He looked very fashionable and very gay.
"I want it a lighter brown and curly," I said plainly, knowing I was lacking the descriptives necessary to explain fully what I wanted.
Carlos just pulled out his phone, found a picture, and Marcillio studied it.
"Darling you have all this." He flourished my hair again, "and you want to go back to that?" The way he said that, made it sound like a dirty word and I felt bad. It was true, in some ways, I looked sexier like this and yes, more like a model. But I was never going to look at this hair, in the mirror, and feel like me.
"Well," I tried to justify it, "I'm getting married Saturday and when I look at my wedding photos I want to see me, and this hair is just not me." I explained simply.
"How long ago did you have all this done?" Marcillio asked.
I didn't know, what was today? I opened my phone and looked at the calendar Tuesday, April 22. We had flown in on the first and I couldn't believe that it had only been three weeks. Three weeks and all this had happened. Suddenly, I was caught up in thinking about all that had happened in the past three weeks. We flew in, did a daring drive to stay alive, drove off a bridge and swam for a boat. Got my hair done the next day. Kidnapped Carlos a few days later; declared our undying love and got engaged. He bought me this beautiful ring and took me to the Rainbow Room and proposed.
We went to Russia and all the craziness that happened there. I killed a man to save Carlos. We flew back and my family welcomed me with open arms. We got all my legal issues worked out. Carlos made things right with the car owner. I went around to see all my friends. My car got blown up. Carlos won the petition to have Julie permanently. We came on vacation and decided to get married. My life, when we ran away in November, had been a TV news phenomenon for at least a week. Now it was a soap opera, with so much happening from day to day, you could hardly keep up with it all.
I had been staring at my phone for several minutes when Marcillio cleared his throat to get my attention again.
"About three weeks," Carlos answered for me.
Marcillio studied my hair for a few more minutes and said. "This is what I can do. I can strip this color out of your hair and put some non-permanent dye that will last about four to six weeks in your hair to make it the same color as it was. I can give you a fabulous cut that will look great if it is straight or curly. I can curl your hair to look like that photograph. But we can't perm it today to make it curly again; that would just be too much, too soon. Give me three hours and I can make you look better than you do in that photograph." He pointed at Carlos's phone.
I smiled widely at him excited that Carlos was right, and they could do something for me and said, "let's do it!"
He draped a black cape over me and got to work. Carlos took a seat and watched most of it. Twice he left to go check on Julie, but he was never gone long, happily coming back to watch the progress while he played on his phone and answered emails.
He put some chemical on my hair starting at the ends and working up the length that he then piled on my head. After all my hair was coated and piled up, he put a plastic cap on my head and put me under the space dome or hair dryer or whatever it was. I picked up a magazine to read and thought I should get a bridal magazine. So, I put it down and went out into their lobby area where they had racks of magazines and found two bridal ones and took them back to my chair.
I started on one article about how to pick your flowers and bouquet arrangements and it went on about what flowers were available different months of the year and which were out of season. Then they went on to discuss premium flowers and which flowers were worth having or worth the cost to have and which ones were more expensive. Lilies were considered to be a flower worth the cost, and I knew they would make my bouquet beautiful.
Then I moved on to an article about dresses and Marcillio came to get me. After he stripped my hair, it was a lighter brown, than my normal color. Instead of coloring it right away he put a deep conditioner on my hair and put me under the space heater hair dryer thingy. I read about what kind of dress is you? It was a quiz, but I didn't have anything to write my answers down on. So, I did it, as best as I could, in my head. Regardless of the answer, I knew I didn't want the huge puffy or poufy dress I had the first time.
I wanted something I'll look beautiful in and can move in, because Carlos and I really could dance. Not just hold me and rock side to side like the Dick. Before I was even done with that article, I was tired of all the choices. I hadn't forgotten really, but reading this, was bringing back the memories and how fatigued I was by the time I finally married the Dick.
I had felt exhausted and put through the ringer. I was sick of all the "planning" just wanted to get it over with. So different than this wedding. That is happening so fast, that I was just going with the flow and no matter what, at the end of this week I'll be married to Carlos. Then we can go on our honeymoon and the whole thing will be over. I was relieved that in three more days it would all be over and done with. What we had was going to be great beautiful, wonderful and then it will be over, and we can go back to New Jersey married.
Marcillio brought me out of my reverie. After he had washed it out, it was so smooth again he played with it for a few moments and said. "It's healthier than I thought it would be. I'm going to trim it up and then we'll match the color exactly to that photo and re-dye it."
He cut my hair a little longer than my mid-back and layered it so, it floated and flowed around my shoulders, and framed my face. It looked really stylish and I thought for my wedding I would curl my hair, but on regular days I may keep it straight for a while longer.
When he was done he had Carlos come over. He held up a circle of swatches, of different hair colors from pitch black to almost blond; and laid different ones over the picture, Carlos had on his phone. When he had selected the right one, he said to Carlos, "I'm thinking since her hair is healthy enough, we'll dye it this color and add some highlights and low lights, so the curls really stand out."
"That looks like her natural color." Carlos agreed and Marcillio went to the backroom to mix up some colors. He painted and foiled my hair and when I was covered in aluminum foil wrappings and looked like I could pick up reception as an old fashion TV antenna he put me back under the dryer. Twenty or so minutes later he washed it all back out and voila my hair looked like my hair again. At least it was the right color and length. We would see about the curls.
Marcillio blew it dry with a flourish of purple brush and flying hair and my hair had a lot of body to it and it looked great! Better than it usually did! The highlights made the top stand out and it looked like it was moving even when it was sitting still. Then he put hot rollers, the professional kind, in my hair. He used the purple on the top, the orange ones in the middle and the largest yellow ones on the bottom.
I sat for another twenty minutes under the dryers. I didn't know why; my hair was totally dry. Then I started wondering what these space helmets really did because when he was stripping and recoloring my hair we didn't really want the hair to dry out. We needed it to stay wet and let the chemicals work.
Right now, the hot curlers were already hot – maybe they just helped whatever they were doing to my hair to do it better. I didn't know and I didn't care, in less than a half an hour, I was going to look like me again. I put down the magazine.
I was already wedding magazine'd out. All the big decisions for my wedding were already made. Everyone that was coming was coming and everybody else could watch us live. I felt so much relief that this was a done deal and in just a few days would all be over.
This wedding was already going better than my first one ever had. My first wedding was me and my choices getting run over by my mother. Either because she insisted something must be her way or what I wanted was too expensive, and she decided we couldn't afford it. It had been an exhausting battle and most of what I wanted I didn't get. Well fuck it. I was a millionaire and Carlos was a millionaire.
We can afford anything we wanted, and we are only doing it once. I wanted it to be impressive to everybody who sees it. I sat back imagining my wedding and how beautiful it was going to be with all the fresh flowers. How wonderful all the professional decorations were going to look. I still needed a dress, but I was just putting it out there that we would all find wonderful dresses on Friday and we didn't have to worry about price. No matter what we found I could afford it.
Surprisingly soon Marcillio was here and took the curlers out if my hair, picked through it so he separated out the curls just so, and used a large 1 1/2 inch professional ceramic curling iron to top off the ends and get a good curl to it all.
Now these were a bit bigger curls than my hair normally had but for the first time in months I looked like myself. I smiled at my reflection in the mirror because Carlos was standing behind me smiling big like he hadn't seen me in a year. Well it had been at least six months since he had seen me like this, and it looked like he liked it. In fact, from the bulge that was straining in his pants. it looked like he liked it a lot.
I smiled back at him and I could see it: my hair out of the corner of both of my eyes. I looked down at the soft curls that my hair was curled into and thought this is me. This is who I am, and I was proud of it! I realized I needed to go buy curlers or a large curling iron and I would have to reverse my program from the last five months, of straightening my hair, to curling it again.
It didn't matter, I didn't mind and maybe I wouldn't curl it every day. Just looking at myself in the mirror I felt like myself in a way I hadn't felt for five months. Free to be myself. No longer hiding who I am or hiding my appearance, so people don't recognize me. I was free to be me, and I was proud of where I was in my life.
Proud to get married to an amazing man and lover and become Mrs. Ricardo Carlos Manoso. Proud to be a part owner of a successful business that I was going to learn more about and help run. Proud to be a mother to an amazing girl who I would do anything for. For the first time in a long time I could stand up publicly and be proud to be me and with my hair back to normal: I felt like me and I felt free.
Carlos held up his phone and said, "Smile."
I smiled big for him and he took my picture and he gave me his 200-watt smile. It was a good picture and it made me aware that while I had taken a lot of pictures of us since we had gotten together, he had not taken one picture of me, with my hair like that. He pulled me close, molding his body to mine and kissed my pants off. When we broke apart, because we needed to breathe; he took my hand and we went upstairs to check on Julie.
Before everyone got here, Carlos took me to deal with my money situation. Of the four ID's I had left: two had brown curly hair and two had blond hair like the old wig I'd had. He took me to the two banks that matched the curly brown hair. I withdrew $15,000 from the first one, closed the account and wired the balance of money to my Stephanie Plum account. I did the same for the second. We were on a roll and he encouraged me to try with the two ID's that were blonde. I didn't even get questioned at Wells Fargo, but the banker person kept trying to talk me out of transferring all my money to another bank. Carlos agreed saying that bank accounts were only insured up to $400,000 so, I should have more than one account.
I went ahead and closed the account transferred all $166,000 out to my Stephanie Plum account. We went to another Wells Fargo and opened another Stephanie Plum account. I liked Wells Fargo because there was always someone right there, waiting to help you and the bankers were really nice.
Then I went to the last bank and with an explanation, that I was just at the salon this morning, getting my hair dyed and curled, they let me close my account and transfer the $500,000 to the new Wells Fargo account. I kept a running monolog about how I liked to change my hair color and style all the time, and debated with the woman helping me, about keeping it straight verses getting it permed, so it was always curly. She advised me that straight hair was in right now, and if I bought rollers and curled it on occasion that would be okay, but I didn't want to do anything drastic like perming it.
Once we left there, Carlos was happy to escort me to a beauty supply store. Where I bought curlers and two curling irons so I could keep this look up. As we went back to the hotel, I debated on who and how much I would give the money to. I was definitely giving money to Mary Lou and Valerie. I would give some to Lula and Connie, so they could have fun. My parents didn't need money, but I figured I would give them and my grandma some extra cash to throw around and have fun within Las Vegas.
After four o'clock, his parents and my parents, had arrived and were getting settled into their rooms. Carlos offered to take everyone out to dinner so they could meet. I wasn't sure how this would work, because Abuela Rosa mostly spoke only Spanish, and my parents didn't speak any.
But dinner went well, Mamma sat next to Abuela Rosa and translated for her. We all took turns translating things for her and the whole table would degrade into speaking Spanish. I found that then, I would start translating for my parents and grandma, and the conversation would revert back to English. So, it all worked out and everyone got to know each other better.
Mamma specifically thanked my mother for raising such a wonderful girl and she went on and on about how wonderful I was. All the amazing things I had done in my life, and in the past six months. Saving Julie by taking her out of the country. My keeping her safe as we traveled all over third world countries. Our daring drive to get Julie back to Carlos. My saving her in the water and making sure she got safely to the surface. My bringing Carlos back home to them.
And my mother, for the first time, stepped out of the Burg and saw me from the outside. She saw me a little bit more, how Mamma saw me. As a heroine and savior of Julie and Carlos and was really proud of who I had become. Proud of me for taking Julie away, and proud of me for loving and bringing out the best – in what Mamma said was a difficult man – my dear Carlos.
My mother not really knowing much about Ranger, complemented her back on raising such a well-mannered, polite, and wonderful son who had saved my life several times. She shocked me by saying she was proud to call him her son-in-law. Mamma had to outdo her and say she was proud to call me her daughter. The women were glaring and smiling at each other and I think they had found a place of mutual respect.
We all ended the night with a plan to meet in the Lobby at nine thirty am because all the women wanted to come to the planning meetings, and I wasn't going to let Carlos get away with skating out with his dad. Which he tried to do. Mamma chided him saying this was his wedding and we needed his input too. I was sitting next to him holding his hand and I smiled at him.
"You wouldn't really disappear with your dad and let us women plan your wedding, would you?"
"Babe, no matter what you plan it's fine with me. All I'm planning on doing is showing up in my tux and saying, 'I do'. Anything else you plan is fine with me. It's not going to make any difference in my day. As long as we are married at the end of Saturday, I'm happy with whatever you ladies plan."
I looked at Mamma and she had a big smile on her face. I knew he had just given her carte blanc to do whatever she wanted with our ceremony. I looked at my mom and she looked happy too. I knew that she was especially happy to be invited to help plan our ceremony. I was more than a little nervous about it all. I squeezed Carlos hand and put out there that it would all work out. I wanted to be like him: simply happy with whatever happens, as long as we were married at the end of Saturday.
To be continued…