Love at first sight

"Hi I am Yolanda.  This is my medicare and the rest of my family are over there."  A woman was wheeling an old lady (her mother and medicare) out of a van and introduced herself and her family to me with extreme politeness.  "It's so nice to meet you."  She carried on the greeting.  We were guests of honor of a farm party.

"Oh, it's nice to meet you too." I greeted her back with only half of the enthusiasm than hers without remembering to tell her my name.  It's always difficult for me whenever I greet someone extremely polite and respectful.  Maybe because my answer did not contain any information, she tried a bit harder to get us acquainted.  "I work for Jim."  She said, which caught my attention.

Jim is a host of the farm party - I've later found out that the farm belongs to his life-long friend Marcia.  Jim loves to use the farm to attract his close friends and family.  He had invited us last time 2 years ago: Zhuzhu (4) caught her first fish and Niuniu (2) had his first horse ride that time.  They both also bought few ticks home last time because they spent quite an amount of time running around and flaming mesh mallows in the woods!

What I did not remember was that Yolanda and her son Cody were also at the same party 2 years ago.

"Me too, but I wonder why I have never met you before," I answered Yolanda with a question to myself.  Both Fabrice and I are also appointed by the department where Jim is an acting chair at the moment.  I understand that Jim as a Chair does have an army to serve him.  Even though I don't usually "see" them, I do at least "meet" them via emails.  However, I have never received any emails from this Yolanda woman, which was strange.

"Oh, maybe because I work at the Admin office."  She explained.

"So are you new?"  I continued to investigate.

"Oh no, I have worked there for more than 15 years!"  She said.

At this point, I had to shut up.  Yolanda finally escaped from me to move on greeting other people at the party.

Not only did I not know her, but I also did not know the fact that I spent my entire 2 hours fishing together with her son Cody and another young man whose name I did not catch.  The man gave up fishing after few tries and went to socialize with others.  In fact, he spent his farm party time almost exclusively chatting with Macey, the daughter of Marcia who is about his age and an attorney specializing in family laws.

They spoke loud enough for us, the fishing team, to hear and their conversations covered a wide range of topics from live style to politics. 

Just at the moment I began to get the hang of fishing and caught a few small ones, we were called for dinner.  I unwillingly put down my fishing pole for hamburgers, sausages, sweet beans, and some salad.  Clearly, the party was not designed to enjoy French or Chinese delicacies so my goal was to eat as fast as I could so that I could fish some more before it got completely dark.

Now I wish I had stuck to my plan.  

When I discovered that I was surrounded by a group of people that included Macey, the young and chatty man, Yolanda, Cody, Yolanda's Mom, Jim, and Fabrice, I started to shift my fishing mood to a chatting mood.

That was when I made a fool of myself.

"Is Cody your son?" I turned my head to Yolanda and inquired.   Cody had spent his entire time fishing.  In the beginning, he kept failing while NiuNiu, the youngest participant succeeded.  About an hour into it, Cody became very good at it.

"Yes." She answered with a clear proud look on her face.  

The conversation should have stopped then.  But stupid me turned my head to the young man, who had chatted with Macey after he quitted fishing earlier, and asked Yolanda, "Is he your older son, then?"  I continued. I was going to lead the conversations to make fun of his "early retreat".  Had he stayed, he could have succeeded like Cody.  But before I could do that, I heard this:

"No no, husband." Both Yolanda and the young man answered simultaneously.

I stopped questioning them but only allowed myself one second to react to the unexpected answer - I simply cannot handle a silence among a group of people.  I always feel obligated to elicit interactions among a group of people. "Are you Cody's father?" I questioned the young man with a clear understanding the answer would not be positive because he looked way too young to be his father.

"No no, I am not." The young man said awkwardly.   Cody was then leaving the crowd and I understood it was the signal to stop making anyone else uncomfortable.  Yolanda looked at least twice of the young man's age!  But the age difference was not what shocked me.  What surprised me was the fact that this young man who spent his entire evening with Macey was already someone else's husband!  

I had assumed that he, the husband of Yolanda, was flirting with Macey the whole night long!  I thought they were "in love at the first sight"!

Macey seems to be a career-oriented woman who may not spend her time going out with friends, whereas the young man appears smart, warm, and witty who gets on with Macey perfectly well.  I seriously and secretly believed that they were made for each other!

Shortly after dinner, Yolanda collected her gang and excused herself from the party.  They left in such a hurry that they missed the course of homemade ice-cream and baked mesh mellows on the fire.  We had them for dessert.

On the way back, Fabrice laughed while driving us home.  "What are you laughing about?"  I asked the crazy driver. "About you."  He laughed a bit more with audible voices!

"What about me?"  I wished that he would not mention what I said at the party.  What happened at the party should stay at the party, right?!

"I was so sure that you would ask that question.  It's so typical of you!" He added.

"What question?" I continue to pretend.

"Are you the father of Cody?" He had to point out the obvious, damn devil!

A romance between Macey and the young man could have existed.  A story was being written in my head already when the 2 young ones feeding my ears with their interesting topics.

Poor Yolanda.  I have no idea what I would say to her next time I meet her.