Today I have been editing on my novel, and I am writing a few background stories to give readers more information about some of the minor characters in my story. We found out how Lilliana’s grandmother Constance met her grandfather George at a pub in London, so in this installment we will discover how her father Alexander met her mother Tatiana. However, we are also introduced to the character Sandy, who is a bit obsessed with Alexander, and a lot of this has to do with things her mom and Constance told her growing up. Love is not always something parents can arrange, and often children end up marrying people their parents will never approve of. This short story will give background for those who might wonder later about why Constance never did like Tatiana
By 1968 Alexander was not in love with Sandy, who he considered to be a little too much of a stalker at this point. She was constantly trying to ask him out of dates, and she would even show unannounced when he went to the bowling alley with his friends. Alexander thought it would be better to help Sandy move on, but his mother pressuring him to ask Sandy out to dinner was not helping. Alexander decided to enlist in the air force for two years to avoid being drafted into the army during the Vietnam War, and he hoped that Sandy would eventually lose interest in him when he was away. When Alexander left for Thailand he did not let Sandy know where he was going, and a few days later she came over to Constance’s house asking if he had been deployed.
Alexander had met Sandy ten years earlier because his parents had decided to move to California. Constance and George had moved to Riverside from Chicago to open a furniture store, and to strike out on their own in the west. Constance had always been mesmerized with Hollywood since the time she watched movies as a young girl living back in England, and she had visions of living in the land of the palm trees. George knew it would be impractical to live in Hollywood, but he wanted to give his wife a sliver of the California dream she had been yearning for, so he decided living in Riverside made more sense. George’s dad helped him open the new furniture store in California, and Constance was so excited about moving out west.
Constance loved everything about California from not having to walk in snow during the winter, and to being able to grow tomatoes in her garden in March. Thirteen years earlier she had engineered to meet an American GI so she could move to the states, which had been an upgrade from the lifestyle of being a poor girl working as a bar maid in London. However, Constance never stopped dreaming of better things for herself and her family, and she wanted her version of the American dream for son Alexander, and her other son Timothy. However, Alexander was her favorite one, and she always spent more time with him than her other son. She envisioned playing in a palm tree lined park with Alexander during the afternoons when her husband was running the furniture store, which is exactly what they did during their first summer in California.
Actually, it was during this first summer in Riverside at a park where Constance spotted Sandy, who she envisioned as the perfect future wife for her son. Yes, Alexander was only ten years old at the time, but she knew just by looking at Sandy that she had everything that would make the perfect wife and mother one day. Sandy was a shy girl with adorable golden ringlets and sparkly blue eyes, and she made the beautiful contrast to Alexander’s swarthy looks. Constance remembered Hollywood movies with the leading lady with blond curls and blue eyes accompanied by a dark handsome man, like Rhett Butler, which is why she was now dying her raven hair blond. Sandy was the real deal because she had natural blond curls, and from that day forward, Constance envisioned her son pushing a stroller with beautiful babies that looked like Sandy.
Constance went up to Sandy’s mom and introduced herself, and they became fast friends. Of course, Michelle Jacobsen was quite a bit wealthier than Constance’s family, but she decided to make the latter her friend and invited to join all the ladies clubs. Michelle and Constance also thought their son and daughter looked amazing together, and openly dreamed about the day the two would marry.
Alexander would have preferred to have boys to play with at the park, but only had his brother Timothy, and he indulged his mom and played with Sandy because it made her happy. Alexander was, and would always be, the consummate mamma’s boy, so he did whatever Constance wanted. Timothy, on the other hand, was not so much the mamma’s boy, and became the class clown and prankster to get attention of girls when he was growing up. Both boys would grow up to be very different as a result.
At first, Sandy was a shy and reserved young girl in Alexander’s presence, but as time went on, she became a bit more outgoing in her interactions with him. By the time they were thirteen Sandy started wearing makeup and dressing like a young lady, and Alexander even asked her on a few dates in high school to make his mother happy.
However, Alexander had been more interested in his comic book collection and reading stories about famous US legal cases. He one day dreamed of going to law school, and really did not think much about women. George would never tell his wife that he thought his son did not like women, but after awhile he began to wonder. In 1968, Alexander was going to Riverside Community College and working full time to save up so he could eventually transfer to UCLA. He wanted to get a degree in political science and eventually go to UCLA law school, but he did not want his dad to foot the bill. Alexander was a very industrious young man, and even at this time, he still was not thinking much about women. His dad openly wondered about whom Alexander really did like at this point, but his mother pretended not to hear that. Alexander’s younger brother Timothy had impregnated and married a girl soon after high school, so perhaps his parents just overreacted because his younger brother was so different. Alexander had simply not met the woman he wanted to be with yet, which is why he did not show interest in anyone.
In the summer of 1968, Sandy was acting like her and Alexander were an item, but that was only because her mother and Constance were always putting that idea in her head. Seriously, Sandy could have truly benefited from a book such as He’s Just Not That Into You. Part of the reason Alexander enlisted in the air force was to avoid the draft, and so his mother would get off his back when it came to Sandy.
Alexander completed his stint in Thailand, and by 1970, he had found out he was accepted into UCLA and could enroll come September. His enlistment in the air force was coming to an end, and now he could use the GI bill to pay for his tuition for a BA In political science degree at UCLA. Alexander was still not girl crazy like many men his age, and he had only done it a couple of times with a woman he had met once at the bowling alley. Desperate Sandy had alluded to the fact a couple of times that she would go all the way with Alexander because she knew “boys wanted that kind of thing now,” but Alexander did not see her that way, and he knew his mother would be mortified if he treated a lady like Sandy this way. Therefore, he did his explorations elsewhere, but he was still not fixated with any one woman in particular.
When Alexander enrolled in UCLA in the fall of 1970 he encountered a completely new culture as opposed to what he was used to . He was living on campus and grew his raven hair long for the first time. His mom was still interested in the clean-cut looks of the early 60’s, and his dad still got a buzz cut. When he went home one weekend, his mom nearly fainted to see how he looked with his shaggy hair and bell-bottoms. Sandy came over for dinner that night wearing a full skirt and her hair in a fashionable early 70’s bouffant style. There were women who still dressed like that in the early 70’s, but Alexander found that he was drawn to the more bohemian and hippie look that was becoming more prevalent in those years.
One day he would go to a party and spot a woman in a long floral skirt with cascading raven colored hair and hazel eyes, who was strumming a guitar for a group of students sitting around her in a semi-circle. Her name was Tatiana, and she was very bohemian in her lifestyle and philosophy. She had hitchhiked to come out to California from Kansas, and she was studying English at UCLA. Tatiana did want to start a family and dreamed of being a mom, despite her bohemian looks and worldviews, so of course she accepted Alexander’s proposal a year after they met. Constance was not happy about this development, and Sandy cried for a month after finding out her soul mate had married another woman.
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