When Andy Met Jeanne

Jeanne hoisted her strappy, heeled foot firmly onto the chair, leaving her leg partially exposed through the slit in her black cocktail dress. She smiled subtly in his direction, took a deep breath, and then belted out the first line of the Marseillaise.

Apparently it was at that cocktail party in Manhattan that my grandpa decided to leave his fiancé in Quebec for my grandma. My grandma, Jeanne, was an aspiring writer for Time Magazine, and my grandpa, Andy, was a PHD candidate at New York University. He was unassumingly handsome, and awkward, with a big French nose, and a passion for fishing and physics. She was an ingénue, who left her suburban life in Youngstown, Ohio to pursue her dream of being a career woman in New York City.

“From the moment I met your grandpa, I knew it was over,” my grandma sighed. “I thought: that looks like the man I will marry. I should stay away from him.”

The idea that a woman could “have it all” was not a concept at the time. This man, who captured her attention, would lead to the end of her blossoming career. Yet, she could not help but put every effort into capturing his heart.

I sat at my grandparent’s kitchen table, coffee in hand, as my grandma recounted the night. She is a captivating storyteller, able to take the most mundane event and leave you at the edge of your seat. This, however, was not a mundane event; this was a night that led to the lives of 8 children, and 20 grandchildren.

“I put everything into that song,” She sighed. “I sang with such gravitas! With such heart! That’s what won him over.” She smiled triumphantly.

“No, you sang it all sexy,” my grandpa interjected for the first time during the story.

“Andy!” She scolded, glancing at me apprehensively.

My grandpa is a man of few words, and since he’d started losing his memory, those words have become fewer and fewer. His whole life, he prided himself in his intellect. Now, his fading memory humbled him into the background. But he listened intently to my grandma tell this story, not missing a beat.

I too, was listening intently, as I came to the realization that these two people, who I’ve always known to be grandparents, had a youth so similar to my own. This party had been hosted by a mutual friend, one whom Jeanne had grown fond of romantically. He lived in a flat in Manhattan with his roommate, and hung out frequently with Jeanne. She’d come to assume that the frequency of their encounters implied a certain mutual admiration. However, one night, when she went in for a kiss, he explained to her that his roommate, Jon, was more than a roommate. He let her down easy, by adding that while he might not be the man for her, he knows this guy who is totally her type: his name is Andy and he’s a graduate student at NYU. He’d set up an event where they could meet each other, he promised.

He held true to his promise, and as the party approached, he called and apologized. “He has a fiancé in Quebec,” He said. “I had no idea.”

Apparently, being a bachelor at 29 was not acceptable in my grandpa’s family. They called him an “odd one” and gossiped that perhaps he preferred men. The only solution, it seemed, was to arrange a marriage. Louise was a sweet woman, with long brunette locks, and a knack for all things homemaking. The night that Andy met Jeanne, Louise was spending a weekend with Andy’s family learning how to cook, and to do all the things that are expected of a good wife. Louise rolled dough with her engagement ring-clad hand, while Andy stared, captivated, at my grandma’s ruby-red lips quivering in language she did not speak or understand.

I could feel my grandma’s hesitation around telling me the rest of the story, but my grandpa had suddenly become more engaged.

“You attacked me in the cab,” he said.

“Oh Andy!” my grandma exclaimed. “Well, he’d been telling me that his water heater was in the kitchen, and I just had to see it with my own eyes!”

I wasn’t at all surprised that my grandpa would decide to talk to my grandma about the location of his water heater. I like to imagine how the conversation went: how he decided to talk about household utilities, and how my grandma so smoothly turned it into an invitation.

After that night, Andy called his family in Quebec to break off the engagement. “She married someone else shortly after, and had five kids,” my grandma explained. But I could tell there was some lingering guilt there. “Andy didn’t have the money to buy me a ring at the time,” she added, “since Louise kept hers.”

Before that fateful night, my grandpa had intended to go back to Quebec after graduate school, and my grandma had dreams of being a “big time” writer in New York, and had no intention of ever marrying.

We went through some old pictures of the wedding. My grandma looked like Audrey Hepburn with her midnight-black hair in a stylish pixie cut. In most of the pictures, she’s beaming at the camera, smiling ear-to-ear, and my grandpa is looking at her with clear adoration.