I had misgivings because I was barely twenty-two, and immature, and had no clue how to be someone’s wife, and, more important, because of what I was wearing (see “twenty-two, and immature”). In a strange twist of fate, Victor had bought my wedding dress when he saw it in the window of a rental shop that was going out of business. It was inappropriately virginal white, beaded, bowed, and looked like the sort of wedding dress that both Princess Diana and Scarlett O’Hara would have deemed “completely over-the-top.” Each of the billowing puffed sleeves was larger than my head and seemed to be stuffed with newspaper (I suspect it was the New York Times Sunday edition), and the hoop skirt, pushing out the yards and yards of white ruffles, dictated that I keep an empty five-foot radius around me at all times, because if anything pressed against the bottom of the hoop, the opposite side of the dress would suddenly lift up and hit me in the head. It was fancy and high-maintenance and pure as the driven snow, and I would not have chosen that dress for myself in a million years, but Victor insisted it was “so me,” which I think was less of an insult and more of a vision he had of the woman I might one day become. He was wrong on so many levels that I started to lose count.
I wasn’t alone in my doubts, though. Victor had misgivings because two weeks earlier we’d had what I referred to as “a very bad date.” Victor was still referring to it as “that time you almost killed me.” (Side note: He now refers to it as “the first time you almost killed me.”) But Victor isn’t writing this book, mostly because he’s a terrible overreactor. The truth was that we’d been driving down some deserted country roads after sundown, as Victor was looking for snakes. On purpose. He’d developed a fascination for them in the last year, and was making money on the side by finding snakes basking on the hot, empty roads after dark, capturing them, taming them, and then selling them to fellow snake lovers. He was great at recognizing the harmless and easily tamable snakes, and listened to my warnings to never mess with the poisonous, aggressive ones, until the night when we drove up on a very large rattlesnake, which seemed to have been run over by a car. Victor stopped his truck and I told him not to get out, but he said he could tell the snake was squashed and told me to hold the spotlight up so he could make sure the snake was dead and not still suffering. I suggested just running over it again a few times, but Victor looked at me as if I were being ridiculous, and he slowly got out of the car. I opened my own door hesitantly, but refused to get out, standing instead on the edge of the truck’s floorboard and leaning over the hood of the truck, certain that other rattlesnakes were probably lying in wait and planning a group attack. Victor looked back at me with frustration. “Come over here and bring the spotlight. You’re too far away.”
“Oh, I’m just fine, thanks. Please get the hell back in the truck.”
He glared at me and shook his head. “Have a little faith, will ya?” He knelt down beside the rattler. “It’s dead. Looks like its head was crushed.”
“Awesome. Now get the hell back in the truck.”
Victor ignored me as he put on a glove and stooped to pick up the tail of the five-foot rattler. “We should bring this home to your dad. He could probably— OHJESUSCHRIST!”
It was at this exact moment that the “dead” rattlesnake suddenly started angrily striking at Victor’s leg. Uncoincidentally, it was also the exact same moment that I ducked back into the truck, taking the spotlight with me and leaving Victor in the pitch-dark blackness on an abandoned road, as the angry rattlesnake he was holding tried to murder him.
“BRING BACK THE LIGHT,” he screamed.
“I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO OUT THERE!” I yelled angrily, as I quickly locked the doors (for some reason) and rolled up all the windows. I was worried about him and wanted to help him, but I couldn’t help but think that he had brought this on himself.
“BRING BACK THE LIGHT OR I WILL THROW THIS DAMN SNAKE IN THE CAR WITH YOU,” he screamed, which was surprising, both because he sounded very vital for someone dying of snakebite, and also because he’d wrongly assumed that I hadn’t automatically locked all the doors. He knows so little about me, I thought to myself.
I took a deep breath and reminded myself that although he was a macho idiot, he was my macho idiot, and I rolled down the window just far enough to put my hand and spotlight through it, and saw Victor still looking very much alive and more than slightly pissed off. Turns out that the snake was still alive and striking, but its mangled jaw was crushed and so it never broke Victor’s skin. Victor glared at me with terrified eyes, and put the snake out of its misery with a shovel before walking back to the truck.
After a minute to slow his breathing, Victor’s voice was only vaguely controlled. “You left me alone. In the dark. With a live rattlesnake.”
“No. You left me alone. In the car. For a live rattlesnake,” I countered. “So I guess that makes us even.” There was a long pause as he stared at me. “But I forgive you?” I said.
“YOU ALMOST KILLED ME,” he shouted.
“No,” I pointed out. “A rattlesnake almost killed you. I was just an involuntary witness. I wanted to turn the car back on and try to run over the snake to save you, but you took the keys with you. Plus, I can’t drive a stick. So basically I would have died eventually too, except way more painfully and slowly from starvation and exposure. If anything, I should be mad at you.” I hadn’t actually been mad until I started defending myself, but then I realized that I had a point. If anything, I had almost killed both of us, but Victor was too shortsighted to see that far ahead.