Our Story, Part 2: Re-Meeting and the First Date

For previous installments of Our Story, click here!

So August finally rolls around and it’s the Sunday before the first day of school. Having done the “first Sunday of the semester” a few times now, Marquette was watching all the new faces to see who knew who and to check on the new arrivals when she found a face that she thought she recognized…but she just wasn’t quite sure. He looked like a Mower boy, but she just didn’t have the guts to walk up and ask him. 

She watched him through Sunday School and combined Relief Society/Priesthood meetings…occasionally making awkward eye contact, but neither approached each other. That Sunday Marquette was playing the piano for Sacrament Meeting so she was sitting up on the stand for the meeting. Finally, at the end of Sacrament, the Bishopric announced the closing song and then they announced that Cameron Mower was going to give the closing prayer. “Perfect!” Marquette thought, “I’ll finally know if that’s him or not.” After all, Marquette did tell his parents that she would watch out for him. The song ended, he gave the prayer, and then he went straight over to the piano and the two began talking. Everything was sudden enough that Marquette completely forgot to play any postlude music. Oh well. The men in the Bishopric all gave Marquette goofy smiles and one even gave a thumbs-up behind Cameron’s back, but she just ignored them. She received some pretty good teasing from them for a few weeks about pouncing on the new arrivals. 

During their first conversation there at church, Marquette found out that Cameron had come down to school on the bus and that he hadn’t had anything but a piece of bread to eat for about a day and a half. Marquette was in the middle of moving houses, so she told him that she would feed him if he’d come help move her stuff. They agreed and parted ways for a few hours. Marquette regularly went with a group to sing to the residents at the rest home on Sundays, but she forgot to let Cameron know about this, so when she got home she found Cameron sitting on her front porch looking hungry and dejected. Apparently he’d been there a little over half an hour and was just about to leave to find some food when Marquette and her roommates showed back up. At that time Marquette had a tradition of Sunday Potlucks going on and that Sunday was no different. All the usual friends were there plus a few new faces, and the usual ramen noodle concoctions that college students bring to potlucks. Cameron fit right into the circle of friends…it was like he’d always been there. 

That following Saturday was a bonfire out at Red Knolls as an informal opening social, and so Marquette invited Cameron to ride along with her and her friends out there. Marquette introduced him to everyone she knew, but when one of them started flirting with him a bit of defensiveness rose up in her. Luckily she kept her thoughts to herself, but she was thinking, “Hey! I knew him first and I don’t know if I want to like him yet or not…hold up and wait your turn, I was here first.” She soon realized that was silly though and she and Cameron into a fun and casual friendship. Marquette’s roommates thought that was so cute and after hearing that we’d known each other before one ran to tell the other, “Cameron and Marquette have been life-long friends, separated for 15 years and now they’re reunited and are going to fall in love!” But no romance blossomed.

Cameron quickly became sweet on Marquette’s friend Amy and Marquette became interested in other guys. They would ask each other for guy/girl advice every now and then, and were often hanging out with the same group of friends that first semester. Eventually the Amy and Cameron romance faded and Marquette started dating Steve, which brought the Big Brotherness out in Cameron and he felt a little…protective? jealous? whatever the right word is. He even teased/threatened to go on the school field trip to Nogales, Mexico to chaperone us.

One night a group was at Marquette’s house for games when Apples to Apples was pulled out. Every time it was Marquette’s turn to pick a card she ended up picking Cameron’s somehow. He felt like it was a “victory” that he knew Marquette better than Steve did and that he knew what cards to play so she would pick them. He didn’t feel romantically inclined towards her at that time, but for some reason he just wanted to make sure that he knew Marquette better than Steve did.

Around that time Cameron got to thinking that Marquette would make someone a really great wife someday, just not his wife.  A number of times he thought about trying to date Marquette, but then when he’d pray about it he felt like he kept getting an answer of “Just be friends” or “Not at this time”. So he never pursued anything. However…that semester the two of them did go on their first date. Their friend Katie really liked a guy and wanted to go on a date with him, but she didn’t want it to be just a one on one date, so Cameron came up with the idea of doing a double date and he and Marquette would “go together” and Katie could ask her guy. So that’s what happened. They all met one Saturday morning at Marquette’s house, dressed in PJ’s, to have pancakes and watch Saturday Morning Cartoons. It was a fun date, but in later years Marquette and Cameron would often forget they even went on that date because it was more for Katie than anything else really. But there you go…their first date. 

Click here for Part 3