Ah, the game. The one I didn't want to play was coming up in the new year. We were on the brink of 2003, the end of which would mark two full years of living together. Our bargain — within two years of living together we would get married — was approaching.
I was clear that we were clear and I imagined clear sailing into wedded bliss. I didn't need a wedding, formal or informal; a justice of the peace or judge would do. Easy-peasy. No games, except rounds of Scrabble over dinner. I was excited about 2003, that much was sure. I looked into our new Moroccan mirror and thought, I'm going to marry the guy. Oh yeah.
When I think of Morocco, I think: food. A brilliant combination of Middle Eastern spice and French know-how made for dining experiences unlike any I'd had. Cinnamon and cumin-flavored chicken tenderly wrapped in phyllo pastry and baked until crispy and golden. At our table, the lid of a tagine was lifted to reveal chunks of lamb swimming in honey, figs and walnuts. We were served scoops of fluffy couscous topped with carrots, eggplant, zucchini and dates all sweetened with ripe stewed tomatoes and dark olives.
However, because of William's work schedule, we experienced only a few of these restaurant dinners. It was simply too late by the end of his workday for him to go out. A couple of evenings a week Tom and I would take a taxi to the Marjane, a giant Wal-Mart-type store set along a highway. Tom's day finished earlier than William's, so we partnered off to find foodstuffs to fill our hotel refrigerators.
The Marjane sold...well, soup to nuts...and wine to television sets. A special private room held shelves of liquor. Muslim law had us showing our passports for entry to purchase wine. After loading a cart with those precious bottles I roamed aisles of cheese, cold cuts, vegetables and breads. Dinner with William usually involved a variety of sandwiches I would whip up using a Swiss Army knife. We'd picnic on the bed, sipping wine and playing Scrabble.
Despite staying in a luxury hotel, we lived cheap. This was okay with me. I grew up in a low-income home and never got used to extravagance. Having no money gave me an appreciation of a pleasant stability when there was enough and when bills could be paid. William grew up in an upper middle-class home, so we settled in the center on the money thing.
I washed our clothes in the bathtub and hung them to dry on a retractable line that ran over the tub. It often took two or three days for a pair of jeans to dry, but I couldn't see spending money on hotel laundry services. William and I shared the same policy with our in-house dinners. We couldn't imagine paying extravagant room-service prices. It wasn't our way and those sandwiches, stuffed with fresh avocado and cucumbers, ended up not half-bad. Even with ten million dollars in the bank....
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