Eleanor (On Hold)

** This is a short story I had written a long long long time ago and have decided to do some editing to it. Please read and enjoy :)

In two days I am going to be getting married to one of the most sarcastic, blunt, inappropriate and geekiest woman in the world. Why? Because within all of her sarcasm, she is a woman who would rather live her life lightheartedly than be condemned to it; because within all of her bluntness, she is a woman who would rather give you the cold hard truth than let you walk around with sugar-coated lies; because within all that inappropriateness, she is a woman who would rather stand outside of society than be a generic part of it; and because within all that geekiness, she is the woman I love and have given my heart to.

My name is Simon Francis and this is the story of how I came to fall in love with Eleanor Carson...

Seven years ago...

"You got... Haha!" Mike laughed loudly clutching his stomach with tears brimming his eyes. "You got... Haha... You got..." he continued to repeat through laughter. "Pancaked... Haha... By a girl!" He finally spit out.

Yes, Mike was my best friend and the one person in this world who wouldn't think twice about laughing at my expense. Why is he laughing this hard? Well, I had just finished my story about the blind date his wife, Lindsey, had set me up on. As it turned out, the girl who pancaked me was not charmed by antics nor looks. "Remind me to kick your wife when I see her," I mumbled staring at my half full bottle of beer.

"Good luck with that," Mike chuckles as we continued drinking our beers and watching the game on his flat screen in his living room.

Let me tell you, Eleanor Carson was something else. She was a colleague of Lindsey's at the local high school. Lindsey taught math while Eleanor taught art. Mike and I were pretty positive that Lindsey was the center of many teenage boys wet dreams while Eleanor was the role model for the nerdy and bullied kids. Lindsey had told me about her single friend, making it appear the reason why she was single was because of her intelligence and independence but forgot to mention her physical appearance and ill-mannered attitude. With much harassment and threats, Lindsey had taken upon herself to set us up on a blind date. Lindsey had made finding my soul-mate one of her personal and ultimate goals in life while Mike had taken the liberty of sitting back and watching his best friend be continually humiliated by his wife. Sure, Lindsey was sweet as could be, a fantastic wife, a wonderful mother, and a great friend, but underneath all that, she was not a force to be reckoned with. I really didn't want to be the reason for her wrath, so I agreed to go on the date. And what a date it was...

We had both agreed to meet at the local breakfast cafe for Sunday brunch via Lindsey. Fair enough, I thought. I purposely arrived half an hour late hoping that she would have left, but when I arrived, I ended up following the hostess to a table where a woman with long, dirty blond hair tied in a low messy ponytail sat with her back facing me. I thanked the hostess for her hospitality. When I rounded the front of the table to get a good look at the owner of the disheveled hair, my eyes nearly left my head.

"Oh, hi!" the woman beamed with surprise standing up to greet me with her right hand extended out. I duly noted her olive colored eyes holding some confusion behind her thick rimmed glasses.

"You must be Eleanor," I said shaking her small hand firmly.

"And you must be Simon," she replied taking her seat again. "To be honest, I really wasn't expecting you to show considering how late you are."

Ouch. We had just met and she was already throwing punches at me. "To be honest, I really wasn't expecting you to wait considering how late I am," I retorted back with a smirk. If her eyes could shoot laser beams, I'd be walking around with a gaping hole in my head right about now.

To make a long story short, we sat in silence for a few minutes studying each other. How could Lindsey set me up with someone like her? She was obviously not my type and yet she did so anyway. I bet a bird could have made itself a nest in her hair. I chuckled to myself at this thought. And from the looks of her oversized shirt being held at the waist by a tiny belt, she had either got it handed down to her by an older male sibling or from a thrift shop. And I was pretty sure, from the way she wore her clothes, her undergarments were the ones made for grannies. That I was sure of. If she couldn't be bothered to spend money on some nice fitting clothes, then why bother spending money on some sexy lingerie. Right?