The second-floor hall had not changed much in the two decades since Diana had walked them last. The floors may have been more scuffed, the paint changed, the benches chipped, but all that notwithstanding, it was the same. Even the smell was the same, a mix of air conditioning and various perfumes and body odors.
Diana hadn't expected to feel much of anything walking down the hallway with her fiancé in tow. Afterall, she had only worked here for about a year and a half, two decades ago. But the sight of the sign reading Clerk's Office suddenly brought back a flood of memories she hadn't expected. Her pace slowed almost to a stop as she approached the sign. Her fiancé, David, must have noticed because he stopped and turned to her, "What is it? We need to go in to get the marriage license first."
"Nothing.", she said. "Did I ever tell you I worked here in my early 20s?" David shook his head. "Really? No, you never mentioned it".
It wasn't all that surprising that she never mentioned it. Like most first jobs, it had long dropped off her resume in the subsequent years. She couldn't even remember if she had mentioned it to Chris, her first husband. Probably not.
Diana and David walked into the large Clerk's office. It had undergone some renovations over the years. The counter was no longer open. Plexiglass now divided the counter from the public. A tickertape number system was now in place rather than the long line Diana remembered. David took the lead and pulled a number from the ticker tape which read eight. The current number was six. Fortunately, they wouldn't have to wait long.
David leaned over and whispered, "Nervous?". Diana didn't respond. "Nervous?" he asked again. "What...no, not nervous.", she laughed.
"Seven, number seven.", a young blondish clerk called out. An elderly man stepped forward to the Clerk's desk and proceeded to ask about filing for a restraining order against his neighbor. Diana laughed to herself. She remembered how many elderly people asked for that very thing when she was worked there. Somethings never change, she thought.
At that moment, another youngish woman opened her clerk's desk and called out "Eight." "That's us.", David said.
Us, Diana pondered. Us...that was the first time she had even thought about herself and David as an us. Funny, Chris had been gone for five years, but she still thought of them as an us. Maybe that's what fifteen years of marriage does to you. Diana looked at David and smiled. We could be an us someday, I suppose.
Diana and David had only been dating eight months when he proposed. She hadn't considered remarriage until her daughter, Sophia, was out of the house. Actually, she hadn't even considered dating until Sophia was out of the house, but when she met David in Sophia's last year of high school, she reconsidered.
Then, last month, David proposed and she accepted. Neither one wanted a big wedding, so a quick ceremony at the courthouse would suffice. David didn't have any children from his first marriage and Sophia was away at college now; it would just be the two of them.
As they filled out the paperwork for the license, Diana remembered back to the day she had done the same with Chris. That may have been the last time she stepped foot into the building. Maybe. She wasn't sure, but it had definitely been a long time. She doubted anyone would remember her working there.
"There's your license.", the clerk stated as she handed over the license to David. "The fee for the ceremony is $108. You can pay that here and present your receipt on the third floor where the ceremonies are held. Would you like to do that today?"
"Yeah, definitely. Thanks", David said. The clerk ran his credit card and printed the receipt. "All set. Congratulations."
"Thanks.", Diana and David replied in unison. They walked out of the Clerk's office directly to the elevators. This time Diana took the lead and knew exactly where they needed to go for the ceremony. Arriving on the third floor, Diana took David's arm and directed him to the right. "It's down this hall and around the corner."
The third- floor hall was even longer than the second floor. As they walked down the east corridor, she glanced casually at the names on the doors. The third floor was almost all court administration and there weren't any courtrooms, which meant it was a much quieter floor than the first and second floors. It wasn't until she saw the name on the fourth or fifth door that she came to an immediate halt.
"Peter Anderson, Director of Technology Services". It couldn't be, Diana thought. After all these years. And suddenly, it was as if twenty years had melted away and all her memories of this place flooded into her mind. Her heart raced in a way it hadn't since Chris was alive. David never made her feel that way. He was a kind man, but she felt little passion for him. Diana didn't think she needed that anymore at her age. She was wrong.
David didn't notice that she had stopped until he was a good ten paces ahead. "Diana", he called out. "Come on." Diana glanced back at the sign on the door. Certainly, he wouldn't remember her. Maybe he's married now. Forget it, she scolded herself. You're about to get married to a perfectly fine man. This isn't the time for what ifs. And yet, as she continued down the hallway and around the corner, she couldn't stop the nagging feeling that she was making a mistake.
David checked them in. The man behind the counter took their receipt and estimated that the wait would be about fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes to sit and wonder.
The revelation that the first love of her life existed not so much as fifty feet away rattled Diana. It was in that very moment that she remembered how much she had loved him and how his rejection still left a small wound. She had a difficult time paying attention to David who was speaking about something...she had no idea what it was. And she didn't particularly care at that moment. She needed to know about Peter.
"I'm going to run to the ladies' room. I'll be back." Diana rose from the hard, wood bench and walked down to the bathroom. She took out her phone and searched for Peter Anderson. The name was too common, and she couldn't find the precise information. Just as she was about to abandon her search, a woman with a courthouse identity badge appeared in the doorway of the restroom. Before the lady could find a stall, Diana knew this would be her only chance.
"Excuse me, but could you tell me if Peter Anderson still works here." Obviously, Diana already knew that, but it gave her an opportunity for a follow up question.
The lady looked at her, and nodded, "His office is just down the hall. I saw him here earlier."
"Thanks. By the way, do you happen to know if he's married?" Now, Diana didn't care what this lady might be thinking. She had to know.
"Um, no. I wouldn't think so. No, I'm pretty sure he isn't. Who are you?", she said as if she had just realized that she was giving out personal information she shouldn't.
"Oh, we used to work together- a long time ago.", Diana said as she quickly left the bathroom.
That wasn't entirely a lie. They did work in the same building a long time ago. Diana smiled as she remembered how they met. She had been sitting at her workstation when her monitor suddenly went dark. She tried all the one or two tricks she knew to make it come back to life. Nothing. She called the help desk. A man, more like a guy around her age, answered. "This is Peter. How can I help you?"
"Hi, this Diana down in the clerk's office. Uh, my computer doesn't work."
"Ok, what do you mean?"
"I was typing and then the monitor went black."
"Ok, have you checked the power source?"
"Uh, no. Wait." Diana poked her head under the desk. The surge protector light was off. Geez, she couldn't believe it. Her toe must have inadvertently tapped the switch. Idiotic wasn't strong enough a word for how she felt. The IT guys would have a field day talking about the dummy in the clerk's office. She was relieved Peter couldn't see how embarrassed she was.
"It looks like I turned off the surge protector with my toe. Sorry for bothering you."
"Happy to help." Diana thought she heard a bit of laughter in his voice. Swell. "Ok, bye", was all she could manage after that.
A few days after the surge protector incident, Diana was eating lunch at the tables in the courtyard of the courthouse, her face buried in a Michael Crichton book. It might have been Congo, she couldn't remember. The buzzing sound is what she first noticed. Barely, looking up from her book, she didn't react when a scooter whizzed by. Was it a scooter? A wheelchair? She hadn't noticed.
"Are you the infamous Diana of the clerk's office?", a voice asked. Now she laid down her book and looked up. It was a young guy, maybe a few years older than she. She looked at him, taking it all in. He was sitting in this scooter. Some sort of leg braces were visible beneath his pant leg. She didn't want to stare, but she couldn't help it. Good looking men her age didn't usually ride around on a motorized scooter. "Infamous?", she replied.
"Well, yeah, we don't get a lot of calls for turned off surge protectors." Diana's cheeks reddened. She said nothing. Sensing her unease, Peter rolled closer, and said, "Don't worry, that wasn't the dumbest call I've ever taken."
"It wasn't? There was something worse than that? Like what?"
"Um..let's see." Silence. "Actually, maybe there wasn't, but I won't hold it against you.", he said with a sheepish grin.
"Gee, thanks,"
And that was how they become friends. For the next year, Diana and Peter ate lunch together almost every day. They discussed books and movies, their interests surprisingly aligned. In that time, she dated other men casually, but never looked as forward to those dates as she did to her lunches with Peter. Looking back, it was evident that she had fallen for him, even though they never so much as hugged.
They discussed many things, but they never discussed his condition, or what it might mean. Eventually, she realized it didn't matter. She felt an excitement around him that she didn't with other men. It was certain that she needed to initiate.
One day at lunch, Diana decided this would be it. She would just come out and tell him everything she felt.
It was a disaster. She hadn't expected the outcome. "I'm flattered...with my situation...you need to find someone who can give you everything you deserve"....what he said was jumbled in her memory. She hadn't pushed back to say that it didn't matter, she had naively believed it wouldn't matter to him either.
Nothing was the same after that. Their lunches ceased and Diana found ways to avoid Peter. She used the stairs, so she'd never run into him coming and going from the building. Eventually, she found another job and left to never return.
Not long after leaving her job, she met Chris. There were no regrets in moving on to marry Chris and raise a daughter with him. He was exactly everything Peter had wished for her. Had he not died, they would still be happily married, and she wouldn't find herself in this place, thinking about Peter. Maybe Peter had been right all along. But...they were older now. Perhaps his past reticence had disappeared. Perhaps he, too, had regrets. Would she allow this moment to pass, she wondered.
"Diana Cordova and David Parker, are you ready?" The sound of their names snapped Diana out of her wistful daydream. She looked up at the woman standing with the door to the ceremony room open. She then looked to David and felt tepid. Is that even a feeling? Should you feel tepid on your wedding day?
Diana glanced around at the other couples sitting waiting for their turn. A young twenty something couple looked excited and nervous, naturally. Another man adoringly touched the belly of his heavily pregnant fiance. Happy, content. No, feeling tepid was not the way she should have felt at that moment.
David started to rise from the bench. "Wait, David. I can't...I can't marry you." David's calm face turned quizzical.
"What do you mean? We can have the big wedding if you want."
"No, I'm sorry. This is a mistake. We can't get married." Before he could say anything in protest, she took off her engagement ring, placed it in his hand, and walked quickly away down the hall and around the corner.
She walked up to Peter's office door, knocking twice. Maybe she had a second chance. On the other side of the door, she heard a familiar voice say, "Come in".
End of The Second Chance