I found this couple’s marriage licence certificate on a plane in 2001.
I know I should have handed it in. I felt a bit bad at the time, but was filled with youthful exuberance and anarchic play. I was, after all, about to embark upon the trip of a lifetime to Las Vegas, and it was their fault for leaving it in the seat-back magazine holder anyway. And, it almost made up for me losing that tracksuit top on a bus in 1989.
I feel especially bad explaining it to you now.
Ana and Greg had got married on June 18, 2001 at a small registry office in Eagle Pass, County Maverick, Texas. They had rekindled their love working in a comfort shoe factory in nearby San Antonio: she was a stitcher, he a security guard.
They had first met at school, years previous,whilst both longing for a way out of Mexico. West Side Story wasn’t (both of ) their favourite film for nothing. Things got in the way, family things, and they lost touch. Time went on and they forgot about each other, not completely you understand, but enough to get on with their lives at least. Ana used to cry every time she heard any reference to the Sharks or the Jets.
Fate intervened that day on the factory floor, and soon enough they found themselves engaged to be married. Greg worked every extra hour he could to afford the honeymoon Ana had always dreamed of. After all the heartache and wasted years, he was taking her to see the Grand Canyon. A month after the wedding, but it didn’t matter.
They stayed at the San Remo, a smaller hotel just off the strip, near to the airport. They gambled a little, saw a show, walked around like they were sixteen again.
They also shared a bottle of champagne before getting on the plane home, the last little luxury of a never-to-be-forgotten four days, and that’s why they did forget something – where they’d put that precious certificate.
It didn’t matter to them of course, they started married life in bliss and began planning a family. Unfortunately this could not happen – they didn’t let it affect them though, they continued to work hard and use what money they earned to try to see the world.
To celebrate five years since Reverend Ruben Montemayor’s ceremony, they decided to tour England.
Ana’s love of internet forums, the Beatles and especially tragic Stuart Sutcliffe, had got her in touch with a young woman in England who apparently worked in a biscuit factory for her father. When Ana had explained during a late night online chat that she was coming to England, her cyberfriend recommended visiting Liverpool to see where Sutcliffe grew up and was buried.
Greg knew there were two football teams in the city and his love of football extended beyong Monterrey to the English football the local bar sometimes showed, so he took little persuading. A grave shouldn’t take too long to visit.
To commemorate their two days in the city they had a passport booth photo taken together for the first ever time. Unfortunately, their absent-mindedness struck again and it was left in the machine, so eager were they to find the famed tequila bar nearby.
That night, whether it was the Tequila, the Mersey air or their escape from the daily grind of footwear production, they felt like they were like Tony and Maria again.
On their return to Texas, they discovered Ana was pregnant. They still have Stuart’s birth certificate.
