Having dinner at Boston

When we left the registrar's office I felt like in a soap-bubble.
Everything around me seemed to glisten in all of the colours of the rainbow and my feet seemed not to touch the ground.
It went well!
We did it!
We applied!
There'll be no problems!
Roughly three weeks left.
We'll have to show up there again tomorrow at 3 PM and will get our marriage license.
GOD!
I'm happy!
I'm jubilant!
I'm overjoyed!
I'm on top of the world!
I think now you got a clue how I feel.

I shook my head and fixed my glance on my feet to make sure I wasn't hovering around.
"Oh my God, we will be getting married!!!", I managed to say.
A fond glance from the side. James caressed my cheek and smiled. "Wanna chicken out?", he asked.
Again I shook my head, this time forcefully. "Of course NOT!"
I took him by his collar, drew him closer and kissed him softly, not caring about the fact we still were at city hall. Sparkles danced around me and I took him into my soap-bubble.
"Aaaaw, look...I'm sure they're getting married!", someone exclaimed and patted my shoulder. We did not pay attention to anything else than each other and smiled foolishly.
"Yah", James began hoarsly. "That convinced me..."
I hugged him and again we smiled at each other with some kind of dazed expression.
Simultaneously we took a deep breath and shook our heads.
"What about a ramble?", James proposed and I nodded.
So we made our way out of city hall and strolled (or limped) along the streets, haunting book- and record shops, eating ice cream and snogging indifferent to the passers-by. (And sometimes I wonder if he'd snog me in public at Plainsboro.)

Wide-eyed we stared at the books at Calamus Bookstore (whoosh...You know what kind of literature they're specializing in?) and James bought a copy of Yeats' poems at Barnes & Noble. I rummaged happily through King of Records Recycling Factory Junk Store and bought several CDs and platters.
At about 7 PM we met Eric at the station and he took us to Kingfish Hall, where we had a table reserved.

The restaurant itself reminded me of Disney-movies and I grinned. "Gosh, is that the set of Pirates of the Caribbean?", I asked and had a look around. It was nice though and I made myself at home on our table clutching to my Fino.
James nestled beside me and sipped his sherry. "Yeah...I'm waiting for Jack Sparrow to turn up", he grinned.
Eric sat down vis-à-vis and greeted us with his Campari.
"My...Greg...unbelievable!", he said with a broad smile.
I looked at him slightly perplexed. "Huh?"
The smile grew even broader. "You look happy! You smile and beam!"
James took my hand and fondly smiled at me.
"But...", I began still puzzled, "...what do you expect? Of course I'm happy! We'll be getting married!" I drooped the thought for a minute and suddenly cuddled James madly.
"GOD! Did you hear that?! We'll be getting married!!!"
"Ugh", James managed to launch out 'cause I hugged him a bit too close.
Eric snickered. "That's exactly what I meant. You are totally different from when you arrived here. I thought Gawd, he's grumpy! Poor James!"
I stared at him with big round eyes. "You did?" I'm used to people thinking of me as grumpy - well, I am grumpy - but thinking 'Poor Jimmy'?
"Yes, I did. But then, I thought, he's looking damn good!"
"You're playing me for a sucker...", I said and he laughed.
"Maybe a bit!"
James grinned and put his arm around my shoulder. "He is grumpy from time to time. But he's sweet and adorable and simply delightful and terrific!"
I blushed. "Take that 'grumpy' away and we're talking about you..."
Eric shook his head and smiled at us. "I'm glad Jimmy found the real thing at last."
He sipped his Campari. "You know, I always knew none of his marriages was a real love-match and I was a bit concerned about him. I began to ask myself if he's just gay and pretends to be not..."
James blushed deeply. "Eric!"
He shrugged. "What? I told you so on Wednesday. And always these longing looks when you told me about 'someone'...These marriages were bound to go down the drain."
I fumbled with my table napkin and swallowed. That was so...sweet!
We were interrupted by the waitress who brought us the menu.
"Did I get that right? Someone's getting married?", she beamed at us.
I just blushed but James nodded all smiles.
"You two?" she asked and nodded to us.
Again James nodded.
"Congrats!", she said with a radiant smile. "Good to know, so we'll offer you some champagne." With these words she left our table and I looked blank.
"Uh...did you expect so much...acceptance?" I asked Jim.
"Well...dunno...", he shrugged and Eric laughed.
"Hey! We're living in the 21st century!"

We drew our attention to the menue then. Eric chose New England Lobster Boil, while I decided to take Whole crispy red snapper and James fell for swordfish accompanied by feta cream cous cous, roasted eggplant, spun cucumber and so on.
Appetizers were Wood Grilled Tuna Sticks, Classic Olives Crab Cake and Trio of Skewers.
It was fabulous, we ordered a Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay,from Shafer's at Napa Valley 2004 and we had a really pleasant conversation. Eric turned out to be a sport and it was a nice evening.
After the meals we had the champagn and talked about all the world and his brother.