The Longest Date: Life as a Wife by Cindy Chupack Page A

Ian flung himself over the railing without the aid of a garden hose and tried to balance on a sconce, from which he planned to jump to our friends’ balcony below. The sconce immediately fell off the wall, which left Ian clinging to the edge of the roof like an action hero, except he wasn’t an action hero, so it occurred to me that this might be how our relationship was going to end, with Ian hanging there until his fingers slipped, and then I would have to replace a husband and a sconce.
    We managed to pull him back up, but he remained on what I will call “the wrong side of the railing.” Then he spotted the garden hose on the roof deck behind us, wrapped around a large spindle, and he yelled, “Hand me the hose!” and we all told him to stop, it was too dangerous, but he looked me in the eyes with confidence, and repeated the order,
“Hand me the hose.”
    I did what he asked, and as he looped the hose around his waist, I told him I loved him, but this was stupid. (I thought it might be my last chance to say the words “This is stupid.”) Then, making sure there was no slack in the hose, and using the railing for leverage, Ian planted his feet flat on the side of the building and started to lean back. That’s when I finally realized what he was doing and said, “Oh, like the waterfall!” And he smiled and proceeded to walk down the side of the apartment as we fed him the hose, just as we had walked down a waterfall, except there was no guide, no safety harness, and no real reason to do it.
    Somewhere a landlord had a key to the apartment, but Ian was on a mission.
    So we didn’t ask anyone in the small crowd that was forming below to call the landlord or a locksmith. Instead we watched and then applauded as Ian dropped down to the balcony, opened the sliding glass door, walked through the apartment, unlocked the door he had accidentally locked, went up the stairs to the roof deck, and rescued us and the baby.
    Jason claims he decided then and there that Ian would be his law partner, and they still have a boutique firm together today. Ian had passed the test.
    And I had passed the “travel test” early on, when I went to Central America with Ian. I did several things on that trip that were out of my comfort zone in addition to rappelling down a waterfall—like traveling without any real itinerary; carrying a backpack instead of a suitcase; going without showering; showering without hot water; hiking for ten hours in one day, only to do it again the next day, and the next, and the next to get to Machu Picchu at sunrise; staying with a local family in Lake Titicaca and dressing up in native garb to dance (despite the high altitude, which made dancing challenging even if you weren’t cinched into a native dress); spending a night on a bus, and using the bus bathroom, which was clearly visible from the street when the bus stopped—and, of course, the bus stopped just at the moment that I had finally worked up the nerve to enter said bathroom, so I was on view, hovering above the tin hole that was the toilet, for all of the elderly Peruvians boarding the bus to see. That was
certainly
out of my comfort zone. And theirs.
    Ian did things that were out of his comfort zone, too, like staying a few nights at the Four Seasons Resort Costa Rica at Peninsula Papagayo, which I had arranged like an oasis of hot food (and hot water) in the middle of our trip. For Ian, staying at a Four Seasons was akin to voting Republican. He couldn’t even tell his friends he was doing it. (Years later, at the Amansomethingorother, Ian would be the one on the phone to the concierge, complaining that we didn’t get turndown service and that our minibar needed refilling, but this was early in our travels together, and we were still getting used to each other’s lifestyle.)
    The thing about passing a travel test in a relationship is that all it really means is that you’ve graduated to the next trip, where you will be given a different