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The Chris and Anita Huerta Story by Anita Huerta
Chapter 1
I was already engaged to somebody named Larry when I first met Chris in Denver, Colorado, at Montclair Baptist Church. I attended Colorado Woman's College at 1800 Pontiac Street during the week and played the organ at Montclair Church on Sundays. During my junior year in college one December Wednesday evening at choir practice at the church Chris appeared. I had never seen him before and it surprised me that everyone else in the choir knew him. Toward the end of the rehearsal he came and sat beside me on the piano bench and put his arm around me - pretty chummy for someone I didn't know. I didn't see him again until February because I returned home to Montana for a month for Christmas vacation through January.
In February Chris appeared on Sunday morning and sang in the choir. I had been engaged to Larry since the previous August and was wearing a nice diamond ring. Chris didn't seem to notice that. After church he offered to drive me back to the campus, but I declined, saying I was engaged and couldn't spend time with him. I began walking back to campus. Chris tagged along. On the way he asked, "Will you marry me?" I just laughed. It was a joke, right? He walked me all the way to my dorm and then walked back to the church to pick up his car.
That year I had season tickets to the Denver Symphony. When Chris found out, he asked if he could take me to the symphony. I declined the invitation. But I did say that if he wanted to buy a ticket and go to the symphony, I couldn't stop him. He bought a ticket and appeared at the symphony with a pink rose. After that he began calling me at school. We didn't have phones in our rooms and I had to answer the calls on the pay phone down at the end of the hall. The phone would ring; someone in the closest room would answer and come and get me. We talked for an hour or more two or three times a week. The first week in March my fiancé came home from Turkey where he had been on assignment with the Air Force. I gave him back the engagement ring. While Larry was in Denver that week and seeing me every day, Chris sent me a dozen red roses at the dorm signed "Jenaro," which was the name Grandma Huerta had wanted him to have - but that's another story. I told my roommate that "Jenaro" was a nickname for John. My fiancé’s first given name was John. I told her he acquired that nickname while he was in Turkey. Big lie! Chris called me after Larry had left, and I told him I was no longer engaged. He asked me to go for a ride on a Thursday afternoon. I cut all my classes and went. We drove all around Denver talking and talking. The next week he took me to the Red Slipper Inn for dinner. This was a popular very expensive restaurant on Colorado Boulevard. During dinner he held my hand. I actually saw stars.
On March 16 Chris took me dancing at the Woolhurst Country Club to a St. Patrick's Day party. The next day I was leaving for Montana for spring break. He drove me to Cheyenne to meet the bus, so he could spend more time with me. I didn't tell my parents anything except that I had broken off my engagement to Larry. Chris had asked me to call him while I was gone. I couldn't do that at home since my parents didn't know about him, so one night at the movies, I left the film for a few minutes and called Chris on the pay phone in the lobby. He said he would pick me up at the bus station when I returned to Denver.
For two weeks we spent quite a bit of time together. I missed a lot of classes and Chris left work quite a few days. Easter came. The organ at Montclair Baptist Church was in the back of the church in the balcony. When I looked down on the congregation I saw Chris come in and sit with his daughter and ex-wife in church. I saw that they had been a family and felt really bad about the breakup of that family. That afternoon I told him we couldn't pursue this relationship, that he should go back and heal up his family. I tried to break up with him, but he told me that he had tried everything for two years to save that marriage and she still left him. The divorce had been final in December the week before I first met him. He still wanted to marry me and this time he wasn't joking. I stalled for a week and then decided to go ahead. After all, he made me see stars when he held my hand. I had gone out with 34 guys and nobody else made me feel the way Chris did. I had three proposals of marriage. Chris's was the third. I called my parents at home and told them I was getting married.
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