Hitched

Joyce Arend and Laura Lonac
JULY 19, 2003

The first time Laura Lonac tried to flirt with Joyce Arend, she bombed. Back in the summer of '93, the Milwaukie schoolteacher didn't have much practice.

She had just ended a long-term, relationship with a woman. She was closeted at work--she didn't think the community in rural Sandy would support a gay teacher in its midst. As for her private life, very few people knew. She had only just come out to her parents after splitting with her partner. They lived hundreds of miles away in California, but they were supportive. A decade later, they would join her in another country to witness a monumental, if not defining, moment in her life.

Laura was trying to make friends among her peers that summer when she joined the local chapter of FrontRunners, an international queer jogging club. Within that group (and miles away from the school district), she allowed herself to be just that: Laura.

The group ran together and would socialize when the sneakers came off. It was at one of these post-jogging parties that Laura and Joyce first met.

Joyce, then 38 and a medical administrator, wasn't part of the group but had come with another female member. She remembers seeing Laura that night. Indeed, she was quite taken when Laura imitated Madonna in front of the crowd of revelers. But Joyce also recalls thinking Laura was with someone else. "I thought she was so cute, and so funny," Joyce says. "But also so hands-off."

Funny thing: Laura thought the same of Joyce.

A month later, when the group met again, a 'round-the-table conversation led to talk of relationships, and neither woman spoke of a partner. Time to make a move, thought Laura.

But making a move proved harder than she thought. She tried to inch closer to Joyce throughout the evening but only found luck toward the night's end. At that point, she leaned over and delivered this pickup line: "So what kind of music do you like?" It's a stock query that recalls the sweaty palms of teenage dating but also the innocence of puppy love. Laura admits her technique could have been more savvy. "It was totally dweeby," she says.

Laura wasn't totally successful that night. Ultimately, Joyce didn't take the bait. No phone numbers--those victorious indicators of something to come--were exchanged at the end of the evening.

Laura did eventually call Joyce three months later, after getting her number from a friend. The two started dating, and Laura's desire just to live her life increased. She moved into Joyce's home six months later. She eventually introduced Joyce to her family, and now Laura says Joyce is her family's "most-favored in-law."

Though neighbors, family and some of Laura's co-workers knew of the relationship, the couple would still exercise caution while in public for fear of Laura's students "finding out." Finally, three years ago, she'd had enough. After years of denying her private self to have a public life, she quit her job.

"I spent 35 years of my life in hiding," she says. "I wanted this relationship to be open."

On July 19, that desire to share her private life publicly was complete. The women were married in Vancouver, B.C., in a legal ceremony less than two weeks after the province wrote gay marriage into its books. They celebrated outside the city at Whistler Mountain, and also at Vancouver's folk-music festival, where Joyce wore a shirt that read: "JUST MARRIED. THANK YOU, B.C."

Even though Joyce wore the T-shirt, Laura took home the biggest prize: a chance to tell everyone that she'd just married the woman she loves.

WWeek 2015