Elizabeth and Neil Saunders finally achieve the life they always wanted

Elizabeth & Neil Saunders

There was high drama in the Monsignor Donovan Catholic High School parking lot: Two boys were fighting over a girl. A crowd gathered. The dean of students broke it up.

Elizabeth, the mortified girl in the triangle, pushed through the phalanx of bystanders. For Neil, a mouthy kid who frequently found trouble, seeing one of the “good kids” in that spot was irresistible. “Nice going, Liz!” he shouted.

“F- you, Neil Saunders!” she yelled, surprising even herself.

That day in 1991 was the first time Neil thought he just might have a chance with Elizabeth.

They danced at a teen night that summer, but Neil’s first real opportunity came when someone’s parents busted up a house party he and Elizabeth’s sister Dominique both attended. Elizabeth picked up her sister, who suggested the whole group — Neil and another boy included — come to their house for movies.

As eight teens watched Ice Castles in the dark of the rec room, Neil placed his hand against Elizabeth’s. When she didn’t move away, he kissed her.

The boys scampered off at sunrise so as not to be discovered by Elizabeth’s mother and stepfather.

“Then I made the horrible decision to play it cool,” remembered Neil. Five days later, his bedroom phone rang. “Why didn’t you call me?” Elizabeth asked.

Thus began the first of many phone calls that stretched into the wee hours. “We understood each other completely,” said Elizabeth. “There was no high school BS when it was just us,” said Neil. “It was a break from our friends, and a break from who I was trying to be back then.”

Both his parents and hers had divorced when Neil and Elizabeth were young. Neither felt unloved by any parent or stepparent, yet the splits had been hard for them. They never had anyone to talk to about it, until they had each other.

They talked a lot, as a senior and junior in high school, about building a family of their own one day. “We didn’t care about money, or houses, or anything like that,” said Elizabeth. “We just wanted our own little family, with our own traditions and your everyday family stuff.”

They started living that life early. “She had been queen of the school, and her friends were like, ‘Where are you?’ She was not at basketball games, at the Snow Ball, at the pep party. And my friends were like, ‘Why aren’t you out in the woods with us, drinking?’ "

They were driving to the mall to buy candles, and around town to look at Christmas lights. All was idyllic until spring, when Elizabeth said she would accompany him to his junior prom, but she had missed her friends, and was going to her senior prom with a bunch of them, one of whom would, technically, be her date.

Neil was hurt and angry. He thought ahead to fall, when she would be at college, leaving him to struggle through high school alone. When Elizabeth went on her senior trip, Neil went out with friends, got drunk, and hooked up with another girl.

Elizabeth found out and broke up with Neil.

***

In the fall of ’93, she was off to college to study elementary education.

“My big senior year was studying how much alcohol I could consume,” said Neil.

Elizabeth’s sisters told her that Neil was running wild. “When you’ve seen the best of somebody, and you only want the best for this person you love, hearing about them being destructive hurts bad,” she said. “I told them not to tell me.”

She graduated in 1997 from Monmouth College and launched her teaching career while also waiting tables and traveling the country to see Bruce Springsteen.

***

Neil had dropped in and out of Ocean County Community College for three years when his parents said they couldn’t continue to pay for something he didn’t take seriously. He hated the trajectory of his life, and at 21, quit drinking completely.

Neil found work in the kitchen of Georgian Court, then a small Catholic women’s college. Men could take night classes and, since Neil was an employee, he could take them for free. “For the first time, I felt like I had options,” he said.

Neil’s life was work, school, and surfing. He dated, but not seriously.

Neil remained friends with Elizabeth’s sisters, so he was tangentially aware of her life.

When Dominique moved to Hoboken, it was decided that Elizabeth and Neil should share the drive to visit her. It felt like they were 17 again, until Elizabeth said she and her boyfriend were serious. The return trip was silent.

Elizabeth eventually broke up with her beau — she usually did when things were headed toward a proposal.

Two years later, Neil walked into a Bay Head surf shop to pick up a fin for the board he was making. He heard Elizabeth’s laugh from the other side of the store.

Her sister Kathleen spotted Neil and waved excitedly. Neil saw a man standing with Elizabeth. He steeled himself.

“Hey!” said Neil.

“Oh my God, hey!” said Elizabeth, who put her hands on her head to hide her hair. “This is not what I normally look like!”

Neil realized Elizabeth still cared what he thought of her and almost felt bad for her boyfriend.

***

Another year passed. Elizabeth, who was teaching in Point Pleasant and living in Bay Head, was at the deli when her mother motioned to a guy buying a drink.

“I know him. Lizzy, how do I know him?” she asked.

Neil was trying to avoid eye contact. “I figured she was going to be married one of these times,” he said, and he dreaded hearing that news.

Neil had spent the past year working full time, studying full time, and making a movie about East Coast longboarding on nights and weekends. The premiere was in a couple of weeks in Long Beach Island. He invited Elizabeth.

Elizabeth’s boyfriend was visiting from out of state, and the surf movie premiere was on one of his last nights in town.

It was Neil’s big night. Both of his parents were beaming. The house was packed. “All I can think about is, where’s Elizabeth?”

And then, there she was.

They hung out that night. Elizabeth broke up with her boyfriend.

***

Three months later, Neil bought an engagement ring. He graduated college in 2002 with a double major in history and education, then went on a long-planned March surfing trip to Australia and New Zealand.

“I’ll cut the last leg short,” he told Elizabeth. “Meet me in California?”

Neil skipped meals the week before to afford the fancy Santa Barbara bed and breakfast where he gave Elizabeth an Easter basket. She cracked open a plastic egg and found the ring.

The couple married in May 2003. For the first 18 months, they lived in Neil’s mother’s basement to save money for the 100-year-old Tuckerton house where they still live.

A few years later, daughter, Annie, now 14, was born, and then son, Mickey, who is now 8. Both times, the delivery room was packed with all eight grandparents.

“Everybody just loves our kids, and it closed a lot of circles,” said Neil. “All of these people give the best of themselves to our kids. How could you not love that?”

Elizabeth teaches special education at Frog Pond Elementary in Little Egg Harbor. Neil teaches high school history at Pinelands Regional. In normal times, the family takes vacations that highlight important historical events. They cook together from the Betty Crocker Cookbook, attend Mass at St. Francis, and spend as much time as possible at the beach.

Now both 45, the couple still consider a trip to the mall a fine outing.

“We went to Land’s End last week and Neil got three more pairs of khakis,” Elizabeth said.

Both delight in achieving the predictable, stable, and fulfilling life they had always wanted together.