We met in front of the hotel. She walked toward us, older, but still blond and recognizable. Actually I would have known her anywhere. We had never been a couple, just two people from the opposite sex who happened to be friends. We had once been close, but time and distance eventually defeated even our best efforts to stay in touch. My wife Sheila looked on while we hugged each other. Alison Krauss’ music played in my head. By the end of our visit, she and Sheila had become fast friends.

 

 

“No kissin’ on the lips,” I said for old time’s sake.

 

“You never wanted to be my boyfriend,” she said with a smile.

 

“Yes, but I wanted you to want me to be,” I replied, laughing as we headed for her car. “So, how have you been?”

 

She guided me through a tour of her life after we lost touch. First, a transfer from UC Riverside, where I used to give her rides home to South Pas, to UC Davis. “It was the 60s, but I was a cheerleader at Davis, which was something I didn’t get to do in high school.” There aren’t many parts of the world she hasn’t traveled to. Beijing? “Yea, I was in the streets with the protesters. I’m going back in November and then I’m taking a bike trip in Viet Nam with my son.” This lady's middle name is Adventure, and her love of life and people still strong.

 

As she was giving us a tour of the city, I started to tell a story.

 

“I know what you’re going to tell about,” she says.

 

“What?” I asked.

 

“Our grown up dinner,” she said smiling.

 

“Then you tell it.”

 

“OK.. . . . . Jim was a junior and I was a sophomore. Jim’s mom decided he should learn how to take a girl out to dinner. You know, like a grown up. And he says, . . . . ?

 

“Mom, I don’t have anybody to take,” I say on cue.

 

“Right.”

 

She makes a quick turn in front of a large truck. In the back seat, Sheila throws herself onto the floor. She hardly breaks stride in her narrative.

 

“So Jim’s mom, you remember how she was, right?” Nods all around in the vehicle. She says; take that nice blond girl.”

 

“I believe she said, ‘take that saucy, blond tart,’ but go on,” I say.

 

“Right. Anyway, Jim’s mom is paying for everything, which is a really big deal, so he calls me . . . .”

 

“You were the fourth person I thought of,” I say.

 

“. . . . At four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. . . .”

 

“I was working through a list.”

 

“. . . . To go out that night.”

 

“I knew you’d be home.”

 

“Thanks. I should have said no, but when Jim said he wanted to take me to the Westward Ho, that ritzy place right off Fair Oaks Avenue, I changed my mind. I’d heard about that place, but I’d never been there, and the thought of a steak. . . .”

 

“And my boyish charm.”

 

“. . . . just melted my reluctance to be available on such short notice. So we went to the restaurant, we had our great steak and the waiters treated us well, . . . .

 

“And then She decides she wants a menu. And she says . . .P l e a s e.  The menus were huge, it was going to be a challenge.”

 

“And leather,” she adds. And of course, Jim wants to be my boyfriend and so he. . . . .”

 

“In your dreams.”

 

“. . . . And so he lifted the menu as we left and stuck in his sport coat.”

 

“Anchored deftly by my arm.”

 

“You wore a sport coat?” my wife interjects.

 

“That was the point,” she says, “to go out to dinner like grown ups. We were both fifteen. I was dressed to the nines, and my mom did a super last minute job on my hair.”

 

“She turned some heads I’ve got to tell you,” I add.

 

By this time we had arrived at her condo, which is in subsidized housing on Greenville Island, a beautiful area almost right on the water. It’s a huge complex. She explained that all the units on the ground floor are the co-opt units. The condos above are market driven rent and they contain some people who resent the rent controlled housing below. Her place actually opens out to a small yard where her imaginative energies have created a beautiful garden.

 

She opened the door to her unit, set us each up with a beer, and disappeared down the hallway. Minutes later, she emerged holding something behind her back.

 

“TA DA. And here it is.,” says She as she holds up the tattered leather remains of a menu.

 

“You kept it, how cool,” I said.