First Posted 28-Apr-2015
There are two women in this story. Names and details have been changed to protect the guilty. The first woman is Bree, married, a ginger, very adept at looking good and lucky to have a wealthy husband who enjoyed her skills. She was his trophy wife. He had gotten into real estate in the Bay Area at the right time and rode the bubble to the top. Their house was in Montclair. Bree was his second wife. They met at the Winter Ball while he was still married to his first wife. He was at the ball for his daughter. It was a tumultuous year and at the end of it Bree was Wife 2.0. Bree had a home in Montclair, a BMW and freedom to do what she wanted, when she wanted, and with whom she wanted. Her job was to be on his arm at events and look good doing it. She set the calendar so he was with the right people at the right events. When I met her she was over the glam and wanted something real.
I, the struggling cab driver and college student, was her walk on the hard side of the tracks, her something real. I met Bree at Laney College when I was both a student and employee under Work Study. Over a month or so things steamed up from very flirty coffee breaks in the student center to an afternoon at the First and Last Chance Saloon in Jack London Square getting drunk and flirtier which led to watching Dangerous Liaisons at the Grand Lake Theater where buttons came undone. On another night we met for drinks at Triple Rock and a very heated few hours that included public fondling. That night ended in her BMW 3-Series coupe with an awkward goodbye when I thought the kissing moment had come. It had not.
Girl #2 was out with friends at Triple Rock and watched us behave outrageously. She found me, called me, at asked to meet for coffee at the French Hotel. Which we did. I was rather underwhelming. Sober, my shyness returns and I get an attack of “do the right thing.” Girl #2 had this fantasy of being ravashed by me in one of the better rooms at the hotel. Not. IRL I was a college student who paid his bills driving a cab. I was raised Presbyterian by an engineer and a social worker. I was/am a brat to some degree. But I was raised to have manners and be a gentleman. I can’t do the testosterone & alcohol fueled bad boy that some women believe they want. I lived in a hotel on Shattuck Ave. Way not impressive. The daylight truth of me and the drunken fantasy were way different. Coffee with Girl #2 lasted about 15 minutes. Total buzz kill.
There was more with Bree. It ended when we took a day trip to Calistoga that was supposed to be hot tubs, nudity and maybe some horizontal bop. I was more interested in driving her BMW fast than seeing how fast she would go. She was scared of the way my inept gear shifting caused grinding gears. She was thinking about something completely different. We were not on the same page. Bree did all the right things. The signals were hard to ignore. Clearly, though she was married, she wanted to make a dishonest man out of me. I wasn’t to be Mr. Right. She’d already married him. I was to be Mr. Right Now and a tool for battling with Mr. Right. I was a pawn.
Even with everything right, with the drunken fondling at Triple Rock, I held true to pattern and didn’t go there. The list of women who almost danced the horizontal bop with me is much bigger than the list of women who did. I could kiss & tell a lot more if I blogged about the women on the “almost” list. I think I’ll let them stay in my head, stay in my past, a memory savored of what could have been. It’s been 7 months since I moved from my hotel. My agreeable nest could be better.
I’m Ginny’s boy. From her, the endless chase for better continues. The nest, though, is good. My hope rests in this truth, that in 7 months I’ve had more interest in me than I’ve had in quite a few years. Let’s just hope I’ll not be so awkward when she shows up in my life.