My Lost and Found Life (25 page)

• • •

Lake Tahoe lies in a valley high in the Sierras, along the border separating California and Nevada. Though it is surrounded by forest and snow-covered peaks, most of its shoreline is jammed with resorts, vacation homes, and motels. I had been to Tahoe many times over the years, usually staying at the vacation home Nicole's parents used to own on the lake's north shore.

Patrick and I were scheduled to leave as soon as I finished Friday's shift at the coffeehouse. Malcolm had given me Sunday off, though I didn't tell him why I wanted it.

I had suggested meeting Patrick at his flat, but he told me to pick him up at the Bus Stop, a sports bar on Union Street where his friend Eoin bartended. I couldn't find a parking space, so I stopped at the curb outside the bar and honked.
Patrick appeared in seconds with a small gym bag in one hand. I hopped out to unlock the trunk.

“That's all you're taking?” I said, smiling broadly.

“How much do you need for a weekend?” he asked.

I opened the trunk to show him, and he laughed at the sight of my two bulging suitcases.

“That's more than I brought with me to America. What would you be carrying in those bags?”

“Clothes, of course, and shoes...and
things.
”

It began raining as we crossed the Bay Bridge. The two of us jabbered away, totally oblivious to the downpour. Patrick told me about Ireland and his family and his ex-girlfriend Caitlin.

“Where I come from, you go to a dance, kiss a girl, and she's your girlfriend. The whole town has the two of you married before long. It took me a long time to break free from that.”

“How did you do it?” I asked.

“In the end, by leaving,” he said. “It was the only way. So long as I was there, everyone had expectations, even though I never even thought of asking her to marry me.”

“Couldn't you just tell them?”

“Would they listen? They only hear what they want to hear, my mother in particular.”

I told him all about growing up in Burlingame and Nicole and Scott, even Webb. But I didn't tell him the truth about my mother. If I had told him the whole pathetic story about Diane and the missing money, he would have felt sorry for me. This weekend was all about romance, not true confessions.

As the highway began to climb the foothills of the Sierras, the rain turned to sleet. By the time we reached Emigrant Gap, the pavement was covered with snow and a huge sign proclaimed that chains were required at Donner Summit. We drove back about fifteen miles till we found a service station doing big business in the sale of chains. Patrick gallantly forked over the $55 so that we could proceed up the wet, slippery highway.

We chugged along at a merry twenty-five miles per hour, with the chains noisily slapping the road. Even at such a slow speed, the snowy road was difficult to manage, and we passed several cars that had skidded into snowbanks. I began to worry that we would end up stranded along the highway.

Two hours later we arrived at his friend's cabin. The driveway was covered with a foot or more of snow, so we wedged the car up against a snow drift and plodded to the door, sinking deep into the powder with every step. I was so cold that I didn't care about anything except getting warm.

Patrick immediately started a fire going. The place was a cozy A-frame furnished with a lot of rustic birch-log-type furniture. The sofa was upholstered in blue denim, with a Navajo rug underneath. In the bedroom a king-sized bed was covered with a big red-and-blue comforter designed to look like an Indian blanket.

We found a stereo, a big-screen TV with a DVD player, and a sizable collection of movies. There were board games, snow-shoes, skis, and even a small sled. The cabin had everything you might need to entertain yourself in a winter wonderland.

We didn't use any of it. In fact, we barely got dressed all
weekend. All my article reading and worrying about sexual expertise had been pointless. Patrick proved to be an expert in the bedroom, and I was a very willing student.

He didn't pounce on me the minute the bags were inside, but we were cold and the obvious way to warm up was to remove wet clothing. That led to a great deal of kissing and caressing. We had plenty of time and he didn't rush me.

Since we hadn't thought to bring any groceries, we were forced to eat canned soup, tuna, and other supplies foraged from the cabin's cupboards. But Patrick proved to be something of a cook—he even made biscuits. Finding something to drink was easy. The cabin's owner maintained a large supply of beer, soft drinks, and California wines.

Late Saturday I woke up to the sound of clattering in the kitchen. I could smell the aroma of wood burning in the fireplace mixed with the odor of something delicious cooking. But I was too sleepy to investigate and fell back asleep, only to be awakened a couple of hours later by the sound of Patrick's voice singing “Happy Birthday.”

I sat up to see him standing in front of me, holding a birthday cake glowing with candles. He had borrowed my car to go to the store and baked a cake while I was asleep. Being served a birthday cake by a deliciously naked man has to rank at the top of the chart of any girl's most unforgettable experiences.

“I only had ten candles,” he said. “But I didn't know how many to put on, did I?”

“Nineteen,” I said, sitting up and winding the sheet around me.

He almost dropped the cake. “You're only nineteen!”

“Yes. What's the problem?”

“The problem is I'm a bloody cradle-robber,” he groaned.

“Don't worry. I'm potty trained and everything,” I said.

“I'm very precocious.”

“That you are,” he agreed.

I reached over, swiped a bit of icing from the cake, and licked it off my finger.

“How is it?”

“Yummy,” I said, taking another swipe at the icing and holding up my finger. “Want a taste?”

“Indeed I do,” he said, licking my finger, and minutes later we were at it again. Much, much later I asked him, “How did you get so good at this? Caitlin?”

“Caitlin! My God, I would be standing at the altar with a shotgun to my head if I spent a weekend like this with her. No, you inspire me,” he said.

“Yeah, sure. Try again,” I snickered.

“It's true. Word of honor,” he said, running his finger down my spine in a delicious way. “As you are well aware, there have been a few other romantic encounters before you. When you do a bit of traveling, you meet a girl or two along the way. Dublin girls are nice and English girls too, but you American girls are especially congenial.”

“Congenial.” I smiled at that. “That's a nice word. I'm sure you've known lots of congenial girls.”

“Let's not spoil the weekend by talking about that. Let's enjoy being here and forget about everythin' else. I'm mad about you, even if you are a mere babe. I should give you a spanking for not telling me how old you are.” He gave me a light smack
on my bare bottom. “I would have struggled a bit harder to keep my hands off you if I'd known you were so young. But I imagine you could convince a monk to renounce his vows.”

“You're definitely not a monk,” I said, turning over and reaching up to pull him down to me. “So I tempt you?”

“You've been making me crazy for quite a while. But I'm leaving and you seemed...”

“What did I seem?”

“Oh, I don't know. Vulnerable, I suppose. I didn't want to take advantage of that, but I have,” he said ruefully. “You may end up hating me for it.”

I winced inwardly. Vulnerable was definitely not how I wanted to come across.

“I'm a big girl and I can take care of myself,” I protested. “It's been a very good birthday, believe me. It can't always be this good, can it? I think we must be very special together.”

“That we are, my girl. That we are,” he murmured in my ear.

It turned out that I didn't need the suitcases of clothes and shoes I had brought with me. I didn't wear any of them. By the time we left on Sunday afternoon, I was sore but blissfully satiated. I was also truly happy for the first time in months.

On the Monday after our weekend at Lake Tahoe, Patrick came into the coffeehouse around nine. I couldn't stop smiling at him. Luckily, no one noticed, as business was brisk and the inmates were especially rowdy.

Midmorning, Tom began regaling a group of regulars with the latest installment in his absurd love life, which should have been subtitled “Looking for Sex in All the Wrong Places.”

“I've been keeping an eye on the dating Web sites for you, Tom,” said Mal, pointing to the computer screen and then reading from it. “Here's a good one.
Baseball-loving Brunette. DWF.
”

“Divorced white female,” Tom translated.

“Pretty, buxom, well educated. I can tell good stories and use big words. Seeking compassionate, thoughtful man of means 30 to 45 for intellectual, emotional and physical relationship. No heavy drinkers.”

“That lets Tom out,” hooted William. “He wouldn't understand big words.”

“But I'm full of good stories,” Tom answered.

“She already knows good stories, she doesn't need that,” I objected. “Besides, a fireman is not a man of means.”

“Close enough. You have to know how to read these things,” explained Mal. “ ‘A man of means' equals ‘must have job.' No panhandlers or bums. ‘Compassionate' means ‘someone who doesn't kick dogs and knock down old ladies.' ”

“And ‘buxom' means ‘weighs two hundred pounds,' ” said Tom.

“Only losers or married men on the prowl use the personals to find a date,” William growled.

“My sister's friend Lisa met her husband online,” protested Jerry.

“And he'll be out of prison next year,” quipped Tom, and everyone howled with laughter.

“Have you ever noticed that it's always a friend of a friend, never someone you really know?” I said. “I think that story falls into the urban legend category.”

“Nope, not true,” Malcolm retorted. “I actually met Todd that way.”

That silenced us. Todd was Mal's former boyfriend, the one he still mourned five years after his death from AIDS.

Tom said, “How about you, Ashley? Where did you meet your boyfriend?”

I was startled, then realized he was referring to my mythical boyfriend, Webb. “The time-honored way—in school,” I said, making sure I didn't look at Patrick.

“Girls like Ashley don't have to seek out men,” Malcolm said, giving me a sardonic look. “They fall out of the sky at her feet, don't they, dear?”

“That's right,” I replied. “I have to wear a helmet to keep from getting clobbered when they land.”

At that moment, Bella marched through the door with Stephanie and baby Oliver. Bella was wearing a shaggy-looking yellow coat that came down to her hips. Poor girl, she had chosen the wrong moment to wear her “new” coat. She might as well have been wearing a bull's-eye as far as this unruly bunch was concerned.

“Bella, sweetheart, when did Big Bird die?” said Malcolm. “Why didn't anyone tell me?”

“Hey, Bella, I think you're molting,” William called out.

Jerry made a chirruping noise before adding, “Have a heart, Bella. Give it back. Think of poor Big Bird standing there on Sesame Street, shivering.”

“Shut up the bunch of you.” She made a face at them. “This coat was a bargain. Mike sold it to me for only eight dollars.”

“I have one word for you: Refund,” Tom hooted.

Bella appealed to me. “What do you think, Ashley?”

“It's very, uh...” I searched for the right word and, after mentally discarding
loud
and
hideous,
said, “cheerful.”

“Yes, isn't it?” She beamed. “And it's very warm.”

Just then the door burst open and the wild-eyed man with bushy black hair stampeded through it.

As usual, he was wearing earphones hooked up to a CD player. As usual, he asked in a booming voice, “Is this your book?”

As usual, we all just stared.

Again he yelled, “Does this book belong to you?”

Then Malcolm jumped to his feet and strode over to him.
“This has to stop, pal. We're all tired of this routine. Go
away
!”

Mal tried to stare him down, but the bushy-haired guy wouldn't make eye contact. He began waving the book in Mal's face.

Pushing the book away, Malcolm said, “You know, I've always wondered what you listen to,” and he grabbed the guy's earphones, put them on his own head, and listened intently.

The bushy-haired man went berserk, tearing the earphones off Malcolm and knocking him to the floor. Bella screamed as Malcolm fell. Tom and Patrick simultaneously surged up from the table to help him.

With his earphones in one hand and the book in the other, the man bellowed, “Satan! God will punish you for your crimes!” and stormed back outside.

“That wacko is dangerous,” I said, coming out from behind the counter. “You should call the police.”

“Never mind.” Mal sat back down at the table, assuming a nonchalance that I doubt he felt. “We can't call the police every time some lost soul comes in armed with a book. Anyway, I imagine we've seen the last of him.”

“The Book Man is one inmate that the Madhouse can do without,” snickered Jerry.

“I should have ignored him. It was stupid to get him worked up like that,” said Malcolm, and then he added with a laugh, “This is one of those moments when I wish we served alcohol. Oh, well, let's play Scrabble and forget all this. Sorry, Bella, if the children were frightened. Ashley, give young Stephanie a free cookie.”

Young Stephanie had been watching the whole thing in wide-eyed wonder.

“I just have one question, Mal,” said Patrick. “What on earth was the guy listening to?”