CHAPTER 11
A Party in Napa Valley
Her name was Jill.
It was Friday noon, and I was driving eighty miles an hour—five over—to the Sacramento airport to pick her up for a weekend as my houseguest in Napa Valley. In less than an hour, I would be meeting her for the first time, without even having seen a picture of her! It happened so fast—only four hours earlier—in a phone conversation with my friend Peter, who lives in Los Angeles. The conversation was still fresh in my mind. It’s amazing how quickly things can happen in one’s life, especially in the dating world.
When Peter called me that morning, he and I played catch up ball, swapping updates on our lives and loved ones before he got to the real purpose of his call: to fix me up with a friend of his in L.A., and waste no time doing it. Wasting no time meant that Peter and his friend Jill thought it’d be great if she flew up that morning for a fun weekend with me. Peter told me that he had already sold her on the idea of me. Then he sold me on the idea of her. I didn’t need much in the way of convincing. I didn’t have a date that weekend, but I did have an invitation to a very cool party that night, which I thought might be more fun with a date.
Five minutes after talking to Peter, I was talking to Jill for the first time. She had a terrific voice, which was perky, fun, and sexy, all at the same time. She said I didn’t sound like a pervert, a weirdo, a bore, or overbearing. I guess women and men listen for different things in a voice, although she eventually said I had a nice voice and sounded like a nice person. How nice for me. We laughed enough in those first minutes and, consequently, knew we’d get along. It was a go. We hit it off as much as two people could in ten minutes on the phone talking to each other for the first time.
Five minutes after talking to Jill, I was booking a flight for her on Southwest. I called her back and gave her the details of the reservation that I’d made in her name and hung up. I think Peter’s endorsement had laid sufficient groundwork for what we needed to know. Jill had less than three hours to pack and get to the airport for a timely flight out of LAX to Sacramento to meet me. It was really spontaneous and seemed like a good idea. Jill sounded like a lot of fun, and she was excited about meeting me.
We both might have just signed off on a weekend of mutually assured destruction, I mused. You never know what’ll happen on a blind date—all kinds of possibilities float around in the universe, something I learned over the years from a lot of blind dates. A lot. We both knew there were risks, but—hey—everything pointed to a good time, so we both jumped feet first into the fire, hopeful that we’d have a fantastic weekend together and, possibly, that it would be the first in a string of pearls. I wouldn’t be wrong in saying we were both hopeful. Spontaneous behavior can lead to spontaneous combustion, which could be good if it means the relationship gets really hot; but it could be bad, too, if it means the relationship blows up like an improvised explosive device.
I moved into the arrivals lane and approached the sidewalk outside the Southwest baggage area at the Sacramento airport. I saw a woman who fit Peter’s description exactly. She was about five four and pretty, with long blonde hair. She had a petite frame, which Peter described as “delightfully top heavy.” She was somewhere in her mid-thirties, like Peter, and about ten years younger than me. It was Jill. She saw the flash of my brights on my black Suburban as I coasted up to her and her very large suitcase, which was a double-wide on wheels and, no doubt, packed with a closet full of clothes. Peter said Jill might be a bit on the side of high maintenance, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t have enough data points on that.
I let it go as the only possible red flag that came up. It was easy to ignore because she sounded perfect for a fun weekend and, as one of Peter’s single female friends in L.A., she had enough good qualities that might even make for a good girlfriend. She was a known quantity, at least to Peter. Like I said, I was hopeful, and how could we not have a fun weekend in Napa Valley!
I got out and walked around the front of my car, stepped onto the curb, and warmly greeted Jill, totally content with my first impression of her. Hugging felt too forward, and our height difference made it a tad too awkward for this first meeting. Instead, I threw out an upbeat, “Hi, you must be Jill!” and followed it with a quick handshake and a double handed grab at the suitcase. All of this enhanced the feeling that we were on some kind of adventure, already having fun and with no time to waste. She certainly worked for me visually, and she probably had the same assessment of me. It’s not as if either of us would say, “Hey, this isn’t going to work for me. Let’s just say goodbye now.” Of all the possibilities in the universe, I was pretty sure that wasn’t one of them.
I quickly stuffed her double-wide into the backseat before opening the door for her, which she waited for me to do. That waiting thing was good. It showed that she appreciated a gentleman, or at least expected one. I liked that because I am a gentleman. With a supportive hand engulfing one of hers, I helped her climb the steep grade into the front seat and gently closed the door. Gentle is a nice touch. Sometimes I even surprise myself with how sensitive I can be.
The ninety-minute drive back to my place in the heart of Napa Valley was delightful. We talked nonstop about everything we each wanted the other person to know and asked everything we thought we had to know, at least for starters. Surprisingly, Jill had never been to Napa, so when we entered the valley after an hour in the car, I told her about its evolution from the early hippie days in winemaking through the years it transformed itself into a slice of Italy with the addition of miles of fieldstone walls, accents of Italian cypress trees, rows and rows of olive trees, and of course the ubiquitous Tuscan influences in residential architecture.
The wineries themselves had a different kind of architectural influence. Their design was driven by the need to be memorable, unique, and spectacularly inviting, which was understandable, given the importance of onsite sales to their bottom line. As every valley resident knew, and contrary to visitors’ expectations, the wine sold in the wineries wasn’t a bargain; Safeway prices were always better. The only reason to buy wine at a Napa winery was because it wasn’t available anywhere else, although souvenirs were appropriate as an acceptable reason to buy, but not by the case.
I turned down Ragatz Lane, two miles south of Yountville. It was a dead-end lane of ten aging and dated ranch houses that were being overlooked in the renovation craze, which was feverishly underway. My home, which was at the very end of the lane, was the exception. I had done a major renovation on it three years earlier. It was set deep into the lot by a long driveway, cut off from the street’s flotsam by a thick border of giant redwoods and bounded by a backyard of vineyards and a creek running on one side, creating an impression that it was apart from everything else in the neighborhood and in its own little world. After a drive down the lane, its facade was a very pleasant surprise to everyone, and Jill was very pleasantly surprised when I pulled into the driveway. It was all quite impressive. Yep, you guessed it: I redesigned the house to look like a mini-Tuscan manor, complete with Italian Cypress trees framing the corners of the house and olive trees lining the driveway. I was living the Napa Valley dream, except I didn’t own a winery.
When we entered the house, Jill oohed and ahhed over the decor, trailing me as I hauled her two-wheeled closet into the guest suite, where I pointed out the amenities and left her for a few minutes to unpack. While I waited for her return to the great room, I poured a couple of glasses of one of my favorite Sauvignon Blanc labels to accompany a platter of camembert and brie, a small dish of Kalamata olives, a delicious black olive tapenade from Spain, some sweet red peppercini peppers, and of course some water crackers.
I elected to entertain Jill on my back patio in the mid-afternoon until it was time to go to a very fancy dinner party that a friend of mine was having up valley that night to celebrate his fortieth birthday. By the time Jill returned, I had a display set out for us on the dining table on the back patio, which was like what you’d see
in a gourmet magazine, with only the lap pool between us and the vineyards. It was one of the many perfect settings in Napa Valley, this one happening on a perfectly sunny September day. It was all so perfect. Thankfully, the redwoods on the western border of my lot shaded us from the direct rays of the waning summer’s sun and transported us into a sun-dappled state of nirvana as we got to know each other even better.
I told her that I’d grown up in Wisconsin, which made me a Midwest boy with Midwest values, and that I’d gone to college at Indiana University and stayed there for an MBA before taking my first job in an advertising agency in New York City. She was surprised to learn that after New York, I had lived in Atlanta, Dallas, and San Francisco before moving to Napa. It seemed like a lot of places to her. I didn’t mention a summer in Paris. Jill grew up in Orange County. As a kid growing up in Wisconsin, I told her that I’d never imagined that I’d have a date with a California girl. The Beach Boys made California girls seem like they were from another world—because they were. And I told her that I certainly would never have guessed that someday I’d be living in California.
She said that she’d gone to the California State University in Northridge in L.A., and ever since, she’s lived in Santa Monica. I noticed that she didn’t say she “graduated” from Northridge, only that she went there, so I assumed she didn’t have a college degree. That was a shame, I thought to myself, but not a big deal, not really, so I didn’t press. I safely concluded that she was a California girl through and through—whatever that meant—because she had never lived anywhere else. I suppose I should have asked her if she surfed; that was part of my California girl image. Thank you, Beach Boys.
Two hours passed in two minutes. Suddenly, it was time to prep for the next event. I wanted to allow Jill plenty of time to get ready for the dinner party. I gave her an hour and a half until departure for our twenty-five minute drive up the valley. From our first conversation, she already knew she’d need something dressy for tonight’s party. I suggested attire that was casually elegant for a dinner alfresco, with a light sweater or jacket for temperatures that would be dropping as the evening wore on. I retired to my bedroom at the top of the spiral staircase, which was off the living room side of the great room, over the guest quarters. That left me with more than enough time to get ready, so I turned on the TV to drown out my call to Peter. He wasn’t in, but I left a voice message expressing my deep gratitude for this wonderful and promising fix-up, named Jill, and then watched the news before I got dressed.
Two hours later, Jill still wasn’t ready. When I called down the hall for her status, she called out, “In a minute!”
It was a dinner party, and I hated to be late for dinner parties, but I was still thinking we’d make it in time for the seating. I fixed myself a roadie for the drive up, since I was pretty sure we’d be missing the cocktail hour preceding dinner. Yes, that’s right—a cocktail. People living in Napa Valley didn’t always drink wine. The summer wasn’t over, and my choice in cocktails was a gin and diet tonic with a lime, so that’s what I was fixing when Jill made her entrance.
One look at her, and I thought instantly that it was worth the wait. She had on a silky summer dress. It was above the knee and well below the collar bone, which is to say, it was cut very low and, on Jill, very low was what I called sea level, meaning you could see a lot. Not meaning to dwell on this particular design element, but I have to say that Jill had a lot to see, so consider me lucky. The only thing that saved her from house arrest was the black cashmere cardigan she was wearing. Besides covering her shoulders, it covered a lot. She’d be in trouble if the temperature dropped more than five degrees, something all men at the party would be hoping for when they saw her.
“Wow, Jill,” I exclaimed, “You look fantastic!” It was no exaggeration, and I could I tell she knew it and clearly understood what I meant when I said it was a fancy party. She’d do just fine even if she had lockjaw all evening. Some dates, you know, are better with lockjaw. Jill wasn’t one of them.
I told her about my friends Bill and Susan, who were hosting the party. It was Bill’s fortieth and, as it turned out, a celebration for his meteoric success as well. Their house was in the hills above St. Helena, a town in Napa Valley that is in total denial that it’s something other than a collection of high-priced tourist boutiques. It was their second home; their first was in Pacific Heights. By anyone’s measure, Bill and Susan’s second home was everybody else’s idea of a dream home. It was even Bill and Susan’s idea of a dream home. Inspired by a French Provincial home that Bill loved in Shaker Heights, Ohio, the town he grew up in, it had to be at least eight thousand square feet of tasteful country luxe décor, perched on a hill with a southern view that ran fifty miles over the valley to San Francisco Bay. It was idyllic in a subtly opulent way, and Bill and Susan were the perfect hosts and hugely likable for all kinds of reasons. They would like Jill; I was pretty sure of that. I liked Jill; I was also pretty sure of that.
We surrendered our car to the valet service moments before everyone was being seated. Jill and I were next to each other at a table mixed with some people I knew and some I didn’t. As it turned out, it was a selection of people that were all great fun and made for stimulating conversations in every direction. Jill held her own and, like me, was loving every minute. Halfway into dinner, the birthday toasts began and merriment was rampant. Bill delivered a wonderful and short review of his very interesting adult life. A chorus of the birthday song followed, and then the live band kicked in for dancing into the night, which took place on a platform under strings of paper lantern lights by the pool house.
It’s a shame not to get into details of this exquisitely fun party, but suffice it to say, Jill was a terrific date throughout the evening. She mingled with and without me, returning to my side before I ever started missing her and easily convinced me that I was the best date she had had in a long time. We were mutually in sync on that thought. The hours flew by, and the clock struck midnight, which is pretty late for Napa. By then, we had all been pushed indoors by the chilly air, not wanting to call it a night.
When Jill and I got back to my house, we nixed a night cap, but agreed that a soak in the hot tub was the perfect way to end the evening. I bought into that, though other perfect endings came to mind. I liked Jill, and we had plenty of time left in the weekend to fool around. I decided that the best course of action on this first night together was no action, so to speak. She hadn’t brought a bathing suit for the hot tub, and going native apparently wasn’t in the cards, so she climbed in wearing a black t-shirt I offered gallantly.
We weren’t in the hot tub for long, but long enough to laugh some more and share some secrets. The latter was an automatic, as I always felt that “truth tub” was just as descriptive as hot tub. In what we knew would be the final minute or two in the tub, we each expressed the truth about our feelings for each other in no other way than simply a first kiss. And, like every first kiss shared by two people intensely interested in each other, there was an unbearable joy from the indescribable sensation that occurs in that infinitesimally small space between the anticipation of a kiss and the actual kiss.
For us, time stopped for a very long kiss. It was a blissful moment shared. It sealed a perfect evening together and carried the promise of more of that tomorrow. We climbed out of the tub, toweled off, went inside while still a little wet, grabbed some bottled water out of the Sub-Zero, said goodnight, and went to our separate bedrooms. Tired but happy, we both looked forward to another day together. And, surely, another night.
I slept late into the morning, that is, late for me, which was about nine. I usually get up with the sun, but that’s because I’m usually in bed before two in the morning, which was about the time I’d hit the light in my bedroom the previous night. I brushed my teeth, then quietly made my way down the spiral staircase. It’s made of metal, so it has a tendency to put out a faint echo, which is not so faint if I clump down in a run with hard-soled shoes
. I was barefoot, guided by my desire for a large glass of cold orange juice followed by a sixteen-ounce bottle of Diet Coke. I don’t drink coffee, so I depend on the Coke to launch me into a higher level of awareness. It sounds very Zen. The O.J. was downed in a minute, and I took the bottle of high octane fuel back upstairs with me so that I could work on it through the news on TV. I left my bedroom door open, on alert for Jill’s footsteps padding into the great room.
After an hour of silence downstairs, I slipped into my running gear, wrote a note for Jill, and left the house for a jog along a perfectly suitable path, which tractors had carved through the vineyards. The sun was already hot. Even without it, I would have been soaked in sweat from my hour-long run. I stealthily entered the house, in deference to the possibility that Jill might still be sleeping, but half expecting to see her fixing herself some coffee, which I’d left on the counter before my run. The coffee was untouched, and she was not in sight. “A sleeper,” I thought to myself, and why not—we had a big night, she’s on vacation, and floating on a new mattress with six hundred thread count cotton sheets and a light down comforter. It sounded so good that I thought for a moment I should climb into bed with her. I dismissed the thought, but playfully entertained the idea that I might climb into her bed tomorrow morning, if she’s not already in mine.
I took a shower, dressed for success, and returned to the kitchen to nibble out of a package of Entemann’s Danish, an emergency breakfast that I pulled from the pantry, having skipped the cheese omelet, bacon, and English muffins I would have prepared for the two of us in the morning, had there been two of us in the morning. I went out to the patio to read The New York Times and breathe in the crystal clear and fragrant air of the Valley, filtered by the morning mists and delivered fresh daily from the Pacific Ocean. At a few minutes past noon, I wandered back into the house for another hit of Entemann’s, wondering if I’d ever see Jill again. With a mouthful of Danish decadence, I heard some water rush through some hidden pipe, telling me that the guest room shower just went on. Life with Jill prevails!
Forty minutes later, while I was still working through the paper, and half of the contents of the Entemann’s box was missing, Jill emerged onto the patio with a coffee cup in one hand and some Danish on a paper towel in the other. She was dressed in hot pink capri pants, topped with a white sleeveless cotton blouse, coordinated with shoes that had only a thin pink strap, which made her look barefoot but four inches taller. Her makeup and hair looked like she was ready for a TV commercial for Silky Something, and she could have walked on stage for the talent portion of a beauty pageant, though I didn’t know her well enough yet to know what her talent was.
I motioned for her to sit on the lounge chair next to me, both of us then looking contentedly over the lap pool and out over the vines to the eastern ridge of the mountains that formed one boundary of the valley. The sun was overhead and not too hot yet, although it would be in a couple of hours. So, we enjoyed the magnificent setting and continued with the same kind of animation in our conversations that we had going for us the day before. Jill was easy to talk to. She had a lot to say, which made it easy for me to be a good listener, and she freely spoke her mind. All these were qualities I liked, so I stretched out on the lounge chair, fully at ease with her, and licked the frosting off my fingers from my last bit of Entemann’s.
As we talked on the patio, we ran through topics like a surfer runs through channels, taking in tidbits of information about each other from whatever came to mind. I got around to asking her about her dating life, which I’ve found to be an easy and interesting topic for anyone and often leads to all kinds of stories.
“Tell me, Jill, about the kind of man you want to be with, you know, the kind you see yourself in love with. What’s he like?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” she replied without hesitation. “I’ve been visualizing him for a long time. You want me to start with his looks?”
“Sure,” is all I could say, and it’s all I needed to say, as her tone indicated she was clearly eager to talk about this guy. This should be interesting because I was wondering if she knew who she was talking to and if there would be much of a resemblance between her Mr. Right and the guy on her right.
“He’s tall, at least six feet tall,” was her opening line, and that was good to know because I’m six three. She continued without missing a beat: “I like tall men. Even though I’m short, I want to be with a tall man. I don’t know why exactly. I just like tall men.”
I interrupted, thinking I was being witty and provocative, but being neither, “Does that work for dancing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the height difference. Are you okay with putting your chin on his sternum?”
“On his what?”
“His sternum,” I repeated and said, “This,” as I thumped the center of my chest a couple of times.”
“Oh, like for slow dancing?”
“Yeah, for slow dancing,” I said.
“I don’t like slow dancing,” she said.
I didn’t say anything. She moved on.
“And, of course, he’s got to have a good build—you know, in really good shape. But he doesn’t have to have, like, muscleman muscles; that’s a turn off.” She obviously paused to visualize this guy. “Good abs would be good. Oh, and he should have good hands, too. I pay a lot of attention to hands.”
I interrupted again, placing a hand over my forehead and leaning forward, as if in a gesture of deep thought, so that she couldn’t miss my hand on my head, and asked, “Really, he’s gotta have good hands? That’s important, huh?” With that, I playfully waved my other hand in front of her face. She looked at me funny and didn’t get what I was doing. Since my antics had elicited no comment, I guessed she didn’t really pay a lot of attention to hands. That’s a shame, as I’ve been told I have good hands. I let it go and reclined again on the couch, like a psychiatrist’s patient, but I decided to let the shrink do all the talking.
Her next statement really got my attention. She was looking far away, caught up in this visualization exercise when she said, “I’d like him to have a head of thick, dark hair so that I can play with it.” She sighed over that vision and continued, “I want to run my fingers through it.” Upon hearing that, I’m totally sure she’s forgotten who’s sitting next to her because I’m bald. I let it go, telling myself that no one’s perfect, not that not having hair isn’t perfect. I guess this just meant that I wasn’t perfect for her. She continued her description of Mr. Right, speaking out of a stream of consciousness:
“Of course he’d have to like a lot of the things I like. Having stuff in common is really important, but I don’t mind if we have some differences. Differences are good, in some things. I don’t care about politics or religion, but we should think a lot alike, you know, believe in the same things and like to go to Italy. I love Italy. I love Rome. I love everything over there. Yeah, we could travel a lot and stay at all the best hotels.”
I’m thinking we were still in sync, in a simple way, aside from the hair thing. Nothing she said so far was silly, a deal-breaker, or unreasonable, although the part about staying in the best hotels made me think about the hotels I usually stayed in when I traveled. I winced a bit. They were nice, but they definitely were not the best hotels. Even so, I shared the dream: Maybe we would stay in the best hotels someday. Maybe I could afford them someday. The stream of consciousness was flowing out of her now like Niagara Falls going over the edge.
“I love great hotels—not just in Italy. I love ‘em everywhere. Oh, and I love room service. Sometimes I just want to spend the whole day in bed and get treated like a princess.”
The princess statement made my ears perk up, like radar picking up a UFO. Now that was a statement that planted the first seed of serious doubt that Jill and I were destined to be together.
“Well, not all day, of course,” she flowed, “I want to spend the afternoons shopping. I love shopping—anywhere and everywhere
. I love to shop. I love nice clothes. And nice things. I don’t care what they cost. I can’t help it.”
The flow of her words continued, and I suddenly envisioned her caught up in it, in a barrel, going over Niagara Falls.
“I mean, I care about money, of course, but the man for me would have so much that he would just want me to be happy, to have anything I want. I could spend entire afternoons on Rodeo Drive and not worry about a thing.”
That seed of serious doubt was now rapidly germinating. It looked to me like a study in time-lapsed photography.
“Oh, he would be so wonderful to me,” she said, in a tone that made me think she was going even deeper into her fantasy. “He would surprise me with beautiful jewelry, for no reason at all, just because he loved me so much.”
The seed of doubt had grown into a sapling, and the time-lapsed photography was still in play.
I had to interrupt at this point, having been so quiet. I was rapidly moving into a state of shock. “Jill,” I said, bursting out of my invisibility, “he sounds fantastic. Besides being a terrific guy and doing so many nice things for you, this guy must be hugely rich.” I stated that with the intonation of a question, determined to get absolute clarification of her desires.
She didn’t look at me. She was sitting with a straight back, almost in the Lotus position on the lounge chair, clearly energized by her vision, her eyes transfixed on the horizon. “Yeah, of course,” she answered. “We’d live in Brentwood and be in all the photos at all the big society parties. I love those parties. I absolutely love them, with all the important people and celebrities. And they’d all want to talk to us and be seen with us. And…and maybe we’d have a second home in Hawaii, where we could entertain all our friends from around the world.”
I had just witnessed a seed of doubt grow to the size of one of the redwoods in my back yard.
I was speechless over her idea of Mr. Right. He and I had very little in common. I didn’t even think I’d like that guy. Besides, I was feeling so trumped by him that I easily concluded that Jill had just moved so far out of my realm that I’d rather press my hand on a hot plate than put a move on her. In ten short minutes, she’d gone from very attractive to a delusional space-head, totally mindless of where she was and who she was with. I may have been speechless, but I knew what to say—but I had to stand up to say it.
I rose and stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the vineyards and breaking off her fantasy. “Jill,” I said in the tone of a pronouncement of great importance, “that is some kind of man you see for yourself.” She nodded slightly, apparently in agreement, but also with a look of anticipation about what was next. Maybe she got an inkling that it wouldn’t be good. I continued, “Listen,” I paused for effect and then rolled into my verbal haymaker, “you’re a very attractive woman, and we’ve had a lot of fun together in the short time we’ve known each other, but I’m not that man.” Her eyes got big, and with that, I delivered the coup de grace, making an even bigger declarative statement: “I’m not the man for you, and I think you should fly back to Los Angeles on the first plane you can get.”
Now it was her turn to be speechless. I looked into her eyes and saw them tearing up, and then made a move toward the house, calling out, “I’ll call the airlines right now and get you on the next available flight.” I paused at the patio door, having placed one foot already in the house, and said, “You can get back home in time to go out in L.A., and I suggest you pack now.” I stepped into the house and went to my den to execute the plan, as if I’d just executed Jill. And, in a way, I had.
I noticed that she sat motionless on the lounge chair for several minutes. I think she was crying. At least it wasn’t a shoulder-heaving cry, which would have been very difficult for me to take. Some might say I was a little harsh, but it was honest. We were clearly wasting each other’s time. How could I possibly spend another evening with her after that monologue? I felt it was better for both of us to move forward. She could look for Mr. Right in Los Angeles that night, and I would be free of a relationship that clearly wasn’t going anywhere.
I got her a ticket on the first possible plane back, which was leaving in three hours. She packed quickly, and I knew we could make it to the airport in time. It was only a ninety-minute drive, but it was the longest ninety-minute drive of my life, even at ten over. The silence was only broken by her snuffling, all the way to the airport. At the departures curb, I jumped out, opened her door, set her double-wide on the sidewalk next to her, and then stood before her, face to face. It was a good time to say as little as possible. I put my hands on her shoulders, looked her in her teary eyes, and said, “I’m sorry it turned out this way, Jill. I hope you meet Mr. Right one of these days. Like I said, I’m not that guy.”
I got in the car and drove back to Napa Valley, unexpectedly dateless on a Saturday night. All I could think about was Jill and how right it had felt at the start—and how it suddenly felt so wrong. Of course she felt bad in the end, although I tell myself her tears were caused more by the shock of rejection than the actual rejection. I felt bad too, but I believed the break was best for both of us, however painful.
During the drive back, I called Peter and told him what had happened. “Bummer,” he said. “She’s a doll, but yeah, she’s high maintenance. I just didn’t know how high. Sorry,” he said sympathetically, “real sorry it turned out that way. I guess you did the right thing. Anyway, I know Jill—she’ll get over it. Probably by the time she lands.”
We talked a little longer then signed off.
By the time I got back to Napa, I was over her.
∞