With the first ring of the phone, I tried to turn the alarm off. The second ring of the phone awoke me instantly. I sat up, wondering what emergency was happening that I was getting a call in the dark hours of the morning. I noticed the clock as I reached for the phone, well past 1 am. Nothing good ever happens when the phone rings at 1 am.
"Jim? It's Gloria, from the airplane this afternoon? Umm, do you think I could take you up on your offer of a place to sleep?"
Hmmm. Maybe good or bad at 1 am depends on which side of the phone you're on.
Gloria gradually spilled a little of the story on the way home. She didn't say anything for nearly 5 minutes, then with a sigh admitted that maybe I'd been right after all. "Ned," if that really was his name, met Gloria at the airport, and she'd known almost from the beginning that he wasn't quite what he'd said he was.
The svelte executive that worked out regularly was actually overweight with a modest beer belly.
The well to do executive actually drove a 96 Honda Accord, that wasn't exactly in the best shape.
The nice restaurant turned out to be TGI Fridays.
The movie was a movie - but from there it went downhill. She'd literally taken her bag and walked away from him in the Gas Lamp district just after midnight and spent another hour trying to find a hotel room before she finally called me.
An hour and a half later we pulled back into my driveway, nearly 3 am. I'm an early riser; and having been two time zones out of whack for several weeks, I certainly wasn't in much of a mood for chat, but as with most newcomers to my home, Gloria was mesmerized with the view.
Nearly 500 feet above the surrounding valley, the view on a clear night can be incredibly spectacular, and this one was exceptionally clear. The neighbors had all turned in; my hill was an island of darkness surrounded by the glittering sea of city lights below us, shimmering in the dissipating heat of the day. Miles to the west a fog bank was rolling in, a line of increasing darkness behind it as the lights below disappeared one by one. I knew from experience on a night like this the fog wouldn't reach as far inland as we were; in the morning we'd awaken to a crystal clear morning. Although I've been accused of having a million dollar home -- it's actually only a half a million dollar home with a million dollar view.
Gloria was in awe of the city stretched out below us, but I didn't give her that much time to ooh and ah. I took her to the guest bedroom, showed her where the bathroom was, where clean towels were; told her to make herself at home. I told her she was free to go back out on the balcony and absorb the view if she wanted but that I was going back to bed, and bid her goodnight.
For the most part I've been an early to bed and early to rise guy for years. By the time I got Gloria home and settled it was almost time for me to normally wake up. I went back to bed, but it was only about an hour and a half later that I awoke with the sky already turning grey to the east. I knew it wouldn't do any good to try and go back to sleep, instead I got up and headed out for my morning run. Most mornings I do about 8 miles, which takes about an hour. When I got back, I quietly checked the house, the silence telling me my guest was still asleep. I knew Gloria hadn't had much sleep; I'd had most of a full night, so figured I wouldn't see her for a couple of hours yet.
It doesn't do any good to take a shower and clean up immediately after a run, being all hot and sweaty. I'd developed a ritual of jumping into the pool to rinse the sweat off, then taking about 15 minutes to check the chemical balance, skim the surface or vacuum any dirt and leaves from the bottom, take one more dip, and by that time I could go in and shower without being immediately sweaty again afterward. Having a private backyard and living alone, the ritual began with shucking my running clothes and not getting dressed again until I'd finished my shower. This morning I did no different; thinking that Gloria would be asleep for quite a while yet -- I went for my swim and didn't put anything back on.
The pool towels are kept in the laundry room which is just off the kitchen. When I'd finished cleaning and taking a second dip I grabbed my running clothes and walked naked to the house to get a towel. I dried myself off so I wouldn't drip through the house, wrapping the towel around myself when I was done. Normally I'd leave the towel in the laundry; I thought nothing of walking naked through the house. This morning however, knowing I had a house guest that might awaken as I was heading to my room, I chose to be slightly more modest. I could smell the coffee ready, the automatic coffee maker is a wonderful slave -- so I stepped to the kitchen get a cup.
The kitchen spans the width of the house. A sink at the one end had a picture window backdrop with a panoramic view of the valley below, while at the near end a picture window presented a panoramic view of the pool and yard. Standing near the window overlooking the pool, dressed in a white bathrobe and holding a cup of steaming coffee, was Gloria.
"I can't say as I've ever seen the pool boy doing his chores in the nude before."
"I'm sorry, Gloria. I wasn't expecting you up, I thought you'd be asleep for quite a while...."
"Oh it's alright. It's already after nine back home. I smelled the coffee, and figured I'd join you. I just wasn't expecting a Chippendale show. She stepped over to the coffee pot and poured me a cup. "Black?" I nodded. I noticed the French Vanilla container opened beside the pot, an empty sweetener packet lying beside it.
"One thing about it, it appears that you actually take care of yourself the way that Ned said he took care of himself."
I took a sip. "I take it Ned wasn't all he claimed to be?"
She was obviously ready to tell me much more about what the night before than the snippets she told me in the car. "I would say Ned wasn't ANYTHING he claimed to be. He wasn't well off, he doesn't take care of himself." She shook her head in disgust. "I thought I'd found a nice guy, someone that wanted to get to know me." She pulled a chair out at the table and sat, leaning her elbows on the table. I did the same.
"What made you think he was a nice guy?" I asked, recalling our conversation on the plane the previous day.
She sighed. "I don't know." She shook her head; I waited while she collected her thoughts.
"I guess I just wanted him to be, you know? I mean, after the divorce, I was a real mess. I was depressed, my world was upside down and for the first time in my life I was actually alone. At first I gained a lot of weight, practically all I did was eat. My daughter was off to school so I was alone a lot. I felt ugly, so I dressed ugly. I was ugly."
"I find it hard to believe anyone ever thought of you as ugly."
"Why thank you, but there was one person that surely thought I was ugly -- me. Whether I was or not, I felt ugly and that's what counted. Eventually one of the girls at work talked me into going to the gym with her. I started exercising more, which got me to start eating less and thinking better of myself. It took about two years, but I lost all the weight I'd gained over the previous two years. I almost got back to my high school weight before I got pregnant, but I'm just not built that way anymore. I started going out with the girls once in a while, and eventually started meeting some guys at the bars, began to realize maybe I wasn't as ugly as I'd felt. I dated a few guys, all disasters. Every last time the guys thought that if I went out with them on a date, I should be going to bed with them." She took a sip of coffee.
"I met Ned on the internet about 6 months ago. He sent me an instant message, and I responded. He seemed safe enough, being in San Diego, so I didn't think he'd be wanting to meet or anything, so I started talking to him. At first every couple of days, he'd pop up with a hello. He seemed to like the things I did; seemed to be interested in me, and I began sharing things with him that I didn't have anyone else to talk to about.
Eventually he started asking me about myself. How tall was I? What color was my hair, what color were my eyes. Was my hair long, or short? Did I wear makeup? It wasn't all the time, sometimes he'd ask me two or three things, sometimes only one, but when we'd say good bye, he always put what I'd told him in a description of me when he said goodbye."
"I don't understand, he'd describe you when he said goodbye?"
"He'd always say something like "Until next time, my 5 foot 4 lady friend." And then the time after he'd maybe say "Ta Ta, my five foot four green eyed lady friend," and the time after that my five foot four green eyed brown haired lady friend. That sort of thing. He always called me his lady friend.
