It was noon, and I was back on my sunny deck having a ham and cheese sandwich and a beer (one beer only—work day schedule). As I promised myself when I finished reminiscing about how my parents had set me up with Lisa when I was 18, I had gotten on the computer and the phone and done a lot of work this morning—dealt with a few customers who were having problems with the new systems they had purchased from us; talked to several more prospects about what we could do for them; and followed up with the lawyers on the documentation for several pending sales. Yup, Now I was entitled to think about something other than work.
Of course that meant women. I sat back and pulled on my cold beer and wondered what I was going to next, now that I was fully divorced from my third wife. A thought hit me. What I needed was a woman like Linda. Yes Linda would be just what I needed now. Of course like a lot of women in my life, I had no idea where she was or what she was doing now.
Sometime between my second and third marriages I met Linda in a Safeway. It was only a block or so from the condo I was living in at the time. That's another thing about going through a series of divorces—you move a lot. It wasn't until my third divorce that I figured out how to keep my house. It was important to me that time because it was the house I had grown up in in Walnut Creek. I had more or less inherited it after Dad passed and Mom moved in with Lisa. Technically it was still titled in Mom's name which helped with the divorce issue. I guess I was a tenant, but the rent was free. In any case, I had managed to keep it from the clutches of my wife's attorney, and I was sitting on the very deck Dad and I had built, enjoying my lunch—and remembering Linda.
Ah Linda. What a fine woman she was. I have never thought Linda was a woman I should have said no to. I grant you there were a number I should have declined, but not Linda. She wasn't married, I wasn't married. Neither of us was neurotic or otherwise psychologically needy. Nope, we were just two well adjusted, uncommitted, horny people who met in a grocery store. It was great for both of us. No man in his right mind would have said no to Linda.
My affair with Linda began in a Safeway. At that time I was living near the San Francisco Airport. I was peddling software for Oracle, so I was spending most of my time flying someplace. That was definitely a contributing factor to my second divorce (in addition to an oversexed female purchasing agent from Quaker Oats that my wife found out about), so by the time I met Linda, divorce number two was behind me, and house number two (a nice place in Menlo Park) was also behind me. Now I was living in a boxy little condo. It's only redeeming quality was its proximity to SFO.
Actually I knew who Linda was, even if we weren't acquainted before Safeway. She was the United flight attendant that lived two units down from me. It also happened that she had worked the flight from Tokyo that I came home on a couple of days earlier.
Linda (I remembered her name from the name tag I had noticed as she served me meals and drinks on the flight) was a pretty typical looking thirty-something year old flight attendant—average height (maybe 5-5 or 5-6), a little plump, but not really fat by anyone's standards, just not rail thin like Lisa, brown eyes, well closer to hazel, thick light brown hair cut short of her shoulders, and understated make-up, no doubt determined by United's all-encompassing standards for the look of their flight crews. Not unpleasant to look at, but not an attention grabber either.
That day in the Safeway she was quite casual compared to her working look. She wasn't wearing any makeup and her hair was pulled back in a short tight pony tail. The cycling shorts she was wearing show-cased her plump round ass. Her legs were relatively short and very muscular (the opposite of a woman like Lisa, who had become my standard to compare all women's legs against), and the T-shirt she was wearing draped nicely over her large breasts. I guess I hadn't really noticed how buxom she was when she had her working clothes on. I think United designs those outfits to hide their flight attendants' real body shape.
I had dropped into the Safeway to pick up a bottle of wine to go with the leftover take-out lasagna I had in the fridge. Linda was standing before Safeway's extensive wine rack having an existential crisis as she tried to select a wine. Okay, maybe that was overstating it. She was having trouble deciding what to buy.
I walked up behind her and said, "Hello. Too much to choose from isn't there?"
She turned and looked at me. "Do I know you?" Not really hostile, but making it clear that I better have a good reason for bothering her.
"Not really," I responded. "Day before yesterday I was seat 11A on the flight in from Tokyo."
"Oh, yes. I remember. The talkative computer salesman." Actually I sold software, but no reason to correct her on that trivial detail. Tech is tech.
"Yes, that's right. I think we also live in the same condo complex. I'm in unit 2703. Bay Shore Estates, just down the road. I think I've seen you around a few times when we both happen to be in town at the same time."
She smiled. "I suppose that's possible. I'm not here that much. Goes with the job description."
"I know. I have the same problem. I'm off to Singapore next week."
"Not my flight. Paris day after tomorrow. I get a layover there for a couple of days, and then a flight to . . . hmmm, somewhere or other domestic, I think." She laughed. "There are days when I'm not sure where I'm going until I get on the plane and look at the script for the preflight announcement." I liked her smile.
"Oh you mean the part where you say, 'Welcome to United flight something-or-other to someplace-or-other, and if you're not going to someplace-or-other I suggest you de-plane immediately.'"
She laughed harder. "You know," she said, "I had a dream one night where I started to read the announcement but the flight number and destination were still blank. I had no idea what to say, so I just made something up. There was only one guy who was paying enough attention to hold up his hand."
"It wasn't me. I'm definitely not the guy listening to the pre-flight announcement. But, then what happened?"
"I don't know. I woke up."
I laughed.
"You looked like you were having difficulty selecting a wine," I said.
She smiled and said, "Oh I can select one, but I don't want to drink a whole bottle and I hate to pay for it and then find half a bottle of wine vinegar on my counter when I get back a week or ten days later."
"I understand the problem. Happens to me too."
She looked at me for a moment or two while I stared at the wine rack.
When she spoke up she said, "I've got an idea. Don't take this the wrong way, but suppose we buy one bottle and share it."
This is where I could have said no, but that would have been a really dumb thing to do, and it never really crossed my mind. Instead I said, "Is this where I say, 'your place or mine?'"
"That was the part about not taking it the wrong way. And my place is a mess so let's go to yours. Oh and I'll buy. What do you like?"
"Cabernet."
"Good, so do I."
"And," I said, "if you like reheated take-out lasagna, I have enough in my fridge for two."
"How old is it?"
"Last night."
"As long as it doesn't go back to before your last trip to Tokyo."
"No, no. I have a strict statute of limitations on the contents of my refrigerator. That's why it's usually mostly empty."
She reached for a good bottle of Napa cab from the top shelf and said. "Great. Let's go."
