Chapter 10: Kara, Sallie, and Charlie

Sallie and I picked up a quick breakfast and coffee from Peet’s, and it was cubicle time once again. At the end of the workday, Charlie met us at the PMB tower. We piled into my car, and I headed for home. There was a delicious aroma when I opened the door. “Honey, I’m home!” Kara rushed out from the kitchen. She was wearing an apron over her dress, and she was wiping her hands with a dish towel. I received the usual kiss on the cheek.

“Hi, Dad. So, introduce me!”

“My daughter, Kara, please meet Sallie Macron, with the long hair, and her roommate Charlie Lawton. I’ve told you about Sallie, and Charlie is a city electrician. Kara is supposed to be a high school student, but her school is currently paralyzed by the plague, so she’s stuck here.”

“It smells great, Kara, what are you making?”

Dinner went splendidly. Kara had prepared a fine meal, and conversation flowed easily. The four of us split a bottle of Cabernet, so we were relaxed and cheerful as the evening continued.

Kara related plenty of funny stories about me, and how I bumbled as the single father of a (now) teenaged girl.

“So, I’m having a slumber party with my friends, we’re all eleven years old. We are all amped up on sugary junk and being as rowdy as you can get at that age. Somebody decides we’re all going to practice kissing, and produces a tube of cheap red shit from Walgreens. We’re getting louder and louder, with lots of smacking and slurping, and cries of ‘Oh, I want you so bad!’ and ‘Make me yours!’

“Dad has been overhearing us and finally explodes, bursting in because it sounds like a full-blown lesbian orgy is going on. Of course, we are all fully dressed and what he sees is we all have party balloons coated with greasy red lip marks.”

When the laughter died down, Kara continued: “I can’t believe he thought a bunch of boobless sixth graders were having an orgy. I still laugh when I walk past the lipsticks at Walgreens.”

Kara also related, in more detail, the story of her friend Cynthia, that she mentioned in her note. “Cynthia’s father Terry lost his job and had lots of trouble getting fully employed again. When he was working as a mini-market cashier, he was beaten in a robbery and again out of work from that. Her mom was making almost nothing waiting tables. When Dad found out that I was giving Cyn my lunch money so she could eat, he paid their back rent and three more months ahead so Terry could heal. Six months after that, Terry had repaid my Dad with interest.”

On a lighter note, we heard stories about Sallie. Charlie used her knowledge of Sallie over the years to tease her.

“I’m from here, but I went to college in Reno. That’s where we met and became friends. When she joined me here in San Francisco, she had a lot of culture shock. We had this very unusual extremely warm day and I took her to Baker Beach, it’s the one just a mile southwest of the Golden Gate Bridge. ‘But I don’t have a suit.’ ‘It’s a nude beach.’ ‘OK.’ Sallie’s nervous, but we go, and it’s great. But, as it happens, a couple of gay guys started getting frisky. She’s elbowing me. ‘Did you see that? Can they do that? What about the cops?’ On and on. Small town Nevada girl’s all scandalized. Fog comes in, we go home. Next day, first thing: ‘Can we go back?’”

Sallie, responding to our laughter. “In my defense, they were cute guys, with big, uh, personalities.”