Chapter 10

Friday afternoon I left work at 4:00 and headed on home. Traffic was horrible and it took me the better part of 90 minutes to make the 20 mile drive. I spent all of Friday evening cleaning my house, doing my laundry and paying my bills on line. I was getting things done early so that I'd be ready to leave at first light and make my way north to Santa Barbara. It was a three hour drive up there but I'd fallen in love with the area when I was in college and had visited the area on several occasions with my roommate who had been raised there. I'd made reservations for one night at a motel just off the beach and planned to stay until Sunday afternoon. I made it up to Santa Barbara a little before 9:00 the next morning, checked into my room, changed into swim wear, grabbed a towel and walked a block to the beach.

I stayed down by the water for a few hours, until I got hungry, and then walked back up to a small Mexican restaurant across the street from my Motel. I had a great chili colorado burrito smothered in sauce and heavily sprinkled with melted cheese. I could almost feel my arteries clogging, but my taste buds kept screaming for more. I drank a couple bottles of Mexican beer with the meal and polished off two large bowls of tortilla chips dipped into three bowls of pico de gallo.After lunch I went back to the room and changed before heading out on Lower State Street for a three mile walk through town. I finally stopped at a cocktail lounge on Upper State Street and had a couple more beers before calling a cab to take me back to my motel. I had a good nights sleep and then spent most of the next morning walking on the beach and generally taking it easy. By 1:00 P.M. I'd checked out of my room and was heading back towards home. I stopped off in Ventura and had some fast food and then drove straight through the rest of the way.

I pulled into my parking space a little before six, having run into traffic just north of Los Angeles. I grabbed my bag and was headed towards my front door when I saw Sandy coming out of her place. She saw me and then waved and started heading towards me. I said hello to her and asked her if she wanted to come in and have a Coke or something. She followed me in and I took my bag upstairs before coming down and getting the two of us some drinks. We were sitting on the couch and I was telling her about my Santa Barbara mini vacation and telling her that I'd had a great time just walking around, window shopping and relaxing. I told her how nice the beaches were and about how few people were actually using them.

"Did your girlfriend go with you?" When she asked this I was a little confused at first, wondering why she thought I had a girlfriend. Then, remembering, I laughed and told her exactly what had happened, including my making up having the date, the girlfriend and everything else. We were both laughing by the time I got through with describing leaving her mom in the pool and Donna's angry exit. I left out the parts about my multiple spontaneous emissions and having to change out of my spunk filled briefs. She said that Donna had come home Tuesday night mad as all get out and had been an absolute bitch to her and her mom ever since.

"So, since you don't really have a girlfriend, Jim, can I be your girlfriend? Please!, Pretty, pretty please!" Sandy was looking at me in an emotionally vulnerable way as she spoke. For a second I wanted to drop through the floor or bite off my tongue, almost anything other than having to dash this girls hopes and trample her tender feelings.

"Listen Sandy, you're better than a girlfriend to me. You are my real friend. Boy, girl, it doesn't matter. We're just friends. If we limit ourselves to the boyfriend/girlfriend thing then you'll just have to break my heart and dump me the first time a good looking ninth grader asks you out to a movie or to a dance or something. I'm 25 and you're 13. We both need to find people our own ages for that sort of thing." I watched her face the whole time I was talking and the visual clues I was getting weren't encouraging. I could see the tears welling up in her eyes and her nose was starting that little squinchy thing that kids do just before letting go with an all out wail. I reached over and grabbed her hands and pulled her to me to comfort her. "Don't be sad, Hon, In a month, you'll have found someone at school and you and I will be laughing about your little crush on me. I promise, if you still want to go out with me in October, I'll ask your mom to let me take you out on a date. Dinner, movie, the whole nine yards. O.K.?"

"You promise, really?"

"Yes, really. Cross my heart and everything." She leaned in and hugged me then jumped up and started telling me all the places we could go together in October. She practically had us engaged. Her enthusiasm seemed a better result than her tearful sadness would have been. Besides, I was pretty certain that my prediction would prove valid and she'd be too caught up in the social happenings of junior high to give my promise any meaning when October finally rolled around. The important thing is that she left my place in a happier frame of mind and the two of us were still friends.