Chapter 37

Things were going really well with my relationship with Diane. I had brought her over to the house for dinner, and to meet my parents. For once, my father behaved himself, and they told me later that they both liked Diane a lot. I had taken her out once earlier in the week, and then we spent Friday together at my parent's house. On Saturday, we drove down to San Diego and rented a nice hotel room, coming back late Sunday night. It was when we were driving back to Orange that the trouble started. Diane was sitting next to me, snuggled on my shoulder. She had been talking about the great weekend we had just experienced, and wondering what was in store for the following weekend.

"Next weekend I'm going to be up in the Bay Area, I will be there until Monday afternoon. We can go out on Tuesday and Thursday though."

"What are you going up there for? Can I go with you?"

Somewhere in the back of my head, I had known that I was going to need to explain Connie to Diane. I had even tried to come up with some explanation that Diane might be able to accept and live with. The problem was, any such explanation would have to contain at least one lie. I didn't want to deceive Diane. I didn't want to not go see Connie. Everything had been set up and arranged for me to go up and spend the weekend with Connie. She and I had both been looking forward to it. In spite of the obvious fact that Diane and I had gotten very close in the past two weeks, nothing had changed about my feelings for Connie. I was definitely planning on sleeping with her, if she was willing.

"It's something that was set up a long time ago, and I can't get out of it."

"You can't take me with you?" If I was going to start lying to her, this was the time to do it. I can't even use the excuse that I didn't know how the truth might cause a rift between us. I did know. I didn't want to lie to her though.

"I'm going up there to see a friend of mine. We've planned it for weeks, and I'd need to change too many things at the last minute if I brought you along with me. We'll go up there together some weekend, when I can devote my full attention to being with you."

"Is this a guy friend, or a girl friend?" This was definitely going to be my last opportunity to lie to her, and stay out of the trouble that I knew would be coming if I told her the truth. These are the pivotal moments that you look back on, years later, and ask yourself, 'what was I thinking'? Hell, I was already forming that question in my mind as I wrapped my lips around the answer.

"My friend is a girl. Her name is Connie, and she goes to Stanford. I promised her that I'd come up and visit her this weekend. She's a freshman, and I'm the only friend she has from Fullerton, who can come up and spend some time with her. She might be a little bit homesick. She's never been away from home before."

"Are you going to be sleeping with her?" One last opportunity to salvage something. The way she asked the question, I already knew that an affirmative answer would most likely ruin any future relationship we might have. If I even hesitated, before I answered her, it would be a problem.

"Probably."

Diane looked at me, took a few deep breaths, and then started easing back away from me in the car. She was silent for the next few minutes. When she did speak again, her voice was quiet, subdued.

"You weren't even going to tell me either. I could respect you, if you had brought it up yourself. But, I can't accept what you are planning on doing, or the way you just assumed that it was okay not to tell me. I don't want you to try to see me anymore, Jimmy. I don't want to have anything more to do with you. You can leave me alone from now on."

We didn't speak all the rest of the trip back to the campus. When I parked, I got out and opened up my trunk so that she could get her suitcase. When she grabbed at the handle of the bag, I put my hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off, angrily, and just left me standing there, watching her walking out of my life. I felt bad, angry with myself. I should have handled everything better than I did.

I'm not proud about doing it, but I told my guardian to let me know anytime that Diane got into any situation that was sexual in nature. I didn't need to wait too long either, the next afternoon Diane was over at Leon's apartment. I took some comfort from the fact that he was unable to get even a slight erection, in spite of her new breasts and her oral attentions to him. I had the guardian stop the tape, and instructed him to cancel my previous instructions concerning Diane's sexual activities. Friday morning, at six o'clock, I flew up to Palo Alto, I rented a car at the airfield, and drove over to the Stanford campus to see Connie.

The weekend didn't go like I had planned. We went up to San Francisco and got a room at a nice hotel. We walked around, sightseeing, went out to eat, made love. We talked about Diane, mostly about how bad I felt at losing her. Connie's own dating activities had already taught her how hard it was to keep everything in any kind of balance. Connie hadn't had actual intercourse with anyone at school yet, but she said that she probably would one of these days, just to have a basis for comparison. She had experienced a lot of heavy petting already, and was almost certain of who she was going to sleep with first. We laughed about the 'first' that she had appended to her sentence.

I was still feeling guilty and sad when I brought her back to Stanford and kissed her goodbye. We both knew this weekend had marked the end of our time of sexual intimacy together. We both wanted to keep our friendship, but thought we would stick to writing each other letters for awhile. We knew it would be hard to keep from having sex if we spent any time together right away.

I got back in my plane and flew up to Salem. I had a cashier's check for the bank mortgage loan on the Lowery farm, and a mortgage contract of my own to give me a first mortgage on the farm itself. I had set the interest rate at 5% per year. In all, I had $67,000.00 invested in the Lowery's future. Florence and I had a little heart to heart talk after everything had been taken care of with the loans, and with the recording of the new mortgage. Diane had called home, and she and her mom had talked about what had happened between us.

"I wasn't expecting you to come back here, Jimmy. Not after what happened between you two. Can you tell me what it is you hope to gain from it? You've done a lot for our family, just by finding Tim and bringing him back home. All that money besides, what do you want from us?"

"You all seem convinced that I'm after something. I've had some time to think about things, and you're right. It isn't something from you that I'm looking for though, it's something from me. I want to make a difference in people's lives, a good difference. I already tried living just for me, and it didn't work out. It didn't make me happy. Doing this for you, knowing that I've made a difference, does make me happy."

"What about Diane, you certainly didn't make her happy?"

"I know, I didn't make her happy. I feel bad about that too. I wish it hadn't ended like that. I didn't handle any of that too well. I'm sorry about how it turned out."

I took my time flying back home, wanting some time by myself to think about my future direction. I stopped off in Fresno first, and then, Santa Maria, staying for a day in each place, trying to convince myself that I had learned some valuable lessons with these latest two relationship endings. I asked myself whether I had any legitimate complaints? Having experienced both ends of the spectrum, I knew now the old saying was correct, it was better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all. Better, definitely, but better with a price.

For me, love seemed always to bring with it some pain. It was a lesson definitely worth learning. I flew home with a resolve to proceed slower in my future relationships. I thought part of my problem might stem from how quickly I went from the first meeting with someone, to establishing physical intimacy with them. I wasn't looking for someone so that I wouldn't be alone any more, and it wasn't just to get myself laid either. I wanted to find someone that I could spend a lifetime with. I didn't know whether I would be capable of achieving that, but I knew that I wanted to at least try.

I spent the next month concentrating on business. The professor at USC had sent pictures of the two vases to several museum curators as part of the process of comparing them to other examples of porcelain work from the same dynasty period. When I went back to retrieve them, and to pick up the authentication paperwork, the professor informed me that there was interest in purchasing the vases from a museum in New York, and another in Chicago. He provided me with names and phone numbers of the people to contact at each place.

When I got back home, I called the Chicago number first. The man I spoke with there seemed more interested in getting me to donate the vases than in making a purchase. I told him that museums weren't the type of charities that I wished to support. For some reason, he took offense at that. We ended our phone conversation on less than cordial terms. The man in New York tried a similar approach, but when I told him I was looking to sell the vases, he offered me $30,000.00 for the pair. I told him that I was pretty sure that I could do better than that at auction, or even with a private antiquities dealer. He wished me well, and even admitted I was probably correct in my assessment.

I phoned the professor at USC, mostly as a courtesy to him, informing him of my two contacts, and the results. He told me to be patient, there would certainly be more interest in the vases once word had gotten out about their condition, and their availability for sale. When I pressed him for an estimate of their possible value, he reluctantly told me he had never seen a better example of one of the vases. To a private collector, having the best example of a type or a period was more important than price. The value was only limited by the money available to the collector who felt he needed to own it.

He said he knew of several private collectors that might be interested in bidding on the two vases, and asked if I wanted him to undertake the task of getting the word out and then handling all the bidding for the vases. He told me he would charge me a five per cent commission for his services. That sounded quite reasonable. I told him that I would accept his offer to handle everything at the five per cent commission, but specified that I would not accept less than one hundred thousand dollars for the pair. He agreed to that stipulation, and I arranged to deliver the vases back into his possession. In another week, A sale was consummated and I received a check for $123,500.00 from the professor. A good return for my eight dollar original investment. The professor was happy with his $6,500.00 commission too.

Ken and I also did our first partnership together, using the new split investor concept. We bought some land up near Santa Barbara, and hired someone to plant and tend the vines for grapes. The man we hired had been working as an agricultural teacher at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, and wanted to introduce a new, hybrid strain of varietal grapes to the California Central Coast. He wanted to produce grapes for a Cabernet Sauvignon wine. I knew less than nothing about any of it, but Ken was certain the tax write offs for the risk partners would be greater than 250% of our total investment. The income partners would receive 9% per year, and the profits from any future sale of the investment would be split 90:10, favoring the risk partners. I took 30% of the risk shares offered. One advantage I had going in was knowing the land itself would be worth a lot of money in a few years, regardless of whether the grape growing was successful. For the first three years of the investment, the risk partners would need to keep putting in money to pay the debt service on everything. After that, if all went well, the grape sales would handle that for us.

It had been more than a month since I'd last heard from Diane. She called my house, leaving a message with my mother, asking me to contact her when I had the chance. I had flown Ken up to San Luis Obispo so he could talk with his grape expert, and pick up the receipts for the purchases made on the partnership's behalf. It was eight o'clock before I got back home. My mother told me that Diane had phoned, and then gave me her message. I went out to my car and drove down to the college and went to her dorm building. In a minute, two girls came out of the dorm and I asked one of them to go back and tell Diane that Jimmy Gordon was out front waiting for her. In five minutes, Diane came down to see me. It started out as a strained time, neither one of us being comfortable, or knowing what to say to the other.

"I wanted to tell you thank you for going back up to Oregon and doing that for my family. My mom wrote me a letter about it right after, but I was still too hurt and angry to call you and say thank you."

"You're welcome. I was glad to be able to do it for them."

"I guess that's all I wanted to tell you, just thank you."

"All right. I'm sorry about what happened. I shouldn't have ever gotten myself in a situation like that. I know it put you in an uncomfortable position. Me too. I don't know if it means anything, but Connie and I are just friends now."

"No, it doesn't mean anything now. I've moved on. I've been going out too. I should tell you thank you again for these." She put both her hands on her boobs and gave them a little shake. "Ever since I've had them, I've had my pick of boys around here. You'd think they never saw a girl with breasts before."

"Well, those are exceptional boobs. It isn't like they are all the same, those are top notch, grade A boobies." She laughed.

"I guess so. I've received many compliments on them. Even from some girls. Have you been going out too, Jimmy?"

"Just that one time, Diane. I guess I learned a hard lesson from that. I haven't really felt like going out since then."

"I'm up to twenty seven boys now, plus I was with Leon again, but he seems to be having a lot of problems with his health. He can't make love anymore."

"I could fix that for him. I probably should have anyway. I did it to him to punish him for how he treated you."

"You did that to him? He's having a real hard time with it."

"I'll fix him back to how he was."

"No, don't do it. He's relied on his pecker way more than he should have. Keep him like he is for awhile longer. He needs to learn a lesson too. Are you mad that I've been letting other boys screw me?"

I knew my answer would be important to her. As open as she was about her sexual experience, I knew it was a protective defense mechanism with her. She might talk about it openly, as if what other people thought of her behavior didn't concern her. I knew it was important, and I wanted to give her an answer in a way she could accept, and still be happy with my response.

"I'm jealous of them. I wish it had been me and not them. I'm mad, but at me, not you. I hope you did it because you wanted to, and not just to get back at me for hurting you, and letting you down like I did."

"You really did hurt me, Jimmy. I told you the truth about Leon, and I sure would have screwed him if he'd been able to do it when I went over to see him. I went to see him the very next day after my classes were done. I did my best to make him want me. I was still so mad at you then. I made it up about those other three boys. I thought about doing it with other boys though. I couldn't face doing it though."

"I'm glad you called me. It must mean you are thinking about forgiving me, and giving me another chance."

"I don't know about that. Now I've seen you again, I'm getting mad all over again."

"Don't do that."

"Why not? You deserve it."

"Yes, I know I do. Still, if you let yourself get mad at me again, you aren't going to let me kiss you. I know I don't deserve it, but I want you to forgive me and to let me kiss you. I'm having a hard time right now looking at you, and not taking you in my arms for a kiss."

"It isn't easy like that. I'm not just going to forget what you did to me."

"I didn't ask you to forget. I'm not going to forget either. Forgive me. I'm sorry I hurt you."

"My mother told me I should. She told me how sad you acted, and how different you were on that last visit. She said I was going to have a hard time finding anyone better. I'm thinking about letting you kiss me. Partly because I'm wondering if you will feel different or the same to me. If I do let you kiss me though, it won't mean I've decided to forgive you."

I kissed her. We were standing in front of her dorm with the light from the front door shining on us, so the kiss had to be fairly innocent. I stepped away right after the kiss, and looked at her. She looked over at me too.

"Well?"

"It was the same. I almost wish it wasn't. I don't have to be in until ten o'clock. Do you want to go somewhere for a Coke?"

My watch said eight fifty five, we had an hour. I tried to take her hand, but she shook me off. I walked beside her and opened my car door for her. I drove us over to a liquor store, went inside, and bought two bottles of coke. I drove back over to a side street near the college and parked the car. We sat there, sipping our drinks and talking about a lot of things, everything but what I was hoping to talk about, us. It was a Wednesday, and it was getting late. In five minutes, I'd have to drive her back to her dorm. I wanted to ask her for a date, but I didn't want to make her mad by rushing her.