Starting Over

As I reached my late-forties, I found myself somewhat at loose ends. My wife of nearly thirty years had passed on. Ellen had been ill for several years and I really hadn't been able to have a meaningful communication with her for most of that time. Much as I hate to admit it, there was a certain relief in her passing. The vibrant woman I had married in my early twenties and expected to grow old with had disappeared from my life as a meaningful companion shortly after an auto accident. She had remained in a coma in skilled nursing care for several years (thank God for my firm's insurance) and I had religiously visited her, daily at first and at least weekly towards the end. But she really wasn't there and I, though still married, had become accustomed to living alone. Her passing had closed out the last vestige of that part of my life. Because my Ellen was in a care center in San Francisco, I had leased out our home in the Berkeley Hills and taken up residence in a boxy little apartment in the Sunset neighborhood in San Francisco. It provided me with easy access to the institution in which she was housed and to my job in the City's financial district, saving me from having to commute from our home in the hills of north Berkeley.

During that long period of married, but not married, I had focused on my work. I was employed by an export-import company which I owned a substantial part of. I was their senior VP of logistics. If you are going to import and export goods, someone had to focus on getting them into and out of the country on a timely and cost-efficient basis--from our offshore suppliers through customs and to our warehouses, and from our warehouses to our customers, or the other way around if the goods were headed offshore. That was my job. With my ownership interest in the company, it paid quite well.

Six months after my wife's passing, my job evaporated in an acquisition by a much larger company. I was one of the so-called synergies they used to justify the outrageous price they paid for our company. The money I received for my interest in the company eliminated any need for me to ever work again. The job was satisfying enough I guess, but when I am honest with myself, I must admit that it was never what I had desired as a career. It did a good job of paying the bills and I liked the people I worked with, but now that it was gone, I wasn't going to miss it.

So, as I said, I was at loose ends. In a relatively brief period, my need to visit my wife and my need to work had disappeared. There was nothing about the apartment I liked. Its only value had been that it simplified my life, my need to see my wife and get to my job. Those needs were now gone and one thing I was certain of was that I needed to live somewhere else.

Shortly after it became clear that my wife was going to be in a long-term coma, I had leased out our home in the Berkeley hills to a visiting professor. During the long period that followed it was leased to a succession of visiting professors. They make good tenants. They don't throw wild parties and they pay the rent regularly. Importantly, the lease terms allowed me to maintain access to my wine cellar. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to return to living in our home in Berkeley, but for now it was an obvious improvement over the dismal little apartment in San Francisco. It took a bit of effort to dispose of the furnishings from the San Francisco apartment, terminate the lease and move the things I wanted to keep (clothing, books, records, etc.) back to Berkeley. I had given notice of termination of the lease to the latest tenant shortly after my wife died and now that my job had disappeared, I could see no reason not to move back to Berkeley.

The home was a 1920's craftsman style house set on a generous lot in the north Berkeley hills. There were large trees throughout the neighborhood, mostly eucalyptus, fir, and a few large old redwoods. There was a porch off the master bedroom on the second floor that allowed a narrow view between the neighbor's trees of a small bit of the Bay including Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. My wife and I had used it on sunny afternoons to sit, sipping a gin and tonic and watching the fog begin to slip in through the Gate. We called it the G&T deck.

After spending a couple of weeks moving back into the Berkely home and organizing it to my tastes, I realized that I needed to develop a plan B for my life. Sure, I was 48 years old, but for most of us, at least those of us who are not T-boned by a drunken driver at age 40 as Ellen had been, there is a lot of life to live after 48. I thought about consulting with people who could use my logistics skills and quickly rejected that. I didn't want to spend my time worrying about shipments of next Christmas' game toys from Shanghai being tied up on a freighter waiting for dock space in Long Beach.

One thought that occurred to me, as it likely does to many healthy and still active retired people, was to write. My college degree had been an English major, which had nothing to do with my life's work up to now. But there was a start on a novel I had made while still in college. It took a bit of digging, but I found the old partial manuscript. After a day or two of sitting in a coffee house in North Berkeley and on the G&T Deck, I concluded that the best thing to do with the manuscript was to toss it. What seems like great wisdom at age 22 pretty much looks like tripe at age 48. The words weren't bad. I've always been good at spinning out a readable sentence. The problem was what the words said. Tripe, as I said. No, that work was not going to ever see an audience of readers.

During the years of being a near hermit living in my dismal little San Francisco apartment, I had developed a passing interest in erotica. Specifically erotic writing. I had felt compelled to honor my marriage vows to my wife, but I didn't think of watching and reading porn and relieving my sex drive manually as a violation of those vows. The thought occurred to me that perhaps I should try writing my own dirty stories and posting them on the Literotica site just to get some feedback. During those years I wrote and posted quite a few stories. I discovered that there are a goodly number of trolls who love to write scathing, even crude, reviews all of which I learned to ignore. However, there were also reviews that were complimentary and a few that were constructive. I didn't think I was writing anything that was great literature (or even mediocre literature), but people were reading it and enough people were voting a score to give me meaningful feedback on each story. Lacking an idea for the Great American Novel, I continued to spend some time each day writing erotica.

The neighbors that Ellen and I had known had all moved away during the years I lived in the boxy little apartment in the city, so moving back into my old home felt a bit like moving to a new town where I knew no one. The friends I did have were mostly work friends, many of whom had moved to Dallas with the acquirer of our company. As a result, I was surprised one afternoon when I heard the doorbell ring. I think it was original equipment that had come with the house when it was built in 1921. It always made a buzzing sound before the chimes sounded. I had often wondered if it had an electrical short.

I trotted down the stairs from the G&T deck and opened the door to find a relatively tall and attractive woman of about my age standing with several items of my mail that had been delivered to her in error. I learned that her name was Britt Sanders and that she lived in the house immediately next door to me. I introduced myself as Dave Chandler, which matched the name on the mail.

As I chatted with her, I was struck by her appearance. She was tall and slender, not movie star slender but trim for her age, which I guessed to be about the same as mine. She had long blonde hair that she wore stacked on the top of her head. To be fair, it had likely been a gorgeous thick blonde mane in her youth, but while still thick and lustrous, it was now streaked with grey, which she was obviously doing nothing to hide. Her clothing was conservative. Work casual, dockers and loafers a white blouse beneath a blue blazer. Nothing was tight, but still, it looked to me like she retained the bulk of what had been a spectacular figure in her youth.

Our conversation was brief, and as she walked down the walk and driveway I continued to speculate about her figure. The neighborhood is looking up, I thought. Then I laughed at myself, thinking, what do you care, you old goat? You haven't had real sex with a woman since... yeah since Ellen's accident. You can write about sex by simply cloning what you see others write... but really doing it? Not likely.

A week or so later I was sitting in a Starbucks on the first floor of an office building down on Shattuck Avenue drinking coffee as I killed time before an appointment in the building. I heard a pleasant voice behind me say, "Well hello neighbor," and I turned to see Britt standing behind me holding a cup of coffee.

"Oh hello, Britt" I responded. "What brings you down here?"

"My office is in this building. I have a patient coming in to see me in half an hour, but I wanted a coffee first."

"You're a doctor?" I had seen a lifetime's worth of doctors between my wife's injury and her death, and I wasn't really a fan of them.

"Well, I'm mostly retired," she said. "I worked for years as a clinical psychiatrist, but after my husband passed, I quit. I do a little marriage counseling now on a referral basis for former colleagues who want to spend their time on the juicer cases. They really don't want to be bothered with people who are just struggling to live together, but that is about as serious as I want things to get," she said. As she spoke, she was looking about for a table. The coffee house was full.

"Won't you sit down," I said. Okay, not a neurosurgeon, I was thinking.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said. As she sipped her coffee. "That is tough."

"Well, it was three years ago so I am coping pretty well now. I'm mostly done with the lawyers and all of that rigmarole, think God."

"I understand. I have a meeting upstairs with my lawyer to review some papers relating to my wife's estate."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Have you been widowed long?"

"Yes and no," I said. I then explained about my wife's long illness that preceded her recent death.

"Still, I'm sure that her passing was difficult for you. Are you seeing anyone for counseling? I can recommend someone if you would like."

No, I don't feel a need for counseling. My real focus now, beyond sorting out Ellen's estate, is finding a new direction for my life. I recently lost my job."

"Oh how terrible. That is a double hit."

I smiled. "Not quite so bad as it sounds. The job went away in connection with the sale of the company, and since I owned a third of the company, I made out fine."

"Still," she said, "that can be hard."

I glanced at my watch realizing that I needed to get up to my lawyer's office. Looking up at Britt I said, "You know I would love to chat more with you but I must get up to my meeting with my lawyer now. I don't know how long your appointment will be today, but perhaps after work we could get together again. We have a deck on the second story of our house that Ellen and I called the G&T Deck. It has a nice view of the Bay. Perhaps we could get together there for a drink--say about 5:30? Do you drink gin and tonic?"

"Oh yeah," she said with a smile, as I rose from the table. "I drink gin and tonic, and I'd love to join you. 5:30. It's a date. Good luck with the lawyers."

I laughed. "Thanks. I'll need it. Everything with them is complicated, slow, and expensive."

"Yes, I know," she said.

As I walked out the door, I was thinking, "What just happened. I have a date with an attractive woman?"

By 5:45 we were sitting on the G&T deck, a gin and tonic for each of us sitting on the table between the two Adirondack chairs we reclined in. A bucket of ice, bottles of gin and of tonic, a couple of limes and tools necessary to make refills sat on the back of the table.

"My but you have a spectacular view from here," she said as she looked out at the bank of fog just beginning to edge through the Golden Gate and into the bay. I love my little home next door, but it doesn't have a view like this. It's surround by green, which is peaceful and relaxing, but it's not like this."

"How long have you lived there," I asked.

"I bought it just after my husband passed. We had a big home in the City where we did a lot of entertaining, but I just had to get away from that life when he died. I had spent a year or so here between college and Med School and I always thought the Berkeley hills beautiful. The rest of the town is a little crazy, but I've learned to just enjoy this and ignore what's going on down below." She took a long pull on her drink.

"Ellen and I inherited this place a few years after we were married, but I only moved back in a month ago. While she was..." I paused. I never knew quite how to describe how Ellen lived in the long years between her accident and her passing. "Well during those years, I lived in a boxy little apartment in the Outer Sunset. Dreadful little place--cold and foggy. No big trees like this although I could ride my bike over to Golden Gate Park. Its only real advantage was that it gave me easy access to St. Francesca's where Ellen was." I pulled hard on my drink.

"Oh, yes. I know it," she said. "I used to have patients there occasionally." She sipped more of her drink. "I don't miss those cases. Way to often there was just nothing I could do for those poor people."

"Yes," I said. "The Berkeley Hills are a much better place." I raised my glass in a toast.

"I agree," she said, raising her glass in response.

"I think I need another drink," I said, tipping my head and letting the last of my gin and tonic slide down my throat and the ice cubes rattle against my lips.

"Good idea. Let me make them," Britt responded, rising from her chair.

"Marvelous. It's been years since I sat here on our G&T deck with an attractive woman about to make me my second drink of the afternoon."

"Oh so you think I'm attractive, do you?" Britt said. "You hardly know me."

"True, true, but let's have another round and see if we can cure that."

"So Britt," I said once I had a refreshed drink in hand, "What can you tell me about yourself?

Who is Britt Sanders and where is she from?"

"Actually it's Britt Torkelson, and she's from Minnesota. Well that is where she grew up and went to college, but I haven't been there in years. Sanders was my husband's name."

"Ahh, I see. That explains your blonde mane."

She laughed. "Yes, a Norwegian from Minnesota," she said with a faux Scandinavian accent. "But the blonde is fading fast."

"It still looks lovely," I said. But how did a nice Norwegian girl from Minnesota find her way to Berkeley. Was it Mr. Sanders who brought you out here?"

"No, I met Doug after I got here. I came out here to go to Med School, across the Bay at Stanford."

I started to ask her had happened to Doug, but I held myself back. I didn't know how sensitive that question would be.

By the time we finished the second gin and tonic I had learned that she had been a clinical psychiatrist, practicing at a hospital over in the City where she dealt with people with serious, long term, psychological problems: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, extreme anxiety, extreme PTSD, and a few other disorders I had never heard of. "Because I was working in a hospital, my patients were mostly extreme cases that I could do little for. I could prescribe drugs, but once they got out of the hospital, I couldn't assure that they took them, and sometimes they helped and sometimes they didn't. Frequently the side effects were terrible."

"When my husband passed, I inherited a good deal of money and I realized two things: I wasn't enjoying my job and I didn't need it anymore."

"I can identify with that," I said. "I'm sure my job wasn't near as stressful as yours. In fact, I must admit it was basically a bit boring, so when someone wanted to pay me a lot of money to quit, I took them up on it."

By this time the fog that we had been watching roll in through the Gate was reaching Berkeley and it was getting chilly. I was enjoying the conversation, even though we were both tiptoeing around the death of our spouses, so I took a deep breath and suggested: "How about we move inside and I'll order a pizza from La Val's. I have their menu downstairs."

"No need," she laughed. "I have it memorized."

"And I have them on speed dial," I said as I reached for my phone. "What's your favorite?"

She named a topping and I punched up La Val's on the phone as I rose from my chair. Following a brief chat. I hung up and said, "Twenty minutes. It's getting cold up here. Let's move downstairs."

When we reached the kitchen, Britt said, "If you don't mind I am going to run home and change clothes. These are my work clothes and I don't want to drip pizza sauce on them."

Ten minutes later she was back wearing a pair of jeans and an old Cal sweatshirt. She also had a bottle of red wine in hand. We spent the remaining time before the pizza arrived touring my newly recovered home. I couldn't help but notice that the jeans she was wearing displayed a lovely round tush. Even though the sweatshirt she was wearing was old and baggy, it was obvious that she was quite buxom. She had also uncoiled the thick hair formerly atop her head. Now it was in a ponytail that hung down to the middle of her back.

"That looks more comfortable," I said.

"It is. But I try to dress conservatively for work."

I didn't pursue the issue of her dress, having learned years ago that not all women want to hear compliments on their appearance, even if they are well earned.

The wine she brought was a tasty Central California Coast Syrah that went down easily with the Pizza. So easily that I found it necessary to visit my cellar for a replacement bottle when we moved to the living room after having our fill of the pizza. By the time she went home around 11 we had pretty much told each other our life stories (without any of the details about the death of our spouses). We had also consumed most of the second bottle of wine. As I watched Britt walk across my lawn towards her house, carrying the last of the pizza wrapped in foil, I noticed she was wobbling a bit. "Must remember to put a dose of ibuprofen under my belt before I go to bed," I told myself as I closed the front door and wobbled down the entrance hall.

The next morning I felt reasonably well, given the amount of alcohol consumed the night before. The only thing that troubled me was that at some point late in the evening, I had rashly admitted to Britt that I wrote erotica and posted it on a web site. I couldn't remember if I had told her which web site and what the username I used was. Hmmmm. Nothing to be done about it now, I thought. Besides I didn't really care if someone knew about my little hobby. I wasn't planning on running for political office. Besides, it might be a plus if I ran for the Berkeley City Council. Strange place, Berkeley. Later that afternoon I received an e-mail from Britt thanking me for my hospitality and suggesting that we should have a repeat performance, but with perhaps a bit less alcohol. I responded, "Love to. Just name a time."

I didn't hear from her again for a week or so until she again came knocking at my door, this time to tell me she was going to be away for a week, visiting friends up in Napa, and wanting to know if I would bring her mail in, a task I quickly agreed to. For the next few days, I dutifully brought the mail in and nothing unusual occurred, until Friday. On Friday afternoon I was out puttering in my backyard garden. I had fired my landscaping company when I moved in. I have always liked to garden. It was a warm sunny afternoon. As I was pulling weeds along the fence line between my and Britt's yard, I noticed a broken board in the fence that had slipped to one side. When I reached out to adjust it, I saw something that brought me to an abrupt halt. There was a tall blonde woman walking across the grass, who I immediately assumed to be Britt. I was about to say hello when she stopped by a lounge chair and casually stripped her clothes off. She still looked like Britt, or at least what I had imagined Brit would look like naked. She bent forward over the lounge chair to spread out a towel over the webbing, giving me a perfect view of her tush. There was nothing disguised. I swallowed hard as I watched. Then she turned, stretched out on the chair, and began to lather her body with sunscreen.