Paul and I had slept together on only a few scattered occasions since the weekend in Denver. His knowing Scott and my having gotten to know his girlfriend kept us from taking it further. But we still met often for after-work drinks or late-night rendezvous at dive bars. To be truthful, ever since the first night at his house in Pacific Heights, I’d fallen a little bit in love with him, just as I’d predicted. Not head over heels. I loved Paul the way I’d loved the first boys I’d noticed in prepuberty, as part playmate, part specimen of simple masculinity: sturdily built, fun-loving, mischievious.
A boat engineer, Paul had access to several lightweight speedboats that were so fast and unsinkable they were sold mostly to the Coast Guard. Occasionally in the early afternoon, he’d text me.
Out on the bay. Ferry Building in 30 mins?
I’d gather my things and scoot from the office as if getting lunch. On Market Street I caught the F train or any bus heading westward toward the piers, and jumped off as close to the Ferry Building as I could. I rushed past the crowds standing in line for tacos and burgers to the small boat launch just north of the building, where Paul was waiting. Large twin black engines hummed at the boat’s rear, their weight causing the bow to bob higher in the water. The entire craft beamed with the luster of horsepower. “Hello, love,” he said as he helped me climb over the big inflatable rim onto the stern. “Hello, Paulie,” I said, hugging him and pecking his cheek before taking my place in the thick padded seat just in front of the engines.
He climbed into the tall, middeck captain’s seat, took the wheel, and slowly backed the boat into the bay, curving out of the pier and away from the crowds of the Ferry Building. This was my favorite part, leaving land, leaving everything else behind and heading into the waters around Alcatraz. The powerful engines quickly gained speed. The predictable chop bounced us like an amusement ride—boom, boom, boom, each landing swelling me with juvenile glee—until we reached the Golden Gate Bridge. In midday, the fog had cleared and the bright sun curtailed the penetrating chill. Cars looked like small, distant objects slowly traversing the span above. We passed under the ominous shadow of its towering orange beams. Emerging on the other side where the bay met the ocean, the boat suddenly took on bigger waves, went airborne. This was the place where ships arriving from Asia used to crash and sink in the fog. Paul calmly navigated the whitecaps with quick turns while I sat back near the engines, letting the spray hit my face. As he torqued right, I leaned over as far as possible, dipping my hand into the opaque water. It was bracing cold.
On our way back to the city, I took the passenger seat near him, watching the heart-shaped prow ply its way through the spray. The music blended with the noise of the engines and the satisfying plunk of fiberglass hitting water. He grabbed my hand, leaned closer so I could hear, and said, “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“As a friend.”
“Me too. As a friend.” We laughed out loud at how corny we sounded and I squeezed his hand, feeling a jolt of the passion we’d shared in Denver, happy to let it burn slow and long, fueling our friendship with its cellular memory.
The beauty of San Francisco’s postcard skyline lies in its compact Mediterranean whiteness. It suggests that while the typical big-city sins will transpire here, the sea will wipe them clean as sure as it has since the first weary urbanite fled to a beach town to escape his past. This beckoning vision magnified before us as we approached the pier. Paul slowed to no-wake speed and parked where we’d started. I got up, hugged him goodbye, jumped out, and rushed back down Market Street, skipping lunch and returning to my desk with the taste of salt on my lips.
When we weren’t on boats, we were on bikes. Paul would call around seven as the workday came to a close, asking if I wanted to drive out to Ocean Beach. I’d shut down whatever story I was working on and run downstairs. He’d pull up on his black Viper wearing frayed jeans, thick-soled boots, and an expensive leather motorcycle jacket zippered to the neck and loaded down with secret compartments. “Robs!” he’d say as he flipped his visor back and unlocked the extra helmet from the side of the bike. “Let’s do this.” I’d stuff my hair into it, throw my bag across a shoulder, and slide on.
Paul drove fast, up and over the steep slope of California Street and out to Fulton, where there were fewer stoplights and he could accelerate to highway speed. I’d need both hands to keep from sliding off, my right gripped to the seat handle behind me and my left around his waist. He’d weave through traffic so tightly I could almost feel my knees brushing the sides of the cars, could almost see the Viper’s mirrors swiping theirs. We’d pass mile upon mile of Golden Gate Park, a peripheral swath of cool green darkening to black, and when we arrived at the beach, he’d take a left down Great Highway and let the engine go, all the way to eighty, eighty-five, ninety.
Waves broke to my right. Low pastel houses blurred to my left. The dashed yellow line merged to solid below my boots. One brake light, one rock, and we’d be killed. So be it, I’d think. This is a fine moment to die. Me, the woman who once harbored a body-wracking phobia of highways, and bridges, and tunnels, and airplanes, and restaurants and grocery stores and even, in my worst moments, of simply leaving the house. Paul and his Viper transported me back to the summery cusp of womanhood, when my unshackled mind and downy legs beckoned me toward the woods and the high rocks, when I roamed free, body and soul thrumming with the simple wonder of being alive.
This is why I loved Paul, why I called him my best friend: because he returned me to wind and water. As we sped down the seam of the Pacific, I let go of his waist, tempting fate, then grasped it, silently thanking him for helping resurrect a girl I thought I’d never meet again—the girl I’d been before the fear set in.
* * *
Once a month, Jude and I met at the city’s best vegetarian restaurant for lavish meals. We sipped cocktails soaked through with fresh ginger and lemongrass while he successfully hit on one cute waitress after another.
“You’re a real Casanova for such a sensitive vegan healer,” I teased.
“You’re just jealous.”
“Not me. I’ve had you. Let the other girls take their turn.” In truth, I did feel rejected by Jude’s sexual nonchalance, though it also relieved me of worrying about breaking the serious-relationship rule I’d established with Scott.
Afterward, we rode a cab back to Bluxome and went up to the roof deck. We each took up a cushiony lounge chair and lay silent as the downtown skyscraper lights and a few distant stars twinkled awake.
“I often think we’re perfect for each other,” he said quietly. “I can talk to you about anything. But then I remember our age difference.”
I turned to him. “And then there’s also the fact that I’m married.”
“It’s so strange. I always forget that.”
“Do you think maybe it’s part of the reason why you’re so comfortable with me? Because you can’t have me?”
“Ouch,” he winced. “Maybe.”
“I mean, look at the women who swarm around you. You’ve got a certain something.”
“The seduction cycle is so tiring, though. I’m tired.”
“You’ll figure it out,” I reassured him. “You’re only thirty-two. You have a lot of time.” I’d have given anything to be thirty-two again, with ten years of healthy eggs left in my womb, for in my mind, regardless of child-bearing, that biological marker formed the dividing line between the first half of life, when every moment thrilled with potential, and the second half, when even the best moments harbored a seed of loss.
“What would you do if you were going to die in a month?” he asked.
I thought for a minute. “I’d go see my family. I’d probably go to Europe one more time with Scott. And I’d have to do something with my box of journals. Probably burn them. What about you?”
“I’d try to achieve enlightenment.”
“Why? You’re probably going to become enlightened the minute you die anyway.”
“I don’t want to transcend anything,” I said. “I feel like my spirituality goes in the opposite direction, down instead of up. The more I listen to my body, the closer I feel to God.”
“That’s the difference between you and me.”
“That, and the eating animals thing.”
We went downstairs and I made herbal tea while he cued up a new album on his iPod. “You have to hear these guys,” he said. “They’re called Fleet Foxes.” Jude had introduced me to Bon Iver over the summer, this being the year of haunting falsettos and wistful harmonies. Fleet Foxes sounded like they were singing from deep inside an ancient grotto, a jaunty meldody underlying a sad chorus that kept ending shadows of the mess you made. Once we crawled into bed, he quickly fell asleep, leaving me alone with the lyric resonating in my ears—shadows of the mess you made, shadows of the mess you made. I wondered why both Paul and Jude seemed eager to spend time with me when there was no sex. Perhaps being with me gave them a break from all those available women who expected a relationship to go somewhere. With me, they got acceptance, the very thing I couldn’t bring myself to give Scott. Of course, it was so much easier to accept men who’d never seen me at my worst, and on whom I never let myself depend, than to accept the one who knew and loved me best. The irony of it turned my stomach, made me ashamed. I think I actually groaned, right there next to Jude in bed.
And yet, I couldn’t usher myself to that level of acceptance. Among the cast of characters who roamed my mental landscape, one of the most vocal was a kindly old Asian man: round-faced, bald-headed, decked out in crimson robes. He looked a lot like the Dalai Lama, in fact. He said, Your spiritual task at this juncture is to unconditionally love your husband. Ask nothing more of him. Expect nothing to change. To do so, I’d have to surrender the thing I wanted most, which Scott had actually named. “You want a deep, psychosexual connection,” he’d said. Exactly. Giving up that desire felt like dying. I had several personality traits I could stand to lose, but not this one. This one felt too close to my core.
Meanwhile, I continued to pine for Alden. In the two months since I’d last seen him, the project had stalled. Each day when I got home from work, I checked the mailbox, wishing for a message via the one avenue of communication I’d left open to him. All I ever found inside was junk mail.
* * *
The weeknights I didn’t spend at OneTaste or with Paul, I spent with my coworkers at the various parties the magazine hosted—museum openings, mixology contests, concerts, formal galas. One week we’d sample tequila at the newest bar in the Mission and the next we’d don floor-length gowns for the opening of the San Francisco Ballet or Opera. The magazine’s biggest party of the year coincided with the “Hot 20 Under 40,” the annual issue dedicated to profiling the city’s up-and-comers. We held that year’s Hot 20 party at the new DeYoung Museum, an icon of modern architecture recently remodeled from the ground up and reopened in Golden Gate Park. I rushed home from the office to Bluxome, slipped on a silk turquoise dress and heels, pinned my hair up, and drove to the DeYoung, where I spent the night schmoozing with fashion designers, playwrights, and tech startup founders.
Several of us migrated to an after-party at a crowded new spot in the Financial District across from the Transamerica Pyramid. Our little group of editors was joined by men from San Francisco’s top social tier: native sons, well-heeled investment bankers, Silicon Valley elite. One of the latter was a scruffy mid-thirties eBay early employee, synonymous with multimillionaire. He was clearly smitten with my friend Ellen, but she was uninterested, and after she left to go meet the man she was dating, he asked if I wanted to get something to eat in Chinatown.
In the fluorescent 2:00 a.m. glare of Yuet Lee, where many of the city’s chefs went to scarf down clams and squid after closing up their own kitchens, it quickly became apparent just how drunk Mr. eBay was. I wasn’t sober either. Six hours of free vodka and fabulous chatter had my head spinning in that mildly delirious way that lends everything import. He had recently rented a house around the corner. In the course of our conversation, I learned that he’d likely bedded several women I knew.
“Come sleep over,” he said.
“Not a good idea.” I shook my head. “Ellen’s one of my closest friends and you’re kind of in love with her.”
“I don’t want to have sex with you,” he said, motioning his hand back and forth as if wiping a window. “I’m totally into Ellen. But you’re cool. Let’s be friends! Seriously, let’s just hang out and then go to sleep. My bed is really big. We won’t even touch. Plus, you can meet my dog. He’s the greatest dog in the world.”
I laughed. “You’re weird.”
“I know. Whatever.” He signed the check and put his jacket on. “So come on, just sleep over. Seriously. Wait till you see this dog.”
“Okay.”
“Cool!” He put his arm around me and we walked a few blocks, then turned into a dark residential alley. Beyond his security gate and up the front steps, his golden retriever was waiting at the front door, wagging his tail. He walked straight back to the bedroom and plopped onto the bed, picked up a guitar lying beside it, and started strumming it while his dog settled itself against his legs. The dog was indeed a beauty.
Before long, he was snoring as I lay on the other side of the king-sized bed in the dark, petting the retriever. What if he ended up dating Ellen? How weird would it be that I’d spent the night at his house? And also: Why did I keep finding myself reliving a perennial scene from my marriage, the man snoring soundly while I lay awake steeped in self-recrimination? All that had changed was the location of the bedroom.
The clock said 4:00 a.m. I slowly got out of bed, collected my shoes, and tiptoed to the front door, where I petted the dog goodbye.
Fall is San Francisco’s warmest time of year, and the air was caressing and tropical. I walked barefoot for a few blocks and emerged onto Columbus. The shuttered bakeries, shops, and cafés stood silent, the street deserted except for the occasional passing car. No distant sirens, no cabs, not a person in sight. When I started coming to San Francisco in my twenties, with my ex-boyfriend and later Scott or my friends, we always ended up in North Beach. I’d traversed Columbus a hundred times with the crowds. In my thirties, while living in Sacramento and then Philadelphia, I had a recurring dream: I was walking through a blacked-out San Francisco alone at night, up one hill and down another. I couldn’t find a soul. All I could make out were the darkened windows of the buildings I passed and, as I crested each hill, the lights on the two behemoth bridges out in the vast expanse of water. I’d awaken from the dream frightened and lonely. Now that it had come true, I felt nothing but the intrepid joy of solitude.
Shoes in hand, I turned down Columbus and headed toward SoMa, wondering if I could walk two miles barefoot on asphalt.
18
Orgasmic Meditation
I WALKED INTO ONETASTE for the weekly Wednesday night InGroup and immediately sensed a difference. The downstairs room, where everyone gathered beforehand, went lopsided, its locus tilted to a corner where a tall, long-haired woman sat talking with a few others. I recognized her as Nicole, the founder, and even though people scattered about the room, all eyes aimed in her direction like compass needles leaning north.
Eventually we came within each other’s orbit. It was hard not to stare. Her beauty was classic enough to surpass most women’s yet unique enough to warrant inspection. She was of Sicilian stock, lithe, olive-skinned, and almost golden-haired, dressed in expensive jeans, high heels, and a silky blue top.
“Nicole, this is Robin,” Noah said. They were friends from way back, before OneTaste.
She reached out a tapered hand, the ring finger adorned in a thin band of diamonds shaped like an X, and offered a hearty handshake. “Oh, I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, beaming. Her stron
g Roman features sat slightly off-kilter, and she spoke with the tiniest hint of a lisp. These imperfections only added charm.
“I’ve heard a lot about you, too,” I said. The few articles published about OneTaste painted a somewhat murky portrait of her past: She had studied semantics and Buddhism, been married and divorced, and suffered a kind of breakdown in her late twenties after the death of her father. All this brought her to the hands of octogenarian Ray Vetterlein, a holdover from the seventies sex-commune scene in California, who took her under his wing and taught her about orgasm.
The remainder of what I knew I’d gathered piecemeal. I’d heard, for instance, she was currently on a macrobiotic diet, and noted that some others were trying it too. Several of the female instructors tended to dress like her. The group sessions she led were called darshans, the term traditionally used by Hindu gurus. Most strikingly, she had coined the highly specialized language used at OneTaste, which nearly everyone mimicked. Positive attention of any kind was an “upstroke,” negative attention a “downstroke,” and feelings of attachment were “limbic resonance.” She preached the long-neglected virtues of the mammalian limbic brain as opposed to the rational cerebral cortex. Whatever she posted on Facebook, OneTaste members echoed word for word, thought ripples on a lake.
I barely recall the rest of that first brief meeting, perhaps because I tried to just stand my ground and not give in to the general swoon. The only swoon I craved happened in the bedroom, far from the realm of language and the power of naming.
After she left, I turned to Noah.
“She reminds me of someone historical,” I said. “I know, Helen of Troy. The face that launched a thousand ships.”
The Wild Oats Project: One Woman's Midlife Quest for Passion at Any Cost Page 13