21   During the so-called daylight-saving part of the year, the time difference between Hawaii and California is the same as between California and New York: three hours. The standard time difference is only two hours. But on my trips to the East Coast I always managed to internalize the difference in the course of the flight and arrive at Newark or JFK like one living on Eastern time, with no jet lag. This time, on the other hand, on the morning after my return from Hawaii I was fast asleep when my phone rang. The clock read eight-ten and my immediate thought was I’m going miss the hike before I picked up the handset. “Hi, Gary, it’s Libby. Welcome back!” “Uh… Thanks! Hi, Libby.” “Did I wake you up?” “Yes, but thanks again. I needed waking up. Can I call you back?” “Sure, but listen to the news if you get a chance.” I bounded out of bed, turned on the radio and quickly began to gather my hiking clothes in order to put them on as quickly as possible. I had showered before going to bed and the night had been cool – cool even by San Francisco summer standards, and a good twenty-five degrees cooler than the Kona nights – so that I felt no need to shower again. Someone was taking Daniel Schorr’s place in reviewing the week’s news with Scott Simon. I thought I heard a reference to Hurricane Katrina – old news by this time, it seemed to me – when I realized that they were not saying Katrina but Rita, and that that a hurricane by that name had made landfall during the night on the Gulf Coast, this time including Texas in its path, and one of the places in Louisiana that Rita had hit was Lake Charles, the home of Andy’s maternal family. I immediately guessed what Libby had to tell me: Andy was back in Louisiana, helping people in need, and this time probably his own kinfolk among them. By eight-thirty I was dressed, had eaten some rice cakes with dried fruit and nuts, had brushed my teeth and was starting my drive toward the Golden Gate Bridge. There was no delay on the bridge approaches, and I made it to Rock Spring with time to spare. Before getting out of the car I called Libby. “So Andy’s back in Louisiana,” I said. “No, he’s in Houston, but you get the idea.” She laughed. “He helped a bunch of people, including his family, evacuate from Lake Charles. How was Hawaii?” “Wonderful. I completely lost track of the news. I made a point of not getting an Internet connection, and I never watched any news on television. I’ll check my personal e-mail tomorrow, and I won’t bother with anything related to work until Monday.” “Good. I’d like to come in and see you Monday afternoon.” “It’ll be great to see you. Have a good weekend!” “Thanks. I’ll try,” she said with a sigh and hung up. Did that sigh mean, I wondered, that in the two weeks since her reunion with Andy she had become so attached to him that having a good weekend without him would be an effort? And then, as I was getting out of the car and walking to join the already-formed hiking group, an ineluctable certainty began to form in my mind: Libby Schlemmer and Andy Stone will be married. I looked for Rose in order to tell her my thought, but she was not there. The group was relatively small on this Saturday, and all present greeted me like a prodigal son, though I had missed only the previous hike. I was besieged with questions about hiking on the Big Island, and I had to explain that, because I had met a Japanese friend named Haruko, my hikes were little more than strolls. “Was he too old to hike?” Ray Bedrosian asked. “Not he,” Robin James rejoined, “Haruko is a woman’s name.” “What about her, then?” “She didn’t bring any shoes for hiking,” I said. “She’s a refined city woman from Kyoto, and her idea of a walk is a stroll on something called the Philosopher’s Path.” “I’ve been there,” Robin said. “It’s beautiful with the cherry blossoms. Let’s get started.” She was evidently the day’s leader. As the hike began, Chris came into my mind again. I had seen her only in high heels. What other kind of shoes did she wear? Would she enjoy hiking? I looked around at the women in the group. I had never seen any of them in high heels. Only one, Frances Kelly, was wearing shorts, of the Bermuda variety. Her legs were shapely, and it was easy enough to imagine her in heels, with a skirt replacing the shorts. I then reversed the mental process, and imagined Chris in shorts and boots. She would look good, I thought.   On the way home I took a detour by way of Van Ness Avenue. But as I drove past Fina Estampa I decided against stopping there. I wasn’t hungry for dinner yet. But I was decidedly so by the time I got home. After noticing that there were four messages on my answering machine, I walked to the Jalisco place for some enchiladas. This time I washed them down with beer, not tequila. The messages were all of the welcome-back variety, and only the one from Greg explicitly asked for a return call, not specifying whether it was to his home phone or his cell phone. I called the latter. “Hi, Dad, thanks for calling back.” “Hi, son. Where are you?” “In Arcata.” He said nothing further. “I asked because, this being the weekend, I thought you might be in Sebastopol.” “Well, that’s the point. Rebecca and I are finished.” “What happened?” Greg laughed. “The fact that I’m in Arcata. She thinks that I ought to be with her every weekend. It doesn’t matter to her that I have a life here, friends, activities, projects. To her it’s not a relationship if we’re not together at least every weekend, and it’s already a sacrifice that she’s alone during the week.” “She sounds rather needy,” I said. “Needy – yeah.” He laughed again. “She needs sex, that’s what she says.” “So who called it off?” “She did. Oh well, didn’t Shakespeare say that it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?” “As a matter of fact, no, he didn’t. It was Tennyson.” Another laugh. “Dad the lit major,” Greg said, echoing one of Margo’s sayings. I suspected that he might have recently spoken with her and heard the misattributed quotation from his mom the poli-sci major. “But it could’ve been Shakespeare,” he added. No, it couldn’t, I wanted to scream. The meter was wrong – tetrameter, not pentameter – and the sentiment was not Shakespearean and true, it was Tennysonian and phony. “There’s an older quote that I like better,” I said, “from Congreve, and it’s closer to what Shakespeare might have written: ‘tis better to be left than never to have been loved.” “I see your point,” Greg said after some reflection. “I guess she loved me, in her needy way, and it felt good. I’d never known a girl who wanted sex so much. But I think I’d be better off with someone not so needy, maybe more mature.” “Like you,” I said, and we both laughed. After hanging up I watched the television news for the first time in over a week. The size of the anti-war protest in Washington was an encouraging spark of light amid the gloom of Hurricane Rita and the Senate Judiciary Committee’s overwhelming approval of John Roberts. There had been no message from Rose, but I wanted to tell her my conjecture about Andy and Libby, so I called her cell phone. To my surprise, she answered. “Hi, Gary. I would say ‘welcome home’ if I were home, but I’m not. Guess where I am.” I hesitated for a moment. “Not Vancouver!” I said. Rose laughed. “Yes Vancouver. The Afro-Latin party is still on! Actually, Andy was supposed to come, and Thomas took time off for the occasion, but another hurricane got in the way, so I’m here instead.” “Yes, I heard about Andy and his new girlfriend Rita. I heard about it from the girlfriend named Libby, and from the way she spoke it sounded like they’re very much a couple, maybe on the road to marriage.” “Well, Thomas tells me that he heard it the same way from Andy. In fact, once Andy’s back and settled, he and Libby will visit Thomas together. Anyway, how was your vacation?” “Fabulous,” I said, “but it’s good to be back.” “When you get back to the office on Monday, my bill should be there. Don’t be shocked by its size!” “Nothing shocks me any more, and what you’ve done is priceless, Rose.”   Sunday morning I slept only an hour longer than my usual time. After breakfast I checked my personal e-mail. There were only a few messages, but one of them – from my cousin Brad in New York – had a Web link, which I followed, and as a result got distracted into an hour of Web surfing. I then took a bike ride. The day had been predicted to be warmer than usual, though it felt pleasantly cool – not much above sixty – when I stepped outside. It did warm up rather quickly, though, and so I rode out to the beach and enjoyed the southwesterly ocean breeze – could it be coming from Hawaii? – while pedaling along the Great Highway. On the way home I stopped at a Chinese produce market, and bought as much as I could fit into the pannier: tomatoes, onions, garlic, mushrooms – I was planning on making myself pasta with a freshly made sauce for dinner – and some salad greens, the first pears of the fall and the last peaches of the summer. For it was, on the calendar, the end of summer and the beginning of fall. And then an odd thought struck me: the preceding night, from the twenty-fourth to the twenty-fifth of September, had been, thirty-three years before, the night of Libby Schlemmer’s conception. The shopping done, I ate lunch in a Chinese restaurant next to the market, and rode home. I showered again, and spent the rest of the day in splendid solitude, cooking, reading – the New Yorker and the Sunday Chronicle – and listening to music.   Monday morning I was back on schedule. Hurricane Rita had been downgraded to a tropical depression. Diane, Barbara, Nina and Jerry were all gathered around Diane’s desk to greet me when I entered. I checked my office e-mail, opened my paper mail – Rose’s bill was for a little over three thousand dollars – and checked my voicemail. There was no message from Margo, and I decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Afterwards all five of us went out to the Coffeehouse. While we were out, Libby called and left a message that she would be coming in at two. I went back to work, and didn’t stop until well past one o’clock. I dashed out for a hurried lunch – a calzone at the Coffeehouse – in order to be back at the office in time for Libby’s visit. She came in at two, almost on the dot. What struck me first when she walked through my office door was her dress. It was unlike anything I had seen her wear before. It seemed designed to call attention to itself, not the woman wearing it. It could be called conservative in that, while not exactly hiding Libby’s corporeal attributes, did nothing to emphasize them, except for the sash around her waist. The hem, as she stood on the high heels of her dark-green pointy-toed shoes, was just below the knee. The high V-neck did not show any part of her breasts, though their fullness could not be denied. Only the shapeliness of her calves and her arms were unconcealed. What was most striking was the rich draping of the silky bright-green fabric, and the delicate lace trim of the collar and the short sleeves. A green beaded necklace was around her neck. “How do you like my dress?” she asked as she shut the door behind her and moved toward the armchair. “I was just admiring it.” “It’s an Oscar de la Renta , and the shoes are Kate Spade.” She pointed her right foot at me while standing on one leg. “They’re the first expensive clothes I’ve ever bought. I’m not quite comfortable in them yet. I’m working on getting used to being rich. I just put a hundred grand in my checking account, and I went to Neiman Marcus for the first time in my life. And so here I am, modeling designer clothes.” She turned around, model-like, with the skirt of her dress swirling gracefully about her, before she sat down, crossed her legs and let her lovely knees come into view. It was only then that I noticed that her hair had been cut and styled. “Did you ever think of being a model?” “Of course, like every girl who’s tall and who’s told that she’s pretty. But do you see these?” With her right index finger she pointed at her left upper arm and then at her calves. “Too athletic, they said. Fuck them, I said.” I was noticing a definite change in Libby’s manner from what it had been at our previous meetings. Or perhaps it was in my response to her. I no longer sensed that compelling goddess-like aura. “Who?” “The modeling agency. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.” “It isn’t? Then what else could it be?” Libby smiled, but kept her seriousness. “For one thing, that I’ve decided not to sell the house.” “You’re keeping it? With Andy as your tenant?” “Not exactly. I’m moving in with him. He’s coming back tonight, by the way. And I’d like you to be the first to know, though you’ve probably already guessed it. Andy and I will be getting married.” “Yes, I was expecting it. I’m very happy for both of you.” It felt good to say it, as though I were confirming, nay, blessing the exorcism of my infatuation. My great-grandfathers might have called a brokhe. “There’s something else. Andy and I decided to put half of the estate, the half that he would have gotten if he and Peter had registered as domestic partners, into the Peter Hart Foundation. Its purpose will be to help poor people, especially poor young people, with problems of a sexual nature. AIDS and other STDs, sexual identity, genital mutilation, rape – you get the picture.” “It sounds great. And, you know, that part probably wouldn’t be subject to the estate tax.” “I know. Paul explained it to me. Now I don’t have to sell quite so much of the real estate. He also said that, because the after-tax estate would be quite a bit more, so would your fee. The foundation would pay the difference.” “Well, I would like that difference to be my contribution to the foundation.” “Wow, Gary, that’s fantastic. And we would like you to be on the board, and also the general counsel.” “I’d be honored.” “All this wouldn’t have happened if we’d gotten involved. So it was for the best.” What was she talking about? “If who’d gotten involved?” “You and me,” she said, seeming surprised at my question. “Involved how?” “What do you mean, how? The way men and women get involved. Do you mean to tell me that you don’t know that I had a major crush on you?” “You did?” “What do you think I was doing, dressing like a floozy, flashing my boobs and thighs at you, hinting at things we could do together?” “If there were such hints, I didn’t get them. As for the way you dressed, I thought that that’s who you were. I couldn’t imagine that it was directed at me. Or, rather, imagine, yes – I did plenty of imagining – but not believe.” “You thought that that’s who I was? You told me yourself that you didn’t even notice me at the memorial service. I sure noticed you.” “What did you notice about me?” I still had a hard time processing what I was hearing. “You were so different from everyone else there. So solid and grounded. Especially in contrast to Andy, who had chosen to put on the flamboyant queen act, which he thought was expected of him, as he told me. I was feeling such mixed emotions, so much confusion about Andy. Everybody there seemed to be posturing, trying to project just the right image. And you were just there, yourself, like a rock. Or maybe more like a tree, because you were alive.” “Not an ash tree, I hope.” “No, more like an oak. But rock or tree, either way, something solid that a person could lean on. You seem to have no idea how attractive that is.” “I guess I don’t,” I said weakly. “You’re something else, Gary Einhorn.” Libby laughed. “Doesn’t Einhorn mean unicorn in German?” “Yes.” “Do you know the tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn?” “Yes. La dame à la licorne.” I speak French quite well, and I don’t mind showing it off. “Well, I’m feeling like the lady in the one where she puts her jewelry away in front of the unicorn. Giving up. Here I am, thirty-two years old, and it finally happened to me: not getting a guy that I had the hots for.” My mind began to reel. She had the hots for me? “Well,” she went on, “it was an experience, and I’m a woman who likes experiences. In retrospect, maybe it was a signal that it was time to get married.” My mind was still reeling. I had accepted the premise – common enough to be a stereotype – of a younger woman’s attraction to a (putatively) mature, wise, experienced older man. But the hots? “You…” I stammered, “had the hots… for me? A… a middling fifty-year-old pettifogger with thinning hair and a scraggly beard and blotchy skin and…” I couldn’t, for the moment, think of any more self-deprecatory things to say. Fortunately she interrupted me. “Stop it, Gary. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but you really insult me when you imply that, just because I’m young and attractive, I’m some sort of shallow bimbo who can’t appreciate a person’s true quality.” Her face came the closest to a scowl that I had ever seen, except for the time in the restaurant with Andy. I wanted to counter that it was she who had been appealing to my shallow instincts. But of course it was appropriate for her to use all the weapons in her arsenal, and her superb sensuous beauty was one of them. “Forgive me, Libby,” I began, “I didn’t mean it that way. I was just expressing my own low self-esteem. And this is the second time in just a few weeks that I’ve managed to offend a woman that I care for.” Libby’s face suddenly brightened. And to think that this amazing beauty had been mine for the taking, if I had only known! But then I would not have met Chris. Then again, where was Chris now? “Who was the other one? Margo?” She pronounced the name with a mocking emphasis, as if to remind me that she was not saying your ex-wife. I laughed. “Oh, her too,” I said, “but that wasn’t whom I meant.” And I told her about Chris, from beginning to end. “Go back to Chris,” Libby said after hearing me out. “She wants you. I know she does. She’s right for you. More than I could ever be.” “But I’ve hurt her…” “You’ve hurt me too. You didn’t mean to, but you did, the same as with her. And I would still want you if I hadn’t found myself in love again with the first man that I ever loved.” I could think of nothing to say. “Do go back to Chris,” Libby repeated. “But before you do, and before I give myself completely to Andy, there’s something I’d like to propose.” “Yes?” “As I said, I’m a woman who doesn’t like to pass up experiences. So for one night I’d like to experience what it might have been for us.” In a corner of my mind, I had been toying with a little hopeful fantasy that she might say something like that. “You mean, in real life?” I asked, just to make sure that I had heard right. “Yes. In the flesh.” But what came out of me next came from an altogether different sector of my mind. “I don’t think that would be right, Libby. I’m too scared of what it would do to me in the future. I’d rather keep it as a fantasy, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Libby reached across the desk and stroked my ears. “You’re not exactly Bottom, you know.” “I know. But if, baby, I’m the bottom, you’re the top,” I sang. “And you’re going to marry the king of the fairies.” We both began to laugh. “You could change your name to Titania. Forget Elizabeth Schlemmer. Titania Perino Hart Stone. That would be a mouthful of a name!” We were now laughing helplessly. “You could still be Libby to your friends, the way Lauren Bacall is Betty,” I managed to say before collapsing on my chair. I had not felt such relief in ages. “I’m afraid I’ve run out of tricks,” Libby said, still laughing. “I proposition you verbally and still get rejected. Can I at least get a hug before we say good-bye?” “That would be wonderful,” I said. I stood up and walked to her side of the desk, where she was waiting for me. We hugged for a long time. I felt very conscious of her height. On her high heels she was quite a bit taller than me. I felt her chin touching my cheek, and her breasts almost at the level of my shoulders. And what came into my mind was the memory of how comfortable it felt to hold Chris in my arms when I was dancing boleros with her. I could barely believe myself: I was imagining Chris while holding Libby! The Chris conundrum was solved in one fell swoop. I knew that I love Chris. I would call her that evening, ask her forgiveness, and let her take all the time she needed to resolve her own dilemma with regard to me. And if she wouldn’t take my call, I would write her a letter. I just wanted to hold her, not Libby, in my arms. And if she let me, I would court her. I would kiss her hand and any other part of her that she would allow. I would call her Chrissie, or Tina, or Titina. I would bring her flowers. I would bring her, if I could find it, the flower of the cinnamon tree, la flor de la canela, symbol – with jasmine and roses – of the Peruvian woman’s beauty in that most beautiful of songs. More than that, I would learn the song and sing it to her: Déjame que te diga, morena, mi pensamiento… Let me tell you, dark one, my thought…