My Lost and Found Life

by Melodie Bowsher

  “Don’t worry,” I promised. “I’ll be watchful.”

  • • •

  Saturday, Patrick left me a phone message saying he was playing that night at an Irish tavern and did I want to drop by? You bet I did. Deciding what to wear wasn’t easy, but I finally chose tight low-rider jeans and a navy top that let my toned midriff show. Plus boots and a raincoat, of course. The rainy season had begun early this year.

  He said the music began at nine, so I arrived at ten, not wanting to seem overeager. I had to show my phony ID to get in, but it wasn’t a problem. If the guy at the door wondered what an Elizabeth Castillo was doing at an Irish hangout, he didn’t ask.

  The place was noisy and crowded. I managed to snag the lone empty stool at the crowded bar and ordered a soda. Patrick was onstage, along with a fiddler and another guitarist. I was impressed with his playing. At one point he gave me a wave and a wink. I felt a little self-conscious amid all the boisterous groups of friends. Before long, two guys sitting next to me offered to buy me a Guinness. I laughed and declined, but they persisted.

  When the music stopped, Patrick put down his instrument and made his way toward me, stopping to talk to people along the way.

  “You’re breaking my heart, beautiful,” pleaded one of the guys, trying to persuade me to go with him and his buddy to another bar.

  Just then Patrick walked up to us. “Get away from her, you horny bastards,” he said, stopping in front of me and taking my hand. “Shall we get some fresh air then?”

  “Sure,” I said, not bothering to point out the rain. I grabbed my coat and headed outside. We strolled silently down the sidewalk toward no particular destination.

  “I enjoyed your music,” I said finally, mindful of my manners.

  “Did you? Good.” His tone was matter-of-fact, as if his mind was elsewhere. He looked at me and began to laugh. “You’re drowning, girl. I’m an ejit to drag you out here in the wet. Let’s duck under here.”

  We stopped under the awning of a closed appliance store and he lit a cigarette.

  “I’ll be going back to Ireland soon now,” he said.

  My heart dropped. “When?”

  “In a few weeks,” he answered. “I’ll be spending Christmas with my family and then I’m going off to Spain for a bit. A friend has a job for me there, teaching English, and I’ll have time to work on my book.”

  I turned my back to him and looked out at the rain. I didn’t know what to say except, Don’t go! Don’t go!

  “I made these arrangements months ago,” he said. “And my visa is expiring.”

  “I understand,” I answered. “Still...” My voice trailed off.

  “Still,” he echoed, tossing away his cigarette. He shook his head. “You weren’t part of the plan.”

  I turned around and we stood silently looking at each other. He had such deep blue eyes and a nice mouth, too. What I wanted must have been written on my face, because he pulled me to him for the kiss I had been longing for. And what a kiss it was. My knees went weak, and I kissed him back with enthusiasm.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he whispered into my neck, making all the little hairs on the back of my neck bristle. “We should have that birthday celebration before I leave.”

  I just held my breath, afraid to move from this sweet spot.

  “A friend has offered me his cabin in the mountains near Lake Tahoe. We could drive up there on the weekend.”

  “Would your friend be going?” I asked.

  “No way.” He answered. His hand had found its way inside my raincoat and was lightly caressing the skin of my bare midriff. I longed for him to move his hand farther down. “Just the two of us.”

  I considered the idea for a millisecond and then said, “We can take my car.”

  The next day I went to the free clinic on Haight Street and got a prescription for birth control pills. Was I really ready to begin a sexual relationship with Patrick? Damn right I was!

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Lust Lessons: Your Guide to Toe-Curling Good Sex

  Make Him Quiver with Desire: 7 Erotic Trigger Points

  12 Hot Bedroom Tricks to Try Tonight

  With a stack of women’s magazines in front of me, I plowed through these articles and several more before the big birthday weekend at Lake Tahoe. I wasn’t all that experienced, but I didn’t want Patrick to know that. All the magazines said men want sexually confident women, and I was determined to be as confident as possible.

  To be honest, the more I read, the more intimidated I felt. Impressing him with my prowess seemed like a whole lot of hard work. Some of the stuff they described seemed gross, like swirling your tongue along the inside of his armpit. Wouldn’t that taste a lot like deodorant? Other sexual acts seemed to require gymnastic skills. I may have been a cheerleader, but I wasn’t a contortionist. How was I supposed to orchestrate all these moves and be multiorgasmic at the same time?

  As for tapping my inner dominatrix, I wasn’t sure I had one. I really didn’t want to get all involved with dildos and whips and vibrators. I couldn’t imagine pushing him down, ripping his pants off, and devouring him like an animal in a sex-crazed frenzy. I didn’t think I could talk dirty either—certainly not while concentrating on everything else I was supposed to be doing. The whole thing sounded ridiculous.

  If that wasn’t enough, one article discussed problems that could occur “when he’s got an aircraft carrier and your dock space is only big enough for a dingy.” I wasn’t sure about the size of anything.

  By the time we left for Lake Tahoe Friday evening, I was suffering from equal amounts of anticipation and apprehension, if not outright terror.

  • • •

  Lake Tahoe lies in a valley high in the Sierras, along the border separating California and Nevada. Though it is surrounded by forest and snow-covered peaks, most of its shoreline is jammed with resorts, vacation homes, and motels. I had been to Tahoe many times over the years, usually staying at the vacation home Nicole’s parents used to own on the lake’s north shore.

  Patrick and I were scheduled to leave as soon as I finished Friday’s shift at the coffeehouse. Malcolm had given me Sunday off, though I didn’t tell him why I wanted it.

  I had suggested meeting Patrick at his flat, but he told me to pick him up at the Bus Stop, a sports bar on Union Street where his friend Eoin bartended. I couldn’t find a parking space, so I stopped at the curb outside the bar and honked. Patrick appeared in seconds with a small gym bag in one hand. I hopped out to unlock the trunk.

  “That’s all you’re taking?” I said, smiling broadly.

  “How much do you need for a weekend?” he asked.

  I opened the trunk to show him, and he laughed at the sight of my two bulging suitcases.

  “That’s more than I brought with me to America. What would you be carrying in those bags?”

  “Clothes, of course, and shoes...and things.”

  It began raining as we crossed the Bay Bridge. The two of us jabbered away, totally oblivious to the downpour. Patrick told me about Ireland and his family and his ex-girlfriend Caitlin.

  “Where I come from, you go to a dance, kiss a girl, and she’s your girlfriend. The whole town has the two of you married before long. It took me a long time to break free from that.”

  “How did you do it?” I asked.

  “In the end, by leaving,” he said. “It was the only way. So long as I was there, everyone had expectations, even though I never even thought of asking her to marry me.”

  “Couldn’t you just tell them?”

  “Would they listen? They only hear what they want to hear, my mother in particular.”

  I told him all about growing up in Burlingame and Nicole and Scott, even Webb. But I didn’t tell him the truth about my mother. If I had told him the whole pathetic story about Diane and the missing money, he would have felt sorry for me. This weekend was all about romance, not true confessions.

  As the highway began to climb the foo
thills of the Sierras, the rain turned to sleet. By the time we reached Emigrant Gap, the pavement was covered with snow and a huge sign proclaimed that chains were required at Donner Summit. We drove back about fifteen miles till we found a service station doing big business in the sale of chains. Patrick gallantly forked over the $55 so that we could proceed up the wet, slippery highway.

  We chugged along at a merry twenty-five miles per hour, with the chains noisily slapping the road. Even at such a slow speed, the snowy road was difficult to manage, and we passed several cars that had skidded into snowbanks. I began to worry that we would end up stranded along the highway.

  Two hours later we arrived at his friend’s cabin. The driveway was covered with a foot or more of snow, so we wedged the car up against a snow drift and plodded to the door, sinking deep into the powder with every step. I was so cold that I didn’t care about anything except getting warm.

  Patrick immediately started a fire going. The place was a cozy A-frame furnished with a lot of rustic birch-log-type furniture. The sofa was upholstered in blue denim, with a Navajo rug underneath. In the bedroom a king-sized bed was covered with a big red-and-blue comforter designed to look like an Indian blanket.

  We found a stereo, a big-screen TV with a DVD player, and a sizable collection of movies. There were board games, snow-shoes, skis, and even a small sled. The cabin had everything you might need to entertain yourself in a winter wonderland.

  We didn’t use any of it. In fact, we barely got dressed all weekend. All my article reading and worrying about sexual expertise had been pointless. Patrick proved to be an expert in the bedroom, and I was a very willing student.

  He didn’t pounce on me the minute the bags were inside, but we were cold and the obvious way to warm up was to remove wet clothing. That led to a great deal of kissing and caressing. We had plenty of time and he didn’t rush me.

  Since we hadn’t thought to bring any groceries, we were forced to eat canned soup, tuna, and other supplies foraged from the cabin’s cupboards. But Patrick proved to be something of a cook—he even made biscuits. Finding something to drink was easy. The cabin’s owner maintained a large supply of beer, soft drinks, and California wines.

  Late Saturday I woke up to the sound of clattering in the kitchen. I could smell the aroma of wood burning in the fireplace mixed with the odor of something delicious cooking. But I was too sleepy to investigate and fell back asleep, only to be awakened a couple of hours later by the sound of Patrick’s voice singing “Happy Birthday.”

  I sat up to see him standing in front of me, holding a birthday cake glowing with candles. He had borrowed my car to go to the store and baked a cake while I was asleep. Being served a birthday cake by a deliciously naked man has to rank at the top of the chart of any girl’s most unforgettable experiences.

  “I only had ten candles,” he said. “But I didn’t know how many to put on, did I?”

  “Nineteen,” I said, sitting up and winding the sheet around me.

  He almost dropped the cake. “You’re only nineteen!”

  “Yes. What’s the problem?”

  “The problem is I’m a bloody cradle-robber,” he groaned.

  “Don’t worry. I’m potty trained and everything,” I said.

  “I’m very precocious.”

  “That you are,” he agreed.

  I reached over, swiped a bit of icing from the cake, and licked it off my finger.

  “How is it?”

  “Yummy,” I said, taking another swipe at the icing and holding up my finger. “Want a taste?”

  “Indeed I do,” he said, licking my finger, and minutes later we were at it again. Much, much later I asked him, “How did you get so good at this? Caitlin?”

  “Caitlin! My God, I would be standing at the altar with a shotgun to my head if I spent a weekend like this with her. No, you inspire me,” he said.

  “Yeah, sure. Try again,” I snickered.

  “It’s true. Word of honor,” he said, running his finger down my spine in a delicious way. “As you are well aware, there have been a few other romantic encounters before you. When you do a bit of traveling, you meet a girl or two along the way. Dublin girls are nice and English girls too, but you American girls are especially congenial.”

  “Congenial.” I smiled at that. “That’s a nice word. I’m sure you’ve known lots of congenial girls.”

  “Let’s not spoil the weekend by talking about that. Let’s enjoy being here and forget about everythin’ else. I’m mad about you, even if you are a mere babe. I should give you a spanking for not telling me how old you are.” He gave me a light smack on my bare bottom. “I would have struggled a bit harder to keep my hands off you if I’d known you were so young. But I imagine you could convince a monk to renounce his vows.”

  “You’re definitely not a monk,” I said, turning over and reaching up to pull him down to me. “So I tempt you?”

  “You’ve been making me crazy for quite a while. But I’m leaving and you seemed...”

  “What did I seem?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Vulnerable, I suppose. I didn’t want to take advantage of that, but I have,” he said ruefully. “You may end up hating me for it.”

  I winced inwardly. Vulnerable was definitely not how I wanted to come across.

  “I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself,” I protested. “It’s been a very good birthday, believe me. It can’t always be this good, can it? I think we must be very special together.”

  “That we are, my girl. That we are,” he murmured in my ear.

  It turned out that I didn’t need the suitcases of clothes and shoes I had brought with me. I didn’t wear any of them. By the time we left on Sunday afternoon, I was sore but blissfully satiated. I was also truly happy for the first time in months.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  On the Monday after our weekend at Lake Tahoe, Patrick came into the coffeehouse around nine. I couldn’t stop smiling at him. Luckily, no one noticed, as business was brisk and the inmates were especially rowdy.

  Midmorning, Tom began regaling a group of regulars with the latest installment in his absurd love life, which should have been subtitled “Looking for Sex in All the Wrong Places.”

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on the dating Web sites for you, Tom,” said Mal, pointing to the computer screen and then reading from it. “Here’s a good one. Baseball-loving Brunette. DWF.”

  “Divorced white female,” Tom translated.

  “Pretty, buxom, well educated. I can tell good stories and use big words. Seeking compassionate, thoughtful man of means 30 to 45 for intellectual, emotional and physical relationship. No heavy drinkers.”

  “That lets Tom out,” hooted William. “He wouldn’t understand big words.”

  “But I’m full of good stories,” Tom answered.

  “She already knows good stories, she doesn’t need that,” I objected. “Besides, a fireman is not a man of means.”

  “Close enough. You have to know how to read these things,” explained Mal. “ ‘A man of means’ equals ‘must have job.’ No panhandlers or bums. ‘Compassionate’ means ‘someone who doesn’t kick dogs and knock down old ladies.’ ”

  “And ‘buxom’ means ‘weighs two hundred pounds,’ ” said Tom.

  “Only losers or married men on the prowl use the personals to find a date,” William growled.

  “My sister’s friend Lisa met her husband online,” protested Jerry.

  “And he’ll be out of prison next year,” quipped Tom, and everyone howled with laughter.

  “Have you ever noticed that it’s always a friend of a friend, never someone you really know?” I said. “I think that story falls into the urban legend category.”

  “Nope, not true,” Malcolm retorted. “I actually met Todd that way.”

  That silenced us. Todd was Mal’s former boyfriend, the one he still mourned five years after his death from AIDS.

  Tom said, “How about you, Ashley? Where did y
ou meet your boyfriend?”

  I was startled, then realized he was referring to my mythical boyfriend, Webb. “The time-honored way—in school,” I said, making sure I didn’t look at Patrick.

  “Girls like Ashley don’t have to seek out men,” Malcolm said, giving me a sardonic look. “They fall out of the sky at her feet, don’t they, dear?”

  “That’s right,” I replied. “I have to wear a helmet to keep from getting clobbered when they land.”

  At that moment, Bella marched through the door with Stephanie and baby Oliver. Bella was wearing a shaggy-looking yellow coat that came down to her hips. Poor girl, she had chosen the wrong moment to wear her “new” coat. She might as well have been wearing a bull’s-eye as far as this unruly bunch was concerned.

  “Bella, sweetheart, when did Big Bird die?” said Malcolm. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  “Hey, Bella, I think you’re molting,” William called out.

  Jerry made a chirruping noise before adding, “Have a heart, Bella. Give it back. Think of poor Big Bird standing there on Sesame Street, shivering.”

  “Shut up the bunch of you.” She made a face at them. “This coat was a bargain. Mike sold it to me for only eight dollars.”

  “I have one word for you: Refund,” Tom hooted.

  Bella appealed to me. “What do you think, Ashley?”

  “It’s very, uh...” I searched for the right word and, after mentally discarding loud and hideous, said, “cheerful.”

  “Yes, isn’t it?” She beamed. “And it’s very warm.”

  Just then the door burst open and the wild-eyed man with bushy black hair stampeded through it.

  As usual, he was wearing earphones hooked up to a CD player. As usual, he asked in a booming voice, “Is this your book?”

  As usual, we all just stared.

  Again he yelled, “Does this book belong to you?”