Lonesome Loser

Saturday morning, I went out to the Land for a board meeting. I pull up in the parking lot, and see D with Stik {I can not remember his name; I’m sure its a subconscious block}. Anyway, Stik is helping D unload stuff from her car. Its clear to me that they have a more-than-casual connection, even though such is not overt.

Stik makes his way to the beach while D & I attend the board meeting. Afterwards, we are all in the Barn getting ready for our open house, and someone references Stik. D begins to talk about “not seeing it coming”. “Talk about it happening when you least expect it!!” she says.

She goes on to explain how she had been attracted to Stik when she first met him at our music festival a couple of years ago (he is annually our sound engineer). She told how she was attracted to him but barely seemed to make an impact each year except for a Saturday Night Swim with him after the concert.

It is clear that, in the 4 weeks since this year’s festival, that there’s been an impact. All the way, if you get my drift.

D put her arms around me. “Parra, you know I love you,” an apologetic smile on her face, “and I enjoy your company. You are a wonderful friend…” I heard the “but” which she hadn’t uttered yet. With a smile and mock-injury in my tone, I cut her off.

“I don’t think I want to hear the rest of that! It can’t possibly end well for me,” I chuckled. “So just leave it at that first part and leave my fantasies and possible futures intact!”

She caught the sincerity of my playful response. “You know,” she added, “when you came over last week — that was special. I thought there might be somthing there… You were funny; you were fun. You made me laugh and I so needed that.”

A final concession for the runner-up.

What you are missing:

At the previous open house, sometime on that Saturday afternoon, I finished my tours and went to take a dip in the lake. I happened to be joined shortly thereafter by both Heather and D, and we talked in the water for awhile, then made our way out to lounge chairs where the 3 of us sat on 2 chairs, waiting to dry before collecting more sand.

When these two women are together, I spend most of my time listening — trying to pick up on their culture between themselves, and on the subtle points of detail that I am otherwise not privy to in their stories. In any case, they did proceed to share stories from their lives, and allowed me to witness their gossip. That was nice to be so trusted and included.

The conversation at some point moved to dust-ruffles around beds, and D shared about how hers was problematic because of its frame, and how she had solved it — by sewing snaps onto the box frame. This led to a discussion about sewing skills, and my engineering mind wondered if there wasn’t a different way to solve her problem. D also told about an idea, an invention she’d like to sew together.

The conversation continued and eventually we went back to our things that day, and nothing came from the conversation. Not until a couple of weeks later, when again out at the Land, as we were leaving D asked, “Are you ever going to come over and show me your ideas with my dust-ruffles? I really am interested to see what you think of my solution.”

It was a pick-up line, certainly, but I couldn’t judge the depth.

I followed her to her home, and spent the daylight part of the evening being shown around her home, meeting her cats, viewing her favorite art works, hearing the story of the child she gave up for adoption many years ago. We ended up sitting on her porch swing, talking (I mostly listened). After a phone call from a client (she cleans home) she suddenly became tense, and ended up shooing me off so she could get ready for work the next day.

I might have thought it a blow off, but after hugging me goodbye, she followed me to my car and hugged me again, ending with a kiss.

Nice ending as that was, I still wasn’t sure quite what it meant, and not being one to micromanage a relationship, I decided my best response was to call and thank her the next day, then let her make the next move.

…not that I knew what my motives or goals were, either.

(more Lonesome loser…)