Gwen

Cupertino, California

September 24th

I didn't go into work the next day (there was no need, and I had accumulated so much comp time over the last three years that there was really no need even to tell anyone), but instead spent the morning in bed, luxuriating not in the sensation of sleeping late, but instead in the sensation of being able to sleep without feeling guilty about not having to worry the myriad of work issues that seemed to always be spontaneously appearing and disappearing like quantum particle fluctuations.

I tried to call Gwen. She had been working on another project that had been taking a large amount of her time, so we hadn't seen much of each other over the past few weeks, and I had no luck reaching her. I left her a message on her voice mail, asking if she would be free for dinner.

Gwen was the best thing in my life, although I didn't realize that for a long time. Gwen and I had known each other for a while, as she had been at Coordination Engineering for about three years. She worked in Marketing, and I had talked with her frequently on matters related the products that I developed on, and I found her to be very cold and standoffish. She was physically attractive, with long straight pale blonde hair, a cute nose with a pronounced royalty bump, and inquisitive blue eyes, but nonetheless I didn't find myself at all drawn to her. For some reason, I regarded her as a piece of artwork; admire it, but do not cross the red line!

The first time I spent any appreciable time with her was when the product group went to a local bowling alley for midnight bowling. Fog laced the floor and fluorescent bowling balls traveled down the dim lanes to hit brightly glowing pins while rock music played in the background. The crowd was predominantly in their twenties, mostly Asian, and dressed in black.

I didn't know Gwen at the time, and I didn't spend much time talking with her other than to ask her if she wanted something to drink, but nonetheless we all seemed to have an enjoyable outing, and for some reason gutter balls can be enormously funny when you've had enough to drink. Oddly enough for me, I bowled incredibly well, and ended up picking up some tricky spares. While Gwen was friendly enough with anyone that talked with her, she was fairly quiet, and other than getting up during her turn to bowl, she didn't stray from the uncomfortable plastic seat at the very end. I noticed that, deliberately or not, she was protected from being to close too anyone else by the wall of coats and shoes strewn about her.

The next day, one of my co-workers had come into my office. Min was a tester on my project, and we had worked together for about two years. She was this tiny Hispanic woman in her indeterminite forties that said what she thought, never minced words, and was always very forward with her input. I thought she was great, although she drove some people crazy.

Min said, "Did you do something to piss Gwen off yesterday?"

"I don't think so," I replied. "Why?"

Min continued, "Did you see her yesterday?"

I answered, "Yes... she came with us to midnight bowling."

Min nodded. "Well, I just caught a part of her conversation with someone else. She said that you bugged the hell out her yesterday, or something to that effect."

I was shocked. I like to labor under the misapprehension that everyone thinks I'm great, and even though I don't actually believe it, I'm always hurt when reality has to intrude. "Honest, I don't know what she's talking about. Everything was fine."

Min commiserated with me. "Don't worry about it, she's just a princess."

So all my dealings with her past that day were strained, because I was thinking, "What the hell did I do to piss you off?"

That all changed one day. I had gone to the park to eat my lunch, and was walking around admiring the scenery and enjoying feeling the sun on my face, and I looked up and saw Gwen. Even to this day, I remember it vividly: she was wearing a red sweater and a long black slit skirt which revealed a glimpse of her long white legs. She was kneeling by a wheelchair and talking with an elderly woman, and she had a kind look in her eyes and a ghost of a smile playing about her lips while listening.

I looked at her, she looked at me, and at that moment everything in the universe became totally still and quiet and unimportant, and I suddenly knew without doubt or hesitation that she was the person that I wanted to be with.

Past events can spontaneously jumble and reform into totally different patterns, and that happened to me at that moment in the park. Whereas before I had found her to be cold and standoffish, in that moment I started reinterpreting every encounter I had with her, and now I couldn't see her as anything other than reserved and a little shy. Something about that smile in the park to the elderly lady had caused me to reevaluate everything that I thought I knew.

I talked with Gwen later that day at work, and it turned out that she would take one day out of the week and go to lunch with one of the people from the local senior's home, and as she was telling me this I was nodding politely and thinking in the back of my mind that I would have to make sure that I didn't start throwing myself at the ground and kissing her feet. For some reason, kindness to the elderly has always been a value that I've admired; perhaps I see myself in there in 30 years, or my parents, or something.

It took many months thereafter until we were finally dating. It was a slow and elaborate process of gradual escalation, and there was no "ah-ha" moment, no definitive conversation about our status, but instead we just spent more and more time together. It was a painful and long process to break through her natural reserve, but I was convinced that under the impassive exterior was a person that I very much wanted to know.

(Months later, I asked her about the bowling night, and it turned that she was frustrated because I bowled so well and so nonchalantly, since she had to struggle with it, but she wasn't seriously irritated. It made sense to me, but why couldn't I have thought up that possible interpretation before? It's amazing what a filter our preconceptions can make on how we interpret the universe.)

Even now, after we had been in an exclusive relationship for almost a year, she still had that natural barrier that held her back; it was if she was willing to give me 90% of her soul, but wanted to hold 10% back just in case. It was maddening, partly; for the first time in my life I was willing to devote my entire life to another person, but... she didn't want it, or didn't want it yet, at any rate. Testimonials of my love and affection made her vaguely uncomfortable, and she would quickly veer the topic of conversation into something innocuous.

Nonetheless, the thing that gave me hope was that once in a while she would reveal her innermost self, and relax, and give everything without hesitation for one brief shining moment; and it was the hope that those moments would become the commonplace that made me so happy to be with her and so entranced with the possibilities.

For example: We had just eaten dinner at a nice place in Monterey, and had driven down to the beach to walk around for a while. There was no one else on the beach as far as we could see, and the sound of the waves crashing obscured any other noises. There is something about the mixture of contrasts that makes for memories that persist vividly -- the crisp night air contrasted with the warmth from her closeness, and the characteristic smell of the ocean aid was touched with the scent of the perfume from her hair. I felt as if we had our own private beach, even with the artifacts of civilization obviously all around us. We walked hand in hand, half-heartedly dodging the slowly cascading waves, feeling the sand squish and ooze on our toes. We had been silent for a few minutes, lost in our thoughts and in our appreciation of the closeness of the moment, when Gwen looked at the moon for a second, and, while still looking at it, almost matter-of-factly said:

Half moon shines above

Not a night for half measures

My whole heart is yours

... just like that, out of the blue, and I stopped walking and looked at her, my breath taken away for a second; she looked at me with a deep tenderness, and all of a sudden seemed to realize that she was vulnerable, and despite the fact that there was no force in the universe that would have made me laugh or chide her for her haiku, she visibly drew back and instead started to prattle on about how much traffic we might hit when we traveled back north in the morning.

Or: I had slept in late one weekend, and was lying in bed just daydreaming, when suddenly I realized that I really, really craved a hot steaming latte. I finally forced myself out of bed and started to rummage around the pile of clothes on the floor for something that was halfway presentable enough to wear so that I could walk to the local coffee shop.

The door bell rang, and I opened the door, my hand fruitlessly trying to force down my hair so that I didn't look like I had just gotten out of bed. I saw Gwen at the front door. "Hi," she said, "for some reason I thought that you might be craving a coffee, so I went and got some." With that, she walked into my house, and we sat down and read the paper and just talked, and while she was there I kept marveling that we had this connection that enabled her to pick up my thoughts and feelings -- and, even more, that she would drive the 20 minutes from her apartment to my house in order to do something about it. I was very touched.

Later that same day, though, the other side of Gwen was revealed. I had jokingly mentioned that it would have been a lot easier for her to get the coffee if she was living with me, and with that I crossed some intimacy line that she had erected in her mind, because she immediately became more cold and formal and remembered that she had to do laundry. That was Gwen, to a tee.

Nonetheless, despite her reserve, Gwen made me think in terms that were not usual for me, terms like "forever," and "'til death do us part," and she made me want to make a lattice on which she could intertwine her life. I still hadn't brought up the question of marriage, but things were proceeding surely if slowly, and we seemed to have all the time in the world.

Gwen had finally called me back, about an hour after I called her.

"Hey there," she said.

"Hi," I replied. "How are you doing?"

"Okay," she said. "I'm stuck at this marketing conference in Fresno, and I'm not sure how long it's going to go. Traffic getting here was horrible. Why do people slow down just to watch a person getting a ticket? It does not make any sense."

"I agree with you there," I replied. "Hey, let's get together for dinner. I would really like to spend some time with you."

"Sure, I can do that," she said. "Let me give you a call when I finally get out of this meeting and then we can set something up."

She hung up the phone, and one thought went through my mind: this was the woman that I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.

Gwen was the best thing in my life.

A month ago.