I had used the one an ex gave me to open a bottle of poison for roaches. There was no orchestra playing, and I didn’t have a pin. I couldn’t help but tell her everything - there was much to say as we walked past men in skimpy swim trunks and children darting in and out of the waves. She couldn’t help but inquire about our sex life. I chatted about my next story idea and gushed about Mark - my Moondoggie - who gobbled up serious daydream real estate. Salt found its way to my lips and sand stuck to my thighs as we opined on her jitters about a long drive to an upcoming event and made small talk about Marvin. As a bonus, she also taught me to be patient. We were almost a perfect match with our immigrant histories and our deep love for Los Angeles. Mine read “California Canine.” Hers read “Out and About.” One summer Saturday, we went to the beach near Pacific Palisades. Once, Kathy told me: “More fun is to be had out there. Men came into and went out of my life quicker than most TV shows run - even one-off pilots. In between my guzzling wine and crying, Kathy welcomed me over for a family party. When another boyfriend went to the desert over Memorial Day weekend with friends he made in the park, I didn’t get an invite. “She won’t be in your orbit forever,” she told him then. After I dated a man for nearly a decade without any commitment, Gidget met him at her home. Sure, I didn’t know my former guy’s birthday (it was a short-lived romance), but she knew I regretted not trying harder. It was Kathy/Gidget who advised me to mail a birthday card to an ex and include Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s “no feeling is final” line in the message. When I felt clueless, the original Gidget - who has been married to Marvin since 1965 - served as my love expert. And we’ve stayed at a dude ranch in Arizona, riding horses, swimming laps, dishing on guests and wranglers.įor many of those years - my 30s - I was living with a Maltipoo and learning how to date later than almost everyone I knew. We’ve been each other’s New Year’s Eve party dates. Since then, we’ve done the hokeypokey together at multiple Oktoberfest parties. Would our vacation connection go anywhere? Then I met a handsome stranger at a retreat. I changed his about L.A.Īfter my divorce, I wasn’t looking for love. I bought a tiki bar that now resides in my one-bedroom apartment. from New York, the driver became me when we went to San Diego for a tiki festival playing her documentary. Kathy solved it: Her colleague drove me back to campus with his dog. To get to the restaurant, I splurged, taking a limo taxi to meet her. I stood about half a foot taller than her. Before leaving, we snapped a photo together - her in a blue velvety outfit, me in jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with a sequin pinup girl. In a restaurant that served up fish tacos and ocean views, we talked about surfing for my assignment. I met the real Gidget when I was a college freshman at Pepperdine, and she was working as an ambassador of aloha at Duke’s Malibu. with Jacuzzi and carrot cake intermissions. Often, my pals and I would chase it with “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” and “Gidget Goes to Rome” past 2 a.m. The orchestra plays as Moondoggie places a pin on Gidget’s cardigan and the camera pans out to show the new couple strolling along a Malibu beach. Instead of dates, I went to slumber parties where we sat in a remodeled basement to watch Gidget woo Moondoggie. Instead of reshelving the VHS, I took the movie home to Big Lake Road. The original “Gidget” movie co-starring Sandra Dee and James Darren found me first while working three-hour shifts at a library. Three decades before I was born in Michigan, Kathy was surfing in Malibu, inspiring a bestselling book, a movie with multiple sequels and the Sally Field TV series. Her nickname is Gidget, and she’s the real one. We hit it off in 2004 when I interviewed Kathy about surfers for a college assignment. She laughed.įor us, friendship is easy and has been for years. Her husband, Marvin, made a suggestive joke about the poet’s last name. It was then that she noticed something I hadn’t: The pages included sketches of people having sex. Later, she sat in her living room, in front of her family members, and pulled the book from a gift wine bag. It turns out my ill-fated virtual romance led me to realize my potential. I played coy for a few rapid-fire texts, extracting information out of him for my own amusement. Affairs: A text from a one-night stand finally pushed me into the dating scene
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