I touched his knee, that’s all. It happened accidentally, quite innocently. I leaned forward toward the driver, Trevor, to make a suggestion, he spun the steering wheel, the tiny Fiat swerved and I reached out to get my balance.
My hand landed on the knee of the tall, blonde, handsome executive crammed in the back seat next to me. That’s how it started.
One sunny morning in Paris, as my ex-husband Alan waited on the landing outside our apartment for the elevator, our neighbor, Mariele, joined him. He was dressed in a t-shirt, running shorts and running shoes, so she said the obvious. “You’re going running, aren’t you?”
He said, “Yes.” That was that.
A week later, they shared the elevator as he headed upstairs after his run, all
sweaty and stinky.
“You run a lot, don’t you?” she said.
“Almost every day,” he answered.
This was in the late 1980’s and we were spending 4 years living in the French
capitol, thanks to Alan’s employer.
The next week, out on the landing, she said, “My husband Gérard runs, too. Almost daily.”
The following week she said, “You and Gérard should run together. He doesn’t get as sweaty as you do. Maybe you could get him to work harder.”
Alan running the streets of our quartier of Paris.
I don’t know. Don’t have a clue.
What I do know is that my first kiss as a divorced woman was delivered by a cab driver. Juan Carlos was his name. I met him when he picked up Ellen, Gary and me outside our hotel in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. Our destination was an elegant bar high above
the town. We could have walked, but in our dresses and high-heeled sandals, Ellen and I would have been awkward and uncomfortable.
So we flagged down Juan Carlos, who drove us up the hill. He waited while we sipped margaritas and watched the sun slide down the sky and slip behind the hills on the opposite side of the bay.
