Somehow I’d managed to order. After finishing the best burger I’d ever eaten, the bronzed, silver-haired proprietor came out from around back and wanted to know whose pup Sierra was. Given that there were only about a half a dozen other people in the place, and most of them he already seemed to know, I owned up. “She’s mine.”
“Don’t recall seeing you in here before.”
“First time. Great burger, by the way.”
“Thanks. Organically fed. Makes all the difference in the world. My wife, Virginia’s idea, serving organic. Mind if I sit down? The name’s Bryon.”
“Be my guest. I’m Corey, Corey Phillips. Sierra and I are from Seattle.
Been on the road for a few months. Took a while to find our way out of the rain.”
“It doesn’t get much better than this,” Bryon said, nodding towards the window. “I don’t mean to be pushy, but we had one of our cooks quit a few days ago, and I’ve paid my dues behind that grill. You wouldn’t be looking for work, would you?” As I thought about his offer for a moment, he continued. “Anyone with a young pup like this one,” he said, swooping Sierra off her feet and into his arms, “is someone I wouldn’t mind having around. You interested in flippin’ a few burgers?”
My mind suddenly turned philosophical. Drop in for a meal—stay for a lifetime. Ever realize what ultimately happens in our lives, what creates our destiny, comes down to the simplest choices we make? Every minute of every day, that’s really all we do, is make choices. Most are mundane and seemingly insignificant, made on autopilot. In and of themselves, they appear to have little or no consequence in our lives: stopping at stop signs, going to the market, getting a haircut. But every once in a while, the seemingly insignificant choices we make, sometimes end up changing the course of our lives forever. It’s when you look back at these presumably random choices and realize that they’ve taken on a life of their own, that’s when I start to wonder who’s really in charge. As much as I’d like to lay claim to being the architect of my own destiny, somehow being hungry and in the mood for a hamburger just doesn’t seem to qualify as a life-altering decision. But the simple act of walking into Hodad’s changed my life forever.
Just then, the beautiful auburn-haired waitress came around the corner and chimed in before I’d had a chance to answer Bryon. “If you don’t stay, at least leave this adorable pup here with us. I’m in love with her.” Sierra slid out of Bryon’s lap and wedged herself between Jennifer’s beautiful, tanned athletic legs.
“We come as a matched pair,” I said, surprising myself. She flashed another smile. My second meltdown didn’t surprise either of us.
I started work the next morning amidst friendly people, good food, lots of cold drinks and, of course, Jennifer was there. I didn’t have the balls to look her in the eye, or even talk to her. Being in the same zip code was as close to intimacy as I could handle. I knew she felt something between us, but she didn’t push it. As the days liquefied into sunsets, the nights into weeks, and the weeks into months, Sierra became our common bond. Jennifer poured her love into that dog, and somehow, for now, that was enough … or at least so I thought. After my shift, if Jennifer hadn’t taken Sierra to the beach or home with her for the night, we’d walk the beach or drive over the hill to Point Loma. During the winter the landings and shipyards were mostly deserted at night, so we’d walk along the boardwalks. Occasionally we ducked under gates or around half-torn-down chain link fences to get out onto the docks. Sometimes we’d startle a blue heron or an errant harbor seal that had claimed a dock finger for the night.
There was nothing like being down by the water. The rough commercial docks and sport boats held an interest for me that’s hard to describe. There’s magnetism about workboats and the people who run them. Those men and women are a unique breed. As a kid, I looked at the captains and crews of the commercial boats as if they were gods. My dad, in particular, was bigger than life. He was at sea for weeks at a time, riding out the most vicious storms hundreds of miles from nowhere while I lay trembling in my little bunk, scared to death that our houseboat, tied to the dock, was going to sink right out from under us. How they survived out there was beyond my wildest imagination. They could only be gods.
So Sierra and I walked the docks at night, looking at the boats, listening to their stories.
It had been six months since I started working at Hodad’s. Years ago, the garage behind the place had been converted into a studio, and when the couple who had been living there moved out, Sierra and I moved in. It was set off from the rest of the house by an ancient wisteria hedge that covered the patio and worked its way along the overhead lattice in a seamless twisted system of thick vines and rich green foliage. When in bloom, it filled the air with an aroma so sweet it melted your senses. A large opaque skylight built into the roof of the old open-beamed ceiling allowed soft filtered ambient sunlight to fill the room. It was simple and clean. Facing the far side of the garden, and hidden from both the alley and rest of the house, a bathroom had been framed into the corner. The shower opened to the garden. Showering felt like standing under a waterfall in the midst of a tropical rainforest.
The only drawback was that whenever someone didn’t show up for work, Bryon knew my commute was a no-brainer. I was on call 24/7, a small price to pay for free rent. Besides the beach and my long walks with Sierra, working at Hodad’s was my life. There was enough social interaction to feel connected, but not threatened. Catching a glimpse of Jennifer looking at me every once in a while was enough to keep my imagination ignited so that maybe some day, somehow, we could share more than our love for the same dog. I had no complaints. In fact, it even started to feel like home.
Evidently, Karyn had filed for divorce shortly after I had left Seattle. I guess she and Shane had some big plans for the future. “Screw ’em,” I had told Grandpa during a phone call when he informed me the papers had been delivered to the cannery months earlier. He’d been holding all my mail, because no one knew where to reach me.
“She wants everything,” he said, “your boat, the furniture—everything you guys had …” His voice trailed off.
“She destroyed everything we had.” I took a deep breath and waited for the pain I’d been running from to re-surface. Surprisingly, it didn’t. “She can have it all. I don’t care. I’m done with the both of them.”
“If that’s the way you feel, and I don’t blame you,” Grandpa said, “then you should sign these papers. I’ll mail everything down to you.”
Then Grandma got on the line. “We’ve been real worried about you, sweetheart. When are you coming home?”
Grandpa and Grandma had lived in the same house for over fifty years. It would always be the center of their universe, but I knew if I went back up there, I’d be lost forever.
Without giving her a direct answer, I said, “Grandma, don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine. I love you. Bye.”
I’d been talking on the pay phone outside the back door of the kitchen and hadn’t heard Jennifer come up behind me. When I hung up, she was right there.
“Overhearing part of that conversation,” she said, holding me with her eyes, “I just learned more about you in sixty seconds than I’ve learned in the past six months.” The penetrating, unwavering look in her eyes demanded more. “I want to know who you are. I’ve been waiting patiently, but it’s time.” She wasn’t about to apologize for eavesdropping.
Since the day Sierra and I walked into Hodad’s and first laid eyes on her, I’d felt an undeniable attraction between us. Other than that lame comment when we first met about Sierra and me coming as a matched pair, I’d done my best to avoid her—averting her eyes whenever we worked together, which was almost every day. She would brush by me in the kitchen, her scent leaving me light-headed. Reaching in for a condiment or something over my shoulder, she’d touch my arm, sending electricity surging between us. At the mere sight of her, my heart leapt