Hey Sarah:

So did you think I was kidding when I told you I would definitely look you up? I'm sure you're back in San Diego right now. Probably already slaving away in the clinic with those kids and their speech problems. Well, look. I was just wondering if you're still thinking about me. You know, the handsome guy you met at the overlook of Fira last week? My introduction, if you recall, was while looking over that incomparable edge of Santorini at sunset.

So Sarah, I just wanted you to know I found you alluring those two days you stayed in the same hotel with your parents. I must confess you're a girl not easy to forget. And by the way, I hope you're not feeling the places I invited you were only to impress you. I would have gone to them myself anyway. But as I remember, you did seem to be having a pretty good time. At the dinner party on Stuyvesant's yacht. The scenery there suited you, as i remember. Mr. S. is an old client of mine. And such a crazy host. He actually complimented me later about you. "Where did you find that jewel of a girl?" he asked. Really. Just yesterday by phone from Zurich.

Well, I'm sending you this email because you don't seem to be picking up your cell phone these past few days. Hope it's not about who's calling. But if it is, just let me know and I'll fade away. Hopefully as a nice memory. Anyways, I've been a bit concerned since you and your folks flew back to Athens and then on to Cali. Not being able to reach you has been a little worrying.

Hope all is good over in "America's Finest" I'll actually be nearby in La Jolla on business next week. And because of that, was hoping to take you out to dinner and maybe some clubbing while in town. Let me know if you are up for some more tall tales and laughs. And maybe just one more of that unforgettable kiss. Looks like there's going to be a full moon during that weekend . . .

Message me. --Jess

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Sarah closed the screen of her laptop and walked back to the bedroom of her small but elegant apartment. The lithe twenty-four-year-old was not particularly happy with the message. She had met Jess quite by accident the previous week of her vacation, and at the time just wanted to find peace and quiet in a faraway place. Her parents invited her on their whirlwind trip to the Mediterranean island of Santorini—just like they had done to other exotic locales while she was growing up. This time she did not complain and went along with them, partly out of nostalgia. She had not seen much of her parents since finishing her Masters at UCLA the year before. But it was also a time for Sarah to reflect upon her life after college and now her recent position as a speech and language therapist. The clinic where she spent long hours was not far from her apartment in Torrey Pines—a scenic, coastal area just north of San Diego. It was known to the more wealthy inhabitants of the town simply as 'The Village."

Sarah went to the back window and stared out into the pine forest that was an aesthetic buffer between the sandstone and wooden complex and the nearby blue Pacific. She had hoped to spend that Saturday morning just padding around in the red and blue Japanese kimono she wore as a robe over her pajamas—reading the paper, and hopefully, attending to some domestic tasks she had only learned to do herself while a freshman in the dorms of Scripps College. Not far away from her place was stately Fairbanks Ranch, the affluent and sprawling community where she was raised by her parents as an only child. The Ranch had all the trappings of an exclusive country club—complete with golf course, equestrian complex and several polo fields.

Sarah was at this point in her life much happier with simplicity and frankly, having less. Her recent and more pedestrian years as a college student in Los Angeles had afforded her this frugality and tranquility, which she found a more Zen outlook than materialism. And it was for this reason, and a couple others involving males, that she had walked away from the computer that morning, somewhat perplexed and angry over Jess' out-of-the-blue email. The inescapable invitation from the man she had forced herself to forget.

Sarah sat pensively in front of the floor-length window cross-legged. Her athletic body was well-conditioned from a life of tennis, swimming and ballet. Looking out at the hazy light rising off the ocean, she breathed in and out, yoga-style, while seriously contemplating the dilemma now before her. She had truly not been answering calls from anyone but family and friends since returning from Greece. And this was precisely because she did not want to reconnect with the handsome stranger in question, she had met the week before, and not withstanding on one of the world's most romantic islands.

But Jess was unfortunately correct about one thing. She did enjoy his company. The dinner party on his friend's yacht was truly exciting and yes, impressive. And she certainly would never forget the wild motorcycle ride with him across the barren island from the white and blue domed Fira to the upper village crest of Oia, where the vertical drop to the cobalt sea is two thousand feet. The rooms for rent there she recalled were candle-lit prehistoric caves, cut back deeply into the stone cliffs.

Jess was indeed charming and smooth, there was no doubt about it—but that fact only shouted out caution to her. Yet his sense of fun and ease were quickly irresistible under the circumstances of being in such a wonderland. She was only with him on two full occasions while on Santorini and did little more than let him kiss her. Oh it was true she felt the heady rush of hormones entice her during each outing in anticipation for something more. But somehow, she managed to divert his romantic advances, turning them back into the exquisite surroundings, and the fast-paced activities which Jess managed to skillfully orchestrated for them. Yet there was always that expected moment. That chance that their brief companionship would explode into a more erotic episode that Sarah was wary of. To her relief—especially now as she sat safely on the carpeted floor of her apartment—it never did.

But now? The situation was unexpectedly and quickly evolving that she might see him again. Might she be tempted to allow herself to fall further into his embraces if there was to be a next time? She got up and went into the kitchen to prepare her morning tea. Cutting a single slice of Ginger and one of lemon, she placed them into her cup along with a green tea bag, and poured in the boiling water had heated earlier. Carrying the cup back over to the computer to read the message again, she wondered what she should do. It was not a simple decision. The task at hand—to write back, or not, was based on some complicated circumstances which had left this notably beautiful, eligible young woman, reluctant to fully connect with a man romantically ever again.

While in high school, Sarah had a boyfriend who was, like herself, athletic and proficient at many of Southern California's outdoor activities. Robbie's passion was both surfing and hang gliding—two of the activities the San Diego coastal area was famous for. While they were both juniors, each actively involved in the world, and at a time when they were only beginning to allow their sexual attraction and attractiveness to develop fully, Robbie became the victim of a tragic accident. It occurred while sailing his hang glider along the steep and treacherous cliffs near Torrey Pines, just north of the UCSD La Jolla campus. The coroner that day pronounced the fair-haired Robbie dead at the scene where his multi-colored gossamer craft had crashed to earth. He apparently had become tangled in his control cables after flipping over in dangerous wind turbulence high over the beach.

It took Sarah all she had to pull herself together and make it through that day as well as her entire senior year. It further took an extreme effort for her to diligently prepare for college the following year. The determined young woman kept up her sports as a form of therapy and mental balance. She also poured herself into psychology and child-development, specializing eventually in speech pathology. When it came time for her to once again listen to the urgings of her body and heart, she was in her third year of college. She reluctantly became attracted to someone with her own affluent upbringings.

Dan Trevor was a rich boy from West LA. His father worked as a motion picture executive at Studio City. This moody and difficult young man had grown up in the Hollywood Hills and seemed to lack for nothing as his lifestyle revealed. Unlike Sarah, this UCLA film study's ambitions were sorely interrupted by his off-campus recreational habits—namely cocaine. It became patently clear to the faithful and generous Sarah that he preferred his drug of choice to her. Eventually, their toxic and halting relationship was irreparably damaged by his wild fluctuations between incoherence and intolerable edginess. Sarah sadly understood these to be the tell-tale signs of serious drug addiction.

This priority of Dan's, wanting to be high all the time, eventually led to his becoming a dealer of the substance himself. Then one night while coming across the Mexican border with a cache of "coke" having a street value of three million dollars, he was intercepted by the authorities and arrested. Because he was also involved in the trafficking of illegal firearms—unbeknownst to Sarah, not even his rich father could keep Dan out of a five year prison sentence. After that second disaster with love and attraction, Sarah committed herself to a life of simplicity, hard work, and the joy she received from helping children with exceptional needs.

But now, however, as the warm morning light streamed in from her window, Sarah thought seriously about the prospect of seeing Jess again. But this time here, in her own environment. It was a disturbing proposition and was to come as early as next weekend. The possibilities of any real involvement again with a wealthy, exciting man gave the honey-haired, quiet girl a recurring trepidation which she had spent years trying to get over. Reluctantly, Sarah took a sip of her aromatic tea and opened the silver cover to her laptop. Her fingers were slightly shaking as she moved the cursor over to the 'Reply' button and to begin corresponding to her latest email.

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Text and e-book copyright © 2015 Califia Montalvo

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