Losing IT...part 2.

Let me first quickly apologize for my blatant disrespect for capitol letters, and pledge to TRY to do better by them in the future.
Ok. Malibu. Summer after my senior year of high school. Jeff's mother's house. The most beautiful house I have EVER been to. It still is my dream house to this very day. I mean, if I saw it again, I might change my mind - but I don't think so. In my memory, it is exactly the house that I would love to own and live in. And the very best thing about it, was the garden.
Jeff's mother (now that I could actually hear what she was saying), suggested that we have our breakfast outside. So we did.
The minute we stepped outside into the yard, I fell madly and passionately in love. Oh! That yard was so AMAZING! I will tell you right now that I am a Taurus - which means that I am an extremely sensual person. And this backyard was like an attack on all of them.
There was a good sized pool - not huge - but a pretty shape, and big enough to do some decent laps in, and great outdoor eating area, lots of little areas and paths that begged to be explored...but most of all - the GARDENS.
The majority of the yard was taken up by these beautiful, beautiful gardens. They were full of vegetables, herbs, flowers - all bursting out of their raised beds, a cacophony of color and sweet smells. Because of this incredible wealth of flora, the back yard was also filled with butterflies and bees, and the prettiest sounding birds.
As i took it all in - the scents of rosemary and roses, the sounds of the birds and the bees (literally),the clean air kissed ever so slightly with ocean salt, and the warm California sun on my hair - I knew right away - without being told - that this, too, was the creation of Jeff's beautiful mother.
During the next month (I think I stayed there for about a month), I learned that she ran every day, was a brain surgeon, and had written at least one (I did say I would forget details) highly respected book on brain surgery or research or something like that. This woman was a dynamo. She also turned out to be incredibly cool and kind. She was the kind of person who could laugh at herself. Her boys would tease her about the "baby-talk" voice she used when she was talking to the dog. I remember her swatting at them, and laughing. She was also incredibly kind to me when I got the worst case of poison oak I've ever had in my life! I was COVERED....COVERED in itchy bumps - it was horrible. I was quarantined in the guest room for days.
Anyway, a couple of days after I got there, she demonstrated how cool she was by allowing me to move into Jeff's room with him. We WERE out of high school and everything, but still - some parents would not have been ok with it.
I was certain, with this new development, that I was in paradise.
The days were spent doing nothing much - but everything that means a damn to me. I watched Jeff water his mother's garden every day with a t-shirt wrapped around his head, sometimes helping, sometimes getting thrown into the pool by his god-like brother...at dinner every night, Jeff's mom would go into the garden with a basket and some garden shears and cut beautiful things for the evening's salad. At dinner there would be scintillating conversation, and laughter. Usually, Jeff practiced the Sax in the afternoon for about an hour in his dreamy bedroom - it was upstairs, overlooking the garden - and I would lounge around on his bed drinking in the music as if it were a warm, sexy drug.
At night (and in the afternoon sometimes), I had the privilege of sleeping in the same bed with Jeff. We snuggled, kissed, took most of our clothes off....and for some reason always stopped short of making love. It was heaven anyway. And just when I thought that world at his mother's house couldn't get any better - it did.
Jeff's good friend, Steve Fox, came for a visit. I knew him from Interlochen, too - but not well.
Steve was a really cool New York cat. He played the guitar. He played it really, really well. Classical, jazz - I think he could play anything.
With Steve there, there was even more music in the house, the dinner conversations got even better, and the 3 of us (Jeff, Steve and I) had a couple of cool adventures.
One of them involved climbing some pretty sticky mountains. I was NOT wearing good climbing shoes. They may have even been penny-loafers, and about three quarters of the way up the mountain, with rocks and and dirt crumbling from under my feet, and nothing I could see to grab on to - I was stuck. Paralyzed with fear.
I was convinced that someone was going to have to call a helicopter.I couldn't move. Then, Steve Fox climbed back down to me and taught me a valuable lesson.
After minutes wasted on trying to talk some sense into me - he realized the magnitude of my fear, and started singing.
"Come on, sing with me", he coaxed.
I shook my head like a four year old.
"It's ok. Don't think about moving right now. You're ok where you are. Just sing with me. Or at least hum..."
He started to sing again, and I started to look down. It was really, really far down - I was FREAKING.
"No, no,no....don't look down! Look at me. Look right at me", Steve Fox said with some authority in his voice.
I did what he said. He started singing again.
"Sing with me, Jennifer. I don't have the greatest voice here.."
I did what he said. I started singing, and soon enough, I had sung my way to the top of the mountain. When I got to the top - I collapsed in the dirt, laughing and yelping in relief.
On the path on the way down, we saw a beautiful big snake. I was scared of that, too - but they both assured me that it wasn't poisonous. It didn't matter, I had gotten my share of poison that day. That was when I got the horrible, horrible poison oak....ugh! It was sooo frustrating, just when Jeff and I seemed to be about to seal the sex deal - a HUGE delay!

Three years later, Steve Fox flew me over from London to audition for a Broadway musical his family was producing. I was pretty surprised, considering the only time he ever heard me sing was on that mountain.

...to be continued....