It is of course my view that it's never too late to learn anything for which we have a potential. In the case of our protagonist, Sarah Kay, we find a girl of eighteen, raised for the last five years in a Swiss convent and gravely traumatized by the loss of her mother when she was twelve. Suddenly dropped back into California culture, she longs for the love that has been absent for so long. We trust that she has the potential for love but quickly sense that she possesses little knowledge of what love is. Countless studies and numerous research papers suggest that love is a learned response, a learned emotion. How Sarah Kay will learn to love is directly related to her ability to learn and to those in her environment who will teach her. She possesses the potential for love, but potential is never realized without work. This does not mean pain. Love, especially, is learned best in wonder, in joy and in living. And then, as D.H. Lawrence says, "Things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in." And so it shall be for Sarah Kay.
In the early morning's dim light she wraps her towel around her waist and quietly slips out of her room to creep downstairs to the pool for a swim and to investigate the elderly couple sitting on the diving board drinking coffee and sharing the very herb that she abused as a girl of twelve and thirteen. In the kitchen she finds her father drinking coffee and observing the same couple out the back window. He signals her to follow him out the front door where the car is parked. She can join him going up to the lake to pick up his old friend, Chuck, who will be landing his float plane within the hour.
Thirty minutes later they are at the dock where Chuck will tie-up. Jesse walks out to the end of the pier to keep a sharp eye on the horizon while Sarah Kay heads over to a nearby swimming area and dives in. Five minutes later Chuck's plane kisses the water so smoothly there is hardly a wake. After he's tied up, he greets his Jesse with a hug. The pals of more than 30-years then walk over to fetch Sarah Kay. When she climbs out of the water the very sight of her takes Chuck's breathe away. It has to be her wet cotton, athletic, figure hugging, 1920's style tank suit that causes Chuck to begin to jabber, prattle and stammer non-stop. And that's when, for the first time in five years, her father's protective instincts kicks in. He realizes that his old friend's childhood flair for evasion and distraction is still operational. Chuck is attempting to bury the realization of lust for his old friend's daughter. Jesse quickly hands Sarah Kay her towel and announces they'd better head back to the house. A tailor will be waiting there to fit Chuck for a tuxedo. That evening's official Olive Festival Gala Ball taking place there at the Risconi Family's Estate.
Copyright 2010 G. Leo Maselli
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