I Love You Lamp

Oakland, 1997

I met Helen in San Francisco, at a reading for The Size of the World. She was staring at me, glowing at me, from the fourth row of the audience. I had never seen a more beautiful woman. She held a copy of my book—even from my perch on the stage, I could see that it bristled with Post-It notes. My single hope was that she would ask me to sign it.

Helen did approach the signing table, and handed me the book—along with a beautifully wrapped package. “Open it now,” she said. Inside was a small, white, wooden horse. It was a deeply personal gift: I’d written about my connection with a certain white horse in my book. I was speechless. Her smile was a mimosa on a Tahitian beach.

Helen came to my house three times a week for the next two months. She’d arrive before dawn, use her key, and crawl into bed with me. Our trysts were brief: She lived with her boyfriend, who left early for the gym. She had to get home before he did.

She was tall, blonde, and curvy, and loved to be spanked—hard. Really hard. I was never super comfortable with that. I’m sure my downstairs neighbor wasn’t, either.

Was it love? Yes. At least, I pretended it was. But it was more a trajectory. We’d climbed into a catapult, and sprung the catch. We were riding gravity’s rainbow.

When I left for to Los Angeles to work on my Star Trek book. Helen flew down to meet me for a day. We went to Disneyland, seeking out the tiny pockets of untrammeled nature scattered amid the elves and androids. The next morning, as she dressed to go, it seemed something about her had changed. It took me a minute: She was wearing an enormous engagement ring. She smiled sheepishly. “Congratulations,” I said.

Our intermezzo ended. She mailed me this lamp about a month later. I’ve never known what to make of it. It’s dopey. The white wooden horse was more convincing.

Helen’s engagement flickered, too. I heard she became a doctor, and moved to Alaska. She lives in a tiny town, with few neighbors within earshot.