Chapter 21 -- Very Unexpected Visitor
Friday evening before dinner, Dave assessed the progress on the reconstruction project. Several points were noteworthy. The shattered large tempered plate glass panels across the core living room where they looked out over the patio had all been replaced except right where most of the construction was going on. He could also see that there had been significant activity on the roof, suggesting that the permanent roof was complete over the top of the girders and special plywood that made up the base. Inside he could see that the walls had already been installed with metal studs. The burned and twisted wreckage was now completely hidden or removed.
This was not one of Dave's nights to tend bar, but he headed there anyway if not to help then to meet and greet his friends and lovers.
He didn't realize that he was in store for a large surprise. He was seated on a bar stool for a change talking to Abby Walsh wearing a sexy barmaid's outfit. He'd just gotten an update on how she was feeling after the death of Derek Wilson, her lover, mentor, and just about everything else for years of her life. Surprisingly, she'd continued to live with Emily -- Derek's wife -- in the home he'd built on Perimeter Road. As they had with Derek, they shared the same bed.
As they talked, he saw another resident from a Perimeter Road home making her way across the patio with a large grin on her face -- Tan. Tan was married to Bjorn Andersen and Nathan Ryder, but considered herself first and foremost a Circle member.
Tan got close to him and said, "Dave, please close your eyes for a very nice surprise. I'll tell you when to open them."
Dave closed his eyes and got a kiss from the hot Oriental woman. She said, "I like to kiss you, but that's not your surprise. Just keep them closed for a moment."
He heard a slight diminishment of the patio conversation, and then got another kiss on his lips, this one soft and passionate and long lasting. A female said in a lovely husky whisper, "I love you."
Dave couldn't guess who the person was. "Can I open my eyes now?"
Before he got an answer, each of his eyelids got kissed, and then a "Yes".
"OH, MY GOD! JENN," Dave exclaimed. "What are you doing here? I thought I'd never see you again." Tears came to his eyes. He pulled Jenn to him in a hug.
Tan stood by and looked pleased at the meeting.
Jenn was Jenn Whitaker, one of the women Dave had met and wooed at a leadership seminar in Sedona over a decade earlier. The last Dave knew she worked for a dot-com selling furniture online based on the west coast. She'd made a special visit to see him right after the Circle formed, and had decided she couldn't share or get over the group environment and the open sex that underpinned the Circle and Dave's way of life. She'd self-selected out of the scene with a tearful goodbye that had sounded like forever.
Jenn smiled at him and then hugged him again.
"Jenn Whitaker. You are a sight for sore eyes. You are as beautiful as ever -- even more than I remember."
She smiled, "It's not Jenn Whitaker any more. I became Jenn Ryder for a while. I guess I still am, but I'm divorced. I have one child who's playing with a group of other kids her age in Scarlett Johansson's backyard -- a point I have a hard time believing in and of itself."
"What ... where ... I have so many questions about you," Dave confessed.
Jenn hitched herself onto the adjacent barstool, accepting a glass of white wine from Elton Cleats who also had bar duty with Abby that night.
Jenn began, "When I left here, I'm sure you never expected to see me again. I never thought I could come back either. You were married to your wives -- I heard from Tan that you have ten now, the women in the Circle, and the Circle itself. I couldn't handle the competition back then. I wanted you exclusively and possessively. I didn't even want to share myself with anybody but you."
She sighed, "I've traveled a million miles since then -- mental miles where I learned one helluva lot about life, love, relationships, and many other things."
Tan snuggled up to Dave with her arm around him, "Jenn got in touch again about two years ago. I promised I wouldn't say anything, but we had long talks about the Circle and what was going on. You came up part of the time, but not exclusively you'll be glad to know. About two months ago, I sent her a copy of Cricket's book."
Jenn said, "I've almost destroyed my copy underlining practically every sentence, and the whole book looks highlighted in different colored markers. Every page has been dog-eared. It is very well read."
Dave was holding both of Jenn's hands in his. "And what did you conclude?" He was almost scared of the answer.
Tears flooded into Jenn's eyes and she gripped his hands tighter. She made a quiet strangling sound trying to speak for a moment but nothing came out. She finally said as tears ran down her pretty tanned cheeks, "I belong here!"
Dave got off his stool and hugged Jenn tightly to his chest. He felt her tears sinking into the fabric of his t-shirt. He gently kissed her temples as she burrowed into his hug and wrapped her arms tightly around his body.
Jenn gathered her wits. "All that stuff that bothered me then, doesn't bother me any more. I remember we talked about how you loosened up -- with your wife Alice and then with others. I guess I went through a similar process that I won't bore you with right now. Suffice it to say, my world got turned every which way several times since I saw you last. I've actually been divorced twice. My child is from my first marriage. I kept learning, growing, expanding, and more. I even had a real guru helping me for a while -- very 'California', I know." She made air quotes.
"Any way, I only know of one place in the world where I want to be and that's here -- in the Circle."
Dave softly said, "I haven't changed all that much, at least in terms of my value set. The Circle hasn't changed that much in that regard either, although we have many new members since I saw you last." He gestured to the others milling around the patio.
"Tan told me about how you were all attacked. I'm so glad no one was hurt."
"We were, too. Hopefully, we'll have a new kitchen up and running in about two or three weeks. The pool cabana might be a month after that."
Jenn said, "Just so you know, I've undergone some real transformations in my life, including my value set. I did some brave things and some dumb things in the past decade, but I grew a lot."
"Are you still in Internet furniture?"
"No, no. I quit there about five years ago and started my own online business specializing in unusual flooring. I sold it about six months ago and did very well. Right now, I'm unemployed, not working, and not worried about money. Eventually, I'll probably need a job, but I can coast for a long time, if not forever. I actually thought I'd talk to Holly about what her venture capital business was doing these days."
Tan jumped in, "I asked Jenn to move in with us for a while. She doesn't mind the brat since she has one of her own about the same age. We have sufficient guest rooms for everybody. She accepted.
"I told her that if she wanted to really embrace the Circle that she had to embrace our way of life AND befriend everybody. We'd talked about little else since she got here yesterday."
