They kissed again and Jake collected her phone number. She went upstairs and disappeared.
Mario drove him home. For the first time since his early days with Mindy Snow his testicles throbbed with the affliction of blue balls. He wasn't upset about this, however. He was quite pleased. It really was true what they said about respecting women in the morning. Had she gone back to his place and slept with him tonight, Jake would have never talked to Rachel again, would have never visited the restaurant again. Since she had fended him off, however, he now had a date with her.
Chapter 3a
In Escrow
Los Angeles, California
January 17th, 1987
11:30 AM
The yellow 1986 Volkswagen Cabriolet wound its way up the narrow two-lane road into the hills below Griffith Park. Rachel Madison, dressed in a pair of designer jeans and a silk blouse from Buffington's on Rodeo Drive, was behind the wheel. Jake Kingsley, wearing a pair of Levis and a long-sleeved pullover shirt, sat in the passenger seat, directing her on where to turn and where to go straight. They were on their way to see the house that Jake was seriously considering buying. Jake's temperamental Corvette was currently in the shop — again — the victim of a broken front-end strut this time. He could have taken a limo up for the second viewing of the residence or he could have gotten Diane Brown — his realtor — to drive him up, but he'd asked Rachel to pick him up instead. It was Saturday, a day they both had off from their normal obligations, and he wanted a woman's perspective on the house.
Since New Year's Even they had been seeing each other fairly regularly, their respective schedules permitting. As promised, she had broken up with her fourth year med student boyfriend, leaving him in shocked tears, she'd told him with a small amount of disgusted amusement. Jake had taken her out every Friday and Saturday night since, escorting her to the Flamingo Club twice, to Flamer's Steakhouse (where Mindy Snow had casually broken up with him once upon a time), and to several shopping excursions to Beverly Hills. Rachel was good company and he enjoyed being with her. She was intelligent, able to hold a decent conversation, had a sense of humor, and was very attractive. She seemed to enjoy his company as well — even when he wasn't spending hundreds of dollars on her.
So far their relationship was in holding pattern as far as physical intimacy went. They held hands when they were together and they kissed quite frequently when they were alone, even going so far as to have heated make-out sessions when the mood seemed right. So far, however, she had fended off each and every one of Jake's attempts to go further. She would push his hand away when he tried to slide it beneath her shirt. She would squirm out from beneath him if he tried to lay her down on a horizontal surface. Her typical explanation was, "I'm not ready for that yet."
Jake remained mostly good-natured about her unwillingness to go to the next level of their relationship. It was actually somewhat of a novelty. Most women he slept with opened their legs to him within minutes, hours at the most. Having to work at the game, feeling the thrill of the chase for once, made him feel almost like a normal American boy chasing a normal American girl.
"Turn here," Jake said. "This is the street."
Rachel turned onto the twisting, tree-lined street. "Nottingham Drive, huh?" she asked, eyeing the widely spaced houses that were set back on both sides of the road. "Sounds very Robin Hood."
"Matt will say it sounds faggy," Jake replied.
"He does have rather strong opinions of that subject," she said.
"Matt has rather strong opinions about almost everything," Jake said. "Slow up a little. It's coming up."
"Which one?" she asked.
"That one." He pointed.
The house in question was bigger than most of the others on the street. It was two stories tall with a large attic area that was big enough to qualify as a third story. It was fifty years old, of classic Spanish Colonial architecture, and surrounded by a lot that was just under an acre in size. A wide, well cared for front lawn stretched from the porch to the street, broken only by a circular driveway and an ornate marble fountain. Sitting off to the right was a four car detached garage.
"Wow," Rachel said. "It's huge."
"Thirty-six hundred square feet," Jake said. He had done his homework on houses in the past month. "That doesn't include the attic, which is another nine hundred square feet. Of all the places I've looked at I like this one the best. It's got the best location, the best view, and the best square footage for what they're asking for it."
"I think I love it already," Rachel said.
She pulled into the circular driveway and parked her car behind the gray Mercedes that belonged to Diane Brown. Diane worked for the same company Jake rented his current condo from. She specialized in Hollywood Hills and Beverly Hills properties and, as such, was accustomed to dealing with rich and/or famous clients. She had a knack for finding out exactly what her clients' needs and/or wants were and matching them up with the properties currently listed. In Jake's case she knew that he loathed driving in traffic and wanted to stay within fifteen miles or so of Hollywood but that a prestigious location was not that important to him. She had steered him away from Beverly Hills, where the money he was willing to spend would have gone more toward a 90210 zip code than the house and lot itself. The same amount in Beverly Hills would have netted him a house and lot half the size of what he was now looking at.
Diane was a smartly dressed, attractive woman in her mid-forties. She stepped out of her car when Rachel parked behind her and met them at the walkway that led up to the front door. Jake introduced the two women to each other and they shook hands.
"So you like this one, huh?" Diane asked. "It's a good value. A beautiful place with lots of amenities and the owners are quite anxious to unload it."
"Of all the houses you've showed me so far, this one has the most of what I'm looking for," Jake told her. "It's reasonably private, it has a big lot, it has a view, and it's close to Hollywood. I just wanted to take one more look at it and have Rachel give it the once-over as well."
"So you're thinking of putting in a bid?" Diane asked hopefully.
"I am doing more than thinking of it," Jake said.
"Well then," she said. "Let's go look it over, shall we?"
She retrieved a key from a lockbox attached to the water pipe and let them in through the double doors. The owners — a cardiac surgeon and his wife — had divorced three months before and were selling the house as part of the settlement. Both of them had long since moved out and taken all of their furnishings with them.
They walked through the interior. The downstairs contained a formal living room, a formal dining room, a regular living room, an entertainment room complete with mahogany wet bar, a huge, fully equipped kitchen, a laundry room, and one of the five bedrooms. All of this level was covered in mahogany hardwood flooring that had been polished to a mirror sheen. The entertainment room looked out to the south, out over the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, which sat below the hills. A circular staircase led up to the second floor where the other four bedrooms, including the nine hundred square foot master suite, were located. There was also an office that looked out over the back yard. All of these rooms were covered in wall-to-wall thick pile Berber carpeting.
"I think I can live here," Jake said as they finished the house tour.
"It's gorgeous," Rachel beamed, her eyes agog at everything.
"Come out and look at the back yard," he told her. "That's what I like the most."
The back yard was actually a side yard since the back of the house was right up against the edge of the hill looking downward over the view. Jake led her out onto the balcony outside the master suite and over to a redwood staircase that led to the west side of the lot. Immediately at the bottom was an oversized swimming pool and a built-in hot tub surrounded by a large expanse of stamped concrete deck upon which a huge brick barbeque and a covered wet bar had been constructed. Beyond the patio was a third of an acre of Kentucky bluegrass. Privacy hedges formed a perimeter around the entire yard, preventing any of the adjacent properties from viewing what occurred out here.