"I can see this isn't going to work," she said.
She was talking to her dog, a little white terrier with patches of brown, tied to an umbrella pole outside Starbucks.
"Sit still, Louisa," she instructed the puzzled creature. "I'm gonna be in there for just a minute."
Louisa pretended to obey, but the moment her owner walked through the door, she dashed after her, sprinting past the newspaper rack in a flash of fur. With an exasperated look, her owner scooped her up, brought her back out, and began negotiating again.
"Stay, I'll be back in a few," she said, "then we'll go to the Park, OK?"
Sitting on her hind legs, Louisa wagged her tail and wiggled her ears, as if to acknowledge the commands issued to her. But not really. The moment her mistress turned her back and started to walk, she was off the chair, in hot pursuit.
"What am I going to do with you?" the young woman wondered.
I watched the whole exchange from a nearby table, trying not to laugh. I had one feet up on the iron railing, my chair tilted at an angle. I was doing my best imitation of Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp, lounging outside the sheriff's office in a rocking chair in My Darling Clementine. I think the legendary lawman would have come to the aid of a damsel in distress (two damsels, if we were to consider Louisa as the other).
"I'll keep Louisa company," I volunteered.
"Really? That's so nice of you," she said. "Are you sure?"
"Sure," I replied, "go get your coffee."
"I'm Erica," she said, "and this is Louisa."
I shook Erica's hand, then shook Louisa's paw. Then I moved to the chair next to Louisa to babysit her.
"Louisa," Erica said, "this nice man is going to play with you. Stay with him, OK?"
Erica started to walk. Louisa started to dive, but I held her back from the collar, which was a puffy, pink harness that looked like a baby's bib.
"Can I get you something?" Erica asked, poking her head out from the door.
"I'm all set," I said, waving my cup of Latte.
I cradled Louisa in my arm and rubbed her along her spine. It felt like I was holding on to a little frisky rabbit, ready to slip through my fingers any moment. I wanted to find a way to calm her. As I recalled, singing worked with small children most of the time. So I started humming "Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond" to the trembling terrier.
I know. It's a silly choice for a puppy lullaby. But it worked. She curled up next to me like a beach ball when I got to:
Oh ye'll tak' the high road an’ I'll tak' the low road
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye,
For me and my true love will never meet again
On the bonnie bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.
(Who knows? Maybe she's a Scottish terrier.)
"Thank you so much," said Erica when she reappeared, holding a cup decorated with red-and-green holiday themes and snowflakes. "Was she OK? Did she behave?"
"She was fine," I said. "We bonded."
I couldn't see Erica's eyes through her pomegranate-colored sunglasses with wide rims, but something about her dimpled smile looked familiar. And I knew I'd seen that bob cut with slightly uneven fringes too, but couldn't place it. Was it at a poetry reading, a cocktail gathering, or (dear God!) a speed dating event?
"I always take her out for a walk around 7:30, before going to work," said Erica, pointing at Golden Gate Park, a block away from where we sat. "It's good for both of us. She has lots of energy, so it gives her something to do ..."
Petite, perky, and chatty, Erica reminded me of Drew Barrymore's character Sophie Fisher from Music and Lyrics. She spoke without a pause, fully animated, and she hadn't even sipped her coffee yet.
It was 10:30 by then. The sun was breaking through the mist. The neighborhood was waking up, invigorated by the whiff of basil and lemon grass from the Thai kitchen around the corner. Not yet fully recovered from the late night carousal, UCSF (University of California, San Francisco) students streamed into the cafe like zombies. Strolling down 9th Ave towards Golden Gate Park and the De Young Museum, tourists paused to marvel at the sushi shop's window display, stocked with tantalizing replicas of salmon roe and pink tuna. Erica and Louisa moved on, shaking off the winter chill in brisk steps. I took my time finishing my coffee.
Ten minutes later, I ran into the duo again at the crosswalk.
"I'm waiting for a girlfriend of mine to meet us before we head into the Park," said Erica.
"I just realized you two are color-coordinated," I pointed out.
She glanced down at her windbreaker from The North Face with a grin. It had the same pinkish shade as the padded harness wrapped around Louisa's shoulder.
"I love this jacket," she said. "It's so durable. You can get dirt on it, light a fire under it, spill coffee on it ..."
She pointed at several large coffee stains across her chest.
"See, you shouldn't have pointed that out to me," I jested. "I wouldn't have noticed them if you didn't tell me."
She scrunched her nose and smiled. The traffic light had changed from red to green, then back to red, but I kept standing there, forgetting to cross the street. We continued to talk while Louisa sniffed at the other puppies and babies strolling past us.
"Do you live around here?" I asked.
"Yeah," she said, "behind the UCSF hospital, up on the hill."
"You must have a great view," I said.
"Oh, yeah," she said, "I can see a section of the Bay, some parts of the city, and sometimes the Park."
"I live a few blocks away from here," I said. "From my kitchen, I can see Turtle Hill. It's where Grand View Park is. It's on a high ground. It gives you a panoramic view of the city."
"Is that were the mosaic steps are?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
The way up to the vantage point, a little ground cordoned off on one of the highest elevation points in the city, cuts across the weedy rock the locals affectionately refer to as Turtle Hill. On one side of the climb, the steps are tiled with colored shards, creating a mosaic that spreads across the hillside like a carpet.
"I've always wanted to check out that place," she said.
"You should definitely," I said.
What I really wanted to say was, we should go check it out together, but I was too distracted with figuring out where we'd met, or if we'd met before.
At that moment, the friend Erica was waiting for arrived.
"Hope to see you around," I said.
"Yeah," she said, "I'm sure we'll run into each other."
I should have made sure we run into each other again by exchanging emails or numbers, but the moment had passed. As I watched Erica, Louisa, and the newcomer saunter down the tree-lined avenue, it suddenly dawned on me.
I knew where I'd seen Erica. I'd once written to her after seeing her profile on a dating Web site. She never responded to my message. Maybe she didn't recognize me. Maybe she did recognize me, but chose to let sleeping dogs lie. Maybe I didn't look good to her on paper (whatever that means), so she wrote me off. But now that we'd met in person, she seemed susceptible to the idea of meeting for coffee or a stroll in the Park.
My neighborhood Starbucks is my second living room, my only reprieve from the claustrophobic studio I call my office. I spend nearly every afternoon there. In fact, I go there so often that, whenever the barista sees me waiting in line, she begins making my drink (a tall Latte with whip cream) before I have a chance to order.
Sooner or later, I'm going to run into Erica again. The question is, what do I do when that happens?
(My last contact with the Girl in the Moon was in the beginning of December. Since then, I have not heard from her. So, in the famous words of the Apollo 13 astronauts John Swigert, Jr. and James Lovell, "Houston, we've had a problem." I'll have to abort the moon landing mission and move on.)
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