You never forget your first love. In my case, a cosy one bedroom cottage in West Hollywood on a oversized plot of back yard that felt more like a jungle, (especially to this East Coast girl) plush with banana and jacaranda trees. Tucked away in its back parameter, the bonus addition of a little studio with a plenty of dreamy light to conjure up screenplays that never saw the dark of afternoon matinees. The house - our house, once- was always there in my mind- easily plucked whenever anyone referenced it. But it was set in broad strokes: its curious blue exterior (did we choose that hue or inherited it from the previous owners?) and the daily sounds: the squish our obsessive neighbor made as her clogs crushed already too-green grass whenever she went out to water it.
But here now were minute details of each Hansel and Gretel sized room I had long forgotten. I had photographed every corner with the calculated distance of a real estate agent. But the documentation was out of pure pride. This was our first house that we actually owned— pre-children— and we had all the time (although sadly, not budget) to fuss and arrange the few good pieces around we had to perfection. When I came across these prints (during the Herculean task of scanning) I at first refused to take the trip down memory lane: I preferred to stay curbside and simply appreciate its exterior image at the top of the photo pile, complete with our cat Miles sleeping soundly out front. I simply didn’t have the energy to tour its rooms again- this time as a mere house guest. It felt too long ago. But slowly, I entered. Shot after shot, I observed the remote selves we once were and what habits and tastes we had: we both drunk coffee back then. We like dried flowers. Oh, that wedding present. It was all there. And yet it wasn’t. Still too far away. At the bottom of the stack was a picture of me on the first night we celebrated occupancy in the house. There I am at the rickety gray picnic table, (which the previous owners were more than happy to leave behind) proudly staring in to the camera Eric held, a dinner of lobster and corn on the cob resplendent before me. It was just us. I look so ready to take over the life of this house. When we sold it, 5 years later the woman who would claim it - when she thought I was out of ear shot- pointed at the same table when she toured with her decorator and ordered: ” And that’s got to go.” I remember now when I babysat the pre teen daughter of my boss one afternoon. He was an extremely busy movie agent and my job once she was out of school was to entertain her for a few hours. So once I took her to our house because we had seen every movie and she hated shopping. I felt very self conscious, sitting at that picnic table- its surface stained from the crushed walnuts the squirrels hurled down from above- eating take-out sandwiches while parrots squawked and darted in groups under the giant banana leaves. The week before I had been at her Beverly Hills home- a massively scaled affair filled with grand furniture that deserved its own agent. Staff scurried quietly in the background and I thought of my noisy parrots back home like a flock of unruly children.
She had wanted a tour of my house and it took about five minutes. I then returned her to her father’s office, feeling strangely inadequate. “That’s what LA will do to you,” said a friend on the phone that night from Manhattan.
A month later, after I left my job to pursue writing full time, I found a note fluttering on our front door. It was from my boss- I immediately recognized his familiar confident scrawl: “Susanna, I heard so much about the house from Jessica, we wanted to stop by and say hi.” I wondered what he had thought, driving up our little block, crowded with quaint homes and driveways just big enough to hold a Jetta. (His own driveway was a good minute of uphill pursuit and his garage held cars for every occasion.) What had she told him? Maybe her memory and his expectation were an exact match, but I doubted it. I folded the note into my pocket, knowing I’d most likely never see them again. And then, I instinctively reached out and patted my house.