December 5, 2003:
I'd been concerned for some time that she was manipulating me over money.
"I like to take turns with my friends," she said, fairly enough. "They buy something one time, I buy the next." Only I'd noted that more and more the next time never came.
One day she gave me a frank ultimatum.
"I'm moving to San Francisco. I need to save money. If you want to go out any more then you'll have to pay."
It took just a heartbeat to complete the decision that had been forming semi-consciously for many weeks. "OK," I answered. "I don't want to go out anymore."
From the look on her face I don't think that's what she'd expected.
Blonde girl, small, tawny, young-looking, slumped in the passenger seat of a rusted-out 1965 Volkswagen bus, crying. Your heart goes out to her, yet your head feels it shouldn't.
A few weeks later she'd chosen an apartment on Panhandle Park. She mentioned that her new boyfriend paid their rent.