GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DONNER

        Last summer, I became increasingly aware of a man wearing high soccer socks in the gym whenever I worked out early in the morning. He was obviously Irish, as the Irish usually are, with his golden hair, fair skin, ruddy cheeks and blue eyes. He wore soccer shorts too, but it was the socks that got me. I'm a sucker for high socks, even at 6:00 A.M. He had great legs with huge calves that looked even bigger with the socks tightly covering them. I couldn't help looking at him and soon he couldn't help looking back. Actively cruising someone so early in the morning felt a little strange, especially if I hadn't stayed up the whole night before, but it was the only time we ever saw each other. After a few weeks of nods and smiles, it was clear he was waiting for me to make the first move.

        " High Socks," I offered a handshake and smiled. " That's what I've named you. I'm Gary."

        " So is it a good thing or a bad thing that you call me High Socks? " he looked up from the seated fly machine without revealing anything in his expression until he was sure he wasn't being made fun of.

        "Oh it's a very good thing, believe me "

        " That's what I was hoping to hear," he smiled, allowing his face to show a little excitement.

     . ."  I love them on you. I think they're very sexy."

        " I wasn't sure how they looked," he shrugged his shoulders with false modesty, looking down at his socks and calves as if he never noticed them before.

        " Oh come on, I can't be the first one to compliment you."

        " I've gotten a few comments," he said nonchalantly  as he lifted each leg closer up to pull the socks up higher, knowing very well how sexy a move it was.

        " How many pairs do you have?"

        " More than anyone should have. I don't even know anymore," he shrugged his shoulders again.

        " I'll have to help you count."

        " The only way to do that is to open my drawers," he said as he started his next set of flies, squeezing the two cushions in front of his chest with his forearms, blocking his face for a moment and then releasing them. " And  I couldn't let you do that. I'm very private," he said, doing another fly.

         " I will respect your drawers," I smiled with a polite bow.

         " I would hope so," he said as he did the third fly, perfectly timed with his response. He didn't say anything else and continued to do his set. He did 20 instead of ten just to test if I would stand there and wait until he was finished, which I did.

         " Did you want this now. I'm done," he said , getting up from the machine and walking away. 

         "Hey wait!" I called out. "I never got your name."

           He turned around but didn't stop moving towards the staircase." It's in the phone book under Mr. H. Socks!" he called back to me then promptly turned around again and vanished down the stairs.

           He thought he was being coy but I could see right through him. By the end of the week  Mr. H. Socks and I were dating, and I got into his drawers after all. I made him wear different  high socks each time I came over to his apartment. He had so many pairs that by the time we stopped dating he still hadn't tried them all on for me.

     Why we broke-up  is not as vital to this story as what I discovered after. High Socks, or Darrell, and I remained on very good terms, and a few weeks later he had me over to his place for dinner. I also was getting back a copy of a manuscript I had written which he had read.  It had already been absorbed into his decor which included a wall of shelving he handmade, packed with all the books on design and antiques he collected. When I pulled my manuscript out the book beside it came out too. It  had a paper front and back and looked like it was bound at Kinko's and was titled Hutchison History.

     I held it up and Darrell told me it was about his family's history in California." We go way back," he said without any significance.

     I started at the end and turned the pages towards the beginning, and stopped at a page that caught my eye. DONNER PASS. ( For those of you who aren't familiar with this infamous event, in 1847, a California bound wagon-train led by the Donner Family along with the Breens was snowbound for the entire winter in the Sierra Nevada. Almost half of the 87 people in the group died, including almost all of the Donners,from either illness or starvation.The survivors, which included almost all of the Breens, had to eat the frozen bodies of the Donners to stay alive). I read the entire page and looked up.

       "Darrell, who was Patrick Breen?"

       "He was my great, great, great or great, great, great, great grandfather or someone like that," he said, continuing to cook a stew.

    I walked over to the kitchen with one hand holding the book and one hand on my hip. " I was dating the descendant of the family who ate the Donners and you didn't tell me!?"

      " Nobody cares about something that happened over 150 years ago," Darrell shrugged his shoulders the same way he did over his socks and calves when I first met him at the gym.

      " Are you kidding me!? Do you realize all the jokes I missed out on? 'Darell is having me for dinner' takes on a whole new meaning now."

      " You can still make all the cheap jokes.What are you so disappointed about?"

     " It's not the same. Saying I dated a man who's ancestors ate the Donners is not the same thing as I'm dating a man who's ancestors ate the Donners."

     " Gary, it's nothing to brag about. If it was your family who ate people it wouldn't be as funny to you. It's not like my family sits around and talks about it at holiday meals."

     " Well I should hope not. ' Please pass the Donner, oh, and the mash potatoes too '. "

     " You're making a big deal out of something that is so in the past that no one even knows what it is anymore."

     " The Donner Party is one of California's most famous stories. It's almost as big as The Gold Rush and The 1906 Earthquake. You're California royalty."

     "  I look more like a kitchen maid than royalty, " Darrell said, holding up the big wooden spoon he was stirring with. " I've never met anyone else who was as excited as you are over this."

     "You act so nonchalant just to bother me."

     " I know chalant is not a word, but whatever the opposite of nonchalant is, that's what you are, Gary."

       I dramatically collapsed onto a chair at the kitchen table and dropped my head onto my stretched out arm. "All the one-liners," I picked my head up and bemoaned. " I've got a Donnerdate with my boyfriend....We made Donnerplans....Waitress, I'll have the Donner special."  I sat back up and looked at Darrell. "Think of all the possibilities.... I'm stuffed, I can't eat another Donner.... I'm as scared as a Donner at a Breen family picnic.... I'm as unlucky as a Donner in December.... I'm as hungry as a Breen in a snowstorm. Or the businesses they should have started.-- Breen Wilderness Tours, Breen Ski Lodge, Breen's All-Spice , Breen's Cutlery, and Breen's Preserves." I raised my hands and imagined a huge billboard sign that read:

" DONNOR PARTY PLANNERS for all your catering and entertainment needs."

    "Hope my invitations gets lost for any of those parties," Darrell stirred the stew.

    " Don't worry. You're on their DO NOT INVITE list," I told him.

    " Oh really?" Darrell smirked, pointing the spoon at me. "Come over here. I need you to taste this." He dipped the  big spoon into the pot and then held it up for me to taste. " Tell me what you think. It's just doesn't taste complete."

    " Maybe some salt," I guessed

   Darrell took a sip from the spoon too and thought for a moment as he licked his lips. " Of course! How could I be so stupid," he shook his head and turned to look right into my eyes with his beautiful ice blue eyes narrowed into steely slits to look especially sinister. " I didn't put in the most important ingredient--YOU. "