Heiz doesn't really belong in any category of the women that I have provided for the purposes of this blog, especially since I didn't meet her through the personal ads or any other devices I used for getting girlfriends, like a job at a radio station. (I even came up short being the Assistant Manager of an arthouse movie theatre.) And we did not remain friends afterward.
Heiz was a cashier at HomeClub. Ridwas working there at the time. She was 20 years old, had long, wavy blonde hair and deep blue eyes. I met her when I had to go there to pick Rid up at work. Rid was somewhat interested in another woman who worked there. Rid had me drive that other woman to her house. For whatever reason, we went inside her apartment. There was somebody in the bedroom whom we couldn't see, but he shouted out (in Spanish) to see who was coming in. She replied and told us it was her brother in the bedroom.
Rid and I left the apartment. This was during a three-month period in which we would spend Friday nights going out to get pizza. Our paychecks were issued on rotating Fridays. One week, I would pay and the other week, he would pay. It was a really good arrangement.
After that first meeting with Heiz, Rid told me a few days later that she was interested in me. I thought, "Really?" She was very attractive. I didn't even consider myself in her league, but Rid insisted that she would like to get to know me better. One of the things he warned me about was that he had told her I was a virgin. She was actually cool with that because she was a virgin, too. (I'm pretty certain that nowadays, people could get fired for having conversations like that at work.) He got her phone number for me and I called her.
Yes, she was indeed interested in going out. We talked for awhile. She told me that her parents came from Switzerland, but she was born here in the United States. We made plans to go out for dinner one night.
I showed up and picked her up from her house. She was wearing this extraordinarily nice knitted sweater. She told me her mother had made it. I was impressed. It looked like it cost $1000 to buy at the store. We had dinner and good conversation. During the date, we started talking about Rid and the woman he was interested in. Heiz told me that the woman was actually married and that the person who was in the back bedroom was her husband. She knew this because they were good friends at work and talked frequently.
Afterward, I took her to a Unimart Wholesale Club location. That seems like an odd place to take someone, but it used to be the location for a Sound Warehouse record store. For a period of time in the late 1970's, the record store had major label musicians coming through townput their handprints and signatures in cement, like at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. The biggest names committed to slab were Billy Joel, Kenny Loggins and Bob Weir. However, all the others were groups you'd never heard of. I don't even think any of those others made any kind of impact on the charts.
Heiz was actually impressed with this. She lived nearby and never knew it existed. She put her hands down in Billy Joel's handprints. I then drove her back home. Her mother was there and I got to meet her. She had warned me beforehand that she was somewhat deaf, but would be able to know what I was saying.
All in all, it was a good date. I looked forward to going out with her again. This time, we were going to get dinner and see a movie. Before the date, I had told Rid that I was planning to hold her hand during the movie. I liked her and hoped she liked me just as much.
I picked her up at her house and we went to the Village Inn to eat. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something was off. We weren't connecting like we were on the first date. She didn't laugh at my jokes. Now, she never acted like she didn't want to be there with me, but for whatever reason, we just weren't having as good a time as we'd had before.
We went to the movie. We saw "Jacob's Ladder." I was still hoping to get to the hand-holding phase during the movie. She sat to my left. However, she placed her right hand on the other side of her body FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE!
We didn't go anyplace else. I just drove her home and pondered what to do next. I figured that Rid had warned her ahead of time that I was trying to hold hands with her. Maybe she wasn't ready for things to move that fast. Maybe she was disappointed that I was going to make the moves that very night and had discussed it with Rid. Maybe it was the choice of movie. Maybe we should have gone to see "White Palace" instead. (While I've never seen that film, I understand there's a scene that involves Susan Sarandon performing fellatio on James Spader. Maybe "Jacob's Ladder" was the better choice.)
Whatever, I still wanted her to like me. So, I went to my old standby and had flowers delivered to her house. The day I sent them, I was working at the Mayan Theatre. Rid came by to see me. He told me that Heiz was rather freaked out by the flowers. While we were talking, Heiz called me at the theatre. She told me that she liked the flowers, but didn't really like getting them this early in the courtship. She told me she didn't want to go out with me anymore.
I told Rid what happened. He was telling me that I shouldn't have sent the flowers. We were joined by one of my female co-workers. She said that she would have been disturbed as well if that happened to her. After a little while, Rid went out to his car. He came back with flowers to give to the co-worker. He had apparently developed a crush on her after meeting her a few times before at work. I guess, even after she said that, he didn't want his money to go to waste. She really wasn't interested in him, especially after she found out he was five years younger than her.
Rid never told me if he had revealed my hand-holding plan to Heiz. But he almost made it sound like Heiz was actually interested in him based on conversations he had with her following our "break up."
If I hadn't sent her flowers, I wonder if she would have freaked out if I'd bought her an engagement ring for Christmas that year. (Oh, that was SO not going to happen.)
I don't know what has become of her. She probably found someone else to get married to and have kids with.
And afterward, I always waited to send women flowers until I was certain they wouldn't mind receiving them.
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