Ada

As Ada had warmed to the budding idea of Jake as a romantic interest, she started to develop situations where they could be together. At first she insured that one or more of her female friends were with them when they were together. That was one way to put the quietus on any gossip about her and Jake, but bringing in a twosome or threesome to their meetings didn't last long. On one such occasion when Ada and two of her friends were at Jake's for a Chinese food cooking demonstration, her friend Becky asked Ada point blank if she had any proprietary interest in Jake. When Ada automatically lied, "No, not any," Becky smiled and said, "Then maybe I'll see if I can work up something."

Becky tried, but it was obvious Jake wasn't interested. Becky eventually got the message and focused her interest elsewhere. Ada would smile inwardly when she thought about it, but she quit having her friends around when she was with Jake.

Ada became aware that because of the physical location of their houses, it would be less noticeable to others for her to get in her car and drive around the block and park in Jake's carport. She could enter the carport from the back street that was rarely used by anyone. There were only a series of grown-up vacant lots on the other side of the back street, and the carport had a wall that screened off the view from the side street. She worked all of this out several months before she used it. Ada may appear to be devious with this advance planning, but she had some experience with the local gossip mill. If she ever decided to make a play for Jake, she wanted to be able to do it without Mike knowing about it.

To Jake it seemed that everytime he was working in his garden, Ada would be working in her's. At first he thought it was just coincidence. Later he concluded that it was part of a plan, but by then he liked the pleasure brought to him by the plan, and the idea that he had been "worked" into her plan was of no consequence to him.

Almost inevitably during the early days of their acquaintance they would wind up at the fence line talking gardening at first, and then branching out in many other areas. Jake decided that Ada was a very interesting person, one he would like to know much better. The fact that she was married kept him from overtly following up on this desire. Jake was not an overt home wrecker. It was counter to his basic character. Their eventual romantic involvement was delayed for some time by Jake's inclination to make no action that could be taken as an invitation, and to build nothing received into what could be an invitation. He did not play the role of pursuer, but rather he was more of an astute observer. This characteristic would have been discouraging to most females who had an interest in him, and at times it sorely tried Ada's patience. But Ada was both cautious and patient.

Ada had thought long and hard about what she really liked in Jake, and it came down to him being interested in her. Now this interest of his that attracted her was not just sexual, although he demonstrated a strong interest along this line once they initially got it on. He listened to her. She got back more than a noncommittal "uh huh" from behind a newspaper or over the blaring noise of the TV. He encouraged her to express her ideas on things and seemed to take a genuine interest in what she thought. When he countered her perceptions, it was in the form of a question such as, "What about so-and-so?" or "Have you considered so-and-so?" His approach to differences of opinion and perception were not confrontational, but rather the introduction of other material that, upon consideration, broadened her point of view.

The way Ada looked at it, the affair with Jake was a broadening experience. She got into it gradually over a two-year period. Like the frog in water where the temperature is constantly raised one degree every few minutes, she wasn't really conscious of the danger until she was already "cooked." Even though she had the time to think out what she would do if Mike ever caught on, she had never faced that possibility in her "plan." Now it had to be faced!