American Outlaw - Jesse James [107]
“Of course,” she said.
“Is Sandra . . . well, is she dating anyone right now?”
“Not really.”
“Well,” I said, “I’d like to ask her out.”
“Fine,” Terri said. “I’ll let her know, okay? And I’ll give you a call when she makes up her mind, Jesse.”
“No,” I said, laughing a little bit. So this was how you did it in A-List Hollywood, huh? “With all due respect, I’d rather not ask her assistant to ask her out for me. I’d like to call her up myself. Do it properly.”
Terri sighed. “Jesse, you seem like such a nice guy, but I can’t give out Sandra’s number. It’s part of my job.”
“Well, how about a good old e-mail—that’s not too invasive, is it?”
“Okay,” she said, considering. “I can give you that. Got a pen handy?”
“Right here,” I said, my ballpoint poised over a fresh, clean sheet of paper. “Give it to me.”
I sent Sandy a short message that evening, telling her what a pleasure it was to meet her, and how much fun I’d had spending the afternoon with her. I mentioned, casually, that I’d love to show her around Long Beach again—and would she care to have dinner with me, sometime?
Sandy got back to me right away: she was really flattered by my invitation, she said, and absolutely, she would love to have dinner with me at some point. Right now, though, she was extremely busy and simply didn’t have much time on her hands. She asked me to please stay in touch, and we would make a date to get together at some point down the line.
I got the point. She’d said yes, in so many words, but what she was really saying was, eh . . . not that interested.
I kind of shrugged it off, knowing that at least I’d tried. It was probably good, actually, that she wasn’t that into me—after all, wasn’t my goal nowadays to be the fifty-five-year-old bachelor? I’d been through hell and back with Janine. The last thing I needed was a new heartthrob.
But something wouldn’t let me forget Sandra Bullock. Simply put, she was captivating. Everything about her was attractive: her spirit, her energy, her laugh. I loved the sensation of having walked around the shop with her and feeling like we were instant friends. There was something about this woman that made me want to know more.
So I set out to woo Sandy, over e-mail. It was funny, because most of the people who saw me on Monster Garage probably imagined I didn’t even know how to turn on a computer. But e-mail was the only tool I had in my belt, so that’s what I went for.
I started out sending her short, funny messages, recounting random weird events from my life, once in a while politely asking her opinion on inconsequential matters. She always responded the same day, polite and measured, seemingly always a bit surprised to hear from me again. I kept the charm coming, though, and gradually, I upped the ante to two messages a day, then to three. Soon, we were e-mailing each other all the time. It was actually lots of fun, like a secret buddy. Finally, the day came when Sandy relented and let me graduate to the phone.
“Boy,” I said, when we first spoke. “I’m moving up here!”
“I work slow,” she said, laughing. “Friends first.”
“That’s cool,” I agreed. “I like friends.”
What began as just a spark of interest evolved into a real courtship. The great thing about talking and e-mailing with Sandy is that I actually was interested in what she had to say. We actually were friends first. She was such a sweetheart, and such a real person, that I rarely felt the need to try to impress her, to be someone I wasn’t. We were just there for each other, a sympathetic ear willing to listen to whatever problems the other person was having.
Sandy wasn’t actively filming during this time. Instead, she was spending most of her time in Austin, Texas, where several years before she’d begun to have a home constructed. Her builder had done a terrible job on the construction, though, and now she was embroiled in a convoluted legal dispute with him.
“It’s a nightmare,” she confided to me. “And I hate that I am so caught up in this case! But I can’t help it. I’m losing sleep over it.”
“I think you should