When I was 30 years old, my agent told me I needed to go to Los Angeles to get some \u201cWest Coast credits.\u201d I didn\u2019t want to go because it meant I\u2019d lose my precious rent-controlled apartment on Central Park West as well as the supportive New York theater community I\u2019d worked so hard to get into. After graduating from Juilliard five years earlier, I was getting theater work in and around the city.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t think I was pretty enough to get work in Hollywood, but my agent disagreed. She had faith in me, so I reluctantly packed up my stuff and moved to Santa Monica with Gus, my German shepherd. A week after we arrived, the Northridge earthquake happened. I crouched under a table, holding Gus close. Aftershocks filled me with terror, and I wondered if California was telling me I wasn\u2019t welcome.<\/p>\n
Over the next few months L.A. slowly recovered, and I started going on auditions. Much to my amazement, I got hired to do a new play and got a couple of small roles on some sitcoms. In between gigs, I took Gus on long walks along the beach and found that I was starting to like California.<\/p>\n
One afternoon, I went to a coffee shop in Santa Monica where a middle-aged red-headed guy with a beard was playing Van Morrison songs on his guitar. <\/p>\n
After he finished, I thanked him, and we started talking. He explained that he was a neurologist at USC but loved to play guitar in his free time. I was intrigued. So when he asked me out, I said yes. He took me to dinner a few times in his snappy red Porsche, then invited me to join him for a weekend in Yosemite National Park. <\/p>\n
As we were eating dinner in the quaint little cabin on our first night, he said he really liked me, but if our relationship was going to go anywhere, he wanted me to \u201cget out of show business.\u201d Did he seriously think I\u2019d give up acting to be his girlfriend? That was a role I couldn\u2019t and wouldn\u2019t play. After that, I stopped taking his calls.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later, I had to travel to Indiana for my grandfather\u2019s funeral. On my way back to Los Angeles, I changed planes in Cincinnati, and as I sat down, a nice-looking, 30-something man with a boyish smile in the next seat gave me a welcoming nod. I nodded back, got a script from my bag and tried to read but promptly fell asleep.<\/p>\n
Half an hour later, I woke up with a little drool seeping from the corner of my mouth. I laughed at myself, and the man with the boyish smile laughed with me.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry about the drool,\u201d I said, wiping my face.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happens to the best of us,\u201d he said with a smile.<\/p>\n
I noticed a book in his hand. \u201cWhat are you reading?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSounds good.\u201d I thought, \u201cThis guy must be pretty cool if he\u2019s reading that book.\u201d I looked forward to sitting next to him for the next three hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m Martha, by the way.\u201d I offered my hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cNice to meet you Martha-by-the-Way. I\u2019m Don.\u201d We shook hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you live in L.A.?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSilver Lake, and you?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cSanta Monica. Are you a native Californian?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I\u2019m from Pennsylvania. That\u2019s where I\u2019m coming from now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He seemed so nice and normal. I worried he might be married, so I asked, \u201cDo you have family in Los Angeles?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, just me,\u201d he said with a smile. I hoped that meant he was single.<\/p>\n
He gestured to the script on my lap, \u201cIs that a script you\u2019re reading?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I have an audition for \u2018Diagnosis Murder.\u2019 Maybe I\u2019ll get to work with Dick Van Dyke.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope you get it.\u201d He sounded genuinely supportive, which was so different from the neurologist\u2019s response to my work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks. Me too. What do you do?\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019d studied filmmaking at the University of Texas at Austin and had made a few films, but now he split his time between the press box at Dodger Stadium, charting pitches for Major League Baseball, and judging scripts for the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting<\/a> at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I was impressed.<\/p>\n The rest of our flight felt like a first date, complete with dinner and a movie. When we landed at Los Angeles International Airport, I got nervous because I wanted him to ask for my number but worried he might consider me geographically undesirable since we lived on opposite sides of L.A.<\/p>\n As we headed toward baggage claim, he asked if I wanted to get together for coffee sometime. I said yes, and we exchanged numbers. Don\u2019s smiling blue eyes and witty conversation had me feeling giddy at a time when I least expected it. The universe had taken my grandfather but had given me a new friend.<\/p>\n A week later he drove all the way to Santa Monica to take me to coffee. When we finished, he suggested we go to a movie, so we went to see \u201cThe Last Seduction,\u201d a neo-noir thriller. During our discussion afterward, I learned how much Don knew about filmmaking, and from then on we started spending Saturday afternoons at the academy, watching screenings of new films for free since he worked there.<\/p>\n Don also introduced me to the joys of hiking in Griffith Park and the Santa Monica Mountains. Being with him felt so right. He was unlike anyone I\u2019d ever met, childlike and grown-up at the same time, goofy and intellectual. But the most important thing was that he wasn\u2019t asking me to change. He accepted me for who I was.<\/p>\n As Don and I grew closer, my desire to return to New York faded. After six months of dating, we decided to live together and rented an old Craftsman home in Echo Park, which sat at the top of a hill that overlooked Dodger stadium and Elysian Park.<\/p>\n A few years later, we got married and bought a house in Glassell Park, where we still live today. I came to Los Angeles to find work, but ended up finding so much more.<\/p>\n The author is a freelancer and storyteller who lives in Glassell Park with her husband, two dogs and four quail. L.A. Affairs<\/a> chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com<\/a>. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here<\/a>. <\/p>\n
She\u2019s on Instagram: @marthathompsonbooks<\/a>.<\/p>\n