Victoria Lynn Bauer (nee Morris) died at 4:23pm, on Dec 31, 2008.  She died in an automobile accident, driving the wrong way on Highway 78 near Ocotillo, California.  Her birthday is October 15th.  I’m not sure why I remember that, exactly.  It’s just one of those odd bits of information that gets stuck into your memory, and just sits there, unused, collecting dust, but somehow not fading away as so many memories do.  In my memory, she’ll always be a pretty blonde girl.  She was  eighteen or so years old the last time we spoke.  It was on my birthday, a year after I graduated high school.  We dated a little at the end of my senior year, and then after several months went by, we didn’t anymore.  She wanted to date other guys, and when a girl says something like that to you, it’s not as if there’s a choice to be made.  You can’t really say, “Well, I’d prefer if you didn’t, please.”  I suppose you can, but it seems a bit of a wasted effort, to be honest.  So, she dated other guys, and we didn’t date anymore.  I was sad for a while, and life just kept on happening, and eventually I wasn’t, anymore.  I went to community college, then moved away to San Francisco to attend university, and she was going to Cal State Fullerton, and with no reason to keep in touch, we didn’t.  That went on for twenty five more years or so, and here we are, and now she’s dead and gone.

I heard her parents passed away a few years after high school.  Her mom spoke Swedish, was a bit overweight, and was always pretty friendly to me.  Her dad was stern, or at least pretended to be when I was around.  I remember the first time Vicki and I went on a date, he asked what my plans for the future were.  I didn’t really have any, as I was seventeen and hadn’t given the matter much thought.  So, I mentioned that I was considering a career selling heroin.  I don’t know why I said it, but there it was; out of my mouth and into her dad’s ears.  In my head, I’m sure I thought it sounded just cavalier enough, and projected the calm confidence of a young man who was so intelligent and resourceful that he couldn’t be bothered with bourgeois concerns of income and stability.  But I’m pretty sure I just sounded like an asshole.  He let her go out with me anyway.  What can a father do, except hope his daughter makes good decisions?  We made mostly good decisions, and at least three bad ones, which, I think, is a pretty good average for seventeen.

Anyway, after we stopped dating, I did see her again.  As I mentioned, it was my birthday.  I actually can’t remember why I ended up at her house.  She said she had a present for me or something like that, and so I went.  It was her parents’ house on Lambert Circle there in Garden Grove.  They had this huge old green Suburban parked out front all the time, and I sat on the bumper, and we talked for a short while.  I was still mad about the whole her wanting to date other guys thing even though it was months ago, and I probably should have gotten over it, but I hadn’t, so I don’t remember saying much.  I remember wondering why she even wanted to talk to me, if she wanted to date other guys, and then she kissed me – right on the lips.  It wasn’t one of those thanks-for-coming-by-it-was-good-to-see-you-again kisses.  It felt like a real honest-to-goodness hold me in your arms, close your eyes and tilt your head kind of kiss.  It caught me by surprise.  I suppose I’m easily surprised, in hindsight.  I was briefly happy, as most young men would be when a pretty girl kisses them, and then got mad again when I remembered the dating other guys thing, so I said thanks, and then told her I had to go, and then I left, and that was the last time I saw Vicki Morris.

I have a picture her father gave me while we were still dating.  He was really into photography, and had his own darkroom in his garage.  I was  impressed, as he developed color prints on his own enlarger right there in his garage.  It was a pretty professional set-up.  Anyway, he took Vicki on a backpacking trip to the Minarets, here in Mammoth Lakes, where I now work.  It was their last chance for a father and daughter backpacking trip, he said.  I remember that I didn’t really know where the Minarets were, but in that picture, they’re beautiful.  She’s sitting down, not quite looking into the camera.  There’s a lake sparkling behind her, her face framed by a glowing halo of platinum blonde hair.  She had sort of prominent front teeth that made for a big smile – she wasn’t buck-toothed, but when she smiled and talked, when her upper lip met her lower lip, it made the tip of her nose bob up and down.  It was cute.  She was forty-three years old when she died last week, and so she probably didn’t look much like that anymore.  But, that’s Vicki Morris, now.  She sits beside that lake in the Minarets, smiling to her father, just on the other side of that camera.

Joe Griego