L.A. Affairs: So there I was naked, on our third date, trying to douse a bedroom fire

Joyce and I met the old-fashioned way: online. For the immense bulk of radical who usage this present accepted dating method, romanticist beingness tin beryllium an endless bid of swipe-lefts, get-to-know-you DMs and occasional, interminable, 20-minute java dates.

The site, Chemistry.com, was designed to make unsighted matches, with 1 broadside of the brace not knowing to whom their illustration was being sent. Joyce got excavation and liked it a lot, but determination was a catch: I was the “keeper of 2 furry felines.”

Joyce was allergic to felines. Still, my illustration spoke to her, and she reached retired anyway. I truly liked her illustration arsenic good but asked whether she’d really work excavation (hers intelligibly stating that owed to a feline allergy, feline owners request not apply). She said it wouldn’t beryllium a occupation — secretly reasoning that perhaps, if everything worked out, she could alteration my caput astir cats.

We had a longer-than-usual online on-ramp, truthful erstwhile we agreed to conscionable successful person, we took a gamble and skipped the java location for a portion astatine Silver Lake’s erstwhile large treasure, Cobras & Matadors. Refreshingly, our archetypal face-to-face drifted from a portion to a meal that became a multi-hour delight. There was a wide transportation (and she definite looked bully successful that brace of jeans and boots).

Transplants to L.A., Joyce was from the Midwest, past the South, and I’m a New Englander/New Yorker. She was a theatrical costume designer, conscionable opening an effort to get into movie and TV (she would spell connected to triumph an Emmy). I was a leadman (set decoration supervisor) successful movie and TV. Given our akin but antithetic worlds, it was improbable we would person met successful the business.

The archetypal day went truthful good that a 2nd was a no-brainer. That 1 lasted adjacent longer and ended happily with an old-fashioned buss — it was electric. Date 3 ... was fire. Literally. (Be patient.)

Movie-making sounds glamorous, but it tin beryllium a soiled slog for the crew. My latest movie had maine moving each time wrong a Sony soundstage successful Culver City, re-creating the bowels of a Parisian sewer. I was filthy and bushed but looking guardant to seeing Joyce. After truthful galore misfires with others, we were feeling the spark.

Spark? Perhaps I’m getting up of myself. Anyway, alternatively than my commute location to Studio City earlier gathering up, we agreed that I should ablution and alteration astatine her spot successful Silver Lake. She would whip up immoderate dinner. It would beryllium easy, simple.

Despite my filthy state, she greeted maine warmly, planting a invited peck connected my lips. A spare towel and a propulsion toward the ablution got the motor running. To further acceptable the mood, she lit candles passim the apartment. While I cleaned up, she continued successful the kitchen, beauteous smells filling the air.

When we archetypal connected, I was vacationing successful Maine, and she was moving retired of municipality astatine the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The region gave america clip to get acquainted without the diversion of carnal proximity. By the clip we met successful idiosyncratic and had a mates of dates, we’d go acquainted capable that taking a ablution astatine her spot was little daring than it mightiness seem. Still, the enactment lent an aerial of excitement that neither of america would deny. It felt astir earthy to measurement retired of her bath with lone a towel astir my waist.

When I opened the door, I assumed the flickering airy successful her chamber was caused by the billowing steam. Imagine my astonishment when, instead, I saw her wicker dresser afloat engulfed successful flame, the occurrence licking up the wall. Somehow, 1 of the candles had acceptable the happening off. I yelled for Joyce to drawback a occurrence extinguisher and ripped disconnected my towel to smother the blaze.

Joyce rushed into the room, apron showing disconnected her hard enactment successful the kitchen. Her look registered due alarm. I stay unsure if it was the flames oregon me, the bare man, trying to enactment them out. I accidental both. Regaining her wits, she ran to the room and grabbed a tiny occurrence extinguisher. In a panic, Joyce’s encephalon tin fastener up. Forgetting however the extinguisher worked, she handed it to me. I yanked the pin and doused her flaming underwear drawers with a dense dose of CO2.

The temper past understandably shifted. A fewer years prior, portion surviving successful that aforesaid apartment, Joyce astir mislaid her location erstwhile the gathering adjacent doorway burned down. The vigor caused harm to this precise bedroom, and among different things, ruined the drapes; present the caller ones captured fume arsenic we opened the windows to fto it out. Her burned bureau and the achromatic soot staining the partition reignited her past trauma. Although our tendency to bent retired remained, the home-cooked repast was abruptly not successful the cards.

After ensuring the occurrence was good and genuinely out, we decided that a edifice pampering was successful order. Mexican sounded nice, a margarita adjacent more. El Conquistador was calling to us. Coming retired of our shock, we alternated betwixt laughter — maine acting the hero, pillado desnudo (“caught naked”) — to renewed daze arsenic Joyce tried to travel to presumption with yet different fire. An eavesdropping enactment took pity connected america and sent implicit immoderate shots. That took the borderline off.

Although our day had veered dramatically, I saw successful Joyce a resilience that I admired. We stock galore attributes, among them: optimism, adaptability and the capableness to laughter astatine life’s foibles. A small much than a twelvemonth later, lasting connected the Hawaiian volcano, Haleakala, we got engaged astatine sunrise. Six months of huffy readying later, we were wed astatine Rancho del Cielo, a fabulous aged ranch acceptable connected a Malibu hilltop. It would aboriginal beryllium taken by wildfire, but owners proceed their effort to rebuild it.

Joyce and I are blessed with fantastic boy/girl twins. And we person 2 cats (her allergies abated). I’ve repeatedly talked her retired of a third, some kids and cats.

To this day, we enactment good nether pressure. During the wildfires earlier this year, we were unexpectedly evacuated. The mountainside extracurricular our model was afloat engulfed, and the municipality adjacent doorway was an inferno. Oddly, our comic but frightening occurrence day didn’t travel backmost to haunt us. Perhaps due to the fact that the lawsuit provided a acquisition and an instinct: Be prepared, enactment accelerated and instrumentality comfortableness successful knowing that we person each other’s backs.

The writer is simply a erstwhile acceptable dresser for movie and TV and is present a subject fabrication novelist. He lives successful La Cañada Flintridge. Visit his website astatine cchaseharwood.com oregon find him connected Instagram: @c_chase_h.

L.A. Affairs chronicles the hunt for romanticist emotion successful each its glorious expressions successful the L.A. area, and we privation to perceive your existent story. We wage $400 for a published essay. Email [email protected]. You tin find submission guidelines here. You tin find past columns here.