It was the first week of February 1996.  You and I had just finished working at Endevco the week before and I was sitting in the office wrapping up the Endevco workpapers, when the phone rang. It was Lars Porter and he wanted my help buying you flowers for Valentine’s Day. I had never met Lars. I had never talked to Lars.  I did not know Lars. You don’t call someone you don’t know for something like that…especially when you do know at least a half dozen people who work there. I instantly knew he was jealous of the relationship I had developed with you at work and I instantly knew he was trouble. It was an extremely weird phone call which made me very uncomfortable. Then when I called him back with the information he wanted, he was clearly surprised I called him back which confirmed my concerns.

The week following Valentine’s Day I ran into you in office. The conversation started off normally, but then turned weird when your demeanor completely changed. You nervously showed me your ring and told me you were engaged. I knew, or at least started to suspect, this was a major problem…he calls me? For help with a marriage proposal? I know what jealously looks like and I know what it does to someone.

So not wanting to upset you, I decided to ask other people what kind of a person he was. I didn’t say why I was asking, I just asked. I more or less heard the same thing from different people, but one person was specific…that Lars is a weird guy, that he believes weird things about other people and that he hyperbolic. That was exactly the wording used to describe him.  He then went on to say that he was possessive of you, siting specific examples of how he was. I was also told that people were surprised you were marrying him; that people thought you had more going for you than him and also  because you had lamented the same problems with Lars that you had to me. That’s when I heard you were asking questions about me (whether I had a “thing for you”). I was certain this was a big problem and that my deep friendship with was going end. There was no way a guy like this was going to let you maintain the kind of friendship we had.

I did not want to tell you what I had heard about him because I did not want to hurt you, but I knew we needed to discuss this.  It was Monday, April 1st and we met to do the QSI physical inventory.  After we were finished, we went to the Little Onion for lunch where I asked you two questions. The first thing I asked was whether you were sure of what you were doing (marrying Lars)? I very genuinely asked that because of all things you told me about and the things I had heard about him…I was genuinely concerned.  And you very angrily replied “yes, I decided.” No one says that…it’s the most bizarre answer you could have given me. Your answer made me even more concerned. Then I asked if you had a problem working with me. I expected you to tell me Lars was jealous of our friendship. Instead you very emphatically answered “I love working with you, why do you ask?” To which I replied “because I heard you asked (someone) whether they thought I had a thing for you.” Your demeanor completely changed and you abruptly denied asking that.  You were lying and I knew it. So then I asked if it would be a problem if it were true? The look on your face said it all…I was certain there was something very wrong with all of this.

At this point in my story I want to be perfectly clear with you…in the course of the year and a half of working with you we had become extremely close and I had grown to care a great deal about; you were very important to me. THAT IS NOT THE SAME THING AS WANTING MORE FROM YOU, but it does mean that losing your friendship was going to be hard me.  And you absolutely led me to believe that you should have felt the same way!!!

So after giving it some thought, I asked you to meet me for lunch again.  On Thursday, April 4th we met at Knowlwoods in Irvine. I had