Katrina & Bob

The seat she had not surrendered

Katrina & Bob

An expressive gouache interpretation of a navy dining chair with an ochre seat.

Katrina had agreed to be filler at Marsha’s dinner party. She had not agreed to surrender her seat.

The invitation had come on January 10 from the woman Katrina called her second mom. Marsha was having “a bunch of old boring furniture people” over, some guests had canceled, and she needed reinforcements. Katrina showed up prepared to help.

Among the arrivals was Bob Kirkaby, a furniture manufacturer who had worked for decades with David Klein, Marsha’s husband and the father of Katrina’s ex-boyfriend. Katrina had heard wonderful things about Bob. She also understood that he was married.

Bob remembers Katrina opening the door as the moment his life changed. Katrina mostly noticed that he had brought two children to an adult dinner party.

Then came the seating problem. Katrina’s usual place was to the left of the head of the table. Bob was about to sit there.

“Excuse me, sir, this is my seat.”

“No, Marsha told me to sit here.”

Katrina explained again. Bob gave the same answer.

Marsha intervened with a compliment. Katrina was so good with children—would she mind sitting at the far end of the table?

Great, Katrina thought. She had been filler; now she was filler and a babysitter.

She went, unhappily. Then Bob looked up at her.

“Hi, my name is Bob, Bob Kirkaby.”

He smiled. She loved the smile. Since she thought he was married, she wondered whether he had a brother.

Work
& home

As they talked, his own prospects improved considerably. He was legally separated, in the final stages of a divorce, and trying to buy a house. Marsha knew about the divorce and had wanted to put them together at the table.

“What do you do for a living?” Bob asked.

“I finance real estate.”

He had an offer in on a house. Perhaps she could help him.

They exchanged her phone number and his card. Katrina knew that arranging financing during a divorce could be difficult, but she intended to help. Here was someone who had been good to her second family, and he seemed every bit as kind as advertised.

The mortgage gave them a reason to talk again. It did not account for everything they found to discuss.

They had rafted the same rivers at different times. Both had run the Grand Canyon. Both had stopped at the same remote cherry orchard in Idaho; Bob remembered making cherry cobbler there. They had been strangers taking versions of the same adventures.

What delighted Katrina was not just the list of places. Bob paid attention. He spoke from the heart. His honesty and warmth felt wonderfully refreshing. She was going to do everything she could to help this man get his house.

There was, however, a rule: work was work, and personal life was personal life. Bob had her work number. He did not have her home number.

Until one day she came home and found his voice on her answering machine.

She called Marsha to investigate.

“Well, I gave it to him,” Marsha said.

“Well, why did you give him my number?”

“So he’d call you.”

Katrina explained that she had only talked to him about work. Marsha pointed out that Bob had not wanted to talk to Marsha. He had wanted to talk to Katrina. She should get off the phone and call him back.

When Katrina finally did, he asked her out. She liked him very much, but mixing business and her personal life made her nervous. At one point he offered to be over in half an hour. She was still deciding whether there should be a date at all.

03 · The first date

Long Beach Aquarium

They settled on the next day, at the Long Beach Aquarium: somewhere neutral and safe, where she could leave if she didn’t like him.

They stayed five or six hours.

Moving from exhibit to exhibit, they kept finding reasons not to finish. At one point his arm touched hers, and Katrina felt electricity go through her whole body. Later, he told her he had felt it too.

After the aquarium, they went roller skating. After roller skating, they had Japanese food. Neither wanted the day to end, although when it finally did, Bob’s departure was remarkably brisk.

Walking her to the car, he tried to kiss her. His lips approached her chin, then her forehead, then her cheek, as though the destination were still under discussion. He settled on her cheek, did a little hop, turned around and hurried to his car.

Katrina thought it was the most wholesome thing she had seen in a very long time.

They did not discuss the wandering kiss until much later. There was plenty else to talk about. They began seeing each other often—not going to movies, but talking, finding out who they were. The adventures in common had been a promising start. Beneath them were shared values, curiosity, a love of nature and a mutual appetite for play.

For Bob, meeting Katrina was “like a hurricane.” He had never found anyone so fascinating. Twenty-eight years later, he says, he still hasn’t.

04 · The proposal

Ranch Market

They suspect Marsha’s matchmaking began before the seating arrangements. Perhaps, after learning that morning that Bob was getting divorced, she had immediately called Katrina with her urgent need for filler. They cannot establish that sequence. They can establish that Marsha was enthusiastic about the result.

Before Bob had formally proposed, Marsha was already telling people they were getting married. When Katrina pointed out the missing proposal, Marsha was unmoved.

“Well, I knew you were getting married.”

She also wanted to invite about seventy-five of her friends to their little wedding.

Bob, meanwhile, seemed to think he had already taken care of the proposal. His father was at the house with the children when he and Katrina went to Ranch Market. Parked outside, he turned to her.

“How many times have I asked you to marry me?”

“You’ve never asked me to marry you.”

“I haven’t?”

“No.”

“Well, then will you marry me?”

“Okay.”

There was one qualification. The divorce was final, Bob explained, but the child-custody arrangements were not, so they should not tell anyone yet.

They went into the market, bought lunch and returned home with their secret. When they eventually announced it, the general response was that everyone had figured this out already. What people needed was a date.

Lobster season

05 · The wedding

A burgundy and navy relief-print interpretation of a long-antenna lobster.

The date they chose turned out to fall the day after opening night of lobster season, a complication Katrina had not known existed.

Bob’s buddies wanted to take him out. They would catch their lobsters at 12:01 and come home, they assured her. Katrina wanted him to keep his friendships and was willing to support the outing.

Bob explained that this was not how the evening would go. They would get home really late.

He did not go. His friends returned at about ten the next morning, vindicating his judgment. They did, however, bring lobster, so Bob and Katrina had it for their wedding dinner. He had managed to be both present and well fed.

Together

Their first long conversations had uncovered adventures they had taken separately. Together, they began filling in the gaps.

Despite living in California, neither had surfed there. They tried surfing together in Hawaii, got hooked, came home and bought boards. Eventually they were surfing every day at Santa Nofre. They had not started until they were almost sixty.

Then they saw a recording of a great white shark surfing in the same spot they used.

They laughed and went back the next day.

Katrina’s willingness to try things should not be confused with indifference to the arrangements. Bob describes her pursuit of the best campsite or hotel room as relentless. If reservations open six months ahead, she times her booking to be first. On Santa Rosa Island, there is a campsite with a wonderful ocean view, and they get it every time they go. They set up, then head down to the ocean to fish for dinner.

She remains a woman with firm opinions about her spot.

At home, Bob makes the bed beautifully and cleans the kitchen, then attributes the work to the bed fairy or the kitchen fairy. Katrina knows who is responsible. Sometimes she tells him he needs to take credit.

Two llamas

He is not always so reluctant.

When Katrina’s bad back led to instructions that she could no longer carry a backpack, she thought her backpacking life was over. It was something they did a great deal of together, and she was feeling sorry for herself. Bob was loving and caring about it.

The next morning, over coffee, he announced, “I’m effing brilliant.”

“What?”

“If we can get you walking again, we’ll get you a llama.”

“A what?”

“We’ll get you a llama.”

“A llama?”

Katrina thought he was absolutely nuts. Then they researched it.

A graphite and colored-pencil interpretation of two alert pack llamas carrying panniers.

Acquiring llamas involved more than agreeing with Bob. A breeder took them on a four- or five-day camping trip in the Sierras to see whether they would make suitable owners. They were good with the animals. They passed.

They have two llamas now. The animals carry Katrina’s gear. They carry Bob’s, too.