The Nine Lessons Read Online Free PDF Page B

mind free of any and all distractions. But notwithstanding the diligence of my mind, today my heart encountered a distraction that it could not ignore. The name of this beautiful distraction is Jessalynn Call.
    Jessalynn hails from Vermont, but she currently lives in New Jersey as a student at Princeton University. I don’t fully understand what she is studying, other than it has something to do with the physics of bending light around corners. She is visiting in California for three weeks as an official delegate at a national consortium of research universities. She must be as brilliant as she is stunning to have been selected to fill such an appointment!
    I met Jessalynn quite randomly in a shoe store—I was in search of new spikes, and she was looking for tennis shoes. When I first laid eyes on her she was methodically debating the qualitative merits of Nike versus Adidas, reciting aloud the positives and negatives of each. I have no idea what compelled me to approach her; I felt drawn like a moth to fire—one look and my heart was aflame!
    “The idyllic swoosh of the Nike will best complement your remarkable smile,” I told her, hoping to help put an end to her immediate concern.
    “Is that so?” she said, smiling in such a way that I knew she appreciated the compliment. “And what if I frown while I’m wearing them? How will I look then?”
    “Do angels frown?” I asked in reply. “I find the thought unlikely.”
    When I finally managed to introduce myself as Oswald Witte, I’m embarrassed to admit that she openly laughed at me. Her father’s name is also Oswald, and she would not, under any circumstances, call me by her father’s name because doing so, she said, would erase any amount of charm that she might ever find in me. She asked me where I was from, and I proudly reported that I had moved from London, England, just four months ago. “Splendid,” she mused. “I like how that sounds. I’ll just call you London. London Witte. It has a nice ring, don’t you think?”
    I told her she could call me anything she wanted, if she was willing to join me tomorrow for dinner at Torrey Pines. She agreed!

    January 8, 1973—Jessalynn and I had a wonderful date tonight. I taught her the mechanics of swinging a golf club, and she in turn instructed me on how the moon’s gravitational pull could cause small but measurable differences in club-head speed at different stages of the lunar cycle (okay… so I didn’t really understand it, but it sounded VERY impressive). She persisted in calling me London throughout the entire evening, and it is beginning to grow on me. I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but I wouldn’t mind hearing her call me London every single day for the rest of my life.

CHAPTER 5

    It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.
    —Hank Aaron
    T he sun was already rising above the Green Mountains when the smell of hickory bacon woke me from my slumber. I stumbled toward the kitchen, where I found Erin stooped over the countertop, putting the finishing touches on what looked to be a gourmet meal—bagels and lox, quiche, fresh fruit, and the aromatic bacon that had pulled me from bed.
    “What’s all this?”
    She didn’t respond. She didn’t even look up at me, but just kept slicing up berries.
    Ah, the silent treatment. I didn’t mind. I deserved it and I knew it. But I couldn’t help wondering if she was planning on eating all of the food by herself, or if I was somehow included in her brunch plans. I hoped for the latter, even if it meant eating in silence. “So,” I said, once I was sure she was fully ignoring me. “This smells… great.”
    Erin scooped a small pile of whipped cream on top of the berries and took them to the table with the rest of the spread.
    “And you… how are you doing? Anything I can help with?”
    She went to the cupboard and withdrew two plates and cups, fetched some silverware from the drawer,