Edward was 25 and had blond hair that fell in big, loose curls around his tan and chiseled face. We worked together at the village store in Yosemite. It was dingy and dirty from the dust of Yosemite in the summer, and constantly filled with tourists who had driven from all over the country just so they could wait in line to buy Yosemite toaster tongs or laminated El Capitán place mats. The store sold sweatshirts with neon graphics, the worst of which was a bestseller: It had "Stokin at the Dome!" emblazoned across a hot pink outline of Yosemite's famous Half Dome.

Edward had spent the last few winters in Colorado as a ski bum doing odd jobs, and his service industry skills left a little to be desired. He cut this bitchy quote by Hutton Wilkinson out of the newspaper and left it on my cash register one morning: "Every night, I pray that people with money get taste and people with taste get money." I pasted it in my journal.

Right after I met Edward I wrote in my journal: "I am totally intrigued by a man that I work with named Edward. He's a student at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. I love working with him. We just talk and talk all day long."

Before I met Edward, my romantic past had consisted of a naive relationship in high school with Rob, my first boyfriend. Rob's sole goal in life was to steal my closely guarded virginity. His merciless efforts night after night on the nubby brown couch in his family's front room were the focus of the vast majority of the time we spent together. He was a sweet guy and he was hung up on me. But mostly he liked to drink beer, smoke pot and play basketball. He was a big fan of the '80s rock band "Heart," mainly because he thought the slutty female lead singers with their big hair and pouty mouths were hot.

Compared with Rob, Edward was fascinating. He told me stories about traveling in Europe, painting in the park at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and hanging out in cafes reading and sipping cappuccino. Everything Edward described sounded romantic and worldly to me. I grew up in a bedroom community east of San Francisco, a sterile if pleasant town with too many strip malls and a lot of tract housing. I went to Mexico to work in an orphanage with my church group in high school once, but other than that and family vacations in the Sierras, I'd pretty much been stuck, bored, in suburbia.

Edward listened to what I now know to be New Age jazz, but at the time, all I heard was "jazz," which seemed mature and smooth. But he also listened to the Cure and the Smiths, bands I associated with a group of older, aloof but very cool goth kids in my hometown. Edward's favorite movie was "Jules and Jim," but he would explain it like this: "Do you like Truffaut?" I don't remember how I responded, but I had no idea who Truffaut was and the fact that Edward did know seemed sexy and sophisticated. He was always telling me about books I should read or films I needed to see or museums I had to visit. I had the urge to take notes while he talked to me. I wanted to memorize the words coming out of his mouth.

When we worked together, Edward ignored everyone else, concentrating all of his energy on me. His eyes bore into mine while we talked. He'd nod his head and smile while he listened to me, as if everything that came out of my 19-year-old mouth was witty and wise.

Within a few weeks we were spending most of our free time together in addition to the time at work. We got up at 6 a.m. to watch the hang gliders take off in the silky sunrise from the top of Glacier Point, and then spent the next five hours hiking down the mountain, talking all the way. We drove out to the Wawona tunnel at night and crawled through a pitch-black opening in the wall to sit on a secret granite ledge and look at the stars. We stayed up until 3 a.m. talking in each other's tent cabins. He showed me worn photos from his travels and I listened and watched. I couldn't get enough.

Private Life Romance, relationships, and the personal side of Table Talk