Read Online The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs by Chrisann Brennan - Free Book Online Page B

was without words. And because I didn’t have words for it, I developed that “love-in-community project” for years without ever understanding that such an important question was working and working in me. I didn’t know how to wrap my arms around my mother’s lovelessness, so I avoided her. But I got a second chance later, when I was faced with a similar level of unkindness in Steve, and was forced to navigate through it for our daughter’s well-being.

 
    SIX
    EDEN
    Steve and I found our way into love that spring. We would kiss for hours, at the park and in his car, and we’d try very hard to name exactly what it was that made it so much fun. It was ineffable and we never did figure it out, and soon other things between us needed names, too.
    When Steve visited my house he’d come directly to my bedroom so as to avoid my mother. I’d look up to see his sweet glowing face at my window and have to catch my breath. I can still see his eyes from that time—they were the kindest, softest eyes I had ever known. Steve was my sublime haven and I was happy in my skin when we were together.
    As spring moved into summer, the four trellised columns on my front porch grew thick with star jasmine and filled the air with a humming fragrance. It was then that Steve and I decided to live together for the summer. This was 1972. I can’t recall who suggested it first, but I have a feeling it had to have been coconspiratorial, one idea shimmying its way into the air until we both said, “That’s it.” Neither of us had any ambivalence about the decision. We were determined and clear-eyed about the whole idea. The seventies gave us some permission and the rest we gave ourselves.
    Soon after we’d made our decision I rode my bike to the local junior college where I found an ad on a bulletin board—one room in a cabin in the hills. It sounded perfect, but when I called the landlord he told me that he didn’t have space for a couple. I was really disappointed, but figured there was nothing to be done. Later, when I mentioned the missed opportunity to Steve, he surprised me by asking for the guy’s number. Oh, really, I thought, rifling through my purse for the scrap I had written it on. Long story short—Steve got us an interview, and this alerted me to something remarkable in him. This was a guy who could make things happen. And because of the way he’d asked for the number, I knew he knew it, too.
    That weekend we drove in Steve’s orange Fiat to what was literally the last house on Stevens Canyon Road in Cupertino. We drove past Stevens Creek dam until the road narrowed into twisting two lanes that carried us deep into the woodsy mountains. We passed a lot of small cabins and a local tavern until finally we got to the last turnoff, a hundred feet before the road dead-ended at a footpath. Turning left, we found ourselves on a flat clearing, deep in a valley between some very high hills. Here stood four little cabins, hunkered down in the delicate sunlight. We drove slowly to the farthest cabin, passing an enormous pig in a muddy pen and lots of free-roaming chickens that clucked as they scattered out of our way. Four wild-eyed goats tiptoed in close on their hooves and eyed us as we got out of the car. It looked like some Appalachian back world of stillness and old things.
    Alfonso Tatono greeted us with a mischievous smile, and beckoned us in. His house smelled musty. The first thing I noticed was a big white parachute draped from the ceiling down over the dark wooden walls to increase the lighting in a film project he was working on. We were awed. This was the home of a bona fide hippy. Al showed us around the cabin. The spaces were small and dark and well swept. He had furniture from the forties and fifties, and the accoutrement of the sixties and seventies, including found objects from nature. It was tidy with the kind of care that a man instills on his environment and very far from the ranch-style houses of the