My first thought was to call my mom, but I didn't want to worry her. Then my brothers, but then again, didn't want them to worry either...then I mentally went down the list of friends that I could just share the potential bad news with:
"So-and-so has a newborn, so I can't disturb her. So-and-so has wild kids, so we can't speak in peace. So-and-so is at work and probably busy..." and so my list of friends went.Then it hit me, if Sebas were alive, even if he was in the middle of a meeting, he would "feel me" and send me a text. He would call me on his way home. Listen. Calm me without being overly positive and annoying, and at the end of the conversation make me laugh.
He would call me "dah-ling" in his French accent and then invite me to dinner. On him. He was one of the few people in my lifetime that's treated me to dinner...for no reason at all.
We would sit down at one of his favorite places and he'd order wine, appetizers, and plan on dessert.
He'd listen. Let me vent; and help me come up with a response on my own...before he got up and walked around. I would order for him if he took too long to come back. The waitresses or waiters always twisting their lips in that smug smile thinking to themselves: "She got dumped."
I didn't.
That was one of the petty annoyances of being friends with him: He would up and disappear to think. Smoke. Walk. Sometimes, anytime, during dinner.
He always took too long.
Sometimes he picked-up his cell when I called to check-up on him. Many times he didn't. I worried only to laugh when he walked behind me to wrap his arms around my shoulders and exclaim, "dah-ling...a woman like you belongs in Paris."
He wore cargo shorts. Too big and always the same. Even at places that weren't necessarily appropriate. But he talked his way into breaking clothing rules. Because he was French and anything he said and did was a lot sexier and more appropriate than anyone else. Maybe because he always wore French suits and Italian shoes, that on the rare occasions he Americanized his wardrobe nobody really cared.
His rolodex, as thick as his Foreign Ministry Press Attache title, gave him a reason to be invited to yet another black tie affair that went beyond the commonplace Hollywood Gliterati events that Los Angeles drowns in. I was always invited, yet rarely accepted. He sent me a client for every event I missed.
Heads of state, people with big titles and even bigger pocket books, called him, counted on him, and he always smiled and laughed about it all. It was no big deal, nor did it matter to him.
What he considered a big deal was his intense need to be surrounded by people he loved. To be needed. To be babied.
But not in crowds. Crowds made him anxious.
On a good day, I loved loving on him. On a bad day, it was suffocating.
He wanted to see it all. America. California. Los Angeles. But as a lifelong Angelino, his bright-eyed expression at something rather commonplace was not always fun. He had, as we all do, quirks.
He was foreign, of course, which made his quirks more acceptable when followed with "He's French," to the people that really didn't know him or understand his sometimes odd behaviors.
He would only be in the states for a few years before he would move, yet again. To Africa maybe? Possibly even Latin America. We talked about me tagging along and experiencing the world with him and my mentor, his partner.
No man, according to Sebas, at least those I dated at the time, were good enough for me. They had the big titles, the big pocketbooks, but not the "heart" that Sebas always advised I look for.
I didn't care.
My days were filled with work and building a business. My nights were simply extended ways to entertain myself without commitment. But there was always Sebas to guide me. Listen. Make me believe that everything would be fine, and that answers were only as far as my eyes could see.
Nothing was impossible.
But when he died, too soon for his age, too soon for this world; that tinge of hope and of "gusto" in building my business, traveling the world, and living the dream, died on the few pages that I wrote to him before they were shuttered in his coffin.
I have always credited Sebas, always, for that odd situation that introduced me to the man that later became my hubby. "This situation is just so Sebas," I remember telling my mentor after meeting my hubby.
My hubby, always living in a somewhat Sebas shadow, has since been accustomed to my random reminders of Sebas or his funny expressions that make me laugh when I'm only minutes from crying.
"Lets move to Paris," I told him when bad news hit last week. My hubby laughed, maybe a bit confused by my odd resolution to our problem, and smiled.
Even in death Sebas has a way of making us smile.