L.A. Affairs: They found harmony through writing songs together

Two years out of a bad marriage, life was both better than ever and more challenging.

I really wasn’t looking for another husband, even though my 3-year-old daughter’s response to every male visitor was, “Let’s get married and have a baby.” What she missed was a dad. What I wanted was a soul mate. If both of those criteria could not be met, we were fine the way we were.

There were suitors — the bearded computer genius six years younger and six years behind my life’s expectations. The very fat, but wealthy businessman. A social worker. A florist. A guy I met in the popcorn line at the movies with the fat cat. My daughter saw all these guys as possibilities. None had the music in their souls that I was straining to hear.

I was working for a large firm in the marketing department. The head of market research stopped by my office one day to introduce a new member of her team. He was kind of cute and then I quickly forgot about him. Until I ran into him in another friend’s office a few days later. Yes. He was definitely cute.

New Year’s Eve was a week away and a friend was having a little party. Bring a date, she said … so I invited the cute new guy. Oh, so sorry, he said. Already had a date (duh, it was a week before New Year’s) and also, didn’t date where he worked. OK, I got it.

But he started hanging around my office during breaks and lunch. He was funny and left little notes for me to find when I came into my office, clever takes on popular songs and commercials. Always with a smattering of musical notes drawn on them.

Life went on. Then one day he got laid off. Yay! Now he couldn’t use that no dating in the office excuse. So I invited him for dinner. He loved my cooking. Loved my daughter. And liked me as a friend. He’d bring his guitar or play my piano and soon he started leaving me melodies before he left on business trips. While he was gone I’d write lyrics. Most of them about unrequited love. Imagine that.

I made it clear I was interested in more than friendship. Whether it was because he still wasn’t over his last serious relationship or because I just wasn’t what he thought he was looking for, he made it clear he wasn’t. So what we had was a songwriting partnership. As I mooned over him he kept telling me that Rodgers and Hammerstein were not lovers!

The Fourth of July was coming. He said, “Let’s have a party at your house and invite our friends and my mother.” Really? Your mother? What was that all about? It was the day before my daughter’s fifth birthday. We had fried chicken, walked down to the beach to see the fireworks, and his mother read everybody’s aura and got on famously with my daughter.

After everybody left, he said he wanted to stay. Really? What about Rodgers and Hammerstein? He said we’d never write songs as good as theirs, so we might as well break the rule. Plus, his mother thought I had a pretty fabulous aura.

We kept writing songs (the lyrics may have become a little more upbeat) and life was extremely good. One day he was cutting his toenails on my bed and said, “We’ll probably get married one of these days.” I said I was taking that as a proposal. He was OK with that but in no hurry.

After hearing about this guy I was dating for the last year, my Jewish mother in Cleveland was not happy that he wasn’t Jewish or from Cleveland. She came out to L.A. to see for herself. When he missed the first two dinners because of late nights at work, she was less than impressed. Finally he showed up at my door on her third night here with a bouquet of flowers. “Oh,” I said, “that’s so nice, thank you.” “No,” he said, and with a gallant sweep of his flower-laden arm, added, “These are for mom.” That was it. She was smitten.

After mom had been here for two weeks she stated she wasn’t leaving until we set a date. I called Bob with that news and he said, pick out the first available Sunday. It appears this guy just needed a push from both mothers to get this show on the road. I guess that’s why they say (or at least someone should say) a guy who loves his (and your) mother and always has a song in his heart will make a wonderful husband.

So Becky got her wish. We all got married and had a baby nine months later. Now we were writing songs for our kids. On our 10th anniversary I gave him a gold-plated toenail clipper on which I had engraved: “Thanks for asking.”

Just before our 33rd anniversary, we had our first grandchild. It seems we’ll never run out of reasons to write songs.

Packham lives in Santa Monica.

L.A. Affairs chronicles dating and romance in contemporary Southern California. Past columns and submission guidelines are at latimes.com/laaffairs. If you have comments or a true story to tell, write us at home@latimes.com.