What a jerk, I thought, after Clark yelled at me again to pull faster on the sailboat’s lines to keep pace with the changes of the wind as we headed to open water from Marina del Rey. “I’m never going on another date with this guy again!”

But what do I know about sailing? Although I grew up in the Great Lakes region, I’d never sailed before and didn’t realize there are no passengers on a sailboat — only crew. I’d just moved to Los Angeles from Detroit after leaving a first-job stint in Switzerland. Both places were too cold for me, so no wonder L.A. was irresistible. Every January the nationally televised Rose Parade proved that even winters would reliably be 72 degrees and sunny.

L.A. was the place where this Motown gal believed her dreams of new beginnings with happy endings could come

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