Don’t Look Behind You

for Gerard’s Meats. After dating many young women once or twice, Joe ended his frenzied dating and settled down to seeing just two women. They were both pretty and easy to get along with, and he wasn’t sure which of them was right for him. He was honest with them and made no promises.
    One was named Kim. She was the one Joe chose to accompany him to Gypsy’s wedding in July 1977. He had flown the younger kids in from New Mexico, and he picked them up in California and drove them to the wedding in Lake Tahoe. His children liked Kim, and they all had a good time during the festivities. Naturally, Joe cooked for the reception and put together huge antipasto platters with cheeses, meats, peppers, olives, and tomatoes.
    The other woman was Renee Curtiss. Joe first met Renee when he worked at Gerard’s, and he had been very attracted to her, even though she was in her early twenties, thirty years his junior. She was the secretary at Gerard’s Meats, efficient, very pretty, and fun to be around. The onething that bothered Joe about Renee was that she wasn’t taking care of her own daughter, Diana , * and was even rumored to have another child who lived someplace else—a son, Brent. *
    The Carlsons had been mistaken about the relationships in Geri Hesse’s family.
    Diana, an eight-year-old in 1977, wasn’t Geri’s daughter, after all; she was Renee’s daughter. Geri was her grandmother, but she might have told people that Diana was hers—in order to protect Renee’s reputation. Renee would have been very young when she gave birth to two babies, probably in her midteens.
    Joe hadn’t found her to be a very attentive mother to either of her children. He disapproved of that. He had no idea who had fathered Diana and Brent; Renee didn’t talk about it.
    Joe had always put his own children first—and he vacillated over which of his young girlfriends to choose.
    “On the drive back from my wedding,” Gypsy remembers, “my brother Dean said Dad asked the kids which of his girlfriends they liked best, Kim or Renee? They told him they couldn’t make that decision for him, although I guess all of us secretly wished he would choose someone closer to his own age.”
    In the end, Joe chose Renee. Unfortunately, in choosing Renee, Joe also got her mother, Geri. They came as a matched pair.
    In 1977, he decided to move to Alaska. The pipeline construction was under way, and he could see tremendous potential there if he started his own door-to-door meat business. He’d learned the ins and outs of selling meat in big lots while he worked at Gerard’s in Seattle and was confident about striking out on his own.
    He brought Renee Curtiss up to Alaska to work for him. Geri Hesse was in the process of getting a divorce from Renee’s father, and she soon followed, bringing her granddaughter, Diana, with her. Renee’s son, Brent, was in one of the many foster homes he would live in.
    Joe called his new company Alaska Meat Provisions. It was located on International Airport Road in Anchorage. He picked up the steaks, roasts, and ground meat from a wholesaler and delivered them to customers from Anchorage to Fairbanks while Renee managed the office in Anchorage.
    In essence, Joe was supporting Renee, Geri Hesse, and Diana, although he never lived with them: they rented a house on Jewel Lake. Joe put a bed for himself in an unfinished room over his office.
    Geri was much closer in age to Joe than Renee was, but it was Renee who fascinated Joe. He bought her jewelry and almost anything she said she wanted, along with presents for Geri and Diana.
    It wasn’t long before Joe fell completely in love with Renee. He knew she didn’t love him as much as he cared for her, and he suspected she was seeing other men.
    It didn’t matter. Joe Tarricone was obsessed with Renee Curtiss. His children disapproved, his parents in New Yorkweren’t at all happy that he was divorced and chasing after a woman thirty years younger than he was, and all his relatives and friends worried about him.
    They wondered what such a young and beautiful woman might want from him. Renee could probably have just about any man she chose, and they were afraid she was after Joe for his money. He scoffed at the idea, convinced that he would win Renee over in time.
    In the meantime, he had a warm friendship with her, Geri Hesse, and little Diana. In a sense, he had another family group.
    Renee had an Irish pixie look about her, thanks to her bright blue eyes,