The feeling washed over her senses like a sudden summer rain, warm and pattering. No simile could quite quantify this particular passion – amorous like bonobos in mating season, desperate like a recovering addict at a rave.

In short, Bessie Ophelia Fontana was smitten: Olga Ospina’s hair had her completely.

Dizzy for another run of the 10 o’ clock news, Bessie fell to her apartment carpet as the program closed. Then suddenly, she rose, blessing her stars. Thank God for TiVo, she murmured breathlessly, and the best electrician in the county, dear John Moore, who fixed it.

Bessie Ophelia’s roommate picked up her TV tray with a roll of her eyes and a resigned sigh from her lips.

“Oh, Bess Oph,” she said.

This condition was nothing new, of course. She and Bessie’s other friends – who called her only by her nickname, Bess Oph – knew the phenomenon well.

Bess Oph had an uncanny knack for finding the best her home-by-the-bay had to offer – whether the best place for appetizers (Montrio), the best politican (Leon Panetta) or the best tattoo parlor (Gold Coast Tattoo) – and then falling deeply in love.

This was no fleeting fondness, but an affection that was genuine, rapturous, ravenous – and, her friends quickly noticed, universally well-deserved, as if Bess Oph was blessed with some otherworldly sensitivity for superiority.

Bess Oph’s crew recognized something else in her adoration: A certain depth and drama like that which inspired novels. And not just any books, they mused, but rather the ones with breathless, bodice-ripping prose on the pages and long-haired, barrel-chested men and well-endowed women in flowing skirts on the cover.

Yes, Bess Oph’s loves knew no boundaries – other than those lines that define Monterey County.

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