So now Brian has a better clue of what is going on, and Cindy has her problem solved, as well. I'm very happy with the two of them, Brian and Cindy. Two things about the last couple of chapters:
1) In researching what movie they were going to watch, I realized I couldn't use my idea of watching a Disney Animation (which is what we did when our girl was 8) -- because the renaissance of Disney Animation didn't start until the Winter of 1989, with the release of The Little Mermaid! I also couldn't find any good references for what HBO was showing, or when such movies went to VHS. I had to tap into my memory for that, and hopefully if it's not accurate, it's at least reasonable.
Details matter, but verisimilitude matters more. OF course the wrong detail and the right reader can mash up against each other, knocking that reader out of the narrative, so I try to get the details right. One detail I had wrong was the Ford Fairlane, which I had grown up thinking was the Ford Fairmont (My mom drove the station wagon version) I corrected it in the narrative (or picked a similar but differently named vehicle). The Internet is good at chronicling our love affair with cars.
2) The Title of part 9, "Eternal Flame" was consistently the title of the next-to-last part of this story the whole time I wrote it. It started as the title for Part 2, and kept getting bumped down. Of course, when I started I had an outline and Cindy wasn't in it at all. I realized early on I'd need to have some counterpoint for Brian to compare his relationship with Janet to, and he had no experience to back it up.
Cindy is not your typical high school girl, but she offers us that. I suspect in later parts she'll have as much or more influence on Brian than Janet Cooke will. But you'll see more about that later this week as Summer of 89 concluded.