Chapter 31: Like, Ohmigawd, Crisis!

November 4, 1980 (continued)

On the way out, I gave both Kim and Karen a card. Who knew if I’d ever see them again, but it was great practice at forcing myself to get out there and meet people.

Janet and I talked more music on the ride back. And books. And classes. I had a great time. I think she did, too.

Having five winners from Memorial pleased the teachers, even if only two were top-three. There were only 12 top-three finishers and twenty-five high schools. As I was getting off the bus, Ms. Symms told me she was happy I’d been able to go. I smiled and thanked her for the opportunity.

It was after 7 by time I got off the bus. I could drop by study group for a few minutes, at least.

I made a beeline for the pay phones first, grumbling to myself about the long wait before cell phones became available.

“Hi, Mom!”

“Hi, Steve! How’d it go?”

“Great. I had a great time and met some nice people.”

“That’s good. I’m glad you got to go.”

“I also received an honorable mention in the freshman category.”

“Oh! Oh, wow! Hey! Sam! Steve got an honorable mention for a freshman!” I heard the phone handed over.

“Wow, son! That’s great! We’re so proud of you!”

“Thanks, Dad! Thanks, Mom! I’m going to drop by Mike’s for an hour on the way home.”

“OK. Thanks for calling, son. We love you!”

“I love you too, Dad, and Mom, too. Tell her for me.”

I hung up, got on my bike, and took off for Mike’s.

Rita let me in. “Hey, where’ve you been?”

I smiled. “Field trip. It ran late. Thanks for hosting us, Rita. I can’t tell you how much we all appreciate your hospitality.”

She smiled. “Why, aren’t you sweet? I’m glad Mike has so many good friends. He’s a good kid.”

“He’s a great friend.”

“Go on down, I’m sure you want to see them and not me.”

“Thanks, Rita!” I headed down.

“Hey! The conquering hero returns!” Sarah called, ran over, and hugged me. I looked around. No Angie. Pool or napping, I imagined.

“How’d it go?” Mike called.

“Great! Hey, I’m going to go use the phone, OK?”

“Candice?”

“Of course.”

“Be my guest!”

I went, dialed Candice’s house. I got her dad. “Matthews residence.”

“Hello Mr. Matthews. This is Steve Marshall. Is Candice awake?”

“Let me check.” He took the phone away from his ear. “Hey! Sandy! Is Candy awake?”

I heard something muffled. “Yes, she’s awake. She’s heading to the phone.”

The phone got handed around. “Hello?”

“Hi, honey.”

“Steve! How was it?”

“It was great. How are you feeling?”

“Much better, though I’m kind of tired. I think I’ll be back in school tomorrow. So, what happened?”

“I met some cool people. I also got an honorable mention.”

“Well, you’re an honorable guy,” she giggled.

“You should rest.”

“Yeah. See you in school tomorrow.”

“See you then! I love you.”

“I love you, too!”

I hung up and walked back to the rumpus room. Angie and Dan had returned and were talking with Mike and Sarah. Given the way she looked, I was pretty sure it was a darn good nap. Emily, Mark, and Morty had papers strewn out and Marcus and Debbie were going over something with Mel.

I loved this group of friends. It was such a change from the first time.

Angie spotted me. “Steve! How’d it go?”

“A lot of fun. Met some cool people, did a bunch of boring math.” Everyone laughed. I imagined most of them would be at TEES before graduation.

“And?”

“Honorable Mention.”

“Woo-hoo!” “Yay!” “Cool!” “Damn! I knew you could do it!”

“Tell us about it!” Angie called.

I sat down and ran through the day, skipping the people.

“So, you said you met some people?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah, a freshman from Richardson, a junior from Austin, and a sophomore from here. I mean Memorial. We chatted on the bus and all. The girl from Austin had the most awesome purple hair. I wish our dress code wasn’t so stodgy.”

Mel perked up. “Purple hair? I wanna do that! I’m going to, when I get to college.”

Mark and Morty looked at each other. “Green?” “Green.”

Emily giggled.

Angie winked. “All girls, right?”

“Of course.”

“I know a few sophomores. Who’d you meet from Memorial?” Mel asked.

“Janet Collins.” Mel’s face twitched. Not positively. Uh oh. “She’s in debate; I’ll be there next semester. It was good getting to know someone else I’ll be doing stuff with tournaments and such.”

Mel’s expression was sour, which confused me. “Why were you talking to Janet Collins?”

I shrugged. This was unlike Mel. “She sat back in the back row with me.”

Mel muttered, “Of course she did.” Low, but I caught it. I saw that Angie did, too. She looked as baffled as I was.

“I mean, she’s an underclassman, so am I, we’re on a bus for two hours. I introduced myself, she introduced herself, we got to talking. We’ve got similar tastes in music and books and stuff, and she gave me a bunch of tips on the debate team.” Mel’s expression was stormy.

Angie jumped in. “I don’t think I know her. What’s she look like?”

I laughed. “You’ve seen her. She wears all pink. Not that there’s anything wrong with pink...” Angie had on a pastel pink blouse and jeans, “but, you know as well as I do that people can do up a bit ... overwhelmingly.” Angie giggled and nodded. “And ... oh, I don’t know. She comes on...”

Mel growled. “Like an airhead. She’s an airhead, OK? She talks like this.” Her voice went up an octave. Or two. “Like, ohmigawd! I’m totally so pink! Wow! You’re such a hunk! Ohimigawd, you can totally carry my books!”

I guess she pushed Mel’s buttons. The question was, which ones and why? I liked Janet — but I liked Mel, too, and she tended to be a good judge of people. Maybe I’d missed something.

Mel was looking daggers at me. “So you were all buddy-buddy with her, huh?”

I engaged a bit indirectly, but didn’t dodge. “Mel. Look, this was TEES. She’s a sophomore. What’s that tell you?”

Mel mumbled something. It sounded like “Brenner ... thinking with his...”. Mr. Brenner taught Algebra II. Sophomore math, advanced track.

I spoke a trifle more firmly. “Mel. She got an honorable mention for sophomores. That puts her in the top 10 sophomores in the state. Well, of the kids that got to go, anyway.” Mel’s eyes popped up. She looked shocked.

“Look, OK, fine. She comes on strong. Very strong. It’s her thing. She asked me if I was skipping class. I said, hey, I’ve got no tests, my girlfriend’s sick, I can miss part of study group since there’s a week before tests, so, sure, skipping class sounds good. We talked a bit, I called her on the whole ‘ohmigawd!’ thing, she shifted to her normal voice, and we had a great time. I’m sorry if you don’t like her. Maybe I’m missing something. I mean, if you know something bad...”

Raising her hand, Mel cut me off. Softly, she said, “Y ... you told her your girlfriend was sick?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And ... then ... you still talked to her ... and ... she was smart ... and ... it’s a ... fucking ... act?!”

“Um. Yeah. It’s her thing. I think it’s a way to bamboozle the idiot boys who don’t know what’s about to hit them in a debate.”

Mel squeaked. “I ... I ... I made a big mistake.”

I went over and hugged her. “What’s wrong?”

Mel was blushing. “I um ... I mean. I ... I shouldn’t have even let myself think it. But. She’s so ... so...”

“Airheaded. I mean, how she comes off.”

“Yeah. You’re a guy, she’s a girl, back row of the bus, and here you are striking up a conversation with an airhead. I mean, there’s one thing guys want from an airhead. Candice is sick, you don’t get to see her, and...”

I got it. “Mel, I’m not upset, OK. That’s why I mentioned Candice right off. So she’d know I had a girlfriend. If she’d tried anything, I’d have stopped it. But I had no more chance of talking her out of her panties than I do of talking you out of yours...” She got a lot redder. “ ... hell, you’d be easier, since we’ve talked about skinny-dipping...” At that, she gave a forced laugh. “ ... and she wasn’t about to go after me, the silly freshman with the girlfriend. It was innocent. Well, she flipped off Mr. Hannity a couple dozen times. Maybe that’s not entirely innocent. He couldn’t see it, but still...”

Mel gulped. “So ... not an airhead, not a s...”

“Slut. No. Very much not.”

Mel groaned. “I fucked up. Big.”

I shook my head. “It’s OK, you just read things wrong. I’m not offended. I mean, c’mon, Mel, I’m not chasing any girls. I’ve got Candice. I’m not about to treat her that way. Angie’d have my balls, for one thing...”

“Yes, I would!”

“ ... but you know me better than that. And it’s not like you had time to call Candice and rake me over the coals, so it’s just us. And you have to know I’d forgive anyone in this room a whole lot of things. I love you all. Including you.”

She shook her head harder. “I ... it’s not you ... I’ve been a real bitch, uh ... about her ... I may have, um ... fucked some other stuff up.”

“What happened?”

“I can’t explain, just, I can’t. I ... I really can’t. I need to see if I can fix this. I mean not now, but, right away. Damn, how could I have misjudged her so badly?!”

I hugged her again. “If anyone can fix it, you can. And if you need a friendly word with Janet, let me know.”

She shook her head. “It’s not Janet that’s the problem.”

Another hug. “OK. Well. We’ll all support you, you know that.”

Mel sighed, deeply, and hugged me back. “Well, fuck. I guess this was the least bad way I could have figured out that I’m a complete idiot.”

Mark looked like he’d thought of a joke, but, to his credit, he stifled it. As he started coming over, I got up. He hugged her from one side, Morty from the other. “We love you, sis.” “Always.”

She sniffled and smiled. “You’ve been taking lessons from Angie and Steve. Good boys.”

When I got home, I found out Reagan had won. As best as I can remember, it was exactly the same as before. Confirmation that the big picture, for now, looked unchanged. I imagined the tiny little ripples I was making flowing out from my little corner of Houston into the world. What might those butterflies in China be doing one day, from my little ripples?

10:45pm

Angie came in, smooched me, climbed into bed on her side. I kept from looking down at her boobs this time. It was a struggle.

“What the hell was up with Mel? I thought it was her thinking you were a horndog. Which, I mean, you are,” she grinned, “but you wouldn’t go bragging to us if you’d gone after some bimbo. Especially if she wasn’t a bimbo.”

“I don’t know, Ang. Maybe there’s a side to Mel that we just don’t get.”

She nodded. “Yeah. She’s ... she started out very quiet, which, I mean ... next to Mark and Morty, anyone would look quiet. And I didn’t see past that for a long time. Now? I don’t know what I’m missing.”

“I hope she fixes whatever it is she needs to fix. Janet’s a nice girl. I mean, if she’s playing the airhead, you’d want to smack her, but knowing the game, it’s hilarious. She just demolished our lunch table. All these introverted nerds staring as this girl in pink went on and on while smacking her gum. And then she got an honorable mention, beating the lot of them.”

Angie giggled. “Any girl that kicks ass is fine by me. What was that about flipping the bird?”

“She started cursing.”

“Good girl. I fucking like her already!”

“Anyway. Hannity.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, he heard, and after the second, threatened to make her sit up front. And call her parents. Who I think would have told him something about watching his own karma.”

Angie giggled at that.

“She didn’t want to sit up front, so she caught every word and fixed it on the way out. And flipped the bird when she did it.”

“Oh god, that’s hilarious!” Angie said with a grin.

“Tell me about it. I started doing it too. I was gonna say ‘who’d have thought it’, but, there are probably dozens of students who’ve bonded over flipping the bird at Hannity.”