Chapter 129: A Potential Clue

Saturday, May 12, 1984

When we came out for breakfast, Camille seemed less surprised to see me than I’d expected.

Jas raised an eyebrow, presumably at the lack of a reaction, and Camille said, “There was a familiar car parked outside. It seemed fairly obvious.”

Jas and I both blushed.

“Well, then,” I said, with Jas nodding.

“Not that you need a reason, but I wasn’t expecting this,” Camille said, leaving the question unstated.

“We had a very rude patron of the arts last night,” I said.

Jas snorted, then made a face.

“Oh?” Camille said.

“Some idiot who thought it was a good idea to shout about Angie and Paige using some interesting anti-lesbian slurs,” I said.

“Oh, my!” Camille said. “They’re still alive?”

“The police took him away, probably saving him from a variety of torments. Our friend Marshall Briggs’s mama made him hurt, though, but not as much as she would’ve liked to.”

“You’ve told me about Marshall. I hope to meet him one day,” Camille said.

“I’m starting to think that Marshall will be a friend that ‘sticks,’” Jas said. “Unlikely not all that long ago, but yet true. He’ll be living in New Orleans, and somehow I think we’ll visit there a time or two. He knows Gene and Sue now, if only a bit. They won’t be living there, but I imagine they’ll visit fairly often.”

Camille nodded. “Interesting. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Francis and I are overdue for a trip to New Orleans. Perhaps we’ll meet you there.”

“Sounds like fun,” I said. “My parents had a great time playing tourist there.”

Once we’d finished breakfast, Jas and I left for a mission that I’d come up with last night.

“Where are we heading, anyway?” Jas said, as we got in the car. “I know we’ve got the RV thing, but that’s in the afternoon. I’m all for doing anything other than fretting about the performance, but...”

“Research,” I said, chuckling.

She bopped my shoulder. “We are not doing research today! You can wait!”

“Not that sort.”

She giggled. “Okay, I really knew that. I’m just teasing. This is related to the Kents, right?”

“Maybe. It’s related to ... all of it. The way I see it, the evidence is pointing away from someone at Memorial outing Cammie and Mel — or, if they did, it’s for some more obscure reason. The really conservative kids would just out them right away, in front of the whole school. What, Cal’s really going to beat them up? He’s scary as hell, but beating up someone for that would probably screw him badly. It’d be like Ronnie, last night — shouting and taunts.”

She nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been kinda thinking that, too.”

“My question is, was someone stalking them? Someone else? How were they doing it? How would they know where the gay kids were hanging out?”

“I’ve been wondering about that, too.”

“Maybe it wasn’t stalking at all. Maybe it was something else.”

“Just a coincidence? No, that makes no sense. No one would just drive by, see Cammie and Mel, and grab a camera in time to catch a kiss. They’d have to have been blatantly making out for a while, and they weren’t, I’m sure,” she said, then hesitated. After a second, she said, “Proximity?”

“That’s what I’m wondering. Could this be a neighbor? Where was this party, and who lives nearby? I’ve already verified that the Kents themselves don’t live all that close to the party, but that’s just one family. Does anyone else from Cammie’s church live on that street? Anyone else we know anything about?”

She grinned. “Reverse directory to the rescue, I’m guessing.”

I nodded. “Yeah, and the local library doesn’t have one. The closest I could find was at one of the Houston branches, but I figured we’d go to the main library downtown. If we need something else, they’ll have it, and if they don’t, we’re most of the way to either UH or Rice.”

“Good thinking!”

We chatted about the show for most of the rest of the drive. Jas had some tiny tweaks to her character she wanted to run by me. I liked them, and could easily play to them, but it made a lot of sense for her to tell me in advance, since I’d need to adjust to her phrasing or tone of voice on the fly. She could throw me off during the show by giving a slightly peeved edge to something that hadn’t come off that way before.

It didn’t take that long to find the reverse directories. I was somewhat peeved with myself for not trying this before, but it had been a crazy month.

Jas and I talked about it a bit as I wrote down names and addresses. It wasn’t clear what we might do with this information, even if we had it. Reporting Cammie to her parents wasn’t a crime. Nor was taking pictures of people kissing on the sidewalk — or, if it was, it was so minor as to be pointless to discuss.

We couldn’t sue them. Or, rather, we could — you can sue anyone for anything — but we would be wasting our time and money.

We could harass them. I knew plenty of ways to do that, including ways that would never get us caught.

The question was: should we? What exactly would be the point? If they knew, or could guess, that the harassment was based on what they did, wouldn’t that just tell them that they’d accomplished their goal? If they didn’t know, there seemed to be even less point.

As I went down the list of addresses, one name caught my attention. The third-to-the-last house on the block was owned by someone named Baird. If that was Cindy’s family ... well, that would explain a few things, possibly.

Jas was looking over my shoulder as I tapped my finger on the list.

“That little bitch!” she said.

“We don’t know that it’s her.”

“Well, true, but...”

“Yeah. It would explain things, or at least some things,” I said. “Not why she waited so long.”

“Maybe she was trying to finish up the roll?”

I shrugged. “Could be.”

“Or, could it have been hard to recognize Cammie? I haven’t seen the picture,” Jas said.

“I ... don’t know. Cammie’s parents obviously did, but...”

“But they’re her parents. Cindy knew her, but that was a long time ago.”

“I don’t know how to find out,” I said.

“We brainstorm. And, I mean, we don’t blame her by name, we just say, ‘Look, we have a guess as to who might have sent the picture, but we don’t have any way of knowing. How can we tell?’”

“Just asking does seem unlikely.”

Jas nodded, then said, “I mean, she might not see anything wrong with it, or she might want to gloat. But, if she doesn’t, then just asking makes the problem go from hard to harder.”

“I’m going to copy the rest of the names. When we show Cammie the list, we’ll have to leave the Bairds off, though. I mean, we still don’t know if it’s even the right Baird family.”

Jas grinned. “Mom’s got an old Memorial High School phone directory from two years ago. That’ll solve that quickly.”

“Good thinking!” I said, blushing a bit. “I should’ve thought of that.”

“You’ve probably never used one,” she said.

“Freshman year, yes, but since then it’s all been in my little address book. Believe me, I’m ready for advanced technology to come to the rescue, but we’re almost a decade away from anything that’s a decent replacement.”

“Electronic address books?”

I nodded. “They’ll get better and better, but ... well, it’s a long story, and this world ... I just have this feeling that things won’t line up exactly. Close, but ... well, it’s a different universe, for one thing. Beyond that, even our little web of changes is going to just keep expanding.”

“So... ‘Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.’ Or your electronic address books, either,” she said, giggling.

“That. Yes. Definitely that.”

We kissed quickly as we got up. I put the reverse directory away and we hit the road.

We headed out to the RV place, arriving around one-thirty. Jas played passenger for the most part, though she attempted (and succeeded, somewhat) to drive the RV. It was obvious she wasn’t a fan, and it really wasn’t sized well for someone her height. The seat needed a lot of adjustment, and she was still having trouble seeing over the steering wheel. She’d be a last-resort driver, pretty much.

I had no real problem with it, on the other hand. Oh, it was big, and awkward, and I would need to be slow and deliberate, but I could do that. The tow car (‘toad’ turned out to be the colloquial name) made things a bit more awkward, but not overly so.

They wanted to do a second set of lessons, even though it appeared that I’d impressed them. I doubted they had many 18-year-olds who were as quick a study. But, then, most 18-year-olds don’t have forty-three years of driving experience.

Jas giggled and bopped me when I said that (no surprise there!)

On the way back from the RV place, I stopped and got flowers for Mom. Jasmine thought that was a great idea, and got some for Camille, too. She agreed that the flowers for Camille would be from me, too.

Not wanting to leave her out, we got a set for Paige to give to Jean as well. I was nearly certain that she hadn’t gotten any. No time like the present! If she had, flowers aren’t that expensive, and Mom could have two bouquets.

When we got to Jasmine’s house, we called Cammie. She decided she’d rather come here. I called Angie, who agreed to pick Cammie up and head over.

In the meantime, after getting the flowers set aside and in vases, Jasmine checked the Memorial directory. It was the correct Baird house. The odds that we’d found our culprit had just gone up.

Half an hour later, I passed Cammie the slightly edited phone list.

“Hmm,” she said. “I really didn’t know everyone in the church, but none of these names look familiar. This might be a dead end. Good idea, though, because I don’t know how the hell we’ll ever figure it out. You’re right, though, Steve. Someone would’ve had to have already guessed, then followed us, staked out the party, and waited for us to fuck up. That’s a lot of commitment. Then they sit on it for almost two months? If it was just that they wanted me shipped off, they could’ve done that anytime. Anyone in the church would’ve checked my birthday — the church directory lists everyone’s birthday — and realized that having two months would be a lot better than two weeks.”

Paige nodded. “That’s about where we’ve been. The whole thing is dumb. I mean, not sending Cammie away — of course that’s dumb! — but waiting so long and then doing it anyway. And, I mean, if they just meant her to miss State, then they sent it too early, right? A week and a half later and she’s really screwed.”

“So...” Jasmine said.

“What?” Angie said, jumping on it.

“Suppose we had a guess...” Jas said.

“A suspect, you mean?” Paige said.

Cammie made a face. “Tell! I’ll take the rap!”

Jas shook her head. “We really don’t know, and we don’t have a way to prove anything. The question is: if you had an idea whodunnit, how would you prove it?”

“Chinese water torture,” Paige said.

“Thumbscrews?” Angie said.

“Too good. The rack!” Cammie said. She was starting to giggle just a bit, though, thankfully.

“Seriously!” Jas said.

“Okay, first ... I’d go after my dear brother, because he’s being too quiet,” Angie said.

“Yes, I know who the guess is. No, I’m not telling anyone else, because we might be wrong and it would suck to blame the wrong person for this.”

“I agree,” Cammie said. “I want the bastard, but it’s not like I can get them in any trouble. Mostly I just want to know, and see their face when I tell them what a terrible thing they did. They’ll probably just gloat, but I don’t care.”

“That, and maybe warn people,” Paige said.

“Nah,” Cammie said. “It was a high school party at someone’s house. There are zillions of those. Mel and I fucked up, pure and simple. If we’d kept it indoors, the whole thing never would’ve happened. Our mistake, no one else’s. That doesn’t make it right to take a picture and send it, but we fucked up. That’s part of what has me pissed off — I have to live with that, and so does Mel.”

Everyone moved to hug Cammie, which she accepted, thankfully.

For me, this was another reason Cammie needed a therapist. Yes, it was a mistake, but you have to let yourself off the hook, too. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is yourself, but you have to, because you have to face yourself every day, and that sort of self-blame wears away at you.

After we’d sat back down, Angie said, “Let’s brainstorm and talk about it Monday or Tuesday. The whole thing will keep, and one of us might get a good idea. Besides, we need to shift gears. I’m hungry, and we have a show to put on for our parents.”

Everyone nodded. I was hungry too — Jas and I had skipped lunch, after all — and we did have a show to put on.

Well, Cammie didn’t. She said, “I’ll join you for dinner, then decide. Mel thought her parents might go. Thank God they didn’t go last night. All we needed was some moron screaming about dykes while they were sitting there!”

“That would’ve sucked,” Paige said. “At least it was Angie and me. We can take it, no problem.”

“Wouldn’t have gone to Prom together if we couldn’t,” Angie said, grinning and giving Paige a kiss.

We decided on dinner at Rico’s. Always good, and not a place where we were in any risk of seriously overeating. Plus, it was very close to the school.

Late in the dinner, Cammie pulled me aside.

“I like Jane a lot. That said ... it’d be awkward, both of us agree.”

“I do, too. You’re in on the big secret, but still. In some ways, Angie and I both seeing her already complicates things. It’d be more complicated if anyone else close did.”

She nodded. “Jane gave me several names. I really...”

She hesitated, then sighed. “I’m just barely ready to say that I need to think about where... things ... go, long-term, but I do. Angie made that clear when we talked. It’s easy to say that someone is ‘dead to you,’ but if they’re not dead, they can’t really be dead to you, and carrying those emotions ... well, I need to figure out where I’m going.”

“I’m sure it will take quite a while.”

“Oh, we’re not moving fast! Just ... one day. I’m too angry now, but talking will help.”

“Talking is good. It’s made a lot of difference for me, and for Angie. Admittedly, our problems are ... unusual.”

She snorted. “That’s an understatement! Anyway ... so...”

“You have no money and therapy takes money.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll loan you enough for therapy and some other things,” I said. “If you wind up in College Station this summer, we’re going to pay you to house-sit...”

“But...!”

“No buts. House-sitting is a job. I’ve done it myself. We’ve got some other things that we actually could use someone to do, and we’ll pay for that. I know we’re going to fight about who pays back what, and how much, and all of that, but ... this is another case where I can help, I want to help, and you’ll have to put your foot down to keep me from helping.”