Chapter 13: Against My Better Judgment

January 5, 1981

I hung up my winter coat on the hook inside my locker, grabbing the books I needed for the first couple of class periods. Today was the first day of school after the long holiday break. I was startled to hear a voice behind me."

"Pat? Can we talk?" came the female voice, sounding pensive and serious, and altogether too familiar.

I turned around. Lo and behold, it was Diana.

"Can we go somewhere and talk?" she repeated.

I thought about it for a second, and then nodded. Sure, we could at least have a little chat. I didn't have a problem with that.

"Okay," I replied vaguely. "Let's go to the cafeteria. It should be pretty empty right now."

The cafeteria served food early in the morning, but few students actually had breakfast there. Some went there to hang out or study, but it was nowhere near as crowded as it would get at lunchtime.

Diana took a seat opposite me. She got right to the point.

"I'm sorry about what happened between us," she said apologetically, her blue eyes directly meeting mine. "I was a real bitch."

"You were," I replied without hesitation. I had no intention of letting her off the hook in that regard.

"I shouldn't have gone off on you like that. Like you said, you didn't deserve it."

I wanted her to get to the point. I needed to get to my first period theology class.

"I'm glad you agree with me, Diana. But it's water under the bridge. What's really on your mind?"

Her expression became even more melancholy. "I missed you over the holidays," she finally responded. She clearly wanted me to own up to the same thing. But I wasn't biting. I had been lonely myself, for sure, but it was more because I was alone, rather than missing Diana. The fact was, I'd found it surprisingly easy to not miss her over the last couple of months, as cold as that sounds.

I finally copped out a little. "Yes, what you and I had was fun while it lasted."

"I want for us to get back together," she blurted out, finally saying what she wanted to say.

I just met her gaze for a short while, trying my best to remain expressionless. Then I voiced what was on my mind.

"Give me one good reason why I should take you back."

She didn't respond directly, throwing out a typical but quite effective non sequitur.

"I'm reeeeeally horny," she whined seductively.

I was really horny, too.

Wasn't I?

"Aaaaah," a naked and sweat-covered Diana moaned later that afternoon, with me lying on top of her, in the same old bed, in her same old room, that I'd visited practically every weekday during the summer and early autumn.

"Harder, sweetie, harder," she demanded, clenching her teeth. "Aah ... so good. Isn't it true that make-up sex is the best sex?"

I grunted an indecipherable affirmation in reply. I was too busy bearing down as I thrust in and out of her, with the beginnings of a ferocious climax building inside me. I finally erupted explosively into her, while she wrapped her legs completely around my lower back, holding on to me as if for dear life. She was bracing for her own orgasm, which came a few seconds later, in spectacular fashion.

"AAAAiiiiiieeeeeee!!!!" she shrieked, her heels digging into my back as her whole body shook involuntarily.

A few minutes later, I was hard and ready to go again. I laid on my back, directing her to climb on top. This time, she came first; I followed soon after, shooting my seed up inside her while she bounced up and down, her long blonde hair flying in all directions. Finally, we both collapsed on the bed, lying motionless for a few minutes; but I wasn't finished with her. I directed her to get on her hands and knees.

"Oooh! Going for three? My hero! My stud!" she exclaimed happily. I slid between her legs and took her from behind. It took longer for number three to happen, to her noisy and appreciative delight, but happen it did.

At that point, both of us were dripping with sweat. We showered together, both of us reeking of sex, and took full advantage of the opportunity to fondle each other's bodies some more.

What can I say? I was nothing but a wishy-washy sap, albeit a horny one. In my defense, however, I did lay down a few more ground rules with her. But I let it go until the following day. Her two previous blow-ups had occurred post-coitally; I'd concluded that she seemed to be most emotionally vulnerable at that point in the proceedings.

Next morning, Diana and I once again retreated to the cafeteria before first period. I told her my concerns in more detail. I didn't pull any punches.

"I want to clear the air about a few things. We can try to go back to the way things were before. But they can't be exactly the same. I no longer want that."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that my life is different now. I'm hitting the books more. My grades last quarter sucked big time. I need to fix that. I even quit my job so I'd have more time to study."

"Okay," she replied warily, "I can understand that."

"Plus," I continued, not sure if this would go over as well, "I have new friends and new interests. They are important to me. Evie, Dave and I want to start a band when we get to college, and we spend some of our spare time practicing. Also, Evie and Patti come over to my house every Saturday to study. I have no plans to discontinue that."

Diana stared straight ahead for a bit, digesting what I'd said.

Eventually, she replied, in a low voice, "I know I get crazy and jealous sometimes." Absent was any mention of vowing to control that weakness of hers. I nodded, in agreement, rather than in sympathy.

"I wish I could help you, but you make it hard, you know that?"

"I know it must be hard for you sometimes," she said. I had to give her a small amount of credit for at least being self-aware.

"And one more thing," I went on. "Forgive me for being brutally honest here. But I really don't think you and I have much of a future after graduation. I'll be going away to college. And that tests even the strongest of relationships."

She shuffled nervously in her seat. "I prefer not to think that far ahead. I want to live day to day." I realized that was a fundamental difference between Diana and I. She lived in the present, and only in the present, whereas I was much more forward-thinking.

I'd said pretty much everything I wanted to say. And I turned out to be quite prescient in one respect. Things did not go back to the way they were before. No longer did I go to her house every single day after school, maybe only twice a week on average. Often, I opted to ride home with Evie instead, either directly home to study, or over to Dave's place to make some music. Diana wasn't happy with this, resulting in a lot of arguments. Basically, our relationship returned to the way it had been before the beach trip in this life, and in its entirety in the other life: lots of sex, and lots of spats.

Diana did, however, rejoin our lunchtime group. Also new to the gang was Tony Coletti, sometime provider of afternoon transportation, who'd finally managed to break loose from the non-stop attention of Sarah Livingston. Diana informed me that Sarah had latched onto another guy.

The day Diana returned to us at lunch, re-claiming her seat next to me, Evie looked at me with raised eyebrows. It was her characteristic"we'll talk later" gesture that I'd become so familiar with. She drove me home that day, and during the ride to my house, the topic of conversation immediately veered toward Diana.

"After all that, you really got back together with her?" Evie asked in her typical concerned but non-judgmental manner.

"I guess so," I replied. "We'll see where it goes from here. But I did have a long talk with her. I made it clear that I didn't think we'd last past graduation."

"Okay, Pat," she followed in a tone that was almost maternal. "Level with me. I'm your friend. What's your fascination with Diana, anyhow?"

"Ummm ... can I take the Fifth on that question?" I answered, only part kidding.

"Let me guess," Evie pressed, "does it start with the letter 's', and end with 'x'?"

"Sax?" I joked. "No, Ev, that's your thing. I'm a piano guy, remember?" She laughed so hard, she nearly lost control of the steering wheel. But my wisecrack had implicitly confirmed her suspicions.

Evie maneuvered her car into my driveway, and then shifted into park. She looked at me, smiled, and affectionately placed her cool, soft hand on the back of my wrist, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Someday, Pat, you'll grow out of it."

January 25, 1981

"Well, that was a wasted evening," Dad sighed as he shut off the TV. "What a letdown."

We'd just watched our favorite pro football team, the Philadelphia Eagles, get crushed in the Super Bowl by the Oakland Raiders. Leading up to the game, our entire household had been once again transformed into sports fans. But the contest had been so one-sided that Mom, Eileen, and Seamus had lost interest, and had wandered off. Only Dad and I remained until the bitter end. Of course, I had a unique perspective on this.

"It's not so bad, Dad," I remarked. "Do you realize we're living in the golden age of Philadelphia pro sports?"

"The golden age?" Dad snorted incredulously. "I'd hardly call it that."

"Think about what's happened in the past year, Dad. The Flyers made the Stanley Cup finals in hockey. The Sixers made the NBA Finals. The Phillies won the World Series. And the Eagles got to the Super Bowl."

"And got their butts handed to them," Dad groused. Again, he didn't have the benefit of perspective.

"And got their butts handed to them, yes," I went on. "But how many metropolitan areas get to enjoy rooting for finalists in all four major sports in the span of a year? It doesn't happen often. We should savor this."

What I knew – and what Dad didn't know – was that between now and 2007, there would be only one Philadelphia world champion in any of those sports (that would be the '83 Sixers in basketball).

So, like I said, I was able to take the long view here. I was in a better mood than usual these days, because on other fronts, things were coming together for me.

I'd gotten my most recent SAT results earlier in the week. I'd scored 1260, slightly better than I'd done the first time. The decisions on my college applications were beginning to roll in. I'd gotten rejections from Princeton and Penn, as I fully expected; I simply didn't have the combination of outstanding grades, exceptional SAT scores, and impressive extracurricular resumes that those schools looked for. But the most important one, for me, had arrived in the mail last Wednesday: acceptance at Rutgers. There were still two other applications outstanding, but I cared about those not a whit.

And then, on Friday, we got our second quarter report cards. My studying had paid off; I'd gotten five A's and two B's. I even got a solid B in French; I knew I'd have to buy dinner for Patti, or something like that, to thank her for her help. Mom and Dad were ecstatic. So was I, for I now had the leverage I needed to push a few issues that were important to me. Even though Dad was probably not in the best of moods after watching that disaster of a Super Bowl, I decided that now was the time to bring them up.