Chapter 2: Unicorns

Saturday, July 21, 1984

After breakfast, we piled into the Subaru and drove around. This was another round of reminiscing for me. I got to point out places that didn’t exist yet, places that wouldn’t exist much longer, tell some ‘what happens next’ stories, and the like. It was fun, in a weird way. None of it triggered anything, not even driving past places where I would work or live.

We avoided the big triggers, of course. None of us wanted to see the places where I’d lived with my ex. The ones out here hadn’t mattered the way the house back in Texas had mattered, but they mattered enough.

There were so many tourism possibilities that we couldn’t even list them all. We wound up buying some farm-stand produce simply to do it — the remaining farm stands would mostly go away within the next decade — and then went to tour the Winchester Mystery House. While I don’t like their advertising (I think it leans too much on imagery of ghosts and guns, both of which feature in the history of the house but don’t actually feature in a tour at all), the house itself is quite something. It’s interesting enough just being what it really is: a house built by a woman with a tenuous grip on sanity, a lot of money, and a desperate fear of what would happen if she stopped building. Construction for construction’s sake was the order of the day, and the results were chaotic. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes ridiculous.

It also didn’t take all that long to tour, which was good, since we had dinner plans: meeting Lizzie and Janet at Applewood Pizza, a somewhat legendary (at least in my mind) pizza place in Menlo Park, just north of Stanford. I’d had dinner there many times with a friend of mine (and, somewhat less often, with my ex-wife). Perhaps it would have been better if I’d had more ‘guys nights’ in my first life instead of our lives revolving so tightly around each other. But, then, had my first life been ‘better,’ perhaps this one wouldn’t exist at all.

Lizzie and Janet pulled up as we were getting out of the car at Applewood. Janet was driving a bright pink Honda Civic, which totally suited her. They were out of the car quickly and hugged us right away.

“Totally missed you all, dude and dudettes!” Janet said, grinning, as she was hugging me.

Lizzie shook her head. “She’s not like this much anymore.”

Then she grinned, and said, “It’s fun to hear it!”

“Told you!” Janet said.

“In moderation,” Lizzie said.

“Moderation in all things. Including moderation!” Janet said, sticking her tongue out.

By now, of course, a hug from Lizzie was hardly unusual, but it still stuck out in my mind in a way that it never would have if I hadn’t known the ‘other’ Lizzie. That Lizzie wasn’t going to hug boys. This one? Probably not that many, but she had guy friends and hugged them. I imagined that hadn’t changed at Stanford.

I wouldn’t give myself all the credit, but those of us in Debate (with the notable exception of a certain Nationals champion sibling of Paige) had convinced her to give the male half of the species a second chance. Not just us — Tony Hill and Troy Dane had gone out of their way to make Lizzie welcome in that first Student Council year, and of course Tom Myerson was a key influence on Lizzie all the way around — but we were undoubtedly the guys closest to her.

Dinner was terrific, as I knew it would be. We had a clever dodge for the question of how we wound up at Applewood. Angie attributed the choice to ‘a guy she’d debated against mentioning it.’ I had, in fact, debated against Angie, so it was true enough — as far as it went. It just didn’t go as far as they might have thought.

The conversation was about one-third reminiscing about Memorial (including debate — class and tournaments), one-third talking about college, and one-third girl talk between the long-established lesbian couple and the new gay couple on the block. This was, after all, a meeting between people with at least minor historical import — the first and second openly lesbian couples in United States history to attend their high school proms without having to fight a legal battle to do so.

As we’d said before, perhaps one day there would be a ‘Lizzie and Janet Go To Prom’ movie. If so, Angie and Paige would likely feature as significant supporting characters given how events had played out.

The odds of such a movie probably would go up if some of us (myself, for instance) became public figures in business, or if Jess (who didn’t figure heavily in the Lizzie and Janet story, after all) became a star. The tie-in between ‘these people did something cool’ and ‘these other famous people were involved, too!’ was too much to miss.

If anything, we’d created an interesting little historical nexus. Memorial might well produce three (or four, five, or more) notable public figures within two years. It’s possible that Angie and I (and Jas and Paige, too) had actually aimed a big spotlight at ourselves — one that wouldn’t shine for years, but might shine very brightly one day.

We’d have to manage that as it came. There was nothing to do about it now except to just keep being ourselves.

After dinner, we followed Janet’s car down to the Stanford area. They had a cozy little apartment not far from campus. Today, it was probably ‘a little pricey.’ In a decade, I imagined this apartment would be out of reach of all but very well-off students. In another decade or two, if the building itself hadn’t been torn down and turned into new luxury apartments, it would be ridiculously expensive by the standards of most of the country.

We left around eleven, heading back to the RV and settling in for the night. We’d start our trek down the coast tomorrow, with an arrival in LA in a few days.

Yosemite, sadly, would have to wait. There was simply not enough time to do everything.

Sunday, July 22, 1984

We drove over the pass from San Jose to Santa Cruz to start the day. Even waiting a few hours to avoid the worst of the morning crowd, that might have been a mistake. Highway 17 twists and turns and is pretty challenging in a behemoth of an RV. Had I not done it before many times in a car I might have had some real trouble with the drive.

As it was, I went slowly, inspiring a number of honks and unhappy drivers. The thing is, the speed limits are low, which should have made this okay, but most people don’t go the speed limit and are upset by those who do.

Partly because of that, Highway 17 is one of the most dangerous highways in California — perhaps in the United States. It was also ‘fine,’ and I didn’t want to skip Santa Cruz simply because of the challenging drive.

We went to the Beach Boardwalk once we got over the hill. They had parking in the back of the lot sufficient for an RV and toad, thankfully — sometimes it’s so crowded that would have been impossible.

The girls all wanted to ride the Giant Dipper, which had been a favorite of my ex-wife (and one I liked, too), and we played some of the carnival games and ate greasy boardwalk food and generally had a great time. We also walked the beach, and everyone got their feet wet in the Pacific (and commented on how cold the water was).

I managed to win Jasmine a small stuffed red panda, and Paige won a stuffed unicorn for Angie. The unicorn amused me more than it should have, and I finally had to explain (once we were alone) that it was due to a movie reference from at least twenty years or so in the future. ‘It’s So Fluffy!’ means nothing in 1984, but one day they might hear it in context.

After the Boardwalk, we only headed down the coast as far as Monterey. There were some good places to park the RV there, and it had been a favorite vacation destination long ago.

We went out for seafood and spent some time walking the beach, as well as watching the sea otters and sea lions, who knew the humans were often a good source of treats. We didn’t oblige them, but others did. I told the girls a story from decades later about a sea otter who broke out of his enclosure at the aquarium and used a broom to take coats, boots, and other things off of their hooks, then hauled them back into his tank.

The girls, of course, took his side (as I did, too). He was bored and just wanted to have some fun. Let sea otters play!

When we got back to the RV, Angie pointed out that mink are a relative of otters and that mink are also notorious for having lots of sex. That seemed to persuade everyone that we should follow their example tonight.

A good time was had by all (I’m pretty sure, judging from the sounds). We did try to make sure we kept it down. But, to anyone parked near us, sorry!

Monday, July 23, 1984

We drove down the coast, more or less, along California’s famous Highway 1, aka the Pacific Coast Highway. Some of Highway 1 goes right along the coast, and that part is often twisty and slow (and a bit unsettling for those of us who sometimes get motion sickness). It wasn’t bad, but it was slow going.

Fortunately, there wasn’t a lot of traffic. The cars that were going our way were willing to wait until we had a turnout or go around us in one of the straighter sections and didn’t try to push me along too much.

We made it to San Simeon after about two and a half hours and visited the Hearst Castle. Counting lunch, that took us to mid-afternoon. We got back on the road and stopped in San Luis Obispo for dinner and a good night’s sleep.

Tuesday, July 24, 1984

Today’s destination was North Hollywood, firmly within the LA urban jungle. After some rather tedious driving, we arrived mid-afternoon to find that, fortunately, the RV place respected our reservation and we were all set. I’d been worried about that — we’d have been seriously at loose ends with no place to park. We’d surely have found something, but what it might have been wasn’t something I wanted to worry about.

I gave Jess a call at her hotel. Her mom Kimberly answered, and gave me a bit of a hard time (teasingly, thankfully) before giving the phone over to Jess.

We caught up for about ten minutes. Her trip was going well so far. She’d met some of the movers and shakers in USC’s business school and apparently impressed them all around. No surprise there; she was, after all, Jess. They hadn’t given her a full scholarship for nothing!

She’d also talked to her movie industry contact and met with two potential agents. Nothing was settled there, of course. She had the looks to get an agent’s attention, and some modest proof of her acting chops, but nothing they could really dig into. As glowing as it was, one review of a high school theater production and some wins in competitive drama don’t guarantee one a Hollywood career — even in commercials! She had two more meetings on Thursday morning, and that would do it for this trip.

All in all, she had some pointers and a few nibbles. Most likely things would come together. Jess had her mind set on it, and Jess with her mind set on something is a formidable thing.

She and her parents were planning to go to Universal Studios tomorrow and welcomed us to join them. Angie and I had been a few years ago and knew what to expect, and Jas and Paige were eager to go as well.

Disneyland was on the agenda for Friday, and we tentatively planned on that. What was left unsaid was the possibility of Jess getting loose from her parents for a night. I was pretty sure she wanted to, but whether they would go for it or not, who knew? She didn’t — or at least she couldn’t mention it on the phone with them nearby.

With our plans in order, we decided to go out for burgers and get to bed early. The plan was to meet at Universal Studios at opening time and make a leisurely day of it. That might work, and it might not, but it definitely meant that we needed to get up early.

Wednesday, July 25, 1984

Universal Studios itself wasn’t markedly different from when Angie and I had visited before.