Chapter 42: Season’s Greetings

Wednesday, December 19, 1984

We were ready to go fairly early in the day. We dialed Andy’s house in Houston right before we left. He wasn’t home, but his parents had an answering machine, and we left him a message singing ‘Happy Birthday’. Hopefully, he would get it. We were pretty sure he was in Houston now.

Our trip went quickly, and we arrived in Houston at noon. As usual, we dropped Cammie off first. While we were there, we spent an hour or so talking with Camille. She loved hearing about our semester and seeing how things were going. All of us were good friends with her by this point (Mel and Paige the least, but still friendly). There were no hints about Jasmine’s bed yet, but it was early. Who knew what Santa might bring?

Cammie would see Penelope and David a couple of times over the week and celebrate Christmas with them. As we’d discussed a few times during the semester, Cammie’s current relationship with Christianity was ‘complicated,’ but she still felt strongly about Christmas. I suspected she would eventually settle on one of the liberal denominations — one welcoming to lesbians, obviously — and feel at home, but she might join Angie and me (and Jas, almost certainly, and I was guessing Paige, too) if we became Unitarians. There was, after all, no reason why a Unitarian couldn’t also be a Christian. Unitarian Universalism didn’t preclude one from following any other religion to the extent one found the two compatible.

The car situation might change these trips in the future. Jas’s Subaru was still in Houston, while Angie’s land yacht was in College Station. That meant Jas could get around, which was convenient, of course. Without Angie’s car, though, she and Paige either needed to borrow a car from my parents, Paige’s parents, me, or possibly Jas.

Neither Mel nor Cammie had cars as of yet. Mel’s parents had, at one point, implicitly promised one, but the situation with Cammie had blown that up. Perhaps they would return to that promise as things settled down. Mel hadn’t heard anything, but she was quietly optimistic. Cammie was almost certainly going to remain carless until graduation. However, she would always have a car available to use. I couldn’t buy her a car, but I could (and would!) make sure there was always one around and ready.

After all, the Queen of Real Estate couldn’t do her job without wheels!

Mel was next after Cammie. This time, we stayed and talked to Mark, Morty, and the Rileys a bit. They were leaving in two days for their big trip. Emily wasn’t going, either, so Cammie wasn’t singled out there. The Rileys’ opinions were not our opinions, and it was worth remembering theirs were perfectly understandable. The ‘Mom and Dad’ a universe away from here would never have considered letting me bring my girlfriend on a family vacation, much less Angie bringing her girlfriend on such a trip!

Mark, Morty, and Emily had gotten straight A’s as well, though they sounded like they’d been far more wiped out by the semester than we had. I suspected two out of six of us being college veterans changed a lot of things.

Mark and Morty also swore they’d ‘get us next year.’ I had a feeling they were wrong about that!

Alex and Carol Riley were pleasant enough. They were hardly as warm as Camille and Francis, or Tony and Jean, but the feeling of there being some sort of standoff was mostly gone. At first, I was pretty sure they blamed us for ‘keeping Mel’s secret’ or some such.

That was certainly fair enough, as far as it went. We had kept Mel’s secret. It was hers to share or not, and we didn’t see anything wrong with her secret. It was literally life-threatening to Cammie to let Mel’s secret out, anyway. No one owed Alex and Carol that information.

I could still get why feathers were ruffled, but keeping teenagers’ secrets is always a judgment call whether you’re another teenager or an adult. If Mel had been addicted to something or doing something dangerous, I’d have felt very differently about keeping her secret. Just being gay? I’d always keep that secret.

We parted after a bit and headed to Mom and Dad’s house. Dad had just gotten home, so we had plenty of time to talk to both of them. They were in a great mood thanks to our grades and general successes, and Dad was very upbeat about the t.u. game, which they’d watched on TV.

They were very upbeat about Straight Slate’s loss, too, and hoping for the best on the referendum. I still thought that was likely doomed, but I didn’t feel as strongly about it as I once had. If asked, we’d certainly work to get it to pass. We were happy to help.

Dad sounded jealous of our ski trip. That, to me, was good. Anything that got him jealous enough about traveling that he and Mom would get out of the house and do something was a good thing. It wasn’t that they’d never traveled, but they’d certainly never traveled in the way they always said they wanted to. In this universe, they could.

We brought up the subject of Cammie. It was possible she would need somewhere else to sleep (for instance, if Jas were to sleep over there — or Jas and I were). Mom and Dad said they’d be completely happy to host her, and seemed a bit surprised we thought we needed to ask.

They had volunteered when she was ‘homeless,’ of course, but the Richardsons had been the ideal choice to host her for many reasons. Not least of those was that no one in their right mind would mess with a circuit court judge.

In any case, they would be happy to host if the need arose. Even if it didn’t during this trip, it was likely to arise at some point.

Penelope and David had offered to host her as well, but none of us thought that was a great idea. We had no worries about them as hosts or as people, but their house was small. Also, while they were family, my parents and the Nguyens were more Cammie’s ‘family of choice.’

Part of what made Penelope and David great was the way they lived the phrase ‘love the sinner, hate the sin.’ They loved Cammie, but they still thought she was sinning and that her being a lesbian was wrong. I gave them a lot of credit for taking the tough road, standing up to Joseph and Magnolia, and setting aside the teachings of their church about gay people in favor of loving Cammie.

With all of that said, people that didn’t see being gay as a sin would be a better choice. Two and a half years ago, Mom and Dad would have said it was, I think. They would have also ‘loved the sinner, hated the sin,’ at least.

Dad had known gay people for many years through his job, and had always treated them with utmost respect. He considered them to be friends, not merely customers. He still would have said they were doing something God didn’t want them to do. Even back then, though, I think he would have continued by saying ‘As the Bible says, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”’

Now? Lizzie had opened their eyes. She was just a person doing her best, even as a lot of people tried to treat her unfairly. Lizzie and Dr. Ott finding mutual respect had changed their lives, Mom and Dad’s life, and many other lives. Two of those lives had been Angie’s and Paige’s.

Cammie was welcome, which was the important thing. We’d see if it mattered.

All of us changed for the party. We weren’t going all out, but I still had to compliment the girls on their outfits. As did Dad, of course, and Mom, too.

That was interesting. I’d noticed Dad becoming less ‘flirty’ with waitresses and the like. He was still very personable and outgoing, but the little bits of outright flirting had dropped off substantially. I hadn’t had female friends around him, so I couldn’t say what he would have been like around them, but his comments here were perfectly appropriate and matched Mom’s.

The whole thing had never bothered me. If there was a happier, more perfectly matched married couple than Mom and Dad, I’d never met them and I couldn’t imagine what one would look like. Camille and Francis tied them, I think, but their relationship had been stormy at times. Mom and Dad’s never had (at least as far as I knew, anyway).

Still, happy or not, perfect or not, it might have occasionally bothered Mom just a little. Whether or not it had, now it wasn’t happening, or at least it wasn’t happening around us, and I was glad.

We picked up Cammie and Mel (who had explained this as ‘a party’ without getting into the politics of it, apparently) and took off for the Montrose area. The party was being held in one of the nightclubs along Montrose. The club had opened early and kept more lights on than usual. It wasn’t the one I’d been to before, which was probably a good thing.

Ellen Carruthers and Chris Hanson were both at the welcome table. They shook our hands and welcomed us, and it seemed very warm and genuine. I had no idea how much of a difference they thought we’d made. By this point, I was convinced we’d made a huge difference, but we’d done that in high school. They had no idea how much those events had mattered.

Could be wrong, though. It was a different universe. Maybe the city councilpersons of this universe were always destined to find their spines before it was too late.

We mixed and mingled for about an hour before things really got started. I got to exchange well-wishes with both Christin Hartung and Annise Parker, which was nice and amused me greatly. Christin introduced me to John Goodner, who had found his spine a bit more and wasn’t afraid to show up at a Gay Political Caucus event even with the referendum on its way. Annise introduced me to her girlfriend, who I was pretty sure was not the woman she would eventually marry. They probably hadn’t actually met yet.

This time, the girls talked to Christin and Annise, too. Not all together, but Jas was with me for our conversations (and was warmly greeted), and I saw both couples visiting with them at different points. Obviously, they kept their secrets to themselves, because I didn’t hear any astonished cries of ‘Mayor?!’ coming from Annise’s direction.

As with nearly any political event, much of the time was spent on speeches. If I was going to be politics-adjacent (or, potentially, actually involved), I’d have to put up with that. Chris spoke, of course. So did several councilpeople, including Ms. Hartung. Leaders of several community groups got their turn to speak, too.

Along with the speeches, they served a fairly decent meal of catered barbecue. Barbecue is always perilous to nice clothes, but it’s also a Texas staple, so most people know how to eat it without wrecking their attire. It was better than an awful lot of banquet meals I’d eaten in my (previous) life, anyway.