Chapter 62: Last-Minute Plans

Monday, February 11, 1985

I snuck out quickly between classes, getting Jas a birthday card and the ingredients for a cake. It was unlikely that I’d really surprise her, but it’s the thought that counts! We hadn’t planned on doing anything special for birthday dinners, and this was a busy week, but cake was always welcome.

We went out after classes and got passport photos taken. That part of it was simple: the local drug store took photos and developed them in the store. Since no one wanted a bad passport photo, we waited until they were developed. Fortunately, all of them were good. We put off going to the post office to submit the application until later in the week, though.

Candice called in the early evening. She and Sherry were wondering if the weekend of the 23rd would work for visiting us. I checked with everyone and they all sounded enthusiastic, so I said yes. Candice gave out a bit of a whoop (one that would fit in well here!) and said they’d be here. They’d drive up on the Saturday. Sherry’s family had some sort of family event that Friday, so they’d be at that.

The 23rd was really nearly their last chance. This weekend was Duschene’s Valentine’s dance and Candice had agreed to go with a guy from some Catholic boys’ school. She didn’t even know his name or what he looked like yet! Still, there was a lot of pressure on the girls to provide companionship for the boys, as one might expect. They’d discussed visiting in early March, but that would make it very close to Candice’s birthday. Plus, A&M really didn’t want to wait until then to hear from them. They would wait, but it would be grudgingly at best.

We promised to have everything ready for them. This was going to be fun!

At the last minute, I slipped in a suggestion for her to watch ‘Family Ties’ on Thursday if she could. She pressed for information, but I just said I knew something about it that might make it interesting for her. She certainly hadn’t known Jess at all, but she knew who Jess was — everyone at Memorial knew that! — and she knew I’d dated Jess. That’d be enough to make it interesting.

After letting Candice in on things (if only somewhat), I decided that I might as well break my silence a bit more. One call would have to wait until tomorrow, but we could tell a couple of people tonight.

If there was anyone at A&M who would appreciate this as much as we would, it was Cal and Andy. They’d spent four years watching Jessica perform on their sidelines. She had, in her way, been the queen of their world. Neither of them had known her very well at all, but they certainly knew very well that I knew her, and they had friends who’d known her pretty well.

That, and they knew she was sympathetic to them, at least in the abstract.

I phoned Andy and left him a message telling him to catch ‘Family Ties’ on Thursday if he could, and to let Cal know. The only clue I gave was saying ‘anyone from Memorial would probably appreciate it.’ That was enough, unless it was too much, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t too much.

Angie made the other call. She told Marshall it would be ‘well worth his time’ to watch the show (or figure out a way to see a recording if he couldn’t). Marshall didn’t know Jess all that well, but he’d seen her (and competed against her!) at tournaments and knew who she was to us. And, of course, he’d been there to see ‘Bye Bye Birdie’.

If anyone else in our circle of friends was going to understand what this meant, he’d be the one.

Tuesday, February 12, 1985

Everyone was up early enough to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jas before scattering off to classes. Since I hadn’t mentioned it before we’d come out of our bedroom, it’s possible she had thought I’d forgotten. Either way, she was very happy to have the birthday wishes.

Over lunch, I made a quick call to Mom. I wasn’t detailed at all, but I asked her to tape ‘Family Ties’ for us. She was happy to agree, and mentioned they watched it anyway. I told her we didn’t but wanted to see this week’s episode, had a busy night that night, and didn’t want to miss out if our VCR acted up.

All of those were true, and neatly sidestepped why we wanted to see it, while also pretty much making sure Mom and Dad would see it. It was fair to what I’d promised Jess, yet gave them a heads-up.

If I’d simply told them Jess would be on ‘Family Ties’ and asked Dad not to share the news, he’d have done it, but he wouldn’t have liked doing it. He was good at keeping secrets, but he really enjoyed sharing good news about people he liked. He and Mom both liked Jess, of course, so this felt like the best solution.

Lindsay surprised me by being a trifle grumpy we hadn’t invited her to hang out with us at WarCon. I think most of the grumpiness was feigned — she knew we had no way of knowing she was interested. The message was much more ‘I’m interested — let me know the next time you’re doing something fun like that!’

Message received!

By the end of class, we were back to sounding like old friends, which I suppose we were, at least for two college freshmen who’d met this year.

I made Jasmine’s cake when I got back from my math class. By the time she was home, it was put away and waiting. We brought it out, nineteen candles ablaze, after dinner and everyone sang ‘Happy Birthday’.

She was the first of us to be ‘re-legal’, which pretty much ensured that no one was going to jail for illicit alcohol purchases for at least the next ten months or so. After that, we’d be at risk for a bit over a year, unfortunately.

I gave Jas the bard figurine along with the cake. She loved it, thankfully, and put it in a place of honor on a living room bookshelf.

We had Matt, Lisa, and Claire over again tonight. Psych still seemed like an easy class, but they were nice people and it was fun to study with them.

Claire sent us a bit of a curve ball after about an hour and a half of studying.

“Why do you guys have ‘Family Ties’ marked on your calendar?” she said.

A few of us blinked at that. The calendar didn’t actually say ‘Family Ties’, but it did say ‘2/14 7:30 pm 2’ with the two circled. Our NBC affiliate was channel 2. It was enough for Claire to figure things out, apparently — not that it required all that much in the way of detective skills.

Paige spilled the beans (which, to be fair, we were allowed to do, officially, since they didn’t know Jess), and said, “Our friend is going to be on!”

Claire looked almost baffled at that, then blinked a couple of times.

“Wait?! You know someone who’s going to be on ‘Family Ties’?!”

“Uh-huh,” Jas said. “Our friend Jessica Lively. She was in drama with us senior year.”

“Plus, she was the head cheerleader at our school our junior and senior years,” Angie added.

“Yeah. That,” Cammie said.

“Wait! Your head cheerleader was also in drama?” Lisa said. “How big was your school?”

“Our graduating class was a bit over four hundred,” Paige said.

“Memorial’s a weird place,” I said, chuckling.

“I should say so!” Lisa said.

Paige hopped up, fetched a copy of the yearbook, and opened it to the cast photo for ‘Bye Bye Birdie’. She pointed, and said, “That’s Jess.”

They all looked, and then Lisa said, “Wait! That’s you and Angie! And that’s Jasmine and Steve!”

We nodded.

She looked a bit more, then at Cammie and Mel.

“Are you two in here somewhere?”

“Nope,” Cammie said, while Mel said, “Nooooo!” in a voice that pretended to be near panic.

Paige flipped around.

“Here’s Cammie...”

It was a picture of her and me debating.

“ ... and here’s Mel.”

The Mel picture was her on stage making announcements at Prom.

“You guys were busy!” she said.

Paige flipped through and found the Homecoming picture of Jess and me.

“Here’s Jess when she’s not trying to look like a shrew.”

“She’s ... I mean ... um...” Matt said.

“You can say it,” Lisa said, giggling. “No one’s going to pretend she’s not ridiculously hot!”

Claire said, “What I want to know is, why’s she holding hands with Steve in that photo?”

“They were homecoming king and queen,” Jas said, as if that was a complete explanation.

“And they dated. For, like, years,” Paige said.

Claire blinked.

“Wait! I thought you two have been together since your sophomore year,” she said, looking at Jas and me.

“We have,” Jas said, with me nodding.

“But you dated the head cheerleader?” Claire said.

“So, it worked out like this,” Paige said, with an impish look in her eyes. “Jess asked Steve to our sophomore Sadie Hawkins dance and he turned her down.”

“Turned her down?” Lisa said, looking skeptical.

“A good friend of mine had already asked and I’d already said yes. Besides actually knowing what the right thing to do was, I’d have gotten it from all sides if I’d broken my promise to Megan,” I said.

“He would have!” Angie said. “Megan’s awesome!”

“Anyway, that was like everywhere at school,” Paige said. “No one had ever turned Jess down! Plus, both Steve and Jess were running for Student Council. Not for the same office, though! Together. I mean, on the same slate of candidates. Anyway! They got to know each other, had a belated date about a week after Sadie Hawkins, and then kept on dating.”

“And you were okay with this?” Lisa said, looking at Jas.

“Our relationship has always been open,” Jas said. “I actually stuck my foot in it over things a bit that summer...”

“But it worked out just fine,” I said. “Obviously!”

“Obviously!” Lisa said, nodding.

“Open relationship?” Claire said. “Really?”

“We’re both just not that much the jealous type,” Jas said. “We know what we mean to each other. Plus, well — the way I see it, anyway — if you’re just relying on ‘lack of opportunity’ to stay together, maybe you won’t. On the other hand, if you’re relying on promises and intention and consciously talking about the other people you’re attracted to, in the long run you just get closer and closer. It’s worked for us, and ... I mean, seriously, now I know Steve can go out with Jess and come back to me. If he can pass that test...”