Chapter 71: Dates and Explanations of Dates

Sunday, March 3, 1985

I made sure to call Claire that morning. It seemed like the least I could do. That, and not doing so might well put me on the ‘cad’ list.

She was doing great, was happy to hear from me, and said Kay was ‘mostly calmed down.’ That she didn’t say Kay was ‘fine’ made me a trifle nervous. Claire wasn’t living her life to please Kay, though. No one had done anything wrong, and we all knew it.

Still, roommate trouble can be a problem. Hopefully, they could avoid it.

We called Grandmother and Professor Berman just after lunch. They’d just talked to Mom and Dad and were happy to hear from us. There was very little change in how they were doing, but that was good. The longer things went without any changes, the better.

Grandmother hinted at having ‘something to talk about’ with Angie and me. I was fairly certain it had to do with our girlfriends, and was good news, but we would see. Assuming all went well, she could talk to us in person during the summer, and I got the strong feeling this was an in-person topic.

Monday, March 4, 1985

The chemistry exam was everything I expected. Tough, relatively fair, and I imagined my grade would be both awful and good. Paige felt about the same way. We’d gotten used to Dr. Johnson by now. I would never love chemistry as a subject, but he was definitely one of the better professors I’d had, weird exam grading and all.

When psych rolled around, I simply sat next to Claire without the others needing to nudge. She shot me a big smile and, somehow, her hand wound up in mine.

We were probably starting a few rumors, but Jas was on my other side and, after a little bit, we wound up holding hands, too.

That is, until Dr. Huffines started lecturing. We needed our hands to take notes!

After class, Claire and I walked together for a while. Cammie had gotten used to that. It would likely not be a permanent thing, and thankfully she had the others to walk with, at least part of that way.

“Saturday...” she said.

“Was very special,” I said.

She blushed, but grinned, too.

“That’s one way to put it!” she said.

“And the best way, for me.”

“Kay is ... somewhere between jealous and concerned.”

I may have joined her in blushing.

“Good and not good?”

She giggled.

“More good than not, I think. There’s nothing to be concerned about. Well, or there is. I mean ... you know.”

“Mm?”

“Like we said,” she said, “It ... changes things. Hearts are more on the line. We’ll separate, and that’s good and expected, but it’ll hurt a bit.”

“My hope is, you’ll find someone worthy of you and move on in style.”

She sighed.

“Hasn’t happened yet, but there are a lot of fish in the sea.”

“Indeed.”

She turned and wrapped her arms around my neck.

“This is a good thing,” she said. “I’m sure of that. It is! I’m going in eyes wide open. If there’s some hurt eventually, there’s some hurt. You’re night and day different from the guys I’ve dated before, and I don’t just mean because of Jasmine. It will change what I’m looking for.”

“That is a good thing,” I said.

“Will we still hang out together?”

“You mean, after...?”

She nodded.

“That’s certainly our plan. We’re doing this because we’re friends, and the friendship is more important than the rest.”

She gave me a cute little smile.

“With any other guy, I’d probably just write that off as a line, but ... like I said, you’re night and day different. Jas has told me enough to know you stay close with people, even when they’ve moved on.”

“They’re good friends. I had more female friends than guy friends in high school. Of course, most of my female friends were never going to sleep with me. With some, there wasn’t even a chance of it!”

She giggled.

“Which is pretty funny! I think that sort of thing — Angie and Paige, Cammie and Melanie — would’ve weirded me out a year ago, but now ... eh. They’re not after me! And, if they were, it’s not like a lot of guys aren’t looking at me that way! Which, before you say it, is why I got to know any of you very well at all. I know that.”

“It’s a balance. They’re going to be themselves at home, and they should be themselves at home. If we invite people to study with us who can’t handle that...”

“Yeah,” she said. “I totally get it!”

“So,” I said, “I’m not sure about this week. Schedule-wise, I mean.”

“Relax,” she said, giggling. “No real date this week! If there’s a movie late in the week, maybe, but it’s exam week and next week is Spring Break. When we’re back is soon enough.”

“Works for me!” I said, smiling.

We kissed — just a quick one — and separated.

The Batt had listings this week for a computer fair being held on campus. P.C.’s Limited wasn’t there, sadly. That might have been fun. Some of the names advertised amused me, though: AT&T, for instance, with its ill-fated entry into the IBM-compatible market. Unless this universe was very different, that was a disaster waiting to happen.

There were discounts available on Macs. After a bit of thinking, and some talking with the girls, we decided to pass. I was nearly certain that the much more capable Mac 512 would be coming out within a year, and buying one would definitely be the plan. While there’s always a reason to wait when buying computers, the difference between what was on the market then and now would be worth the wait.

Personally, I would have much rather started with the Mac II (and had planned on that, long ago). But it would come out somewhere mid-1987, if I recalled correctly. None of us wanted to wait that long. We could afford a ‘lesser’ Mac, then move up to a II. Two computers (or more!) would be important, especially in our junior and senior years. Heck, we might need three, four, or more.

Not all that far in the future, after all, one computer per person would seem ‘quaint,’ between desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, and other ‘computer-like’ devices.

Tuesday, March 5, 1985

I finally got the last of our travel reservations figured out. The drive out would start on Friday as soon as we could hit the road. The goal was to reach Wichita Falls, where we were staying at a Holiday Inn. That would mean some night driving, but it would save us from night driving on Saturday and maximize our ski time.

Our lodging in Taos Ski Valley was another thing entirely. Unbeknownst to Jas, I’d booked us a room at the Edelweiss hotel. While the name sounded Austrian to me (almost certainly because of ‘The Sound of Music’), the Edelweiss was a blend of Swiss and French influences. It was definitely a step up, both in quality and cost. March was not their peak season, though, and 1985 seemed to not be a busy year. Their prices had seemed ‘reasonable enough’ to me, and there were plenty of advantages to staying there.

‘Happy girlfriend’ was definitely one of those advantages, of course. Not that Jas was in any way un-happy, but happiness is a journey, not a destination. Well, unless you’re in ‘The Lotus Eaters’ or any similar story. Happiness is something you build and maintain with actions both small and large.

We would be at the Edelweiss from Saturday night through Wednesday night. Thursday night we’d spend a single night in Albuquerque (another Holiday Inn). Friday night I had us booked at an old motor court motel in Tucumcari. To my 2020 mind, it looked quaint (which we both liked), and the AAA reviews were good. The drive from Tucumcari to College Station wasn’t too bad, and we’d have Sunday to recover and get ready for classes.

That gave us nearly four full days of skiing, since we would have all day Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday plus much of Wednesday. Night driving to Albuquerque wouldn’t be that bad, as long as we got out of the worst of the mountains by sundown.

It was a pretty big trip for two freshmen on Spring Break, but we were hardly the usual freshmen.

Angie and Paige, meanwhile, would leave Friday and spend the night and a bit of Saturday with the Seilers. Saturday afternoon they’d go to New Orleans, giving them Sunday through Thursday to sightsee. They would stop in Houston Friday night and stay with our parents, visit the Seilers again on Saturday, and get to College Station Saturday night.

Jas and I had already made our apologies to our parents. They knew it was pretty difficult to ski in New Mexico and visit Houston on the same Spring Break. We planned a trip down on Easter weekend, April 5-7. Angie and Paige would join us, as would (most likely) Mel. Cammie wasn’t sure what she was going to do, and might not know until April.

We gathered around the speakerphone and sang Happy Birthday to Candice. Every birthday of hers was a special celebration for us. I rather hoped they always would be. Of everyone we knew, she was the one who had come closest to death and survived. Well, aside from Angie, Laura, and me, but we really hadn’t survived in the way she had.

This one was the biggest yet, because it coincided with her return to our lives in a day-to-day way. Not at all in the same way, of course, but it was a big milestone.

Candice had a lot to do with who I and Angie were today. She would likely never know just how much impact she’d had on our lives, of course. We would probably never tell her who we really were, nor that it had been just as important for us to connect with her as it had been for her to connect with us.

Three broken people, all desperately trying to pretend they weren’t broken, all successfully passing as healthy, happy, ‘normal’ fourteen-year-olds. None of us had been, and Candice’s breakdown had profoundly changed all three of our lives.

‘All is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds.’ Right?

Wednesday, March 6, 1985

I’d lied to Claire.

Well, technically. Yes, we weren’t having a big date before Spring Break, and tonight’s ‘date’ was barely a date at all, but it counted.

At the end of psych, before we started our now-becoming-traditional walk, I said, “By the way, would you care to dine with me tonight, Miss Hastings?”

The look she gave me came close to the phrase ‘deer in headlights.’ After a few seconds, she managed to say, “Um ... what?”

“Dinner? Nothing fancy, but...”

“Yes! Definitely!”

“I’ll pick you up at six.”

“Can’t wait!” she said, then gave me a kiss that was just barely restrained.

Some of the other students were still filing out, and we got a few more confused looks. Some of those looks went back and forth between us and Jas. People appeared somewhere between baffled, bemused, and disappointed when Jas’s reaction was a smile.

Dr. Huffines would have a field day with us if she wanted to. She was also watching, and it looked to me like she might be smirking just a bit.

I refused to tell Claire where we were going. I just said that it wasn’t fancy and her regular going-to-class clothes would be fine.

Yes, I had nearly no doubt that she would change anyway. She probably suspected I would, too, but I could be a ‘clueless guy.’ It wasn’t like I was wearing anything ratty right now, after all. For a high school date, I’d have been fine.

After changing into something roughly comparable to what I was wearing, but a trifle nicer, I drove over to Mosher and parked in the short-term parking space again and walked up.

Kay opened the door as usual, then nodded to the bathroom. Instead of letting me in, though, she stepped into the hall and mostly closed the door.

“What are you playing at?” she said, glaring (if not as badly as she might have), arms crossed over her chest.

“A date, tonight.”

“You’re messing with her heart, you know,” Kay said.

“And she’s messing with mine.”

“No, she’s not!”

“Look, you might not like how I phrased that...” I said.

“I don’t!”

“But it’s true, in its way. She’s ‘playing’ as much as I’m ‘playing.’”

“Hrmph!” she said, crossing her arms.

“I — and my girlfriend, before you complain —” I said (because it looked like she definitely might complain), “We don’t believe it’s wrong to see other people when everyone is honest and aboveboard. I’ve been nothing but honest and aboveboard, and so has Jasmine. She talked to Claire and sounded her out before suggesting I invite Claire out.”

“She’s over the moon about you, you know,” Kay said, tapping her foot, but looking a bit less tense.

“Which is partly good, partly not,” I said. “The point is to make Claire happy. If I break her heart, that’s too much of a price to pay, but it’s her heart to risk. I’m close friends with a number of girls I’ve dated while dating Jas. No one’s yet reported heartbreak. I’m very well aware of the emotions, and I would break things off if I thought heartbreak was coming.”