Chapter 84: Catching Up

Friday, April 12, 1985

We all met at the MSC cafeteria just before noon. A few minutes after we got there, Darla appeared, looking much as I remembered her. She was wearing an A&M t-shirt and jeans. And, fortunately, a big smile.

The two of us hugged first, but all of us got in on the hugging right away.

“I missed you all!” she said, smiling.

“Okay, you less, Mel...” she said, as Mel looked slightly skeptical, “ ... but, still! I haven’t hung out with any of the other Memorial kids, and ... well ... we’ll talk over lunch, but ... anyway, it’s really good!”

“We missed you, too!” Jas said.

“Definitely!” I said. “It’s really good to see you!”

That got a big smile — one that probably telegraphed some interest in me, personally.

We headed in, ordered lunch, and got settled, then caught each other up on what had been going on. Darla had followed GSS in the news, but it wasn’t personal for her, and I think she really liked hearing about it from Angie, Paige, Cammie, and Mel. Beyond that, each of us had a few stories about weird class moments or the like. Darla had some interesting stories about her roommate (who sounded pretty nice, even so).

She was majoring in Business, too (likely Business Management), so the odds were very high we would run into her. For the most part, the only reason we hadn’t was that she had picked different things to concentrate on. She had placed out of as many things as we had, after all.

It took us a while for things to get more personal. Darla said, “The thing is ... last semester kinda sucked.”

“What happened?” Angie asked.

“It’s ... well. I said this to Steve a long time ago. My mother really wanted to run everything. I didn’t like it, and I thought I had put my foot down and changed things enough. I probably had, but I substituted Linda, Meg, and a bunch of other people. Anyway, it’s just ... well, I could do everything in high school, right? So, I started doing everything. And ... I couldn’t!”

Everyone nodded.

“That sounds awful,” Paige said.

Cammie nodded.

“It does,” she said. “Things are better?”

“Things are better,” Darla said. “And, I mean ... in the end, it was B’s, not worse, and not all B’s, either. I had to tell some friends I couldn’t hang out, which was embarrassing, but ... eh. Since then ... well, I wanted to make sure spring would be better, and it is.”

“I wish we’d been in better touch last fall,” Angie said. “We kinda screwed up.”

“Nah,” Darla said. “Really, I’m the one who screwed up. I never got you my contact info, and I really didn’t expect you to call Mom. I mean ... seriously, I didn’t. It’s better that you didn’t! I love my mom, but I don’t want to give her any more excuses to involve herself in my college life.”

After a second, she blushed and said, “Sorry, Cammie. I’m...”

Cammie waved her hand.

“Nah. It’s not ... raw ... or anything, and ... I really like everyone else’s parents, of the people I live with! It’s good that you love your mom!”

Darla giggled, and said, “Well, good, then! You’re fine? I mean ... you sound fine.”

“I’m fine,” Cammie said, nodding. “Really, I am. Things could be better, but things could also be a lot worse.”

“Good,” Darla said.

I nodded along. What I heard echoed Winton’s freshman year. It had taken him the best part of two years to pull everything together. Darla seemed to likely be ahead of his pace on this.

We shifted to dating. She wasn’t surprised that we were all in the same relationships, and I don’t think any of us were surprised that she’d dated a few guys casually but hadn’t gotten anywhere. That had been par for the course with her, thus far.

As we got ready to leave, Darla gave me her best attempt at a subtle nod, then whispered, “Can we talk for a few minutes?” I don’t think any of the girls missed it, but they pretended to miss it.

I nodded and smiled.

The others all conveniently had places to go or things to do, so Darla and I headed off to a quiet corner of the MSC.

When we sat, she sighed.

“I still ... I regret ... some of the, um...” she started.

I shook my head, and said, “We probably did the right thing in high school. You really didn’t need to get Clara mad at you. And ... we both know she never would have approved of me, not the way things were.”

She giggled and nodded.

“She still wouldn’t, but ... now I’m an adult, and ... well. I think I let this get to April maybe because it wasn’t the best time to jump into anything, but ... I guess...”

“You want to know if there’s still something you could jump into,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, giggling, slightly red.

“There is,” I said, smiling and taking her hand. “Nothing’s changed there. I’d be happy to go out with you and see what we see.”

She gave me a big smile.

“I’d really like that. Maybe ... well. If we get a chance this month, something low-key? If not, waiting ... well. I need to make up for the fall. Like I said, I’m not in any trouble, just ... I’m better than I was last fall.”

“That sounds good,” I said.

“Just to be crystal clear: I haven’t dated anyone in over a month, and that wasn’t much. I know the rules. If I meet anyone, I’ll make sure you know. I know...”

She sighed and said, “It’s a big place. It’s not like high school. I could get away with it, but...”

“But you wouldn’t.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t.”

She hesitated, then said, “And ... you?”

“Jas, of course, but ... yes. I’m also dating a girl named Claire. We met in my psychology class.”

Darla giggled. “And you’re teaching her plenty of physiology.”

“No comment.”

“None expected, really,” she said, nodding.

“We’re ... well. She’s going to want to date other people soon enough. It’s...”

“Not serious,” she said. “Of course. Heck, I’d probably really like her. You have very good taste in friends.”

“You would like her, I think,” I said, nodding.

“Maybe I’ll meet her.”

“It’s possible you will. I mean, it’d be easy for me to invite you to join us for some sort of outing. There’s a group of us who go to movies and the like. You’d be welcome, and you would fit in.”

“I ... would probably like that,” she said. Her expression was even more clear: she would.

I nodded, saying, “So: I’ve got your number, and I will call. I don’t know what my schedule is like right away. Compared to high school, I’m less busy, but still busy.”

“I get that,” she said.

She tapped her finger on a table a few times, then added, “It’s...”

Then she got a bit redder and shook her head.

“Nah. Later.”

“Later,” I said, smiling and squeezing her hand. That made her blush a bit worse still. I suspected she was surprised to find herself still holding hands with me.

We got up and hugged.

“I should run to class, and you should find the others,” she said, giggling suddenly. “I’m sure they’re still around here.”

“Most likely so,” I said, chuckling.

I made a snap decision and said, “A bunch of us are getting together on Sunday to figure out classes. You’re welcome to join us, and it would let you see the house.”

“I...” she said. She paused — long enough I was starting to think she would say no — and then said, “Yeah. I’d like that! It’s ... um.”

“Yes?” I said.

“It’s ... I have to be sure. I like the idea of having a class or two with you, but it ... I also have to watch myself so I don’t try to just let you tell me when to do things and what.”

I nodded.

“We’re probably good at avoiding that, but I see the issue.”

“It’s good,” she said. “I’ll be there!”

I wrote out the address and directions. It really was easy to find for anyone who knew where Northgate was, and it’s hard to imagine any A&M student not knowing that.

After exchanging a round of goodbyes, she kissed my cheek, then scooted off quickly.

The others were, indeed, still around. All of them teased me, but it was gentle.

Everyone really liked Darla. Going back three years to when I found out there was a Darla, it had been a long, slow process for both of us. For wildly different reasons, of course. Still, it was good that it had been a process. I would not have been ready to date Darla back then. Between the two of us, we’d managed to make the dates happen when they should have happened, thus far. With luck, that would continue.

Fortunately, Claire was enthusiastic about seeing ‘Holy Grail’. She had never seen it, but liked the Python she’d seen and seemed to embrace the idea of it being absurdist humor.

That had us set. I would pick her up at Mosher at six-thirty, we would get to the movie theater around nine-thirty (well before ‘Ladyhawke’ started), and stay for the midnight movie. After that, the nominal plan was for me to drop her off at Mosher, but we had both carefully made clear there wasn’t a commitment to actually doing that.

Anything from making out to considerably more was on the table.

We invited her, along with Matt and Lisa, to join us for our class-planning session. Some of the others had invited people, too.

We had a call from Debbie on the answering machine. Marco had agreed to come back! They were getting the word out via phone tree, and hoped we would update some of the freshmen. I guess Debbie, or Marco, or both had noticed our little group.

Angie agreed, and we spent a few minutes calling and leaving messages. The next meeting was still planned for the 24th. Hopefully, it would go much more smoothly than the previous one. Though, perhaps, this had gone the way it should. As they say, sometimes you need to hit bottom before you realize how bad things are and can start working on fixing them.