Chapter 86: Shows and Dates

Monday, April 15, 1985

The Batt had an interesting offer: a nearly two-week trip to China for $2,400 a person. Jas, Angie, Paige, and I seriously considered it, but decided to pass. I was pretty sure the dates wouldn’t conflict with Live Aid, but what if I was wrong?

Instead, we would find something else fun to do, either as couples or together. Live Aid would certainly be together, but the rest? No plans yet, so plenty of chances to adjust.

It was looking more and more likely that only four of us would wind up in Omaha. Cammie and Mel didn’t really want to travel in mid to late May, opting instead to spend their (fairly scarce) summer free time bonding a bit more with the Rileys. That was likely a smart move.

Right now, things were divided into ‘early summer’ (mid-May to late June or early July) — including the family vacation, which Jas and Paige would join — and then ‘late summer’, which might start with Live Aid. We had considered going to Nationals, but that might make planning the family trip difficult. It probably would have been a mistake, anyway. The line between ‘supporting our friends’ and ‘Glory Days’ was too close. We’d had our fun — let them have theirs!

It would be worse if our friends weren’t even there, and we wouldn’t know that until next Sunday. State was coming up, and Memorial certainly had a shot, but so did a bunch of other strong teams. Jaya not going to Nationals would be a bit of a shock, but she was the only one who was anywhere near to being a ‘lock,’ and one bad round can do anyone in. Even Jaya! She hadn’t won every tournament she’d entered, after all.

I briefly told Claire about Darla before class. Darla and I could wind up dating this semester, after all, and it really wouldn’t be all that fair to keep that quiet.

She seemed fine with it (as I’d expected). On the one hand: Darla could be ‘a threat.’ On the other hand: Claire and I weren’t serious and were never going to be serious. Combine that with saying Darla would likely mostly be social, group dating, at least for now, and it seemed fine.

After class, Jas talked to Claire before I could, undoubtedly double-checking. She gave me a thumbs-up after that, and I walked Claire most of the way back to Mosher, talking mostly about summer plans (in generalities — Claire was hardly going to be joining us, but she was curious about our upcoming adventures).

Jas and I called Kyle late in the afternoon. He would send us a letter (signed as the owner’s counsel) approving the fence work. Since MNMS was the deed-holder in the county records, that should be sufficient. Having Kyle as the contact person would obscure the actual ownership without raising any eyebrows.

The whole thing still bothered me. Perhaps the College Station police department had an interest in preventing students making unauthorized changes to rental properties, but we’d done the legwork to make sure our changes were authorized and above board. With it being a safety issue for Cammie and Mel, it was even more important that we get this settled quickly.

That said, I was fine with Kyle simply mailing the letter. Overnighting it was expensive and unnecessary, and an actual letter would be better than a fax.

All of us gathered around the phone and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jess’s answering machine. We were all hoping she would do something fun for her birthday, but it was just as likely that she would just be busy with classes. In any case, she would have a nice message.

Tonight was the first of two Broadway shows this week: Neil Simon’s ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’. None of us had seen it (including in my first life), so it would be brand new. We had dinner at the MSC and then headed over to Rudder Auditorium.

The play itself was ‘good.’ It wasn’t quite ‘great,’ in any of our opinions, but perhaps we just weren’t the ideal audience for a story about American Jews vacationing in upstate New York in the 1930s. Many of the story elements were universal, but some weren’t. Some of those just fell flat for us.

Everyone was glad they’d gone, but it wouldn’t be on anyone’s list for a repeat viewing, at least not with this cast. Per the notes, Matthew Broderick had been the lead on Broadway. That alone might have made it a bit more compelling.

Tuesday, April 16, 1985

Lindsay and Paula were indeed over. There hadn’t appeared to be much hope as of Thursday, but they had driven the last nails in the coffin yesterday.

Lindsay made it clear: if I was a girl, we’d be dating. Since I wasn’t, though, that wasn’t happening.

I thought she was actually lying, if only a little bit. She confessed to being attracted to Angie, but Angie’s open relationship posed a problem. If that was the case, then mine would have, too. It was easy to ignore that when there was no chance of it working in the first place, though.

Friends was good. Hopefully, that would remain.

Our passports (all of them, thankfully — no waiting for the odd late delivery!) came in today’s mail. We put all of them in the safe. It would keep them safe from anything but a serious disaster.

With that, we could start seriously planning foreign travel. Nothing was in the way (except time and money, of course).

That wasn’t the only thing in the mail. Cards were appearing. We had three birthdays in the next week: Cammie and Paige on the 19th, and then me on the 21st. Family, and friends from all over, were filling our mailbox with cards, just as we had for their birthdays. That was our future: more phone calls and cards, fewer in-person celebrations.

At least we’d stayed connected! I was pretty certain first-life Steve hadn’t received cards from the great majority of the people who’d sent them this time. Heck, he hadn’t known the vast majority of these people, but he hadn’t had other people taking their places, either.

There was one card we were all happy to not see, and hoped wouldn’t appear later. Fingers crossed!

Jess called back around eight. She’d gone out with a few friends (a couple of which sounded like actual friends, while the rest were perhaps ‘work friends’ or just ‘hangers-on’) and celebrated. Nineteen wasn’t a ‘milestone’ birthday, but every one counts.

We spent a while catching up. Her agent claimed there were a few nibbles, but nothing to really take action on yet. With that in mind, Jess was concentrating on school. If a big break happened, she wanted her classes to be as settled as possible. Taking a semester (or two, or whatever) off was always possible, but it would be a lot easier if her record was impeccable up until she took time off.

She wouldn’t be back in Houston until two weeks after we got home. Even then, she’d only be home for a week or less. She was taking summer classes as further insurance against losing progress on her degree. That, and everything she learned about business might be useful in her career.

It would take a real shark to sell Jess a bill of goods. She could spot B.S. a mile away. Still, there were some real sharks in LA. The more Jess understood business, the better equipped she was.

She was still in touch with Michael J. Fox, too. They’d become friends, according to Jess. It sounded like nothing more than that, but friends was good. Friends was, in fact, very good. I wouldn’t want Jess displacing Tracy Pollan. The two of them had been perfect for each other, and I doubted Jess would be. That felt ‘wrong’ to me. If it happened, it happened, and I wasn’t going to warn Jess off unless she asked me directly, but it still felt wrong.

I brought up Live Aid, just calling it ‘perhaps the most important concert of the century, in 20/20 hindsight.’ She seemed half-convinced at most. It would be a very long flight, a concert, and a very long flight back, since she didn’t want to miss much summer school, but I offered to ‘loan’ her the money (at zero interest). She figured that was a pretty good deal! We would see. It would be awesome to have Jess there!

I also asked whether her British roommate might be in London (or thereabouts) and willing to buy tickets for us. She promised to check with Emma (now I knew her name!) and let me know. It would be far easier than any other means of buying what were sure to be hard-to-get tickets. I made it clear we’d be happy to pay her and also buy a ticket for her if she wanted one, and also that we wanted the best tickets available (unless there was some unexpectedly unreasonable jump in costs), if there were options.

Wednesday, April 17, 1985

Claire and I wound up with two dates this weekend. The second date had the earlier movie (and, potentially, the later evening).

Our first date was going to be on Friday night. Claire (and Katy, along with Lindsay, John, and Sandra) were joining us for ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’. It was finally back, and we would break out the costumes we’d assembled. All of us had coats to wear over them, and I would drop the girls at The Grove, then park over in ‘BFE’ and walk back. The Grove was pretty near the ‘BFE’ lots, after all.

Claire seemed surprised that I would actually wear a Frank-N-Furter costume. She’d never seen the movie and couldn’t quite get her head around me dressing up that way. The one I’d really wanted to check with was John, and he thought it was great fun. The last thing I wanted to do was come off as mocking anyone, after all!

On Saturday night, Claire and I were eating out (at the MSC, not anyplace fancy), then seeing Tom Hanks’ movie ‘Bachelor Party’. If I remembered right, it was good, raunchy fun, with scarcely a hint of the actor Hanks was one day to become. Not his best, but hardly his worst, in other words.

We would decide at the time if we wanted to stay for ‘Sixteen Candles’. Claire and I had both seen it, but not together. We both liked it, too. Still, we also liked having some time to ourselves, too!

Jas and I talked about it a bit later in the day. For this weekend, I’d use the basement and she’d use our bedroom. We might swap from time to time. Next year, with Candice and Sherry living here, we might have to make other arrangements. The basement guest room would still be available, and Jas or I could use our room. We could also set up the second-floor apartment a bit better, if Angie and Paige didn’t mind a small chance of noise through the walls.