Chapter 104: A New Thing

Saturday, March 1, 1986

Yesterday had been very quiet, and today was only slightly less so. I had the CS Contingent over, and we talked over the exam and what would be coming up in the next section of the course. It turned out that Paul and Barbara had gone out twice more and were, so far, going strong. I amused myself by wondering if the third date had gone ‘according to plan.’ And whether Amy would have asked them that.

None of the others were dating. Angie and Paige ‘borrowed’ most of them for ten or fifteen minutes each. They were pretty open about it being for matchmaking purposes.

I didn’t know what a matchmaking interview looked like, and I didn’t want to know, either. It’s certainly arguable that I was the first client of Angela Marshall Matchmaking Services — repeatedly, if Candice counted — and I couldn’t argue with success. If Angie told me to ask someone out, I would (well, unless Jas vetoed it, but the odds of that were incredibly low). Still, I didn’t want to go through whatever her process was with people she didn’t know well.

Had she ‘known me well’ when she nudged Candice and me at each other? That was a tricky question. The obvious answer was ‘no, not at all,’ but it was pretty good for two people who had, for the most part, only really met a few weeks before that.

Ang and I had dated before that, though, albeit only once. Still, that might have answered a lot of questions!

I took an hour out of the afternoon for my call with Jane. This one was really somewhat bare-bones. I told her there were some interesting topics I wasn’t going to get into today because I didn’t need help with them — or anything else, really — and I wanted to catch her up on the biggest things first.

Angie had already covered the engagements, but I covered them as well, going into detail from my perspective. Jane was happy about that. She was also very intrigued by the developments with the Rose Parade committee and CBS, which Angie had apparently not mentioned. I also covered Janet and Lizzie’s upcoming wedding (and my role in it). And we very briefly touched on Sharon, but there was little of import for me there, at least for right now. It was mostly Angie’s thing.

After that, I moved on to more business-type updates. I covered our work in creating wills, powers of attorney, and so forth, then briefly mentioned my increasing involvement in P.C.’s Limited. While Jane was largely insulated from that, it was actually a concern since I was somewhat abandoning my role as silent partner and becoming an active participant.

That ran us out of time. I made it clear I had some other significant things to share, but there were no issues thus far and it might be as much ‘gossip’ as much of this had been. We decide to set our next meeting for the 29th, matching Angie’s. That was the first Saturday available thanks to Spring Break.

The others (except for Jas) planned to go over Paula’s draft documents this evening. Jas would review ours tomorrow. I went through them quickly just after my call with Jane, and everything looked fine to me, but the others might spot something I hadn’t. I would do a second reading tomorrow, too, most likely.

I headed over to the Commons around five-thirty, wearing a burgundy shirt, black slacks, socks, and shoes, and my new hat. Maybe I would get tired of it, but it added a bit of style. Jas liked it, and so did the other girls in my life, so that had to mean something, anyway.

I parked in the pick-up spot and headed up to Darla’s dorm room. As usual, she was ready. She came out just after my knock wearing a green blouse, capri jeans, and flats. Plus her glasses, of course, and her ponytail with the Little Red Riding Hood ponytail holder.

If she ever didn’t have a ponytail, the Wolf would probably consider his nose to have been swatted with a rolled-up newspaper. Darla could change that by warning me, certainly, but her hair in any other style would definitely send a message. We might try that while alone, perhaps. Maybe sometimes the Wolf would stalk someone who wasn’t as much of a tomboy. It could certainly happen. But it would need to be conscious. Communication, communication, communication.

She hugged and kissed me quite enthusiastically, then fetched her bag, which I took from her. She gave me some not-at-all-serious objections about carrying it for her. Only after I had her bag did she close the door. Louise was grinning at both of us, and waved goodbye as the door closed.

A few other girls were in the hall, and two of them grinned and waved to Darla. She waved right back.

Once we were in the stairwell, she said, “They’re jealous! Hot boyfriend, overnight bag...”

“I wonder if they would still be jealous if you told them how you had to take care of a big bad wolf who tames tomboys and makes them good little girls.”

She giggled and blushed.

“Um ... so. That was Lisa and Callie. Lisa would slap you silly. She might slap me silly for participating in any part of it. She likes guys, but ... not wolves. So very not wolves! Callie? No clue.”

“Maybe if she knew you had the wolf right where you want him?”

She giggled again and nodded a little.

“So ... if I survived the nuclear blush I would have while explaining that ... it, um ... it couldn’t hurt? It might really work.”

I squeezed her hand and said, “Just teasing, Little Red.”

“It’s working! Definitely!” she said, squeezing back.

Dinner tonight was my third trip to Jose’s in not all that long. It felt like somewhere I needed to take Darla, and this was a good opportunity.

It might well not be the last time. Jose’s might be a good last-date location as well. The idea of a last date was bittersweet, but it was going to happen. There was a slight possibility that our last date wouldn’t actually be our last date, either because she couldn’t find Mister Right and needed a bit of wolf to avoid exploding or because her Mister Right could share, but ... we would see.

The hard part of all this was going to be this summer. The odds were low that she would have started dating Mister Right. They were even lower that she would know he was Mister Right. I would be around some of the time, but away quite a bit. Darla had a very healthy libido and a personality that made her happy if her stress relief had something of a relationship component to it. Or, at least, she did now.

We might well do something over the summer a few times. That would need to be reined in, or we would undermine the very idea of a ‘last date.’ The last date could always be later, though.

If we had a Mister Right candidate, and he lived in Houston, that would go by the wayside. I couldn’t do anything wolfish with her if she was dating him enough to really be dating him. That would include even stress-relief suggestions.

The drive to Jose’s was fun, even if we spent a bit too much time dissecting our just-concluded exams. She was kicking ass, I was certain, and I was, too.

Mostly, we were pausing any wolfishness until later. I’m sure she expected something new, and she was going to get it. Maybe more than one new thing, even, but we would see about that. I had some things planned. Others would happen if and when they happened.

Unsurprisingly, Darla loved Jose’s from the moment she saw it. She called it ‘the Mexican Brennerman’s’, which was somewhat accurate. It also pleased our waiter, who was from Houston and considered it to be fairly high praise.

We got back to flirting over dinner, if not excessively. Holding hands, sometimes making eyes at each other, and (rarely) giving each other bites of our meals. I don’t think we sent any of the other diners into diabetic shock, but we did get some indulgent smiles from older couples.

I wasn’t sure if they would have been as indulgent if they knew the subtext to ‘Your hair looks very nice tonight’ or ‘That’s a very cute tomboy look you’ve got.’ And ‘all the better to entertain you, my dear’ had a very different ring than they might have thought.

Darla made it without blushing at any of those. She did squeeze my hand pointedly a few times, and playfully kicked me under the table with her bare foot once. I quietly told her she was a very good girl after she did. That got a blush, a whimper, and no more kicking.