Chapter 10: Check-Ins

Tuesday, August 13, 1985

I was up and out a bit earlier than Jas this morning. That wasn’t entirely coincidence. I expected Camille to be up, and I wanted to talk to her privately if I could.

Sure enough, I was dressed and done with the bathroom before Jas had ventured out of bed. She woke up enough to give me a kiss, but then went back to sleep. It was fairly early by vacation standards, though.

I could smell breakfast cooking. Sure enough, when I got to the kitchen, Camille was busily cooking up some eggs and bacon.

“Morning, Camille,” I said, giving her a hug.

“Good morning, Steve,” she said, smiling. “My daughter is still asleep?”

I chuckled softly and said, “She is. We’re both adjusting to the time zone, I think, and maybe a bit differently.”

“That, or she’s lazy,” Camille said, chuckling.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“That is because you’re her man. I am her mother. Different standards,” she said, grinning.

“That may well be true,” I said, smiling back.

“It sounds like you had a wonderful trip,” she said. “Long ago, I spent time traveling around Europe on the cheap. It’s quite an experience.”

“We want to go back, but that might be next summer. Or over winter break. And, of course, it might be different.”

“It might be,” she said, eyes twinkling.

I glanced off toward Jasmine’s room. She could sneak out, but I doubted she would do that. We both knew what game we were playing, after all. If she figured out what Camille and I were talking about, I was pretty sure she would retreat quickly.

“My mother asked me about ... timing. Since I answered...” I said, giving her a grin.

She grinned back.

“I figured I should do the same. Plus, you deserve another update.”

“Oh?” she said.

“First, we didn’t use any of the travel money you gave us. This really didn’t seem like what it was for.”

She nodded, smiling, but didn’t say anything.

“Second ... this winter seems like a very good time for ... well, perhaps some of that, but also for what you’re likely wondering about.”

She smiled a bit larger.

“We’ve talked about it, and the summer of 1987 seems very likely for the big event, for a number of reasons.”

“That makes a good deal of sense to me,” she said, nodding. “Six months is very tight for planning, especially considering your classes. I wouldn’t recommend it. A year and a half makes a great deal of sense for college students. We thought perhaps you would wait until graduation.”

“We thought that, too,” I said, chuckling softly, “But ... we’ve been together for nearly four years. More than that by the winter, and we’ll be past five and a half by the summer of 1987. That’s more than enough, I think. We gain nothing by waiting at this point. Anything we were going to find out about each other we’ll either find out or the odds of it turning up in any given year will be low.”

“True enough,” she said. “Do you have any plans?”

“I should perhaps ask you if you have any requests. I do, but your feelings are — obviously — important.”

She shrugged.

“We’re not expecting a Catholic wedding, if you were wondering,” she said, chuckling. “I can’t imagine that it’s important to Jasmine. I don’t believe there’s anything specific we would like.”

“There’s been some loose discussion about a dual wedding,” I said.

She nodded again.

“Honestly ... that makes perfect sense. You would need the right sort of officiant...”

I nodded, smiling.

“ ... but I’m sure you have some thoughts there. Otherwise ... your friends are Angie and Paige’s friends, and vice versa, with nearly no exceptions. We’re good friends with the Seilers now. I’m sure there will be the occasional person who only knows one couple or the other very well, but you will have very little concern for the ‘bride’s side’ and the ‘groom’s side,’ nor even a side for either couple. If their timetable is similar...”

I nodded at that.

“Then it makes perfect sense.”

“I’m sure you understand the dance we’re doing...”

She smiled even more.

“Indeed,” she said. “Francis and I ... I was sure he would ask, and he was sure I would say yes. We danced around the question for a while. I did not want to know too much and he managed that. I’m sure she will guess it will be during that trip, but when? Knowing is different from guessing, and it would lessen her enjoyment just a bit.”

“We’ll do something special. Perhaps some with Angie and Paige, but several days at least apart as couples, and it’ll likely be during that.”

“That makes a great deal of sense,” she said.

Then she gave me a big hug, and said, “You know this is a great joy for us. We love you like a son and can’t wait for you to be a son-in-law. Jasmine could not have chosen better, and we wish you every happiness in life.”

“At the risk of repeating myself, since you already know this, I’ll tell you what I told my mother. We want what you have. It’s clear you and Francis both love each other as much or more than you ever have. Not only that, but you’re still very much in love, too. Neither of us would settle for anything less. Life doesn’t give you guarantees, but we’re as sure as we can reasonably be.”

“Which, indeed, is all one can ask for,” she said, nodding.

“You’ve been very supportive from the start, and I appreciate it very much.”

She chuckled softly.

“And you have been most impressive from the start. It’s easy to be supportive when you believe your daughter has made a very fine choice.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Also,” she said. “You are right. If, indeed, that is the timing, we would love to travel with you to France and introduce you to the extended family. They will accept an engagement with an approximate wedding date. Well, almost all of them will. There are a few who are ... difficult ... but they’re difficult to everyone. It won’t be personal.”

I chuckled, and said, “Perhaps not the same as my Aunt Helen, but I understand.”

She shook her head.

“I have heard too much about your Aunt Helen. I am glad I do not have to deal with her!”

We both chuckled a bit at that.

“On the other hand,” she said, “Jasmine told me about your grandmother. She seems like a remarkable woman, and I’m very glad both that you have her blessing and that she may, hopefully, get to see you married. Perhaps not in person, depending on her ability to travel, but...”

I nodded, and said, “Oddly, I made the perfect choice there, too. It wasn’t intentional, mind you. Grandmother is quite a Francophile, and Jasmine stole her heart right there. It’s...”

I hesitated, wanting to phrase this right, and conscious that some of this was pulling in thoughts from my other life.

“Until fairly recently, I wasn’t close to Grandmother. I was a pre-teen, and she was an old woman who I only saw for a few hours a year. Things changed when I grew up, which is all tangled up with Angie arriving. We’ve become close with her and her husband, Professor Berman. He greatly likes Jasmine and Paige, too, which makes a lot of difference. It makes me very happy to bring her happiness, and I wish we’d had more of a relationship before just recently.”

She nodded, smiling.

“Actually ... that is, in some ways, a mirror to our relatives in France. It is, of course, quite common for Nguyens to marry Westerners. Our family tree is full of French people. We are not French merely by residence! Still, the family is...”

She sighed and said, “It is much as Andrew was. Someone honorable who wishes to join the family — that is one thing. Someone who merely sees an attractive, exotic woman — or man — is another. Many people jump to the second conclusion, simply because ... well, we have been burned many times, and some people are very skittish. An engagement solves that. Or, at least, one with a date and all the rest does.”

I nodded, saying, “That makes sense, and ... well, you know my intentions.”

She chuckled quite a bit.

“Oh, we do! That was obvious so long ago. Had we had any doubts, the number of highly attractive Caucasian women you’ve dated would have answered that!”

I just smiled and shrugged. She did have a point. I could have countered by saying that dumping Jasmine for any of them might have resulted in pointed objects coming in uncomfortable proximity to my body, but that really wasn’t true. Or, if it was true, it was true because my friends — my family, really — would have (correctly) thought me a cad. The whole point was that I wasn’t one.

She hugged me again.

“Thank you for sharing all of this. Naturally, we will say nothing and merely wait for an announcement, which I imagine will first be via a sparkly object.”

I chuckled, and said, “We’ll do something that way, but it won’t be the real ring. Jas and I won’t discuss how to remake the ring until after we’re engaged. That’s too much putting the cart before the horse.”

“Indeed!” she said, smiling. “I can’t wait to see what you decide!”

We hugged, and then I helped her finish breakfast. By the time we had it ready, Jasmine was up and about.

Perhaps she overheard, and perhaps she didn’t. I was betting on the second — but it might be because she intentionally avoided eavesdropping.

Over the course of the afternoon, I got in touch with Cammie and found out most things were great there. In fact, it sounded like she had news, but I guessed she was waiting to tell us in person. Michael Dell had left a couple of messages, too.

I tried to reach him, both at work and at home, but failed. It seemed likely to be the quarterly update, and that wasn’t pressing on my end. Most likely, things were busy.

I left a message with his assistant and at his home, telling him not to worry about calling back quickly. We would talk tomorrow or whenever he had time. I also left my pager number. Michael already had it, but it would remind him to page me instead of just trying to figure out where I was. After all, even I didn’t know where I’d be when he called.

Lindsay and I touched base later in the afternoon. She and Vanessa were moving into their apartment on Saturday the 24th. According to Lindsay, things were ‘edgy’ with her parents. They were distinctly unhappy with her roommate being a gay girl, and saying that there wasn’t a relationship didn’t help. On the other hand, as Lindsay pointed out, they wouldn’t have liked her living with a straight girl and would have hated her living with a guy. Unless they were prepared to pay for her to have an apartment to herself, which they weren’t, this was the best they were going to do.

They got it, but it was an ongoing sore spot. Lindsay’s scholarship was paying for the apartment in any case, so there was little they could do except gripe and threaten to cut off ‘spending money.’ In Lindsay’s opinion, they were highly unlikely to do that, since it would greatly escalate tensions without there even being anything Lindsay could do to lower them.

Well ... except for declaring she was straight. But they wouldn’t believe that, even if she did.

Lindsay said it before I could: at least they could talk about it. Cammie and her parents couldn’t and might never be able to. On the scale of things, she was doing better than about one-quarter or so of GSS members. At least two guys apparently couldn’t go home and had asked the university to block any access to their address. Their parents were on record as believing it would be fine to force them, as adults, to undergo conversion therapy. It wouldn’t be fine — it would be a major felony — but that might not stop them from trying.

We weren’t sure if we were going to get together before classes started. Maybe? We would see.

I also left Laura a message. Her parents said she’d been working odd hours. There was little urgency there, either. I just didn’t want to get too disconnected from her.

Besides that (or, most likely, including that), today was one of those days that are probably good for empty nest parents for a week or so, after which they become increasingly annoying. We hung around the house, talked, read, listened to music, watched a bit of TV, and were, in general, totally unproductive while enjoying our completely needed rest.

That works for a few days. Eventually, though, it’s like a reminder of that period of summer (or even Christmas) where parents with younger kids desperately wish school would resume.

We only had a few days, though, and we’d be distributing it between various parents. We probably wouldn’t wear out our welcome before we were out of their hair.

Jas and I spent the night in her room again. We were more than sufficiently recharged to want to do more in bed than just sleep, after all. No sense going back to Mom and Dad’s yet!

Wednesday, August 14, 1985

My pager went off around eleven. When I checked, it was Michael’s office number. I called him right back.

“Hey, it’s good to hear your voice!” he said. “Things are crazy busy here!”

“That’s probably a good thing?” I said, making sure it sounded like a question.

“Oh, it is,” he said. “It’s just a lot to keep up with.”

“Delegation is your friend,” I said, chuckling just a bit.

“Don’t I know it!” he said. “It’s hard to let go — this is my baby! — but ... yeah. I can’t keep up like this. It’s working at the lower levels, but...”

“You need someone senior, maybe, to take on the day-to-day senior executive work,” I said. “An operations guy.”

“That’s about the shape of it. It’s scary! I’m putting a lot of trust in someone.”

“I guess I’d say: don’t do anything hastily, but do make it a priority. The sooner you get it done, the more you can concentrate on CEO-type tasks. Strategy and direction, prioritization, goals, all of that. Let the next person down the chain — whatever you call their position — handle the day-to-day operations. Not that they won’t have their own strategy, priorities, goals, and all of those things, but they’ll serve yours.”

I could nearly hear him nodding over the phone.

“That’s what I need! Are you sure you haven’t gotten further in your major than I think?” he said, chuckling a bit.

“Nah. That’s from reading ahead. You’ve got this, Michael. It won’t be tomorrow, but you’re on the right track. At least you’re asking the right questions now, instead of when you’re burned out and half-dead.”

He chuckled a bit more.

“Some days, I think I’m already burned out and half-dead! You’re right, though. I’ve got some good contacts. I need someone with some experience, some credentials, but also someone who won’t mind playing second fiddle to a twenty-year-old. That’s tricky.”

“Doable, though. You’ll get it done,” I said, with confidence born of knowing he’d managed it in my first life, somehow or other. It was doable, and he had done it. Therefore, he could do it again.