Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 112: Making Sense of Things
Saturday, March 15, 1986
I was up before Jas, and headed out to find that only Mom and Dad were up. Mom was making breakfast, and Dad was at his desk.
I waved hello to Mom, went to the bathroom, then headed off to talk to Dad.
“Hi, Son!” he said. “Up so early?”
“We’re often up about this time,” I said. “Unusual for college students, I know.”
He chuckled and said, “I tried to get the latest classes I could! I’m very different now.”
“As we all well know,” I said, chuckling, too.
Mom came in and said, “What are my two men talking about?”
“Getting up early!” Dad said.
“That, and I had something else. There’ll still be more, but I wanted to explain why Jas and I will be running off to Austin right after we get back.”
“We figured that was just to have a little couple’s vacation,” Mom said.
“We’ll have that, but ... you remember, I’m sure, what I said about us investing in a friend’s business.”
Dad nodded quickly and said, “Of course! And it sounded like it was going very well.”
“It did!” Mom said.
“That’s the thing. It’s still going very well. It’s going well enough that our friend needs help, and I mean ‘senior management’ help. He needs someone to handle the operations side of things while he does CEO things. He’s been doing both for two years and just can’t carry the load anymore, not and keep up quality.”
Dad nodded slowly.
“That says it’s a fairly big outfit. And growing!”
“It is,” I said. “That’s partly why we’re so happy with having invested.”
“Pretty amazing!” Mom said.
“We’re still...” I said, then hesitated. When I continued, I said, “Right now, I’m being a little cautious and playing this close to the vest. If I tell you the name of the company, you’ll dig into it, and ... well. It’s ... almost embarrassingly successful, so far. If I share the name of our friend, it’ll only take a few minutes to track it down. Right now...”
I hesitated again and said, “We’ll get there. But, for now, it’s probably enough to say it’s doing really well, and we’re very excited, but we don’t want anyone counting any chickens just yet. I think you know how that goes.”
Mom chuckled and nodded.
“He’s got you pegged, Sam! That’s how things go with your investments!”
Dad chuckled himself and said, “You both know me too well. I can’t help it! I’d be curious and want to know. And ... you’re right. I don’t need to know. It’s also...”
He sighed, then said, “I have gotten all wrapped up in how well something is doing right at the moment, only for it to turn out to be a disappointment in the end. As long as I know it’s doing well, and that you’ll let us know when the time is right, that’s enough. We’re learning things when we need to, and...”
He trailed off, which let Mom jump in and say, “I think maybe he’s trying to say that you’re keeping us from worrying.”
Dad nodded quickly and said, “That’s it, exactly.”
Mom said, “That’s also an ongoing thing. Every time we have one of these conversations, we worry a bit less. You — and Angie — had an unusually large amount of money going into college, and you do ... you ‘live well.’ That’s a good way to put it, I think. But when we know that you’ve invested, and are a bit embarrassed at your success, that’s different.”
“I’ve always said that wealth is to be safeguarded but also used,” Dad said, nodding. “If you just blow it, that’s irresponsible. But I also think it’s irresponsible to live like a miser. Just spending to spend is silly, but there’s a point where just saving to save is also silly. You kids seem to have found a healthy balance.”
“Definitely!” Mom said.
“Going back to where I think we were,” Dad said. “I think you were saying that your trip to Austin is about this investment? And the need for more senior management?”
“It is,” I said. “The thing is, we’re the only outside investors. That makes me half of the board of directors, since it’s just me and our friend. So, I’ll be helping interview the final candidates.”
Dad shook his head, smiling.
“The thought of my son, at nineteen, sitting in on the interview for a senior management position is ... oddly normal. Which flabbergasts me! I mean, obviously your friend can’t be much older...”
“He’s not,” I said.
“But, still. That’s quite something!”
“We suspect our combined ages will be lower than the person we’re hiring,” I said, chuckling.
“If anyone can handle it, you can,” Mom said. “Any of you, but you, definitely.”
“Absolutely!” Dad said. “I’m sure you’ll pick someone who can get the job done, and done right.”
“It feels like a scary time in business,” Mom said. “We keep hearing about how the state is going into a recession.”
I nodded and said, “That’s true, and it’s affecting short-term financing. The banks are overextended, and I won’t be surprised if some fail outright. The FDIC might have to come in and fix things. Still, growth is growth, and sometimes there are big opportunities when times are tight, if you’re not involved in the industries that are the worst hit. Or ... maybe when you are.”
“Buy low, sell high,” Dad said, nodding. “It sounds like you’re paying close attention. I would expect that, but it’s always good to hear.”
“We are. All of this...” I said, then waved my hand a bit. Continuing, I said, “I really expected to just be an investor. A silent partner. But ... when there are only two people with any skin in the game, sometimes you have to step up. And this is my friend. Of course I want to help if he wants me to help.”
“Absolutely!” Dad said. “That’s one thing that has deeply impressed me about both you and Angie. You know who your friends are, and you treat them that way.”
“They listened to you, Sam,” Mom said, a bit teared up.
“Absolutely!” I said. “You both taught us a great deal. More than we can ever truly acknowledge, but ... well. I can speak for Angie on this one, because we’ve been agreed for a very long time: both of us arrived here needing parents, and you’re the best parents we could ever have hoped for.”
Predictably, that got everyone crying. For the best of reasons, but still.
Angie picked that moment to come in and said, “Why is everybody crying?”
“I just repeated what we say about Mom and Dad,” I said. “Best parents we could have hoped for.”
That, too, had predictable results: Angie hugging everyone, everyone hugging her, and more sniffles.
We pulled ourselves together pretty quickly, though.
Dad said, “Thank you for sharing that. I’ll really enjoy following it, and I’m sure I’ll be amazed as the whole story unfolds. It’s ... all of you are clearly going to do great things.”
“We couldn’t be more proud!” Mom said.
Breakfast was anticlimactic, after that. The four of us talked with Mom (and sometimes Dad) about the more mundane parts of our life (which were still pretty amazing in a lot of ways). Our classes, grades, friends, and so forth.
We were on our way to the other parents’ houses by ten. Jas and I talked with Camille and Francis both before and during lunch, repeating a lot of what we’d said over breakfast. We didn’t go into the investment nearly as much, both because neither of us thought they needed to know it right now and because Dad was usually the tacit leader of the ‘in-law club’ and would likely share bits of it, just as he’d already shared that we were better off than they had previously imagined.
Of course, Camille absolutely loved the ring. Francis was right there with her, if a bit more subdued. Again, I don’t think the money mattered, per se, but it mattered a great deal that their daughter had such a wonderful symbol of our love on her finger. They had been early champions of the two of us becoming the couple they felt we could be, and I know it must have felt wonderful to see that vindicated with an engagement to a guy they loved, trusted to take care of their daughter both physically and emotionally, and knew was ‘going somewhere.’
We hit the road for Lafayette around one. The first part of the drive was full of conversation about New Orleans: what we might do, what Marshall’s girlfriend might be like, how great the food would be, and so forth.
About an hour into the drive, Paige said, “We have a change of subject.”
“Go!” Jas said.
“So ... and I don’t want this to be ominous ... but Amy is kinda becoming the elephant in the room.”
Jas started into saying, “She’s not...”
Paige cut her off, saying, “I knew you were going to say that! Yes, she’s clearly not an elephant.”
“Nothing even vaguely trunk-like!” Jas said, grinning.
Angie snorted a bit at that, and Paige chuckled.
“Anyway! Mostly, we just ... well. It feels like there’s a bigger point. One we’ve kinda talked about, but not so much with Steve, and ... well, not as much as we should have at all.”
Jas nodded and said, “So, that would be ‘How do we handle additional relationships?’ Which makes sense, since we’ve redefined this relationship quite a bit.”
“Exactly,” Angie said. “For the two of us, I think we do things the way you do. It’s Paige’s business who she dates, and mine who I date. Not that there’s anyone, right now, but it’s ... we get to pick for ourselves. And that still makes sense when it’s the four of us, which ... it is.”
“It definitely is!” Jas said.
“Totally!” I said.
“So ... maybe that’s enough?” Angie said.
I felt like it was clear it wasn’t, in fact, enough, just from how she said it.
“It’s not,” Jas said. “And ... it’s wrong, somewhat.”
“Explain!” Paige said.
“So ... we have a rule that there’s a list. A blacklist, I guess. Steve or I can say, ‘Nope, person X is on the list,’ and that rules them out for ... well, you can be friends, but nothing more. Before anyone says it, I strongly advise everyone to be in their right mind and not massively sleep-deprived before putting anyone on the list!”
Everyone chuckled at that. In its own way, it had been somewhat funny even then, but not to Jas. I was glad she was seeing it that way now.
“That’s not ... um,” I said.
“I was...” Jas started.
“No! Not that. I wasn’t commenting on that. What I was going to say was, yes, we have that, and we should. But the point of the list is really about communication. If we’re in the right place in our relationship, I wouldn’t date anyone who would go on the list in the first place, because that would make Jas unhappy. But, if I don’t know she really dislikes — or distrusts, or whatever — someone, then ... well. That’s why there’s a list,” I said.
“I like it!” Angie said. “And I knew about it...”
“Me, too,” Paige said.
“ ... but I wasn’t thinking about it. I think mostly because of that communication thing. If you know X is bad news, you don’t date them, so that’s still you having the choice. If you date them anyway, you’re being a jerk, and that’s a bigger problem.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“So ... anyway. Lists notwithstanding, we see it that way,” Angie said. “We each decide who we date. But ... that leaves the question of people ... sticking.”
Jas and I both nodded.
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