Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 113: The Wrong Car
Sunday, March 16, 1986
We stopped for lunch in Baton Rouge (more Cajun food, naturally), then headed across the Lake Pontchartrain bridge. It wasn’t as quick, but was considerably more scenic.
The hotel let us check in a bit early, which was nice of them. Our rooms were right next door to each other on the second floor. Convenient for exchanging bed partners, which we undoubtedly would.
Dinner with Curtis, Marsha, Marshall, and Sandra was planned for tonight at five. It felt like we would probably get together with Marshall and Sandra at least one other time, but it wasn’t certain. It was always possible that either she wouldn’t like us or we wouldn’t like her. Unlikely, I guessed, but anything’s possible.
We had nothing else to do, so Angie and Paige proposed riding the streetcar downtown, splitting one beignet per couple, then riding it back out to the end of the line before heading back towards town. That would probably put us at Curtis and Marsha’s house right around five.
Jas and I had no problem with that, so we were quickly off and riding. Half an hour later, we were sitting back, sipping coffee, and nibbling on ‘donuts on steroids’ (as Paige called them). Splitting one was perfect for a snack.
We didn’t take any with us. Fresh beignets were better, and we would likely get more during this trip.
The ride back out was scenic, as always. Living here would be different, but thus far we’d always managed a very relaxed pace as tourists. That was part of the charm. Many of our trips were constant motion, and that was fun, too. Riding the streetcar was also ‘constant motion,’ but it felt very different.
We got a big surprise, both figuratively and literally, when we stopped near Tulane. Angie was watching and suddenly hopped up, bouncing.
“Guess who just got on the next car!” she said.
“Mister Rogers,” Paige said, clearly just trying to be difficult.
Angie growled, and Paige said, “I can see who you mean.”
“Me, too!” Jas said.
“Are we gonna go over there?” Paige said.
“Can’t imagine we wouldn’t!” Angie said.
We did.
It was lucky Marshall’s car was empty. As we entered their car, Angie said, in the deepest voice she could manage, “I’m sorry. You boarded the wrong car.”
Marshall and Sandra both turned quickly. Sandra looked confused. Marshall did, too, but then his eyes lit up.
“Marshalls!” he said. “And Marshalls-to-be!”
“Marshall!” Angie said, with the rest of us echoing it.
Sandra suddenly grinned, which was an encouraging sign.
Marshall, who had the aisle seat, hopped up and bear-hugged Angie. No kiss this time. Paige was next, then Jas, and finally me.
“Sandra! Meet my friends Angie, Paige, Jasmine, and Steve,” he said.
I got a better look at her as she turned. Slim, probably our same age, she was a medium-skinned black woman — a shade or two lighter than Marshall himself, but close — with short straight (or straightened) hair. I guessed she was as tall as Mel and had a rather similar build overall. She looked tiny next to Marshall only because nearly everyone — even me! — looked tiny next to Marshall. She was also quite pretty, at least in my opinion.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you!” she said. “Marshall’s told me so much about you!”
“Lies!” Angie said. “All lies!”
Sandra chuckled and offered her hand, which Angie shook. The rest of us did, too. Hugs might follow, or they might not. We would see.
Angie and Paige took the seats behind them, while Jas and I settled across the aisle.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, too,” Angie said. “Marshall hasn’t told us all that much about you, so we’ll have to get to know you the old-fashioned way.”
Sandra smiled and said, “I’d love to!”
She paused, then said, “Wait! Are those the engagement rings I’ve heard about?”
Marshall quickly turned.
“You’ve got them?”
Angie and Paige both showed theirs off.
“Oh!” Sandra said. “Those are seriously amazing! What incredible designs!”
Angie and Paige both said, “She thought of it.”
Then they looked at each other and giggled.
Angie said, “Um ... we collaborated?”
Sandra grinned.
“Always the best, I think. And ... Jasmine?”
Jasmine showed hers off.
“Oh, my!” Sandra said. “So lovely! Obviously, it suits you.”
“Fortunately, I like my name. And my namesake,” Jas said, giggling.
“Definitely!” Sandra said. “So ... tell me about yourselves a bit?”
“Well, she is Miss Math,” Paige said, nodding to Angie. “Like, if you want your head to explode, ask her what her classes this semester cover.”
“Eh,” Angie said, waving her hand. “Advanced Calculus II, Theory of Ordinary Differential Equations, and Mathematical Probability, from the Math side. Finance and Accounting from the Business side, but everyone but Jas is in those. Analysis of Algorithms, which Steve is in, because they’ll let me count it instead of the stupid programming course I don’t need.”
“Which amounts to taking an upper-division class instead of the beginner survey course,” I said.
Angie grinned and said, “This one’s math. The others are engineering.”
Sandra laughed at that, then said, “That sounds like a lot.”
“It’s only twenty-two hours, counting Martial Arts,” she said. “Double-major. I need the extra hours.”
Paige snorted and said, “No, she doesn’t. She’s a year ahead in both majors. Don’t believe her nonsense.”
Angie giggled and said, “Well, fine. I still need a minor.”
“Technically...” Paige said.
“It’ll speed up the PhD,” Angie said.
“And that is a win, as far as I’m concerned!” Paige said.
Everyone chuckled.
“So, the rest of you are ... business? Except Jasmine?” Sandra asked.
Jas nodded.
“They are. I’m in journalism. Really, it’s almost more ... I’m tailoring it around public communications, in general. I don’t see working as a journalist.”
“That’s cool!” Sandra said. “I’m nominally a political science major, but I’m essentially pre-law.”
“Which is where I landed, too,” Marshall said. “Not without a fight! They wanted me to be ‘General Studies’ for another year.”
“Football is a lot of work,” Sandra said.
“It is, but I can keep up. As you know!”
She grinned and said, “I need to keep my edge somehow! Football levels the playing field!”
They kissed quickly. It was very sweet, and it told me more about their relationship than anything else had thus far. It was a kiss that said they were serious. And, most likely, serious for the right reasons.
Then she looked back and said, “Marshall says you went to the good high school.”
Marshall snorted and said, “I didn’t say that!”
“Close enough,” she said.
“It’s really good,” Paige said, nodding. “They made me smart, so...”
Everyone chuckled a bit at that.
“Do not listen to her,” Angie said. “She did that. No school makes you a National Merit Finalist if you can’t keep up.”
Paige giggled.
“Still the dumb one in the house!”
That got more laughter.
Marshall nodded to Sandra and said, “Don’t let her fool you. She went to the best high school in the state.”
Even with her complexion, it was clear that Sandra was blushing.
“Well, yeah, but...”
“No buts. It’s top-notch. You could’ve gone anywhere for college.”
“Mama needs me here for now,” she said. “Besides, Tulane is top-notch, and it’s home. And there are some side benefits.”
She gave Marshall a hug, then continued, saying, “The funny thing is, Marshall’s mama needed him here, too, it turns out.”
We arrived at the stop for Curtis and Marsha’s house, so we all got off, then kept talking.
“The two of them are dangerous together,” Marshall said, shaking his head.
“Just because they’ve already picked out our colors, china pattern, music, DJ...” Sandra said, grinning.
“Oh, lord!” Angie said, grinning. “I’m really fortunate my mom, and mothers-in-law, aren’t doing that.”
“Mothers-in-law?” Sandra asked.
Paige said, “The four of us pretty much treat all of the parents as either parents or in-laws. Like, Jasmine’s parents are almost as much ‘in-laws’ as Angie’s.”
“Saves a lot of trouble,” Angie said. “The six of them get along really well...”
“And we get along with all of them,” Jas said.
“So it’s just easier,” Angie finished. “That, and we’re having a double wedding anyway, so the meddling would be off the charts crazy if the in-laws weren’t on the same page.”
Sandra chuckled and nodded.
“Marshall told me about that.”
“We couldn’t imagine doing it differently,” I said. “Our guest lists will be somewhere around 90% the same. It makes no sense to make people travel twice or anything like that.”
“Sounds like you’re doing it right!” she said.
With that, we made it to Curtis and Marsha’s now familiar house. Marshall headed up the stairs first, knocked, and then opened the door.
“We’re here!” he called. “All of us!”
Marsha appeared first, emerging from a kitchen that smelled like Louisiana cooking.
“That must have been some good luck,” she said.
“Heck,” Marshall said, “Everything about meeting these guys has been some good luck.”
I didn’t miss the soft look in both Sandra’s and Marsha’s eyes. We had — inadvertently, mostly — changed his life. Just a bit, most likely, but that ‘just a bit’ might have huge consequences. I suspected the original Marshall might have played football at Tulane, and he probably would have done well academically thanks to Amelia. Whether he would have been pre-law was anyone’s guess, and he wouldn’t have had a top-notch mentor. Nor, most likely, an apparently kick-ass girlfriend.
Curtis came down the stairs, grinning.
“Well, if it’s not the girl who dumped my son!” he said, accepting Angie’s hug.
She giggled and said, “He got a better offer.”
Marsha beamed and said, “You’re pretty special, but ... so’s Sue.”
“Sue is wonderful,” Sandra said. “I’m really impressed with her.”
“We all are,” I said, chuckling.
Curtis said hello to the rest of us, hugged the girls, and shook hands with me.
“I’ve been keeping up with Allan,” he said. “Still tickles me that you’re all related.”
“Not until the wedding,” Paige said, with Jas nodding.
Curtis chuckled.
“The way Allan tells it, you’ve been granddaughters for years!”
Paige and Jas both blushed and grinned.
“Food’s pretty much ready,” Marsha said. “I made too much, so just eat what you want.”
Curtis said, “Best part of this is leftovers for lunch. She spoils me! Half of my fellow judges go out, and I’ve got better food in my lunch box.”
Marsha blushed and grinned.
“I figured, if I was going to live here, I should learn to cook like I live here. One of the better decisions I ever made,” she said, grinning. “Well below marrying Curtis, though!”
She took two steps, then said, “Oh! My! I forgot!”
Angie, Paige, and Jas all held out their rings.
“Oh! They’re so lovely!” she said, beaming. “All the best to all of you. And congratulations, Steve.”
“Thank you!” we all said.
Dinner was amazing. Curtis wasn’t lying. There probably were restaurants with better food, but Marsha’s cooking would beat most of them. Conversation was lively, and we shared a bunch of stories from high school, including a few about the friendly rivalry between Marshall and Angie. From what I could tell, I think it impressed Sandra that he had had a friendly rivalry with a smart, pretty white girl and neither tried to take it anywhere nor stuck his foot in his mouth in any of the many ways he could have.
For her part, Angie was clear that Marshall was every bit her equal and, if they went up against each other ten times, it would very likely come out five-five. She’d gotten the lucky roll of the dice at Nationals, he’d gotten it at State, and there had never been a cross word between them despite their long-standing competition.
Curtis found it just as funny as we all did that Angie’s talents seemed so clearly to lie in mathematics.
“I really never would have guessed it,” he said. “I had you figured for law.”
Angie blushed a bit and said, “I actually told the Professor that, way back when.”
She stopped, then said, “I need to explain that. Allan Berman, aka the Professor, is our step-grandfather. Dad started calling him the Professor before we were born. It’s just stuck. Dad’s father died long before we were born, so he’s the only grandfather we have on that side of the family, but it’s stuck that we mostly don’t call him Grandfather. I think he’s just as happy with it. The relationship is the same, and he loves being a professor for a bit again.”
Curtis chuckled and said, “He loved it at the time, I’ll say that! He was one of the best. Not just at teaching the classroom stuff, but kicking back over a beer and some snacks and explaining all of the things about being a good lawyer that don’t come from law books, memorizing decisions, and practicing analysis, critical thinking, and all of that. Allan would teach you the law in class. After, he would make you think about why you’re doing this, and what it means to your soul if you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.”
Angie nodded.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.