Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 121: A Foreign Man, Surrounded By the Sound
Saturday, April 5, 1986
Jas and I got up a bit early, had breakfast, then hit the road. We were back in College Station around eleven. Cammie had waited until we arrived, so we hit the road with Angie and Paige in my car and Mel, Candice, and Sherry in Angie’s. We planned to drive nearly the whole way together, with Cammie splitting off once we got near home.
We headed to the Commons dorms, where I picked up Amy and Darla. Amy was in a more restrained outfit today — black t-shirt, black skirt, stockings, with a choker and leather wristbands. I think it was in deference to being around our parents. She hadn’t mentioned it to me, and I was fine with it, but I would have been fine with her regular outfit, too.
I got out to hug them. Darla just gave me a grin and a kiss, but Amy whispered, “It’s fine. This is me today,” as we hugged and kissed.
That worked for me. If she thought it was ‘her,’ I wasn’t going to disagree.
The drive down to Houston was fun. I could have been nervous, since Amy and Darla were in the same car, but I already knew they talked sometimes. Given that, either of them might know nearly anything already. The odds of embarrassing information turning up during the drive was ... well, probably dangerously high. I could assume it was low, though, so I did.
It occurred to me that I was going to wind up introducing Amy to my parents, which is normally a pretty significant step during dating. This shouldn’t be that, but it wouldn’t be entirely not that, either. Mom and Dad wouldn’t know we were dating, but Amy was potentially someone we might be close to for a long while.
Would Mom’s radar go off? Too late to worry about that now. What would be, would be.
Our carload of people descended upon Mom and Dad’s house around two. The collective parents/in-laws had gotten together and had food, beverages, and so forth ready. We might eat a very late meal downtown as well (depending on the parking garage situation), but we would have dinner and snacks while hanging out in the French Consulate’s area.
Francis had told everyone we wouldn’t need to bring water or radios. There were huge speakers set up in the area, and some of the consulate staff would also have radios. They were providing plenty of water as well. That cut our load significantly. We would still bring a bit of tea and soda, but much less liquid than we would otherwise have.
We all hugged, and then I introduced them to Darla (who they’d met) and Amy (who they hadn’t). Mom immediately commented that Amy’s hair looked just like Mel’s had in photos. That got a lot of giggling, then the explanation that Amy had actually unintentionally reminded Mel to finally color hers. Mom was maybe slightly embarrassed, but mostly just found it funny. Which it was, really.
Amy was somewhere between her Hullabaloo Cafe self and her current dating self. Which meant that she came off as ‘normal,’ pretty much. Or, at least, what passed for ‘normal’ for friends of ours. I was certain it took some mental gymnastics on her part to maintain it, but I think it mostly had become a habit with practice.
Dad got to talking with her about her engineering classes, and that seemed to go well. He wasn’t going to understand the details, but she wasn’t overwhelming him, either.
I didn’t try to get involved. Trying to act as a gatekeeper would just confuse things and might set off Mom’s radar.
Clara and William Winton turned up around three, triggering a wave of introductions. With that, we had our entire group. By four, we were heading downtown.
Everyone parked at the Hyatt, naturally. They were charging more than usual for non-guests to park, but every garage downtown had its prices marked up. This was likely going to be the most lucrative day for downtown parking garages for the entire decade. Nothing else was going to bring this many people downtown at night on a weekend.
Cammie, Mel, the Rileys, Emily, the Wonder Twins, Candice, Sherry, and their parents were all going, but they weren’t sitting in the French Consulate section. They had their own various plans, but we would see them tomorrow for brunch.
I got us checked in, handed out keys to the girls, and then we took our bags upstairs. The parents waited in the lobby. It took us only a few minutes before we were back in the lobby.
From the Hyatt’s lobby, it was about a thirty-minute walk — taking it a bit slower for the older folks — to the French Consulate’s space in Buffalo Bayou Park. It was just far enough back that the elevated freeway wasn’t going to block our view to any appreciable extent.
When we arrived, Francis introduced us to the Consul General and a number of his fellow staffers. I did my best to catch their names, but generally failed. Francis could remind me of them later if needed.
Unsurprisingly, all of them had heard of me, and I received congratulations from many of them for being Jasmine’s fiancé. Many had questions, but they were easy ones: how had we met, when did I know she was ‘the one,’ had I been to France, and so forth. I suspect Francis had told them all of the answers and they were just making conversation, but it was still fun, and also entirely expected.
They had brought many tarps and staked them out on the grass, so we had nice places to sit. No chairs, but none us needed them yet.
We had nearly a three-hour wait until the concert. One of the consulate staffers had brought a large boombox with CDs of Jarre’s music, so we had an impromptu pre-concert in our area. They also periodically put on the radio to check on how the concert was being covered.
We had plenty of time to eat and talk. There were no really notable conversations given the setting. Amy and Darla acted like friends — which, in fact, they were. Both of them knew any displays of affection toward me or Jas would be a big surprise to most of the parents, not to mention the consulate staff. Though, given the popular perception of the French, perhaps they wouldn’t think all that much of it.
Seven o’clock rolled around. I was the least surprised of anyone, most likely, when the top-of-the-hour news reported that I-10 was already starting to struggle with people parking along the shoulder and innermost lane, that Allen Parkway was de facto shut down, and that Memorial Drive was down to one lane. No one had expected this level of chaos this early (or, perhaps, at all).
Nor had I expected what happened in our little section of the park ten minutes later. We got a blast of feedback, the Jarre music being played stopped, and the Consul General’s voice came over a loudspeaker, saying a few sentences in French, including the name ‘Jean-Michel’.
He then said, “Hello! We have a very special guest! Our star of the evening has graced us with his presence! Please give Jean-Michel a warm welcome!”
Everyone rose and applauded loudly. I could see Jean-Michel, but Jas couldn’t, so I wound up giving her a boost. Lots of giggling, but now she could see.
There was more French — I might have to learn some! — followed by, “Hello! Greetings to my French compatriots and your honored guests! It is wonderful to have so many of my countrymen here! I have brought a gift for each of you. I hope you will enjoy tonight’s performance. Thank you for coming out to the concert!”
Jean-Michel waved, then disappeared off to the side. He had a few obvious (and very large) security guys with him. I could see them moving him back toward the stage.
That was very cool!
A few minutes later, they passed around gift bags. They were pretty awesome, really. Jarre’s face was on the cloth bag. Inside was a sleeve containing an autographed 8x10 of him, plus a coupon which could be used to order an autographed copy of Rendez-Vous once it became available. There were fulfillment options in both the US and France.
Apparently there were some other goodies, because the Consul General announced there would be a random drawing in the office next week for the other gifts Jean-Michel had brought.
“My goodness!” Dad said. “I didn’t expect that!”
Francis chuckled and said, “I did not expect it, either! It was a well-kept secret!”
Everyone resumed talking and hanging out. By eight, the news was reporting only one lane of I-10 was passable. Memorial Drive was, similarly, down to one lane. That one lane was inbound-only; the outbound side was entirely closed. If you came in on Memorial, you weren’t leaving downtown that way.
Angie and I briefly whispered to each other about how much we were anticipating this. It would truly be the first time for both of us. The concert I’d attended (and Angie had somewhat seen) decades ago was gone. It would never exist in this universe. The one tonight might be similar, but it wouldn’t be the same. And it would be different for everyone, not just us. For us, it was doubly different, thanks to those around us, but no one here but some of our little family would know how that first show became a triumph of hope over sorrow. Something had unquestionably been lost, but I imagined quite a bit would be gained, too.
Shortly after eight, giant lights turned on, illuminating the many-story-high screens attached to some of the skyscrapers. Nearly simultaneously, many (but not all) of the park lights and nearby street lights turned off. A bunch of lasers lit up the night, and the first strains of ‘Ethnicolor’ burst out over the crowd. For us, the sound came from everywhere. There were many large speakers set up along the bayou, and they each gave us a minutely delayed version of the same thing. Add to that the sound from hundreds of boomboxes in the nearby crowd and you could feel the music. It wasn’t really loud so much as it was omnipresent. We were surrounded and, in a way, we were an instrument just as much as we were an audience.
There were also fireworks. Many, many fireworks, being launched from the tops of several skyscrapers. The weather wasn’t ideal — or maybe it was. It was the same weather I remembered, at least. Low, fairly thick clouds, a persistent but shifting wind, and moderately heavy humidity. It wasn’t particularly hot, at least, and the humidity wasn’t oppressive.
It also worked well for the effects, or at least I thought it did. The lasers stood out far more in the humidity than they would have in drier air. Instead of bursting in the usual ways, the fireworks lit up each cloud bank in a variety of colors. Only seldom were any individual twinkles seen, but the overall effect was similar to a well-designed stage lighting rig, just one scaled up as much or more than Stonehenge had been scaled down in Spinal Tap.
I strongly suspect many of the people around us couldn’t have told ‘Oxygene’ tracks from those on ‘Equinoxe’, much less which piece they were. I only knew the name of the individual pieces sometimes. The music from ‘Rendez-Vous’ was more notable simply because I hadn’t heard it in decades and no one else here besides Angie had heard it before at all.
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