Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 124: Classes and Laughs
Friday, April 11, 1986
I checked with Cammie and Mel after classes. Both of them loved the idea of Amy’s being a temporary housemate. Angie and Paige were on-board as well. We checked with Candice and Sherry, though their opinion honestly didn’t matter as much. They were fine with it, too.
No one was talking about her moving in. In any case, she’d already put in for another year in the dorm, so that wasn’t even an option this coming year. That said, I suspected that everyone could, at least, see the possibility there. If she was still close to us at this point in 1987, it would be much more likely to be a conversation.
There were a number of bridges to cross before that point. I would, almost certainly, have to talk money. An Amy actually living with us would need to know that we were even more unusual in terms of finances than she could already guess. Her scholarship would pay the rent. If it wouldn’t, though, none of us would have felt right about charging her, just as we weren’t charging her for the summer.
From seven to eleven or so, we had a combined mini-party and class schedule session with a bunch of friends. Darla, Louise, Amy, Lindsay, and Claire and Kay with their boyfriends, plus about twenty of our study group friends, including Hank, Paul, and Barbara, joined us for snacks and conversation. Some of the conversation was about the December party, and we made it pretty clear all of it was resolved and we didn’t want to go into detail. We did tell them we weren’t expecting any police attention, now or in the future.
For classes, the discussions were obviously major and progress-specific. Most of the Business contingent settled on Business Analysis (BANA) 305 (Advanced Business Analysis), BANA 364 (Operations Management), Economics 322 (Applied Microeconomic Theory), English 301 (Technical Writing), and Management 363 (The Management Process).
Angie needed all of those except for BANA 305. She was starting to need more Finance courses, and was looking at either 21 or 24 semester hours this fall to keep both of her dual degrees on (or, really, ahead of) schedule.
Sherry wanted a few of those, but was still behind us. She was planning summer school that would let her catch up, though.
At one point during our session, I noticed Mel deep in conversation with some of her friends. After a bit, I caught the name ‘Harry Thompson.’
Apparently, so did Amy, who had been talking with a few of the Contingent about Computer Science classes she might be able to use. She headed over, and I followed out of curiosity.
Amy said, “Did you say Harry Thompson?”
Mel nodded and said, “Do you know him?”
Amy nodded quickly.
“He was in a physics class of mine a year ago. He kept asking all of the girls out. Well, not me. He only tried once with me, but I gave him my best...”
She switched to her full Wednesday Addams voice and said, “‘I do not go on dates.’”
All of the others laughed.
Amy continued, saying, “That seemed to end his interest. I ... did not think he would be an interesting person to date.”
Mel snorted and said, “He seems to think I would be an interesting person to date.”
Two of the other women in the Engineering Ensemble waved their hands and said, “Me, too!”
Amy frowned, looked at Mel, and said, “But ... you are engaged. And also gay.”
Mel snorted again.
“He thinks the second of those cancels out the first. Since gay people can’t get married, they can’t be engaged. And he’s one of those guys who thinks he can turn any girl straight, given a chance.”
“I knew I didn’t like him!” Amy said, grinning.
“We’re spreading the word,” one of the other girls (Gwen, I think) said.
“Good for you!” Amy said. “He will probably not cross paths with me that many times, and I am happily dating now anyway, but it is good for others to hear.”
“I pity anyone who dates him,” Gwen (if that was her name) said.
Everyone nodded. Even the guys.
My last class was a conundrum, I had one elective open, and no one else wanted Political Science courses. One would do me good, though. With the right course, I could make progress on both my minor and my University Honors Program hours requirement.
I opened the class schedule, flipped to Poly Sci, and ran my finger down the list of classes. No, no, boring, tragically boring, and ... wait. Here was an honors special topics course. Specifically, Political Science 489: Special Topics in Democratic Theory.
I stared at it and tapped my finger a few times, thoughtfully.
That sounded similar to a class I’d taken at UT, one I greatly enjoyed. I had written some great papers (my professor agreed about their greatness, thankfully) about people like Solon, Plato, Aristotle, and Montesquieu, as well as some modern thinkers and various abstract topics around the idea of democracy itself and its development and resiliency.
It had also been the class in which I met Lynn. It wouldn’t be the same without her, but we can’t have everything. I imagined she was out there, probably at U.T. Hopefully, and to use the parlance of the future, she was living her best life. Perhaps she would avoid her lousy boyfriend this time.
If, of course, he actually was lousy. That remained mere conjecture. Her story, for me, was incomplete as of her wedding. Whatever happened to this Lynn (if she wasn’t a Leonard, perhaps), it wouldn’t change what had happened to my Lynn. That had happened many, many years ago, if also in the future.
The professor was a Dr. R. Higgins. That name didn’t turn up in the course catalog, but that was hardly new. At the rate A&M was growing, professors joined the faculty at a pace that a paper document couldn’t keep up with. I usually looked up my professors. It was sometimes helpful to know where they were coming from, especially if they were from someplace I knew something about. Northwestern, perhaps. Or even UT or Purdue, though I couldn’t mention those connections to them.
In any case, it was much too good of an opportunity to pass up. R. Higgins was an unknown, but he or she was probably fine. Even if not, the material should be interesting.
Unless R. Higgins was related to Mrs. Higgins. That might be a tragedy beyond words. God help me if I wound up in a class with someone like her!
I pitched it to the others, and Jas wound up deciding to take it as an open elective. It would give her some honors hours, too. No one else was willing, so that was that from this bunch. We might pitch it to a few others along the way.
Once we had that out of our way, we had a new question to ponder. Did we want to take more P.E.? Four semesters were required, and most of us now had those under our belts. After some discussion, the consensus was ‘yes, we did.’ It was a nice break to spend time doing something physical, it was good for us health-wise, and doing it together made it even more worthwhile.
There was an advanced martial arts course, and most of us opted for that. Cammie and Mel took two P.E. classes, the second being ballroom dance. Candice and Sherry were joining them for that. I wasn’t sure if the instructor would let them dance as couples, but ... hopefully? It might be a bit daring, but Cammie and Mel had a wedding coming up and could use the practice. It was entirely possible that weddings were on Candice and Sherry’s minds as well.
Some others might join us in various classes. Cal and Andy couldn’t be here tonight, but they wanted a list of what we were taking and might pass it along to a few of their fellow athletes they felt would fit in with our study groups. They weren’t the only ones, either. Overall, we had about thirty people to notify about our class choices by this point.
Juniors-to-be would register on Wednesday the 16th, so we had a bit of time to get as many people on board as we could.
Once it was after eleven, everyone still there (the eight of us, plus Darla, Louise, Amy, Lindsay, Claire, Kay, and about ten others) headed across campus to the Grove. I wound up sitting between Amy and Darla, with Jas on Amy’s other side. That probably sent a message, but what message it sent was anyone’s guess. I’d been affectionate with all three at the party, so it was hardly a surprise.
The surprise would have been my being romantically affectionate with Paige, but that was much more of a family thing, for now and maybe forever.
I think Amy went through the same thing Darla went through earlier. At first, she seemed slightly put off by Pee-Wee’s laugh and some of the very juvenile humor. Once the movie got into gear, though, and turned into a quest, and especially once Dottie really got involved, she lost herself in it, laughing, squeezing my hand, and generally reacting as I would have guessed she might.
If there was a difference, it was ‘Large Marge.’ Darla again took it as vaguely scary, but Amy clearly loved the ‘scary ghost’ also being a rescuer (which she, in fact, was) and that Pee-Wee could simply accept both that she could be scary and also a rescuer and that she was dead. Dark and light, two sides of the same coin, and both embraced.
In retrospect, it was predictable, but only in the way that Amy became ‘predictable’ bit by bit. I might have predicted she would dislike that part. She disliked death, after all, and Large Marge had died in a horrible accident. But she also liked life after death, and Large Marge had that. And, if ghosts were just people who hadn’t moved on, maybe some of them wouldn’t really be scary. What reason would Large Marge have for true malevolence? Some scary humor, perhaps. She had been an irreverent person in life. Why not the same in death?
We talked about it a bit after the movie, but this was ‘not a date.’ As such, the Commons group, along with Hank (who was going to the adjoining Corps dorms), left together, while those of us in the house went back home. We would likely talk about it later, though.
When we got home, Jas and I just went to bed. The weekend was going to be a mix of studying and dates. Monique was still in the picture, and would be in the house tomorrow night. Darla might well be, too. Jas and Monique were taking the upstairs guest room, leaving our bedroom for Darla and me.
Saturday, April 12, 1986
As planned, we had a bunch of study group meetings during the day. Our next round of exams wasn’t until the week of April 28th to May 2nd, but there was no reason to get behind now. We also had papers to write and projects to finish!
One of my biggest non-studying times was my meeting with Jane. We had a two o’clock call scheduled, right after Angie’s one o’clock call. She came out of my bedroom as I went in, and gave me a thumbs-up and a hug.
“Didn’t spoil any of your stuff,” she said, giggling.
“Good!”
“No news on Sharon.”
“No real surprise, I guess,” I said.
“It’s getting toward time. Hopefully soon.”
“Hopefully!”
I headed in, closed the door, and dialed Jane.
“Steve!” she said. “How are you?”
“Good,” I said.
“You weren’t kidding about that concert! That was chaos! It was very good, but it was chaos.”
“I think the crowds may have been bigger in this universe. Just a guess, but...”
“Interesting,” she said. “And there’s no real reason to chase that down, unless you want to.”
“Nah.”
“So ... you said there was another interesting personal-life thing?”
“There are at least two, now. I’ll tackle the easy one first,” I said.
“That sounds good.”
“On the first, we got an unusual piece of mail this week.”
She chuckled.
“If it was from Sting, Angie spoiled that one.”
“It was.”
“Yes, I’m surprised that you’re receiving mail from an international rock star. I’m less surprised than I thought I would be, I suppose,” she said.
“The thing is, I think this means we have to tell Mom and Dad, and likely the other parents, about what really happened at Live Aid.”
“Ah! That’s much bigger.”
“We can do it now. We’ve made it clear we had more money than they thought. We did nothing bad. Everything was perfectly laudable given our financial means, and I think we may have accomplished something. It’s just ... things had to come out in the right order. Now, they mostly have,” I said.
“That makes sense, and it cuts down on the number of secrets you have. Some are unavoidable, but getting rid of the avoidable ones is good.”
“That’s where I am. Anyway, that’s the first.”
“Sounds good, and we’re in agreement. The second?” she asked.
“The second is romantic. And ... it’s complicated. Or... she’s complicated. Either way.”
“I’m going to assume this is a good complication?”
“It is. So ... her name is Amy. Or, maybe, Amethyst. Both,” I said.
She chuckled.
“And we’re already complicated.”
“Amy is ... well, if you had tried to assign me a ‘type,’ she wouldn’t come up. But I’m not much on having a ‘type.’”
“I’ve noticed that, really,” she said. “That seems like a good thing to me.”
“So...” I said. “Start out by imagining ... well. You know the old Addams Family show, right?”
“I do!” she said. “The way you use ‘old’ worries me, though.”
“I wasn’t going to ask if you know the 1990s or later versions.”
“Good! Because I don’t!”
I chuckled, and said, “Imagine Wednesday, grown up into a teenager. Nearly twenty. Monotone voice as a default, sometimes saying things that sound macabre, and goth-ish clothing. That’s a start on describing Amy, though she prefers purples to blacks for the most part. She wears a studded leather collar and wrist cuffs, purple stockings, big chunky shoes, somewhat short and often flouncy skirts, and black t-shirts. Those sometimes show some tummy. Also, she has purple hair.”
“That ... would not have been on my list of types,” she said, chuckling.
“She lived in Claire’s dorm. Well, she still does. Claire doesn’t, anymore. I first met Amy there, while picking up Claire for a date. Amy works at a small on-campus restaurant that’s fairly near where we live and where many of our classes are.”
“So far, so good.”
“On four different days back in August, I met Claire and Darla at her restaurant, and went in there with Angie and Mel. Not in that order, but the thing is ... four girls, often holding hands, hugging, or kissing. She got the wrong impression for the right reason, and called me out as being a cheater,” I said.
Jane laughed. Loudly.
“Oh, that’s funny! Good for her, I think, even if she was wrong.”
“It was when Claire was there. She knows Claire, and no one else was in the building.”
“Wise, I’m sure, unless you turned out to be the sort who would get angry,” she said.
“Funny you should say that. That’s a separate topic.”
“You got angry?” she said, sounding surprised.
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