Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 126: Movies, Quiet and Not-So-Quiet
Tuesday, April 15, 1986
There was no cake today, but we got together and wished Jessica (or, rather, her machine) a happy birthday over the phone. Tomorrow’s episode of ‘St. Elsewhere’ would hopefully make a nice belated birthday present.
I had no idea if her birthday was still Top Secret, but presumably her roommate could know. If not, we would apologize appropriately.
No one mentioned it out loud, but we were counting down the days to the next birthdays. That was another good reason for the trip to Houston. We had put together a giant lunch plan for Saturday noon. Brennerman’s had a side room that would easily fit the nearly thirty people we expected for Paige’s and Cammie’s birthdays. That was everyone who had gone to the Warwick plus Penelope and David.
They voted that we just consider it my celebration, too, since I wouldn’t be in Houston for most of my birthday. Mom might make me a birthday breakfast, but Dad would be at work by the time I was awake, most likely.
Or ... would he? This was a different Dad. He might go in late, just that once. I wasn’t going to ask. If he wanted to surprise me, I would do him the honor of being surprised.
Jas, Angie, Paige, and I made plans for a Saturday visit to ‘Social Climbers’, the Houston charity Angie had found that rented (or loaned, depending on the person’s situation) business-wear, formal-wear, and related items to low-income people. It was located not far from Booker T. Washington High School and likely served the same communities. That seemed like a good destination for our now-surplus engagement rings.
As far as Angie could tell, it had very good references. She’d talked to Amelia Briggs, since it was in her area. Angie said that Amelia had said they were great, and also said, ‘Say hello from me!’ She hadn’t been willing to elaborate on that. I figured there was some inside joke we would get in due course.
Somehow, we segued from that conversation to one about credit cards. Some of us had them, while others didn’t. Jas, for instance, was an authorized user on my American Express. That was fine with both of us, and it was helping her build a credit history, but we agreed that she should have her own card, too. Paige was in much the same boat, piggybacking off of Angie’s credit.
Jas decided to head to the bank on Thursday and apply for a Mastercard. It should be a no-brainer for them. She had plenty in the bank and had for years. Her lack of income shouldn’t be a factor right now. Banks were handing out credit cards to students like candy in 1986. Sometimes there would be three or four tables offering cards set up outside the MSC.
We discussed her (and Paige) just taking one of those offers, but there was little point. The bank’s terms were at least as good, and they might well get her a card more quickly. If not, the tables at the MSC would always be an option.
As a practical matter, most of us might never truly need a credit score. We had already bought a house outright and might well buy subsequent ones outright as well. Cammie needed one, but that was really Camel, not Cammie herself.
At the same time, we were excellent credit risks, and we should have documentation of that. Perhaps it would matter at some point.
We put many things on cards specifically to have a documented history of paying those debts. Once we had more people with cards, we would need to rotate who paid for things.
These were good conversations. None of us was worried, but money is one of those things it’s good to discuss in detail before weddings. Even if you don’t think money is likely to ever be the issue, it can be an issue even for very wealthy people. Much of the time, it’s not the money that’s actually the issue, it’s the expectations people put on how it will be handled.
Communication, communication, communication. Always.
Those of us going to the movie went to a Chinese buffet first. For that, sitting together was fine, even encouraged. Amy and Mel had become fairly good engineer friends. There were enormous differences between them, but they were two purple-haired women who looked at some things the same way. Both of them were perfectionists when it came to their fields, both of them were excelling in male-dominated majors, and both of them were looking forward to using their skills in the real world.
They also had things they could teach each other. From what I could see, Amy was already a better engineering manager, while Mel was better at deflecting opposition with humor. At the same time, Mel was willing to let some things slide that Amy would never tolerate, and some were things Mel perhaps shouldn’t tolerate either. Right now, we were at the ‘training wheels’ stage of all of this. A man making subtle slights at women might go under the radar in college. In a workplace setting, it could thoroughly undermine her career if she let it slide.
Of course, Mel was unlikely to ever work in that sort of environment, but she might still be subject to it. Cammie and Mel, together, would have to be taken seriously in order to really succeed. Just because they had skills didn’t necessarily mean they could simply expect to be taken seriously, though. And, even if they had wealth and power, they might not be able to demand it, either. In the end, people would think what they thought. A sexist jerk might not be able to derail Cammie and Mel, but they might be able to do some damage, depending on exactly who that jerk was.
It was an amusing coincidence that Amy and Mel had met over counter-cultural hair, but these things happen. It was also nice, because it gave them a connection to each other. They might have bonded anyway, but hair let it happen early.
I hadn’t seen ‘The Quiet Earth’ in nearly twenty years, if I remembered correctly. That was good, because I shouldn’t have ever seen it. I remembered only broad elements of the plot, and could easily hide that.
The story was simple enough, if initially baffling. Early one morning, a man — Zac — awakens to find himself apparently alone in the world. As the story develops, it turns out that he had known some sort of calamity might happen, triggered by something he had been working on called Project Flashlight. Unable to figure out any way to undo whatever had happened, Zac did what many people might do when they find themselves alone — go somewhat crazy. He talked to cardboard cutouts of famous people, declared himself to be the President of the Quiet Earth, and so forth.
Narrowly avoiding killing himself, he went on living, then met another survivor — a woman — a few days later. Naturally, they wound up in bed. The two of them found a third survivor, and an inevitable love triangle formed. They compared notes and discovered that they were each in the process of dying when whatever caused all this (‘The Effect’) happened, and that was apparently why they were still here. Perhaps, of course, they weren’t ‘here’ at all, but somewhere else, with the world continuing without them, but that made little difference to them.
Against this background, Zac, ever the engineer, discovered that fundamental physical constants were now fluctuating and predicted that The Effect would happen again soon. He made plans to destroy the Flashlight station, thus causing the worldwide network to shut down, and eventually did so, dying in the process.
But his death was synchronized to the Second Effect, and he found himself alive, but in a fantastic world that looked little like Earth. That’s where the movie ended.
Unsurprisingly, this was the sort of movie that caused the seven of us to opt for ice cream (at home — all of the ice cream shops were closed) and a lengthy discussion of just what happened, why, and what it all meant. For me and Angie, the transferred-at-death scenario brought on thoughts we couldn’t share around Amy, but could save for later. For Amy, though, the notion of life after death interacting with some engineering marvel was a big thing, one she loved. Mel loved it, too — perhaps on our behalf, but perhaps simply because she was an engineer and saw things that way.
Meanwhile, loneliness was a major part of the plot, and ‘loneliness’ certainly applied to Cammie. It applied to Angie, too. And to Amy. And — although I couldn’t admit it here — to myself. Angie could admit more than I could, at least.
None of us had been desperately lonely, but Amy could — and did, with humor — point to herself as someone who had once felt like she might wander the world in a ‘two ships passing in the night’ sort of way, interacting with people but never forming true connections to them. This Amy wouldn’t — and perhaps couldn’t — do that. We had changed her. She, perhaps, had changed us, too.
I was glad we hadn’t tried to make a ‘sexy’ date night out of it. It was the epitome of a ‘talking’ date night movie, and making it a group date worked better for everyone.
I took Amy home at nearly midnight. She was yawning, but very glad she’d stayed up.
As we pulled up to the Commons, she said, “Meg is going to think I was doing more than talking.”
I chuckled and nodded, then said, “It’s good for her to be wrong sometimes.”
“It is!” Amy said, and giggled a bit. She shifted and said, “I said it before, but I’m so glad you suggested that. What a great little movie! It’s a shame few people are seeing it.”
“It’s probably not for everyone,” I said. “Too many questions. Too few answers. Some people hate that. They want to be entertained, not have to think too deeply about anything.”