Chapter 12: The Dice Was Loaded From The Start

Friday, August 16, 1985

Candice and Sherry joined the six of us for lunch at the pizza place. We would be seeing them daily within a couple of weeks, but it was good to check in and see how they were doing.

They’d heard about us going to Live Aid, certainly, but not about the more interesting parts of our time there. I had no intention of sharing it. It wasn’t a big secret, but it would feel a great deal like bragging. I also wanted it to stay far off of Dad’s radar. Well, all of the parents, but he was the biggest concern.

Camille and Francis might be nearly as bad, though. Even if we hadn’t spent any of their money on this trip, accepting a large gift like theirs, then making what looked like a lavish donation, might seem ‘off.’

As already, and repeatedly, noted, the whole thing would partly come to a head within two years, maybe less. Definitely before any weddings. It would then really explode within three years if P.C.’s Limited stayed on its current pace. By that point, or not long after, it would be us giving them gifts of travel.

Until then, though, it would be best to keep a lid on things. I didn’t regret the donation — it had been amazing! — but I feared some consequences it might bring.

For now, the focus was Candice and Sherry. They weren’t quite on our timeline for proposals and ceremonies, but they seemed to be on that path. Living together would be the next hurdle. They spent quite a lot of time together now, but living together can change things.

We talked some about how things would work. It seemed to us like they might want to join us for dinner sometimes, perhaps often. They would probably have breakfast and maybe lunch on their own. Lunch might depend on where their classes were, though. If the two of them were far apart, maybe one or the other would join us.

We would have parties they would join (some enthusiastically) and some they wouldn’t. Both Sherry and Candice were (or would be, in Candice’s case) business majors, and were welcome to join us for studying, but that might never really work for Candice. She might have to find her own study buddies. That sucked, but we were likely to have very few overlaps with her. We might have some with Sherry, though.

And, of course, we would have been through it. We could act as tutors and mentors when circumstances called for it.

Candice and I needed to remain conscious of the history between us. That would forever define our relationship. The two of us had shared moments no one else had. Moments which may well have saved her life but had also left wounds. That I hadn’t known I was causing those wounds didn’t matter. They were there and would always be there.

As she’d said in the spring, things had come around full circle. The fall of 1980 had been a special, magical time for both of us. Candice had been what I needed to escape the worst scars of a failed marriage. One she could never know about, unfortunately. I had been what she needed to break the hold a horrible predator had on her. We’d both found happiness we didn’t believe was possible for us.

Then it abruptly came crashing down. There had really never been the slightest chance it wouldn’t come crashing down, and we both knew that, but it had still been devastating at the time.

Now we were important to each other, but as close friends. She would do well wherever she was, I was pretty sure. My hope was that she would do better with us in her life. We would see.

Sherry was a better partner for her than I could have been, and Jas was a better partner for me than Candice could have been. When it came down to it, she had been my ‘rebound.’ I hadn’t admitted it to myself at the time, but she was.

We would always love each other. That was really what mattered.

On a more practical note, they had sent their paint choices to Cammie and Mel and things were now repainted and ready. We would see them, along with both sets of parents, on the 24th for move-in. Unlike our move-in, we weren’t offering to host their parents. We could have, since we had the basement guest room and the second-floor apartment. However, we didn’t really want to call too much attention to the extra apartment. As for the basement guest room, the polite fiction was that it was part of Candice and Sherry’s two-bedroom apartment, with one of them sleeping there.

I doubted any of the parents believed that for a second. It didn’t matter. That’s what a polite fiction is: something you suspect is untrue but allow yourself to believe just enough. Offering to let them sleep there, even for one night, would be admitting Candice and Sherry slept together. That wasn’t on the agenda for this trip.

Everyone was looking forward to the moving day. After that, the next big step was getting them registered for classes. They had their schedules planned out, but wouldn’t find out whether they got the classes or class sessions they wanted until registration. Sherry would register on the 28th, Candice on the 29th.

As always, they had our numbers. If they needed anything in place to make their move-in easier, they had only to ask. We would be up there soon and had plenty of time to help.

Candice and Sherry bade us farewell with plenty of hugs. After that, the rest of us briefly considered what to do next. None of us had seen a movie since ‘Back To The Future’, and there were many favorites of mine out right now. After some discussion, we decided to see ‘Real Genius’.

For it, I had to violate my usual inclination. When it came to movies I’d seen ‘before,’ I seldom discussed the movie itself, beyond perhaps a detail or two. I didn’t offer details for ‘Real Genius’, but I did offer my thoughts about it.

When I’d first seen it, in the company of exactly the sort of audience who should have loved it, we all disliked it. It wasn’t even a mild dislike, for that matter. The best grade any of us would have given it was a C, I think. We wanted it to ‘make sense’ and ‘be plausible.’ In many ways, it just didn’t. Some scenes were nearly laughable if taken at face value.

That had changed over the years. The trick, I thought, was to not take it so seriously. Later — and not decades later, but within five years — we’d come to view it as well worthy of cult classic status. As it turned out, Angie agreed. That had largely been her experience of it as well.

It wasn’t about making sense or being plausible. The point was the characters. Who, in our circles, hadn’t met or heard stories about the professor with an ego so large he believed he could get away with anything, even misappropriating funds and coasting on the brilliant work of his grad students, with no chance of someone stopping him? Or the nerdy, overachieving kid with overbearing parents and limited social skills? The brilliant but irreverent grad student with no respect for anyone or anything except those he found his intellectual equals? The various maladapted characters who had their own form of ‘demented and sad, but social?’

What nerdy guy in the later half of the 1980s (and, most likely, the entirety of the 1990s) hadn’t dreamed of meeting a girl like Michelle Meyrink’s Jordan? She might be just another embodiment of the ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’, perhaps, but there’s a reason why that trope is as common as it is.

I spoiled as little of it as I could, but made sure to let them know its claim to ‘realism’ was as tenuous as that of ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ or ‘The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension’.

In the end, it worked. All of us came out of it having enjoyed it. We gently mocked the stupider parts but enjoyed the characters and their ridiculous hijinks.

Angie had a point, one that resonated with us.

“Imagine if I figured out Tom Myerson’s secrets and some unscrupulous jerk sold that to someone who might use it to bring down the stock market. Oh, perhaps not intentionally, but there’s a reason Tom hid the best parts of his work. Even if it took ludicrous disguises and a ridiculous plot, I’d want to make sure they couldn’t profit from it. Discredit them, leave them in a world of hurt, and make them regret the day they ever met me! I get it. The mechanism is dumb, but the righteous anger is right on, as is the payoff.”

Mel, continuing to cement her place as our nerdy (if soon to be purple-haired) engineer, loved it the most of those who hadn’t seen it before. A&M’s engineering school was hardly Caltech (much of ‘Real Genius’ was inspired by stories from Caltech), but there were enough similarities for Mel to paint herself and her fellow engineers into the picture.

Cammie and Mel headed off after dinner. We would see them tomorrow, after all.

After the movie, I drove us to Mom and Dad’s house, since all four of us were staying there tonight. As we drove, we talked about the pizza place. It probably had been one of our last dinners there. Heck, it might be the last one. The end of an era, perhaps.

For one thing, it wasn’t going to last forever. If I’d had to bet, I would have bet on it closing before 1988. Upstarts (in Houston, at least) like Chuck E. Cheese would beat it competitively, and the physical space it occupied would be at risk with the mall’s remodeling.

For another, we would be able to have dinner with Candice and Sherry most days of the year, should they and we want. Why go out in Houston under those circumstances?

If we found out it was closing in time, though, we might try to visit. Heck, it’d be fun to round up as much of the old gang as possible and have a reunion there.

In some ways, it felt hard to believe it had been five years ago when Angie and I started planning the study group. So much had happened, but the time had also sped along. Still, five years ago we had the basics of a group, with Angie, Mel, and me already members. Cammie had joined within a few months. Jas and Paige were later additions, but no less for it.

Angie, Mel, and I, in particular, had a wealth of memories built up around the pizza place. Emily and Jimmy kicking everyone’s ass at video games, Mike and I — well, mostly me — introducing the subject of his house as a meeting place, dinners before movies, and all of that.

If we were to have a study group reunion — which we really should — where better? It might be impossible, sadly. It might be closed before we could get everyone together. Would it make it until 1989, our five-year class reunion? Would the old gang be back in town?

And ... would those who had dropped out along the way — Dan, Marcus, Debbie, Mike, Sarah, and perhaps Nancy — even want to get together? Some of them might still have hurt feelings in one way or another. They deserved an invitation, though. If time healed all wounds, they might want to attend.

The four of us spent considerable time packing. We would finally head back home Sunday after nearly two months away. We had more than we’d left with, but most of it fit in our suitcases. The few things that didn’t (things we hadn’t taken to Britain but had taken on the family trip, for instance, like the very conservative dress Angie had worn to the ill-fated family reunion) would easily fit in the car.

Still, we’d gotten everything out in Houston, partly just to wash it all! We had plenty of repacking to do.

While I was repacking, and after Mom and Dad had gone to bed, I conducted a quick search of my closet. The porn was buried, but it was there. I moved it out to the car.

I hadn’t checked every box, and it’s possible more was in there, but hopefully Mom would be spared finding it should she need to go through the closet.

That was a very good thing.

We would have the house to ourselves for one night. Cammie and Mel had extended their trip and were going back on Tuesday. They’d wanted all of Sunday and Monday to hang out with the Rileys.

All of us were happy about that. Now, if we could only do something about the Clarkes...

Not likely, at least not in the short term.

Saturday, August 17, 1985

The ten of us met at an IHOP not far from AstroWorld around nine. We weren’t planning on a fast-paced theme park day. This would be relaxed, and much of it would probably be the parents watching as the kids rode things. There were plenty of shows, though, and we could all enjoy those together.

Breakfast, though, was best done outside of the park.