Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 142: Catching Up
Wednesday, May 21, 1986
Given our early flight, we couldn’t get breakfast at the hotel. Instead, we grabbed a snack at the airport and planned to eat something more substantial in Denver, or perhaps on the second flight. Given how short our first flight was, I didn’t expect them to feed us anything much.
By now, actual meals on airplanes seemed normal again. I suspected they would go away, just as they had before, but they might not for us. We might not be coach passengers for the most part. After all, Warren Buffett was a model of relative frugality for someone with enormous wealth, but even he traveled by private jet (though, perhaps, not quite yet). Michael had traveled largely by private jet as well.
Part of that, I suspected, was security. Airports are fairly secure, but not as secure as one might like, and having to wait at a gate might itself be a risk. Sitting next to a random passenger, even in first class, might be a risk as well. They might be a physical threat, might want something from you (and become belligerent if you didn’t give them whatever it was), or might overhear something you said or read something private over your shoulder.
Part of it was time. Time mattered. The hours we were spending going to Denver, traipsing around the Denver airport, and waiting for our connecting flight could be spent doing something else. Ultimately, every hour you spent ‘commuting’ was an hour you could have spent either being productive or enjoying your personal life.
We wanted to do good in the world, not necessarily to aspire to the level of sainthood. There was, and would always be, a difference between being ‘assholes’ and enjoying some of the trappings of wealth.
We also wanted to maintain what would be known in the future as ‘work-life balance.’ By most accounts, Warren had done that, even if he also kept to a waking schedule that was a trifle early for me. Many CEOs hadn’t, and some claimed it was impossible to be a successful entrepreneur or business leader and keep one’s life in balance.
For us, things might be different. We had an enormous head start, for one thing, at least in terms of knowledge. For another, our goals were fundamentally different. It wasn’t maximizing profit or crushing the competition — it was making the world better.
What point would there truly be in getting this second chance if we used it to become workaholics, putting our jobs and companies ahead of family and relationships? We might, in the end, be just as (or more!) miserable than we had been. And we would have achieved that dubious milestone even when handed every opportunity in the world to do better.
We talked about this some on the drive to the airport. For now, this was mostly a theoretical discussion. We were legitimately ‘well off’ as of today. But if Microsoft, P.C.’s Limited, and Berkshire Hathaway all collapsed, and the real estate market in College Station went to hell, we would quickly revert back to ‘generally middle-class’ in a great hurry. None of our gains were truly realized. We were leveraged to the hilt and dependent on things going the way of our first life.
Judge no man happy, right? It seemed wildly unlikely that things would go that far astray, but our chickens had only partially hatched, at best. But, if they did, we would be happily middle-class, outdoing our parents and still doing good in the world. Just not by as much, or doing as much good.
Eventually, pulling a few million out and having some cash holdings would be smart. That point wasn’t now, though. In ten years? Easy. Now? When everything you have is slated for hundred-fold gains, or more, pulling anything significant out is foolhardy.
We would likely build a cash hoard next year ahead of Black Monday. We were going to continue to operate under the assumption that it was a real thing. We could jump back into Microsoft after Black Monday and probably improve our overall success.
But we would plow nearly everything back in (except what we needed to meet Camel’s balloon payments). That felt like a near necessity. We could rest on our laurels far more comfortably in 1997 than we could in 1987. The last few years of the 1990s had been huge for the stock market. I was pretty sure of that. But the 2000s were lousy for Microsoft and somewhat lousy for Dell. Both made huge comebacks in the 2010s, though, and we would want to be on board for those.
If history held, Apple was the stock to ride in the later 2000s. Maybe not the only one, but a big one.
No one was thrilled that we couldn’t really call ourselves ‘rich’ yet, but that’s how things work. Within two years, that would change, almost certainly.
Our flights were pretty much uneventful. That’s what you want, really. We had empty seats on both, giving each couple a row to themselves. We had a light lunch in Denver, skipped the food on the second flight, and arrived in Houston in the late afternoon.
This time, we didn’t have parents waiting for us at the airport. It wouldn’t have made sense for them to head up to Intercontinental Airport through rush hour traffic on a Wednesday. It was easy to commute from the airport to their houses during rush hour, but the opposite would be awful.
Instead, we had planned to meet the parents at a Steak and Ale fairly near Northwest Mall at six. That gave everyone plenty of time to get there.
Dinner conversation was lively, with us recounting the meeting and also the museum and our (fairly limited) adventures in Omaha. This dinner was just as much about celebrating our semester as it was about Omaha, really. A three-night trip is too short to justify a big reunion dinner, but a successful college semester is another matter.
After dinner, the four of us headed for Mom and Dad’s. They were heading to bed on their usual schedule, and we didn’t stay up much later than they did. We’d gotten up early, after all, and were pretty much ready for bed.
By mutual consent, we agreed there weren’t any particular revelations to add at this time. Soon enough would be soon enough.
The next big discussion was likely to be the one around paying for the wedding. We all agreed: the parents thought they were at least somewhat ‘on the hook’ for it. We didn’t need to disabuse them of that notion today, but we needed to before the fall semester started, most likely.
And we needed to do it without making the mothers feel like they were losing input. We all wanted our mothers involved. Not making final decisions, but very much encouraged to offer advice and suggestions. They just didn’t get veto power, either by virtue of being the mothers or by paying the bills.
It wasn’t about that, of course. It was about our already having (at least on paper) considerably more wealth than our parents did. We could pay for the weddings, and anything else would just be silly.
After getting ready for bed, Jas and I snuggled up and kissed.
“This was fun,” she said. “The trip, I mean. Not the flights. They could have been more fun...”
I chuckled and nodded.
“Sooner or later, perhaps. If not on a commercial flight, then on a private plane.”
“Yay!” she said. Then she grinned and added, “I bet they’re understanding when it’s a honeymoon.”
“Interesting theory. Maybe?”
“We certainly don’t want an arrest record, or publicity, or anything like that. But ... you know.”
“I know,” I said, chuckling.
“And we’re talking about at least three or four flights on our honeymoon, I think.”
“Unless we’re somewhere where trains are an option for city changes, maybe.”
“Well ... yes! That makes sense, too. We haven’t spent much time talking about where we should go,” she said.
“And?”
She giggled.
“So ... beaches are good. Or, at least, I think so. But it’ll be winter in the southern hemisphere, so probably not Australia? Europe is good, really, but we might want to include southern France. Or Italy, Greece, or parts of Spain. Something Mediterranean.”
“Italy sounds likely. Maybe also Southern France. We can do both. And, for that matter, Monaco.”
She giggled a bit more.
“We’ll need to be wealthier for Monaco to be a real option, but yeah. It’s not too bad to just set foot in, I think. As for France, I can get away with going to France and not seeing family once we’ve seen family once, so I approve.”
“Figure maybe southern France as the point where we all rendezvous? If they like it, anyway. Italy, France, maybe more of the continent for us? And them? Paige might want to head to West Germany, while we might or might not.”
“Eh. We can see West Germany anytime.”
“Only until about 1990 or so,” I said, chuckling. “1989? Somewhere in there.”
“I forgot. The whole ‘collapse of the Soviet Union’ thing, right?”
“Pretty much that.”
“That’s a big deal!” she said.
“Might not happen in this world, but I’m assuming it will. There are a lot of changes coming for Eastern Europe, and East Germany counts. Not just them, though. And not just Soviet-aligned states.”
“Not much in Western Europe?”
“Nah. Very little, really. A bit, here and there, but it’s minor,” I said.
“So ... not that concerned with West Germany versus just Germany. We’re good there. For a honeymoon, the Netherlands is much higher on the list. Amsterdam has a pretty cool reputation.”
“I’ve been there. Sort of. Many years in the future.”
She giggled again and said, “Sort of?”
“We just changed planes at the airport.”
“That’s ‘sort of’ being there, I agree.”
“Anyway ... if they want Tahiti or something, I’m not opposed.”
“Me, neither,” she said. “I feel like we just did Pacific island beaches, but that’ll be a year and a half gone by the time we get married. Still ... European beaches are maybe good for now.”
“Whichever one we don’t do, we’ll do later, I feel nearly certain.”
“Me, too.”
“It’s like we said earlier. Until we get further down the road and start actually realizing some of the paper profits, stuff could go to hell. Reasonably speaking, if it went halfway to hell, we would sell and still be in good shape. Mostly, I’m confident,” I said.
“Me, too! And we can easily afford the wedding and honeymoon.”
“Oh, that’s set. We have enough cash sitting around for that, easily, even if it turns into a three-ring circus.”
“Two rings maximum!” she said, giggling.
“And business class flights. First, maybe? There’s a point at which first is silly, but I can’t see honeymooning in coach if we can avoid it.”
“If we’re going to travel in either business or first, we need to bring a nice gift for the flight attendants.”
“Definitely!” I said.
“Then they’ll leave us alone!” she said, grinning.
“Hopefully!”
She yawned, then said, “Let’s get some sleep, husband-to-be. We don’t need to plan this all right now.”
“We do not, wife-to-be. Sleep is good.”
We kissed a bit more, then snuggled up for sleep.
Thursday, May 22, 1986
Angie and Paige spent much of the day getting ready for the Seiler family trip. That meant doing laundry, packing their larger bags, and so forth.
We spent a while talking honeymoons with them. Europe seemed likely for them as well. We all wanted to go to Tahiti, or somewhere generally similar, at some point, but this might not be the time, and everyone felt like we would have more opportunities. We also all wanted to go to Australia and New Zealand. That, too, would wait, likely for a spring or fall trip (which meant, quite possibly, our being done with our bachelor’s degrees, at least).
We had a year or so to discuss this. There was no rush. But getting a handle on it might be a good thing.
We also discussed weddings. Angie and Paige would want to interview everyone (photographers, videographers, bakers, reception venues and so forth), but they also said maybe Jas and I could make some of the initial contacts. Anyone we didn’t like was out, obviously. In the extremely unlikely event they disliked everyone we liked, we could double back, but it made sense for us to make some of the initial contacts.
We planned to do some of that next week. It was a good opportunity, since we were already in town and would have plenty of time.
Jas and I were staying with Camille and Francis tonight. Angie and Paige were staying here, since they would be with Tony and Jean for almost two weeks after tomorrow.
I gave Mark Blodgett a call in the middle of the day. He confirmed that we were still on for interviews on the 3rd, with the option to do more on the 4th if necessary. The plan was for us to arrive at nine in the morning and stay until they let us go. I doubted the big names would stay late just for us, so it made sense that we would continue on the 4th.
They wanted us in ‘casual clothes.’ I took that to mean business casual. That made sense to me. Looking well put together mattered, but we were officially there as ‘young people.’ A ‘new generation.’ Our generation wasn’t big on formalwear, as a general rule. We would look out of place if we overdid it.
Mark confirmed that, if they didn’t need us on the 4th, we would have a free day. We would stay in New York, of course, since we had theater tickets that night. Central Park was only a few blocks from the hotel, though, and we could certainly enjoy spending part of a day there. CBS was setting us up with reservations at Tavern on the Green, and promised we would be done in plenty of time for an early (and leisurely) dinner before our show.
We weren’t the only ones being interviewed for our episode of ‘60 Minutes’ on our days, but we were the only ones for our segment. Anne and Natalie were coming in on Thursday, and we would likely miss them. We didn’t know who else might be in it. Marco was coming in on Monday, the 9th, but would be in a different segment. And I doubted we would know anyone in the AIDS segment.
Between the 5th and the 11th, we would be on the road. We could pick up a rental car near the Hilton and return it there. I was busily making hotel reservations for our trip, which currently included Boston (where Angie and Paige would be in just a few days, amusingly), New Haven, and Salem. The girls wanted to go there after I’d mentioned visiting in the 2010s with the family and seeing some interesting parts of ‘Witch Trial’ history. Sad history, but interesting.
We parted in the late afternoon. When we arrived at the Nguyen house, Camille already had dinner ready. We had a lively conversation, dominated by both travel stories and some hints about various French relatives. It was going to be an interesting trip, it sounded like!
Friday, May 23, 1986
We picked up Angie and Paige around noon and swung by Tony and Jean’s to drop off their bags before getting on with the rest of the day. There was no big send-off planned for them. We had only done those for ones where it was just ‘the kids’ traveling, not for family trips. The plan was to meet Cammie and Mel at Rico’s, then visit Memorial, and finally hit the mall.
Rico’s was ... not there. There was a sign in the window, though, announcing a move to the strip center a block away. We headed over there, finding Cammie and Mel had already arrived.
The new Rico’s was about three times as big. It was also more elaborately decorated, though it still retained much of the character from before. No one was going to confuse this version of Rico’s with potentially being a front for drug smuggling, though! This was clearly a successful restaurant.
Rico himself was there, by coincidence, and insisted on shaking our hands. Whether or not we’d had a big part in his success, we had been part of the influx of new customers that had eventually transformed his business. It’s possible that the mentions in debate, and the ads in drama programs, had made a difference. It’s also possible that word getting out amongst the students had done it. Jess might have mattered as much, or more, than anyone else.