Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 145: Loose Ends
Thursday, May 29, 1986
We spent much of the day continuing our wedding investigations. It wasn’t just the people we would hire, either. After phoning first, we stopped by Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church in the afternoon. The minister wasn’t in, but we didn’t need him. We needed the office staff, and they were available.
Our target dates were July 11th or 18th, 1987. We were unsure which would be better. The 18th was slightly more desirable, and we would probably go with that unless there was a good reason to change.
For now, Emerson was willing to hold both dates for us. They would require us to choose if someone else wanted either one. We might discuss it with the other couple (or, presumably, couples) if that happened. If they strongly preferred one or the other and we didn’t, why not let them have the one they wanted?
Cammie and Mel were unsure if they wanted to get married here or in College Station. They had significant roots up there, but — like us — they would have a lot of Houston-based people or people flying in to attend.
The date they most wanted — May 23rd — was available. So was May 30th. The 23rd was Memorial Day weekend, which might be good for people in terms of spending a couple of days in Houston. It was also better for getting back in time for Gene and Sue’s wedding, tentatively scheduled for June 13th.
But the 30th was two weeks after the end of finals, not just one. There was some feeling that getting married just one week after the end of finals might be a trifle stressful. Mel’s exact language was, ‘I will probably be pulling my hair out! Which isn’t ideal for finals week.’
The Rileys would likely handle a lot of the details, though, and Mel acknowledged that. She generally trusted her mother to handle whatever needed handling. Thus, the 23rd remained a solid option.
As with us, Emerson agreed to hold both dates for now. Since it was less certain they would get married there, though, they wanted some sort of commitment by early July this year. For us, they would wait until late August.
I spoke briefly to Angie in the early evening. The trip was going great. There was one particularly amusing story so far. The same cousin who had given Angie and Paige some grief last year was still at it, apparently, saying they’d gotten engaged too soon and should have waited for the right guy.
Apparently, Ted had heard the cousin, stepped in, and quietly said, ‘Once upon a time, I said things like that, and I was very wrong. You should rethink where you’re coming from. Would you feel happy if someone told you that you just hadn’t met the right man yet? It’s no business of anyone except theirs. If you can’t be happy for them, just be quiet.’
That had gotten him hugs from both Angie and Paige. Both of them acknowledged that he might have just seen an opportunity to curry favor with them and taken it — he would be around them far more than around the cousin, after all — but it worked either way. If he retreated from the standard he’d just set, they would throw him right back under the bus. It would be far harder for him to get out from under it a second time.
Friday, May 30, 1986
We spent one more day on the wedding trail. By the end, we had three florists, two videographers, three photographers, four caterers, and three bakers on the short list. None of them was a clear winner in their category. I had my preferences on some, but my opinions ranked fairly low in the pecking order.
It still seemed likely that both couples would use the same person or firm for each job. We didn’t have to, but everyone seemed pretty confident that Jas and Paige would agree on nearly everything. If they didn’t, it would be fine. There was no pressure on them to pick the same people. They just probably would.
Except for catering, that is. We almost certainly needed to have only one caterer. Maybe not, but it would be weird giving people a choice of meals from multiple caterers, or trying to wrangle what would essentially be two separate buffets. Having two bakers would be fine — each couple would have a cake. Two menus, though, seemed weird.
We probably needed to have only one photographer. There was some initial thought that two would be nice. They could, after all, take wedding pictures for each wedding at the same time. But the subset of people who would be in only one wedding or the other was pretty small compared to the overlap. We would save five or ten minutes at the cost of a great deal of confusion, I suspected.
Two would give us multiple angles, though. Maybe that mattered? It was a discussion for Jas, Paige, Camille, and Jean. Or, at least, I thought it was.
Part of having a double wedding really was coordination. It needed to function as two weddings, but it also needed to function as one event. We were very good at coordination, though. I really didn’t see that changing.
Cammie and Mel were leaving tomorrow morning to head up to College Station. Classes for them (and Amy) started on Tuesday. We asked them to say hi from us, and they promised to.
My pager went off around three. Checking it, the callback number was in Austin and had Lee’s code. I stopped at a nearby payphone and called him back.
“Hey, Steve!” he said. “Thanks for the quick call. Hope I didn’t disturb anything important.”
“Important, yes, but not timely. We’re working on the weddings, and they’re not for more than a year.”
He chuckled.
“Been through it! It’s all timely! Anyway, you’re going to be in New York in about two weeks, right?”
“That’s the plan,” I said.
“Got some time on Wednesday, the 11th, through Friday, the 13th?”
“Depends. Wednesday I can. We have to be available on Thursday and Friday in case CBS wants to redo anything.”
“Will you know in advance if they need you?” he said.
“Probably. I’m the least likely to get called in, I think.”
“I’m heading out there, and was hoping you could meet me. We’re approaching some of the major banks about lines of credit. And, by ‘we,’ I mean me, possibly along with you. Michael would prefer not to travel right now, and I’m supporting him on that. But, with two-thirds of the board of directors on hand...”
“You can commit the company,” I said.
“Nailed it! Michael’s totally on board — he’s just got stuff going on that is better with him handy. Mostly the 386 work. We’re less than halfway through transitioning that to me, right now. No sense disturbing such a time-critical project!”
“Makes total sense. I’m happy to help, and we’ll make the timing work.”
“Great! Where will you be staying?” he asked.
“The Grand Hyatt.”
“Good location. I was thinking of it myself. I’ll just go with it.”
“Works for me,” I said. “I’ll just take a taxi anywhere I go, pretty much, unless it’s walking distance. Subway is probably fine, but I don’t know it.”
“Makes sense. I’m planning to do the same. We can share the fare. Not that either of us is paying, but you know what I mean.”
“I do! It’ll be good to see you. You’ll probably get to meet my sister and her fiancée and likely some other friends of mine.”
“Can’t wait!” he said. “I keep hearing great things.”
“All true!”
He laughed loudly.
“This will be fun. Bringing a suit?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I figured it would be for the theater, but it still can be. Just ... double duty.”
“You don’t need one in Austin, but the New York crowd is pretty buttoned-down and formal.”
“That fits with their reputation. I’ll be comfortable. Lots of time wearing a suit in high-pressure situations.”
He laughed.
“Good practice, definitely! I’ll see you in a bit under two weeks.”
“Looking forward to it!”
I hung up, then explained the whole thing to the girls. They found it funny. So did I, really. Just a few months into this ‘godparent’ thing and here I was, potentially about to sign off on what I fully expected to be multi-million-dollar lines of credit.
This was going to be my life going forward, after all, unless we made a highly abrupt change of direction. Getting started at twenty was unusual, but we were pretty unusual even without including the really unusual parts.
It would work. And it should make for some really interesting papers and class projects, too.
I doubted we would run into the same people, but it would also be good practice for some future New York trip, likely within the next year and a half, where we would work out the details of the IPO. By this point, I very much doubted the IPO would happen on the same day. Too many smashed butterflies! If it did, it would largely be a coincidence.
The same year made sense, though. The spring or summer of 1988 still looked ideal to me. For one thing, I really didn’t want to screw up Michael meeting the love of his life, and that would probably happen if we broke the timing too much in either direction.
I called the Grand Hyatt and changed our reservation to arriving on the 9th. A couple of extra days in New York wouldn’t hurt anyone!
In the early evening, I gave the College Station house a call using the coded ring. Amy answered within a couple of rings on the second call.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hey, Amy!” I said.
“Steve! It’s wonderful to hear your voice!”
“It’s wonderful to hear yours, too,” I said. “I am very glad you have not died! How was your trip? How are you?”
She chuckled and said, “And I am very pleased that you have not died! My trip was very good, and I am doing well. It has been nice to be here. Very quiet, but Al is good company, as are Cleo and Tony. How has your summer been so far?”
“It’s been good. The trip to Omaha was fun, if short, and we’ve been doing a lot of wedding prep over the last week or so.”
“That sounds like a lot of work,” she said. “Good work, though! I am very much eagerly anticipating all of these weddings. It is very different thinking about them when you know the people getting married.”
“It is!” I said.
She sighed and said, “I have been experiencing a new thing. Before, I never felt as if I were lonely. And I am not truly lonely now, as I hear other people describe it. But, until now, it has been either being away from my parents, which is complicated, or being away from people like Claire, and why would I be around Claire aside from living nearby? It is very different when there are people you care about. I would not want you changing your plans to be here, nor to change my plans to be there, but it is still different.”
“It is,” I said. “Phone calls really help. We’ll come up there and visit in about three weeks or so, too. Not sure of the exact dates, but that’s the plan.”
“I am very much looking forward to it! It will also be nice to have Cammie and Mel around. They are coming back soon?”
“Tomorrow. They’ve been involved in the wedding planning, so they can tell you some of what we’ve been doing.”
“You are going to New York on Monday?” she asked.
“We are.”
“Have a safe flight, and safe travels!”
“Thanks! Have a great semester!” I said.
“I plan to.”
“I love you, Amethyst Finch,” I said.
“And I love you, Steve Marshall,” she said. “I also love Jasmine. Please say hello from me.”
“I will, right now,” I said, then did so.
Jasmine giggled and said, “Tell her, ‘Hi, and I love you, too!’”
“I heard that!” Amy said, “I cannot wait to see you both again! Though I will have to, and that is fine. I will be busy!”
“Goodbye for now.”
“Goodbye!”
Jas and I talked about the call. If we could, we would take a two-night trip up to College Station on or about the weekend of the 21st and 22nd. That was comfortably between the return from New York and Angie’s birthday. We were leaving for Chicago on the 26th, the day after Angie’s birthday, which made some sense. It gave us a few extra days overall. The big family reunion was planned for the fourth, and we would fly back on the fifth, thus giving Dad Sunday to recover.
Saturday, May 31, 1986
Much of today was spent making sure we were properly packed for New York. We didn’t find anything missing that we needed during the trip, so that was good. We kept Camille and Francis’s washing machine busy for a while, though.
Two days until we flew up to New York. It should be quite a trip!
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