Chapter 19: Semester Kick-Off

Saturday, August 31, 1985

With the party prep done, today’s most important task was a bit of shopping. Once that was done, it became a day for phone calls. Parents and friends far and wide got calls.

I left Michael a message, pretty much just saying hello and hoping everything was great. Laura and I talked for a bit, and she also talked to Jas, Cammie, and Paige (the last two only briefly).

Jess was doing great, and said she would probably have ‘medium-sized’ news soon. She was also missing me, but I think it was mostly in an ‘itch needing scratching’ sort of way. There would only be a limited amount of that. Flying to California wasn’t an option all that often.

Maybe in December, though. A plan was slowly coming into focus. A complicated, sneaky plan. Angie and I were considering planning a ‘Southern California trip’, complete with Disneyland and beaches. As far as it went, that would happen — Disneyland just after Christmas would be awesome. But it was also a feint. After a few days, we would ‘change hotels.’ The next hotel would just happen to be in Hawaii.

Obviously, the game would be up when we arrived at LAX to fly to Hawaii. Jas and Paige might even figure it out sooner. Still, all of it would be appreciated, we both thought.

Lizzie and Janet were considering meeting us in LA. They hadn’t made it to Disneyland yet. And, if we could make the timing right, Jess would make sure she was out there for the LA part of the trip.

I wasn’t going to call Marshall until tomorrow. Tulane was playing #19 Florida State today. I didn’t hold out much hope for them, but it was still a big game. Marshall wasn’t starting, but he was on the two-deep roster and would probably see the field a fair bit.

Cal and Andy said Coach Sherrill was still adjusting the A&M roster. Andy looked to be the number two tight end. That said, Rod Bernstein, the number one tight end, was someone whose name I knew from my first life. He’d played in the pros and done fairly well there.

The good part was that Andy was getting lots of practice with the first-team offense and was picking up pointers from Rod (who himself had played tight end for only a year after moving from running back). With Andy having redshirted last year, he would (most likely) be the starting tight end for two years after Rod graduated.

Cal was in a similar position. He was one of the second-string linebackers, but the first-string players were damn good, and he could learn from them, then hopefully be in the starting lineup for a couple of years. Maybe three, depending on how things went next year.

Neither really even wanted to move into a starting role this year. Oh, they would have loved doing it, but doing so would mean either a friend of theirs got injured or didn’t play up to their potential. It might be a break for them, but it would hamstring the team, and both of them had high hopes for this season. Not, perhaps, national championship hopes, but they both felt a Southwest Conference title was well within their reach.

Given their redshirts, both of them were hoping to be four-time SWC champs. Most likely every SWC player hopes that. Very few manage it. I was the only one who knew A&M had been SWC champs for at least three years in a row in my first life. Repeat that, and there would be just one more year to go.

Both of them had every intention of completing their degrees on time and being graduate students for their final year. I wasn’t going to bet against either of them doing just that.

The east-coasters (Amit and Sheila, Gene and Sue) were doing great. Amit confessed that the clock was running on his proposal, too. He didn’t have a timetable, but it was definitely in the cards. Gene didn’t say that, but I imagined it was true, too.

Gene also mentioned that Curtis had been ‘unusually busy.’ He and Sue had been to New Orleans for two weeks recently and Curtis had spent a considerable amount of time either in his office or in his study at home. I had no idea what was up, but ... perhaps something big? I couldn’t remember any major Fifth Circuit decisions from this time, but maybe it had been minor in my first life? After all, I hadn’t been a lawyer, nor all that well-versed in what the Fifth Circuit had decided when.

Sunday, September 1, 1985

Reverend Mark was happy to see us back. He was even happier when we approached him together and told him we were all interested in joining.

For this church (and most UU churches), the ‘path to membership’ was simple: attend a few fairly informal classes on Unitarian Universalism, then sign the membership book. No tests, no professions of faith, nothing like that. In order to be counted as a voting member, one must also have made a donation of record within the last year. That donation could be as little as one dollar, though. We planned to pledge more, but within the expected means of college students.

In a few years, we might surprise Reverend Mark with a notable contribution. Nothing crazy, but — if we were as happy here as we hoped, anyway — we would share our good fortune.

When we got home, we dove right into party prep, putting snacks, beverages, plates, cups, napkins, utensils, and all the rest out. We also moved Tony and Cleo to the basement guest room. Any guests who wanted to see the ‘new pussy’ (a term we still planned to avoid actually using) were welcome to visit them, and I imagined quite a few people would.

The first person to arrive turned out to be Lindsay. She met me with a big hug.

“Hey!” she said. “It’s good to see you!”

“Good to see you, too!”

She let me go, turned, and said, “And this is Vanessa.”

“Hi,” Vanessa said. No hug, but I hadn’t expected one. We shook hands instead.

“I’ve seen you at a few meetings,” she said. “You’re fairly easy to spot.”

I chuckled and said, “Still just an ally, though. No more — but no less.”

“We need allies!” she said.

Before long, Peter and Sarah joined us, along with some of their housemates. From there, the party was on.

Claire and Kay got there soon after, as did Katy and her roommate Lisa. Darla arrived about one-thirty and greeted me with a kiss, but then wound up deep in conversation with Jas. Based on the number of looks I received from both of them, I was nearly certain it was either about me or they wanted me to believe it was about me.

By two, we had most of the accounting army, biology brigade, physics posse, math mob, my CS comrades (that name needed work, but we weren’t as much of a study group yet), and various other study groups assembled. We also had a dozen neighbors, whose names I was trying to remember, and about fifteen GSS members. Marco himself turned up just after three. He didn’t stay long, but said he had wanted to see the house for quite a while and also see how we were doing after the summer. Angie and Paige made him sign their yearbooks, which we all found hilarious. He, in turn, said he would bring his to the next meeting.

For my part, I tried my best to just circulate, catching up with my friends and trying to meet some of the newcomers. I also did my best to help Candice and Sherry meet people, and I noticed Jas, Angie, Paige, Cammie, and Mel all helping them, too.

Each of us took people downstairs to meet Tony and Cleo. They were pretty popular, and it didn’t seem like they were feeling overwhelmed by all of their new human admirers.

I kept a bit of an eye on Larry Beck and Brad Henderson (who helped us back when we were getting ready for WarCon) and Paul Kensington and Hank Carlson, my CS comrades. Or, perhaps, crew or cadre? Judging from the number of times Angie, Jas, and Paige were around them, and the number of times one or another of them was near Claire or Kay, I suspected potential semi-blind-date arranging might be going on.

For my part, I was steering clear of that. Not that I hadn’t occasionally helped with some matchmaking, but this seemed very much like it should be left for the experts.

That, and it would raise various questions as to why I was arranging dates with Claire. Saying I had dated her might raise awkward questions. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but it also didn’t need to be part of this discussion. ‘I dated Claire even though I’m with Jas, but we’re done dating now so why not take her out?’ seems a trifle awkward.

At some point, Claire might need to mention me. It seemed more likely that she wouldn’t. No one but me, her, the girls, and maybe Kay knew about trips to the basement, and none of us would mention it. Taking her to a few movies and a sock hop could easily be explained as just spending some time with a friend.

Darla, Claire, Kay, Lindsay, and a bunch of others left in a large exodus around five. Many of them wanted to get a real dinner, not just eat our snacks, since tomorrow was a class day.

Tony and Cleo came out around seven, and we made sure people took care with the back door. They mostly hung out on the cat tree, anyway. Safe, and a good vantage point from which to watch all of these strange new humans.

The party didn’t fully wind down until well after nine. The last three hours were much smaller, though. Mostly, it was little knots of people sitting in corners of the yard or different rooms in the house, talking quietly, with little circulating. I can’t imagine any of our neighbors would have found it bothersome or annoyingly loud.

For my part, a fair bit of time was split hanging out with Jas, Angie, Paige, Anne, Natalie, and several of the ‘GSS gang.’ I was, for the most part, the quiet one, but I felt welcome the entire time.

Anne and Natalie had clearly hit the ground running. No surprise there! They were clearly looking for people who might volunteer with PROMISE. At least six of the couples PROMISE had helped had agreed to respond to calls next year, too. Some might drop out, but some of the ones who hadn’t offered to give back might change their minds.

As we wrapped up, it was clear we’d invited a good group of people. There was very little trash just lying around. When a trash bag had filled, people had pulled it, tied it off, and replaced it, so we didn’t have the problem of overflowing trash cans, either. It took us about half an hour to get things fully settled down, but that’s not bad at all.

Jas and I just crashed, pretty much. Classes tomorrow!

Monday, September 2, 1985

Our day started with breakfast, courtesy of Cammie and Mel, followed by a walk to Economics 203: Principles of Economics, our first class. It started at nine, and nearly all of us business-types were in it — Angie, Paige, Cammie, Lindsay, Claire, and me.

Professor Danforth turned out to be a middle-aged guy with what seemed like a decent sense of humor. Hopefully, that would hold up throughout the course.

We spotted some familiar faces in the class. It was pretty obvious that we would have an Economics Ensemble up and running in little time.

After Economics, we had an hour to get to Martial Arts, which gave us a bit of time to kill. Nothing bad, though. Mel, Jas, Candice, and Sherry joined us there.

Martial Arts was taught by Sensei Nelson, a petite woman I guessed to be in her mid-30s. Women’s ages are notoriously hard to guess, though. I was pretty sure she knew her stuff and could probably whip any of us in seconds.

Proving that, she started class by recruiting a couple of the biggest, strongest-looking guys in class, then throwing them around the mat. I was certain at least one knew in advance what was going to happen. Maybe both of them did. I certainly wasn’t dumb enough to volunteer.

That, and while she would have whipped my ass in no time, it wouldn’t have been the way she whipped theirs. I knew more than enough to avoid contact and deflect some of the moves she used. The problem is, she likely knew several dozen other ways to make contact and do what she wanted with me.

This wasn’t a women’s self-defense class, but the class was nearly three-quarters female and self-defense was a prominent part of the course.