Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 55: Things to Come
Thursday, December 5, 1985
During the day, I kept hearing tidbits from friends of mine. Most of their ‘St. Elsewhere’-watching friends seemed to like Jess’s performance (though they phrased it as liking Paula and being curious about her). She had regulars hooked. Now to knock the next episode (long since filmed) out of the park!
When we all got home, Cammie had some recommendations for a house-sitter. The first name, Al Cooper, was on both Maxine’s and the property management people’s list. Per Maxine, he’d been a Bryan police officer for five years, was quite popular with nearly everyone, and had a sterling reputation. He carried personal liability insurance and used a contract that forbade him from snooping in anyone’s business.
There was some trepidation, considering that we’d had more run-ins with the police than we should have had, statistically. Al was from Bryan, not College Station, though. To date, we’d had no trouble with the Bryan police. The good references greatly helped, and he could certainly handle himself if something happened.
We agreed to give him a call and check him out. Why not?
I drove my car to the Commons, parked in the big lot, and arrived at Amy’s dorm room around five-thirty. She answered, wearing much the same outfit as before: purple studded collar and wrist cuffs, a different black t-shirt (still showing some midriff), and a slightly shorter (and a bit looser) skirt with some purple stockings or leggings. She had the same chunky Doc Martens on, as well as her usual eyeshadow and lip gloss and what I thought were a different pair of ankhs on her ears.
“Hello,” she said, stepping into a hug that caught me slightly by surprise. Looking over her shoulder, I think it was just as surprising to her roommate for Amy to be greeting anyone with a hug.
“Hello,” I said, hugging her back.
“It is so good to see you!”
“It’s good to see you, too.”
“Shall we?” she asked.
The role reversal was amusing. I didn’t think she was trying to ‘run things,’ but it felt like she was making a bit of a statement that she wanted this every bit as much as I did. That was new, and I liked it.
“We shall,” I said, offering my hand.
She looked at it for a second, then laced her fingers with me.
We set off down the stairs and off into the cool night.
“Do you get cold with that skirt?” I asked.
“The stockings help,” she said, shrugging. “It is a girl thing. I sometimes wear pants, but I do not prefer them, and ... they feel ... wrong ... for a date.”
“Pants are fine, if you wanted, but since you don’t prefer them...”
“I do not,” she said. “They are better than dresses, though. I think boys will not see the difference, but I like skirts and do not like most dresses.”
“Interesting,” I said. “And I mean that. It really is. Do you know why?”
She shook her head.
“I ... do not. Perhaps it is the option of having a shirt like this. Do you like it?”
She lifted her arms, dropping my hand. That bared about an inch of her tummy. Amy was... not the best actress, and it seemed obvious to me that she had given that response in hopes of highlighting her tummy. The obvious question was ‘why?’ Was this part of ‘more?’ Gauging my interest in ‘more?’ Something she thought ‘girls did?’ It might be all three, or none of the above.
I said, “I do. It’s nice. The shirt and ... not the shirt.”
She made a cute little snort, then lowered her arms, taking my hand again.
“You are easier to talk to about ... something like that ... than I imagined.”
“I’m glad,” I said.
“It feels to me as if boys are often simply...”
She paused, then said, “I think you know where that is going.”
“Interested in girls because they are girls.”
She snorted again and said, “I could make a slightly more coarse reply, but ... yes. Not over time, but on earlier dates. On our earlier dates, I felt safe from that, and now I feel as if I need not worry about it.”
“You’re a very interesting person, Amethyst. Anyone interested in you simply because you are a pretty girl ... or those coarser things...”
She snorted yet again.
“ ... would be missing out.”
“I know that, but even most girls do not seem to think so.”
“Don’t judge them based on Tiffany.”
She laughed, loudly.
“Oh, no! No, that would be most unfair.”
After a bit of unfruitful conversation about why else she might like skirts but not dresses, we switched subjects to classes. She was fully expecting to do well in all of hers. This semester, she had a somewhat modified schedule with three fewer hours to add a bit of room for working, but next semester she would be fully scheduled. We hadn’t coordinated any classes and I wasn’t expecting any overlaps. She might get some with Mel, maybe, but they hadn’t coordinated, either.
We made a tentative agreement to take Technical Writing together. That would be in a semester or two.
After a bit of shopping in the cafeteria line, where each of us changed our selections twice, we settled at a table for two. The MSC cafeteria wasn’t especially busy today, so we had a quiet place to talk. I doubted our topic would be as interesting as the ones Darla and I had talked about, but I was willing to be surprised.
And, to an extent, I was. Amy took a little bite of a roll, munched it, and then said, “You ... it was not a test, but you passed it.”
“Oh?” I said.
“The shirt. I liked doing it, but ... it was also ... we talked about this. Before. Some. If our dates had been conversation dates, that would have been fine. I was expecting that! Most of the dates I had in high school — more in number than I wanted, but still not many — were conversation dates. But the boys did not want them to be.”
I nodded.
“Teenage boys are known both for unrealistic aspirations and ... not one-track minds, but one track on which girls are the only thing, and it’s always going.”
She snorted again. I found her little snorts quite adorable.
“Girls ... apparently ... have a similar track. I ... mine was ... is ... different. But not ... not there.”
I just nodded again, not feeling sure about what to say to that.
“It was not that I was opposed, but I did not feel as if they were concerned with who I was,” she said, then shook her head. “No. They were concerned with who I was, in a negative sense. Perhaps being a girl was a plus, but being known for being my date? Or with me? That was a minus.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Really. I ... oh, heck. One of my friends in high school was the school outcast for nearly three years and relatively popular for her last year and a bit. You aren’t her, but I get it.”
“How did she switch roles so thoroughly?” Amy said.
“She was a very open lesbian. Many high schoolers are ... not kind.”
She snorted a bit at that.
I gave her a very short synopsis of the election, and how Lizzie went from outcast to popular. She seemed fascinated.
“Won’t work for me, but I don’t need it to work for me,” she said. “In high school, it matters. Here? Mostly, no one knows anyone. I know the people who like Hullabaloo Cafe, some girls on my floor, and some people in my classes. Ninety-nine percent of the people are just ... there. They mean nothing to me, and I mean nothing to them except maybe someone unusual to stare at.”
I nodded, and said, “Anonymity is part of the package when you have thirty-something-thousand students around you. Even Angie and Paige, who got a highlight in last year’s yearbook, are covered.”
“What did they do?” she asked.
“‘The Big Kiss,’” I said. “That charity thing last year, where they got thousands of couples to kiss at Kyle Field on Valentine’s Day.”
“I remember reading about that. It sounded amusing, if not for me. Had I had someone to kiss, perhaps that would have been different.”
“Their picture is next to one of Marco Roberts, the head of GSS, kissing ... um ... David, I think. I can’t remember his last name. He’s the leader of Trinity’s gay student group. I think Trinity, anyway.”
“Oh! Well, that would make them somewhat less anonymous, anyway.”
“I feel like it makes them feel more free to be themselves. Pictures of them kissing have been in newspapers, on TV, and in the A&M yearbook. They can’t pretend no one will know, so why not just be who they are?”
“Indeed,” she said. She waved a wrist (and the associated cuff) in the air and said, “That is partly how this came to be. I can be prickly on the inside. Showing it on the outside lets people know who I am.”
“So far, with one exception, you haven’t proven particularly prickly,” I said.
She snorted, then said, “I’m sor-”
I cut her off, saying, “Don’t apologize. As I said, most of the time you would have been right, and I can be prickly about cheaters, too. I am a very big believer in keeping your commitments. If you say you’ll do it, do it! If you let it be assumed that you will follow the usual relationship rules, follow them, too. Communication! If you can’t keep from cheating, tell your partner before you do it and let them decide if it’s okay or if they’re going to kick you to the curb, thus making it okay anyway. Or change plans if they hate the idea but will forgive you for mentioning it if you don’t do it. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. If you find you did, sit down and discuss it rationally.”
“That...”
She paused, then nodded thoughtfully.
“That is so in tune with what I believe that I would wonder if you were just saying what you thought I wanted to hear, if we hadn’t been through this and I didn’t know other things about you. For me...”
She hesitated, then nodded to herself.
“For me, it is ... as I said before, I often cannot intuit what is expected behavior. I figure out what is expected from others, then follow that. It is all about doing what one is supposed to do, or opting out clearly. This...”
She waved the wrist again.
“ ... says I opt out of some things. Conventional beauty standards, perhaps. Being non-confrontational when challenged. Perhaps ‘conformity,’ in general. Make them purple, and I fail to conform with the biggest group who also wear them. I ... do not wish to confront everyone and challenge everything. I am, for the most part, happiest when I either do what I want by myself or when I follow the rules others expect. But ... following them as myself.”
I nodded at that, and said, “That all makes sense. It’s even pretty much how I saw them. Like I said, you haven’t been prickly in general. Not even ... overly countercultural. Different, but that’s a plus.”
She nodded a bit, then said, “The problem comes when I see a rule and use it and it turns out not to be a rule. You ... were an example of that. I was missing important information and did not realize it, because ... to be honest, I had not really considered the idea of someone being in sort of the relationship you and Jasmine have. There was ‘together’ and ‘apart.’ ‘Together’ came with exclusivity. One might understand, say, someone dating a few people non-exclusively, but you and Claire had been dating last spring and still appeared to be dating now.”
“And, as it turns out, we haven’t dated once this fall.”
She nodded again, and said, “Larry, her new boyfriend, seems quite good for her. And vice versa, as well. As I understand it, now that she is seeing him, you cannot.”
“Not unless both he and Claire embraced a relationship where that was fine. And Claire will not, neither for herself nor for him, I am nearly certain.”
“Which is sad for you,” she said.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.