Variation on a Theme, Book 6
Copyright© 2024 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 77: Diabetic Coma Level Sweet
Sunday, January 5, 1986
Today set the pattern for the rest of our ski trip. We got up fairly early, had a hearty breakfast at one of the local restaurants, then hit the slopes after making sure to apply sunscreen liberally. We were at higher risk of burning any exposed skin here than we had been in Hawaii, after all. Everyone was a bit rusty, but we had the bunny slopes reconquered by lunchtime and were gliding down the easier beginner trails by dinnertime.
On what turned out to be the last run, my pager went off. At first, I was surprised it even worked up here, this being 1986. Then I realized there were probably a lot of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals up here. People who lived their lives under constant threat of a critical message coming in.
I might be someone like that before long, honestly. If so, I would start setting limits as soon as I had the means to do so. Go down that path too far and you lose control of your life. I’d learned that lesson from Dad and his refusal to answer the phone at night or even let it ring. He’d lost control, then took it back.
Most likely, I would achieve that by having some sort of assistant who could be trusted to triage things and interrupt me when it really mattered, not when anyone else thought it mattered. I had nearly no idea of the real scope of that person’s job, nor how to find one, but there was time for that. People managed it. I could.
This page had an unfamiliar number, but had Jess’s code attached, plus our code for ‘not urgent.’ That told me she was probably at a payphone and likely not far away.
That turned out to be right. She was under a mile away. We got our ski gear put away, then headed off to meet her.
She hugged everyone when we got there. Perhaps just to be a brat, she gave me the last hug, but it might have been the best. She also admired everyone’s rings, though also acknowledging that they were but pale imitations of the rings to come.
“It is so good to see you again!” she said, bouncing. “And...”
A woman passing by stopped and said, “Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt. But ... were you just on ‘St. Elsewhere’?”
Jess smiled.
“Yes, I was.”
“Oh! I love that show, and your part was so good! Harold!” she said, waving. “Come over!”
A few minutes later, Harold and Karen (a name that amused me far more than it did the others, since they didn’t have the context) had autographed photos of Jess. They seemed thrilled by the whole thing.
Once they’d left, Jess shrugged and grinned.
“What can you do?” she said.
“That was cool!” Paige said. “I think ... you did what you can do. Not be a jerk. Be polite. All that.”
“Probably you can sometimes say, politely, ‘I’m in the middle of something, but thank you,’” Angie said. “But ... yeah.”
“It’s the job,” Jess said. “Or part of it. I knew that when I went for it. This isn’t the first, but ... there haven’t been many. Yet. But that’s the thing. You’re either rude and selfish or you’re nice and polite but inconvenienced sometimes. But ... I’m pretty committed to putting up with inconvenience.”
“As if there was any doubt,” Angie said. “We know you.”
“It goes with the whole thing,” Jess said. “Make the world a better place. Be good to people. Don’t be a rich asshole.”
“The student has become the master,” Paige said, giggling. “And I say that as a zealous convert to that school of thought. Old Paige would’ve said ‘Screw ‘em! Me me me!’”
We all chuckled at that.
“Have you guys eaten?” Jess said.
“No, and we’re famished!” Angie said.
“This place caught my eye. Just up the road. Seafood and steaks. I haven’t had steak in ... damn. It’s been a long time!” Jess said.
“I thought you were going to mention lobster,” I said, wiggling my eyebrows.
“You are permanently immune from having to provide lobster, Mister Marshall,” Jess said. “Lifetime exemption!”
“A high honor, Miss Lively,” I said.
Chuckling, we headed off to the restaurant Jess had spotted.
It was a really good choice. We all had steak. The girls all had ‘petite’ cuts, unsurprisingly, but I think Angie, Paige, and Jas all ate more than they expected to.
“Damn! Skiing is work!” Paige said. “That, or there’s gonna be more of me to love!”
“Totally the skiing,” Angie said before eating another chunk of her baked potato.
“Totally!” Jas said.
Jess giggled and said, “I’m kinda lucky, maybe. I had a whole exercise routine as a cheerleader. Right now, I just do that. Maybe even a little more of it than at Memorial. It’s working. I keep some muscle tone, and the weight stays off, but I’m not all muscly either.”
“You look just perfect,” Paige said. “Meaning ... like ... you know. Literally Miss Universe perfect or something.”
“She always has,” Jas said.
“But now we know it goes all the way to her heart,” Angie said.
Jess sniffled a bit, and said, “You guys are the sweetest!”
“I think you would’ve scared some people in Drama, except for Steve knowing the real you, honestly,” Paige said. “We knew to expect someone who was ... real.”
“And that’s who we got,” Angie said.
“That’s part of your job, now,” Jess said, grinning. “You four and Laura. If I ever get a big head, you’re in charge of bursting my bubble and reminding me who I am. I’m not gonna ignore all of the good things — looks, brains, whatever — but ... back to rich assholes. We’re our own best defense.”
“Definitely,” I said. “No one’s immune. Just because we’ve been over this and over this doesn’t mean we couldn’t start making tiny little excuses to be just a bit awful. Once on that path...”
“Bitch Angie, Asshole Steve,” Angie said.
“And selfish airhead Jess, hiding behind her PR campaign of being a good person,” Jess said.
“A Laura thing?” I asked.
“She’s ... ambivalent, honestly,” Jess said. “Either her Jess was an airhead for marrying and putting up with that Steve or she was pretending, more or less. It’s like ... she did good things, no question, but they all also benefited her, if only by making her ‘America’s Sweetheart’. She put up with Steve and he made her rich, but he wasn’t, like, a partner. All that stuff. None of us are those people, at least. Not even Laura. She had her own faults and she’s working through them pretty hard.”
We all nodded. Laura had been coy about that, to some extent, but given how Angie’s and my first life had gone, it felt like hers couldn’t have just been the wronged girl whose invention and husband had been stolen away. One of the ‘rules’ seemed to be ‘personal growth.’ I didn’t need to know her issues, but it made sense that she had them. And it was wonderful that Jess had become her friend.
We switched to more mundane topics: our classes, Jess’s classes, and so forth. That had been enough heavy stuff for one dinner!
Once we’d finished, we led Jess back to our cabin. She parked next to us, declared that she wasn’t moving her car until we checked out, then let me carry her bag in.
As soon as she saw the hot tub, her eyes lit up.
“Oh, that looks so good!”
“Hope you didn’t bring your suit,” Paige said, grinning.
“As if! I plan on wearing as few clothes as reasonably possible when we’re alone!” she said, and started to undress on the spot.
We all shrugged, stripped, and were in the tub (with another bottle of wine) shortly thereafter. I wasn’t worried about the wine. We hadn’t had much and I wasn’t going to have any trouble. If things got out of hand, I could help the girls.
Jess let us get in, then wound up sitting on Jas’s and my laps.
“Hate to separate the newly engaged couple,” she said, “But I want to snuggle and I’ll separate the other couple in a bit.”
Paige said, “Woohoo!”
Jas scooted over, I scooted the other way, and shortly we were both cuddling a very, very delicious cheerleader.
Jess sighed deeply.
“It’s okay to say I love you?”
“It is,” Jas said.
“Then ... I love you. Not the same, but ... I love you, Steve. And I love you, Jas. And I love you, Paige, and I love you, Angie. All of you. In your own ways, but ... this is ... this is...”
She took a breath, then said, “You know me. I’m going to be everywhere, living my life, as long as they’ll let me and keep hiring me. Or as long as I can fund my own projects and turn a profit. And ... we all know I might meet someone. I’m not about to say that won’t happen. But ... part of going down this path is you. Not just encouraging me, but ... I think you’re kinda my home. The people I want to come back to when I’m not out being me. Oh, Mom and Dad, too, but ... you guys.”
Everyone — including me — teared up a little, and suddenly all four of us were cuddling that adorable cheerleader.
“That’s ... beautiful,” Paige said. “And ridiculously flattering!”
“I think it’s the engagements,” Jess said. “I’m not in the least jealous! Not my time to get engaged. But it’s got me all ... nest-y, I guess. I don’t want a nest of my own right now, but having a nest out there to call home is ... priceless.”
“I would say this is incredibly unlikely,” Jas said, giggling a little. “But, considering how we really all got here ... heck. It’s kinda normal.”
Angie and I laughed a bit at that.
“Once you’ve experienced the impossible, everything else is easy?” I said, chuckling.
“Oh, damn!” Angie said. “Seriously! You just reminded me.”
“What?” Jess said.
“I have something ... really, it’s kinda dead serious. Not a topic for tonight. About my birth mother, Sharon. You’re family, Jess. I want your opinion.”
Jess blushed and sniffled.
“I’m honored, and I’ll be happy to help however I can.”
“Be prepared,” Paige said. “I kid you not. She’s sugarcoating it, if anything. There’s ... it’s ... something. Really, a good something, but getting there is...”
“Have tissues handy,” Jas said. “We used up half of the box in the car.”
“When you’re ready,” Jess said.
“Enough of that for now!” Angie said. “But ... yeah. I wasn’t going to touch it on this trip, but ... I want to, with you.”
“Again, honored.”
Paige blinked a couple of times, her eyes going a little wider.
“What?” Jess said.
Angie looked and said, “What are you thinking?”
“So ... there are two people this is up to, and neither is me,” Paige said. “But ... that story ... hell, even if it doesn’t check out completely, but more ... if it does ... a good writer, some fictionalizing a few characters, some trims for time...”
“Fuck!” Angie said. “Seriously! That’s a hell of an idea. There’s a movie there. A damn good movie!”
“You have my full attention,” Jess said, giggling.
“Figure ... well. You can’t do it now. No one would fund it. Honestly ... well, you’ll understand, but this might be one to keep under your hat until you hit that stupid Hollywood age where you’re no longer a teenager or the ‘right’ age to be a romantic female lead, so you’re some teenager’s mother.”
“That’s, what ... twenty-seven?” Jas said.
“The sad part is, she’s not kidding,” Jess said, shaking her head. “Okay, it’s a special case, but Lea ... Thompson, I mean ... played both Michael’s mother and his eighteen-year-old love interest. She was 23 during filming. If that’s not Hollywood, I don’t know what is.”
“Hell, Anne Bancroft was thirty-six while filming ‘The Graduate’. Eight years older than Katharine Ross, who was playing her allegedly college-aged daughter,” I said.
“That’s ... literally insane,” Paige said.
“It’s nuts,” Jess said. “Ang, you totally have a point, though. Good scripts for a thirty or forty-year-old character are probably gold when I’m that age. Trying to play the younger character — you, I’m guessing...”
Angie nodded.
“ ... is probably impossible. Even if you’re the star, I likely would go with the older one.”
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