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.”