Chapter 41: Romance Remembered

Thursday, October 9, 1986

During breakfast, Angie and Paige were still grumbling about the protesters. Hardly surprising, and the rest of us expressed our sympathies.

It was unclear how the protesters found them. GSS meeting locations weren’t announced in the Batt. The listing there always said to ‘Call the Gayline.’ That probably meant someone had called and gotten the location. Another possibility was that a member was a ‘mole’ who was spying on GSS and reporting back to the anti-gay people.

There wasn’t much they could do to avoid it. They were considering asking the university to change the meeting location, just to see if it made any difference. Rudder Tower, where they’d been holding meetings, was a perfectly reasonable location, but a different room might work.

We had a brief discussion as to whether this could be related to either the Clarkes or Nathan McBride. It was certainly possible, but it felt unlikely. There were plenty of anti-gay people out there, and Angie had certainly painted a pretty big target on her back. We all had, of course, but hers was likely the largest.

When we got home, I found that the other Harry in my life, Harry Penders, had left a message asking me to call him back. I got back to him just before five.

“Steve!” he said. “Got some news for you. You won’t like it.”

“Sadly, that’s what I expected.”

He chuckled, then said, “I was talking with Chief Palko. They’ve had a wave of nuisance calls about your house. Noise complaints, strange smells, that sort of thing. Obviously, he knows better than to go overboard. They’ve checked, and you’re squeaky-clean, entirely as expected.”

“Probably the same people, still causing trouble.”

“That’s what I think, yeah.”

“If you were in my shoes...?” I asked.

He hesitated, then said, “Sit on it. Let ‘em stew. Make them wonder why nothing’s moving the needle. If they escalate, either it’s criminal activity and we go after it, or it’s something you can respond to. If they don’t, it’s not even much of a nuisance. You could try some code enforcement shenanigans and the like, too, but you can do that later.”

“Works for me. Kyle’s working on finding ways to attack, should we want to attack. Sitting on it is my preference, right now, but I worry about being too passive.”

“Passive can be an advantage. So can preemptive. It really depends on how things play out.”

“Passive for now, anyway. Thanks, Harry!”

“Happy to help. Also, make sure you’ve got someone there if most or all of you are out of town. Preferably Al. I like him,” Harry said.

“We do, too. And we’ve got him scheduled for the absences we know about. UH this weekend, SMU in a few weeks, t.u. at Thanksgiving, and Winter Break.”

“Sounds good! Also, I’ll pass those plans along. We can’t provide security, but Chief Palko can make sure you get drive-bys off and on when you’re not there.”

“Appreciate it!” I said.

“I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

“Thanks, Harry!”

Our scripts from CBS were waiting. We had questions like, ‘How did you meet?’, ‘How did you know each other was “the one?”’, ‘Why did you decide to propose at the Rose Parade?’, ‘How did you get your parents there?’, ‘How did you maintain the surprise?’, ‘Have you gotten any interesting reactions?’ and so forth. Parts of it felt generic, and I’m sure it was. We weren’t the only two couples being profiled, after all.

Angie and Paige’s list had plenty of additional questions. Some of theirs were things like, ‘Were you worried about negative reactions?’, ‘Were you afraid someone might recognize you?’, and ‘What advice do you have for other couples in your position?’. Even these were a bit generic. They surely knew Angie and Paige hadn’t been all that concerned with being ‘outed’ at the proposal since they’d already been in the papers.

This was going to be fun. Stressful, in the way any sort of press contact was, but fun. After all, there’s always a chance of saying something foolish and knowing it’s there, on tape, just waiting to turn up later, perhaps out of context. We were used to it, though, and expected press contacts to be a recurring part of our lives from this point onward.

Most of the time, we went to Cepheid Variable’s early showings. Staying up late was fine, but we usually preferred to get home and wind down. Having dinner out before the movie was also a plus.

That wasn’t in the cards tonight, thanks to the Society of Women Engineers meeting. Instead, we said goodbye to Mel and Amy at six-thirty. While they were meeting, the rest of us were packing. Mel was already packed, while Amy was staying here this weekend. Amy’s presence would probably have made bringing up the topic of our complicated relationships even more fraught.

We met Mel and Amy outside Zachry — the main Engineering building, where many of my computer science courses were held — at nine. Both of them had enjoyed the meeting and hoped to continue going.

We headed off to the movie and were in our seats, with a bit of popcorn, before showtime. This wasn’t much of a date movie, so we mostly sat in a big group (with romantic partners sitting together, naturally).

‘Batman’ was the sort of good, silly fun I remembered. It wasn’t a movie I had memorized, but I was pretty certain this was the same film I’d always known.

I made a mental note to tell the others that I’d met, and posed for pictures, with Adam West. Admittedly, it had happened in the 2000s, but it had happened. It certainly could happen again. Maybe.