Variation on a Theme, Book 7
Copyright© 2026 by Grey Wolf
Chapter 5: Getting Ready
Monday, July 14, 1986
Summer class registration turned out to be only somewhat like regular registration. Getting there early was important, and there were lines. On the other hand, you were only asking for one class, and they told you immediately if you got it. No waiting, no questions, no nothing. If it was full, they might offer an alternative, or you could pick one yourself. Or give up, of course.
Fortunately, Jas, Paige, and I all got into Introduction to Comparative Politics, and Angie was happily enrolled in Combinatorial Theory. By and large, we hadn’t had backup selections ready. Other classes might have worked, but those were the ones we wanted.
Tomorrow was our first day of classes. It was also the point where we would have to apologize for missing the third and fourth days of class. Hopefully, our professors would be understanding. I was certain all of us could knock our classes out of the park, but an unhappy professor can make that much harder than it needed to be.
I had my fingers crossed for no P.C.’s Limited crises during my summer classes. The College of Business would help explain things, but it would still be awkward to ditch class again. Aside from my bout with appendicitis, I wasn’t in the habit of missing many classes, after all.
With our classes settled, we switched over to making plans for the summer. One of those plans was verifying that Al would stay at the house along with Amy while the rest of us were in California. Amy felt much better about having the company, and Al was happy to help (and appreciated the extra income), so we were set.
Another plan was purchasing food. We wanted the house ready to go when we got back from California. More subtly, we wanted Amy to be able to piggyback off of our pantry. Her scholarship covered board as well as lodging, but it didn’t cover it over the summer. We could easily feed one additional person, and buying her own food would either have been a fairly significant hardship for Amy or forced her to go on an all-rice-and-beans diet.
By one standard, it absolutely was ‘charity’ (or whatever word you wanted to use). But, by another, it was entirely fair. We had the resources, while Amy did not. At least for the summer, we considered her part of our family. That might last far past just this summer but, at the moment, we were only concerned with the summer.
We checked all of our clothing and made sure it was ready, too. We had been doing that all along, but we were down to the wire now.
And, of course, I spent another few hours tweaking my speech. By mutual consensus, it was my speech. I had many capable reviewers and editors, but all of them wanted to hear it for the first time when I gave it. Amy would have been happy to review it, but even Amy clearly would rather hear it as a finished work, not contribute to it.
I was fine with that. It’s not as if I was unfamiliar with giving speeches under pressure, and it would mean more if it was completely my work. Even any glitches might be more endearing if they came via my own mistakes.
I called Kelly Peterson during the afternoon. We tentatively set Saturday, July 26th for our interviews. That put them after our first tests of the summer, and got them out of the way of any major classwork. Kelly sounded thrilled by the whole thing. The more she dug, the better the story got. She’d found out about Anne and Natalie and was planning on profiling them as well.
I had a feeling this might get us more attention from people who didn’t like us. That’s how it goes sometimes. If we stopped doing things because some people might not like us, we might as well pack it all in and change our plans. Realistically, our paths were set, and had likely been set since at least the spring of 1983. New details would appear, but nothing fundamental seemed likely to change.
She wanted Angie and Paige to come to their offices at ten, while I wasn’t due until one. That gave her time to grab lunch. It sounded good to me, and much better than sitting around waiting.
Tuesday, July 15, 1986
My first impression of Introduction to Comparative Politics was that it looked to be both enjoyable and a fair bit of work. So much to cover and so little time.
Thus, the three of us had some trepidation when we approached Dr. Halloran, our professor, at the end of class.
“May I help you?” he asked. “I’m sorry. I haven’t memorized anyone’s name yet.”
We introduced ourselves, and then I said, “We hate to say this, but all three of us are going to miss class this Thursday and Friday.”
He frowned, but it didn’t look like the sort of foreboding frown I was worried about.
“What is going on?” he asked.
“Friends of ours are getting married,” Jasmine said. “In California. So, we have to get there and back.”
“And we planned the trip and bought the tickets before we realized summer school was going to be an option,” Paige said.
He nodded slowly, then said, “Our first exam will be on Friday the 25th. Think you’ll be able to catch up, given the syllabus and a reasonable set of notes?”
“If the textbook covers what we need to know, yes,” I said. “If most of it is from the lecture, we’ll need those notes to be good.”
He chuckled a bit and nodded.
“For this course, it’s more the text than not, but I’ll make sure you get a reasonable set of notes. Weddings are important! It’s a shame this isn’t a writing class, or I could make you turn in a trip report.”
“Eh,” Paige said, chuckling. “We could stretch a point and claim this one applies to political science.”
“Oh?” Dr. Halloran said.
“The friends getting married are Lizzie Vinton and Janet Collins, who made news a few years ago as the first gay couple to dance at their prom without a court case and all that nonsense,” Paige said.
“Oh! I remember that...” he said.
Then he gave me a look.
“If I recall, you were quite involved in that, Mister Marshall,” he said.
“Guilty!” I said, chuckling.
“I still can’t quite turn it into viable extra credit, but I would be interested in hearing how it comes out. The politics around gay rights are very interesting, just now. President Reagan just discussed it, triggered by a ‘60 Minutes’ episode I unfortunately missed...”
He must have seen something in Paige’s or Jasmine’s faces. Both of them were trying not to laugh. Or, at least, laugh too much.
“I must be missing something,” he said.
“All three of us were on that episode,” Jasmine said. “Though I barely said anything. We have a copy, though. Several, actually! We’ll be happy to loan you one.”
“Paige said the most,” I said.
“Not as much as my fiancée!” she said, grinning. “But Steve’s the one who really said something.”
“Reagan quoted my fiancé — Steve — in the comments you referenced,” Jas said. “Again! Though he wasn’t my fiancé the first time.”
Dr. Halloran looked fairly startled. I suppose that made sense. It wasn’t every day you found out three of your undergraduate students had been on ‘60 Minutes’ and one of them had been quoted by the President within the past few weeks, after all.
“Now that counts as political science!” he said, chuckling. “Though not particularly in a way relevant to this class. The US has moved into something of a leadership position on gay rights, though, and we could certainly discuss how other countries handle the issue. If you would be willing to speak...?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I said, chuckling.
“Angie and I are just about as ‘out’ as we can be,” Paige said. “I’m fine with it.”
“I’m straight, just ... well, I’m about as ‘out’ as an ally for gay people as I could be,” I said.
“Ditto!” Jas said. Paige and I knew the ‘ditto’ only applied to the second part of what I said, but that was fine.
“I’d have made sure you got the notes anyway, but this is interesting,” he said. “Offhand, I’m not sure how many of our students have ever appeared on ‘60 Minutes’ while they were in college. Can’t be many! In any case, I should run. Safe travels when you travel, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
We all shook hands again, then headed off.
During the walk home, Paige made a great point. We all wondered what Dr. Halloran would have said if he knew we were also personal friends of the appellate judge who’d written the Fifth Circuit’s decision for Baker v. Wade.
Everyone else had a good laugh at how things had gone. Angie gave me a significant look, though. If we hadn’t been planning on snuggling tonight, we likely would be now.
That was a thought for me, too. Amy likely needed to know about that, and it should probably be before it happened with her in the house. That meant tonight.
When we reached a convenient point, I pulled Angie aside and checked with her about it. Apparently, I hadn’t considered how varied the topics of ‘girl talk’ were. Amy had already been informed about our nights together and was fine.
I still might discuss it with her, but the urgency was much, much lower.
P.C.’s Limited, though, was still a priority. But it might not be a priority before the wedding trip.`
Angie and Jas switched, as I’d expected. Amy wasn’t in bed yet, and she just gave me a grin as Angie and I headed into the bedroom.
The more I thought about it, the more I thought we definitely needed to talk. Amy’s take on this might well be somewhat unusual. Even if it wasn’t, it was still something we needed to do.
Angie and I hugged and kissed quickly once the door was closed, then got ready for bed. Once we’d done that, we got into bed, turned off the lights, and snuggled up.
“Good day?” she said.
“A surprising one, I’d say. Like we keep saying, we suck at keeping a low profile.”
She giggled and nodded.
“We do. It’s just a given now. It all works out in the end, so far.”
“Heck,” I said. “We didn’t even tell him the half of it! If I told him I’d met Reagan, and also knew the judge who wrote the circuit court opinion for Baker v. Wade...”
She snorted and said, “The poor guy would have a meltdown! And who could blame him?”
“Honestly, it’s...” I said, then stopped.
“Yes?” she asked, after a few seconds.
“I realized where my train of thought was going and suffered a derailment,” I said.
She snorted even louder.
“Tell!” 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.