Chapter 47: Spring Break, 1982, Part IV

March, 1982, Milford, Ohio

On Wednesday morning, I swam with Stephanie and we ate breakfast together. I avoided talking about Saturday or what we might do. I still had no clue what I should do, and the implications of my decision were huge. I wondered if Stephanie could handle the conversation about the deep meaning behind what she was asking, and I wondered if she understood the implications. The fact that she and Jennifer were talking meant that she and Jennifer could have discussed this and it could be part of a plan between them to get Jennifer and me back together. I didn’t detect that, but it didn’t have to be overt — it could even be subconscious on Stephanie’s part.

When she left for school, I went back to the Spencers’. I was having lunch with my dad, but he had gone to work and I just didn’t feel like hanging around the house with my mom today. I’d avoided any confrontation, and I really wanted to keep it that way. I decided that I was going to sit in the sauna to clear my head and think, even though that struck me as contradictory.

I adjusted the sauna temperature and went back to my room to undress. I put my robe on and walked back down the hall to the master bathroom, hung up my robe, and went into the sauna. I ladled my usual amount of water onto the rocks and was rewarded with hissing as steam quickly filled the room. I sat down, closed my eyes, and leaned back. I breathed deeply and allowed the steam to work its magic on me. I had been in the sauna for about five minutes when the door opened a crack.

“Steve? Do you mind if I come in?” Mrs. Spencer asked. “This is my usual time in the sauna.”

I quickly unfolded my towel and wrapped it around my waist.

“Sure. I’m decent,” I said.

She laughed and walked in, “Decent? You? In the sauna?”

“OK. I covered myself with the towel just before you walked in,” I chuckled.

She had a towel wrapped around her, as well as one around her hair. She came in and sat down on the bench about two feet from me. I wasn’t uncomfortable, and except for that first time when I was fourteen, I’d never worried about Melanie’s mom seeing me naked. But, given that we were the only two in the house, I was exercising caution, and she obviously was as well.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. That’s why I put the towel on. I don’t usually do that, as I’m sure you don’t usually sit with the towel around your waist.”

“Only when I’m with people who might otherwise be uncomfortable. Then I used a towel or bathing suit. But I prefer not to, of course.”

“What’s with the steam? It’s thick enough to cut with a knife!” she said.

I chuckled, “You haven’t done a ‘safety check’ in years. I started using a lower temperature with a lot of steam when I was in Sweden. I find it helps me relax and helps me clear my mind. You don’t mind?”

“No, not at all. It’s fine. You’re sure you’re OK with me being here?”

“Yes, of course. It’s no big deal. I use the sauna a lot with people who are just friends.”

She smiled, “I’m glad you consider Frank and me your friends. We owe you a lot for everything you’ve done for Melanie. At one point, we thought there might be a future for you two, but Melanie had different ideas.”

“That she did. And it’s fine. She belongs with Pete. We had a lot of fun together, but it was just fun.”

“Oh, I remember!” she said with a smile. “She said you curled her toes. Repeatedly. And I saw you in here when I did that ‘safety check’!”

“You certainly did! I was really embarrassed, but Melanie was cool about it. Then you brought us Cokes while we were in the tub and she decided to tease you back.”

“That was pretty gutsy, Steve, walking downstairs, naked, with a teenage girl, to see her parents.”

“I trusted her completely. I still do, actually.”

“Do you trust me enough to let me take off my towel?”

I thought about it. I certainly trusted myself enough, given I had no interest in women who were more than a few years older or younger than me. If she’d been twenty-two instead of thirty-four, that might be different. And other than a bit of teasing almost five years ago, she’d never made me uncomfortable.

“Sure,” I said.

She took her towel off and sat back down. She looked a lot like Melanie, though, with slightly larger breasts. They could easily have been sisters. I decided that I was comfortable with it, so I stood up, refolded my towel and sat back down on it. I added additional water to the rocks and more steam hissed into the sauna. Despite sitting naked with a gorgeous woman, I didn’t feel any sexual tension at all, and my mind was rapidly clearing.

When I reached my maximum time, about thirty minutes, I got up to head to the shower.

“I must be losing my touch,” Mrs. Spencer said with a smirk.

“No, you aren’t. You are drop dead gorgeous and have a fantastic body. But you’re my friend’s mom, you’re married, and I stick to girls who are within three or four years of my age. I’m just not a Ben Braddock kind of guy,” I grinned.

Well, that wasn’t quite true, because of Jennie McGrath, now Sanders, but Trudy Spencer did not know about that and didn’t need to. She did get my reference, of course.

Mrs. Spencer laughed, “I guess I’m no Mrs. Robinson, either. I’d never cheat on Frank, but I would have been flattered if you had a normal reaction!”

“Well, to be honest, it did take a bit of concentration to prevent that,” I said. “In a different universe, it might have happened. But not in this one.”

“No, not in this one. I’ll tuck that idea safely away in my fantasy life where it belongs.”

I closed the door and got into the shower. As I was drying off, Mrs. Spencer came out of the sauna and showered. I grabbed my robe walked back to my room to dress, not bothering to put the robe on to walk down the hall. When I dressed, I went downstairs and made a pot of coffee and poured two cups. Mrs. Spencer came and sat with me to drink her coffee.

“How are things with Kara?” Mrs. Spencer asked. “You’ve brought her here quite a lot.”

“They’re good. We’re down to less than four months before she moves to Chicago with me. And, barring a kick in the balls from that ruthless bitch, Fate, we’ll probably get married in 1985 or 1986, depending on where I end up finding a job.”

“So similar to Pete and Melanie, I guess.”

“Pretty much,” I agreed. “We’re more or less on the same course, though Kara won’t be going to graduate school. Does Melanie know what law school she wants to attend?”

“Not yet. She’s waiting to see where Pete gets his job. She’ll apply once she knows. Frank thinks Pete will probably end up with the FBI, but Pete’s planning to apply to the U.S. Marshals, the Secret Service, and the State Department. His backup plan is to get a commission in the Navy, but Frank and I are pretty sure with his grades, personality, and spotless past, he’ll end up in one of the Federal law enforcement services.”

“Does Melanie know what kind of law she wants to practice?”

“Criminal defense. She said you talked her into that.”

I chuckled, “Well, I told her it was the only kind of law worth practicing. When the government comes for you, they have all the resources. The only thing protecting you from them is your attorney and twelve jurors. That’s a noble job. And it’s one that fits Melanie’s personality. She’d be a hellacious prosecutor, but I’d prefer to see her ruthlessness on the side of the defense!”

Mrs. Spencer laughed, “Well, as an unreformed hippie, I have to say that I agree with you. Frank and I were in at the beginning of the movement in the very early 60s, and Melanie was born in ‘62. We lived in the commune until she was four, and I was nineteen. Frank decided we needed to be on our own once he graduated from Berkeley. Like your parents, we moved here in the early 70s because California had gotten too weird even for us flower children! I think you once mentioned that after the Watts riots, Charles Manson, and the earthquake in ‘71, your parents had enough. It was about the same time for us.”

“What was living in the commune like?” I asked.

“Better than being at home. I got pregnant when I was fourteen and my dad kicked me out of the house. Frank was still living at home and his parents wouldn’t let me move in, so the two of us found a group of other kids in their late teens and early twenties in San Francisco and moved in with them. Frank’s parents were pretty cool about the whole thing in the end. They kept paying for his college and he worked a part-time job to get enough money to buy our food and pay for our part of the rent.

“Some of the kids in the group were part of the free love movement, so there was a lot of sex, but Frank and I stuck only to each other. I think mostly that was because I was pregnant with his kid. But their attitudes wore off on us, I guess. It’s really funny. Frank and I are completely sexually open and liberated, and yet, I’ve never even kissed another man besides him and he had one short-term girlfriend before me and never did more than kiss her.

“Melanie has had more sex partners than her dad and I, obviously, and she’s far more conservative in most areas than we are. You know she’s very open about her sexuality, but otherwise, sadly, our daughter is a Republican. But then again, most of her friends are, including you, though I don’t think that’s going to last long. You really aren’t a Republican, but I can see the attraction Ronald Reagan would have for you, especially after Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. Unless I miss my guess, you’ll end up an independent and a libertarian. It fits your personality.”

“Well, I certainly have no love for the Evangelical wing of the Republican Party,” I declared. “The Moral Majority scares the hell out of me. I guess I’m more in line with Barry Goldwater at the moment than anything. I’ve been reading a lot of stuff that the Founding Fathers wrote, especially Jefferson, Adams, and Madison. So, maybe you’re right. We’ll see. You don’t seem upset with Melanie’s political leanings.”

“Of course not. She’s an intelligent young woman. She makes her own choices and decisions and we’ve let her do that since she was little. If I can give you one piece of advice — let your kids make their own decisions as soon as they’re able to understand right and wrong, even in the most basic sense. We did that with Melanie. It was risky, and it almost ended in tragedy, but it was still the right thing to do.”

“I agree with you,” I said. “I have to say, back then, I was shocked that you would let me come here and have sex with her, and not just tolerate it, but encourage it.”

“It was a healthy thing for both of you,” she said, then paused for a few seconds. “And it gave me some interesting fantasies about being with another guy. I guess I just had to live them vicariously through Melanie!”

“Mrs. Spencer,” I said with a smile, “if I were to ever violate my rule of not getting involved with someone who was in an exclusive relationship, and I could set aside my age bracket, you’d be the first person I’d come to!”

She smiled, “Thanks for that amazing compliment. You have perhaps the most beautiful girl in Milford as your girlfriend! And yet, you can say that to me with complete honesty. You’re a good guy, Steve. Melanie was very lucky to have you when she did. At this point, you should probably be calling me Trudy and calling my husband Frank. You’re our friend.”

“Thanks, Trudy,” I said.

We finished our coffee, and I headed to Newtown to have lunch with my dad. He was coming straight from his office to the small diner on Wooster Pike where we were going to have lunch. He was there waiting when I pulled up.

“Been here long?” I asked.

“Two minutes, Son. You’re on time,” he said as we went in and sat in a booth.

We ordered the house special hamburgers, which were some of the best in Cincinnati, and a few minutes later, they were on plates in front of us.

“How are things going?” he asked.

“Good. School’s great. I should have straight A’s again, though calculus is getting tougher. My programming classes are almost boring at this point.”

“How are things at the apartment? Are you and Elyse doing OK?” he asked with a slight smile.

“Yes, Dad. We’re doing fine. And you can forget hiding that smile! We were involved before, but we aren’t now. I’m more or less exclusively dating a girl named Stephie from Georgia. And before you ask, yes, she knows about Kara and knows that Kara is moving in with me. And Kara knows about her!”

He chuckled, “You are still living a pretty complicated life.”

“Not even close to how it was before, but come on Dad, you didn’t marry until you were 45. I am more than willing to bet you had quite a few girlfriends.”

He chuckled again, “Well, yes, of course! My first one was a girl named Kristen. She was twenty-two, and I met her in New Hampshire when we went on vacation the Winter after I turned fifteen. We fooled around in her room at the lodge while my parents were out skiing.”

“You know, I don’t know much about your family. I never met any of them. With mom, of course, her family is here, and I even remember meeting great grandpa once before he died. I think I was two or so. But with you...”

“I was an only child of only children. My mom had one great aunt that I met, but otherwise, it was just me and my parents. Your grandfather was born in 1877 and your grandmother in 1885. I was born in 1917. We lived on Long Island and had a big house with about five acres of land. If your grandfather hadn’t sold it in the late 20s, just before the depression, and we had it today, it would be worth millions. I think it was broken up into twenty or so home sites just after World War II.

“You know I went to Dartmouth and when I graduated in 1939, I joined the Naval Reserve. My degree was in electrical engineering and I was working at NBC in the fledgling television division. In 1941 I was at the movies with some friends and when we came out, I heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and the next day I had a telegram ordering me to active duty. I ended up on destroyers running convoys across the Atlantic.

“Your grandparents were living in New York City at the time. They’d always kept a townhouse there for when they came into the city, but when they sold the property on Long Island, they moved into the townhouse permanently. Your grandfather produced movies privately — not stuff for Hollywood, but training films, documentaries for companies, that kind of thing. He traveled quite a bit and your grandmother would often go with him.

“In the late ‘40s, he was close to retiring, but was making one more movie for a company headquartered in Boston. He and your grandmother were flying as passengers on a small plane owned by that company. It crashed in central Massachusetts and they were both killed. I was out of the country when it happened, but flew back for their funeral. They left me the townhouse, which I sold, as well as some money that I later used to start my businesses.”

“What were you doing at the time?”

“Working as a consultant on electronics, especially TV, but radio and telephones as well. It kept me busy. I spent a lot of time in Europe and some in Cuba as well. That was when Batista was in charge, before Castro came to power. In 1961, I moved to Los Angeles and bought the coin laundry chain that you remember, and then some dry cleaners. I was in Las Vegas on vacation, visiting some friends I’d made in Cuba when I met your mom.”

“What was she doing there?”

“On vacation with some of her girlfriends. They were all secretaries at General Electric’s aircraft engine plant in Cincinnati. They took their two week vacation in Las Vegas. I met her at the start of the second week at the pool at the Dunes Hotel. We hit it off and you know what happened. A month later, she called me and told me that she was pregnant. I flew to Cincinnati at the end of August, proposed, and we got married in Los Angeles late in of November of ‘61. She had her miscarriage in January of ‘62. The baby was about six months along at that point, I guess. She almost lost Stephanie that way.”

“What?!” I said, shocked at the revelation.

“Your sister was born more than two months premature, in fact, almost three months. Back then, maybe one percent of those babies survived. Your sister did.”

“Holy shit!” I gasped. “I had no idea.”

“We didn’t tell you or Jeff, of course. You were four when she was born, so you weren’t really aware of that kind of stuff. Jeff was two. Anyway, after the miscarriage in January of ‘62, the doctor told us to wait four to six months before we tried to have another. You were born fifteen months after the miscarriage.”

“Do you have any pictures of your parents?” I asked.

“No, I don’t.”

“That’s too bad. But you filled in a lot of blanks for me, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it. I’d love to hear more about World War II if you want to talk about it.”