Chapter 25: Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction

October 1978

School was moving along well. I was working on straight A’s now that I had escaped the clutches of Mrs. Thompson. All the teachers I had asked for a recommendation for the exchange program had written them and sent them in. I met with my guidance counselor, Mrs. Barngrover, early in October, and discovered a possible glitch in my plan for going to Sweden — I might not graduate with my class. I could not receive any credits from the school I would attend in Sweden because the school wasn’t accredited by the North Central Association, and the rules were quite strict.

Requirements for graduation in the State of Ohio included four years of English, plus additional electives. There was also a requirement for four years of civics classes. Besides resolving those requirements, I needed to figure out how to complete the 3-year college bound science classes. On the plus side, because I was on the college track, I had enough math without taking calculus. That was a good thing, because that would have been an impossible problem to solve.

In talking it through, I found that I could take the History classes in Summer school, assuming I didn’t leave until after the Fourth of July. According to the YFU information, our departure would most likely occur in July. That took care of one problem.

With regard to science, we agreed that my grades were good enough, and because I would finish Algebra II during Sophomore year, I could overload and take both physics and chemistry my Senior year. That meant I would have too few credits to graduate because I would miss a number of electives. I would have to apply to the School Board for a waiver. Mrs. Barngrover said she would endorse that and usually with special circumstances like study abroad, they would waive the requirement. That took care of another problem.

The remaining problem, English, would require approval from the department head, Mr. Edwards, as well as the Principal, the School Board, and the State of Ohio. Mrs. Barngrover had successfully done this for a couple of students over the years, but warned me that she had also failed in a couple of cases.

Later that week, I met with Mrs. Barngrover and Mr. Edwards. Because of my grades and because of the endorsements from Junior High English teachers he had received, he proposed a radical solution that he felt would work. I would take both Junior and Senior English during my Senior year, but they would waive the four required electives. In addition, he would submit the complete reading list of books for all my English courses, starting in Eighth grade, as well as books I had read on my own. He would also submit several papers I had written for History class. He felt that the combined weight, plus the fact that I wasn’t skipping the core English courses, would mean I would get approval. I agreed, and they wrote it up to submit.

My social life was great. I spent time with Jennifer, Joyce, and Larry. Jennifer and I would go out on Saturdays and I saw Joyce as planned every third Friday. Larry and I hung out on Wednesday evenings and usually played chess. Melanie still hadn’t decided what to do. I could tell she wanted to join us, but she wasn’t willing to give up control. She wasn’t dating. I heard from Pete that he had gone out on several dates at OSU, but there wasn’t anyone special. He did say that Melanie had written him a nice letter, and he wrote her back. To me, that was a hopeful sign.

Beth Pater was still joining me to work on our program. Beth had already discussed our proposal with the student council and they were interested. There hadn’t been a repeat of our other activity, but that was probably my fault for not taking the lead. I’d have to rectify that soon.

The big surprise was when Cassie Schneider invited me to the Sadie Hawkins Day dance. I said ‘yes’, mainly out of surprise. I already knew that Beth, Jennifer, Melanie, Mary, and Bethany wouldn’t ask, and I remembered they had said there was one more girl who had wanted to ask me to the dance last year but was warned off. I didn’t know if it was Cassie or not, but she was the first to ask.

Cassie was a good student, was on the debate team, and was an alternate on the It’s Academic team. It’s Academic was a quiz show that had teams from various High Schools in the area compete against each other, and was televised on WCET. I didn’t know much else about her. She was average looking, short at 5’3”, had medium length brown hair that she usually wore in a ponytail, and brown eyes semi-hidden behind glasses. She always dressed quite modestly.

I did have a couple of Junior girls I didn’t know well ask a few days later, but I had to turn them down. One of them I would have turned down anyway, because she was a complete airhead. That was something I simply couldn’t deal with. I’m sure whatever guy she eventually asked would be happy, because she had a reputation for being a lot of fun.

I was still having problems with my mom, and so was Stephanie. The favoritism she showed to Jeff was getting worse by the day. He could do no wrong at all in her eyes. This led to all kinds of crazy attempts to annoy me and one incident that was downright scary.

My parents had gone out on their usual date on the first Thursday in October. Jeff set about doing everything he could to bother us, including stealing the TV remote and randomly changing channels. I managed to get it back, but was sure this would be reported to my mom as me taking the TV away from him, no matter what I might say, even with Stephanie backing me up. It had come to the point that if she agreed with me on anything, it was because I was influencing her and pulling her into my sordid lifestyle.

The scary part of the incident occurred after I retrieved the TV remote from Jeff by grabbing him and making him drop it. I went back to watch TV when he suddenly appeared in the room with a large kitchen knife. He was clearly threatening me with it, so I quickly went down the hall into Stephanie’s room and locked the door with both of us inside. We stayed there until we heard my parents’ car in the driveway.

Of course, Jeff was sitting watching TV, looking innocent. I tried to tell my dad about it, but Mom interrupted, saying that because I was a known liar, nothing I said could be trusted. Jeff was such a good boy and he would never do such a thing. I was just jealous that he was such an angel. And on and on.

Dad looked skeptical, but because Jeff denied it and Stephanie hadn’t seen the knife, there was not much that could be done. I resolved from that time forward to just stay in my room and work on my Apple Computer whenever my parents went out on Thursdays, and make sure Stephanie was with me.

Of course, that played right into Jeff’s hands, because he now had complete run of the house. But I wasn’t willing to risk a repeat of that incident. I became more and more convinced that going to Sweden was a great solution to the problem. The only problem with the plan was that I had to come back home for a year before college.

Things at work were fine. I made the exchanges at school. I was the courier for drugs into Milford High. Only one person knew, and that was the Senior I exchanged bags with. I counted the money in the apartment each Saturday, made tallies, and collected the bag that I knew contained drugs. I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop about Josh Benton, as well as what new task I was going to be assigned.

On October 10th I received a phone call from Mrs. Seime saying that all of my application materials were in order and that she would like me to come to an interview on October 15th in the afternoon. I would have a face-to-face interview with her and two other YFU representatives, plus take a personality test that would be used to match me to the right family. I checked with Dad and got approval.

Mom had become increasingly shrill with her objections to me going. I wasn’t sure if it was punishment, fear of losing what little control she had left, or pure spite. I had indications that the last one was at least part of it when I overheard her tell my dad that she didn’t want me in that country with girls who were so loose. I rolled my eyes. If she knew the full extent of my sex life, her brain would short-circuit worse than it already did whenever I was around.

Fortunately, Dad always kept his word, and because he had approved the application and signed all the permission forms, there wasn’t much she could do. I was worried that she would try to sabotage things somehow, but I worked out with Dad that Melanie would take me to the interview so that he didn’t have to even mention it to Mom. He reluctantly agreed, but felt my fears were justified.

I knew that I had to talk to Don Joseph about everything soon, so I called Larry and asked if I could join them on their next trip to his grandfather’s house. He told me they’d be going on the second Sunday of November, which worked well for me. I wondered how my news would be received. I wondered if Joyce might have already told him, but that didn’t bother me enough to ask her about it.

On Sunday, October 15th, I met Mrs. Seime, plus the YFU regional director, and another YFU coordinator who was from Dayton. I thought the interview went well. I was asked all kinds of questions about why I wanted to do this, where I wanted to go, what I hoped to gain as well as what my plans for the future were. They asked about school, how easily I made friends, asked about a steady girlfriend, and asked about my relationship with my siblings.

Those last two were a bit tricky. I described Jennifer as the main girl I dated, but said at this point we weren’t going steady. I talked about my relationship with my sister and how good it was, and that I did have some problems with my brother that I usually resolved by ignoring his troublemaking and using my room as an occasional refuge.

That seemed to satisfy them. The final question was about my relationship with my parents. I told them that with my dad it was about as good as could be between a 15-year-old son and a 61-year-old dad. They were a bit surprised by the age difference, especially given that I was the eldest. I explained Dad hadn’t married until he was 45 and mom was 26. I said that my mom and I had divergent views on just about everything, so the relationship was strained.

They did ask about the ‘Roman Catholic’ entry for religion on my application. I told them I only went to church occasionally and it would be no big deal if I didn’t go for a year. This was a good thing, I knew, because there were not a lot of Roman Catholic churches in Sweden.

When we finished, I was happy and pretty sure that I had passed muster. I had used all the skills I had developed for dealing with the parents of the girls I dated to come across as a mature, intelligent, focused young man. They told me I would hear about acceptance and which country I was assigned to by the end of November. I was invited to start coming to the orientation meetings starting in November, which I took as a very positive sign.

On the way home, Melanie finally broached the subject of our relationship.

“I want to say ‘yes’ to your ground rules, but it’s difficult,” she said.

“You always want to be in control. You would have to surrender that. I guess the question is, how badly do you want to have sex with me? What are you willing to give up?”

She was silent, so I continued.

“Pete told me that you wrote to him and he wrote back. I’m happy about that.”

“I did. It was just boring stuff about school and my family. He wrote about his classes and the people he was meeting.”

“But he did write back! Did you write to him again?”

“Yes. I wrote to him yesterday. I don’t see the point, though. He’s never going to take me back, and even if he wants to, I’m not sure I’d be happy.”

“What would make you happy? I mean besides pulling the car over and having wild sex right now.”

“Is that an offer?” She asked hopefully, but then said, “Never mind, I know it’s not. I just want to go back to the way it was before, but you won’t let me.”

“You mean Jennifer and I won’t let you, right?”

“Yes. I don’t see why you guys are so hung up on it. It’s just sex.”

“Melanie Spencer, it is NEVER just sex and you know that. Look what happened with me when I thought it was ‘just sex’ with Jennifer. I wrecked my life. Was it ‘just sex’ when you blew your neighbor? If so, then why did Pete get upset? After all, it was ‘just sex’.”

“So, what about you and Mary? You and Kellie? I could go on, you know?”

“You could. Mary is the only person I’ve met, ever, that can ‘just have sex’ with guys without seeming to suffer some kind of emotional attachment. Kellie was a special case. She had a very specific goal in mind, got it, and moved on. I still say it was like a business deal, not sex.

“Even between you and me, it was never ‘just sex’. There was something there. We both acknowledged it. We kept those feelings under control because of Birgit, but they were always there, waiting to surface. I think that’s what’s happened now, and I need the ground rules. I need them for me and Jennifer. And I think you need them as well. Are you even looking for a boyfriend?”

“No. And you’re right. I always tried to say it was ‘just sex’ between us, but it wasn’t.” She stifled a sob. “I’ve made a mess of things, haven’t I? Maybe I’ll become a nun!”

“Sister Melanie? I just don’t see it. And being around all women doesn’t seem to deter you from what I saw last time!” I said with a grin.

She laughed, and I continued.

“On a serious topic, have you considered becoming a therapist, you know, a psychologist? When I saw Doctor Mercer, I realized that both of you asked questions the same way and neither of you gave me answers. You both made me work it out for myself.”

“I hadn’t thought of it. It’s an interesting idea. But don’t change the subject.”

“Far be it from me to move the subject away from sex when talking with the wild and crazy Melanie Spencer!”

She laughed again.

“I hate to say this,” she said, “but now you seem to have the answers and I’m lost. OK. Let’s do it your way.”

“Just talk to Jennifer. She’s in charge.”

“Of course she is. She’s been in charge since the first time you guys fucked!”

“Melanie Spencer! Like you weren’t in charge after our first time? Or Birgit? Or Becky? I may be a ‘dumb boy’, but I see what’s going on. I find intelligent, strong-willed, confident women and they take charge of my life. It’s only when I don’t listen or there’s a conflict between them that bad things happen. Well, excluding a fucking storm in Stockholm early this Summer.”

“You miss her, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” I said, with tears forming in my eyes. “Every minute of every day.”

We drove the rest of the way home in silence.

When I got home, I told Dad I thought that the interview had gone really well and that I probably would be going to the orientation meetings starting in November. I let him know that I was sure that Melanie or Larry would drive me if needed, but he said not to worry, that he would do it. I was happy to hear that. I wondered what he had said to Mom, but there was no way I was going to ask that question.

I called Jennifer to tell her the news.

“So, you’re actually going,” she said with a note of sadness.

“I am. I’m going to miss you, but we’ll write and we can always talk occasionally on the phone.”

“I know. It’ll be a long year.”

I told her to expect a call from Melanie. Jennifer laughed and said she figured it would happen eventually. She would let me know.

I talked to Stephanie about the interview and she said she was going to miss me, too. I said the same, but in the back of my mind I thought I’d be away for a year and perhaps, just perhaps, she would get over what my best friends in the world seemed to think was a foregone conclusion.

What really bothered me was that my initial revulsion had turned to curiosity. Not about making love with her, but about why she would want that. I thought cousins were taboo, and that was right on the edge of my comfort zone. What made her want her brother that way, assuming it was true?

I couldn’t write this stuff in the journal because I didn’t want Stephanie to see it. I’d just have to keep it bottled up and deal with it when the time came. But then I came up with the idea of writing it down, and putting the loose-leaf paper in a secret spot. I could always insert it into my journal at some future point. I did write in the journal about the exchange program, about my feelings for Melanie, and about missing Birgit. Fortunately, I didn’t dream that night.

Kathy Will’s “Sweet Sixteen” party was coming in about a week. I had found out that the guest list basically included cheerleaders and football players and me. That was not my idea of a good time, because I didn’t like that group. But my crush had invited me, so I was going. I had been pleasantly surprised to see Bethany Krajick was invited.

My tutoring session with Melanie was normal. She didn’t say anything about talking to Jennifer, so I didn’t raise the topic myself. On Tuesday, I dropped in on the chess club and got beat badly in several games, but I had fun seeing Mary, Larry, and Jennifer all playing. On Wednesday, I stopped Bethany in the hallway.

“Are you going to Kathy Will’s party?”

“Yeah, she’s been a good friend.”

“So you’re feeling comfortable?”

“I went on two dates so far. No problems!”

“Same guy?”

“Yes, Brad Green, a junior and most importantly, not a jock!”

I knew Brad, though not very well. He was on the debate team and in drama club. From what I had seen, he seemed like a really nice guy.

“Good for you!”

“I’m glad you’ll be at the party.”

“See you there.”

She seemed in very good spirits and I also noticed she had changed her clothing style, wearing conservatively cut, short-sleeve blouses that actually showed a tiny bit of skin at her neck. Hearing that she had been on two dates was a positive development.

On Friday after school, I got ready for Kathy’s party. The party started at 5:00pm and Dad would pick me up at 11:15pm. I put on my nicest shirt and jeans and a pair of casual black slip-on shoes. I grabbed the fedora as well. I was wearing it pretty much everywhere and getting lots of positive comments.

I arrived at Kathy’s house about the same as the rest of the guests. A few people had their own cars, but most were dropped off by parents. I got some odd looks from the football players because I never had anything to do with them or the cheerleaders, except for Bethany and Kathy, and even that interaction was limited. Those odd looks paled compared to the frosty reception from most of the cheer squad. The feeling was mutual.

Dinner was burgers, grilled by Kathy’s dad. I more or less paired up with Bethany, because she also wasn’t thrilled with most of the cheerleaders. She was there for the same reason I was, Kathy had invited her and they were friends. I did talk with a couple of the cheerleaders, Nancy Becker and Katy Splowinski, as well as Napoleon McCallum from the football team. He was a good guy and had been in the computer Summer school class. His goal was the Naval Academy and ultimately flying jets, and of course, he wanted to play football at the Academy.

After dinner, we played lawn darts. Bethany and I teamed up and finished 2nd. Later, Kathy ushered everyone into the basement to play some party games. I pulled Bethany back and made sure she was OK with that, because that euphemism usually meant ‘Spin the Bottle’ or ‘Truth or Dare’. She said she’d be OK, because they made the rules pretty reasonable.