Chapter 42: Computer Dating, Part I

January 1979

Tuesday started wonderfully because Stephanie joined me in the pool. As we walked down the hallway to shower, she dropped one of her shoulder straps, looked over her shoulder and smirked. I just shook my head and went into my room. She was going to push the limits every chance she got. But I’d keep her within them.

At school, things quickly got back into routine. Melanie was still in her wheelchair, hoping to get her walking splint in a week or so. Her arm was really bothering her, but it was more discomfort than pain. The new quarter rearranged our lunch group. I was happy that Jennifer, Melanie, and Mary were on the same lunch, but Larry, Ralph, Brent, and Beth were not. Bethany joined us, as did Jim Voline. Sarah Leonard joined us again. Melanie sat at the end of a table because of her wheelchair, with Jennifer and me sitting across from each other so we could both be by her.

Sarah sat down next to me on Monday, which was a bit of a surprise. She had been sitting at the far end of the group. It dawned on me that when she joined us, we all had regular seats, so it made sense. Now that things were shuffled, we would all have new regular seats, at least until Melanie got out of her wheelchair, then we’d have to rearrange. I wanted to sit by her and so did Jennifer. We were doing everything we could to help her, just like they had helped me when Birgit had died.

Sarah actually talked more than she had before, mostly to Jennifer, but also to me. I got the idea that they had developed at least a passing friendship last quarter from the way they talked. The seating arrangements before hadn’t really allowed them to talk at lunch, so I didn’t have much to go on. Jennifer often kept her friendships to herself; I wasn’t upset by that — it had always been her way.

The week passed quickly and on Friday evening, Jennifer and I spent time with Melanie. She was less tired but worried about the physical therapy that would likely start in February. I pointed out that she didn’t need her arm totally recovered to dance or screw, which caused all three of us to laugh. We had a great time with her, and we were all looking forward to her being out of the wheelchair.

On Saturday I worked, Jennifer and I had lunch, and then we went to dinner and a movie. We saw Love at First Bite a corny Dracula comedy starring George Hamilton that had Dracula wind up in New York City. It was goofy, but fun. We necked a little during the movie, but otherwise just enjoyed being together. Sunday was typical as well.

The questionnaires were handed out to all students on Monday. There were a lot turned in on Monday and it looked like well more than half of the 1200 students in the school would sign-up. I dreaded all the typing, but we had a plan. We’d see by Friday how many we had.

On Wednesday, Kellie found me as I got off the bus.

“Hi, Steve!” she said happily.

“Hi, Kellie,” I said evenly.

“I owe you an apology, I guess.”

“For what? You didn’t lead me on. You told me what you wanted, and you got it.”

“No, but then I treated you badly. I stopped sitting with the group, I didn’t even talk to you.”

I didn’t say, ‘Yeah, you treated me like a guy who bags a virgin then dumps her with no warning’.

“Kellie, you don’t owe me anything. You wanted a good time, wanted to learn, and I enjoyed the sex.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have treated you that way.”

“True. I certainly wouldn’t have done that. It was pretty cold, actually.”

“I guess it was, wasn’t it?”

The warning bell rang for homeroom so I said “Later” and walked away, her warning bell was two minutes later, but she’d have to run down the long access road to the Junior High to make it. I figured she would get around to asking for what she wanted. I had no intention of giving it to her. I’d be nice, but I wasn’t going to have sex with Miss Kellie Linden any more than I was going to have sex with Kathy Will.

I did get surprised at the end of the day when none-other-than Kathy Will said ‘Hi’ to me as we walked out to the buses. She didn’t say anything more. I wondered if she had decided on a new tactic. Well, she could, but her chances were the same as the chances of Satan hosting the Stanley Cup. Or of a Cincinnati team competing for it. It would be fun to see her try.

On Friday morning, there were 802 forms turned in, well over half. A few more might come in, but that looked like the number to work with. I’d collect them all at the end of the day and we’d start typing them in that evening. At lunch, Sarah offered to help us with the typing.

“Steve, Jennifer said you might need more help. I can type pretty fast. Jennifer’s mom can bring me with them when she gets dropped off tonight.”

“That’s great!” I replied. “Thanks for offering.”

The real problem was Saturday, when I was working. I had talked to Dad about Beth, Jennifer, and Larry being there while I was gone. He was OK with it, but said my mom had objected because she didn’t want all of them in the office. My solution was that I would move the TRS-80 to my room for the weekend. She’d have a conniption fit, but I could point to the fact that I had a contract with the Student Council, which I actually did, to run this for them. There would be payback, I was sure. I just didn’t know what.

I got home and moved the computer to my room. My mom saw it a few minutes later and ordered me to take it back to the office. I told her I had four people coming over to help work on the school project and she didn’t want us in the office, so I had no choice.

“Well, you’ll just have to use your Apple then. Put the computer back.”

“Mom, the program runs on the TRS-80. Dad said I could have people over to work on this and I have a contract with the Student Council. It has to be done this weekend. There is no choice. I’ll move it, but then the five of us will be in the office. Those really are the only options.”

“You never asked permission to do this with our computer!”

“You’ve known about it for months, Mom. You’re just doing this to spite me and interfere in my life. I am so glad I’m going away for a year!”

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see that you’re not as smart as you think you are. Fine. Do your project. But anything in the future has to be on your computer. Period.”

“Fine, Mom, the TRS-80 will sit and gather dust. I’m the only one who uses it for anything. You’ll have wasted your money.”

“Also, you aren’t to have girls in your room, so you’ll need to move your computer somewhere to work on it with that Beth.”

“I have permission from Dad to be in here with anyone I wish, as long as the door is open and we stay off the bed.”

“What?”

“I went to him about having private space. You refuse to let me have any.”

“That’s because you can’t be trusted not to have sex! You refuse to accept that you are too young for that and that the girls are too young. I still can’t believe Becky’s parents let you have sex at their house! I am so glad you aren’t going over there any more. It’s sinful.”

“Mom, you don’t control that part of my life. You won’t. Ever. That’s my private business. As for sinful, that’s your opinion.”

She stormed out of the room. I figured my dad was in for a real tongue-lashing from her. I wondered what she meant about me not being ‘smart’. Well, I would find out eventually, I was sure. A potential solution came to mind. I had purchased the new parts for the TRS-80 with my own money, and the cost had been more than the original system. I’d offer Dad the original purchase price and then it would be mine. I was sure he’d go for it. Mom would lose her mind, but I really didn’t care.

My friends arrived just after dinner. The first thing we did was to sort the sheets alphabetically and check for duplicates. We found one clearly fake sheet that had changed a guy named “George” to “Georgia” and listed him as female. We put that one aside. Somebody had paid $5 for a gag and we caught it. I hoped we didn’t miss any others.

Once we finished sorting the forms, Beth sat down and started typing them in. After about 20 minutes, I did some rough calculations and decided that we could forgo the time on Saturday while I was working and still finish easily by Sunday afternoon. Beth entered 75 sheets and then Sarah sat down at the computer to take over. We worked until about 10:00pm and I told them I’d see them all at 6:00pm on Saturday and then at 10:00am on Sunday.

Work went quickly on Saturday and once I got home, we got quite a few more forms entered. We were having fun just hanging out, taking turns entering forms. I suggested that on Sunday, once we finished, we should spot check. I’d write a program first thing on Sunday to display the records on the screen randomly and we’d compare them to the forms. I didn’t think we could check them all, but I figured if we did a hundred and didn’t find too many errors, we’d be OK. If we found a lot, we’d have to check more.

I had a chance to talk to Sarah quite a bit, and it turned out she had quite the silly sense of humor. I thought she was pretty cool and would make a good addition to the group. I didn’t detect any signs that the rumor mill had spread, or if it had, she was good at keeping any comments to herself.

On Sunday, I wrote my display program and tested it by bringing up my sheet, along with Jennifer’s, Melanie’s, and Beth’s. Larry had chosen not to participate, which at first had confused me, but when I thought about it, he didn’t date or anything, so it made sense. The data on our forms was correct, and the program worked. I ran it with the random selection and checked a couple and found no errors.

After Mom left for church, I went to Dad with my proposal about the TRS-80. I pointed out that I had purchased about $900 worth of add-ons for it with an original purchase price of around $600. I’d like to buy it from him. He was concerned about Mom’s reaction and told me that he’d think about it.

That meant he’d talk to my mom. I decided that I’d just buy a new main unit from Radio Shack next weekend and be done with it. That would probably irk her more. It also dawned on me that it might lead to questions about money, but I’d say I was using the profits from the student council, as well as for working for Doctor Grossi and the Deli. It would be a stretch, but I figured I could convince Dad there were no concerns.

I also realized that at the moment I wasn’t doing anything improper, and Don Joseph had implied fairly strongly that I wouldn’t be doing that kind of work in the future. I knew the kid making the drug pickups from Andreas, but I made sure to steer clear of him at all times. As I was thinking about that, I wondered if there were any Milford High girls at the brothel. I had no way to find out at the moment, though.

The rest of the team arrived, and we set to work. For lunch, I ordered pizza, and we ate in the dining room. By 2:00pm we were done with the data entry and started checking the forms against what we had put in. We only found one error on the first 50 forms and decided that was probably enough. It wouldn’t make that big of a difference in the end, and nobody would see anything other than a number of stars to indicate how strong the match was.

We all agreed around 3:30pm that we were ready to run. We set up the printer, loaded the paper and I ran the program. I stopped as planned after doing the first sheet for Tim Abbott. We looked it over and everything seemed to be OK. I pressed ‘N’ on the keyboard in response to my prompt ‘Run all sheets?’ and got a second sheet, this one for Joshua Acton. It also looked good, so I pressed ‘Y’ and the program started running.

I immediately found the flaw in my master plan. The printer was noisy. I was going to have real trouble sleeping. I thought about it and decided that when I went to sleep, I’d pause the program and resume it in the morning. It would stop when the printer ran out of paper, but that was OK because it would start again when we loaded more paper. We let it run and went to have some Cokes.

Just before 5:30pm, we checked the stack of printouts and everything looked good. Larry and Beth left in his car and Jennifer called her mom to come pick them up. Her mom arrived, and I kissed Jennifer goodbye and said goodbye to Sarah. I ate dinner and then went back to my room.

I was keeping an eye on the program and it was moving along fine. Even with not being able to run it overnight, we’d finish in plenty of time to be able to hand out the sheets on Friday. I’d get my payment, which I would share with Beth, when I handed over the forms.

When I went to bed, I paused the program by taking the printer off-line — effectively the same thing that would happen if it ran out of paper. The program would start as soon as I put it back on-line.

I slept well and as soon as I got up, I made sure the paper tray was full and put the printer on-line. Stephanie and I swam and had breakfast together. Before I got on the bus, I made sure the printer was loaded with paper and put it on-line. As I was leaving, Dad told me that Mom had absolutely refused my request to buy the TRS-80 from them. I told him that was fine, I’d find another solution. I wasn’t going to say anything in advance because then Mom could try to stop me.

On Monday morning, Kellie greeted me at the bus with a bright smile.

“Hi, Steve! I didn’t get to finish talking to you before the homeroom bell rang.”

“Hi, Kellie,” I said flatly.

“I was wondering if we could get together sometime.”

“You told me in no uncertain terms that it was one-time and nothing you did in the future would be with me. You confirmed that twice. You told me you weren’t interested in dating me, and then you basically froze me out.”

“I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

“I accept your apology, but that really doesn’t change anything.”

“Please don’t be mean to me,” she begged.

“I’m not being mean,” I replied. “I’m just letting you know I’m not interested.”

“But you fuck anyone who asks nicely! I’m trying to be nice.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “There are plenty of girls in the school I wouldn’t do it with, even if they asked nicely.”

“But we’ve done it already! What’s the big deal?”

“I’m not interested,” I said.

The homeroom warning bell rang, putting a merciful end to that conversation. I wondered if she’d give up that easily. I suspected not. If Kathy Will was being nice to me after telling me “Fuck you!” then a simple “I’m not interested” probably wasn’t enough to deter Kellie.

The week progressed. Melanie was happy when her doctor told her she could start with her walking splint the next Monday. She would be glad to get out of the wheelchair. On Friday, I brought all the finished forms to school. I turned them over in exchange for a check for $1,026.25. I’d deposit it and give Beth $225. That way I could still cover the costs of the paper, ribbon, and part of the printer, and still have enough money left over to buy the TRS-80. I told Beth about the split and she was ecstatic. She was saving for her own computer and that would help a lot. She wanted an Apple, so she had a ways to go. She had lots of time, though, because she’d have mine for a year.

I had looked at several sheets before handing them in. I made sure that the “Pete Carston” sheet was in for Melanie and took the regular one out. I wasn’t surprised to see my name as her top match. The other names were mostly Seniors that I didn’t know. I looked at Jennifer’s sheet and I wasn’t her top match. In fact, I was third. I wondered which questions we differed on. I’d have to ask. We hadn’t compared sheets, so I didn’t know for sure. I was sure at least one of them was the questions about the guy paying for everything (which I had said yes and I knew she disagreed with that idea). Another one might be the ideal date, because ‘passionate lovemaking’ wasn’t on the list and that was Jennifer and my idea of a perfect date!

I was pleased to see that Beth and Brent were first on each other’s lists. I was on Beth’s list in 3rd place. Bethany’s list contained a bunch of Juniors and Seniors I didn’t know, but I was second on her list. I found it amusing that Brad Green was first on her list when she said they didn’t click. I scanned through a few other sheets as well, finding it funny how many couples didn’t show up on each other’s sheets!

My sheet was very interesting. Melanie was first, which again didn’t surprise me. Bethany was second. Mary was third. Jennifer was fourth. I would have to pull the answer sheets and see what the differences were. They were all 5-star matches, so it could just be that the matches were identical, but the order was random based on the sort. I’d have to check my program to see exactly what happened when two people had the exact same score.

The most surprising thing about my sheet was that Janet Owens was fifth. I had no interest in her at all, but I pulled her sheet and I was fourth on her list. The rest of the names I didn’t recognize other than knowing their names because they were all Seniors. I wondered who I’d ask to the dance from the list. I’d have to scope out the Senior girls and see if any of them would go out with a Sophomore.

Friday after lunch, I got called to the office. A reporter from the Milford Advertiser wanted to talk to me about the Computer Dating program. He was writing a short human-interest piece about it for the paper. I answered his questions, and he said he’d like to send a photographer to my house to get a picture of me next to the computer. I told him about Beth and he said she was welcome to be in the photo and he’d include her name in the article. I gave him my number and said that any day after school would be good. As soon as I got home, I had Dad sign the release.

That night was my date with Joyce. She picked me up at 4:30pm I asked her if we could run an errand and she agreed. I figured it was easier to buy the new TRS-80 when I wasn’t depending on Dad for a ride. We went to the Radio Shack, and I made the purchase and we put it in the trunk of her car. After that, she drove to the apartment.

We chatted while she made dinner, but avoided the topic of our relationship. I figured we’d get to that after dinner. Tonight she made pork chops, broccoli, and salad. She had some kind of small cake for dessert. I ate with gusto. When we had cleaned up, she asked if I’d cuddle with her so we could talk. I readily agreed, and she surprised me by quickly disrobing and getting into bed. She propped some pillows, so that she was almost sitting up. I shed my clothes as well and joined her. She pulled the sheets up over our chests and then leaned in to cuddle with her head on my shoulder.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Uncertain,” I replied. “There was this feeling of gloom and doom from our conversation last time. It made me really sad because I felt our relationship was coming to an end.”

“I know. I told you I had planned to break up with you, so that makes sense. But then I changed my mind. I’ve done a lot of thinking the last couple of weeks. About what I want, about what you want, about what each of us can give to the other one now. About what the future might hold. I know you can’t tell me what you want at this point. It’s not fair for me to ask you about the long term.

“The fact that you are going away is good and bad. Good, because I plan to date while you are gone. Bad because I’ll miss you. I really like our relationship, it’s a taste of what being married will be like and I love it. I know I have my doubts about the long term, but I’ll just have to let that play out. I guess I’m saying that I’m more like you in that I can’t decide now.”