Chapter 31: Back to School

August 1982, Chicago, Illinois

I woke up to the alarm on Monday morning, kissed Stephie, and quickly slipped on my running clothes and headed out. I took a slow, easy pace and worked to clear my mind and prepare to shift my focus to my schoolwork. The Summer had been a combination of fun, emotional highs, emotional lows, and adapting to the reality that Kara wasn’t going to be with me this year. On the other hand, I had Stephie, Elyse, Kurt, and Kathy close, and Kara was less than six hours away by car. In a few weeks, I’d have a windfall of cash that would ensure I could pay for three more years of college and the apartment, even without my side income. Over all, life was good; which, if my history had taught me anything, meant something would go wrong.

When I arrived back at the apartment, I hopped into the shower, then dressed for school. I went to the kitchen and accepted a mug of tea from Stephie and started cooking breakfast. Elyse came out of her room and sat down, and I poured her a cup of tea. As soon as breakfast was ready, I put everything on the table and sat down with the girls to eat.

“Have fun last night?” Elyse said casually as she ate her eggs.

“Was I that loud?” Stephie asked impishly.

“Yes!” Elyse exclaimed.

“Sorry. I hope I didn’t keep you awake, but the Damnyankee had me so wound up I just couldn’t help it!”

“He’ll do that to you!” Elyse smirked.

“What’s your schedule like, Elyse?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“A couple of econ classes, another stats class, creative writing, and a history survey course that focuses on economy.”

“Sounds like too damn many numbers!” I joked.

“Speaking of which, there’s a program I want to get that runs on the Apple called VisiCalc. It’ll make things a LOT easier for doing my homework and testing simulations without burning through my mainframe account. I’d rather use that for SPSS — a set of stats programs one of my professors wrote. VisiCalc costs about $100, but it’ll be worth it.”

“Sure. I can get it for you from the computer store.”

“I think the university bookstore has it. I just needed to make sure you were OK with me using it on your computer.”

“Of course. Everything in the apartment is shared between us. Heck, I’ll even lend you Stephie if you want,” I smirked.

“Jerk!” Stephie giggled.

Elyse and I both laughed. We finished our breakfast and Stephie and I packed up our book bags and left for IIT.

“When do you think we’ll start getting tutoring requests?” Stephie asked.

“I figure two or three weeks — the first quiz or test, or major program that is assigned should generate the first calls. I suspect it’ll be around mid-term when it really kicks in, when people realize that they might flunk!”

“At any other school, it’d be a great way to meet girls!” Stephie said with a small laugh.

“True, but I didn’t have trouble meeting you, now did I?”

“No. And you met Jackie and her friend as well.”

“Yep,” I said as I pulled into the parking lot.

We got out of the car, kissed, and headed to our classes. We’d meet up for lunch and then go to our business class together. I headed for the Stuart Building and found my classroom. As usual, I took a seat front and center and took out my notebook and pencils. As the students filed in, I looked through the textbook and decided this was going to be an interesting class, even though it was purely theory.

The professor arrived and when he called the roll, I was not surprised that there was only one girl, by the name of Julia Simmons, in the class of thirty. A glance over my shoulder located a skinny, raven-haired girl with thick glasses. She fit right in with all the nerdy looking guys in the class.

My good feeling about the class evaporated as soon as the lecture started. The professor, a middle-age man with a neatly trimmed goatee, had a nasal, monotone voice that was only slightly less annoying than fingernails scraping on a chalkboard. So while the material appeared to be interesting, sitting in class was going to be just short of torture. That did not bode well for a class that was pure theory. When the class ended, I, and pretty much every other student, bolted for the door.

I headed for The Bog to wait for Stephie, who arrived a few minutes after I did. She gave me a quick kiss, and we went to get our food, then came back to the table. I complained about my professor but Stephie had a worse complaint — her calculus professor was Chinese and she had serious difficulty understanding anything he said. She had spoken with a couple of the other students after the class and they’d all had the same complaint.

“You’re damn good at math, you have the textbook and you can always talk to one of your Chem-E classmates a year ahead of you if you need help.”

“True. And he writes so much on the board, which helps some, but still!”

“There’s a CS prof from Eastern Europe who has a really heavy accent. I’ll have him next semester for a Management Information Systems course. And it’s a theory course, too, so it’s all lecture. I suppose it could be worse. I could’ve had a professor from Georgia!” I grinned.

“Very funny, Yankee. You didn’t seem to have no trouble at all talking to Red, Rose, or Bill! And you sure didn’t have no complaints about Emily!”

“I like you best, though, Peaches,” I said, causing her to break into a big smile.

We finished lunch and then headed for the humanities building where our Introduction to Business course was being taught. This course was a survey that covered basic stuff like corporate organization, basic accounting, business law, creating and reading balance sheets, and a host of other topics that covered pretty much every aspect of business. It had been created for non-business majors to understand how business worked. The professor was a woman who was engaging and funny, and best of all, who had a wonderful British accent.

After class, Stephie and I hung out in her dorm room with Jackie until it was time to go to our final class of the day. After a quick kiss, I walked to the Engineering building for my class in digital electronics. A quick look around the room revealed that at least half the students from my operating systems course, including the girl, were in this class as well. That didn’t surprise me because it was a pretty standard second year class. I assumed the others were in either the C or assembly language classes that I’d taken a semester early.

The professor for this class was probably the biggest nerd in the room, and he dressed to fit that image — faded jeans, unbuttoned flannel shirt over an REO Speedwagon t-shirt, and sandals with bare feet. He had a bushy beard, and to complete the picture, large, black-framed glasses. His jokes were corny, but he seemed like a pretty nice guy. When he handed out the syllabus, I noticed several projects that would require actually building circuits, and that looked like a lot of fun.

Next he handed out a parts list of things we’d need to buy, along with the addresses of several RadioShack stores where we could buy them. He also said that we could work in teams of two or three if we wanted, but that each team member had to turn in their own working unit. I looked around and saw a couple of guys I’d been in class with during Freshman year, but one of them was at best a C student. I didn’t know much about the other guy, Dave Kallas, but we were acquaintances, so after class I asked if he wanted to partner up.

“Sure,” he said. “You were pretty much a wizard in the C class. I’m game. When do you have time to work on stuff together?”

“I live off campus, down in Hyde Park. I have Tuesday afternoons and Thursday mornings free, and my last classes end at 4:00pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”

“Tuesday afternoons work for me,” Dave said. “I’m at Sigma Phi Epsilon over in the quad. You know where that is?”

“Yeah, more or less across from Theta Xi. I’ve been there for a party.”

“Ah, Theta Zoo! They do know how to party there, that’s for sure!”

I’d left too early to discover that, apparently. I’d have to ask Becky about it. We exchanged phone numbers and said we’d work out plans once we got the first project assigned. I went to meet Stephie at the car for the drive home and told her about the class.

“Wait, you have a guy for a partner? No way! You, Steve Adams, talked to a guy?” she smirked.

“It does happen. Pete, Josh, and Larry back home. And Kurt and I are becoming good friends.”

“Until you kill him for making your ex-lover shave her pubes!” she giggled.

“She told you?” I said.

“Yeah, when you were makin’ dinner. She’s a great girl, Steve. Why did you ever let her go?”

“It’s a long, long story. The short version is that her cheerleader friends put pressure on her to stick to jocks and we both ignored our mutual crushes in seventh and eighth grade. By the time we got together, it was more or less too late. We became occasional lovers during my Senior year, then more serious when we first moved here. But she met Kurt and that kind of opened the door for you, Peaches!”

“Well, that’s a good thing, then! But if you guys got together, why not give it a go?”

“We talked about it, actually. I suppose you could blame me, because I’m a romantic and believe in true love. If I didn’t, then for sure I could have given it a go with her. Or with Elyse, for that matter. But I think I need to truly, deeply love someone to marry them. Elyse argues that can come second. I think it has to come first.”

“Do you love me, Yankee?” she asked as I parked the car near the apartment.

I did. But answering that question was fraught with danger. I’d made the mistake of saying that too often in the past. I still said it a lot, but I was a lot more careful about who I said it to and when. How did I feel about my Georgia Peach? I loved her, I was sure of it. The question in my mind was how this would change our relationship if I said it out loud. This felt like one of those times when Joyce would warn me about being too honest. But there was no way I could lie to Stephie.

“Yes, I do,” I said, after a moment’s thought.

“You had to think about it?” she asked.

“No. I’ve known I loved you for some time. It was a matter of whether or not I should say it. I don’t want to hurt you or mislead you, Peaches.”

We got out of the car and Stephie slipped her hand into mine, and we walked into the building, up the stairs and into the apartment. We slipped off our shoes and then went down the hall to drop our books in my room. Stephie shut the door and pointed to the bay window. I went to sit down, and she sat between my legs and leaned back. I put my arms around her and she snuggled in.

“We love each other, we get along famously, and we’re almost livin’ together. Why not give it a try?” she asked.

“You know why, Stephie,” I said softly.

“Kara,” she said flatly.

“Yes. I’ve never hidden that from you, nor lied to you about it in any way.”

“That’s true. You’ve been totally honest with me. I’m wonderin’ if you’re bein’ totally honest with yourself.”

“You aren’t the first person to ask the question,” I said. “Elyse was pretty blunt with me about that before you got here. My little sister has raised that question as well. And to a lesser extent, so have some other friends. I keep coming to the same conclusion. The same one you know about.”

Stephie sighed, “Am I evil for wishin’ that you two would break up?”

“No, you aren’t evil. It’s no surprise that you would think that way.”

We were quiet for a bit and then I asked the question that kept popping into my mind.

“Do you want to keep on like we are?” I asked. “Or is it too hard for you?”

“I guess it kinda’ stinks either way. But I’d really kick myself if I broke off with you now and then something happened between you and Kara. Isn’t that more or less what she did?”

“More or less. We were steady, but she was afraid of me going off with Jennifer, so she broke up with me. Then a couple of weeks later, Jennifer called the whole thing off and Kara was pretty upset with herself.”

“I bet! I guess it’s in my best interest to stay with you, then. I love you more’n I’ve loved anyone or anything in my life. When I’m with you, it just feels right. That was true before we made love that first time in January. I hope you’re not upset with me.”

“Not at all. It’s OK for you to tell me how you feel!” I said, hugging her tight to me.

“She’s coming for Labor Day, right? A week from Friday?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“How’s that going to work?”

“Well, she’s going to stay in my room. If you want to stay over on Friday night, you could use the sofa bed. If you ask Elyse, you could probably use the air mattress in her room on Saturday. I’m not going to ask you to stay away from here. I have nothing to hide from you or from Kara.”

“I’m not sure I want to be around a lot and see you cuddle her and stuff. If it’s OK, I’ll come for the Saturday study time and supper. Kurt and Kathy will be here, right?”

“They usually are. And Jackie as well.”

“Jackie’s gonna have a car by then so we can come out on Saturday then go home that evening. Is that OK?”

“Sure, Peaches. That’s fine. Also, Bethany is probably going to visit this weekend. She’s breaking up with Gene and wants to see me and Kathy. It’s cool for you to be here, but I will have to spend some time with just her and Kathy.”

“You two were a serious item before. Is she gonna want to take up with you again?” Stephie asked.

“I’m sure that will come up, but I can’t do that to her. She’d get the wrong idea. I don’t want her to think she has some kind of chance with me.”

“Sure, but do I? Really?”

I sighed, “I think I’m going to give up on answering speculative questions like that. Let’s just take things as they come up and figure it out as they do.”

“That’s actually the best answer you could give me, Yankee!”

I heard the apartment door open and Elyse called out, “Anybody home?”

“In here, Elyse,” I called to her.

She came down the hall to the door to my room.

“What’s up?” she asked, stopping short when she saw us together.

“Yankee’s just comfortin’ me. I was kind of having an emotional moment.”

Elyse nodded, “Are you making dinner, Steve?”

“Yeah, I am. OK to get up now, Peaches?”

“Yep!” she said, her face brightening a bit.

I went out to the kitchen and started on dinner while the girls sat on the couch and talked quietly. The music was loud enough to completely cover their voices, but that didn’t bother me because I figured Stephie was telling Elyse what was going on. When dinner was ready, I called the girls to the table and we ate, then the girls cleaned up and I made tea.

“How was your first day of classes, Elyse?” I asked.

“The usual. Just get the syllabus, go over the grading system, that kind of thing. No homework. How about you?”