Chapter 5: Chicago

December 28th, 1984, Chicago, Illinois

Traffic was light until we got very close to Chicago, but even then, there was no real delay. I pulled into the driveway of my house at about 7:45am and the four of us got out and went inside. Jennifer and I used the bathroom, and she changed into a skirt and blouse, and we were back in Stephanie's Nova by 8:00am. Forty-five minutes later, the two of us were sitting in the lobby at Nuvatec waiting for Scott Bannerman. He came out five minutes later.

"Steve, how are things?" he asked.

"Have you spoken to Doctor Bauer about Wen?" I asked.

"Yes. I saw the news article and called him. I tried to call you, but I haven't been able to get in touch with you. Were you at your parents' house?"

"No. Indianapolis. My best friend was in a horrible car accident and nearly died. I've pretty much been at the hospital with her parents since Christmas Eve."

"Is she doing OK?" he asked.

"After three surgeries, with one to go, I think she'll make it. She's really banged up, but the trauma surgeon who worked on her is a hero," I said quickly, then realized I hadn't introduced Jennifer! "I'm sorry, Scott, this is Jennifer Block, Jennifer, this is Scott Bannerman, my professor and boss."

Jennifer smiled brightly for the first time since she'd walked into the hospital yesterday afternoon.

"Hello, Mr. Bannerman!" she said, holding out her hand. "Thank you for inviting me to interview at Nuvatec."

"Hi, Jennifer," he replied, smiling. "I'm pleased to finally meet you. Steve has spoken highly of you."

"I'm sure he exaggerates a bit," she answered calmly.

I smiled as I realized that the interview process had already started as they sized each other up.

Scott continued, "We have four people for you to see this morning. Do you want coffee or need to use the ladies' room?"

"No, I'm fine for now, thank you," she said.

"Steve, if you don't mind, there's an update for the Unix computers that needs to be applied. We aren't running anything important now, so if you want to do that while we talk to Jennifer, I'd appreciate it."

"I'm on it!" I said and headed to the server room.

I finished the upgrade in about an hour and did some testing to make sure that everything was OK and that the database software was running properly. When I finished, I stopped into Scott's office to let him know. He asked me to sit down.

"She's damned smart, Steve. I mean that. She seems a bit on edge, though. More so than just an interview should cause."

"She had a bad break-up a couple of days ago. I haven't had a chance to talk to her about it in detail because of my friend's accident, but I suspect that's what's bothering her."

"That makes sense and would explain why she seems a bit tense. She hides it well, but I could tell. I like her. We'll see what everyone else has to say," he nodded. "Would you like to discuss your grades and those of your team?"

"Sure, why not," I smiled.

"You should smile and you should be happy. With a couple of exceptions, Len being the primary one, everyone received an A. It won't show on the grade cards, but I'm sure that you won't be surprised that Julia scored more points than you did overall."

I chuckled, "No surprise. Without her, I wouldn't have had an A."

"Steve, one of the most important things you can learn as a manager is to assign the right people to the task. There will always be someone better than you at whatever it is. Your job, as manager or owner, is to find that person and convince them to come work for you. And, believe it or not, that includes programming. Tell me, who do you know that's better than you are?"

"Nobody now, but when Penny O'Neil, my next-door neighbor, finishes at IIT, she'll be better. I already encouraged Doctor Bauer to allocate a CS scholarship for her."

"What is it with you and females in technology?" he chuckled. "Julia, Penny, Wen, Charlie, and now, Jennifer. You're pushing them all hard in fields where there aren't too many women."

"And why is that?" I asked. "Honestly, I don't think having testicles is an advantage for programming. In fact, they create huge distractions!"

Scott laughed, "I wasn't implying that at all, which I'm sure you know. It's just rare to see young women in technology fields, and yet, you seem to accumulate them around you."

"Maybe because I don't give a damn about them being female when it comes to anything other than sex!"

"If you tell me that Jennifer is a girlfriend of yours, or was, I might just have to kill you!" he grinned.

"I love her dearly, but there are serious complications. We've dated off and on. Sadly, I don't think we'll end up together. But we're getting off topic. What about Charlie's grade?"

"Based purely on classwork and her presentation, she earned an A, so that's the grade she'll receive. She's going to fail her math class, which I'm sure you know."

"What happened with Callie's testimony?" I asked.

"She tried to claim that Bert raped her and you tried to seduce her, but the statement from Miss Blanchard and the letter that Miss Clarke wrote made those claims difficult to support."

"Elyse wrote a letter?" I asked, pleasantly surprised.

"Unsolicited. She described everything that happened, including the fact that she pushed you to go after Callie. She had a private meeting with Dean Stauffer to explain that, so I don't know what she said, but he came away convinced that Callie was lying."

I knew what Elyse had told Dean Stauffer, or at least had a very good idea of what she'd said.

"Did Callie give up the names of the people who stole the tests?" I asked.

"No. I think when she comes before the Disciplinary Committee and they recommend expulsion and loss of all credit, she'll change her tune. But I'm not sure that will save her given that Dean Stauffer has made it clear that he's going to impose the maximum penalty allowed by the Committee. She needed to confess at the hearing to avoid that."

"And Charlie?" I asked.

"They won't expel her now that she's confessed and given evidence. It's my opinion that they will recommend suspension unless you can talk them out of it. You need to convince four members, not all seven. So don't try to play to all of them."

I nodded, "I'll talk to a friend of mine who's a law student and see if I can get some advice on juries from one of her professors."

He laughed, "That fits your style. Just don't overdo it. Tell them why you trusted her to make the presentation and the work she did on your team. Tell them how good she is. That she admitted her mistake, confessed, and gave evidence that would lead to one of the ringleaders. And don't get into verbal sparring matches. Even if you win, you'll lose. Remember that. If you make a member look foolish or wrong, you will lose their vote. Then you'll need four out of six, and they might get sympathy from the other members because they are colleagues."

"Got it," I replied. "So who didn't earn an A besides Len?"

"Bill Paulsen and Todd Olson received B's. That's what your evaluation said they had earned, and I agreed."

"Cool. I'm curious, why didn't you give Julia an A+ on her grade and me an A?"

"Because you both did A+ work. Remember what I said — selecting the right team members and having people who are good at specific things do those things is a sign of a good manager. You did a better job than Dave at that, BUT he also managed his team much more closely. He's more cut out for that."

I smiled, "Which is why in my long-term business plan I'll work for him as a programmer, and we'll both work for Julia."

Scott laughed hard, "Now I know why all your friends love you so much. Keep it up. And please let me have some graduates to hire, eventually!"

"Are you going to take Wen as an intern for next Fall?"

"Probably. I'm interested in other recommendations, though, as I said, Charlie can't be part of the program."

"I think Terry Parker on Dave's team is probably the next best candidate. He'll be a Senior."

Scott nodded, "A good choice. I'll talk to him. Doctor Bauer has a few ideas, and I have a couple as well. Ah, here's Jennifer. Can I take the two of you to lunch?"

I checked my watch.

"As much as I'd like to, I have a ton of stuff to do because we're going back to Indianapolis tonight so I can be with my friend. I hope you don't mind."

He nodded, "Go take care of your friend. That's more important. Jennifer, thanks for coming. We'll be in touch soon."

We both shook hands with Scott and I walked Jennifer out to my sister's car. Once we were safely away from the office, I asked how it went.

"Good, I think," she said. "I was asked a lot of EE questions by Hank Fredricks and Mr. Bannerman asked me a lot of more general technology questions. Phil Lach and I just talked for twenty minutes, which seemed a bit strange. And then Dan Weaver and I talked about video games and how they worked for about thirty minutes."

"Interesting," I said, putting the car in reverse and backing out of the parking spot. "Scott seemed positive, though he noted that you were a bit tense. I told him you'd had a bad break-up."

She nodded.

"You know we have to talk about that, Jen. We're going to do that tomorrow. And I won't take 'no' for an answer."

She sighed but didn't say anything.

We were back at the house just before noon and Stephanie prepared lunch while I checked my messages. There were a couple from the police, one from Wen, one from my dad, one from Karin, and several from friends concerned about Bethany. There was no way I was going to be able to return all those calls immediately, but I did have some that were a priority.

My first call was to the hospital to check on Wen. She said she was going to be released late that afternoon and encouraged me to come before 3:00pm. I made a note of that and told her most likely I'd come down right after lunch. My second call was to the police, who confirmed I could pick up my car from the evidence impound lot.

When I hung up, I called the dealer and talked to the service department. They took down the information, including the name and number of my insurance adjustor, and said to drop the car off at any time. Finally, I called Sensei Jim and let him know that I was going to be away from Saturday classes for some time, though I'd do my best to come on Monday and Wednesdays. He wasn't happy, but he said he understood.

By then, Stephanie had lunch on the table and we sat down. She let me know that she'd done some laundry and gone through my mail. She'd sorted the piles, and they were on my desk. She also hinted that she and Ed had taken some time out to enjoy their time alone, and I just nodded and smiled.

After lunch I went to my study and called Anala. She wasn't home and didn't have her machine on to take a message, so there wasn't much I could do about that. I made a call to Melanie and Pete to update them, and Melanie said that they would try to visit Bethany over the weekend.

Next, I placed a call to Sofia. I apologized for not calling on Christmas, but she said that it was completely understandable. I told her everything I could about Bethany and she said that she hoped everything would go well with Bethany's recovery. I confirmed her return flight information and told her that I'd call her if anything changed. My next call was to Karin.

"You do NOT need to apologize for being with Bethany when she needed you," Karin exclaimed. "In fact, if you hadn't done that, I'd be terribly disappointed in you! Having your sister call me to let me know what was going on was very thoughtful, too. I appreciated your gift. Did you get mine?"

"I suspect that it's with the next-door neighbor. I haven't gone over there yet, but the packages aren't here, so I suspect they either took them in or the Post Office delivered them there. They do that when nobody is home here. Wait, I see a notice in my pile of mail that it was left next door. I'm sure it's wonderful."

"How are you holding up?" Karin asked. "You seem to be dealing with quite a few difficult situations right now."

"It's worse than you know. Jennifer and her girlfriend broke up. She's here, and there's something really bothering her. Hopefully, I can manage both crises at the same time."

"Who's there supporting you? Those two girls, Bethany and Jennifer, were your main support team."

"My sister, of course, plus Kara. And if I need Jackie or Anala, I'll call them. And I know I can call you if I need advice. Yours has always been good."

"This is probably a bad time to ask, but what are you thinking?" she asked. "Nothing has changed then?"

"No. Nothing has changed. I can't even really think about it because of everything else that's going on. Between Bethany, Jennifer, the cheating scandal I told you about, school, and starting my business, I'm swamped with things I have to think about. I haven't forgotten you, Karin Andersson."

"Nor I you, Steve Adams. Just remember, you don't have forever to decide what you want."

"I know," I said. "Let's talk in a few weeks. Heart to heart. I know it's soon, but if we keep pretending that the elephant isn't in the room, we'll get nowhere."

"The ball's been in your court since last Summer," she said.

"I know. I promise we'll talk towards the end of January."

We said our goodbyes and hung up. I pulled out the note that I had with the psychology department head's name and number and dialed Madison. I reached a secretary who was horrified when I told her about Bethany and took down all the information. She said she would call Doctor Krieg immediately and if she could reach him, have him call me back right away. If she couldn't reach him, she'd call me back to let me know. I thanked her and turned on my computer to write in my journal while I waited.

I wrote some random thoughts, knowing I probably didn't have time to expand on them, but making sure I had prompts for filling out the journal entries when I had some time. About five minutes later, the phone rang.

"Mr. Adams? This is Doctor Krieg from the University of Wisconsin."

"Hi, Doctor Krieg, I assume your assistant filled you in?"

"She did. What hospital is Bethany in?" he asked.

"Indiana University Hospital in Indianapolis," I said.

"At a minimum, I'll send her some flowers. I may drive down to see her. How can I help you?"

"I was wondering if there was a way she would be able to graduate in May with her class. I believe she has enough credits, but just needs to finish her Senior project. I believe that's her paper on incest and sexual abuse."

"You're remarkably well-informed. You must be the young man she's spoken about. I believe what you say is accurate. Yes, I'm sure we can work something out. After the new year, she should call my assistant and we'll make whatever accommodations we can."

"Thanks, Doctor Krieg," I said.

'Young man she's talked about'? I had a momentary shudder, wondering just what had Bethany revealed about me, but then I calmed myself. Bethany would never have said anything that would have compromised me or Stephanie. If anything, she would have mentioned me as her friend from Milford, now in Chicago, who had helped her with some of the research, not that I was the exception that proved the rule.

We said 'goodbye' and I hung up, then let the others know that I needed to go next door and get my package, as well as see Penny. I put on my coat and walked next door and rang the bell. Penny opened it and almost bowled me off the porch when she flung herself into my arms. I hugged her tightly, but didn't kiss her because I saw Alice coming into the foyer.