Chapter 28: Social Rejection

September 20, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

"I'm helping Bethany move back to your house today," Nick said as we finished breakfast. "She said that you two had worked out your issues and were friends again."

"My sister let me know about her moving back today. And we were never not friends, but everything that happened last year put a pretty serious strain on our friendship."

"She said that you asked her to marry you and that she turned you down."

I nodded, "I did. And she did. And as much as that hurt, as much as I hated it, she was right to turn me down. It would have been the biggest mistake the two of us could have made in the nine years that we've known each other. She needs the suburban house with the picket fence, 2.2 kids, a dog, a cat, and a parakeet. And a stable, devoted husband."

Nick smiled, "That's certainly not you, is it? Two wives, a kid by Jennifer and I hear another one on the way with Elyse, living in the city, trying to run your own business, and with no pets."

"No, it's not me. Bethany and I were meant to be friends, and that's how it should be."

"But you dated for years," Karl interjected.

I nodded again, "That we did. And through all the ups and downs, we stayed friends. But I'm not like you, Karl. You have the whole suburban, traditional family thing going on. You have a stable career, and if you ever decide to leave the Navy, you'll end up at a big law firm or on the Federal bench. The same is true for you, Nick, once you get a few more years under your belt. I suspect you'll have a very traditional family, just like Karl. Or Pete, when Melanie finishes school and they have kids. Or Kurt and Kathy. Well, you get the drift."

"Our friend here is anything but traditional," Kurt said. "My wife has known him longer than anyone here, and longer than most of the other girls, including Jennifer. An intervention in seventh grade was about the only way Steve would have turned out more conventional, and even then, given his home life, I'm not so sure."

"Kathy and I missed our opportunity, to your benefit, my friend," I said with a grin. "Heck, I was even too crazy for Pete's wife, and that's saying something!"

The guys laughed and Pete just shook his head. They all knew Melanie had a wild streak, they just didn't know HOW wild it really was. Or had been. Melanie's idea of wild these days was the searing French kisses she gave me when we saw each other. She had really calmed down and fallen into a very conventional, traditional life.

"If you want crazy, you should try dating his sister!" Jorge said with a laugh. "And I thought all you male gringos were crazy! That girl is certifiable! She makes a Puerto Rican woman look boringly sane!"

"Are you complaining?" I chuckled.

"Well, of course not!" he said with a silly grin.

"Wasn't she dating Bethany's little brother?" Nick asked.

"Yes, but it wasn't serious between them," I said. "They tried that, and it didn't work out. But later they were more like Bethany and me — close friends who liked to be together, but who could never marry."

"So what's this with you stepping back at work?" Jamie asked. "Joyce and Julia called to have me update the corporate paperwork."

"Narrow-minded assholes who can't mind their own fucking business, that's what's up," I growled, then took a deep breath. "Sorry. Basically, a law firm out in Cicero had a 'concern' about my 'moral character' and we didn't get their business. I have no clue how they found out about Jess and Kara and about Jesse, but they did. They informed Cindi in no uncertain terms they wouldn't do business with us. I talked with Dave and Julia, and then with Joyce and my dad, and we worked out the new structure. It's more or less what we'd planned to put in place in five years or so. We're just bringing it forward so I can disappear into the woodwork."

"Wow," Kurt said. "That sucks. It's your company!"

"Yep, and that's why I'm doing this. Besides, I assigned myself the role of programmer, so it's not as if I'm losing anything. Maybe in the future it'll change, but until society gets its collective head out of its ass, this is what we have to do."

"Do you have any regrets?" Karl asked.

"About what? Jesse? Hell no. I wouldn't give him up for the world. About Jessica and Kara? Are you kidding?" I chuckled. "Would any of you turn down that duo?"

"The UCMJ would take a VERY dim view of that relationship!" Karl laughed. "But I might see my way clear to resign my commission for those two!"

"I'll be sure to mention that to Ginny when I see her," Nick laughed.

"I'm a sailor," Karl laughed. "She knows. I'm allowed to look. It's the touching part that leads to my balls in a pickle jar on her night table. What I'm trying to figure out is how in the hell he can have kids with Jennifer and Elyse!"

Pete spoke up, "Never, ever try to figure out his relationships. They make no sense to anyone but Steve and the girls. What I do know is that he sent Melanie back to me repeatedly. And I'm grateful for that."

"I have to say the same thing," Kurt said.

"Me, too," Dave said. "I never noticed Julia until Steve took her under his wing, so to speak."

"Did ANY of these guys marry a girl you didn't date at some point?" Karl asked.

"Me!" Chris declared. "But it was kind of a timing thing. Otherwise, it would be all of us. Heck, if Nick and Bethany get together, I guess that just leaves you and Jorge, because Jorge's dating Stephanie."

I suppressed a chuckle because I'd had her, too, though none of the guys knew about it and they never, ever would.

"Before I forget, Nick," I said, "how do we get some sailors assigned to us for Thanksgiving dinner?"

"I'll put your name in with the Base Commander's office, with my endorsement. You'll receive a call from someone who'll ask you a few questions. You should be approved. How many recruits would you like to have?"

"I think we can safely take four," I said.

"Cool. Let me know if there are any concerns or problems," Nick said.

"I will. I hate to break up this breakfast, but I need to get home so I can go to karate class."

After lunch, I headed to the office to work with Penny and Tasha while my wives spent the afternoon with Sofia, Alejandra, and Leila. Kara was the odd person out, with everyone else studying medicine, but the five of them had begun hanging out as a group on Saturday afternoons while I worked. Penny had stopped by the house to get the office key, and she handed it to me as soon as I arrived.

"I finished with the last major bug report," Penny said. "Should I just start working on the next change request?"

"Dave re-prioritized everything, so just work according to the list he put with the change orders."

"So it's only the stuff that the law firm in LA is paying for?"

"For the immediate future, yes. The other requests have to wait due to lack of resources. But because those updates go to other existing clients in the quarterly updates, it's not as if they aren't receiving new features. And they can always pay if they want something immediately instead of on our timing."

"I looked through them with Tasha. There's one that a bunch of firms requested according to the change order, but it's way down the stack and we thought maybe it should be done."

"Let me see it," I said.

She handed me the request. I saw why Dave had put it lower in the stack — it was a significant amount of work that would require some serious restructuring of the database and that would require a lot of work on Cindi's and Mario's parts when it came time to release it. The search feature that was being requested made a lot of sense, as it would allow word searches across all database tables as well as the text of WordPerfect briefs. And that meant a routine to read the raw text of the WordPerfect documents into the database to make them searchable, and then some code to build a search index.

"Dave's right, unfortunately," I said. "This has to wait. You saw the work estimate at the bottom? Basically two of us full-time for a couple of months to design, code, and test it. The only way we could do this is either next Summer when you two are working full-time or if we hire another programmer. Maybe we could do the design so we can work towards it as we do other things, but that's up to Dave and Julia."

"OK," she said and turned back to her computer keyboard.

"Steve, do you have a minute for me," Tasha asked from the other room.

I got up and went over to where she was sitting.

"I'm trying to find a bug in this prescription module. You wrote it, according to the comments."

I chuckled, "Yeah. And that stupid module has been more trouble than any other piece of code. What's going on?"

"A problem with a report," she said, showing me.

"You know what, check the database and see if the records look right," I said. "I bet that in at least one place there is a mistake in writing the detail records to the database. We had something like that with the Purina Mills software a few months ago. This smells the same."

She laughed, "OK. By the way, Father Basil is still waiting for you to call so that you can have lunch."

"I'll call him right now," I said. "I keep forgetting."

I went back to my office and looked up the number and dialed it.

"Hi, Father Basil," I said. "This is Steve Adams. I'm sorry I haven't called you sooner. Tasha Zhukov just reminded me. Again!"

He laughed, "That's OK. I realize church isn't exactly at the top of your priority list. I would like to have lunch with you so we can chat."

"Sure," I said. "When?"

"How about one day during the week? I can come into the city, so you don't have to take too much time away from your office."

"What about Thursday?" I asked. "There's a diner on Halsted between 31st and 32nd in Bridgeport."

"Good. Shall we say noon?"

"See you then, Father," I said.

"Father?" Penny asked after I ended the call.

"An Orthodox priest at the church Tasha and her family go to. You know, where Kara, Jessica, Sofia, and I went to church at Orthodox Easter?"

"Oh, yeah. You're having lunch with him? Why?"

"Because I'm interested in Orthodox theology. I do have a couple of things that might keep me out of church."

"Two wives and kids by two other girls?" she said, then giggled. "Or your desire to screw a seventeen-year-old girl senseless?"

"The desire is there, Pretty Penny, but you know better."

"Hey, you can't blame me for trying!"

"No, I can't," I chuckled. "Get back to work!"

"Yes, Sir!" she smirked. "Just remember, I graduate in five years!"

I shook my head. She wasn't giving up on that notion, though she had told me that she had a date with a new guy on Friday. I wasn't sure if she was just marking time or if she really was trying to find a guy who she could be with. If she was marking time, she was going to be disappointed.

At 5:00pm we shut down the systems, and I locked up the office. The three of us walked back to the house and Penny went next door while Tasha came into the house. She'd have dinner with us, then work on her homework before heading back to IIT. My wives and housemates arrived home just after we did, and Jessica, Kara, and I cooked dinner. After dinner, most of us went to the sauna.

"Tasha?" I asked when she came into the sauna with a towel wrapped around her.

"Oh!" she said, blushing. "You're all naked!"

I quickly moved my towel to cover my lap, more to avoid embarrassing Tasha, than modesty on my part. Kara got up, wrapped a towel around herself, and took a stunned Tasha out of the sauna.

"You never told her?" Jessica asked.

"I didn't have a reason to!" I protested. "She's never come into the sauna before! She never even asked about it!"

"That poor girl might be traumatized for life!" Elyse observed.

"Kara will take care of her," I said. "I'll bet you just about anything you care to bet that Tasha comes back in with us."

Five minutes later, Kara came back in, with Tasha following behind her. I kept my towel over my lap and watched as Kara and Tasha sat down. Kara removed her towel, but Tasha kept hers around her.

"Sorry about the shock, Tasha," I said. "I probably should have warned you at some point."

"It's not your fault," she said. "I never came in here or even really thought about it until tonight."

"We used to have weekday and weekend rules when we had people over all the time. The weekend rules were towels or bathing suits. The weekday rules were like we are now."

"Kara said it's OK if I keep my towel on," she said.

"It is," I said. "Nobody should do anything that they aren't comfortable doing."

"Thanks," she said.

"Jessica, when do you go back to Indianapolis?" Sofia asked.

"October 4th," she said. "I start my surgery Sub-I the following Monday."

"We need to talk!" Leila said.

"You're third year pre-med?" Jessica asked.

"Yes. Both Alejandra and me. Just like Sofia."

"There isn't much to say at this point except make sure you keep your GPA as high as possible and arrange for good letters of recommendation. Once you're in medical school, I can give you some advice."

"What's it like to actually be involved in procedures?"

Jessica laughed, "Sutures, IVs, intubation. Not exactly glamorous stuff. On my surgery Sub-I, if I'm lucky, I'll be permitted to hold a retractor or apply suction. It's not until Residency that I'll have a chance to do any serious procedures."

"Which is way ahead of anything we've done. Pre-med is just biology and chemistry and electives."

"I went a different route — psychology with a double-minor in chemistry and biology. But in the end, just about everything you're going to learn is learned when you finally get to do stuff. I thought I knew everything until I had my first rotation of Fourth Year."

"Did my wife just admit she doesn't know everything?" I teased.

"Yes, Mr. Computer Wizard, your wife actually has things to learn about being a doctor! Some of us actually have had to go to school instead of running a computer dating service in High School!"

"He had a 4.0 average at IIT!" Tasha said.

"Well, it seems you have a cheering section," Jessica laughed.

"Oh, I cheer, too!" Kara giggled. "And so do you!"

Tasha turned bright red again. It was obvious that we were a bit much for her, but knowing her family, I wasn't really surprised.

"Tasha," I said. "I'm sorry if we're a bit over the top for you."

"It's just a bit overwhelming. I'll be OK."

"Tasha, just take it in small doses," Elyse said. "These clowns can be pretty outrageous."

"Clowns?! Clowns?!" Bethany protested, speaking up for the first time. "I take exception to that!"

Elyse laughed, "Oh shush! You've been part of Steve's three-ring circus longer than anyone here!"