Chapter 2: The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

May 23, 1981, West Monroe, Ohio

"Good morning, Mike!" my mom said when I arrived at the kitchen table for breakfast.

"Hi, Mom," I said.

"What do you have planned for today?"

"It's all on the calendar, just as it has been since I could write," I replied with a smile. "I work from 8:00am to noon, then I have my Saturday karate class at 1:00pm. Dale and I are playing chess after that, and Vespers are at 6:00pm. I'm taking April to the movies after church."

"What are you going to see?"

"Excalibur," I replied.

"Are Dale and Jocelyn going to the movies with you?"

"And Stacey and Carl," I said. "We're meeting there."

"You seemed kind of down last night when you came home. Dale and Jocelyn seemed uneasy when you went to bed. Did something happen?"

I'd always been open and honest with my mom. It had been easy, really, because I really hadn't done anything I'd want to hide from her. I'd WANTED to, but the night in Grant Park had been typical of my life. I'd never been in trouble at school, never had trouble at work, never had a speeding ticket, and beyond the very rare encounters with April's sweater-clad breast, I had nothing to even consider hiding. But this was complicated. I wasn't sure I wanted to say out loud what had happened or what I'd been thinking.

I delayed answering her by putting a forkful of maple-syrup-drenched waffle into my mouth.

I had no idea what to do about the cause of her question, either. I thought back to the first time Jocelyn and I had met. It had been the first day of kindergarten, and she'd been sitting next to me at my table. She asked me to be her friend, and from then on, we did everything together. As friends. I hadn't even really thought about the fact she was a girl until I saw her on the first day of eighth grade. We'd been apart the last month before school started due to our family trip to Disney World and her family vacation to Seattle and Vancouver.

What I saw when I walked into James A. Garfield Elementary School had stunned me — Jocelyn Mills had breasts! My best friend had turned into a full-fledged girl! It took me a minute before I could even say 'hello', and our usual hug had suddenly become awkward, at least for me, because she had bumps on her chest! I'd never thought of her in any way other than my best friend, along with Dale Melrose, though I'd known her longer and been friends with her longer. Suddenly, I had different thoughts about her. Thoughts I had no way to express. I'd never had a girlfriend or even a real kiss.

I chewed my waffle slowly, then took a sip from my water glass and then one from my glass of grapefruit juice.

"I guess it's just that things changed yesterday after graduation."

True as far as it went, but not the whole truth.

"I know it's a cliché," my mom said, "but today is the first day of the rest of your life. One Summer left, and then you're off to college AND medical school, and then you'll be a doctor! It's tough to leave your friends, especially ones you've known as long as you've known Dale and Jocelyn and as close as the three of you are. But you'll make new friends. And you have April!"

I only WISH I 'had' April, I thought, then reproved myself because I was doing precisely what Jocelyn had said — thinking about sex all the time. And that was, I realized, the source of the problem. I wanted to kiss Jocelyn. No, actually, I wanted more than that, but even a kiss, an acknowledgment of my feelings for her, would be sufficient. Instead, she'd shot me down harder than any of the girls who had broken up with me after dating for a short time. Or even the girls who had turned down dates.

But, I could go with my mom's take on the situation and deflect any inquiry into the true source of my moodiness and my mom's perception of unease by my friends.

"A new school; a new church; a new dojo; a new job. It's a lot to contemplate."

"Think of it as an adventure, Mike! You'll mostly be on your own, learning new things, meeting new people, and having new experiences. You're close enough to see April fairly often. And you'll see Dale and Jocelyn during the Summers."

I took another bite of my waffle, ate a few bites of sausage, then took another drink.

"That's just it," I said. "Dale is talking about taking Summer classes in Madison, and Jocelyn has a campus job that will keep her at Purdue over the Summer. There's a good chance I'll only see them during Christmas or Spring breaks. And April is a problem, really."

"A problem?" Mom asked with an arched eyebrow. "Because of Thursday night?"

I shook my head slowly, "No, but she goes to a Methodist church, and I don't think she'd become Orthodox to marry me."

"You're thinking about marriage? Well, I suppose if you're contemplating what you were with April, that does make sense. Have you asked her about that?"

"I've asked her to come to church a bunch of times, and she always says 'no'."

"Mike, then you shouldn't be thinking about her the way you are."

I sighed, "Do we have to have this conversation?"

"Talk with Father Herman," Mom said.

"I KNOW what he'll say, Mom. Trust me. I've paid attention in church, in Sunday School, and at Youth Group."

She did have a point, though. I couldn't see Jocelyn leaving her Lutheran church, either, and I was certainly thinking the same way about her, just as I had been for more than five years. But Mom didn't know that and didn't need to know that.

"Yes, you have. You need to think about who you date if you want to be married in the Church. What about Natalya Antonova?"

I laughed out loud, happy that I hadn't been eating or drinking when she'd made that suggestion.

"Oh sure, only the most beautiful, most sought-after girl in the entire church! She wouldn't ask me the time if I was the only person left on the planet with a watch!"

Certainly, the thoughts I'd had about Tasha, as Natalya was known to most everyone, were just as impure as those I'd had about Jocelyn or April, but Tasha was even further out of reach than Jocelyn! She was blonde, with blue eyes and a fantastic figure. She was the daughter of Deacon Vasily Antonov, and if there were a more unobtainable girl, I didn't know who it might be.

"Don't sell yourself short, Mike. You'll never know unless you ask her out."

"April has my class ring," I said, more out of self-defense than anything.

"I know. But you should tell her if you aren't planning on replacing it with an engagement ring. You know she expects that to happen."

I sighed, "I know. But I'd feel like a jerk breaking up with her just out of the blue."

"But aren't you leading her on? Have you even talked to her about the fact that you want to marry someone who is Orthodox or who will convert?"

"No."

"Then I think you need to do that."

"Yes, Mom," I replied with a bit of resignation.

I finished my breakfast and put my dishes in the sink. I poured myself another glass of grapefruit juice and stood by the counter to drink it.

"Morning, Mom," Liz said when she came into the kitchen. "I want Mikey to give me and Emmy a ride to the pool tomorrow!"

I suppressed a groan and the impulse to throw my glass at my little sister. This was the one sore point between Mom and me. If I was going somewhere, and Liz wanted to go to the same place, I was given no option other than to drive her. I was meeting Dale and Jocelyn at the public pool after church. The last thing I wanted was my little sister tagging along.

"Mike, will you please give your sister and her friend a ride?" Mom asked.

Only it wasn't REALLY a question. The only acceptable answer to that kind of request was 'yes'. But I might have an out.

"We're heading to A&W in Rutherford after we swim," I said.

"Oooh! Emmy and I would go!"

I should have known she'd try that, but there was no way I was caving into THAT demand. And agreeing to the ride to and from the pool would foreclose any chance Mom would agree with Liz.

"No," I said. "I'll take you to the pool, then bring you home after we swim, even though it will be ten miles out of my way. But you have to leave the pool when I say, without any arguments."

"Mooooom!" Liz whined in protest.

"Liz," Mom said firmly, "if you want a ride to the pool, you have to work with Mike's schedule. I won't make him change his plans for you. And you'll leave when he wants to, or there won't be any rides during the Summer."

Except she WAS making me change my plans. I'd have to drive five miles back home and then retrace my route, wasting a good twenty minutes of MY time. If I needed a reason to leave West Monroe, it was my bratty little sister. I loved her and would do everything in my power to protect her, but that didn't make her any less annoying.

"Fine," Liz said, glaring at me.

"Elizaveta Petrovna, I could change my mind," Mom said sternly.

"Sorry, Mom," Liz replied, quickly dropping her tone.

I finished my juice and went to brush my teeth. I was back in the kitchen a minute later, got my keys from the hook on the wall, kissed my mom goodbye, and headed out of the house. I got into my Mustang, started the car, and put it in gear. I always backed into the driveway, as it made it easier to pull out onto the country road we lived on. I saw no traffic, so I made a left turn and headed for the hardware store.

My talk with Mom had brought to the surface something that had been bothering me since Christmas and reinforced at the end of April when we'd celebrated Pascha. I'd invited April to Christmas services and to Pascha, which was celebrated a week later than Easter. She'd declined both invitations despite the Paschal service being followed by a grand party.

I'd visited April's church once when her niece was baptized, but I couldn't even get her to set foot in our church. Dale and Jocelyn had come to church with me on a few occasions, and I'd been to Jocelyn's church a few times for special events. Dale's family was one of the few I knew who didn't attend church, at least occasionally. His parents had been raised Baptist, but his father had had a falling out with the pastor of a church as a teenager and refused to ever, as he put it, 'darken the door' of any church.

At the hardware store, I parked in my usual spot and followed my regular routine of greeting Mr. Orlov, kissing the icon of the Theotokos, and asking for my day's assignment. Mr. Orlov handed me a clipboard and asked me to restock shelves. I quickly scanned the list of items and realized that I wouldn't finish by noon. I let Mr. Orlov know and then got to work.

Four hours later, with only a brief break for a cup of coffee, I had completed about three-fourths of the items on the list. I handed the clipboard back to Mr. Orlov, with neat checkmarks next to each item I'd restocked and a notation of how many of each item remained in inventory in the back room. He scanned the list, thanked me, and sent me on my way.

At home, I had just enough time for a quick sandwich and an RC Cola, then donned my karate uniform and drove to the dojo on the other side of West Monroe, arriving about five minutes before the 1:00pm class.

"Mr. Loucks," Sensei Adam Jackson said by way of greeting when I walked in.

"Good afternoon, Sensei," I said, bowing slightly.

I removed my shoes and socks, put them on the rack, then went into the training room and took my place in the second row behind the black and brown belts. I double-checked that my purple belt, signifying I was '4th kyu', was properly tied and stood quietly awaiting the start of class. Three minutes later, Sensei came into the room, faced the fourteen assembled students, and clapped his hands twice. That was our signal to kneel for our two minutes of meditation before class.

After the meditation, we did our usual stretches and warm-up exercises and then performed, as a class, all the basic strikes and kicks. Warm-ups and exercises took about fifteen minutes, and once we finished, Sensei directed everyone to the benches that lined the walls. Saturday was usually reserved for practicing kata and sparring, and given the small size of the dojo, that meant mostly sitting and waiting for our turn. During weekday classes, the different ranks were segregated, and I mostly practiced with other purple belts and brown belts. Given there were only five of us, that allowed for more personalized attention.

I did my kata when instructed and sparred with one of the blue belts. Otherwise, I sat quietly, watching the other students and thinking about the conversation I needed to have with April. The question was when to do it. And the answer I came up with was after the movie when I took her home. We'd only ever gone parking once, and that was the first time I'd been allowed a brief fondle of her sweater-clad breast. I'd tried to go parking again a week before Prom, but April had asked me to take her straight home after the movie, much to my frustration.

When karate class ended, I headed straight home for a shower, then put on shorts and a T-shirt. I went to my room, got my chessboard, and took it down to the basement playroom where Dale and I usually played. My dad had finished the basement over the course of the previous six years, completing it a few days before the previous Christmas and just in time before the 'family gift' of a pool table was delivered. I'd played a lot at Dale's house and was happy to have a pool table, but I wished we'd had it years ago.

Dale arrived at 2:30pm; we grabbed bottles of RC Cola from the basement fridge and sat down at the chessboard.

"You never could convince Jocelyn to learn to play," Dale said as he moved his king's pawn two spaces forward to start the game.

"She was too busy with other stuff," I said. "Being in the band was a huge drain on her time, worse than chess club and karate combined for me. She also never saw the point in playing board games of any kind."

I matched his move, moving my king's pawn two spaces ahead.

"True," Dale said. "We couldn't even get her to play Clue, Life, or Monopoly."

"Her mom says that Jocelyn hated Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders when she was little, and I remember her never wanting to play games, so I guess she's consistent!"

"That's the one sure thing you can say about Jocelyn!" Dale laughed. "She's even more set in her ways than your church!"

I laughed, "No way. If there was anything on this planet more resistant to change than the Orthodox Church, I don't know what it is!"

"Want to talk about what happened last night?" Dale asked, moving his bishop.

"What's to talk about?" I asked, moving my knight.

"Come on, Mike. I saw your face when Jocelyn said what she did about kissing. You've loved her secretly for years!"

"If you know about it, it's not much of a secret," I said with a wan smile.

"OK; secret from HER."

"Yeah," I sighed.

We moved pieces in silence for several minutes, with neither of us gaining an advantage.

"Are you going to talk to her about it? She was really confused by how quiet you were."

"Did she say anything else?"