Chapter 31: Expect the Unexpected

September 25, 1981, McKinley, Ohio

"I spoke with Mark and Sally," Joe Miller said. "They promised to be more diligent. I need you to let me know how that goes. If you do most of the work on this next assignment, I'm going to knock their grades down. I can do that without punishing you. It's obvious it's your work, and my grades will stand up to scrutiny. Unfortunately, the drops happened already, so there isn't another team I can move you to. You might have to carry the load for the semester."

"Wonderful," I said.

"I let Doctor Stanton know. Your coursework is exemplary as well. He's going to recommend you for honors courses in Biology. You're pre-med, right?"

"Yes."

"That will look VERY good on your transcript when you apply to medical school. And if you apply at McKinley Medical School, it's a near-lock if you get A's in the honors courses."

"Good to know."

"Don't let this situation sour you. Freshman year weeds people like Sally and Mark out of the program if they don't figure it out. Things will be much better in the next three years."

"Something to look forward to. And I mean that seriously."

"We'll do our best to put you with other honors students next semester."

"Thanks. I really do appreciate it."

"Keep up the good work, Mike."

"I will. Thanks."

I left his office and headed for chemistry. When that finished, I went to see Doctor Hart for what turned out to be our last regular session.

"I'm happy with your progress on the issue of your sister," Doctor Hart said. "That was the thing that had me worried. The fact that you could tell your mom about it was the key. I was reasonably sure on Monday you had come to grips with everything, and after three sessions this week, I'm sure of it."

"So what now?"

"Let's plan to meet once a month and discuss any concerns you have. I want you to get into a habit of seeking help from professionals when you need it. You know the story with doctors, right?"

"High divorce rates, high suicide rates, high incidence of drug abuse and alcoholism."

"I'm of the opinion that early intervention like we're doing now, is the key to turning that around. The system is a hot mess, don't get me wrong, and it's more or less designed to grind you up and spit you out on the theory that makes you a better doctor. It doesn't. That idea is pure, unadulterated bovine excrement. Working Interns ninety-six hours every week doesn't make them better doctors; it makes them emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual wrecks. And endangers patient lives."

"You're doing a great sales job, Doc. Keep going."

"I want you prepared for it. And given most young men marry about the time you'll start your clinical rotations, your future spouse needs to know all of that before you marry. And she'll need counseling to help HER get through it."

"Any MORE good news, Doc? I mean, I sort of knew all that, but you're driving it home."

"Which I think is necessary. I know you're likely years from marriage, but anyone you start to get serious with needs to know this stuff. Don't hide it and think that somehow it will help. You're counting the cost, and they need to do the same thing. And that, I guess, was a long segue back to our conversation on Monday about your friend Jocelyn. How are you doing?"

"OK, I guess. I was up and down all week. In the end, I think my mom is right about Jocelyn."

"She may well be, but are you prepared for the answer to the question? Are you really ready to make that commitment?"

"To be a couple, sure."

"You said," he flipped back in his notebook, "that Jocelyn was acting the way she did because becoming a couple was tantamount to getting engaged."

"It's complicated."

"Of COURSE it's complicated. But if you ask that question at Thanksgiving, and she says 'yes', then you're committed. As long as you realize that, it's OK. But you HAVE to understand what she's going to be thinking. That's true in any relationship. It's tough because you can never know for sure, and people don't always express themselves clearly. And they change their minds. I think you've already learned one lesson about that."

"What?"

"Having sex changes you and changes your relationships in ways you never could have predicted in advance. The one partial exception is within the context of marriage."

"You lost me on that last bit."

"Sexual compatibility is a complex, ever-changing thing. I say partial exception because you create a very specific context for sex and very specific limitations. Well, unless you're some Arab sheikh or some kind of 'free love' proponent who happens to find a group of women who'll put up with those kinds of shenanigans. Within marriage, or at least a committed relationship, sex is simply an adjunct to everything else, and it fits like a piece into a puzzle. Outside of that, it's disjointed, and the purpose is unclear. Let me ask you, WHY did you make love with Jocelyn?"

"I wanted to, she asked, and I thought it was the right thing to do."

"And now?"

"I may have misjudged my ability to deal with it, given our relationship."

"Well, then you've learned that lesson, and not in as terrible a way as might have happened. How are you doing with your spiritual struggle?"

"My mom more or less guided me as to how to handle it."

"You talked to your mom openly about sex and listened to her advice?"

"Sure. I always have. She didn't advise me against going with Jocelyn; she just advised me to be sure I was making the right decision. In hindsight, I know what she was telling me."

"That's pretty healthy, actually. Most young men won't even talk to their dads about it, and if they talk to their friends, it's bragging about conquests."

Like Dale. Which is why Dale got exactly zero information from me about who I had been with and how many times I'd done it.

"I've always been able to talk to my mom about stuff like that."

"So, where are you?"

"I won't know for sure until the opportunity actually presents itself."

"Which is true about most things in life. It's one thing to think about it hypothetically. It's a very different thing to stare it in the face and see stark choices. That is one thing you're going to need to work on, Mike. Right now, you've thought about being a doctor. Actually, BEING a doctor is a very different thing. You'll start to see that in your Clerkships and your clinical rotations, but when you put on the long lab coat, and you ARE the doctor, the world suddenly changes."

"Which is why you want to make sure I have all the tools I need to be successful."

"Exactly. May I give you some advice? It's just advice, not a command."

"Sure."

"You're too young and too unsettled to ask Jocelyn to be your girlfriend at Thanksgiving. My advice is to go with an open mind and talk to her, but don't ask the question."

"I could lose her forever."

"Yes, but that might happen anyway. Isn't that the conundrum with your Russian friend?"

"Yes."

"You have to make your own decision, obviously, but at eighteen, you aren't ready to ask Jocelyn that question. Strangely, though I would strongly advise against it at the moment, you probably ARE ready to ask your Russian friend."

"What?!" I exclaimed in surprise.

"They are two very different situations. You'll marry Jocelyn because you love each other. You would marry Tasha because you intend to love her. Do you see the difference?"

"I'm not sure I understand."

"You and Tasha would go into the marriage knowing you had to learn to love each other and learn to live with each other. You would go into a marriage with Jocelyn assuming you loved each other enough to make it work."

"You're implying marrying for love is more dangerous?"

"No, not at all. It's the premise from which you start. If, one day, a few years after you married Jocelyn, you woke up one day and discovered you didn't love her as much as you thought you did, that could be a disaster. If that happened with Tasha, you'd tell yourself it was a work in progress and figure out what to do."

"Wild," I replied.

"You said something very important earlier, and that was that there exists a disparity in your love for Jocelyn and hers for you. That is a giant red flag. You could easily find that gulf growing until it was so huge you could no longer cross it. That could create a very volatile situation. I counsel young married couples all the time. 'But we were in love' is the constant refrain I hear when things go badly. And the problem, almost invariably, is they assumed that was enough and didn't do the hard work necessary to have a successful marriage."

I nodded, "I think you just explained what Jocelyn's aunt was trying to tell her about moving from a very close friendship to a romantic relationship and how hard it is and fraught with danger."

"Because you make too many assumptions," Doctor Hart replied.

"My mom was trying to tell me the same thing, I think. But why did she tell me to ask Jocelyn to be my girlfriend?"

"I don't know, Mike. Why?"

I thought about it for a moment and nodded.

"She knows me well enough to know how I think, and she knew I wanted to do that. But she told me about Tasha and mentioned Nancy and Emmy to show me I had alternatives."

"Exactly. Now, have a good weekend, don't run off and marry your Russian friend, and I'll see you in about four weeks!"

I laughed, we shook, and I headed to the dining hall to meet the guys for lunch.

"Done getting your head shrunk?" Clark asked.

"Yeah. Once I resolved the problems at home, it's become more about learning how to be a doctor without becoming a drunken womanizer with a couple of ex-wives and kids by them plus your current one."

"Hmm, the womanizer part sounds OK," Carter laughed. "But not the ex-wives and kids bit. THAT sounds expensive."

"Emotionally as well as financially," I said. "But I'm serious. Divorce, alcoholism, suicide, and drug abuse are higher amongst doctors than for just about any profession. Doctor Hart is going to meet with me regularly to make sure I have the skills I need to survive the disaster that masquerades as medical training."

"Suddenly, I don't feel like going to the doctor," Larry said.

"You're going to be around on Saturdays from now on?" Clark asked.

"Probably. Why?"

"No reason other than knowing that I can't just hang out on the couch with a honey with it all hanging out!"

"The honey can," I chuckled. "But you? No thanks!"

"He's just jealous!" Clark laughed. "You going out with Nancy again tonight?"

"Yes, Dad. Don't wait up!"

The guys all laughed, and we finished eating then headed for our afternoon classes. After calculus and my writing course, I headed back to the dorm, showered, and then left for my date with Nancy. I purposefully hadn't talked to her about the events of the previous weekend because I wanted them more settled in my mind and wanted to have time to talk.

"Hi, Mrs. Landers," I said when Nancy ushered me into the living room.

"Hi, Mike. How are you doing tonight?"

"Just fine. How are you?"

"Good, thanks. You kids have fun tonight, and I'll see you later."

We left the house, and after we got into my car, we headed for Jack's Steak House, a reasonably-priced place that Pete had suggested. It was on the same side of town as Nancy's house and the church, so we were there in less than ten minutes and were seated right away. We ordered drinks, perused the menus, and ordered our food when the drinks were brought out.

"I'm not going home for the weekends anymore, except for breaks and special occasions."

"What about your friend?"

"She and I had a bit of a falling out."

"Over me?"

Which was the same question Emmy had asked and, I was sure, had been underlying Tasha's comments as well.

"No. Over her, really. I suppose I should tell you the whole story if you want to hear it."

"I do."

I laid it all out as clearly as I could on the premise that I'd promised to be as open as I was able to with Nancy. I didn't hold back anything, though I didn't provide any details of the two days in Cincinnati, though it was clear what had happened.

"Well, that kind of puts things in a different perspective," Nancy said. "I guess I have to wait until after Thanksgiving to see where I stand."

"Having had a week to think about it and talk with Doctor Hart, that's my real struggle. I like how things are going with you."

"Enough to not ask her to be your girlfriend?"

"Probably," I said. "No, certainly. I can only go home and talk to her with an open mind."

Nancy let out a long, slow breath.

"That is NOT what I expected you to say after the story and what your mom said."

"I think Doctor Hart is right, and my mom was just acknowledging what I was going to do. But she also put out alternatives."

"My competition?" Nancy laughed.

"Is that an issue?"

"I suppose not. You've been seeing that girl Emmy when you go home. You never lied about her. You didn't technically lie about Jocelyn, but you also didn't lay it all out."

"I was too confused to do that before tonight. I'm not claiming perfect clarity now, but I'm not AS confused. Will you tell me what you want?"

"An honest, trustworthy man who cares about me. Everything else will take care of itself in the future if it's meant to be."

"And commitment?"

She shrugged, "My mom had one with my dad. I had one with Chet. Just don't lie to me if it's over."

"I can do that. What do you want me to do about Emmy?"

"Did she ask you to go steady or anything?"

"No. She knows I'm dating."

"And I know you're dating. Maybe we'll get to a point where I'll want you to be steady with me. Maybe not."

"You're afraid of that?"

Nancy nodded, "I guess I don't trust you enough for that kind of relationship."

"But you trust me enough to invite me to your bed?"

"It's different levels of emotional commitment. I talked to my mom about it. It's one thing to have a lover; it's a very different thing to have what amounts to a permanent relationship."

"Permanent?"

"Why go steady if the intent isn't to work towards getting engaged and married? It doesn't always work out, but if that isn't the commitment, what's the point of being steady?"

I nodded, "That makes sense, I think, but I'm still not understanding how sex fits into it."

"I don't mean to offend you, but do you realize you sound more like a girl than a guy? I offered to take you to my bed and you're worried about commitments, feelings, what it means, and what it portends for the future. Pretty much all the guys I know would have had me in my bed weeks ago. But not you."

"Not me."

"You know, at first, I thought this might be an act, you know, trying to seduce me by pretending to be a sensitive, caring guy. But you really ARE a sensitive, caring guy. And that makes me even more sure. I want to go to bed with you, Mike Loucks. Whenever you're ready."

Was I ready? And how would I know? And what DID I want to do about Jocelyn? Despite everything that had happened, I still loved her. And that was actually part of the problem — I loved Jocelyn more than she loved me. Did that matter? Doctor Hart thought so, and it had hurt when she'd said it, which meant I thought so, at least at some level. And how did Emmy and Tasha figure into all of this? I was going to drive myself nuts. I needed more time to think it through, but I didn't want to seem wishy-washy.

"When did you start on the Pill?"

"Right after my last period, like you're supposed to. That was September 11th. Why?"

"When would your next period end?"

"Uh, the first week of October, I guess. Why?"

"Wouldn't you rather the first time be without a rubber?"

She nodded, "Yes."

"So, to be completely safe, maybe Friday the 16th?"

"You'll stay over?"

I nodded, "If you'll have me."

She smiled and nodded just as the waiter brought our steaks and vegetables.

September 26, 1981, McKinley, Ohio

"What are you doing tonight?" Nancy asked at work on Saturday.

"Studying," I replied. "I'm behind in my writing and need six uninterrupted hours to catch up. I promise I'll be available next Saturday. OK?"

"Yes; the last thing I want is for you to have trouble in school! I told my mom about the weekend of the 16th. Would you stay from Friday to Monday?"