Chapter 15: Homecoming

Friday October 14
I woke to my hound licking my face. It seemed someone had to go out... right now! I managed to put on a pair of shorts without passing out from the pain and hobbled down the stairs. Precious met the two of us at the back door. She was starting to really show. I did a little internal calculation and figured she should have her kittens in a couple of weeks. I groaned when the cat darted into my apartment as Duke went out. I was in no mood to play ‘find the kitty.’

When I made it back upstairs, Precious was on my bed. She’d taken over my pillow and, from the look she gave me, dared me to make her get off. I decided I would rather take a shower than get scratched. When I was finally dressed, I told Brit’s cat to come with me. I was in shock when she jumped off the bed and waddled to the door. I would have to make a note of the miracle that had occurred.

Duke had patrolled the backyard, so he was ready to go wake up my parents. I got busy and made my version of a French toast casserole. If I kept this up without getting some running in, I was going to start packing on the pounds.

“What did you and Cassidy do last night?” I asked when Brook got into the car.

“Drove your Demon. Chuck had us drive through town and taught us what to look for to be safe. He’s surprisingly a good teacher. I don’t know about Cassidy, but I learned a lot.”

If they’d told me they had been out stress-testing my car, I would have been mad. One of Cassidy’s life goals was to learn the personal protection business. Fritz, or one of his guys, was good about taking time each week to teach her stuff. He reasoned that if she could get up to speed on driving, then he could send Paul back to LA where his company had picked up some more clients.

I decided I didn’t want to know if they’d had any fun, and so changed the topic.

“What does Dare have planned for your date tonight?” I asked.

“You’re going to make me go through with that, aren’t you?”

“You were the one who wanted to play games. All you had to do was remind me to ask you, and I would have. Once Dare blurted it out, I wasn’t going to tell him to pound sand. I can only imagine what he went through to ask. The poor boy will hardly even look at me.”

“Plus, you weaseled dates with three girls,” she said and gave me a half smile.

“Halle offered to fly in today, too,” I said to rub it in.

“That little hussy’d better watch herself. I can kick her butt.”

“Dial it back, Speed Racer. She knows full well you’re my girlfriend and I don’t plan to stray. I just wanted to remind you what a catch I am,” I said, and tried to flex.

That didn’t come out too well because I winced from the pain.

“I think you’ve got it backward,” she smirked. “I’m the catch in this relationship. And besides that, you’re a gimp and your butt’s too big.”

Her smartassed comment was echoed by a similar smartassed comment from the front seat. Maybe it would be good to send Paul back to LA when Cassidy was qualified to drive me. It didn’t help that my ‘girlfriend’—who had a date for Homecoming that wasn’t me—grinned in apparent agreement.

“I think Tracy, Pam, and Gina think that it’s a ‘real date.’ With all the benefits,” Brook complained.

I perked up. Which got me the ‘death stare.’

“Think again. You’re my Big Daddy,” Brook reminded me.

“Hotness, give Big Daddy a kiss,” I leered.

“We’re here,” Paul announced.

He was a little too chipper for my taste. He needed to be shipped off to the ‘land of make-believe.’

“I’m about to get busy here. Drive around the block or something,” I ordered.

“That’s about all the time it would take,” my soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend chirped, and then jumped out of the car.

It was lucky for her that I was injured or I would have caught her and turned her over my knee. It was also good that I loved her. She was right, I had it backward. She was the catch in this relationship. To Paul’s credit, he didn’t laugh out loud. I had a bad feeling he planned to share her comment with everyone.

Paul came around to help me out of the car. I twisted wrong and about blacked out from the pain.

“Frick,” I hissed.

“You sure you don’t want your wheelchair?” Paul asked.

“No. I can do this,” I said, more for my benefit than his.

Dare darted over, and I think he was disappointed when he saw the crutches. Paul showed him how to steady me, if it looked like I might fall, by grasping my belt. If I were to really go down, Dare would never be able to stop me. I think I outweighed him by a hundred pounds.

When Paul was sure I wasn’t about to collapse, he left us at the curb.

“What are your plans for your date tonight?” I asked.

God love him. The little knucklehead had only gotten as far as asking Brook out. She would roast his nuts if she had a bad time. I decided to help him out as we made our way to the school.

“This date is important because all the girls at Lincoln will be watching,” I told him, sharing the wisdom my older brother had given me.

Not that I thought Dare would ever get up the guts to ask someone else, but I wanted to make sure he didn’t get ridiculed for a lousy date.

“Dawson’s laying down dating advice,” Yuri announced.

I hadn’t realized he was behind us. I gave Yuri a look, but he just ignored it as several guys suddenly gathered around. I noticed it was mainly younger boys. Instead of telling Yuri what I really thought about his pronouncement, I sucked it up and decided to be helpful to the male population of Lincoln High.

“Dare has his first date tonight,” I said, and then turned to Dare. “It is your first date, right?”

He nodded ‘yes.’

“With your girlfriend,” Yuri added.

That got some chuckles.

“You want to hear this or not?” I threatened.

“I just wanted everyone on the same page. You’re giving dating advice to the guy that stole your girlfriend,” Yuri said to be helpful.

I got out my cell phone and called Jan. She was standing about ten feet away.

“Either come get your boyfriend before I have Cassidy kick his butt, or you break up with him and start dating me,” I announced.

Yuri wasn’t impressed when she had to think about it.

“Dick.”

“Whipped,” I shot back as she dragged him away.

Dare tugged at my arm and showed me his phone. He wanted to remind me that the bell would ring soon.

“Anyways, you need to have a plan for your date,” I began.

I then explained how girls talked and how you had to make sure the girl had a good time, even if you didn’t, because otherwise you would never get another date. There were several questions. I made it a point to explain that there would be no grabbing of body parts or forcing your tongue into anyone’s mouth. I swear, kids these days!

I blocked Dare from texting me. If I hadn’t, we would get in trouble for using our phones in class. The plan was to get him to use his voice. Instead, he would type what he wanted to say and show me his phone. That was almost worse because teachers enjoyed grabbing people’s phones and reading aloud to the class what they had typed.

Ms. Lowden, our precalculus teacher and cheerleading coach, caught Dare. I saw her coming and immediately got my phone out and typed a quick note. She grabbed mine first.

“Ms. Lowden is looking fine today,” she read, and then looked at me. “Why, thank you, David. Now you two stop passing notes.”

“Brownnose,” someone whispered.

I flipped the class off when Ms. Lowden had her back turned to us. Dare realized I’d saved his butt and was mortified to think that Ms. Lowden would read his note to the class. I doubt he’d ever gotten in trouble before. The episode traumatized Dare enough that he wouldn’t even look my way until lunch. I made him go into an empty classroom with me so we could talk.

“I take it you need some help?” I asked.

He just nodded.

“Do you have money to take her to dinner?” I asked.

Dare started to get his phone out, but I stopped him.

“Dude. I know this is hard for you, but you need to talk to me.”

“My mom is giving me money. She’s a little overexcited that I have a date.”

“Does she plan to drive you?” I asked.

He glanced up at me, and I could see that she did. I knew that Brook wouldn’t like that. An overexcited mom who had a son like Dare could be embarrassing. I could see her walking them into the dance. Nope. Brook would bail on Dare in a heartbeat if that happened.

“New plan. We’re double-dating. I’ll arrange the ride and make dinner reservations.”

That seemed to relax the poor boy. I could tell he was entirely out of his depth and wanted all the help I would give him.

Ms. Saunders was in front of the class and showing the video blogs that Marshal and Curtis helped Tracy and me make.

“Were the desserts as good as they looked?” she asked.

I took that as a good sign that we’d done our job.

“They were even better than they looked. I think David’s restaurants are going to get a lot of customers once these are seen,” Curtis said, giving his stamp of approval.

Ms. Saunders then took the time to point out how we could do it better next time. I liked some of her advice but knew from experience that a couple of the ideas she suggested were unnecessary, based on the commercials I’d been in. Then she gave us our next assignment.

“It’s political campaign season, and I’m sure you’ve started to get all the robocalls to remind you. I want you to do something related. It can either be using photography or video. You have until next Friday.”

Of course, we wanted hints about what to do. Ms. Saunders’ only suggestion was to ‘surprise’ her, whatever the heck that meant. The only other stipulation was that we had to do the whole project ourselves. That meant I couldn’t get Curtis or Marshal to help me. Why did she always look at me when she said something like that?

Coach had given us the night off, but Mr. Hasting wanted to see me after my treatment. He had with him a short, balding man with a sober look.

“David, I want to introduce my boss, Doc Grog. He’s in charge of the medical staff for State’s football team and oversees the trainers.”

Mr. Hasting’s day job was working at State where he both taught and worked with their athletes as a trainer.

“Nice to meet you, sir,” I said as I shook his hand.

“I understand that you’re in quite a bit of pain. Mr. Hasting asked that I examine you and see what the best course of action is to get you back onto the football field,” Doc Grog offered.

“That would be great. The doctor I saw in LA said it would be three to six weeks before I could play again. Anything you can do to accelerate that would be very much appreciated.”

Mr. Hasting explained that I was taking pain and anti-inflammation meds, using ice baths, wrapping it, and resting to recover from my injuries. Doc Grog checked my elbow and observed that the swelling had gone down. I no longer needed the sling and was able to use my crutches without too much trouble.

“You look like you were banged up pretty good. I think you continue to take it easy until Monday and then I’ll be back to reassess you. If you continue to progress, we’ll start you out walking and doing rehab next week. I want you to be patient, because this type of injury needs time to heal, especially when it’s combined with your broken ribs. I’m afraid playing next week is out of the question. Let’s see if we can get you there the following week.”

“Can I start throwing?” I asked.

“No. Even though the swelling has gone down and your arm is feeling better, I need your ribs to have a chance to mend. Please resist the urge to do anything too physical until I tell you,” Doc Grog said.

“Does that include sex?” I asked.

The two men looked at each other and had a good chuckle.

“Remember when you were his age?” Mr. Hasting asked.

“I was such a nerd that the girls had no interest in me. Thankfully, I met my wife in college,” Doc Grog shared.

“TMI!” I said, shaking my head.

“Sorry. You caught me off guard,” Doc Grog said. “You can have sex as long as you don’t move your hips or twist your torso. Basically, just lay there.”

“Sounds like my first wife,” Mr. Hasting said.

“Again, TMI—waaaaaay Too Much Information,” I complained.

“Son, when you reach our age, you’ll understand,” Doc Grog said, trying not to smile.

“I hope not.”

While I’d been getting my treatment, I received several text messages from people in California to call them. I decided I’d better call Caryn first.

“I take it something’s up by the number of text messages I just got.”

“It’s about Zander Lewis. There was a press conference where four women came forward and said Zander either sexually assaulted or sexually harassed them. It played live on all the LA TV stations. What’s going to make news is the Q-and-A that followed. A reporter wanted to know what the big deal was because it was rumored that the four of them used their bodies to get ahead,” Caryn said.

“Is the guy an idiot? They’ll be asking for his job by the end of the day.”

“Let me send you a link to Phoebe Andrews’ response.”

My phone dinged, and I switched over to watch the video she’d linked.

I recognized two of the women but had no clue who the other two were. They were all in their early to mid twenties. They wore conservative clothes, and all appeared to be taken aback by the reporter’s question. One of the women responded. She must have been Phoebe since she was one of the women I didn’t recognize.

“We can’t all be sluts. We can’t all be asking for it. I felt this crushing sense of powerlessness when I found myself blackballed and no longer able to do what I’ve always wanted just because I turned Zander Lewis down. It’s time I take my power back. I knew that there would be people like you who would try to silence us,” she said, pointing at the reporter. “I am prepared to fight this, now that I know I’m not alone. I came forward for all the women who have been silent on this matter, and for all the young actresses who’ve been blacklisted when they have even thought of saying something,” Phoebe continued, and then she turned to the camera.

You could see the pain and emotion in her eyes. This woman was barely holding it together.

“It’s okay to stand up for yourself. People forget that there’s a human being who was involved in this without having any choice in that matter, and who was hurt—sometimes traumatized—and wronged. When it happened, I was honestly furious, but that was just the beginning of what happened to me. I learned the power of the system. They did everything they could to keep me from raising my concerns even further. It was like the fix was in. I was nineteen years old and working on my first movie. Zander laughed at me and told me I would never work in movies again. And, as it turns out, he was right.”

I just stared at the phone for a minute.

“At some point, this will have to change; it simply can’t continue like this,” I said.

“I agree,” Caryn said. “I just don’t know what it’ll take. The press is spinning it that Zander was a lone wolf and should be punished. From the tone of the reporters, it doesn’t look like they plan to dig too deep on this. Frank said that they’re part of the problem. They feed off Hollywood and have no desire to get on the bad side of any of the studios.”

“Can you call everyone and let them know you talked to me? I need to get home and get ready for Homecoming tonight. Let Rita and Halle know I will do whatever they want to support them,” I said.

“I’ll take care of it. Megan and I are flying back tonight. I want to sit down with you on Sunday and share with you what we did while we were in LA.”

“Sounds good. Talk to Dad and set it up,” I said, and then hung up.

When I got home, I stuck my head in the back door. Duke was there and insisted I let him out. I could understand why: there were crying babies. I debated whether to go to my apartment and bypass this mess or not. The debate stopped abruptly when my mom heard me.

“David, get in here,” she called.

Damn!

I wanted to laugh when I saw her. Her hair was going in twelve different directions, she had stains on her shirt, and I think she’d been crying. I resisted the urge to remind her that I thought we should get some help for her grandiose scheme to take the little ones out of daycare until this flu epidemic was over. I was sure that if I did, she would throw back in my face that it was my idea to begin with.

“I take it that I’m paying for you and Dad to go out tonight,” I suggested.

“Just make them stop crying,” she said, pointing to the living room.

I wobbled in on my crutches. Nate saw me first and held up his hands, the universal sign to ‘pick me up.’ I think Mom thought her duties were over because she grabbed a bottle of wine and went upstairs. I was sure a long soak in the tub was on her agenda.

I sat down on the floor, and Nate, Mac, and Kyle all ended up in my lap. The only happy baby was Coby, who was in his playpen chewing on a squeaky toy. It looked suspiciously like one of Duke’s. Little David crawled over, and I picked him up. It was hard to believe he was almost one.

Fifteen minutes later Angie and Greg, with Duke on their heels, came strolling in and found me with babies napping on or beside me. Coby was still being a good baby and entertaining himself.

“Why can’t you get them to take naps like that?” Angie teased Greg.

He just ignored her and picked up Nate to go put him in his car seat. I was always amazed that little ones could sleep through almost anything, once they were out. Nate didn’t even blink when his dad picked him up.

Angie and I caught up with each other while Greg took care of his ankle-biters. Peggy arrived just as Greg and Angie left.

“Were they any trouble?”

“I think we need to figure out some help for Mom. She underestimated what it’s like to look after five of them. She’s abandoned me and went to her room with a bottle of wine.”

Peggy winced. She knew all too well what a handful they could be. She took Little David from me so I could go get ready for the dance.

Dare lived in an apartment complex on the edge of town. I think he was watching out the window because as soon as we pulled up, he bounded out the front door and darted to the car. I smiled when I saw his mom follow him out. Dare ran around the front of the car and jumped in the back seat with me. I had a little too much of my mom in me not to want to see what his mom wanted, so I rolled down my window.

“Hello, Dr. Rossetti. I think Darius is ready to go on his date,” I said, suppressing the urge to chuckle.

“What can you tell me about his date? Is she someone who’s suitable for Darius?”

I did my one-eyebrow-raised look.

“I guess I don’t know what you mean by ‘suitable,’” I responded.

“Darius said she is a senior. She’s not just putting him on and going to hurt his feelings, is she?”

“Ah,” I said, suddenly understanding. “No. I assure you that Brook will be a proper young lady and wouldn’t do anything to hurt his feelings. She’s a good friend of mine, and she has gotten to know Darius. If she didn’t want to go with him, she would have said so up front.”

“I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for my son. He can’t stop talking about you and your friends,” Dr. Rossetti shared.

“Can’t stop talking ... hmmm,” I said and gave Dare a sideways look.

“Where are you kids going for dinner?” she asked.

“I was thinking Chuck E. Cheese,” I said and saw Dare’s face go white.

Dr. Rossetti smiled.

“He likes the games there. Maybe I should give him some more money for tokens,” she said and turned to go back to the house.

“That’s okay. If Darius needs more money, I’ll take care of it. You can just pay me later.”

“You’re such a good boy.”

“We need to get going,” I said, and then thought of something else to tease Dare about. “I almost forgot. Does Darius have a curfew?”

“We’ve never really talked about it,” she said, concerned. “Darius has never been out late before.”

I was betting he had never gone out, period.

“I know that tonight’s a special night. I was thinking we would have him home by three.”

Dr. Rossetti blinked at that. I had her on the ropes, so I plowed forward.

“There’s the dance. Then we’ll go to the after-party. I think Brook wanted to have an after-after-party. If it’s anything like that last one, we might just want to say that I’ll have him home before daylight.”

Dare tugged at my arm and wanted to show me his phone.

“You have something to say, Mr. Talkative?” I asked.

“If you look out for him, I guess that would be okay,” Dr. Rossetti said, surprising us both.

I saw the twinkle in her eye and knew she’d figured out I was teasing her son. I think she was just happy that he seemed to be making friends here.

“Driver, let’s go before she changes her mind,” I told Chuck.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Dawson.”

I might have to send him to LA with Paul.

We picked up Brook first. I made Dare go to the door since she was his date. The look on Ava’s face was worth it when she opened the door, and he was there. My day got even better when Ian pulled him into the kitchen. I was sure he was laying down the law about dating his daughter. Dare would have to survive this if he ever planned to date in high school. Ian was a pushover, so I figured Dare was okay.

“Why are you letting him take your girlfriend to Homecoming?” Chuck asked.

“It’s her fault. She made a big deal that no one had asked her to go and Dare suddenly was able to talk and asked her out.”

“Did I hear correctly that you’re taking three girls?”

“Yep. We’re going as friends. They didn’t have dates, and since my girlfriend decided to go rogue, I figured what the heck.”

“And you don’t see any potential problems with all this?” Chuck asked.

“Nope,” I said confidently.

Brook and Dare came out of the house, and I almost decided to call off this farce. She was in a little black dress that reminded me why I loved Brook Davis. She’d pulled her hair up, so her neck was exposed. The little head had some ideas when she and Dare got into the back row.

“Where are we going to dinner?” Brook asked.

“Chuck E. Cheese,” Dare whispered.

From the lasers I felt boring into the back of my skull, I decided I’d better quit teasing the boy.

“That’s what I told his mom. We have reservations at the Covered Bridge.”

“That’s where you took Zoe,” Brook said.

They’d converted an old covered bridge into a restaurant that was open three nights a week and had a set menu. It was one of the most romantic places in our area to take a date. Tracy had somehow wrangled reservations for us.

Our next stop was to pick up my dates at Tracy’s house. All three of them came out rocking little black dresses. When I saw they each had their hair up, I could tell the four girls had decided to match tonight. Gina and Pam got into the back with me, and Tracy sat up front with Chuck.

“David told Dare we were going to Chuck E. Cheese,” Brook announced from the back seat.

“We could drop you two off,” I suggested.

“Be nice,” Tracy said.

“Where are we going?” Gina asked.

Tracy told everyone. Pam and Gina were excited. It turned out I was the only one who had been there before, which was understandable because you had to plan far ahead to be able to get in. They were usually booked a couple of months out. Most high school kids didn’t think that far into the future, so the Covered Bridge was never an option.