Chapter 60: Can We Take A Step Back, Please?

March 25, 1983, West Monroe, Ohio

"I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to talk to you earlier," I said to Mom when I arrived home.

"I understand. You're home a bit early."

"There really wasn't anything playing at the movies we wanted to see. We're going to have breakfast tomorrow and spend the day together. We'll be at Vespers, though to prevent any explosions I'll drop Janey at home so she can come to church with her family."

"I talked to your grandfather on her behalf," Mom said. "I think she still has her job, but for now, just leave it alone."

"You don't think Mr. or Mrs. Orlova are going to say something to me? Or Tasha? Or Deacon Vasily? Or ALL of them?"

"Don't let any of them bait you into a public fight at church, Mike. Tasha might well try to do that. No matter what she says, stay calm and don't argue."

"I don't get into public fights," I protested.

"The OLD Mike didn't do that; you're not the same young man you were."

"I suppose that's true."

"There's also the chance Tasha might try to confront Janey, to see how you react and who you choose to defend. At church, do your best to be neutral. The last thing you need is to create a public spectacle."

"That already happened at Harding High," I sighed. "Complete with detentions and conferences with Janey's mom and Deacon Vasily."

"Which is not the church. Call this situation practice for the crisis management you'll need to do as a doctor in the Emergency Room."

"And it could turn out just as bloody," I sighed. "Does Liz have anyone here this evening?"

"She's actually at Maggie's. Emmy is allowed to be there or at Mindy's. She's spending the night."

"Do the Harding schools have Spring Break this week?"

"Yes. I would have thought you would have asked Janey about that!"

"I was a bit preoccupied with everything else," I said with a rueful smile.

"Have you heard any more about Angie?"

"No. I'll probably call next weekend. I don't want to intrude, and I don't want to send the wrong message, but I also do care that she is OK."

"And nothing from Jocelyn?"

"No," I said with resignation. "I don't even know if she's home this week or not, and I'm not going to call her house, because if she answered, it could make things worse. I think what I might do is call her parents about a week before school lets out and take it from there. You know, just let them know where I am and what I'm doing. What THEY elect to share with her is up to them."

"That's probably a good plan. Do you have any idea what you'll do if Mr. Orlov doesn't change his mind?"

"I don't think it matters one way or the other. After the things he said, and given the way he feels, I'm not sure I want to work for him. I'll figure out what I want to do this week. If you don't mind, I'm going to go upstairs to read, and then get to bed. I'm leaving relatively early in the morning."

"Good night, Mike."

"Good night, Mom."

March 26, 1983, West Monroe, Ohio

"Where are we having breakfast?" Janey asked when she got into the car.

"A diner close to campus in McKinley. When we have lunch, I want to stop at the Quick Mart and see if Mr. Sokolov will consider hiring me full-time for the Summer."

"What?!"

"If he does, I'll apply for a Summer RA position, which gets free room and board, as well as a small stipend. Current RAs, which include me because I have the position in the Fall, have first chance."

"But you'll be in McKinley!" she protested.

"Yes. In McKinley. In a nice dorm room with a private bathroom."

"So?"

"And you call ME dense?!" I chuckled. "I'm solving the problem you created last night!"

"Oh God!" she squealed. "I love you!"

"How did your talk with your parents go?"

"I felt like I was twelve," she sighed. "I mean, seriously? My dad ignores the fact I'm eighteen and an adult! He was basically ranting about me acting like a 'floozy' and about me risking getting pregnant and ruining my life. It was weird, because I was having to tell my dad about saying 'no' despite being VERY close with my first guy because neither of us had rubbers and me carrying rubbers all the time after that. THAT set him off even more, because he says it means I'm willing to have sex at any time with anyone!"

"That's not even remotely true!" I protested.

"You know that, and I know that! But according to my dad, a girl who carries rubbers with her is 'loose'. Do you know what's REALLY sick? Later, when I was talking to my mom privately, she told me my dad was a real horndog in High School and had a string of girlfriends who were 'those kind' of girls."

"Not your mom?"

Janey laughed, "The one Catholic girl who kept her knees firmly together until her wedding night. She knew my dad's reputation, so she refused to do anything more than kiss him goodnight before they married."

"Now that's cruel!" I chuckled. "Knowing he's used to getting it and cutting him off completely!"

Janey laughed, "She was pretty smug about it, but if you think about it, having that kind of reputation in the late 50s and early 60s is way different from now. That was before the sexual revolution."

"I suppose that's true. Your mom seems to be dealing with it better than your dad."

"She is. She doesn't approve, but she says I'm an adult and I'm making adult choices."

"You were seventeen the first time, right?"

"Yes. But she didn't make a big deal about it. I think she knew from the time I was fifteen or so that the chances I would be a virgin on my wedding night were about the same as the chances that the Winter Olympics would be held in Hell!"

"Why is that?"

"Amelia and I are a LOT alike," Janey laughed. "Growing up, if she did it, I did it. Once Amelia started fooling around with boys, Mom knew it was only a matter of time."

"Your mom knew?"

"Amelia wasn't quite as careful as I was. She and her first boyfriend got caught, mid fuck, by my mom when she came home early one afternoon."

"Oops," I chuckled.

"Amelia told me about it, and it's hilarious. Mom comes to the door to her room, knocks, opens it, sees them, and says 'when you finish, we need to talk', then closes the door and walks away."

"Wow!"

"Amelia said she never had a dick go soft so fast in her life!"

"I bet! So?"

"Mom talked to her, made sure she was using birth control and told her she shouldn't be doing it in the house. That's why I ended up in the back seat of a car the times before you. You said you managed a bed."

"Hotel room in Cincinnati for a couple of nights."

"That would have been WAY better! Would I be able to spend the night with you sometimes in McKinley?"

"Yes. The rules are relaxed during Summer session."

"What about in the Fall once I start school?"

"I think you'll be busy at first," I grinned. "Once you get settled at OSU, we'll work it out."

"Did I just cramp your style?" she asked.

"The only person at Taft I've made ANY kind of commitment of ANY kind to is Clarissa. And that's about our medical training and careers."

"Are you dating anyone? Seeing anyone? Screwing anyone?"

"Can we take one step back, please?"

"Step back?"

"Don't you think the amount we share has to depend somewhat on our relationship? And it's a bit of a tangled web."

"How so?"

"If we're serious enough that you're entitled to know if I'm fooling around with someone, then aren't we serious enough that you're entitled to me, exclusively?"

"Is this a backhand way of asking me to go steady?"

"No, but we're not two High School Sophomores or Juniors who decided to start screwing, either. And we're not just casual lovers, either. Or am I wrong?"

"You aren't wrong. You're trying to figure out what we are, aren't you?"

"Don't you think we're at a point where we SHOULD do that?" I asked. "Especially given the stuff that's happened in the past couple of weeks?"

"Because, in effect, Tasha has taken herself off the board?"

"I don't know that Tasha thinks she's taken herself off the board," I replied carefully. "The way she went off on you could be read two ways. One of them has both you and me sized up for coffins. The other way only has YOU sized up for one."

"Because she knew you were intimate with Jocelyn?"

"Yes. You didn't actually tell her we were sleeping together, did you?"

"No, but you have to figure she made that assumption when I made the comment about not being able to keep her man."

"Maybe. Her mind wouldn't necessarily go there because she has a picture of me which doesn't match reality."

"The reality that you've had sex partners beyond Jocelyn."

"Yes. That's doubly so because you made the point about her dad not letting her date. Tasha MAY have assumed that was the point — she can't date, so she can't do enough stuff with me to keep me happy in her current situation, and by that I don't mean with sex."

"What do you think will happen?"

"I have NO idea. A lot depends on what was said to Deacon Vasily or Matushka Alexandra. I simply don't know. And right now, my ONLY goal in that regard is to avoid any kind of scene at church, or in public, for that matter."

"What do you plan to do after Vespers tonight?"

"Go home and spend some time with Liz. I figure you and I will see each other quite a bit this week because you're on break as well."

"But the dorms are closed, right?" she sighed.

"There's another thing we need to talk about as well," I said.

"What?"

"If sex is the basis for this relationship, then ultimately, it's going nowhere."

"You think it is?"

"I think you focus on it quite a bit, to the point where I'm beginning to wonder. Think back to last Summer and what happened between us. And how long it took for us to actually get together. And why. Which goes back to your question where my answer was to take a step back."

"I'm not sure I like where this is going."

"Janey, if we can't have this discussion, as adults, where we're going is exactly nowhere. We'll have great sex for a time, but then something will change, and we'll drift apart or have a fight or meet someone else and decide what we have isn't good enough."

"You're sleeping with someone you don't want to stop sleeping with, aren't you?"

Actually, she had that backwards — it was that I WASN'T sleeping with someone I wanted to START sleeping with! But there was no way I could explain Clarissa and me to anyone. Not now. Maybe not even later. If Clarissa and I DID end up making love, it would be something between us, never to be revealed to anyone under any circumstance. And I had to be free to make that decision, one way or the other, until such time as it had to be precluded because I was ready to marry, which I decidedly was not.

"Contrary to what you seem to be thinking, the only person I am sleeping with who I don't want to stop sleeping with is YOU."

"But you are sleeping with other girls?"

"Which goes right back to the point I raised before — for you to have the right to ask that question would mean we're serious enough that I'd have to stop anyway. The only thing I can say is I didn't make any promises to you in that regard any more than I made promises to Tasha. Is that a problem?"

"You evading the question is the problem," Janey said. "It's a simple question, Mike."

"And an irrelevant one because we aren't steady."

"Would you accept that answer from ME?"

"If you hadn't told me you weren't doing that and didn't feel right doing it, then yes, I would. But if you remember, I didn't ask because it's not my business, at least not yet."

"You wouldn't care if I had sex with someone else?"

"Now you're putting words into my mouth! I would care, but it's also not my business, so I prefer not to know. In fact, why tell me? What would be the point? To make me jealous? To try to get me to go steady with you? To make me angry? What I realized, with the help of the bishop, Father Nicholas, and my mom, was that I made a grave error in telling Tasha that Clarissa is a lesbian. There was really no point in doing so. In the long run, Tasha might have figured it out, and I would have dealt with it then. Instead, I basically rubbed Tasha's nose in it and created a complete mess. That makes me ask the question now — what would be the point of you telling me you're sleeping with other guys or me telling you I'm sleeping with other girls?"

"Honesty? Isn't that important?"

"But what does it prove one way or the other? I don't see the point to it."

"What are you hiding?" Janey asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Nothing," I replied.

"Well, this has gone completely off the rails. You think all I want is sex, and you won't tell me if you're sleeping with anyone else."

"It IS the first thing you think about and the thing that seems to drive your desire to see me. When we can't fool around, you're annoyed. You only became happy when I offered to bring you to McKinley today so we could have sex. When I told you the dorms were closed the rest of the week, implying we'd have difficulty finding a place, you sighed dejectedly! And if you remember, your main complaint about not seeing me very often is lack of sex."

"So? I enjoy sex with you. You say you enjoy sex with me. We have fun together, both in bed and out of bed. I thought our relationship was moving forward, but now it seems as if you want to move it back or whatever."

"I think we should just spend the day together and not go to the dorms."

"What?! Why?"

"A reset. I'm not saying we should stop having sex, just that we shouldn't have sex today."

"What the heck is going on, Mike?"

"Sex isn't the basis for a relationship and certainly can't be the first thing you think about."

"You still want her, don't you?"

"Who?"

"Tasha!" Janey said flatly.

"This isn't about her at all! This is about us! I thought we were working our way forward!"

"We were until you swerved into a ditch!"

"By trying to make this not about sex?"

"I don't get it. What's wrong?"

I took a deep breath and let it out, "I don't think you've heard a word I've said."

"Are you trying to break up with me?" Janey asked warily.

I tried not to sigh, but I couldn't help it, "No, exactly the opposite. But now I'm not so sure."

"Twenty minutes ago, you were happy to see me; now, it seems as if you don't want to be with me."

"Janey," I replied, managing to contain my exasperation, "we talked about moving forward and figuring things out. This is part of it."

"You're acting very weird, Mike. And I'm not sure I like it."

"Why are you reacting so badly to me wanting a basis for our relationship deeper than sex?"

"Because you won't answer a simple question. One that shouldn't be a big deal for you to answer. If you won't answer, you should probably just take me home."

We were going around in circles, and the only way I could break the circle was to answer her questions. And I could answer; I just didn't think I SHOULD answer. As I thought back and applied the things which Father Nicholas had said, I had shared too much. The one exception to that thought was Clarissa — I simply HAD to share everything with her. She had said repeatedly she wished I was a girl, and in the same vein, I wished she were straight. The problem was, a straight Clarissa would not be the same person.

"If that's what you want. Breakfast first, or should I just turn around?"

"Turn around," she said flatly.

I nodded and turned at the next opportunity so we could head back to West Monroe. We rode in silence until I neared her house.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"It really was a simple question."

That was both true and false at the same time. I pulled into the Rileys' driveway, and as soon as I came to a stop, Janey hopped out and walked to the front door. Without looking back, she went inside, and then I headed home.

"Mike?" Mom called out when she heard the door open.

"Yes, it's me."

She was just coming up the stairs from the basement.

"Is Janey with you?"

"No. We canceled our day together because we had a disagreement."

"Did you want to talk about it?"

"Not really; I'm going to make myself some breakfast."

"OK. There are strawberries, blueberries, and grapefruit in the fridge."

"Thanks."

I went to the kitchen and put two slices of bread into the toaster, and then filled a bowl with strawberries and blueberries, then cut a grapefruit in half and used the curved knife to separate the segments from the skin and each other. When the toast popped up, I spread strawberry jam on each piece, poured myself some coffee from the pot, and sat down to eat.

When I finished eating, I cleaned up the kitchen, then went up to my room to read and listen to music.

"Mikey?" Liz called from the door to my room about an hour later.