Chapter 68: I’m Probably Going To Regret This

February 19, 1984, Cincinnati, Ohio

"Hi, Mike!" Anna exclaimed when she opened the door to her parents' house.

"Hi."

"Come on in. You remember Kyle, I'm sure!"

"I do," I replied, then set my bag down and knelt on the floor. "Hi, Kyle!"

"Hi!"

I held out my hand, and he put out his little hand, and we shook, and then I stood up.

"This is my sister, Gina."

"Hi," I said.

"Not quite the greeting he gives Steve, is it?" Gina said.

"I miss Steve!" Kyle declared.

"The guy from Milford I was dating," Anna added.

"The chess player?"

"Yes. Come put your bag in the guest room. Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes. Gina and Kyle are going out, and my parents won't be home until later."

"You didn't have to cook for me," I said.

"It's just spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread."

"Sounds good!"

I followed her down the hall, dropped my bag in the guest room, and then said 'goodbye' to Gina and Kyle, who left. Anna and I went to the kitchen, and I sat at the dinette table while she finished preparing dinner.

"I think I saw the house you told me about last time I was here. It's up a road called Klondyke that's really twisty?"

"Yes. That's where Steve's parents live. Well, I think they still do. I haven't heard from him in ages."

"You called him your boyfriend before."

"I think I said there wasn't really another word to use that made sense and that we weren't steady."

"You'll forgive me if I don't remember."

Anna laughed softly, "It's not as if it was important from your perspective."

"I do remember you said you met him through playing chess."

"Yes. It was in December of '77. The Milford Chess team came to Turpin to play. Steve and his friend Mary psyched out several members of our team by telling us about 'Strip Chess'."

"You were what? Fourteen?"

"Yes. I think his friend Jennifer invented it. She was on the chess team as well. You never met them at a regional competition?"

"No. Ours were in Columbus. There was one guy from Milford who went to the state championships if I remember correctly."

"That would have been Steve's friend, Larry, who was also on the team. He's the best player I've ever met."

"Do you still play?"

"Occasionally."

"Same here," I replied. "What are you studying at OU?"

"Business. You're pre-med, right?"

"Yes."

Anna put the spaghetti and meatballs into a serving bowl, got the garlic bread from the oven, and then brought a bottle of red wine to the table. I nodded when she tipped it toward a wine glass, and she poured a modest amount for each of us. I silently said a blessing, and we dug in.

"How is Angie?" I asked.

"A bit better. I saw her yesterday, and she seemed really happy that you're going to see her tomorrow."

"I know you aren't her psychiatrist or psychologist, but what do you think?"

"It's like somebody emptied her out, and she has no personality. At first, she was severely depressed and made almost no sense when she talked. I was going to stop seeing her, but her psychiatrist, Doctor Lewis, encouraged me to keep visiting her. Once he got her medication adjusted, she was like we talked — a zombie. Yesterday, she seemed better. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"What is your situation? I mean, with Angie?"

"I'm trying to be her friend," I replied. "There really isn't much more to say than that. Doctor Mercer warned me that she may never be able to have an intimate relationship."

"Angie said very clearly you guys were basically engaged."

"We were never even boyfriend and girlfriend. I asked her out and tried to move in that direction, but she always put up a stone wall. And she kept adding stones to the wall right up until her first meltdown. Then things got crazier, and she had her second meltdown."

"She implied you guys were sleeping together."

"I know," I replied, carefully suppressing a sigh. "We did everything together — study, church, eat, run, pray, and anything else you can think of, except become physically intimate. We kissed one time, and that was the start of the long downward spiral."

"She was telling everyone what she told me."

"Oh, I realize that now. But to make it clear, I was intimately involved with other girls, and Angie knew."

"Oh, wow! Do you still feel the same way about her?"

"I care for her, but I'm in no position to even think about anything beyond friendship with her, now or in the near future. Doctor Mercer is hoping I can help Angie recover enough to live a normal life, I guess pretty much in the same way you are."

"I only spoke to Doctor Mercer once. Mostly, I speak to Doctor Lewis. I guess they're working together."

"Two different kinds of expertise, as I understand it. And Doctor Mercer can't prescribe drugs."

"Why is that?"

"A psychiatrist is an MD, you know, went to medical school. A psychologist has a Master's or PhD but didn't go to medical school. They're both doctors, but not the same kind of doctors. And as I understand, they use different treatment methods besides the issue of drugs. Angie needs the kind of treatment she gets from Doctor Mercer."

"Ah, OK. How is your food?"

"It's very good, thanks."

"I checked a calendar Angie had to make sure it was OK. I guess you guys have lots of days where you can't eat meat and stuff."

I nodded, "That's true, but in situations like this, I would never refuse a meal that was offered. That would be totally rude, and it would violate the basic tenets of fasting discipline. A week ago, our lesson in church was about the Publican and the Pharisee, which is about pride and thinking you're holier than other people. So, I would never have even mentioned it. I do appreciate you checking, though."

"Angie was pretty serious about it before, but the doctors won't let her follow those rules now."

"They're more like guidelines," I replied. "And if you're sick, you don't follow them. I'm sure Angie's priest is working with her as best he can, given the circumstances."

"Aren't you some kind of minister?"

"I'm a subdeacon. Are you a Reds fan?"

"Huge, even though lately they mostly stink. What does that have to do with church?"

"I'm like the bat boy or a member of the ground crew. If Angie implied I was like a pastor or anything, she was seriously exaggerating."

"No, she just said you were ordained; I guess I just assumed," she sighed. "I'm not sure what to believe from anything she said at this point. I mean, if you guys weren't even boyfriend and girlfriend, let alone steady, she was really telling stories."

"The thing is," I said, "that was her reality, and it was a product of her illness. I think she truly believed all those things, even if they were exaggerations, half-truths, or even outright falsehoods. She couldn't tell the difference."

"That's just scary."

I nodded, "I know. I said something similar to Doctor Mercer."

We finished eating, and I offered to help Anna clean up, an offer which was gratefully accepted. When we finished, we went to the living room, where she turned on the radio to a 'Top 40' station.

"Would you like to play some chess?" she asked.

I couldn't help but laugh.

"Sorry," I said.

"It's OK," she replied with a smile. "Given what was said before, I understand why that was funny."

"Sure, we can play."

"'Strip Chess'?" she said with a silly smile.

"I am probably going to regret what I'm about to say for the rest of my life, but I think we should just play the normal way."

She laughed, got up, went down the hall, and returned with a chess set, which she put on the coffee table. She sat on the floor on the opposite side of the table from where I was sitting on the couch. She took white, and I took black, and we began playing.

"I have to ask," I said as I executed the Sicilian Defense, "given the rules, how could they use that at a tournament?"

"They'd tell the person the rules, and then when moves were made, they would very quietly, so as not to attract attention from the officials, say what would happen if they were playing. So, if I captured your pawn, I'd say you owed me a kiss. If I took a piece, I'd mention whatever the next piece of clothing might be and remind you of the price of losing."

I chuckled, "I can see that working for a guy because he wins either way! But if the girl loses, she has to perform fellatio, and if she wins, he gets to perform cunnilingus."

"But it wasn't real in the tournament, just teasing. But how would YOU have handled some girl telling you that if you lost, you would HAVE to lick her?"

"At age fourteen or fifteen? I'd have been so flustered I would have lost."

"Which is why it worked. Especially with the girls using it on guys. But Steve knew how to use it effectively, too, to get girls either flustered or offended. It messed me up, for sure. And, just so you know, I never ACTUALLY played. I thought about it, but in the end, I just couldn't do it."

"And that offer five minutes ago?"

"There's a difference between a fourteen-year-old virgin and a twenty-year-old college student! I mean, seriously, would YOU have done that at age fourteen?"

"I seriously doubt it, despite trying to find out the rules for the game and trying to get the two girls on the chess team to help me figure out what the rules might be. No takers, by the way. And if I had, I probably would have curled up in a little ball from embarrassment. I was pretty much the classic nerd."

"So was Steve, but he ran into a couple of girls, Melanie and Jennifer, who I guess turned him into the school stud."

"In MY dreams!"

"It really got out of hand, though. I broke up with him once because I just couldn't deal with his scores and scores of girls. Well, I didn't know for sure, but some of the kids on the chess team talked. Basically, he was two-timing me, but that was kind of his thing. He always had multiple girlfriends."

"But you got back together?"

"I like him a lot, so I decided to try to see if I could bring him around to my position. I guess I failed because he hasn't called in a long time. If he called and asked me out, I'd probably go, but with conditions. I'm sure you can guess he was my first, and to date only, lover."

"I think I'm getting the picture."

"Maybe. I don't feel like I was a conquest because we actually dated before that happened, including double dates with his friends Pete and Melanie. But I don't think he could ever have just one girl."

"That's going to make marriage a problem."

"It is. At some point, he's going to have to decide on one girl and stick with her."

"You?"

"At this point, I doubt it."

We played to a draw and switched colors, and I opened with Queen's Gambit.

"How good were you?" I asked.

"Very!" she smirked. "Oh, you mean at chess?"

I laughed, "Nice. Yes, at chess."

"Class B. You?"

"I had just made Class A when I graduated, but I play rarely now. I just don't have the time with everything else going on in my life — school, karate, church, friends, and being the RA."

"Same here, in terms of time, but I never really looked for anyone to play. I guess I have better things to do than study chess moves for hours a day."

"That was what it always came down to for me," I said. "You have to dedicate yourself to it. What else do you do?"

"I have a campus job, and I'm in student government."

"My friend Melody is in student government, and I try to stay as far away from that as possible!"

"Our campus is pretty mellow, so it's not so bad. I take it there have been controversies at Taft?"

"More than I care to remember."

We played to a second draw and swapped colors again.

"We're pretty evenly matched," she said.

"Yeah, I've lost my edge, as it were."

"I know what you said before, but if you're interested, we could each play our first game of 'Strip Chess'."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," I replied evenly.

"Sorry," she said with a soft sigh. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm not upset, just conflicted."

"Conflicted?"

I nodded, "A beautiful, sexy blonde invites me to play a game where I'll get to see her naked and have at least a decent shot of receiving oral sex or performing it, both of which I like but thinking about my problems with casual sexual encounters."

"I've never had one," Anna replied, "despite numerous offers!"

"As one of my friends at Taft likes to say, that's the whole point of going to college. I'm not sure I agree. And it seems as if you don't."

"Mostly, it was about how I felt about Steve, but as I said, I think that's pretty much over. I would love to hear from him, and Kyle really misses him, but I think, ultimately, I can't fit into his lifestyle, nor do I think I want to."

"So, propositioning me?"

"It just seemed like a good opportunity to test the waters."

"May I point out a major concern?"

"What?"

"Angie's best friend sleeping with her boyfriend."

"Oh, shit!" Anna gasped. "I hadn't even thought of that! I mean, you aren't, but she THINKS you are."

"And think about what would happen if she found out. Or even suspected."

"Oh, wow! I am SO sorry!"

"There's no need to apologize. Your reality and mine are not anything like Angie's. To be honest, if you and I weren't her mutual friends, and she didn't have feelings for me, I probably WOULD play and take the game to its obvious conclusion."

"Sleeping together."

"Yes. And while I won't let Angie's illness control my life, it HAS to control this specific situation because of who we are and because of what happened to her in High School."

"I am SO sorry. I really am."

"Don't beat yourself up too badly. I'm assuming you like me. I like you, too. We're attracted to each other. The flirting is a normal progression. But neither of us could ever hurt Angie that way."

"Can I ask a hypothetical question with NO implications?"

"Sure."

"What if we fell in love with each other? Then what?"

"That would create, in my mind, an almost impossible dilemma — who to hurt. I guess I'd have to talk to Doctor Mercer, but I think, in the end, I couldn't hurt Angie that way. And because of that, I'd keep you at a distance, which kept us friends."

"That would suck. But given that you're the only guy on the planet who is off-limits in that way, it's not like it's a real problem. And no, that hypothetical was not about me being in love with you. I could see dating you under different circumstances. But I can't hurt Angie that way, either."

"Good. Then let's play some more chess!"

February 20, 1984, Cincinnati, Ohio

On Monday morning, after breakfast at Bob Evans, Anna and I drove to Angie's house, where her mom greeted us, then showed us into the den where Angie was sitting in a recliner reading Charlotte's Web. She put the book down, said 'Hi', got up, and hugged Anna. She looked at me, and I quickly debated my best course of action. I nodded, and she gave me a quick, chaste hug. She sat down in her recliner, and Anna and I sat on the couch together.

"How are you?" I asked.

"Better, I think," Angie replied. "I can read books now and concentrate. I couldn't do that before."

"That's good. I heard from Doctor Mercer that you have a job."

"Part-time. I do data entry. It's reading forms and typing the information into a computer terminal. I started in January. How is school?"

"It's keeping me busy," I replied. "You know how much studying I had to do."

"I remember. How is everyone?"

"Good. Clarissa, Sophia, Jeannette, Marie, and a bunch of other people all said to say 'Hi' to you, and they all hope you get better soon."

"You stayed at Anna's last night?"

"Yes. We played chess. She beat me more than I beat her, but I enjoyed it."

"And you go back to school today?"

"Yes. After our visit. I have homework to do, which is pretty much a constant thing."

"Father Stephen said the bishop wants to make you a deacon."

"Father Stephen talks too much," I replied. "But yes, that's true. But it won't happen until after I graduate."

"Are you going to get married? Or be a monk?"

We were on shaky ground here, but I didn't see a way to avoid answering, given the context. I'd have to tread VERY carefully.

I laughed, "Me? A monk? I don't think so! I'll get married, of course. And the ordination won't happen until after that, so it could be years from now."

"You aren't seeing anyone?"

I had to answer VERY carefully, and somehow gently change the subject.

"Right now, I'm focused on school, church, and karate. I'm dating. That's all. What else do you do besides work?"

"Now I read, plus Mom takes me to the gym three times a week for exercise. I have an exercise coach who helps me. I watch TV, spend time with my mom, and see Anna when she comes to visit. And I go to church, of course."

"How is Father Stephen? I don't know him very well."

"I like him. He's been helping me, too, you know, along with the doctors."

"Who takes you to church?"

"Mostly my mom. Sometimes, she stays, but usually, she goes grocery shopping or something while I'm at church. When do you take your test for medical school?"

"Over the Summer," I replied. "If I don't do well enough, then I'll take it again in the Fall."

"Will you work?"

"Yes, the same as last year — at the Quick Mart and as RA."

"No vacation?"

"Jocelyn, Clarissa, and I are going to Gettysburg for Spring Break."

"Why there?"

"Because I've wanted to see the battlefield since I was little. It's an easy road trip, and we'll drive along the river."

"How is Jocelyn?"

"OK. She's transferring to Taft to finish her undergraduate degree before she goes to law school. She's not happy at Purdue."

"And your sister?"

"She graduates in May. She's talking about going to Junior College to get an Associate's in accounting."

And getting married, but I couldn't reveal that to anyone, lest by some bizarre chain of events, it got back to my parents or someone who might take action against Paul.