Chapter 4: Re-adolescent

Complacency was a mood foreign to Andy Trainor’s makeup. He was much likelier to be worried. Yet, he was almost complacent as he drove up the interstate from Champaign towards Chicago in the spring of ‘77. Though he kept his eyes on traffic, he was constantly aware of Marilyn riding shotgun beside him. She wasn’t a passenger; they were a couple.

Okay, they were a dating couple, not a married couple. They weren’t even engaged, and they couldn’t be until he was a hell of a lot closer to being able to support her. But, seeing them from outside the car, you wouldn’t have been able to tell that. And, she seemed willing to continue as a couple.

She’d even had sex with him. The immediate sensations had been overwhelmingly delightful. What he took away in the long run was that she had accepted him. Marilyn wasn’t the sort to have sex casually. Even if she hadn’t revealed that he’d been the first, he’d have known that she didn’t choose sex partners lightly or frequently. If they weren’t married, they were on the road to being married. All he had to do was to keep their relationship developing along that track.

School, if he hadn’t received the grades for the last semester yet, also felt like it was on track. After the distribution courses and preparatory stuff of the first year, he’d taken real engineering courses. And they’d felt like they’d gone okay. You could always really blow an exam without knowing it, but up to the finals almost all of them had felt okay. He was worried about Drafting, a real engineering course but not his cup of tea. The rest, always allowing for unseen disasters, had gone well. At the very least, he’d learned the content. Even if he had somehow failed to show it on the last exam, he had that learning. Even Phys Ed had been fun -- the first fun he’d had in a gym class in his life -- and now he could swim. Which, since Marilyn enjoyed swimming, could be important.

If he hadn’t accomplished any of his three goals for his four college years after the first two, he was on track. He had always known that becoming an engineer would take four years. Marriage to Marilyn, which he hadn’t allowed himself even to dream about for the first two years he’d known her, depended on his being able to support a family. That depended on his being an engineer. His final goal, independence from his Dad, had to wait for the first two. Dad paid his tuition. Intellectually, he knew that he had to wait, although dependency grated.

He got past the on-ramps and exits. The traffic -- mostly trucks this time of day -- was flowing freely. He could pay attention to Marilyn again. He’d already heard her grade predictions; he’d go to her sorority little sister.

“Did Beverly tell you how she thought she did?”

“She wasn’t afraid of any failures. She doesn’t have your standards, you know.” And so, they went on until they stopped for lunch. After that, it was a pleasant drive until they got to Chicago and the spaghetti bowl of interchanges. From there, it was east to the Outer Drive and then Sheridan to Evanston.

He drove up to her street and backed into her drive. He left more room in front of the garage door so he could get her suitcases out of the trunk. She opened the door, and he put her luggage down in the entryway. She went up two steps on the stairway to compensate for the 14 inches difference in their heights. She turned to him, and he kissed her. It wasn’t really goodbye; they’d see each other all summer. Still, it was a long, warm kiss.

“Marilyn!” It was Marilyn’s mom. He took his hands off her, in case her mom was looking as well as calling. Marilyn didn’t pull her arms from around his neck, although she did break the kiss to answer.

“Yeah. Later. I’m busy now.” She went back to the kiss, and he cooperated to the extent of chasing her tongue with his. His heart wasn’t really in the kiss, though.

“Is that Andy?” That did require an answer.

“Yes, Mrs. Grant. Hello. I brought Marilyn home.”

“Come upstairs now.” That clearly wasn’t directed at him. Well, the kiss had been nice while it lasted.

“Love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too,” she said loudly. She’d said it before, and he believed she did, but this was for her mom to hear.

At home, he used his key but gave the family’s two quick rings to let Mrs. Bryant know that someone else was in the house. She came out to greet him.

“Andy! You hungry?”

“Well, we stopped for lunch. Let me get my bags.” He hauled his stuff in from the porch and carried the actual bags upstairs. Back downstairs, he resisted the special homecoming meal until Dad could join him at regular dinner time. He did have some of Mrs. Bryant’s good chocolate-chip cookies.

“Well,” Dad asked after dinner, “think you passed any courses?”

“Not until the teachers grade them. Anything can happen to blow a test, but otherwise I’m happy with most of them. I’m worried about Drafting. It would take a miracle on the last test to get me an A. But I’m virtually certain to pass Phys. Ed. The very last gym class I’ll ever take.”

“Was it that painful? Swimming, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, no. Swimming was rather fun after a while. The guy told you what to do; you did it; after some practice it moved you through the water. And, too, Marilyn swims. We might go to the lake this summer.”

“Ah, Miss Grant. Always an important consideration. You don’t want to look incompetent in front of Miss Grant.”

“You’re teasing. Anyway, I’m competent in all sorts of things.”

“And so you are. Unfortunately, she’s unlikely to see you solve differential equations, or know what you’ve done if she did see.”

“Yeah, but she understood dean’s list.”

“And that impressed her? She impresses me. The coeds of my day were more interested in men with a gentleman’s C.”

“Being impressed by her is one thing we agree on.”

“So it is. I’ll even pretend that your impression extends beyond the gonads.”

“It does. I won’t pretend that I’m not sexually attracted...”

“That’s fortunate. Five minutes in your joint company would tell anyone that you’re sexually attracted.”

“But she has many good qualities beyond that.”

“I don’t doubt that. I was only dubious that you saw beyond your lust.” But, really, Dad was only arguing for the sake of argument. Dad was quite happy to show up at church a little early so that he could wait for Marilyn while Dad took his usual place. While he was standing at the top of the steps, the Pierces drove up. Mr. Pierce stopped right in front in the unloading zone. Mrs. Pierce hurried downstairs while Mr. Pierce unloaded the twins. While he walked them upstairs, he left the rear door of his car open.

“Can I leave them with you, Andy?”

“Of course.” The kids were cute, and it wasn’t as though he was going to go far. Mr. Pierce put one hand securely in his and then the other, reciting the kids’ names as he did so. He ran down to his car and drove away to park it. By now, he’d have to go blocks.

The kids tugged him towards the stairs.

“Down,” said John.

“Please,” said Paul. It was either struggle with them at the top of a long flight of concrete steps or walk down. They walked down, the boys clearly enjoying themselves. When they got to the sidewalk they turned around, taking a lot of space to turn the three of them. He wasn’t about to let go of a hand. They started up assuming his agreement. On their second trip down, Marilyn came up with her family.

“The Pierce twins,” he said. “Wait for me in our pew, will you?” He’d rather have gone in with her, but the kids couldn’t turn around where they were.

“Of course.”

“Andy, you’re a worse sucker than I am.” Mr. Pierce had come back and was behind them. The boys looked around and tried to jerk their hands loose. When Mr. Pierce passed him, they started up the stairs after their father. He wasn’t as much a sucker as Mr. Pierce, not by an order of magnitude -- not by two orders of magnitude.

When he joined Marilyn, she snuggled up to him a little closer than they were used to sitting in First Urbana. When her dad looked back at them, she snuggled closer yet. He loved the warmth against his hip. He’d have preferred thinking that it was an expression of her desire for him instead of her rejection of her parents.

After church, was coffee hour. The kids already back from college gathered at two adjoining tables. Some schools weren’t out yet. Marilyn, former MYF chair, was one of the foci of the group. As her guy, he was a bigger part of it than his one year of attendance before college would have justified otherwise. Mr. Schmidt stopped at the table with his wife as he went out. He greeted the kids, who’d been his charge when they were in MYF.

“Think you can make it in at 8:45 tomorrow, Andy?” Mr. Schmidt asked him.

“Of course.” After he left, the Pierces came up the stairs. The rest of the choir had been up for some time, but they probably had something to do for the twins.

“And here, my dear, is a worse sucker than I am,” Mr. Pierce said to his wife. Not by two orders of magnitude. But he’d have to say that in a way the half-educated would understand.

“Not by one percent, I walked the twins up and down twice. How many trips have you made with kids who wanted to climb stairs?”

“You have to understand, Andy,” said Mrs. Pierce, “that being one percent as much of a sucker as Bill still makes you a huge sucker.” She stayed around with the kids while her husband went for the car. The twins were the center of attention, and they looked used to that.

As the coffee hour was breaking up, Dad came over.

“Are you riding with us, Miss Grant? Are you ready to go?” he asked.

“Certainly.”

“Do you think you’d like to repeat the seating arrangement with my daughters when they are here later this summer?” She looked at him.

He was fine with that arrangement.

“Sure,” she said. Dad immediately handed him the keys. Well, he knew where the car was parked. Apparently, he was driving today. When he got back, Dad handed Marilyn in to the front seat before he could go around. Dad got in the back.

“Take Miss Grant home first,” Dad said. “We’re going to a restaurant. I’m sorry, my dear. You’d be welcome to accompany us, but your parents would have objections -- deservedly so -- on your first Sunday back from school.” Dad was always appreciative of Marilyn and warm towards her -- the “Miss Grant” until she called him “Jim” excepted. Still, he always treated her as Dad’s guest and him as a stray when they were together. He drove Marilyn home.

“Backing in?” Dad asked. Was he going to supervise his driving, now?

“Gets Marilyn closer to the door.” Which Dad should have been able to figure out for himself.

He got out. A lady, she waited for him to open her door. He walked her to her porch and stood the usual two steps down. They had a kiss, even an open-mouth kiss. Still he could feel that she was conscious of Dad’s watching. He heard the car door slam. Still, when he got back, Dad was in the passenger seat. He was still the driver.

“Get your voyeur kicks for the week?”

“You know, when somebody sneaks around and peeks in your bedroom window, you have grounds for complaint. Even when he peeks in the car window when you’ve parked seeking privacy. When you do something on the front porch in broad daylight, you have no grounds for complaint that others are in view. And, when I want voyeur kicks, I’ll choose among stronger fare than a good-bye kiss, thank you.”

“So, where are we going?”

“Well, if you’re in the mood for an argument, we have plenty of left-overs back home. Mrs. Bryant really cooked up a storm for you.”

“I’m done.”

“Bread Box.” So, he drove to The Bread Box. Despite its name, it served full meals, standard fare, but tasty.

“So,” Dad began. “Have your summer mapped out?”

“Sorta. I’ll be working at the hardware store again.” Dad, who had picked up the app and mailed it to him, was aware of that, but you started a description where the audience was. “I don’t know the specific hours, of course. I brought the book for PDE. Figured I’d read a little ahead.”

“PDE being.”

“Partial differential equations.”

“I thought you studied differential equations this past year. Was it only the impartial ones?” He gave Dad a smile, a thin one but better than the joke deserved.

“Let’s say you want to lose weight by exercise. You burn 3,000 calories, which are really kilocalories, in one exercise session. But you eat food containing 4,000 calories after the session because it made you hungrier. Your partial derivative of weight over exercise is the negative of whatever weight 3,000 calories represents. Your partial derivative of food intake with respect to exercise is 4,000 calories.

“Well, that situation, while not continuous and, thus, not really dealt with by derivatives, represents a common physical situation. Z is a function of X and Y; Y is a function of X. The partial derivative of Z with respect to X represents what would happen if Y were held constant. I really need paper -- or a blackboard.”

“You really need an audience which is up to speed on that. Remember what happened with your AP calculus?”

“Don’t remind me.”

“You performed perfectly honorably. Your high-school teacher didn’t do what the course description claimed it would do. You fell behind in college. You learned what you needed to know by yourself. But you needed to know a fraction of a semester’s work. To follow that description, I’d need to have taken -- and remember after decades -- entire college courses I never touched.”

“Anyway, PDE is a course different from Diffy Cue. And, if I were interested, I’m sure that there is a continuation of each somewhere in the University catalog.”

“‘Of books and the making of books, there is no end.’”

“Well the number of courses in the catalog is quite finite. I, however, will never come to the end of them. For that matter, the number of books in all the libraries of earth is finite, as is the number of sub-atomic particles in all those books.”

“Andy, you are a literalist.”

“Marilyn made the same accusation.”

“Well, if Miss Grant says so, it must be correct. And, in your case, it’s not an accusation; it’s an observation.”

“She introduced Beverly as her ‘little sister.’ Beverly isn’t tall, but she’s much taller than Marilyn -- as who isn’t?”

“There is that, but she’s using the term metaphorically. Not even that. Sorority girls use it as a technical term. I must say, that if Miss Grant exceeds my memory of coeds, she overwhelms my memory of sorority girls.”

“She doesn’t like you calling her that, you know.”

“Well, she is Miss Grant. I’ll change when she calls me ‘Jim.’”

“She doesn’t want to call you ‘Jim.’ You’re not her contemporary, you’re the father of her boyfriend -- the stuffy father of her boyfriend.”

“Now, is that your opinion or hers?”

“It’s an observation.”

“Touché’.”

Monday, he was in the hardware store, in his place, and with his week’s schedule well before the store opened at 9:00. There wasn’t a flood of customers, and he was the only one on a cash register. When there weren’t customers, he figured out what would be convenient for evenings. Now to see what would be convenient for Marilyn.

When he called that night, they agreed on movie dates Tuesday and Wednesday and a day at the beach Thursday. It was a damn sight harder to find private parking places in the northern suburbs than it had been in Champaign. Forget Evanston itself. But he found the places and Marilyn was sexy as hell.