Chapter 116: Coincidences

Friday, July 2, 1982

We slept late. I don’t think either of us stirred until nearly nine. Once we finally got up, we took separate showers — Angie swore I needed to avoid the ‘Psycho Shower Scene’ — then got dressed and headed over for breakfast.

When we got there, Mom and Millie were at the breakfast table, along with some covered dishes that smelled very appetizing.

“It should still be at least somewhat warm,” Millie said, smiling.

Mom gave us a little smirk. “We haven’t seen hide nor hair of your father or Andrew.”

“I think they were up until the wee hours of the morning,” Millie said.

Ang and I dug in and enjoyed Millie’s cooking. She’d made bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and pancakes, all of which were very tasty.

After breakfast, we hung out in the living room and caught Millie up on many of our adventures. Not all of them, of course, but most of the “G-rated” ones.

Dad appeared about 11am. “Hi, kids. I stayed up too late.”

I chuckled. “I know how that feels.”

“I don’t know how you two do it on tournament weekends, up until two and then up again at six.”

“It’s usually not that bad. One and seven are more typical.”

“I guess I did that a time or two in college.”

Andrew came out just then. “A time or two a week, I’d say. And I should know!”

Dad shrugged. “Probably true enough.”

“There’s still some breakfast,” Millie said. “Eat up before it gets totally cold.”

“Yes, Ma’am!” Dad said with a grin. They vanished into the kitchen.

Mid-afternoon, after Angie and I had gone off to read for a bit, we came back over to the house for a snack.

“Hey, Steve, Angie,” Mom called. “Come sing for us.”

I shrugged and looked at Angie. She shrugged, too.

We headed into the living room. I sang ‘There But For You Go I’, and Angie sang ‘The Love Of My Life’, both to applause.

Mom chuckled after Angie’s song. “That was quick thinking yesterday, honey. I don’t think this one would’ve gone over well with Helen.”

“No, definitely not,” Dad said.

“What did you sing yesterday?” Millie asked.

“‘Waitin’ for My Dearie’,” Angie said. “I can sing it again.”

“Would you, please?”

Angie did. Then I got nudged into ‘Almost Like Being In Love’, with Angie doing a surprisingly good job of carrying Fiona’s lyrics, given that it was a part she’d never studied and we’d never practiced together.

“You’re both so talented!” Millie said.

“We were very surprised,” Mom said. “Steve couldn’t sing like this before. He wasn’t bad, but this is something else.”

“No one was more surprised than me,” I said. “When she says ‘wasn’t bad,’ she’s comparing me to a bullfrog.”

“You weren’t that bad.”

“I beg to differ.”

“I could sing, but I’ve gotten so much better,” Angie said. “Practice makes perfect.”

The conversation moved towards our college plans. Neither of us had made much progress. Law? Maybe. Engineering? Maybe, for me anyway. Some sort of business-related program? Maybe. Neither one of us wanted to be a doctor, and we probably weren’t going fully into the liberal arts, either. Nor did Angie think acting was a likely career.

The whole thing continued to amuse me. Angie hadn’t had that much of a plan in her first go-round, but had rallied around her business education. I had known for years, by this point, that I wanted to go into computers.

Now, doing it over? We were both typical sophomores. Undecided and having trouble making progress towards a decision. It would have been easy to go with our first-time choices. I knew I could do really well in computer science. Angie had a head for business, no doubt.

But was that where we belonged? And, given such an opportunity, shouldn’t we try to do it right? Not just pick the easy path? We could always shift to the easy path later, after all.

The conversation petered out after a while, and I knew Dad and Andrew would want to talk more, too. Angie and I went off for a walk, then played cards for a while. We went back over for dinner, which turned out to be the leftovers from last night’s dinner. They were just as good the second time.

We went back to the cabin around nine. The trees made things dark, but it was still lit well enough that we didn’t need the flashlights.

Angie grumbled once we were alone. “I’m not that tired, I’m horny, but I really don’t want to do anything about it. I know all about running the barricades. Nuh uh.”

“I’m sorry.” I gave her a big hug.

“It’s fine. Hardly the first time I’ve been horny and had no good way to do much about it. Let’s snuggle and read for a while.”

“Sounds good to me.”

We did just that, putting our books away around eleven, using the bathroom, then turning out the lights and snuggling up.

“I really like it up here. I don’t think I could ever live up here. I like cities. But I’d love to vacation up here,” Angie said.

“Me, too. Though I also like busy places like theme parks and cruises and all that sort of thing.”

She chuckled. “I was about to say I’d never gone on a cruise, which, of course, I haven’t, but then you haven’t either from any perspective but your own.”

“True enough. I can hardly tell Mom and Dad I like doing something that barely exists right now.”

“There are cruises. I watched ‘The Love Boat’. I know things,” she said, grinning.

“It’s different. ‘The Love Boat’ is somewhat ... predictive ... of where things go, but that ship is maybe a quarter of the size of the cruise ships that were dominating the market in the 2000s, and it retains far more of the ‘stuffy’ side of cruises. Dinners in formal-wear, fixed seating, all that.”

“Interesting. I think this is part of our problem.”

“Um ... cruises?”

“No,” she said, giggling a bit. “Knowing things. We know where so much goes, it’s hard to decide what to do education-wise. You more than me, but you tell me all these things and then I know them, too. And I know plenty myself.”

“Probably you’re right. We’ll figure it out. Just ... not quickly.”

“Yeah. Not quickly.”

We rubbed noses.

“Love you, Steve.”

“Love you, Ang.”

“You’ve never been where we’re going tomorrow, right?”

I shook my head. “Nope. New territory.”

“Cool! Sleep well.”

“Sweet dreams.”

Saturday, July 3, 1982

We were up and out by 8:30am. Had to be — it was going to be a long day. We crossed into Michigan’s southern half at Mackinaw City around eleven, where we stopped for a quick lunch. We made it to East Lansing around three-thirty and drove around, looking at the Michigan State campus. It looked ... well, it looked like a university. It’s hard to get the feel of a place in an hour. I saw nothing that shouted at me ‘go here!’ but also nothing that shouted ‘stay away!’ So ... who knows?

After stopping for gas and restrooms, we arrived in Ann Arbor a bit after six. Dad drove around the campus a bit, pointing at all sorts of things and either telling us about some experience he’d had there or that something was new.

Of course we couldn’t miss Michigan Stadium, a.k.a. ‘The Big House’. It’s the largest stadium in the United States. In 1982, nothing really came all that close. Other stadiums would approach its capacity by 2021. Dad had quite a bit to say about how much fun he’d had going to games there. I could sympathize; I’d greatly enjoyed going to games while at UT and Purdue.

After our driving tour, we checked into the hotel and had dinner. No one wanted to stay up late, not with tomorrow being another busy day, so we headed off to our rooms after dinner.

Angie sighed. “Halfway through. I might... might ... run the barricade a little tomorrow. Maybe.”

“Up to you, sis. Always, of course.”

“Shower time. C’mon. Strip.”

I did, in a hurry. We were perfectly well behaved in the shower, though of course we did plenty of looking.

After we’d put on underwear, we snuggled and read a little, then put our books away and hit the lights.

Angie scooted in and rubbed noses. “So ... what’d you think?”

“It’s hard to get any sense of a university in an hour or two of looking at buildings.”

“Yeah. I know they’re both good schools. Whether I want to go there, I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to live in snow again, for one thing.”

I shrugged. “I was fine with it at Purdue.”

“Maybe. Dunno.”

“If perfect weather is the criteria, we should be looking at Stanford or Berkeley.”

“True enough. And both are great, but ... probably not.”

“I agree. Or, at least, I agree for now. Maybe I’ll get talked into it, but I don’t think I’ll wind up going to college in California. The one thing about California that we might want to do is speculate in land, particularly somewhere in the San Francisco area.”

“I heard it got expensive out there.”

I chuckled. “You have no idea. It was a bit pricey in 1997. It was absolutely nuts in 2020. And a lot of places that are dirt cheap now will be sought after in fifteen or twenty years.”