Chapter 17: Like A Wolf

November 1, 1981

We recapped the dance to start off study group. Everyone had had a great time. Cammie was there; they’d grounded her, but not from academic pursuits, which we were. She was pretty sure her parents were quietly thrilled that she’d found a boy she liked. Cal wasn’t even grounded; his mom was playfully annoyed, while his dad took a ‘way to go!’ attitude.

Score one for good use of parental misdirection. None of the parents had clearly hinted at there being an issue previously, but now they felt less nervous. Since I thought they were dumb to feel the way they did about the possibility that their kids were gay, I was fine with the deception.

At dinner I asked, because, hey, I’m the one with the date who’s not in the group. “Can I ask you guys something?”

Mom looked at me with a Mom-look. “You want to go on a date with Jasmine, right?”

I nodded. “I do. A double-date. Angie and Gene. To dinner and a movie. We just won’t get much time, otherwise, and I like her. And she likes me.”

Dad smiled. “When?”

“You know how busy we are. It’d have to be Thursday, probably, which would mean missing dinner. We wouldn’t be out late, of course, on a school night. Maybe 9?”

He hesitated and looked at Mom. “What do you think, Helen?”

I figured we were sunk, and Angie looked like she agreed. Mom pondered. “Wellllll. The problem is that I encourage all these busy weekends but, of course, you want to have some chances to be social. I admit that I was very concerned at the start, but I don’t really have any worries about you dating — with reasonable curfews! — anymore. A double date would be a good icebreaker, and if your father thinks it’s OK, I think the two of us can stand to eat together by ourselves on an occasional Thursday.”

Needless to say, I was surprised! Angie looked surprised, too. Dad smiled. “That sounds OK to me, I think. You can tell her it’s fine. What are you going to see?”

“I ... don’t know yet. In honor of Halloween, maybe that ‘Full Moon High’ thing. It looks iffy, but it’s new at least. And in our age range.”

“It looks below your age range,” Mom laughed. “But that sounds fine.”

When we finished dinner, I called Jasmine. “As long as your parents agree, we’re on for Thursday. My curfew is 9pm on school nights, so I’m thinking we go to dinner directly from school, if they’ll allow it, and then to the movie.”

“They’ll be fine. Is your sister in?”

“She’s going to call Gene next. She’s pretty sure his parents will say yes.”

“Yay! See you tomorrow, Steve! And of course, Thursday!’

“See you then, Jasmine.”

9:15pm

Angie grinned. “So, let’s see. We are roughly a year late on our original plan to double-date.”

“Complaining?”

“Nope. Not at all. It’s worked out far better than the plan,” she laughed, winking. “But still, this is nice. We can’t always date people in the group. Not so many fish in that little pool.”

“I feel pretty sure they just said we can solo-date, too.”

“Yeah. Which amuses me, but look at it from their perspective. They trust us to drive kids across town and go to the library unsupervised, things like that. Any of those library sessions could have been unsupervised dates. They don’t know Cammie is off-limits dating-wise.”

“True enough. I’m still surprised.”

“I’m not, or not as much as I thought I would be, anyway. I guess that’s a weird way to put it. But Mom’s been trusting us for months with a much bigger temptation. In theory, anyway. If she can trust us to share a room for two weeks, likely a date is not such a big deal.”

“OK, I’ll buy that.”

“So, technically at least, I believe Thursday will be our first official date.”

“Technically, yeah.”

She smooched me. We rubbed noses. “Night, big brother.”

“Night, little sis.”

November 2, 1981

Meg called me over at the start of class. “What’s this I hear from Steffie about you auditioning for the spring musical?”

“Um ... well, it’s news to me that I’m auditioning for that. Nor is it definite. Jasmine is pushing me hard to audition.”

“I know you can sing. You’re over at least some stage fright. You can memorize and improv at least a bit. The problem is, can you do that without torpedoing Debate plus your other classes?”

“I don’t know, and I told Jasmine that. I think it depends on the timing.”

“You’d hardly be the first. Jay Meeks did four productions, two each junior and senior year, and went to State in CX and Extemp both years. Marsha Greer did three spring musicals and went to State in Extemp twice and LD twice. One year was both, the others one or the other. So, it’s doable. You just have to figure something somewhere might give way.”

“I told Angie one of two things would happen.”

“What’s that?”

“Either you’d tell Ms. Smith to buzz off and me to ignore the call of the stage, or both of you would hound me until I did it.”

She laughed. “Good call, and I’m not telling her to buzz off. If you have talent enough to be worthy of a real audition, I’d hate to stand in your way. Even if it turns out to be a bit part, hey, it’d be fun. I know you know how much fun it is to be part of a good team.”

“I have some bad news for you, though. Related.”

“Wha ... oh. Of course. If you do it, Angie does it.”

“I’m not about to put myself out there that much and have her sit on the sidelines.”

She rolled her eyes. “You polymaths are a pain in the ass. At least you’re not also trying to do math tournaments. I’d be pulling my hair out!”

“There’s one coming up.”

“Nooooooo.”

“January 16^th.”

“Don’t you even joke about that, Mister Marshall! All hands on deck for our tournament.”

“I’ll be here. Jasmine and I have a plan.”

“What is ... no ... you’re not?” She looked like she was developing a headache.

“The Phantom Of The Tournament is at your service.”

“Argh! But I love it! Pull it off and it’ll be brilliant. And by ‘pull it off’, I mean take the lead on CX pairings.”

“Me? Are you serious?” I wasn’t expecting that. I should have; I’d done that the other time we hosted. Two years from now, other life.

“You’re my most astute mathematician, except perhaps for Janet. I need a mathematician, and I need Janet for something else. You’re also diplomatic.”

“At your service, of course, Meg.”

“Thanks, Steve. I already know you’ll recruit Angie if you need to, though I have jobs for her, too. And, you’ll be able to deal with the peskier coaches I have to let help, even though they’re no help.”

“Ms. Demme?” The coach at Spring Woods was, charitably, not very good at running tournaments.

“I most definitely did not say that.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“I have to let her ‘help’; she’s in-district.”

“Yeah.”

“OK, well, if I have to let you audition, I have to let you. Just — watch your time. For yourself, not me. You’re in high school. The whole point is to explore your options. But if you commit, then commit.”

“Got it. Thanks, Meg.”

“Now that I know you’ve seduced your sister into this, send her over.”

I laughed. “I will.”

I went over to Angie. “Hey, Sis, Meg wants you.”

“What for ... wait. You did not.”

“I told you. All for one, one for all.”

She growled, then went over.

“What was that about?” Cammie asked.

“Jasmine’s pushing me to audition for the spring musical. Which is all your fault.”

“Mine?! How?!”

“You pushed me to sing on the bus. No bus singing would’ve meant no one knew I can sing, so I could’ve sung for Jasmine like a strangled cat. But, no. You had to go and take away my alibi.”

She laughed. “Jasmine doesn’t know that.”

“And you want me to bet my life on a girl not finding out a not-secret thing that other girls know?”

She shrugged. “You’re right. It’s my fault. Sorry.” She paused, stuck out her tongue. “Not sorry.”

“You could try out, too.”

“Noooooo you don’t! Nuh uh!”

“You can sing.”

“Noooooo!”

About five minutes before the end of Debate, Ms. Smith popped through the door. “Mr. Marshall. Can I borrow you a moment?”

Well, here we go. I motioned to Angie. She stuck out her tongue at me — this was starting to be a trend amongst girls around me, it seemed like — but got up.

Ms. Smith looked at her. “Do I get two instead of one, Meg?”

Angie laughed. “He made me do it!”

“Well, c’mon then.”

We followed her through the back office into the Drama room. The kids were in little clumps working on lines. Not for ‘Brigadoon’, of course, and it didn’t sound like ‘The Glass Menagerie’ either. Jasmine spotted us and waved without missing what she was doing. Ms. Smith led us over to her desk. “OK, so, I didn’t know I had two of you. Can you borrow the same script?”

I nodded. She did, too. “I’m going to have you read the part of Jeff, right here,” pointing to a page where Jeff is talking to Meg. “One of my kids will be your Meg. I want you to practice just your lines. Try to hear what you think Meg would sound like on hers and react accordingly. Jeff is good natured, retiring, loves his drink, loves girls, loves taking it easy. He’s a role for a comic actor. I don’t know if that’s something you can do, but this will give me a feel for what you can do. I’m also going to have you work up this chorus number,” she flipped to another section, “plus this solo number. It’s not Jeff’s, but I want to see what you’ll do with it. I have piano accompaniment.”

She turned to Angie. “Now, for you. To make it both easy and difficult, you practice Meg’s part. But not with Steve. You two know each other, and siblings are often either too in sync or too much on separate pages. Just practice alone, only your lines. And this chorus piece, and this solo. Now, when you come in, I’ll have you play against one of mine, and then — first time, and I’ll know if it’s not — you read against each other. The less you have to actually read, the more you’ll be able to find the meaning, so try to at least have a solid feel for the rhythm. Memorization is great, but I don’t require it for an audition. Not in high school, or I’d have no one auditioning!” she said with a laugh.

“Ms. Smith?” Angie asked.

“Call me Steffie. Yes?”

“I play piano. If you have music, I can play it and record it for Steve and me. Then we can sing with it.”

“Of course I have music!” She fetched a copy and handed it to Angie. “That’s very handy! Now. Can you be ready Friday?”

I bit my lip. “We both have something Thursday night, and we have a tournament Friday. Study group is Tuesday, karate Monday and Wednesday. I told Jasmine we’re both pretty busy most of the time. If you’ll give us until Monday, we’ll get it done.”