Chapter 66: Taking A Break

Saturday, March 13, 1982

We hit the road around 10am for the drive to Fredericksburg. Counting stops, it would take us about five to six hours.

Surprisingly, we did something we seldom did on long car trips: we talked. We talked about school, grades, teachers, tournaments, how rehearsals were going, friends. Angie owned up to having a role in Student Council if we won. They liked the idea of trying to better prioritize fundraising.

Angie ambushed me with her next comment. “Steve was big news this week at school.”

I started blushing immediately.

“Why, honey?” Mom said.

“He turned down a date with the prettiest girl in school.”

“Well, I should hope so! He has a girlfriend!”

“It was ‘Sadie Hawkins’. Girlfriends don’t take guys to Sadie Hawkins, mostly. Jasmine was fine with him going with someone else. Same with Gene — I’ll be taking someone else.” I hadn’t been sure she was going, though it had seemed likely. I wondered who. She’d tell me when she was ready.

“Oh. We did that! That makes sense. Why would you turn her down, honey? Is she not nice or something? Sometimes really pretty girls...”

“Nah, she’s nice. Okay, so, first. Angie and I disagree on this point.” She blushed and smacked my leg; I continued anyway. “Her name is Jessica Lively, and she’s blonde. This matters because it’s my contention that she’s the second-most-beautiful blonde in school.” My leg got smacked again.

“Your girlfriend is definitely not blonde!”

I laughed. “No, but my sister is.” Smack!

“Aww! That’s the sweetest thing! You have a point there!” Smack!

“Anyway, I turned her down because another girl asked me first and, while we hadn’t set the date, I’d told her if she asked a second time I’d say yes. She asked, I said yes.”

“That’s totally different! That’s not turning her down, just explaining you had a prior commitment. Why did the other girl have to ask a second time?”

“She was treating it like a pity date, almost. She’s smart and pretty and a friend and I wanted her to think it through and be more sure of herself.”

“That’s sweet, too! Do we know her?”

“Probably not. Megan Early, who’s one of the Debate freshmen. You’ll meet her, of course.”

“She’s running for council, too. Sophomore class rep,” Angie added.

“That’s nice. So, turning Jessica down was big news at school? I remember how that goes. So much gossip!”

“It was wild, Mom. People I don’t know at all — dozens of them — kept coming up and offering opinions. Most of the guys thought I was crazy. Most of the girls thought it was sweet. But, sometimes, it was the other way around.”

“It really was nuts, Mom,” Angie said. “Spring Break will calm it down. And Jessica will still be around. She’s running for Junior class rep, so we’ll get to know her better if the Council thing works out.”

“Well, that’s cool. I hope it didn’t hurt her. Any damage to a girl’s reputation...”

“Nah. We talked, and she’s good with it. She said ‘any publicity is good publicity.’ Apparently it’s done nothing bad for her at all.”

“It hasn’t, Mom. I can verify that. No one thinks anything bad about her and she can still be totally picky in who she dates,” Angie said.

“Good. Then it sounds like you did the right thing the right way, Steve. Proud of you!”

“Thanks, Mom!”

Dad chimed in. “I guess I don’t know if you two are well-known at school.”

“Before this week, I don’t know. Average for sophomores, I guess,” Angie said. “We weren’t the quietest, but also not stars. After this week? Steve is, anyway, and I got more notice just because I’m his sister.”

“It’s a big school. Sometimes being well-known is good, sometimes it’s not. But it sounds like you got there the right way,” Dad said.

“One other piece of news I can’t remember sharing. Angie and I are competing in Humorous Interpretation at Northbrook.”

“That’s new! Why?” Mom asked.

“Well, we have no reason to go to Northbrook in our own events,” Angie said. “It’s a great time to try something silly. We’ll drop out if we get to finals. We don’t want to take a spot away from someone who’s worked for it all year.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Unlikely that we would, but if we did, we’ll drop out. And Jasmine, along with Sheila, Lexi, and Mikayla, are all doing Extemp.”

“That’s pretty nice,” Mom said. “Everyone trying something different.”

“I’ll be doing lots of that sort of thing this summer,” Angie said. “It’ll be a nice start.”

Dad switched the subject. “Speaking of this summer, I had a few thoughts.”

“Oh, what, Dad?” Angie asked.

“We don’t need to go to Spring Green this time, or Wisconsin Dells. And, the last time maybe made it clear we shouldn’t plan on a long stay in Stevens Point...”

“Definitely,” muttered Mom, who didn’t sound thrilled about it. “Not as long as Helen is being all sanctimonious about things.”

“Anyway, there are a lot of things we did last time we don’t need to do, this time. Not everything — we’ll do some of the museums and such. But I thought maybe we could do some college visits. I know ... it’s my obsession. But you’ll be only a year away from starting to make a really big decision. We could probably see Illinois, the University of Chicago, Northwestern again, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue, and you’ll see Indiana anyway. Some will just be drive-throughs. But I haven’t been to some of those in decades, or at all, and I’d like to see them, too.”

“That’d be fun! How would we do it?” Angie asked.

“I can rent a car one-way out of St. Louis for drop-off in Indianapolis. That takes us up through Illinois, then Wisconsin, then down through Michigan and Indiana.”

Angie gave me a quick look; I shook my head. No colleges in St. Louis on this trip, not for my purposes.

“We’ll be happy to share the driving.”

“Definitely.”

“I’m not sure that’s more restful, but, maybe,” Dad said. “Maybe we can find out more about this on this trip.”

We stopped for lunch at a Stuckey’s, which had nearly died out by the 2000s. I hadn’t seen one in years, but here one was. Dad let Angie drive the next leg, which put me in the front passenger seat. We continued to talk and play car games, including a spirited round of ‘I Spy’, for the next hour and a half, when we stopped for restrooms and swapped drivers, giving me a turn. I navigated us to Fredericksburg and parked at our motel, a fairly nondescript place downtown.

Dad got us checked in. We had adjoining rooms on the first floor. Things didn’t seem very busy. This wasn’t the most compelling Spring Break destination for many people. We dragged in the luggage and settled in. Dad and Mom announced they were taking a nap. Ang and I figured they were probably telling the truth. We laid down as well; why not? No, we didn’t do anything beyond smooch just a bit.

We all got up around 5pm and headed to dinner. The motel clerk pointed us to a steakhouse that was pretty good. We had nothing planned tonight beyond family time tonight. Angie and I swam in the outdoor pool while Mom and Dad sat out and read; then we headed in, changed — yes, there was ogling, both ways — and played games. Mom and Dad decided to go to bed about 9:30, so we headed back to our room with a plan to meet at 8:30am for breakfast.

“So?” I said, as Angie closed the door.

“So,” she grinned, starting to toss clothes onto the chair.

“Good plan,” I agreed, adding mine to the pile.

She came over and hugged me, after we were naked. “Snuggling tonight, naughtiness tomorrow?”

“Works for me.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

We smooched, and then she headed for the bathroom. I got out my toiletries kit and was ready when she vacated. She had on a camisole when I came out, so I pulled on a pair of boxers and we climbed into bed, snuggling.

“This is fun. I mean — the trip. This too, though.”

“I agree. We did have trips like this before. Well, my before.”