Chapter 35: A Currency Transaction

January 2, 1982, Chicago, Illinois

I nearly pulled my hand away as if I’d touched a hot stove, but realized just in time that would likely hurt Jeri’s feelings. When she moved her hand after the quick squeeze, I knew I’d made the correct decision. I just had to figure out how to let her down easily at the end of our meal, because I was positive she was going to invite me to her house, and very likely ask me to spend the night.

A few minutes later, we arrived at the restaurant on Monroe Street, and Jeri arranged for James to return with the car in two hours, which would give us time for a leisurely dinner and dessert. We walked into the restaurant and Jeri explained there were three separate restaurants in the building, and we’d be eating at The Village in a private booth.

“I called earlier about a reservation,” Jeri said to the hostess. “It’s under Lundgren.”

“Yes, Miss Lundgren, we have your table ready!”

She led us to a booth with half-walls and lattice to the ceiling, which afforded a decent amount of privacy. We were seated and a waiter came over to the table. I almost laughed because he was obviously Mexican, but spoke in a very obvious fake Italian accent. We couldn’t order drinks, because Jeri was underage, so we just ordered Cokes. I scanned the menu and saw a number of things I felt I would like, and was surprised by what I considered reasonable prices. I decided on Chicken Parmesan, which came with some kind of pasta that I didn’t recognize.

“What is ‘mostaccioli’?” I asked Jeri.

“It’s a tube-shaped pasta, which is sometimes called ‘penne’ or ‘ziti’. You’ve never had it?”

“Spaghetti noodles and macaroni are the only ones I’ve had.”

The waiter returned with our Cokes and we placed our orders. My meal came with a choice of soup or salad, and I selected a house salad with the house dressing. Jeri ordered Chicken Marsala and chose minestrone soup to go with her meal. What Jeri called our ‘starters’ arrived a few minutes later, and we began eating.

“What did you do for New Year’s?” Jeri asked.

“I was invited to a party by a girl who temped in the mailroom. You?”

“The Foundation had a New Year’s party. I mostly sat in the corner with Natalie, Samantha, and Nina.”

“Samantha? She’s six, right?”

Jeri laughed softly, “More like sixteen or twenty-six! You’ve met her right?”

“Yes, and you might have a point. My boss calls her ‘pipsqueak’ and said I shouldn’t let her intimidate me.”

“She’s the heir apparent, though her dad wants to marry her off to someone who he can turn the business over to when he retires.”

“He doesn’t think Samantha can run Spurgeon?”

“He doesn’t think a girl can run Spurgeon. Do you see any women who have any power there?”

“Mrs. Peterson, Director of Personnel.”

“Anyone else?”

“No. It’s all men except for secretaries and a few assistants.”

“What do you think of that?” Jeri asked.

“That it’s not up to me who Mr. Spurgeon hires!”

“But you know what he thinks about girls, right?”

“I’ve heard plenty of rumors, as I said.”

“And as I said before, the rumors are true. Powerful men pretty much get whatever they want. That’ll be you if you’re as ambitious as you seem to be.”

“Never,” I replied firmly. “I won’t become like them, and I won’t use any success I have to take advantage of others.”

“Then you’d be one in a million.”

“My experience growing up is VERY different from yours or Lisa’s or Samantha’s, and probably very different from most of the Suits. I don’t want to be like them. My uncle managed.”

“He started his own thing, which is different. I know I’m only sixteen, but I know enough about how the system works that it’s almost impossible to avoid being sucked in. And once you have money, you won’t have to go looking for women; they’ll throw themselves at you.”

I almost laughed, but managed not to, because that seemed to be happening NOW, long before I made a pile of money. And it wasn’t just girls at Spurgeon, either. I didn’t fully understand it, but I sure wasn’t going to object! The question was how to respond to Jeri’s comment, which I felt I needed to.

“I haven’t really had trouble meeting girls, despite working in the mailroom.”

“You’re tall, handsome, in good shape, and ambitious. Girls like that.”

She likely had a point, and it was something I could safely discuss with Bev, though her experience with guys in High School was nearly as limited as mine with girls. She’d only dated the father of her baby, whereas I’d never gone on a single date. Sure, Bev and I had our relationship, but it was just different than what I thought ‘dating’ was like.

That had changed once I’d come to Chicago, and I’d probably ‘scored’ more in the past six months than the captain of the Goshen football team had during his Senior year. And I was going to ‘score’ again with Phoebe, and probably with Nickie after the football game, if I wanted, which, being like the kid in the candy store, I did. I was also positive that Jeri was going to offer, but she was under eighteen and that concerned me, without even worrying about anything else.

“Thanks,” I said, accepting the compliment.

We finished our soup and salad, and as soon as the bowls were cleared away, the waiter brought out main courses.

“How did you decide on computers?” I asked.

“We have them at my school, and I found them fascinating, so I asked my mom to buy me an Apple II, which she did. I also have an Atari 800, which doubles as a videogame console.”

The kind of money those cost together would have paid our utility and food bills for a year. Despite six months around people with serious money, that still boggled my mind. Of course, if things went the way I planned, I’d likely be able to do the same things for my kids, as well as send them to college. That reminded me that I needed to remember to go to class a week from Monday evening, immediately after work.

“I’ve never played a video game in my life,” I replied.

“Not even an arcade game?”

I shook my head, “No. I know this might sound strange to you, but twenty-five cents was too important to waste on pinball or Space Invaders.”

“Things were really that bad for you?”

“I worked two or three jobs from the time I was sixteen, and before that, I mowed lawns and shoveled snow. Pretty much every dime I earned went to my mom to help pay the bills. And, city girl, I hunted for meat, mostly rabbit, but sometimes deer.”

Jeri laughed softly, “I guess I deserved that.”

“It was meant in jest,” I said. “But my life growing up and your life growing up were as different as night and day.”

“Does that bother you?”

“You mean am I jealous? No. Do I resent you? No. Not having money made life more challenging, but it didn’t make it bad. I had to work hard, but I think that’s a good thing.”

Jeri frowned, “And you object to the fact that I was basically handed everything on a silver platter.”

“Object? No. But I think it colors your view of the world such that I’m not sure you can even understand what it’s like for people who don’t have a seven-figure trust fund. I mean, do you have ANY friends who aren’t loaded?”

“You.”

“Which I think makes my point, at least in a way.”

“You seem defensive,” Jeri said.

I smiled, “I suppose I do, but I’m not being defensive at all. In fact, I think you are. I haven’t complained once about my life, but you seem to think I need to be pitied. I don’t. All I want is a fair chance to make it in the world. If I have one complaint, it’s that I had to use my uncle’s influence to get my foot in the door.”

“What would you have done if that hadn’t been possible?”

“Gone to work full-time and done my best to advance wherever I was working. I thought about going to the vocational school and learning to be an electrician, but that was about the time my uncle made the offer to help me.”

“I’m sorry if I seem condescending.”

“It’s just outside your experience,” I replied. “If anyone is to blame, it’s your parents.”

“And there is plenty of blame there for all sorts of things. There’s going to be a terrible fight when I get a job after college instead of going to work for the Lundgren Foundation.”

“They won’t fight you on learning computers instead of whatever it is you need to know to run a foundation?”

Jeri laughed, “It’s in the blood. Well, at least that what my grandparents think, and that’s what my mom thinks, for sure. And they’ll let me study what I want, even if there’s a bit of a disagreement. It’s when I graduate that things will get nasty.”

“So move out! You have more than enough to do it, right?”

“It’s complicated, because the terms of trust limit what I can do before I turn twenty-five. As I said, as of today I get a stipend and I can use funds to buy a car. I can pay for college. But buying a condo, which is what I want, will have to wait. But if I get a job in computers, I’ll have more than enough from my salary plus the stipend from the trust fund to do that, using the trust fund as collateral for a loan, if I need it.”

“That’s what? Just over six years?”

“Yes. I really am sorry if you felt like I was putting you down.”

“As I said, we’re from two very different worlds.”

“But in the same one, now.”

“Are we? Really?”

“OK, I get what you mean, but I want a life more like yours. I don’t want the one my parents have planned for me any more than you would!”

I chuckled, “I wouldn’t mind having a few million bucks in a trust fund, but, honestly, I’d rather make it for myself.”

“A true American tradition — pulling yourself up from your bootstraps.”

We finished our meals, and after the busboy cleared away the plates, the waiter brought a small cake with a single candle in it, and several of the waitstaff sang a horrible rendition of Happy Birthday in Italian, despite none of them, except perhaps the hostess, being of Italian descent, let alone actually Italian.

Jeri blew out the candle, then the hostess cut the cake and served each of us half, while the waiter poured coffee.

“Happy birthday,” I said once the waiter and hostess had left.

“Thanks.”

“I take it you let them know?”

“Yes. A lot of places will do something like that for your birthday. I take it you didn’t eat out very often?”

“IHOP, Denny’s, or McDonald’s were serious treats, and very, very rare. Maybe five or six times in my entire life. I’ve been to a few places since I moved to Chicago, but not many. And before you ask, I think I saw two movies in the theater growing up. One was Star Wars and the other was Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Believe it or not, my mom was into science fiction. I’ve seen a few movies since I came to Chicago, but I saw a lot of older movies on TV.”

We finished our cake and coffee, and we still had more than thirty minutes before the car would return, so after she paid the bill, Jeri suggested we walk to State Street and check out the windows at Marshall Field’s. I’d read about them in the Trib, but hadn’t had a chance to see them, so I agreed.

As we walked towards State Street in the chilly January air, I felt Jeri’s gloved hand brush mine a couple of times, but I was reluctant to hold her hand, as that seemed like the first step down a very slippery slope I intended to avoid. Nothing was said until we stopped in front of the first decorated window.

“You don’t want to hold my hand?” she asked.

“You’re sixteen,” I countered.

“And you’re nineteen! Three years is nothing! It’s like a Senior dating a Freshman or Sophomore.”

“Except it’s not legal in Illinois.”

Jeri laughed, “You just went from holding hands to screwing without a thought!”

“Sorry,” I replied. “That was rude of me.”

“Well, given I actually implied it by inviting you in the last time we were together, it wasn’t really out of line. Come home with me and we can do that; I want to.”

“Jeri,” I protested.

“It would be the perfect way to celebrate my birthday, and nobody would know except you and me. I’m not asking to be your girlfriend, but I want to feel loved today.”

“Sex isn’t love,” I countered as we moved to the second window. “Well, not necessarily.”

“I get what you’re saying,” Jeri replied. “What I really meant is that I need to feel wanted.”

That I could totally understand, given what her parents had done by not coming back from California for her birthday. I was about to say that it was a bad reason to have sex, but given my reason for having sex basically boiled down to ‘because I could’ or ‘because I want to’, it seemed wrong to try to make that argument. I needed a different tactic to let her down easily.

“Why me?”

“First, you aren’t one of the society jerks who are constantly trying to get into my panties; second, as I said before, you’re tall, good-looking, and in great shape; third, you’re really sweet; fourth, you’re available; fifth, because I really don’t want to be alone tonight; sixth, because I want to!”

That last one was actually key, because I was positive Jeri almost always got what she wanted, if not always. The thing was, she was actually making me feel guilty about saying ‘no’, even though I had no reason to feel that way. Feeling bad for her was one thing, feeling guilty was a very different thing altogether.

There really was nothing for me to say, as her argument made perfect sense, at least from her perspective. From my perspective, I was having real difficulty seeing past the fact that she was underage in Illinois. Bev had been sixteen, but in Ohio, that was OK. Jeri was still in High School, though she seemed a lot more mature than her chronological age.

“Sorry,” Jeri said as we moved to the next window.

“For what? Telling me how you feel?”

“I’m afraid I upset you.”

“It’s pretty difficult to upset me,” I said. “I’m a straight-shooter and I want the people around me to be straight-shooters as well. Just tell it like it is, and I’ll do the same.”

Jeri laughed, “I want you to come home with me and take me to bed!”

“That was obvious from what you said before,” I replied with a grin. “And I’m pretty sure you knew what I meant when I said I wasn’t offended by straight talk.”

“Will you answer a question truthfully?”

“Yes.”

“Your only real objection is that I’m sixteen, isn’t it? I mean, otherwise, you’d say ‘yes’ and come home with me.”

She had a legitimate point, though I really didn’t want to get mixed up in her world. But the moment that thought formed in my mind, I remembered that I basically HAD to get involved in that world, at least to a point, if I was going to climb the ladder at Spurgeon.

“That is pretty much the reason.”

“Do you think I’m immature?”

“No. But the law...”

She cut me off, “Only responds to a complaint, and I’m not going to complain.”

I wasn’t going to win an argument with her, so continuing the argument made no sense. I simply nodded and kept quiet as we looked in the remaining windows, then walked back to the restaurant where the car would pick us up. I was half-tempted to walk to the L, but decided that would only upset Jeri. As soon as we got into the car, I realized I should have taken that option.

“Home, Miss Lundgren?” James asked.

“Yes, please.”

“Jeri,” I objected.

“James,” she said, ignoring me, “please put up the divider and turn up the music.”

“Yes, Miss Lundgren.”

A divider rose to separate us from James, and he raised the volume on the radio, which I was sure meant he couldn’t hear us.

“Consider it a favor between friends,” Jeri said. “Stay with me tonight and I’ll owe you any favor you can name in the future. I have the money and the contacts to back that up.”

“A favor?!” I asked.

“You want it straight, right?”

“Yes.”

“In my world, sex is transactional. It’s traded like any other good or service. Women use it to gain advantages they can’t gain any other way. Men offer things of value in trade to get it.”

“That’s just strange.”

“Is it? You have sex with girls just to have sex, right?”

“I have, yes.”

“And you wouldn’t have a problem with taking a girl to dinner and a movie and her repaying you with sex?”

“Repaying?”

“It’s a transaction, Jonathan, like any other. My dad says that men always pay for it, and women always use it to gain something, but I think he’s wrong, because sometimes women pay for it. I’m going to tell you something in complete confidence, which you can NEVER repeat. The rumors about Samantha’s dad are completely true, and he’s probably had sex with two-dozen teenage girls, and those are just the ones I’m aware of. He gives them gifts, they give him sex. But Samantha’s mom does the exact same thing, except with college-age guys. They receive gifts and she gets sex; well, they get sex too, obviously.”

“Obviously,” I replied flatly. “But I don’t agree with you about sex being transactional. Without getting too personal, what about meeting a girl at a party, fooling around, with no plans to ever see each other again?”