Chapter 122: Rather a Big Deal

Wednesday, May 4, 1983

We checked with Jas and Paige in Drama. Jas liked trains, or at least French trains. She thought it sounded fun.

Paige had never even been on a train. She was pretty enthusiastic about the idea, though.

I was pretty sure that’s what we’d wind up doing, since Dad would always pick the train if it was an option, and it clearly was an option.

I checked both Time and Newsweek (Debate had subscriptions for several copies of both, which we cut up for Extemp). Neither had anything to say about Memorial. Perhaps things were dying down.

School itself was much more normal, though people had discovered that I was getting quoted in the papers. I got some praise over it, some (friendly) mockery, and a few less-than-pleasant comments from some of my ... less tolerant ... classmates. The locker notes had slowed, but were still pretty nasty.

Lizzie and Janet reported the same. Janet told me quietly that she thought someone had been following them in the parking lot, but she hadn’t seen them clearly, and she’d been ready to spray whoever it was.

You roll the dice, you take your chances, I suppose. The stakes of going to a Prom should never be a risk of assault, battery, or rape, though.

Jas and I, along with Paige and Angie, headed to Pho King after school. No Huong, but we got a friendly wave from the much younger girl who was taking orders.

Paige gave me a little whap. “Eyes on the girlfriend, not the hot Vietnamese babe.”

“The girlfriend is the hot Vietnamese babe here. Besides, I could say the exact same thing back to you.”

Jasmine blushed, Angie giggled, and Paige rolled her eyes. “You know what I meant!”

“I do, and my statement stands. I’ll admit that she’s cute, but comparatively?”

“Besides, I encourage him to look,” Jas said, grinning.

“And I encourage her to look, so ... no harm, no foul,” Angie said.

We each ordered. With the two couples here, we’d decided that each would split a large. I wasn’t completely sure Angie and Paige would finish theirs, but ... probably?

We spent most of the meal discussing the crazy week so far and trying to guess if things were going to settle down or not. None of us was all that confident that it would. Likely it would, but ... maybe not?

After dinner, we headed back to Jasmine’s, where Camille greeted us. Surprisingly or not, that got Paige blushing, but not the rest of us, though Angie was perhaps close to joining her girlfriend.

She was as amused by the Prom aftermath as the rest of us, and we chatted about it for a bit before splitting up for the more physical part of our evening.

Jas sighed as we snuggled up after our second time. “Anything going on with Northwestern? I’m going to miss this a lot if we can’t make something work. It wouldn’t need to be every week, even, but ... not seven weeks without.”

“I agree. I’m working on something. Don’t ask — I want to just see what happens. There’s a ‘Plan B’ and even a ‘Plan C,’ but ‘Plan A’ might be really good.”

“I can wait for now. I mean, I can wait forever,” she said, giggling. “Even if we do have to wait seven weeks, except for the occasional back hallway or quiet corner of the library or whatever, we’re both still going.”

“Yeah. It’ll be a great summer, I think.”

“Me, too. I mean, just having Ang and Paige there will be huge. Well, and Cammie, too. I’m good at making friends, but having people I know well there will be great.”

“Speaking of, anything out of Blue?”

She shook her head. “Not a peep. I think she finally moved on. I’m glad, too. She’s a good person, I think, just ... she went off the rails.”

“I’ve never met her, so I’m fine with reserving judgment.”

“You’d like her. Well, when she’s not crazy, anyway.”

I chuckled. “That’s usually a positive.”

“It is!”

Thursday, May 5, 1983

Mikayla came over to me in Drama.

“Hey, Steve! I got into Northwestern!”

“Great news!” I said, giving her a hug.

“I’m thrilled! My letter of acceptance is already on its way. That’s one major worry off my plate.”

“I imagine!”

I considered it, then decided to go for it.

“Can we talk a bit?” I said, nodding towards the practice room.

“Sure!” she said, looking curious.

We headed in and closed the door.

“What’s up?” she said.

“You know we’re heading to Northwestern this summer.”

“Yeah, of course. I might see you up there when I come up to look for housing. We’ll go up pretty soon after classes are over.”

“That’s actually the point.”

“Huh?” Then she got a look on her face. “Oh! I get it!”

“No back seat,” I said, shrugging.

She giggled and blushed a bit. “Yeah, I get that. You and Jasmine, Paige and Angie, nowhere to go...”

“Exactly. We’d figure something out, but a couple of months of rent might be much cheaper than hotels, and...”

“Yeah. No, I really do get it. I ... think I could do that. I couldn’t if I didn’t know you all so well, but I do. No chance you’ll trash things.”

“We’ll leave the place cleaner than it was when we got there.”

“Except for the condom wrappers,” she said, grinning.

“Nah. Jas and I don’t need them, and Paige and Angie certainly don’t. If I do need one, I’ll clean it up.”

“Lucky you!”

“I’m not sure how hard it’ll be to start the lease, if you have to explain it to your parents or anything, but...”

“Nah. They want to help, and I want them to help, but I also want to be a big girl and do a lot of the paperwork myself. I can make it happen. I’ll definitely hit you up for the rent money, though.”

“And utilities, furniture rental if you’re renting, all that.”

“I’ll rent a furnished place if I can. I don’t want to move furniture up there right now.”

“Makes sense. We’re planning to take furniture when we go, but that’s partly because Angie inherited a bunch of furniture and has been longing to get it out of storage and into use.”

“But that’s at least, what, three of you? With Jasmine? That’s a very different thing than me and my bachelorette apartment.”

“True enough.”

“I’m happy to help, even if the help is with corrupting the youth.”

“We’re pre-corrupted.”

“That you are!”

We hugged and kissed.

“Speaking of,” I said, “I do have a car again...”

She grinned. “You already know I’d love another date. Prom was a ton of fun, but it was also a bit ... weird.”

“Not that many people are watching the news at two in the morning in their Prom hotel room.”

“Not when both people are there, anyway! Or three people, or five, or...”

“Yeah.”

“Just one of those things,” she said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is going to be quite the memory.”

“It is. I’m actually hoping no one tries to best it my senior year, because that might take something really over the top.”

“The hotel might not survive!”

We headed back out, chuckling.

Amit, who (for obvious reasons) was the one most interested in refreshing our Extemp files, tossed photocopies of something to Lizzie.

“You might find this interesting.”

Lizzie looked at it, paused, stared, then screwed up her face. “Phyllis Schlafly knows my name?”

Uh oh. That sounded like the waves weren’t dying down just yet.

Meg looked up. “Are you serious?”

Lizzie started reading. “Washington Post, May 4, 1983. ‘At a press conference today, Phyllis Schlafly said, “We must not give in to the Elizabeth Vintons of the world, nor those who would enable them. Make no mistake, they will claim that these are merely poor innocent victims. Yet they are in violation of both man’s law and God’s law. As such, there should be no ‘allowances’ made for them. Those who do so are foolhardy and undermine our great nation.’”

Janet mimed sticking a finger down her throat. “Like, gag me!”

Anne, simultaneously, said “Oh. My. God!”

We looked at her.

“I mean it! This is national news? Our Prom? Don’t these people have anything better to do?”

“It was rather a big deal,” Amit said, softly. “I mean, in terms of the whole issue of gay rights.”

“Still!”

“I’m with Amit,” Sue said. “We think it’s cool, and minor, because it’s our friends. But the last time anyone tried this, there was a court case, and extra security, and a lot of tension. I’m sure anyone who went to that Prom thought it kinda sucked. I’m not hearing that about ours.”

“It was a blast!” Paige said. “And, I mean, without even considering Janet and Lizzie.”

Callie nodded. “It was. I mean, it really was. The whole ... brouhaha ... with them only took maybe ten minutes, if that. Mostly it was just dancing and fun. I mean ... I agree with Amit. It’s a big deal in the bigger picture, but for us ... the news was more that it didn’t suck. Which means it doesn’t have to suck anywhere else. Which is a good thing, I think.”

“Back to me for a moment,” Lizzie said.

That got some chuckles.

“I repeat: Phyllis Schlafly knows my name? Whether or not it was a big deal before, it’s a big deal now. I seriously thought everyone was letting their imaginations run away with them a bit yesterday thinking Amit might have this as an Extemp topic. Now ... I don’t know. Will there be some other couple that’ll make a splash at their Prom? How many schools are suddenly in a panic? I mean ... not that we’d have done it any differently, but ... I didn’t foresee this at all.”

Janet hugged her. “Me, neither. I totally didn’t see this coming. Oh, a bit of a local news story, maybe a smack on the wrist from Principal Riggs, or a scolding from the School Board, but... Phyllis fucking Schlafly, now?”

Meg shook her head but didn’t say anything.

“Wait!” Kenzie said. “I just thought of something. I’m serious about it, too. It’s minor, except ... it’s not.”

“What?” Janet said.

“Anyone want to bet with me that Tom Myerson’s going to do a unit on this? I mean, like, now?”