Chapter 16: Missed Connections

Friday, August 13, 1982

I bought twenty-five copies of the ‘Leader’ on my way to school. I hadn’t really counted noses, but that felt like it’d pretty much cover everyone who’d contributed to our run in 1982. Cindy wasn’t getting one of mine, nor was Ryan, but I had some for everyone else.

Some of them might not want one, but at fifty cents a copy, I could afford to be generous.

Dad came through at lunch. He called and pointed me to Stan Archer at Zippy Printing. Apparently Stan had just put a bunch of money into a fancy Xerox machine aimed at just the sort of job we had — long documents, too few copies for offset printing to make real sense, and fairly high quality. They’d negotiated a discount. It’d be run as a bulk job, so we’d be behind any other customers, but I was fine with even a week’s turnaround. We all had plenty to do in the meantime, and we’d have several weeks to go from the copies to ready-to-use index cards by the time the tournament hit.

I drove the copies over to Stan, who turned out to be a rail-thin balding fiftyish-year-old with a sense of humor that told me why he and my dad got along. His shop was crammed with ‘Round Tuits’ and note pads with cartoon figures saying ‘You want it when?!’ and laughing their heads off and dozens of other joke printing products. I negotiated for a small stack of Round Tuits to hand out when someone mentioned getting around to something soon.

When I got home, Angie met me at the door.

“Jasmine called. She says to call back when you get home.”

“I will do that.”

“She seemed ... okay. I think. I hope.”

“I’ll see what she wants.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t just give in to everything. I know that’s probably not who you are now, but I just ... in my head I see you agreeing to anything to settle this, and ... that won’t work.”

“Thanks. I might have, at one time, but ... yeah. I see why you’re warning me. I’ll be careful.”

“Good.”

I phoned as soon as I’d gotten to my room and closed the door. Camille answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Camille.”

“Hello, Steve! It’s good to hear your voice. I thought we’d have seen you by now, after the airport.”

“I...”

“Are you and Jasmine having trouble? She says no, but...”

“I...” What did I want to say?

Apparently it took me too long to decide. “I will take that as a yes.” She sighed. “That girl! She has not learned the most important lesson I have been trying to teach her.”

“Camille...”

“I know. I will stay out of it. For now! But sooner or later...”

“I understand.”

She raised her voice. “Jasmine! Phone!”

A few minutes later the phone was handed over.

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

“I um...” She hesitated, then said, “I suppose you told Mama we were having trouble.”

“I never said anything.” Literally true, if certainly deceptive.

“Right. Fine. I um ... I think ... maybe ... we should talk. Dinner? You know where.”

“I hope I do.”

“It’s not a test. Noodles.”

“That was my guess.”

“See you there at six.”

“I’ll be there.”

I fretted for a while as to what to wear, and finally went with a nice outfit that wasn’t tied too closely to Jasmine. The gold shirt would send a message. A ratty t-shirt would send a totally different one. I opted for a nice blue shirt and khakis.

I headed over there and arrived just before six. I considered my options, then went in and got a table a few minutes after the hour. Not that tables were in short supply, but it beat waiting in my car.

I’d found that I really only missed cell phones in restaurants a few times. Sure, they were handy, but dining in the 2020s had been absolutely fraught with people staring at their phone the entire meal. I swear some dates were probably the two of them texting each other in between letting their followers know how the date was going.

This time, I missed it, especially as the half-hour approached. Half an hour is a long time to wait at Pho King when you didn’t bring something to read, especially considering I hadn’t ordered.

A bit later, the phone rang. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it ring, but they didn’t get a lot of calls. After a few minutes, the woman who was nearly always running the place came out.

“Are you Steve?” she called, looking at me.

“I am.” I got up and came over.

“Huong. Is a pleasure to meet you. You and lady friend come here often. She come here before you, but happier with you.”

“Thank you, Huong.”

She smiled. “You even pronounce correctly! I know I like you. I sorry, Steve. Your lady friend call. She cannot come tonight. She sound sad, I think.”

She wasn’t the only one. I found I was pretty upset, but maybe not entirely surprised.

“Thank you, Huong. I appreciate you passing me the message.”

She smiled again. “I sorry. I give you soup, if you like.”

“I’ll take my usual, but I’ll pay for it.”

“Is no problem.”

I smiled. “You can always use the business, and, lady friend or not, I’m sure I’ll be back here many times.”

“Thank you! You send your friends, too.”

“I’m doing what I can.”

She leaned in. “When we come here, I worry people not like us. You know, we only see Americans who have guns and blow things up. Maybe they hate us? But I like your country. It has been good to us. We — my family — we have more here than ever there.”

“I’m glad. You — your people — I’m glad you’re able to come here and build a life. I’m sure many of us never thought about Vietnam before the war, but now? Whether you agree or disagree with what we were trying to do, we messed things up. At the very least, we can be good hosts after we helped mess up your country and made it impossible for you to stay.”

“I appreciate it. Thank you.”

I took my soup and headed home. I barely ate any of it, but Angie and I would split the leftovers tomorrow, most likely.

Of course, my mind was on Jasmine. Why had she called and then backed out? What was going on? Change of heart? Sudden illness? Car wreck? My mind played out a number of scenarios, some benign, some ... awful.

I hated to think about the awful ones, but sometimes you can’t get your mind off the wrong track.

The phone rang about eight-fifteen. I picked up.

“Steve?”

“Hello, Camille.”

“Jasmine was heading out to see you when the phone rang. I answered. It was a girl, if that matters. I don’t think I know the girl. She took the call. She got off the phone long enough to call the restaurant, then was back on the phone. There were ... raised voices. She is in her room, sometimes yelling and sometimes crying. I thought you needed to know that it wasn’t just a mind game. And that it wasn’t anything worse than a phone call.”

“I appreciate it, Camille.”

“Francis and I, we are very hopeful you two will put this behind you. We perhaps have told Jasmine less of this than we should have, but we fought several times. Stupid fights. I hoped she would be better, but ... we Nguyen women sometimes are ... headstrong.”

I chuckled. “You are a most formidable person, Camille.”

“As I should be! But I know my match. Jasmine must find hers and know it, whether it is you or someone else. Until she knows it, she will be troubled.”

“I appreciate it.”

“By the way ... I never phoned.”

I chuckled a bit again. “I completely understand. Thank you for ... not calling.”

“It was my pleasure.”

10:15pm

“What happened? Mom and Dad thought you had dinner with Jasmine, of course, but I see how much soup came back.”

“I got stood up.”

“That fucking bitch...”

“No. It’s not that simple,” I said, sighing. “For one thing, she called the restaurant after half an hour and let me know. I mean, not directly, but via the ... owner, maybe? Huong. We talked. She’s nice.”

“So you...”

“I dawdled on my way back to throw off Mom and Dad. Anyway, I was ... okay ... with that. I mean, I had all sorts of nightmare scenarios on my mind, but figured they were overblown.”

“Was that her, later?”

I shook my head. “Camille.”

“Oh! I um...”

“Jasmine got a phone call as she was leaving. Some girl that Camille thinks she doesn’t know. It apparently was more important than dinner. She said Jasmine was yelling some, crying some. I think ... a piece of the puzzle filled itself in. What, I’m not sure.”

“Hopefully! I’m getting tired of this, and pissed.”

“I was pissed until Huong called me up and told me that Jasmine had called. If she’d blown off calling, or made me wait hours, I’d have been really pissed.”

“And you’d have forgiven it if she asked.”

“Okay, fine, yeah.”

“So ... what next?”

“Ball’s still in her court. And tomorrow I’m doing something that’ll be a surprise even to you.”

“Huh? What?”

“HAAUG.”

“What in the world are you doing with hogs?”

I chuckled. “HAAUG - H A A U G - is the Houston Area Apple Users Group.”

“Apple as in computer?” She giggled. “I do know things, despite the blonde hair.”

“Yeah.”

“Why are you suddenly taking an interest in a computer thing? And, more importantly, why do I not know this?”

“I had to decide whether this was worth it or not. This ... I have a plan. It’s going to take serious patience and some luck, but, if it works ... well, it could be big, big money.”

“How are you making big money out of going to an Apple Users Group meeting? Some software deal?”

“Nope. Hardware, and not even Apple-related.”

“I’m totally confused.”

“Of course you are. The plan revolves around one of our classmates.”

“Um...”

“Specifically, a senior. You almost certainly don’t know him. He’d have been graduated by the time you got here the first time, and there wasn’t a ton of news coverage on the Memorial angle in the late 1980s. Once you were in prison ... well. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you’ve seen his name written on a computer or monitor, given Texas prisons and who they’d likely buy from.”

She paused ... blinked ... then her eyes went wide. “Wait! Are you saying that Michael fucking Dell is a senior at Memorial this year?”

“I would not have put it that way.”

“Oh ... my God. And you want to meet him outside school.”

“I know he’s a regular at HAAUG. I knew him first go-round. Casual acquaintances. I was at UT when he dropped out and started the ball rolling that became Dell. At the time, hey ... a guy I barely know drops out with some crazy dream about mass-producing computers and selling them cheap. Yeah, right. Some Memorial kids did follow him, and some did really well. Some also burned out quickly, because people found out they were ‘friends with the boss.’”

“I take it you don’t want a job, then.”

“No. Noooooo. I’m not sure I want to do computers, and for the first decade he mostly needs electrical and mechanical engineers, anyway. And production guys. Not software guys.”

“So?”

“What he really needs, at first, is money. We’ve got far too much, actually. It’d be a huge red flag if we came in with even a tenth of what we’ve got now, much less where we’ll be. But, suppose we can perhaps be a tenth of the very early investment, in exchange for, oh ... five percent ownership and a board seat? Heck, two percent would be an enormous chunk of money.”