Chapter 24: Getting Over the Blues

Friday, August 27, 1982

Our PDA-rule-defying kiss wasn’t quite so blatant this morning, but we clearly still loved each other. Jasmine and I headed in, holding hands, smiling.

“So?” she said.

“I have news. I’m allowed to share it, but ... we can’t talk about it here.”

She nodded. “Figured. Dinner out tonight? And then dessert at home?” she added with a smirk.

“Yes, and yes, please.”

She chuckled. “I missed dessert just as much as you did.”

“No comment.”

“Smart boy! So many ways to shoot yourself in the ... whatever ... replying to that.”

I chuckled and squeezed her hand as we walked to trig.

Class itself was good, and I was heartened to see an ‘A’ on my exam. I saw Jasmine frown at hers, though, which made me less happy.

After class, we started on our way to our next classes - World Lit for me, Physics for her. “I saw your face.”

“I saw yours, too. You got an ‘A’.”

“Yeah.” I was probably blushing.

“C. Minus. Lots of red.”

“You’ll kick ass on the next test.”

“I hope so,” she said, sighing. “I feel like I’m plateauing in math, honestly. Or, really, maybe, did years ago. This is ... it just ... it’s not...”

“It’s not intuitive at all,” I said.

“It’s not.”

“And ... you know ... if you do plateau in math, it may not be that bad. Seriously. The important thing is to figure out what you are good at and make that work for you. Doesn’t mean you should give up on math — you can’t, the way high school works — but it helps figure out what’s next.”

She nodded. “I can go with that, at least. It makes sense, and I never planned on a career as a mathematician.”

“Me, neither.”

“But you could.”

“Could I? I can grind out the math, but I’m not going to develop any brilliant new theorems or anything. Even if I could do well at it, it doesn’t appeal to me.”

She nodded. “Okay, okay, point taken.”

We parted with a kiss and headed on to class. I needed to figure out how to nip this in the bud. The truth was that, deserved or not, I could finish high school with straight A’s unless I didn’t want to or something external screwed things up. Spanish had been the big hurdle. First-life me made straight A’s the last two years, after all.

But: Jasmine perhaps couldn’t. That was fine, but she might not think it was fine. Of course, she’d feel much worse if I tanked a class out of some desire to not outdo her — and she’d catch me doing it. Terrible idea in every way. But the last thing we needed was to be competitive or me to give her some sort of inferiority complex.

It bore more thought.

And it got more thought, all day. By the time I got to Drama, I’d realized that ‘inferiority complex’ was floating around my brain for a reason. Specifically, some of what Jasmine had said, and did, seemed to fit her looking down on herself. Was I seeing things? Or was there something there? And, if so, what should I do about it, if anything?

My ex-wife had gotten into it with me over whether or not I ‘supported her.’ Specifically, the many screamed accusations of ‘You never support me! You always undermine me!’ I never took them seriously — we got into it over everything, and by any reasonable standard I probably supported her too much — but that didn’t mean I thought she didn’t mean it in the moment. She meant everything in the moment she said it, even if it contradicted the thing she’d just said.

What I didn’t want was for Jasmine to ever think that, much less really mean it. I knew my math skills would plateau in a few years themselves, if history was a guide. It’d never held me back, and I’d virtually never used trig or calculus after my last class covering them. Other math, yes, but not those.

She’d be fine. She just needed to know she’d be fine, and that I was her biggest fan. Or at least third biggest — Camille and Francis had earned the top two slots, for now at least.

Steffie had an announcement for us that distracted me from any further musings. Our play — which would occupy most of our time this fall — would be ‘Harvey’. I’d always enjoyed the movie. I also knew I wasn’t Jimmy Stewart. If I remembered right, ‘Harvey’ was a bit high on male roles, and we only had five boys who were seniors or juniors. And, one of those was brand new.

Most likely I was going to get put on stage, like it or lump it. But I had no desire to play Elwood P. Dowd, and that I could avoid. Jasmine seemed pleased enough, if not thrilled. From the others, responses varied from some blank looks to a few people who looked thrilled. Mikayla, for one, seemed pretty pleased with the whole thing.

Auditions would be a week after Labor Day. We could pick the part we wanted, but I already knew Steffie often overruled that. She’d overruled quite a few people on ‘Brigadoon’ and it’d worked just fine, so I for one trusted her on that. Well — as long as she didn’t try to make me the star, anyway.

Partly due to the large number of cross-overs with Debate, the new schedule, and some experience from last year, Steffie had pushed the play out a month. Since play performances would be in November instead of October, auditions for the spring musical would be in December, not November. That suited me just fine.

We didn’t get much chance to talk in Debate, and were interrupted heading to the parking lot by a certain cheerleader.

Jessica popped up about where we’d met just the day before, and went right over to Jasmine.

“I’m really, really sorry for ... well ... just ... that I got in the way,” she said, looking at Jasmine.

Jasmine blushed. “You didn’t. I got in the way. You’re just ... you. You ... can’t be anyone else, really, can you?”

Jessica chuckled. “Oh, I pretty much could. You’d know that, I’d guess. But ... I get your point. Look ... just ... Steve is really special. I know that. And you fit with him in a way I don’t, and can’t. If you ever think I’m screwing something up, just tell me, okay?”

“I will,” Jasmine said. “Promise.”

“Thanks. Mind if I give him a hug?”

“Nope.”

Jessica turned to me and give me a big hug. “Thanks for everything. And I do mean everything.”

“You’re welcome. And thank you.”

She blushed, then smiled. “I managed to use my powers for good, for the most part anyway.” She turned to go, then looked back. “Jasmine ... if you hear something that bothers you ... just talk to me, okay?”

“Um ... okay. I will.” Jasmine looked just a bit confused, but nodded.

Jessica scooted off. We finished the walk to the car, I helped Jasmine in, and then got in myself, starting the car and getting us on our way.

“That was ... that was ... interesting,” Jasmine said. “I ... God. I think she’s honest. I also think she’s a better actress than anyone in Drama.”

“Eh. We have some really good actresses. She may be, though.”

I got a whap for that. “You think she’s better than me?”

“You left me a no-win. I can either agree with you as to her acting skills, or say that you’re wrong because you’re better. I’m either putting down your acting skills, your judgment, or your honesty.”

“Hmm. Point taken. Whap revoked. I’ll kiss it and make it better, later.”

“You do make things better.”

She giggled. “I already revoked it!”

“Still true.”

“Okay. Now that we’re in private ... what is it that might bother me?”

“It’s ... well. It’s not a long story, but it’s a painful one.” I went over Jessica’s story, just as I had with Angie. Jasmine nodded along, listening.

At the end, she sighed, deeply. “I think ... well ... first. I’d have done the same thing, no hesitation. That’s one reason I’m on double birth control. I do not want to ever have to make that decision!”

“Nor do I, Jas. Ever. Not that I would, but even supporting someone through it...”

She looked at me. “You’d want it to live, but you’d never say anything bad if the girl decided the other way. You wouldn’t even think anything bad.”

“Yeah. Got it.”

“I knew you’d support Jessica. I mean, that’s obvious. So...?”

“We need him on tape confessing to the blowjob. At that point, we’re really done, but I want more. He needs to understand that he’s in a really bad position.”

She cocked her head. “He could have more targets.”

I sighed. “I thought about that. But ... what can I do? It’s one of those ethical dilemmas. The right thing is to just go nuclear, but that means Jessica’s reputation is tarnished and, whoever X is, she’s probably suddenly in a terrible situation. I don’t think Jessica was embellishing that. I think she’d be like Cammie, sent off to some ... place ... where they punish you without calling it a punishment.”

“Yeah. I ... maybe you can scare him enough.”

“That’s the hope. The whole thing sucks. My goal has to be to make it suck as little as possible for Jessica, because she’s my friend. X, because she’s Jessica’s friend. And make it suck as much as possible for him, because he’s an asshole, without that making things rebound on Jessica or X. That’s where I am now. I’m going to talk to my therapist, though. She helps with ethical quandaries.”

“And you’re talking to me, and Angie, of course, though I agree with you, and I imagine she does.”

“She does.”

“That really sucks. Why are people so awful?” She sighed. “Though I can flip it around. Here’s this jerk who’s willing to commit multiple felonies for a shot at Jessica, and here you are with a clear shot yourself, turning it down.”

“Losing you, all my friends, Angie, and so forth would be a sort of prison in itself.”

She smiled, chuckling a bit. “I think prison is worse than that, but ... still sweet.” She looked around. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“I was about to ask you that. Pho is always an option, but we could do something else.”

“Mmm. Chinese!”

“Chinese it is,” I said. I’d already gotten partway to a buffet I liked.

“You’ve got a plan?”

“Just the start. Getting Jessica recording equipment is the first step. We really are in luck there. In some states you can’t legally record a call unless everyone knows and consents. Here, you can, and it’s admissible.”

“You are a fount of trivia, Mr. Marshall. But, as usual, it’s useful trivia.”

The restaurant wasn’t very busy, which was good for my purposes. They settled us at a table and took drink orders, then we went and fetched our selections. As always, I was comparing what I’d eat now with what first-life me would’ve picked. Now? More vegetables, less fried food, and a bit less overall, though I was far more active than first-life me and needed the calories he hadn’t (but got anyway).

I had still never settled in my mind whether the only difference was exercise and eating right or if this me was actually healthier than that me. Certainly my body had one tiny difference — no appendectomy. Did that mean I was healthier? Or just that I’d gotten luckier with whatever made my appendix try to kill me the first time? Either way, I liked this me considerably more, even if it was work to maintain it.

Jasmine and I sat with our selections, picked up chopsticks, and started eating.

After a few minutes, she set hers down and looked at me. “You haven’t asked.”

“About?”

“You know who.”

“With that phrasing, you mean Blue.”

“Yeah. Her.”

“Bringing it up means you’re ready to talk.”

“I have to talk! It’s important, I think. She’s out of the picture ... except, she doesn’t think she is. I’ve gotten three phone calls from her this week. I’m ... not being super-polite with her, really. Especially not on the third.”

“I’m curious and I want to know whatever you’ll share, but I think you knew all that a long while back.”

She nodded. “I did, I just wasn’t ready. Now ... I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. So ... Blue. Where to begin? I guess ... well ... at the beginning. So ... we got there, I met my roommate, got settled in, all that. Orientation, where classes are, that we’d be doing ‘Hair’, all that.”

“You know, you never mentioned your roommate.”

“Huh,” she said. “Kristy. She was a fucking bitch.”

“I think the only thing I ever got was that she seemed okay, or something.”

“Oh, she did the first day. She just wanted stuff her way and ... nah. That’s beside the point. She’s rich, she knows it, and she’s good, and she knows that, too. She put down most everyone, both for their clothes and hair and all that and also their acting skills. I mean, she never put me down. Not to my face. But she always had snide comments that would’ve applied to me. I just tuned her out as much as I could.”

“That sucks. Mine was blah, and we’re not close, but he was okay enough.”

“See, now ... now that I’ve been able to think ... honestly? I hated the whole fucking thing. I hate to say that, because it was a lot of money, and I think I learned a lot, but ... well. I said it before. I’m not doing that again. With you, with Angie, with friends, yeah. Going in cold like that, in that environment? It sucked.”

“Maybe we should start there, instead of with Blue? That sounds awful.”

“Nah. Blue. I can bitch about the rest later. You need to know, in case she calls you. I mean, you could always just hang up, but you wouldn’t.”

“I might ... but...” I bit my lip, trying to imagine. If Sharon called? Cindy? Max? Yeah, I’d probably talk to them. So why would I slam the phone down on Blue? She had a point; I’d talk. It’s what I do. “Fine, I wouldn’t.”

“See? I’m right. I’d joke about being always right, but I was wrong about so much, and I know it. Anyway ... Blue. You can’t miss her. She is blue. Hair, eyes, clothes, nails ... just, everything. She’s just about my height. Petite. Pretty. Small tits. Short, curly hair that she works hard to straighten. Not so much loud as she just ... fills the room.”

I nodded. “I can see that.”

“I started hanging out in her group. She made me put her on the phone to prove I had a boyfriend. We played poker, stuff like that. Fun, right?”

“Yeah.”

“In retrospect ... pied piper. I should’ve been doing more work, less play. Fun is always tempting, but when you have three weeks and a ton of work ... work.”

“I ... can see that, too. Yeah.”

“You avoided it.”

“I didn’t have a Blue. I had an indifferent roommate and a partner I didn’t like all that much. The girls were blocks away behind armed guards. Well, maybe not armed. Anyway, we’ll see how next summer goes.”

She chuckled a bit. “Fair enough. I think ... I can’t separate how I feel now out enough, so some of this might not make sense, because now I know where it went wrong. Sort of. But ... anyway ... we became friends. Blue had a lot of friends, but ours went towards a bit of romance. I mean, a lot of girls were open to it, but the ‘boyfriend’ mattered to some, a lot of them wanted to work every minute of the day — well, that’s how I saw it then — and things like that.”

I nodded. “We had a lot of workaholics. I was probably on the lighter end of that. I’m not sure some of those people know what fun is.”

She giggled. “And many of the people in my program would say that about you. Including the workaholics. Anyway ... one night we were suddenly kissing, and then ... well, my roommate was out, practicing something, and ... it was really good. I’d been without about as long as I’d ever been without since I found out what the fuss was about, she was good, very skilled, and ... yeah.”

“Which you told me about.”

“Yeah. Anyway ... well. Retrospect talking here. She started subtly questioning me about you. First, about whether you’d be jealous. Once she really understood our relationship, little nudges about whether you were getting laid, stuff like that. Then somehow or another Jessica came up and...”