Chapter 25: Impressions, Good and Bad

Saturday, August 28, 1982

Angie and I both slept late. Not too late — nine — but I guess we needed the rest. I know I did. It was well worth skipping a day of jogging.

Officially, today was a lazy shopping day before our evening outing — which I was still playing close to the vest. That only worked because Angie and Jasmine (and Gene, presumably) promised to refrain from looking up the show I was taking them to.

Unofficially, we had our meeting with Jane. We needed a check-in, and she wanted an update. Our next official get-together with her wasn’t until the third week of September.

We got to her office around two-thirty and she walked us in. Her last official appointment had finished at two, letting her receptionist leave. Might be hard to explain the extra meetings with two kids who weren’t actually paying, otherwise.

“I’ll jump right to the big question,” she said, once we’d hugged and gotten settled. “How are things with Jasmine?”

“So much better,” I said.

Angie nodded. “What he said.”

“Not that I’m surprised — I’m a vicarious veteran of many, many high school breakups and reunions — but what happened to cause the happy news?”

I went over it — mostly Camille’s intervention and the aftermath, plus catching her up on the story of Blue, which included my worries about Blue being my ex-wife, and my now-belief that she wasn’t.

“It’s strange that that’s even a possibility,” Jane said, “but I see it. I’m glad it seems to be resolved — that would be a real worry.”

“The thing is ... it would be confusing,” I said. “She would — maybe — be from yet another universe. What if we were a good couple then, and she was trying to get Jasmine and I broken up for herself? Or what if I was the bad guy, and this was her revenge on her awful ex?”

“And now I have a headache,” Jane said. “That hadn’t occurred to me. I’m used to you and Angie being the heroes of this story, not the villains. The notion that you ... or I! ... might meet someone who knows you ... well, almost-you? ... as a villain is strange.”

“Yeah. If that happened, that me wouldn’t be me any more than Iceberg Steve is me. But ... I’d start out with the assumption that it’s someone I could have been.”

Angie blushed. “There could easily be Evil Angies out there.”

Both our heads turned to look at her.

“I’m serious! Max and his friends sold drugs in college. Small-time stuff, mostly, but it got worse, and they roped me into being their mule, which is how I ended up in prison. Steve knows a lot of this, except I was a little more indirect about explaining it. Anyway ... just suppose I didn’t get caught but, instead, got into the money and all. Voila, Evil Angie.”

“Scary ... and plausible ... and scary that it’s plausible. You’d make a good ... well, an effective ... super-villain,” Jane said, chuckling. “I’m not sure if they could be said to be good.”

“I wouldn’t monologue on and on while the good guy escaped, that’s for sure! Fire up the laser or whatever. I’ll explain through the screaming, not before.”

Jane chuckled a bit more.

“What? I’m serious!”

“That’s why it’s funny. So ... ex-wife isn’t a suspect. Blue is just a bitch. That makes sense. Anything else interesting?”

“Not from me,” Angie said. “I paid attention in class and did my work and studied and all.”

I blushed. “She has a point. I ... well, Jasmine, too... we didn’t exactly focus when we were ... disconnected.”

“That’s a concern. You should’ve phoned me.”

“Had I realized how it was going, I would have. That’s maybe a downside of doing this all again. I can pass most of these classes without really working. Jasmine can’t.”

“By ‘pass’ he means get high A’s,” Angie said, grinning.

“Yeah. That.”

“And you had tests?”

“We did. Jasmine struggled in trig and physics. Nothing that will destroy her GPA, but she’ll need to work. I recovered in time.”

“So ... relationship good, classes good. What’s not good?”

“I ... have an ethical dilemma. It’s not even a time-traveling dilemma,” I said. “We have some other things, too.”

“Dilemma first, in case it takes a while.”

“Well ... you remember the story Jessica told me?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Remember when I said I thought she believed most of it? It was ... some bits of it. More of it than not was true, at least in a manner of speaking.”

“And now you know the real story?”

“I know what I believe to be the real story, unless something comes up to make me doubt it.”

“Tell me, please.”

I did, running through the whole story quickly.

“That ... ugh. That makes much more sense, I agree. She still could have stayed close to Sheila — but Sheila might have wormed it out of her, and she had to protect her friend.”

“You see my dilemma.”

“Of course. As long as X is vulnerable, as long as Jessica is vulnerable, you can’t shut down ... Y. I’m calling the guy Y. No reason.”

“He’s got a Y chromosome,” Angie said, grinning a little.

“There. That’s a good reason,” Jane said.

“And that’s the issue. Y could be preying on other girls and we can’t do anything big about it unless Jessica and X are both committed. Given what Jessica says about X, I’m not sure she can go that far until at least senior year. Nor can Jessica. It’d be arrogant and wrong for me to make that decision for them, or even to use the possibility of Y’s poor behavior to push them into spilling the beans.”

“This happens more often than I care to think about. There are always secrets. Sometimes they’re bad ones. Sometimes what you wish people would do, they won’t, and it’s often because they can’t without bringing bad things down on themselves. So ... what are you planning?”

“Get the evidence. Protect Jessica and X as much as possible. Scare him as much as possible. Make it so that coming after any of us would be a Pyrrhic victory at best.”

“That’s probably the best you can do. I’ll be thinking about it,” she said. “And, it’s late. I know you have somewhere to be. Anything else?”

“For the next appointment, I should dig into ex-wife topics a bit more. I keep avoiding it.”

“And I need to dig into things around Carrie,” Angie said. “I’m not doing a great job of ‘moving on.’”

“Good topics, and I’ll feel a bit more like a therapist, even if one working outside my usual specialty.”

“We love you, Jane,” Angie said.

“We do,” I agreed. “And we appreciate all you’ve done, and continue to do.”

“And I love you both,” she said. “Which I shouldn’t, really, as a therapist, but as a friend? This is why we shouldn’t do dual relationships, but then I did ask the question that made it impossible for us to have a normal relationship.” She chuckled a bit at that.

“Nah. This is the gold standard for counseling relationships with time travelers,” Angie said, grinning.

“Oh! Well, then. All is well with the world,” Jane said, grinning right back.

We parted with hugs, then headed off to get ready for our evening.

Two hours later, after dinner at Red Lobster — always a popular dating option — I led our little group out of the parking garage and up to the Alley Theater in downtown Houston. Yes, it’s actually named for its original location in a downtown alley. That said, it’s home to the oldest professional theater company in Texas (and third oldest in the United States). The building itself is striking and the recipient of numerous architectural awards (for instance, it has no right angles).

The play we were seeing? It would never receive quite the level of recognition the Alley itself received, but it was one of my favorites, and the first in a series of favorites. And, of course, more than just me — the series is beloved by many people.

Gene spotted the marquee first. “‘Greater Tuna’? I’m a little worried.”

“Never heard of it,” Jasmine said. “Fishing?”

Angie shot me a little smile, but said nothing.

I chuckled. “Nope. Not telling, but I hear really good things.”

“I’ll try anything with you,” Jasmine said. Then she blushed. “I mean ... oh, fuck it. Fine. It works either way.”

Angie giggled. “That’s the spirit!”

We headed up to the door. Jasmine spotted the poster. “So ... a guy and a woman on the radio?”

I shrugged. “Again - I hear good things.”

Fifteen minutes later we were seated, flipping through Playbills, as the theater filled. Gene looked around. “Seems popular.”

Jasmine giggled. “There are two actors and ... um ... twenty characters? Are they serious?”

“That’s part of what I hear — that the actors and costume changes are pretty amazing.”

“I need to see it to believe it.”

By the time intermission rolled around, it was pretty clear the others were believers. It was funny in the right places, touching in the right places, and biting in the right places. I’ve always thought ‘Greater Tuna’ itself spent a bit too much time on the ‘biting’ end of things, but it’s a terrific play, especially if you see it with the original cast, or people who can match their talents. Each of them needs to play characters of both genders across a variety of ages, make you believe they’re that character, and switch roles in a blink (sometimes, if speaking from off-stage, between sentences).

“I love it!” Jasmine said, hugging me, as the lights came up. “Wow! I’ve never lived in small-town Texas, but now I feel like I have.”

Gene chuckled. “Third-smallest town is pushing it. Well ... depends on what you call a town. They have stores and neighborhoods! A lot of the really small towns are just two or three houses.”