Chapter 26: Coasting

Thursday, September 2, 1982

I put the finishing touches on my weekend plans. I’d told Mom and Dad that I was going away for the weekend once I knew I really was, nearly two weeks ago after Jasmine and I fixed things. They knew where I’d be and how to reach me. Well, within the expectations of 1982, which were that you call the hotel and, sooner or later, the guest finds out there’s a message.

Just as, and perhaps almost more, importantly, I’d gotten no opposition to taking a trip or two in December or perhaps after Thanksgiving, or both. We weren’t doing a family trip (we all knew that would be too much, just a year after Disneyland) and taking a few days that first week off would be ideal for another plan of mine. But, had I not had that time secured, I’d have changed this plan.

With all that in place, though, it was time to pack. My advice to Jasmine — summer-wear, with some nice things for restaurants, plus toiletries — worked just fine for me. One small suitcase later, I was ready to go.

9:15pm

Angie snuggled and smooched me. She’d hit the light on the way in.

“If you think I’m going three whole days without seeing you and not sleeping here tonight, you’re nuts!”

“I didn’t think that.”

“Good!”

I grinned and hugged her. “Nice to know you still care, though.”

“Always, big brother. Always.”

“You still could drag Gene. I mean, not with us, not this time. My plans are pretty much settled. But you could grab him tomorrow and shanghai him to a lot of places. Hotels aren’t hard to find.”

“His mom won’t allow it. He’s checked. And ... yeah. I love him, but ... I don’t love him, love him, like you do Jasmine.”

“I’ll be broken up if we’re not ‘the one’, where you’ll be unsurprised if Gene’s not.”

“Got it. And him, too. We know we’re having fun. We know it’s probably not permanent. I mean, he also knows I’m the best he’ll ever have and when we part he’ll never reach such heights again, but...”

“But he also knows he’ll never have to contend with such a monstrous ego.”

Whap! Not a very hard one. “Fine, I deserved that. Yeah. It’ll be fine. I think we’re in one of those relationships that expires at graduation, if not before. He’s got two years to prove me wrong, if he wants to, which ... I don’t know.”

“And that right there probably says something.”

“I thought so.”

I yawned. “Tired. School, then driving.”

“Yeah. School, then ... um ... oh, hell. Gene and I are going over to Pasadena for the game. I suspect the drive back will end up in the back seat. And Lexi and I are going to ... um ... something. Saturday. Probably involving back seats. So I won’t be missing out too much. Except on sleep.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“You haven’t even hinted at any girls other than Jasmine this month. There are some minor complaints. I mean, now that things aren’t a crisis.”

“We needed the time. After this week ... social calendar is more open. Somewhat.”

“Good to hear. Goodnight, big brother.”

“Goodnight, little sis.”

“Always.”

“Forever.”

Friday, September 3, 1982

Pretty much no one plans anything big for the Friday before Labor Day. If there was an amusing part, it was Meg urging us to take advantage of the time to get more research done. While I had admittedly been a slacker for the past few weeks, I felt like I’d done my time and more and could afford to take this weekend off. Worst case: we’d fall on our face at Elsik and pick ourselves back up the next week.

After school, Jasmine and I walked to the car holding hands. We’d already gotten her suitcase into my trunk, so we were good to go. That’s important, because I wanted to get out of town before rush hour truly set in.

Once we were on the freeway and heading east, Jasmine started to guess. “Galveston?”

“Nope.”

“Um ... what else ... not Beaumont?”

“Nope. Nothing against them, but no.”

She bit her lip. “I can’t remember what else is that way. Louisiana?”

“Nope. I like the idea, but, nope.”

“Later. Um ... Nacogdoches?”

“Nope.”

I turned the car onto the loop, heading south.

“Okay, that rules out the last set. I ... dunno.”

“Wait and see, then.”

Whap! On my leg, and not hard enough to affect my driving.

“I don’t want to wait!”

“Then turn on the radio and we’ll sing.”

“Hrmph.” She turned it on, then tuned it randomly. “Fine, your distraction worked.”

She started singing along with whatever came on. It was much funnier than it would’ve been since she hit a fairly twangy country station. I sang along, and we had each other nearly in tears by my next turn, onto the Southwest Freeway.

“Oh! Oh, um ... Corpus!”

“Yes.”

“Yay! Beach! I haven’t been to a beach in ... well, a really long time.”

“Technically, I went to one last December, but that was in California. Not warm water in December and we weren’t there for the beach. Last time for a real beach trip would be the summer of 1980.”

I neglected to mention that I wasn’t exactly there. This body was, but whoever was in it was at most half of me. Questions like ‘What did happen to the ‘me’ that ran this body from birth to fourteen?’ were still unanswerable and, frankly, made me a bit squeamish. If I’d effectively killed that version of me, that sounded awful, but there was nothing I could do about it. Whatever transpired when I arrived here happened before I even awoke in the hospital after the bike accident.

After just a bit, Jasmine said, “Enough!” and switched the radio to something we both liked. By this point we were on roads I trusted to drive one-handed, so we held hands, sang, and rolled on down the road.

We stopped for dinner at a fairly nondescript burger place in Victoria. By either mutual consent or exhaustion, we kept our conversation light. School, the upcoming tournaments, things like that.

Undoubtedly we’d cross into heavier topics during this trip, but neither of us was ready for that. Not yet.

We arrived in Corpus around nine. I pulled up to the Holiday Inn Emerald Beach and parked in the spaces reserved for guests checking in. Jasmine looked around. “No Hyatt?” she said with a smirk. I was certain she was teasing.

“I think you’ll like it. Not that I’ve been here, but I hear good things.”

“I’d sleep in a tent if it was together.”

“That’s an option for future trips.”

“I wasn’t serious!”

“What? You can’t see taking our kids on a camping trip one day?”

Her eyes softened, then teared up just a little. “I...” she said, sniffling. “That’s ... yes! Yes, I can see that!” Suddenly, she was in my arms. “I knew we were back, but ... we’re back.”

“We are, honey.”

“Go. Get us checked in. I need a minute, anyway.”

I headed into the lobby and right up to the reservation desk. The clerk gave me a look that said I might be on thin ice, but whatever was stored with the reservation made him rethink things and, shortly thereafter, we were checked in.

I returned to the car, where Jasmine seemed to be all put back together, and drove to a reasonably convenient parking space. We fetched the luggage and headed in. On the way, we got a few looks from other guests. Who knows if it was a Vietnamese girl with a gringo boy, or whether it was two teenagers with no obvious parental supervision, or ... well, who knows what? I didn’t feel unwelcome, but I did feel... noticed.

We rode the elevators up to the top floor, got out, and followed the room numbers to ours, halfway down the hall. I opened the door and revealed ... well, pretty much a Holiday Inn room circa 1982. Nice, nothing fancy, perfectly serviceable.

Jasmine looked around. “Yup, Holiday Inn. Plenty nice enough. Any trouble at the desk?”

“Nope. I made doubly sure that all the I’s were dotted and T’s crossed. I could’ve switched hotels in Dallas with only some inconvenience, but I didn’t want to try the same thing at nearly ten at night in Corpus Christi. American Express would work miracles, but why bother them?”

We put our bags down, then hugged and kissed. Then we tied up the phone for a bit, calling home. As seemed par for the course, the Holiday Inn was much more reasonable about phone rates than pricier hotels.

Once we’d reassured our parents that we were fine and safe and off the road, we got back to kissing. Not a make-out session, just some warm kissing.

“I love you,” Jasmine said, looking up to me.

“I love you, too,” I said.

“What’s the plan?”

“Sleep, I think. Breakfast. Stuff. Lunch. Dinner.”

I got a very gentle knee for that. “What stuff?”

I put on a smirking face. “Well, most of it involves the bed, and I think the walls in here are plenty scenic enough...”