Chapter 28: Making Ready

Monday, September 6, 1982 (continued)

We made it to the party around three. Rita met us as we were coming in.

“Hi, y’all! I’m glad you could make it!”

“Thanks, Rita,” I said, giving her a hug.

Jasmine followed with a hug of her own. “I’m glad, too!”

“Did you have a fun trip?” Rita said with a bit of a smirk.

“We sure did!” Jasmine said, smirking right back.

Rita shook her head. “My parents would’ve whupped my ass something fierce if I took off for Corpus with my boyfriend in high school!”

“Unusual parents, unusual circumstances,” I said.

“Unusual kids!” Rita said, grinning. “I’d have deserved it! You kids have your heads screwed on so much better than we did. Well... ‘screwing’ might be a word your parents wouldn’t want to hear.”

I chuckled. “Mine are ... as aware as they want to be.”

“Mine, too, which is much more aware than his.”

Rita rolled her eyes. “Can’t do anything the usual way, can you? More fun for all of us, though.” She gestured. “Go on, get going, they’re waiting. Well, they’re not, but they’ll pretend they were.”

“Thanks, Rita!” I said.

“Thanks!” Jasmine echoed.

We both called home briefly, letting our parents know we’d made it. Then we headed downstairs, finding the party in full swing. Not that we were raucous partiers — some things never change — but people were in the pool, playing games, eating snacks, all the usual things. And a couple of people were off taking a nap, which ... was usual for us, anyway.

In a way I almost felt guilty with all of the missed studying, but it was Labor Day, and we were having a party, so ... party on!

We were greeted with a flurry of hellos and hugs. Of course, the most important for me was the one from a certain blonde who flew across the room into my arms.

“Good trip, big brother?” she said, grinning, searching my eyes.

“Very good trip, little sis.”

She grinned a little more. “Good! And I assume good for you, too,” she said, turning and hugging Jasmine.

“Great!”

“Yay!”

We got the scoop on the game from those that had gone. I regretted missing it just a bit. Off-season, this looked to be one of our tougher games, with Pasadena’s Sam Rayburn looking tough. Instead, we’d won 35-0. Cal had dominated, with eleven tackles — including two sacks and four tackles for a loss — and Andy, who seemed fully healthy this year, had six catches and over one hundred fifty yards total, plus a number of key blocks. The rest of the team had apparently kept up with them.

In the back of my mind, I saw ripples. As mentioned before, I hadn’t followed Memorial football that closely my first go-round, but I was pretty certain this hadn’t been a stellar year. That two of my friends — friends who might’ve been very different in that other universe — were standouts made the idea of ripples all the stronger. The look in Angie’s eyes as she talked about the game just increased the idea that perhaps something was going on here.

Jasmine and I played in the pool, snacked, and just hung out until six, when we both decided we should get home.

We pulled up to Jasmine’s house about six-fifteen. I helped her out and fetched her suitcase, and we walked up to the door. Camille had the door open by the time we got there, smiling and hugging Jasmine.

“Did you have fun, honey?”

“Yes, Mama! It was a great trip!”

“What did you do?”

Jasmine went over the trip as I came in and put her bag down. Once I’d done that, Camille gave me a hug and cheek-kisses while listening to Jasmine’s recap of our vacation.

Once Jasmine had run down, Camille smiled. “It sounds wonderful. I’m so glad you could do this.”

“We wouldn’t have without your help, Mama,” Jasmine said, blushing just a bit.

“I know,” she said, with a little bit of a smirk. “I’m very glad I was able to help.”

“Me, too!” I said, smiling. “Very, very glad.”

“We’re very much in love again,” Jasmine said, hugging me and sighing.

“Yes, we are,” I said.

“All a mother could ask for. Well, a mother who sees nothing wrong with her sixteen-year-old daughter having a serious boyfriend,” Camille said, grinning.

“Yes, indeed,” I said, chuckling.

“See you tomorrow morning!” Jasmine said.

“See you then!”

I made it home about fifteen minutes later. Angie’s car wasn’t back.

Mom met me in the TV room. “Hi! How was your trip?”

“It was wonderful, Mom.”

“What’d you do?” Dad asked, coming in from the dining room.

I went over the trip again, both of them nodding and smiling. I’m sure they assumed a few things I didn’t mention — correctly, of course — but we seemed to all still be on the same page.

“It does sound like a great trip,” Dad said. “I never would’ve been allowed to do that, but then I never could’ve afforded it either. You do an amazing job of managing your money, son. Both you and Angie do.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Mom chuckled. “It was a different time, Sam. We were coming out of a depression and in a world war when you were Steve’s age.”

“True, true,” Dad said, smiling a bit. “A very different time.”

“In so many ways,” Mom said. “Ma would’ve had a stroke if I went on a vacation with a boy!”

Dad laughed softly. “But ... from what she says, it might have been a happy stroke.”

Mom blushed. “I ... well ... maybe so! But still!” Then she laughed along with Dad.

Angie came in. “What’re we laughing about?”

I gave her a grin. “They’re trying to decide if Grandma would’ve had an upset stroke or a happy stroke if Mom had gone to a hotel with a boy.”

Angie grinned. “I’ll go with happy.”

“That’s what I said!” Dad said.

Mom was plenty red, but seemed fine. We all hugged, then headed off. Ang and I had school tomorrow, after all, and Dad had work. And Mom had her weekly shopping, moved from Monday with the holiday.

9:15pm

Angie slipped into bed, rubbing noses, snuggling up.

“Glad it went well!”

“I’m glad it went at all. We were so close to losing this trip, too.”

Angie nodded. “That’s all water under the bridge now, right?”

“I’d say so, for the most part. We both need to learn from it. Jasmine was clearly much too insecure, and she needs to learn from that. I need to learn even more about being clear with communication and making sure she knows where I am in our relationship. We spent a lot of time talking and everything feels as good as it did in June. That’s the good and bad. It felt great in June. Are we another little thing away from a crisis? I want to believe that we’re in a much better place having been through this, but I can’t prove it.”

She hesitated. “Okay, I’ll just say it. Still quite possibly ‘the one?’”

I nodded. “Quite possibly.”

“I love her, and she’ll make a great sister-in-law.”

“Your blessing is critical, Ang. I don’t think I could marry someone you didn’t approve of.”

“Which is a little scary — what if I vetoed ‘the one?’ — but I get it. I don’t think I could marry someone you didn’t approve of, either.”

“What if Carrie turned up and I didn’t like her?”

Angie blushed. “That is such a crazy hypothetical that I can’t even imagine what would happen. Her showing up at all is unlikely and, if she did, she wouldn’t have a clue about who I was. Then you not liking her? I’m sure you’d like her.”

“Then I won’t worry about it. Doubly so.”

That got a giggle. “Good!” She leaned in and rubbed noses. “I didn’t get to sleep with a hunky guy for the last three nights...”

“Nor did I.”

She gave my shoulder a light whap. “You know what I mean. I feel like I should get to sleep here. I also feel like I’m better off waiting, so, I’m waiting.” She gave me a quick kiss, then stood.

“Goodnight, Steve.”

“Goodnight, Ang.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Always.”

“Forever.”

She was off to bed, and within a few minutes I was off to sleep.

Tuesday, September 7, 1982

I pitched the idea of sponsorships to Meg during Debate. She was all for it. Smaller sponsors could offset printing and supply costs. If we got any big fish, they could help with travel expenses, perhaps. There was also plenty of room for in-kind donations of things like food, particularly take-out breakfast food.

Yes, it crossed my mind that I could contribute to Debate ‘under the table’ this way. I had no plans to do so — most parents could well afford the expenses we had — but I’d consider it, particularly if someone was struggling. I could always produce an anonymous donor.

Meg talked to the class about speaking to businesses about sponsoring us. We’d see what happened. It’s an awkward conversation, but we were a group of people who should be good at awkward conversations.

I ran by the Radio Shack before study group — actually studying, again! — and bought a phone pick-up microphone and a cassette recorder for Jessica. I wouldn’t have time to set it up until tomorrow, but I’d already put off buying it a bit too long. We needed to get moving on this, lest the guy call before she was ready.

Wednesday, September 8, 1982

I met Jessica after school and took her home. She breezed into the house, saying, “Hi, Mom! This is Steve — you met him before.”

Her mother chuckled. “I remember him! You know the rules when boys visit.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. I got the feeling that this was playful. I also didn’t think boys actually visited all that often — but I could be wrong.

“Yes, Mom. I know! Door open at all times!”

“Mothers worry, honey.”

“Of course you do.” Jessica gave her mother a hug. “And I’m glad you do.”

“You two have fun!”

We headed off to her room, which was pretty much how you might expect it would look. Everything was white and red or pink. A couple of posters of bands (I gave her points for the Duran Duran poster), a calendar with all the football games highlighted with elaborate decorations on the dates, cheer rosters, old uniforms, pom-poms, and on and on. If a movie set designer was told to make a room for a head cheerleader, this would likely be what they’d come up with. To my eye, that’s because Jessica had designed it, rather than created it by living there.

I got out the equipment and went over how to set it up, when to hit record, and so forth. We tried it a couple of times, though we couldn’t test it beyond making sure we captured the dial tone (we did) and that someone talking in the microphone to the dial tone was captured as well (also working). I’d call her later to verify that everything seemed solid.

Once we had it working, she ran outside for a minute, then came back. “Mom’s cutting up vegetables. I think we’re safe.” She sat cross-legged on the bed, a dangerous move given the dress-code-challenging length of her skirt, and looked at me. “So, what do I say?”

“Anything you want, except that you don’t want to say anything threatening or the like, and you don’t want to admit to a crime. You need him to confirm that he coerced you into giving him a blowjob. Slipping in the date is good. Like... “I already gave you a fucking blowjob, you bastard. That was two years ago. More! I wasn’t even in high school yet! And here you are again, trying to force me to do more that I’m not willing to do. That was supposed to be it. What guarantee do I have that this time it’ll really be it?”