Chapter 35: Back to Bryan

Sunday, September 26, 1982

Jasmine surprised me by drawing a straw at Study Group. A bit of checking around revealed why. Angie’s playground was closed, Andy and Cal weren’t here, Emily had a cold, Sara and Mike used his room, Connie had a family thing and couldn’t be here, and so on. Heaven forbid the guest room go unused.

So, we had a very enjoyable hour within an also enjoyable break day. There wouldn’t be too many coming up. Even though we were away from tests, we had another unfortunate piece of timing coming up. The PSAT was October 9th — thankfully not a tournament weekend — and our next round of tests would be the week after.

Not that we should have to study for the PSAT, but we would, anyway. Vocabulary drills, analogies, whatever. Stuff all of us should be able to do in our sleep.

Monday, September 27, 1982

Darla gave me a hug on the way into Debate.

“Hey, Steve. That dance was fun, wasn’t it?”

“It was!”

“I’m glad I went, even without a date. There were plenty of people to dance with.”

“Almost too many. I just barely got to everyone on my dance card.”

She grinned and winked. “Your dance card is much longer than most people’s. Must be nice.”

“It’s ... different. I wasn’t always this person. Well, or maybe I was, but I hid it well? Anyway, I guarantee that, if you’d asked me before I started high school, if I’d be who I am now, I’d have said no. And blushed. And probably tried to hide.”

“You can’t have been that bad!”

“Okay, I’m laying it on a bit thick. But, ask Angie if you don’t believe me.”

“Ask Angie what?” Angie’s voice floated to us from the stairwell, followed by the rest of her a few seconds later.

“If I was a not-quite-hopeless nerd with almost no chance of having a dance card like I had two days ago at, say, the start of summer between junior high and high school.”

Angie rolled her eyes. “You have no idea. Poor kid was trying, but ... seriously. Night and day, Darla. Night and day!”

“Lucky me, then. I like this one.”

Janet grinned as she caught up to us. “Everybody does. And, you moved quickly, dude! You were all calm and suave and polished on that TEES trip.”

I shrugged. “A good girlfriend and good friends will do that, I guess.”

“Totally!” Janet said, grinning. “Absofuckinglutely!”

I wasn’t sure if Darla knew that ‘girlfriend’ didn’t need adjustment in Janet’s case, so I restrained myself from winking back to her. I just grinned.

We all spread out in the library for the monthly Student Council meeting. Honestly, the paint-drying parts of it weren’t that bad. Tony was getting the hang of it, the Vice President was nudging him in the right direction (patting myself on the back a bit), Lizzie and Amit were sharp, and Mikayla made the Treasurer’s report interesting instead of a slog. None of the committees were run by people who only wanted to hear themselves talk, either.

Mel reported on the dance, which — much to Gina’s delight — made a ton of money. All the reviews were good, and tickets were already selling for Halloween. Reminder to self: must discuss Halloween dance on Tuesday! The new rules were a total non-issue, and even Mr. Hannity had told Mel he was impressed at how smoothly things went.

Of course, some of that was because the usual suspects were either old news (Emily and the Wonder Twins) or not attending (Lizzie, for instance). I might not get to dance to her lead until Prom, at this rate.

Mel and Cammie were working closely together (imagine that!) on dress code changes, both for dances and for the school as a whole. While they weren’t ready to spill the beans, they were pretty clear about pushing for more than they thought they could get, in hopes of a compromise that was further than the conservatives really wanted to go. Seemed like a good plan to me.

Gina had a bake sale scheduled for early October and another for late October, both featuring Halloween-themed treats. She was also proposing selling Halloween costume supplies, makeup kits, and the like for the dance. Might work, might not. If the football team kept winning, there would be a lot of spirit-related sales she could add to the mix. Fingers crossed!

Sheila and her team were getting data from the counselors now. They’d compromised on exactly how fine-grained the GPA reports would be, but it sounded like there would be more than enough data. I was starting to doubt that we’d make a meaningful difference for the seniors. There just wasn’t enough time. We’d learn from them, but many of them were already in the application process.

However, Sheila hinted that some of her interviewers might be nudging people towards better schools. That might actually slightly undermine accuracy, but it’d help people right now, when it mattered. Always easy to side with that.

This time, we got done in ... two hours. Again. However, I was pretty sure the ‘paint drying’ portion was down. We just had more to cover, thanks to the committees.

I could manage this. It’d be fine, and it would mostly be fun, too.

Our next meeting would be October 18th, which seemed fine to me. It was right after the next round of tests, so we shouldn’t be regretting time spent meeting.

A box was waiting for me when I got home. Mom, of course, asked me what was in it. She’d have accepted it if I said it was personal, or anything of the sort, but I didn’t need to pretend otherwise.

“It’s some stuff that’s called Bear Spray,” I said.

“Um ... why? We don’t have bears! We did in Wisconsin, though really not very often at all. Now, snake spray...”

“You can use it on bears, but they actually sell it for personal self-defense. If you spray someone with it, you won’t harm them, but they’ll cough and choke and their eyes will burn and attacking you will be less of a priority for a while.”

“Oh! Is that like that ‘Mace’ stuff I’ve heard of?”

“Somewhat. That’s a different chemical. This is basically distilled chili peppers. Well, capsaicin, the stuff that makes them burn. It’s a major irritant but very unlikely to cause harm to anyone.”

“And you bought some...?”

“I know a lot of girls who are out late at night.”

Mom giggled. Yes, a real giggle. “That ... some girls might find that description offensive, you know.”

“I do know. That’s why I put it that way.”

She giggled a little more.

“But ... I mean it, literally. Practice, rehearsal, tournaments, and so forth. Mostly we’re in groups, and when we drop someone off we wait until they get in their house, but there’s always a ‘what if?’”

Mom nodded. “I can see that.”

“This is something you can just put in a purse or a bag or a pocket and, if you’re alone, practice having it ready to spray. It’s much better having to apologize to someone that you shouldn’t have sprayed than having something bad happen.”

“That’s a really smart idea, Steve. I’m impressed. Not for the first time, but still.”

“Thanks, Mom. Angie gets the first one, of course. And I might have enough takers to need to order more. Better safe than sorry.”

“Very much so!”

I dropped by Angie’s room a bit later and handed off her can. One girl armed, more to go.

Tuesday, September 28, 1982

We finalized the rosters for Bryan and Kingwood. Angie and Gene, Megan and Anne, and Sue and Amit were taking Kingwood. Cammie and I, along with Janet and Lizzie, plus Darla and Linda, would head to Bryan. Those configurations would stay the same for Westchester or Galveston.

In Extemp, all six of the CXers were competing at Kingwood. Jaya and Eric rounded out their eight. For Bryan, neither Janet nor Lizzie wanted to give it a shot, so we picked up Bree, plus Kenzie and Callie and Brad.

With Kenzie and Callie in Bryan, we had no seasoned LDers for Kingwood. That didn’t stop us. Jaya, Eric, and Crystal had been working with Kenzie and Callie and all signed up for it.

All of that left Stacey and Ron at home, which sucked. They seemed fine with it, and we’d take them next time. Janice and Jeff were taking a family weekend, so they weren’t a factor.

From Drama, Jasmine, Paige, Mikayla, Sara, Caitlyn, and Carole were going to Bryan, with Sheila, Lexi, Ben, Penny, Debra, Bob, James, and Gordon heading to Kingwood. With the smaller number of Drama kids, Angie and I could still cross over at our respective tournaments. And would. None of them would cross over in Extemp until we had a few more qualified.

As Meg pointed out, the flip side of this was that we could — in theory — get twice as many qualified in the same weekend. If that started happening, I’m not sure what other schools would do. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t? We could only hope.

“So,” I said, “what are we doing for costumes this year?”

Mike shrugged. “I ... dunno?”

Jasmine shook her head, as did several others.

“Superheroes?” Angie asked.

“Many of them wear masks,” Mel said. “Can’t do that, and I wouldn’t actually want to change that rule. Too creepy.”

My thoughts went to 2020 and the pandemic, when most everyone wore masks nearly everywhere. It’d been truly a different world, where you might get arrested for not wearing a mask when going into a bank. The stories I could tell ... if I could tell those stories, of course.

The conversation went back and forth. I didn’t have great ideas, at least not yet. Jasmine proposed classic musicals, but not all of us loved musicals. Heathens.

Connie came up with the winning idea after about fifteen minutes of back and forth.

“Hey, everyone,” she said. “What about the 1960s? I mean, I wasn’t here, but most of us weren’t alive for half of it anyway.” She grinned a bit, then continued, “There’s all the hippie stuff, or military stuff, or ... well, for Jasmine and me at least, Vietnamese is appropriate, too.”

Mel grinned. “I like it.”

Emily smooched both Mark and Morty. “Free love! Woo-hoo!”

Sarah grinned. “I can be the sexy peacenik and you can be my jaded-soldier boyfriend,” she said, looking at Mike, who grinned and nodded.

“Can I burn my draft card?” Gene asked.

“No fires at the dance!” Mel said, shaking her head. “Fire code! Sprinklers! Angry principals!”

“Outside?”

“Far outside. Like, at home.”

Gene pretended to be grumpy. Then he brightened. “Hey, I have this Mao hat that’d be perfect. Mao was in charge for the whole 60s.”

And ... there we went. I remembered that hat. Gene had worn it every day for a month. Mr. Hannity sent him to the principal’s office every day for that month. Something something dress code. Ms. Ryan, our grade-level principal, had found it amusing.