Chapter 38: Getting a Bit Testy

Saturday, October 9, 1982

I got up bright and early for the PSAT. Angie joined me for breakfast. Mom looked surprised when she found us both eating.

“I know it’s the big test, but still, you two never beat me to breakfast on a Saturday!”

“Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Mom,” Angie said.

“Raring to go,” I said.

“Good! You’ll need that energy. Are you going to that computer thing after the test?”

“HAAUG? Yeah. I’m trying to stay connected to that side of things.”

“You’ve loved computers since you checked out that book in elementary school six times.”

True story — I’d done that. Both of me had. It’d certainly sent my life in one direction. That one book had probably had about as much effect on me as Debate had. And, even with my life trending somewhat away from computers, this time, I was still very grateful for its influence. I might not be Steve Marshall, super-programmer and IT geek and all-around tech wiz this time, but most likely anything I did would involve computers, and I’d benefit from understanding them and their potential long before most people would see what was coming.

“I still do. I just have so many other interests now. It’s worth keeping as many options open as possible.”

“Are you going, Angie?”

She nodded, around her mouthful of cereal, then said, “It was more fun than I thought it would be, last time. Some was just people-watching, but some was actually interesting for itself.”

“I feel like I’d be bored, but then I don’t know. I did program computers back in the day, after all.”

Mom’s job had included changing some of the wires on a plug-board computer. She hadn’t known what they did, just that sometimes she had to take the board out and move the wires around. In a way, though, it was true that she’d been an early computer programmer, at least in a manner of speaking.

“Probably you would be bored,” I said.

“Besides, as much as I enjoy having you here, and don’t want to think about you both really being gone, I do like my afternoons alone with Sam!”

“We’ll miss you, too, Mom,” Angie said.

That started a bunch of hugging and sniffling.

We got to school around eight forty-five, Jasmine and Gene in tow, and joined the students waiting outside the wing where we’d be taking the PSAT. The school didn’t have a large enough room for all of us. Well, okay, that’s not true. The gym would’ve worked, but it’d have been a ton of work to get all the tables and chairs moved into place. Much easier to just use a couple of dozen classrooms.

Once they opened the wing, we headed to rooms, separated by last name. Sadly, ‘Marshall’ was not quite close enough to ‘Nguyen’ to be in the same room. Angie was in my room, of course. So was Sara Mayer, but not Lexi Myers. Dan Miller, who I almost never saw anymore, was in our room, and didn’t seem bothered by Angie’s presence. Water long under the bridge, presumably.

The teacher — a Ms. Babcock, who I’d never had, and would likely never have, as she taught freshman English — went over the test instructions in detail. I’m sure she had to read them exactly as written, or someone would claim their score was low because the proctor blew it.

She told us all to start, and we started. The PSAT is not an extremely long test, but long enough that we had time to check things over, worry about answers, and so forth.

With breaks, we were there for just about two hours. Our proctor collected our papers, warned us again about not sharing the test content — silly now, most likely, but an enormous issue forty years from now — and sent us on our way. A guy I didn’t know made his feelings clear with a loud “Fuck!” as he left the building, throwing something — his pencil, I was pretty sure — as far as he could.

Angie grinned, giving me a hug. “I guess we know how he did.”

Jasmine hugged me from the other side a second later. “The whole school knows that. Hopefully the principals missed it.”

I looked after him to spot Ms. Wolkowski in hot pursuit. “Looks like they didn’t.”

“He might get to his car first,” Jasmine said, grinning.

“Might, yeah,” Angie said.

“So...?” I said.

Angie just nodded, giving Jasmine space.

“I ... that was ... um ... was it really that... easy?” Jasmine said, blushing. “I kept feeling like they were trying to trick me with those questions. Like, it can’t be that simple, can it?”

“When I took...” I stopped. My brain had gone a direction it very, very much should not have gone in, and I’d nearly said something I’d have had a lot of trouble explaining away. That, or Jasmine and I would’ve had a conversation that I was not at all ready for.

I forced a cough, then started over. I wasn’t sure it was enough, but maybe. “When I took the PSAT last time, I felt that way. More this way, with all the studying, but, yeah, it’s that easy.”

“I’m amazed,” Jasmine said. “I had this built up into a big thing. And ... well, I mean, it is a big thing.”

“You’re super-smart, girlfriend,” Angie said, giving Jasmine a big hug. “I knew you’d do great.”

Jasmine laughed. “Yeah, right. Says the super-smart girl that amazes us all.”

“Nah,” Angie said, chuckling. “That’s Connie.”

Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Fine. After Connie.”

“Sue,” Angie said.

“Um ... nah. A tie, there.”

Angie blushed considerably, then hugged Jasmine. “Three-way tie!”

They both started giggling, which turned into full-blown laughter when Connie came up to us. “What are you all laughing about?”

We all headed out to catch lunch at Pop’s, laughing and joking as we compared notes about the PSAT. Lunch finished, we split up. I left Jasmine at her house with a hug and a kiss and a promise to come back around five. We were picking Sam up together and taking her to dinner.

I hit the road towards HAAUG, slightly lamenting the time spent on lunch. However ... friends had to come first, and they had.

“So, what’d you almost say?” Angie said, with a curious expression on her face.

“You know it was nearly a mistake.”

“Which is unlike you.”

I nodded. “I’m not sure ... maybe it’s a sign I should just go ahead and confess. But...”

“But you’re not ready, not so close to things going weird.”

“It’s not exactly that, it’s ... eh. Okay, fine, that’s probably a bit of it. I don’t want confessing to make things weird.”

“It’s probably going to.”

“That’s what I’m scared of.”

Angie shrugged. “You’re telling her you’re sixteen but have lived, what, fifty ... um ... seven years? That you’ve raised kids older than she is? How could it not get weird?”

“Not helping me find my nerve, sis.”

She nodded. “You’ll find it when it’s right. Or when you’re backed into a corner. Who the fuck knows? Maybe that’s when it’ll be right. Maybe it’ll take that. Maybe that’ll be the magic.”

“Still not helping.”

She chuckled. “I may have to do this myself. Unless I fall for someone like us, I’ll virtually have to, that or ... you know.”

“Live my life with the person closest to me never knowing an enormous secret about me.”

“Exactly. And, back to the point ... what’d you almost say?”

“That, when I took the GRE, the math section had the problem ‘y + y + y =?’”

“3y?”

“Yeah. I stared at that for a minute trying to find the trick. It was so mind-bogglingly easy.”

“Could’ve been something weird and subtle.”

“No other answer had a y. Or a three.”

“Okay, that’s just completely stupid. Some sort of check to see if people are guessing?”

“I ... guessed that at the time. That, or weed out the completely stupid.”

She giggled. “I never took that. I’d just started to look at the GMAT, in case I took it one day.”

I gave her leg a squeeze. “And you may well do just that.”

“I may, indeed.” She sighed and stroked my hand. “I ... that ... today ... that was a milestone. The last time I took that ... the last time I took that, Daddy Frank was still alive. And then things went ... wrong. And more wrong. And then right, but then way more wrong.”

“Clean slate, now.”

“Yeah.” She looked at me, sighing, smiling. “Whatever we did to wind up here...”

“Or whatever someone did, or ... anyway. Yeah. Eternally grateful.”

“Eternally.”

After a bit of silence, Angie shifted. “Okay. Uncomfortable question time. I’ve been thinking about it. Obviously, you knew Michael Dell was at Memorial the whole time you’ve been back, since you knew him at least a bit the first time. Why’d it take two years to decide to try something?”

I thought about it a second before replying. Nothing in that was ‘uncomfortable’, which meant there was subtext ... ah. Of course. I felt like slapping my forehead.

“A few reasons. The first was ... priorities. I mean, I made these decisions before I could share anything with you, right? Relationships and making myself a better me were the priorities, not money. It took me months to even bet on something. Of course, that was nearly a disaster...”

She giggled a little. “Yeah. I was too nosy and made a really bad guess there.”