Chapter 43: King and Queen

Sunday, October 24, 1982

After church — yes, I still went — I changed into my date-night clothes (dark green shirt, black slacks and shoes) and headed off to pick up Jasmine.

I arrived at Jasmine’s around eleven-thirty. Camille answered the door, gave me a hug and exchanged air kisses.

“It’s good to see you! Not that I didn’t see you yesterday, but we didn’t get to talk all that much then.”

I nodded. “We didn’t.”

She smiled. “Jasmine needs a few more minutes, which gives me a little time. I have to say that I’m very pleased with how things have gone over the past two months.”

“Just as I am.”

“I might say that it’s as if nothing had gone wrong, but it’s more than that. You’ve done what I hoped you would and taken the opportunity to make things better. Stronger.”

“Jasmine means a great deal to me.”

“And you to her.” She gave me a little nod. “What I said before remains, of course. I will watch both of you. If you only have one ... difficulty ... you will be doing better than anyone has a right to.”

She gave a little laugh at that before continuing.

“Difficulties are to be expected, and I think ... I hope ... I believe that you will face them together and prevail. You’ll have our support.”

“Thank you, Camille. You know that means a lot.”

“I ... do, actually. I still think of what you said back then. When you said you were jealous of ... well. You know what I thought. That you meant it as wanting the relationship we have, and that your parents have ... you are mature well beyond your years. From the first, I felt as if you would steady Jasmine, and you do. But it’s more than that. You’re giving her a better path than I had. It is almost as if I’d met the Francis of today, then, and he had come with the hard-won patience he has now. Just be who you are and many, many good things will happen, Steve. I know it.”

“That’s all I can be, Camille. I have too many strong women in my life that would make sure I regretted being a lesser person.”

She laughed again at that. “Wise. Very wise. We women are always right, even if we are very wrong. A wise man knows that and makes sure we aren’t right in the wrong way quite so often.”

I chuckled myself. “I will try to remember that, but remember: my sister tells me that if I ever truly understand women she’ll be forced to kill me.”

That brought more laughter. “She would. It would not do at all for men to truly understand women.”

The sound of a door closing made her turn her head. “It sounds like she must be ready. Enjoy your date, and the show. And thank you for chatting with me.”

“It’s always a pleasure, Camille. Always.”

“And may it always remain so.”

Jasmine came around the corner. “May what always remain so?” She’d gone with an ankle-length burgundy dress that looked just lovely on her. Not as stunning as the red-and-gold dress, but then there was a reason I wasn’t wearing my gold shirt. We didn’t need to outshine the King of Siam, after all.

“Speaking with your mother, honey,” I said.

She grinned. “I completely agree.”

Then she swept me into a hug and kiss. “Morning, boyfriend!”

“Morning, girlfriend!”

“Let’s go see a show!”

“I agree. See you later, Camille.”

Camille smiled. “Perhaps. We may be out, later.”

Jasmine and Camille hugged and exchanged kisses on their cheeks, and then we were off. I walked her to the car and helped her in, then got us on our way. Our destination was The Warwick, a fairly fancy hotel near Rice University and Houston’s Museum District. It had a lavish Sunday brunch on the top floor. The ballroom where they held it had a great view of the Zoo, Medical Center area, Rice’s campus, and other local landmarks.

On the way there, Jasmine and I debated the wisdom of attending Rice.

Pros: Very, very good school. Close. Relatively inexpensive. Strong alumni community.

Cons: The residential college system would likely prevent us from even considering living together without jumping through hoops or putting us at a significant social disadvantage. We could be in the same building but would have to work around roommates for years. Also ... close.

Neither of us was all that much in favor of it, much as we respected the school and its alumni. Sorry, Rice!

Oh, that wasn’t the end of it. Angie hadn’t been in the discussion, for one thing. Money would be a concern — Jasmine and I would need to talk about schools her parents could afford. No matter what, we would revisit each option perhaps a dozen times or more over the next year.

I parked in The Warwick’s garage and we headed up to the ballroom. I had reservations, although we didn’t actually need them today. As we came in, it was clear that we were neither particularly overdressed nor under-dressed.

The hostess looked perhaps slightly confused. She probably hadn’t expected two sixteen-year-olds on their own, especially not one as the reservation-holder. However, she didn’t question us, just got us seated.

We ordered beverages — water, orange juice, and a Diet Coke each (Jasmine had adopted my preference for caffeine via diet soda) — and then went to visit the buffet. Too many choices! Too much chance of a food coma during the show!

We picked carefully, taking our time, browsing, taking a bit here, a bit there. Some things we decided to share. Neither of us wanted an entire omelet, but splitting one sounded great.

Once we had our plates comfortably full (not piled up, as first-life me would have done), we returned to our table and started tasting things. Fairly often we traded tidbits of this or that across the table. I noticed a few looks from neighboring couples. Fortunately, they seemed approving.

“I’m going to have to pay even more attention to the theater listings,” Jasmine said. “That way I might know where we’re going next!”

I chuckled. “We don’t need to overdo it, though. I figured this was a big enough opportunity it’d be well worth it.”

That got me a little snort. “I’d guess the poster in my room was enough of a clue there for even the most clueless boyfriend. Which you are most definitely not.”

“Exactly. Definitely a big opportunity.”

“I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve only seen the movie. It’ll be odd to have someone other than Yul Brynner playing the King.”

“I’ve only seen the movie, too. And, Yul will forever be the King, no matter who else takes the role, I imagine,” I said.

“He will. It’s an amazing performance. So ... I have to ask. Had you seen the movie before we started dating?” she said, with just a hint of a grin.

“I had. Mom and Dad like it, and I caught it on TV once or twice.” There was the tiny little detail that both times had been well after 1982. Still, they were well before we’d started dating.

“Good! I’m looking forward to it.”

“Me, too. I’m looking forward to something else, too.”

“Um ... well, there’s tonight...” she said, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Not what I was thinking of.”

“Tell!”

“There are other musicals out there that just started running. No tours here yet, and no movies. It’d be fun to see one that’s brand new.” Even if I’d seen it several times, that is.

“Ooh! That would be fun. Any in mind?”

“I’d love to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new one, ‘Cats’. I’m hearing good things. I’ve been meaning to pick up a copy of the cast recording.” I could happily nitpick the London recording — the only one out right now — and why the Broadway recording was much better, but the Broadway recording wouldn’t be out until next year.

“Cool! Anything else?”

“I want to see Sondheim’s ‘Sweeney Todd’. I think there’s a video recording, but I’ve never seen it.”

“I want to see that, too!”

She’d love ‘Into The Woods’, of course. When it came out, I meant to be in a position to take her to see it on Broadway. Possibly well before that, but if that was our first trip to Broadway, it’d be a great show to see. Plus, we’d both be twenty-one, a significant age in the U.S. to come, as the drinking age started to change and twenty-one became the code-word for ‘grown up’ that eighteen was now.

It’d also be our junior year in college and not a totally inappropriate time for a proposal, if we’d gotten to where we both hoped to get. Though, ‘Into The Woods’ is maybe not the show to see immediately before or after a proposal, not with all of the not-so-happy endings.

“I’m sure there are more. I haven’t even seen the movies of a few of the classics, and even fewer on stage.”

“We’re going to have so much fun!”

“We are!”

She gave me a thoughtful look, hesitating a little.

“What’s up, honey?”

“It’s ... well ... it means a great deal that we can talk this way. That this is a shared interest. Until I met you, I had my choice: a Drama boy, who ‘got it’ about shows and musicals, but ... well, the most attractive options at Memorial aren’t interested in girls, and the others just ... um, lacked ... something. Or, instead, some non-Drama boy, almost none of whom would have even entertained the idea of watching ‘The King and I’ on TV. Well, except as a ploy to get into my pants.”

I noticed that the woman just to our side was watching Jasmine. Fortunately, she was smiling, not looking annoyed.

“It means a great deal to me, too. I knew we’d have things to talk about the first time I saw your room. Well, okay, I knew that before I saw your room, but I saw it fairly early on...”

“Because we had to make sure The Phantom and Christine would fit together. And that was the day I found out you could sing!”

“Which got my arm twisted, and Angie sucked into all this. Which are very good things! Now, I can’t wait to sing together — or at least close to together — in whatever we do next.”

“I can’t wait, really. I ... I feel like ... after USC...”

“If the end of that sentence is ‘it’ll be good to do this with friends and have time to develop things,’ then I’m happy. If it has anything to do with ‘proving yourself’ or ‘making up’ or whatever, stop it! It’s not your fault that you couldn’t do a perfect job of learning a show in under three weeks — not even if some of the others could.”

She sighed. “Thanks. I’m still working my way through that.”

“I know you are, honey. And that’s fine. But you did fine. My guess is that you learned quite a bit from trying, and that’s why you went. You didn’t go to put on ‘Hair’. Or even to learn ‘Hair’. You went to learn things to be a better you, and I’m going to bet you’ll find those things turning up as we work on this spring’s show. You might well wind up teaching them to the rest of us.”