Chapter 45: Return of the Blues

Sunday, October 31, 1982

I awoke with a start, heart pounding, at two-thirty AM, roused by my phone. I picked it up after a couple of rings.

“Hello?” I said, probably sounding panicked.

“Fug ooo,” said a loud voice. A female voice. One I thought I recognized. And one that sounded ... high, maybe? Not at all like Candice, though. Agitated, excited. I might’ve heard a click, but it was hard to tell. I was certain Angie would be up, of course. We didn’t want to ever risk not being roused in a crisis.

“Is this ... Blue?”

“Eff. You. See. Kay. Why. Oh. You.”

“Why are you call...”

“You d ... don’t fuckin’ deserve her!”

“I...”

“She’s ... she should ... be ... with girls! Girls! Not fuckin’ boys!”

“Shouldn’t she...”

“You’ve got her s ... snowed!”

“How do I...?”

“You’re fuckin’ smarter than she is. She’s like me. We fit. You’re all super-brain. You snowed her.”

“Jasmine is every bit as...”

“Bull fucking shit. She’s like me. And she needs a girl. And she needs me. And you’re a fucking shit. And I will get you!”

“If I thought I would ever hurt...”

“You don’t think that, but you will. Because you’re fuckin’ arrogant as hell! You think you can just snow her and have her. And you couldn’t snow your fuckin’ cheerleader so you just went back to Jas. Who’s mine!”

“You have no idea of what happened with Jessi...”

“I know enough! She’s fucking Miss Goddamn Universe or something. You’d be on her like white on fucking rice if you could, which means you couldn’t. Fucking bastard. Screw off. Find someone else to fuck with. Jas is taken.”

“Blue, you’re a thous...”

“Fuck that. I’ll fuck you up. Then she’ll move here or I’ll move there.”

“What do you want? Seriously. What do you want?”

“For you to burn in hell. You fucked up my life. I fucking hate you. Bastard!” She started crying, really hard. “All I w ... wanted was J ... Jas and y ... you took her away!”

“I can’t take anyone away. She made a choice. We’ve known each other for almost a year. You knew her for three...”

“Three fuckin’ magical weeks!”

“Where she was exhausted, sleep-deprived, and her whole self-image got messed up.”

“God damn you! It got fixed! Now you’ve fucked her up again!”

I sighed. “She’ll prove it.”

“How? Goddamnit why am I listening to your crap?”

“She’ll blow the PSAT out of the water.”

“Yeah, right. Fuck that.”

“She will.”

“Bastard. Sneaky slimy fucking bastard.”

“Blue ... whatever you’re on, go sleep it off.”

“Fuck you! I will fucking make you fucking pay!”

“There’s no way Jasmine will even talk to you if you go after me.”

She broke down crying again. “Fuck ... I love her ... I fucking love her. I can’t ... it hurts ... she won’t talk to me, won’t ... goddamnit, you fucked up my life!”

“Blue. Go get sober. Call during normal hours. Central Time. During the week. Leave a message if I’m not home, and I’ll call back. I doubt I can help, but I can’t do a thing now.”

“It hurts!”

“Go. Sleep.”

“Fuck you!”

“Go. I’m hanging up.”

“Goddamni...”

I hung up. Then I stared at the phone, which thankfully did not ring. About a minute later the door popped open and Angie came in, hugging me.

“I heard the whole thing. She’s nuts!”

“I might sound like that if Jasmine had dumped me.”

“You are not a crazed hormonal sixteen-year-old drama queen high on something. You could never sound like that. You’d sound like some ‘get off my lawn’ guy.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said.

“Welcome. What are you going to do?”

“What else do I do? Reason with her.”

“Bitch. What are you going to do if...?”

“If she calls Mom and Dad? Well, one of them, I mean?” I shrugged. “What can she do? Tell them Jasmine and I are fucking? They know that. Jasmine said that she hadn’t told Blue anything too much, but I don’t know what that means, exactly. Maybe she knows about naps. Mom and Dad won’t do anything about that, now. Tell them I fucked Lexi, Sheila, Paige, Sam, Sue, whoever? Well ... yeah. Okay. Awkward, but manageable. Cammie’s gay? Hell, they might guess that. The thing is ... in the end, Mom knows one big thing. All she can really do is ground me. She knows I’ll follow the rules. She also knows it’ll screw up my life and hurt my friends. And she knows the horses are long since out of the barn. And that I’ll never promise to change my behavior as much as she’d want. That’s why she won’t do it.”

“Wow. That was impressive. How much of your own B.S. do you believe?” she said. She was grinning, though.

“All of it.”

“And that’s one reason among others that you are not, and will never be, even vaguely like Iceberg Steve or your first-life self. Iceberg Steve would never get himself into this, but if he had, he’d just ... um ... freeze. Yeah, I know. Anyway. And first-life Steve wouldn’t have the confidence to handle Mom that way. He’d have caved in first to avoid the possibility of conflict.”

“It’s a good thing that I can learn from my ample mistakes,” I said, smiling.

“A most excellent thing.”

“Excellent!” she said, giggling. “So, gonna sleep?”

“I think so.”

“Good. You should.”

“You should, too.”

“And I plan to. Here. Now.”

“Hit the lights and snuggle up, my most excellent sister.”

We snuggled up, and a few minutes later, she’d worked her magic, and we’d both gotten back to sleep.

Angie and I were surprisingly awake at church. I attributed that to Angie’s magical sleep powers. I just plain slept better with her. Also with Jasmine, if perhaps differently. Maybe that was another place where first go-round me had screwed up. If my ex-wife and I had figured out how to snuggle better...

But, then, if we had, I wouldn’t be this me, now, even if I’d died at the same time and gotten a second chance. Not only that, but my ex-wife was a universe away, almost certainly never to be seen again. And, in this universe, she was blissfully unaware of my existence, and I couldn’t imagine there being a reason to ever change that.

When we picked up Jasmine, she followed her usual hug and kiss by saying, “Blue is really ... on the warpath, pretty much.”

I nodded.

Angie said, “We know. She called at around two-thirty this morning.”

“She left a weird message a bit before that. She left four yesterday. Mama and Papa know ... enough ... of the story, and it’s not like they haven’t had the occasional ex-lover who didn’t want to let go.”

“She was a real mess,” I said.

Angie chuckled just a bit. “And, like everyone in Steve’s life, he immediately started trying to figure out how to make things better for her.”

“It wasn’t immediate. I hate to see people suffering, especially people that are good. And, her crazy calls notwithstanding, she must be fairly good or you wouldn’t have connected with her.”

Jasmine snorted. “Unlike you, I do one-night-stands. And, yes, it’s really different, but I’d have ... connected ... either way. But not gotten close. Of course, if I’d seen the red flags...” She sighed. “I’m still upset that I didn’t.”

“You were sleep-deprived and overworked. And lonely. Not making excuses so much as saying: now you know what you need to watch for in the future.”

“What do you think we should do?” Jasmine asked.

“Me, I think burn her house down,” Angie said. “But that’s me.”

“Remind me never to cross you,” Jasmine said.

“Never cross me,” Angie said, giggling a bit.

“Brat!” Jasmine said. “You get a whap.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Anyway ... besides arson ... what should we do? What should I do?” Jasmine said

“She’s a thousand miles away. She’s not likely to drive here in a frenzy and kidnap you. She might try to fuck up things with my parents...” I said.

“If she does, arson is on the table,” Angie said.

“Anyway! I think talk to her, but hang up — I mean, tell her why you’re hanging up, but hang up — if she gets abusive or insists on something unlikely,” I said, looking at Jasmine.

“Like me ditching you and waiting a year and a half to be together with her?” Jasmine said. “Which is not happening, by the way. Either part!”

“She needs to move on,” I said. “She’s far away, she’s sixteen, in high school, and in Drama. There will be other people. Hopefully people she likes and who like her.”

“I think they’re burned out on her crap,” Jasmine said.

“She can’t have alienated a whole high school,” Angie said.

“Well, no. But ... well. Quite a few of the kids there. The things I liked about her — her brashness, her take-no-prisoners and live-for-the-moment attitude, all that — are things I can see not playing well over time.”

“So ... how much damage, if she wants to cause damage?” I said.

Jasmine shrugged. “Obviously she knows we’re lovers, but ... duh. Your parents know that. She knows that there were other girls — duh, again — but not much about who. She knows a lot about Jessica, but mostly it’s what your parents know. Plus, you and Jessica aren’t lovers. She knows you two made out, but not more.”

“I’ll deal with the fallout,” I said. “I can manage.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Jasmine said, sighing. “I fucked up.”

Angie shook her head, then gave Jasmine a hug. “We’ve all said things that could come back to bite us, if someone turns on us. We assume people won’t. Anyone in Study Group could cause a mess — a big mess for some people. Drama, Debate ... there are secrets that could explode. You made a mistake, but any of us might have made a similar one.”

“Thanks, Angie,” Jasmine said.