Chapter 66: Seeing Some Sights

Monday, December 27, 1982

Right around ten, I loaded Angie’s bag, as well as my own, into the back of my car. Then we both gave Mom hugs.

“Drive safe!” she said. “We’ll see you Thursday, right?”

“Thursday afternoon, yes,” I said.

“Have a fun trip, both of you!”

“We will, Mom,” Angie said.

“Definitely!” I said.

“Call when you get there!”

“Of course we will,” Angie said.

We hit the road, heading to Jasmine’s house.

“Any last-minute thoughts on what we should do?” I said.

“Nah. Tour guide Steve, or tour guide Jas, can decide,” she said, grinning.

“What about tour guide Paige?”

She giggled. “If Paige leads the tour, we’ll just stay in the hotel.”

“Nah. She’ll need to eat.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Food,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Oh. Well. Occasionally.”

“And...”

“Before you say it, yes. I know Paige wouldn’t actually do that, silly. I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought she was just about sex.”

“Of course. But you needed to say it.”

“Because...”

“Of Carrie. Right. And we can’t discuss that subject for the next few days, not without it seeming a little weird if we go off and talk quietly away from the girls.”

“Yeah ... fine. You have a point,” she said, sighing. “I don’t know if I’m ready. But I won’t know if I’m ready until I try. I can’t just pine away for a girl that’s a universe away. I mean, there’s undoubtedly an almost-Carrie here, but finding her? What ... check every girl within a couple of years of our age across the whole state whose name is Carrie or Caroline or Carolyn or ... well ... Carol ... or ... God only knows? I mean, she was Carrie Thompson, but that’s her married name, and she wouldn’t be married right now. She wasn’t then, either, but she hadn’t changed back and I don’t know the other one.”

“That’s what it keeps coming down to, yeah. No way to find her, or any guarantee that it would be her in a meaningful sense.”

“Maybe the universe has a plan. I don’t know. I need to get over her. Or, not, and just have fuck-buddies. Plus, a brother that I really and truly love to pieces, but can’t marry.”

I reached over and squeezed her hand. “You wouldn’t, anyway.”

“With Jas in the picture? No. And ... without... probably not, no. I mean ... oh, hell, I don’t know what I mean. Just ... okay. No. I wouldn’t, not if I was still carrying a torch for Carrie. I’d fuck things up. And if I wasn’t carrying a torch for Carrie, I’d ... I don’t know what I’d do. I can’t even think about it, because I am.”

My thought was that, in the end, worries about Mom and Dad would always be too big a barrier for the two of us, that way. In any case, this wasn’t the time to get deeper into that conversation. First, because we’d arrived at Jasmine’s house, and second, because (consciously or not) I was pretty sure this trip was about whether Angie could really date Paige, not just be fuck-buddies. Angie and Paige lasting was likely a long shot, but that wasn’t the point. Dating was dating, and it was different.

Jasmine was waiting at the door. After a hug and kiss, I carried her bag to the car, put it away, and she slid into the front seat. Angie slid back into the front seat, too, and we were off to Paige’s.

“This is going to be so much fun!” Jasmine said, grinning.

Angie grinned, too. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”

“What’re we doing, boyfriend?”

I chuckled. “It’s not all my plan. Angie was proposing just staying in the hotel room the whole time.”

“I was not! I said that if Paige was in charge, that’s what we’d do.”

Jasmine grinned. “Might be right at that. Okay, I got as far as the Riverwalk, maybe the Alamo, a few restaurants that might be good ... dunno. That’s about it.”

“The Museum of Art looks good. I mean, I’m spoiled, but I’m also curious.”

Angie nodded. “Yeah. I’d like that, I’m sure.”

“Also,” I said, “there are a few movies that might be good. We’d probably enjoy ‘The Dark Crystal’ or ‘Tootsie’.”

“But not ‘Trail of the Pink Panther’,” Angie said. “Good God, no!”

“That bad?” Jasmine said, chuckling.

“It’s really lousy, and ... it’s lousy in a bad-taste sort of way. It’s a cash grab.”

“And you don’t have to put up with bad taste sharing a room with Paige,” I said.

That got me two whaps. Gentle ones — driving has its perks!

“True!” Jas said, giggling.

“Yeah, you have a point,” Angie said.

“So...?”

“You still deserved a whap,” Angie said.

“Definitely!” Jas agreed.

I pulled up to Paige’s house. She wasn’t my date, but I still carried Paige’s bag to the car and put it away. Paige’s mom might have been surprised to see me but didn’t seem overly bothered. Heck, she might’ve thought it’d reduce the chance of mischief, if she thought we’d only gotten one room ... unless it was the idea of mischief with both Angie and me in the same room that was why she was surprised. I had no idea.

Paige and Angie took over the back seat, and we again hit the road. San Antonio is about three and half hours west of Houston, almost all of which is on Interstate 10. Clear sailing and not a lot of traffic on this Monday morning.

Paige popped in a cassette, which turned out to be a surprise: the cast recording of ‘Cats’.

“What’s this?” Jasmine said.

“Musical! Listen! You’ll figure it out!”

It took Jasmine almost no time to clap and say, “Yay! ‘Cats’! I was meaning to listen to this!”

That pretty much did it for conversation on the drive. We listened to the whole soundtrack once through (stopping for a slightly late lunch in Columbus along the way), then did a sing-along with as much of it as we could on the second pass. Most likely we’d have more sing-alongs on this trip.

I pulled up to the Hilton Palacio Del Rio around three, parking the car in the check-in area. I waved off the valet and bellman for now. Ang and I both headed in, which likely confused them.

Ang watched me check in (no issues, not this time, and I didn’t even get a funny look) and then checked in herself. She got a slightly funny look. I suspected I was starting to look at least plausibly maybe-18, but she still didn’t look that old. Still, the clerk ran her American Express and decided it was all fine.

She grinned as we walked back to the car, grabbing my hand. “That was fun!” she said. “First time! Like ... ever!”

I gave her hand a squeeze. “Better late than never.”

“So much better. So much!”

I was glad there was no one close. The idea of a sixteen-year-old girl lamenting that she’d never checked into a hotel before and that it was ‘better late than never’ was nonsense, after all. Except, that is, for this particular sixteen-year-old.

This time I let the bellman fetch the bags, letting him know they were going to two rooms. I wasn’t going to bother with valet, though, so we headed to self-parking, then walked in, both couples hand-in-hand. Again, Angie and Paige were beneficiaries of how common it was for girls to hold hands without there being any particular meaning to it. Two guys? Instant trouble many places in 1982, and quite a few even in 2020.

We rode up to our rooms (next to each other, but without a connecting door, as planned) and met the bellman. I tipped him as he dropped off the bags in the rooms. I have no idea what he thought of Ang and Paige sharing a king bed. For all I know, he might’ve guessed they were sisters.

We flopped in the chairs in our room, Jas in my lap, Paige and Angie snuggled up in the other chair, looking out the open window at the city. We had a decent view from up here.

“So, what now?” Paige said. “Nap?” She wiggled her eyebrows a little, getting Angie to snicker a bit.

“Mayyyyyybe,” Ang said. “I could use one. Just a brief one, though.”

“I was thinking more of a brief-less one, really,” Paige said, grinning.

“She’s incorrigible,” Jasmine said, chuckling.

“Yet, people keep incorriging me,” Paige said.

That got three groans. Followed by a “Good one!” from Angie, which was itself followed by a kiss.

“I’m good either way,” I said.

“Very good,” Jas and Paige said, nearly simultaneously, then laughing.

I rolled my eyes. “Is that how this trip is going to go?”

“Less talking, more ... you know ... but, yeah,” Paige said, still chuckling.

“Okay. So. Nothing against naps. Dinner in a couple of hours?” Jas said.

“Dinner’s good. Any ideas?” Paige said.

“Mexican?” Jas said.

“Mexican works for me,” Ang said.

Paige nodded along, and so did I.

“So ... naps, or whatever, then we get together in a bit?” I said.

“Good idea!” Paige said, grabbing Angie’s hand and getting up. “C’mon, let’s go tour our room!”

Angie giggled, getting up, too. “I’ll see you in a bit, if I survive.”

“You’ll survive,” Paige said. “I need you alive for at least the next three days!”

They headed out with a lot of laughter.

Jas grinned, turning her head and looking at me. “Ah ... young love.”

“Or young lust.”

“Both? Mostly lust, I agree.”

I gave her a warm kiss, which she eagerly returned.

“Whereas...”

“Young love,” she said, nodding. “Very much so.”

“Nap?” I said.

“The real kind. Believe me, I want to break the bed in, and we will, tonight. But, now? Nah.”

“Works for me.”

“I knew it would.”

I’d gotten tired of dealing with payphones, and the Hilton was a bit more reasonable about calling-card access fees than the Hyatt had been, so I called home from the room, letting Mom know we were safe and settled in and giving her our room numbers.

Jas stripped down to her underwear while I was on the phone, making me wiggle my eyebrows at her. I stripped, too, once I was off the phone, and we snuggled up, looking out the window. I guess the still-open curtains said she wasn’t worried about peeping Toms after our time in Corpus.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too,” I said.

“This is still special, three trips in.”

“It is,” I said, nodding.

“Next year?”

“We’ll see what Spring Break will be like. If there’s no family trip I expect we’ll go somewhere. If not, maybe early summer? Or some weekend? Spring will be busy, but ... still. And then there’s the summer. Even with Northwestern, there’ll be some time somewhere.”

“Yay!” she said, snuggling in just a bit tighter. “I’m greedy. I really love being able to sleep with you.”

“You know I feel the same way.”