Chapter 92: Missing a Trip

Friday, March 4, 1983

Technically, I should have been in English, but Mr. Stanfield was the sort of teacher who knows that it’s worth bending the rules occasionally. So, instead of being in his class, I was outside, hugging my friends and teammates and wishing them a good trip — and to kick some ass! — at U.T.

I had mixed feelings about not going. My last trip to Austin had been ... odd. Really, really odd. But, we’d already planned to go there in a week and a bit and, as far as I was concerned, we still would. Whether I could drive or not, Angie could. We’d be in no hurry, and if we needed to take breaks or whatever, what of it? I knew it’d be Angie’s first really long drive in ... well ... maybe forever ... and she’d be nervous, but I also knew she’d be fine.

I’d planned on this trip and I thought I had my head together about it. It’d have been fun to visit U.T. and set foot in some classrooms again. Maybe even ones I’d had classes in. But there’s always next year.

Meg got a hug, Steffie got a hug, and everyone else got a hug.

Jaya, however, got me. As I was hugging her, she grinned a bit.

“Steve, I’ve got a fast question.”

“Shoot.”

“Would you be my date to Sadie Hawkins?”

I nearly choked, which would’ve been awkward. Recoverable, but awkward. From my perspective, this was out of left field, but...

My brain quickly put things together. Jaya was cute, incredibly smart, funny, charming, and a good friend and teammate. She was also Amit’s little sister, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t do this without considering his feelings. And, I’d thought she and Jeff might be hitting it off, slowly, but ... maybe this was a ploy to get him to pay attention?

Unlike Megan, I had no reason to turn her down. She wasn’t tripping over her words, and I was certain that she had no problem with self-image. So...

“I’d be honored, Jaya. Thank you for asking.”

“Yay!” she said, bouncing a little. “I was really hoping you would say yes!”

“I guessed, considering you asked,” I said, grinning.

She giggled. “It does stand to reason, doesn’t it? This is going to be fun! And, just so you know, I’ve already talked to Jasmine. And Angie, too.”

In retrospect ... no surprise there. Did I mention that Jaya’s smart? She is. Very, very smart. Checking with the girls involved first proved that. Of course, that’s a good rule for life in general and will save you no end of trouble — even if you’re a girl, too, I think.

She kissed me — lips, not cheek, if a light one — and then bounced a little more. “We’ll talk after the trip. Thanks!”

“Thank you, too. And, Jaya?”

“Yes?”

“Kick ass.”

She grinned. “I’ll do my best!”

Both Darla and Linda hugged me before boarding and mentioned that they understood the delay in arranging another date. I, of course, joked that they just didn’t want to be seen with Frankenstein’s Monster.

Amit caught up to me as the last kids were boarding and shook hands. “Hurt my little sister and I kill you with my ninja powers,” he said.

“Japanese, not Indian,” I said.

“We have ninjas, too. They’re much stealthier than Japanese ninjas. That’s why so few people know of them.”

I had to give him points for saying that with an utterly straight face. Amit would be great at Drama, if he wanted to be.

“You know I’d never do that.”

“Of course, or I’d have told her not to ask, and why. You’re a good guy, and you’ll treat her like a princess.”

“As she deserves to be treated.”

“Indeed!”

“Kick ass!”

“Yes!” he said, grinning.

I shook my head, watching them board the bus. No surprise that I’d been set up. The only surprise was by who. Jaya was ... young. Almost (but not quite) too young. The thing is, she was also mature. Very mature. I had no doubt at all that, if anything happened, it’d happen because she wanted it, planned it, and made sure it happened. I could be okay with that and, if I couldn’t, I knew how to say ‘no’ gracefully.

Angie was (no surprise) the last to hug me. “I’ll miss you, big brother,” she said.

“I’ll miss you, too. But we’ve been separated by overnight debate trips before this year,” I said.

“Not like this.”

“Nope, not like this. It’ll still be fine. Kick ass, Ang.”

“Get well, bro.”

“I will. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I watched the bus head off, waving until it turned the corner. I’d miss them, and my thoughts would be with them, but that’s how it should be. We were a team, not twenty-some individuals.

Jas and I sat holding hands in Drama. There were still over a dozen of us, but the absences were notable. No Angie, no Paige. No Mikayla, Lexi, or Sheila. Carole had stayed — she and Jas were in for ToC, and she wasn’t going to qualify in any other event. Ben and Penny had gone, though, for practice and experience. Caitlyn had gone for fun, and likely that’s why Debra had gone, too.

Class was quiet. We were ostensibly working on ‘The Sound of Music’, but we had rehearsals for that, and it wasn’t a good idea for me to either sing or dance right now. The substitute they’d gotten had no idea what to do with us, so she let us do what we wanted and read her book.

I let Jas know about Jaya, of course. She’d decided to go with Charles, who really loved dances, but didn’t have a boyfriend (even if he’d been willing to go with one, which he likely wouldn’t have been).

Debate was the same, only worse. More kids gone, and the substitute thought we should do something. So ... we worked on Extemp filing. That’s never a bad thing — except that it was pointless, right now, at least for me. This was the last tournament anyone qualified would go to until ToC or State. By the time either happened, the world would have moved on. Some topics are evergreen, and some last for more than a month, but a lot of this was pointless paper-shuffling.

That and she also frowned on our holding hands, much less kissing. That added insult to injury! Or, perhaps, vice versa.

With Angie gone, Mom picked me up, letting me know that Angie’d called, having arrived safely at the team hotel. Ironically, or not, it was the same Howard Johnson I’d had ... flashbacks? flash-forwards? weird reactions? ... to on the family trip to Austin, the one I’d stayed almost every decade of my first go-round. And, having thought that, I figured perhaps I needed to make a reservation there for our Spring Break trip.

Mom driving me home like this was a bizarre flashback to fifteen-year-old-me forty-something years ago. The me in a life that this me, this Mom, had never had. I’d very seldom had Mom take me to or from Memorial by myself in this life, especially if you discounted medical appointments, but it’d been a daily experience in my other life. The one I could never mention to Mom.

It was ... lonely. I’m good at being alone, I really am. Or, I was. I hadn’t been alone in the last three years, not really, and that was... better. Much better. The closest I’d been was that awful month of Max, when Angie froze me out, but even then I’d had friends of a quantity and quality first-life me never had in high school.

In my first life, much of the time it’d been me and Mom and Dad, and even then ... it often wasn’t the three of us, it was me, and Mom&Dad, together, the two of them a unit. I had my D&D friends, and there’d been many drives like this one for that, too — Mom taking me back and forth to an event that had no place for her, and that we couldn’t even really talk about.

Compared to my first life, my life now was practically unrecognizable. I wasn’t even close to the same person — and, yet, I think that, in the ways that really matter, I was. That first-life me had been decent and kind, thoughtful, a good friend to the friends he had, a romantic at heart, smart, funny ... so many things that I was now. He lacked confidence, he was shy, introverted, and thought of himself as even fatter than he really was, but ... at his core, he was me, and I was him.

I was just him done right. Whatever else happened, whatever path my life took from here, that part mattered. Do better, and do it right, too.

‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul,’ indeed? Not perhaps the religious meaning, but ... I could see a world of temptations opening up. Ang and I talked about some. Me, turning my charm and wit, my flair for romance, into crass seduction. Her, losing herself again in drugs and chasing the rich crowd, but this time perhaps with the skills to manage the addiction and the wealth to fit in. Either of us becoming cold, disconnected, treating people as tools instead of friends. Becoming arrogant, confident in our superiority (which was, in so many ways, something given to us, not earned).

Maybe this was a reminder. One bad night, one idiot doing the wrong thing, and it could go away. Some of it, or all of it. I didn’t think that I needed a reminder, nor that Angie did. I couldn’t identify anything we’d been doing that was wrong, or needed ‘fixing.’ But ... sometimes the best reminders are those that come before there’s even a problem.

If so ... thank you, universe, or God, or Gods, or ... whoever or whatever. Message received.

Saturday, March 5, 1983

I made a call to Candice’s house early in the afternoon, but just got their machine. I left her a ‘Happy Birthday’ message, and told her I’d call back tomorrow. My guess was that she’d be celebrating with Erwin and Sandy, and likely with Sherry, too. She, in turn, would assume that I was still tired from the accident.

After that, the next thing on my agenda was the meeting with our lawyer at two. Not only was he meeting with us on a Saturday, but the meeting was at our house, not some law office. It stood to reason: many of their clients were injured, maybe disabled, and going to someone’s office might be a burden.

Camille dropped Jasmine around one forty-five. It’d be a lot more convenient for him to meet with all of us at once. Camille begged off staying, saying that she trusted Dad to handle it. My guess was that this was a bit of future-in-law management. If Camille and Francis trusted the lawyer (and they did) why not let Dad handle things?

Jasmine was a plaintiff in the case, not only a witness, but only in part of the case. He hadn’t assaulted her, after all. Slamming into us with his car doesn’t count as ‘assault,’ even though it seems like it should.

I liked the lawyer when I saw him, but then I’m sure that’s part of his trade. Mid-thirties, handsome, polished. He shook hands with Dad first.

“Dale Lancaster,” he said. “From Baird and Lecroix.”

I’d heard of Baird and Lecroix. They had a solid reputation. My case would be much too small for either Baird or Lecroix, but anyone from their firm would likely be a pretty solid attorney.

“Nice to meet you in person,” Dad said.

Then he offered me his hand and we shook.

“Steve Marshall. Nice to meet you, Sir, though I wish I hadn’t.”

He chuckled. “A liability of the job. No one I meet wants to be in the situation they’re in. If they do, that’s a big red flag!”

He turned to Jasmine and said, “And you must be Miss Nguyen.”

“Jasmine. Yes, Sir. Like Steve said ... a pleasure, if an unwanted one.”

He chuckled. “Definitely. Now, let’s settle down and go over things.”

We sat at the dining room table (already cleared of the usual place-settings and candles). Mom pulled up a chair and joined us.

“I’ll start by telling you a few things you likely don’t know, though they’re public record. It’s just that the papers run behind on things like this. The other driver’s name is Nathan McBride.”

Running it through my memories, I came up with nothing. No famous McBrides that he might be, no politicians, teachers, friends’ parents, or anything else. I might well have forgotten someone, but it was at least a good sign.

Mr. Lancaster continued, saying “He’s thirty-four. No priors in terms of drunk driving, but he has a few speeding tickets — more than he could clear with defensive driving — and two accidents on his record in the past five years. That helps. He’s quite well-off, which of course has our firm’s attention...”

Everyone chuckled a bit at that. It was true. We wouldn’t be sitting here with an attorney from Baird and Lacroix if the other driver was poor and uninsured.

“The flip side of that is that he has the means to mount an active defense and presumably will do so. We hope that he and his counsel can see the writing on the wall and settle for a reasonable sum.”

We all nodded at that.

“One more thing. I said it was public record and it is. However, your position on Mr. McBride is ‘no comment’ if anyone asks. Newspapers, friends, etc. Now, it’s fine to say ‘that guy was a jerk.’ Saying ‘Nathan McBride is a jerk’ doesn’t serve our interests and, at an extreme, could be slander. You can think it, and say it amongst yourselves, but not where it can get out. I strongly advise you to never mention or acknowledge his name unless you absolutely have to, and — if you do — make some vague comment about hoping justice will be served or the like.”

We all nodded again. It made sense, and was easy enough to agree to.

“Now, let’s start with you, Steve. Tell me everything you can remember about the accident.”

I did, going over things in as much detail as possible. I’d already done this for the police report, so — even if I’d been likely to forget, which I wasn’t — I’d gone over it fully before.

At the end, he nodded a little. “The police released a copy of their report since you hired me, Mister Marshall,” he said, looking at Dad. “Steve, your statement tonight is remarkably similar to your statement in the police report.”

“Is that unusual?” I said.

He nodded. “Often it is. People try to hide or misdirect with the police to make themselves look as good as possible, or they forget things and bring them up later. Your consistency is encouraging, because even with a formal deposition — which we’ll do as a matter of course — you could be asked to testify in court. The more you stick to one set of facts, the better.”

I nodded a little (damned neck brace!) and smiled. “The facts are the facts. I’ll do my best not to forget them. The whole thing is pretty much etched upon my memories, though I’m aware of how often eyewitness testimony can be wrong.”

That was a gift from the future. Next year’s Debate topic featured several common affirmative cases blasting eyewitness testimony for reasons that were quite valid: juries tend to believe it, yet it’s just plain wrong quite often.

He gave me a surprised look, but nodded, then continued, saying, “One thing that really helps us is that the hospital ran a toxicology screen on you. That’s unusual, but it’s a big plus, since the police write-up of the scene has a few references to you ‘sounding intoxicated.’ I know that’s from your injuries — the battery part of our case! — but it could confuse a jury.”

“That’s my doing, Sir,” I said. “I convinced the E.R. doctor to run one on the basis of how I sounded.”

He chuckled. “That was very quick thinking. Seriously, that could be the difference between a jury finding joint liability and sole liability.”