Chapter 95: Making It More Real

Sunday, March 13, 1983

True to our word, this was a family day. Dad surprised us after church with a trip to the Doubletree’s brunch. Then we headed home, where we hung out, talking and telling stories and playing games and just enjoying ourselves. I noticed a few looks between Mom and Angie that I thought meant ‘Does Dad know?’ and ‘Not yet,’ but I might’ve been wrong about that.

It was an interesting strategy. Mom would have a week to talk to Dad while Angie was nowhere in sight. On the other hand, Angie would be ‘off spending time with her lover,’ putting it the way he (or they) might put it. I’d have to hope it all worked out, because we all had plans when we got back. Mom, Dad, Ang, me, Jas, and Paige all in the same place at the same time.

Could be great ... or could be a disaster. I was betting on great, or at least hoping for it.

Monday, March 14, 1983

The morning paper had the full tournament bracket listed, thankfully.

I looked through the games, marking Houston and NC State as winners, then making educated guesses as to the rest. I had no idea who else might be in the finals, but this would do for a bracket. I could bet the Final Four as a separate bet.

I’d lose a bunch of games, but I could easily make tens of thousands on this even before the final four, and then tens of thousands (or more) on the Final Four.

It was a no-brainer. I wasn’t sure it was the last big sports bet (probably not) but it might be getting there. The ripples were bigger in football than in other sports, so far, so maybe others would be safer. Who knew?

I lugged Angie’s and my bags out to her car, and then we gave Mom hugs as she saw us off.

“Have a great trip!” she said.

“We will, Mom!” I said.

“Definitely!” Angie said.

“I’m going to talk to your father this week,” Mom said, looking at Angie. “He’ll understand. I’m sure of it.”

Angie chuckled a bit, weakly. “I ... hope so.”

“He will. If I can, he will. I’m sure.”

“I’ll try not to worry.”

“Honey, if I thought I’d make you worry, I wouldn’t have said it. I think you’d worry more if I hadn’t said anything.”

“Yeah, I would have. Thanks, Mom. You know how much I love you.”

“I do, and ... sometimes, I almost can’t believe how lucky I am.”

“How lucky we all are, Mom,” I said. “I love you, too, and Dad, and we’ll miss you.”

Mom chuckled just a bit. “The amazing thing is that I believe you will miss us!”

“We will!” Angie said. “We always will.”

“Well ... as odd as it sounds ... good!” Mom said. “Now ... go have fun! And figure out where we’ll be sending a lot of money!”

We all chuckled. One more round of hugs, and we were on the road, with a minor diversion to place some bets...

“That went okay,” Angie said. “I’m still worried, but ... less worried? I think less worried.”

“Good,” I said. “I feel pretty certain that, when it comes to Dad, Mom is seldom if ever wrong.”

“Just so long as she doesn’t pick this time to be wrong!”

“I don’t think she will.”

I placed bets with my usual three bookies over the next half-hour. Fortunately it went quickly, so we didn’t eat into college-viewing time. There simply wasn’t another time we could’ve placed them, so it was a good thing we had time now.

After that, we picked up Jasmine (with hugs and air kisses for Camille) and then Paige. The four of us headed off to Rice, which was only about a twenty-minute drive.

The long and the short of it, for all four of us, was that it was a great school, inexpensive, and would be good on one’s resume, and we’d probably get in. On the other hand, the residential college system, however many raves it got, didn’t sound terrific to any of us, and it was much too close to home for comfort. Ang and I really did love Mom and Dad, very much so, but it felt like an hour or two, or three or four, of separation would do us a world of good. Jas felt the same, and Paige felt it even more strongly.

Another short drive and we reached U.H., which wasn’t as good (but even less expensive), not as good resume-wise, but we’d absolutely get in. It didn’t have the residential college system but, as Paige said, “The apartments nearby have great ventilation from all the bullet holes.” That was an overstatement, but less of one than any of us were comfortable with. It was hardly the South Side of Chicago, or East St. Louis, but it wasn’t the best place to be a pampered suburban gringo.

Of course, Angie’s biggest reason for avoiding U.H. was something we couldn’t mention. Been there, done that, and no interest in trying again. I couldn’t blame her. Fortunately, it was an easy sell for the others. By the time we hit the road, I was pretty certain that U.H. was only going to feature in further discussions as ‘Still no.’

We stopped at Antone’s for a slightly late lunch, and then I got us headed up Highway 290 (which was only a shadow of its future self, much to my annoyance), and then Highway 6.

As we turned onto Highway 6, Paige said, “So ... A&M. I guess I hadn’t really thought much about it. It’s just ... there ... you know? With all the jokes. But, I looked, and ... it seems ... plausible.”

I nodded, then did my best to blend fact and white lies, because ... what else could I do? At least I could pull this one off. “We all grew up with the jokes, I think, except Angie. I started considering it freshmen year when I went on the TEES trip. Which, by the way, is when I met Janet.”

Paige nodded. “It’s still weird to think of Janet as a math genius.”

“She’s really good at it,” I said. “We both just decided our better option was Debate.”

“Yeah — which is lucky for us all!” Jas said. “No Debate, and maybe I don’t hang out with Angie, which means no blind date, which means no musical for them, and no dates with them for either of us.”

“Which would ... um ... suck. In that there wouldn’t be sucking,” Paige said, giggling.

“Yes! That!” Jas said.

“Anyway,” I said, “I liked the campus, and I guess I’d already known they had a pretty strong engineering department, but there’s a lot more there. Good business school, strong in a lot of the sciences, all that.”

“And they don’t date sheep as often as the jokes would have it,” Paige said.

“It’s always seemed to me like a bunch of Agriculture majors would know that’s not a good long-term strategy,” I said.

“It was an all-male school!” she said. “The only girls were sheep and cows!”

“You have a point,” I said. “But that’s been over for twenty years, and it’s somewhere around forty percent women now.”

“Still a minority,” Angie said. “Good odds, except none of us are looking for boys to date.”

I chuckled at that.

“So, remind me of the plan from here on?” Paige said.

“I’ve got reservations at a motel...”

“Motel!” Jas said, pretending to be offended. “You’re taking us to some cheap motel?!”

I chuckled. “It’s a nice motel. College Station doesn’t have that many really nice hotels. It’ll be fine. I checked. Anyway, we’re staying in town overnight. We’ll check out the campus, then whatever of the nightlife is open to us mere children...”

That got a pretty solid laugh, all around.

“Then we’ll head back to the motel...”

“And make our own nightlife!” Paige said.

“And do whatever we want to, hopefully including sleep.”

“Eventually!” Paige said, grinning.

“Tuesday we get up, see anything we wanted to see and didn’t get to, then head to San Antonio for a brief swing by Trinity, then up to Austin. The path sucks a bit, but it’s not a bad way to cover those cities.”

“Works for me.”

“We should get to Austin in time to do the nightlife part on Tuesday.”

“Nightlife in Austin has to be better,” Paige said.

“I’d think so. That might be a minus, though,” Angie said, not sounding too much like the voice of regretful experience.

To her own credit, Paige just nodded. “Yeah, I see that. Too much of a good thing is a really bad thing. I’m not going to college to just party, much less flunk out.”

“None of us ever thought you were,” Jas said, smiling.

“That’s not true,” Paige said. “I thought that, a year and a bit ago, and probably everyone in Drama thought that about me. And ... well ... I’m still growing up, but I think I’m better.”

We all agreed. There wasn’t really any question about it — she was completely right. She’d grown a lot. The Paige of today would’ve been a good blind date for me, unlike the Paige of a year and a half ago. On the other hand, this Paige was a better date for Ang than she would’ve been for me.

“Sorry for being a downer,” Paige said, “but ... well ... I know some people who are still on that path, and it sucks, and I’m glad I’m not.”

“That’s not a downer at all, ” Angie said.

“Except for the other people,” Jas said.

“Well, yeah, but they have time to grow, too,” Angie said.

“True enough!”

“Anyway, back to the trip,” I said. “Motel again. Austin’s got hotels, but we’re fine with a motel. Besides, it’ll be familiar to some of you.”

“Oh, that place?” Paige said. “It didn’t suck. Nor did I, despite certain opportunities. The pool looked nice, but it’ll still be too cool.”

The other girls nodded. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t great swimming weather in most of the state. The southern beaches, of course, were a completely different story, and would be absolutely packed with college kids.

“Wednesday we’ll hit the campus and so forth, then drive up to Waco.”

“Where there is no nightlife!” Paige said.

Ang giggled. “Well, there’s sleeping. Or hanging out at the Dairy Queen.”

“Why does Baylor tell students not to have sex?” Jas said, giggling.

“I dunno...” I said, despite knowing the joke perfectly well.

“It might look like they’re dancing!” Jas said.

That was true, too. Baylor didn’t allow dancing. Nor sex, unless you were married (no dancing even if you were married, though, I think). There was no reasonable way any of us would actually consider Baylor, simply on religious grounds — we’d be the heathen outcasts all four years, and Angie and Paige would be expelled if anyone found out (if they were still together, anyway). Nevertheless, we’d check it off the list, just to do so.

“Motel in Waco, campus Thursday, then up to Dallas for TCU and SMU.”

“TCU is about as good a fit as Baylor, I think,” Paige said.

“That’s my impression,” Angie said.

“Yeah,” I said, “but we can look, anyway.”

“And SMU?”

“Not nearly so restrictive, and it’s a good school, so ... maybe? Worth a look, anyway,” I said. I knew it wouldn’t be likely, but why not look?

“No Southwest Texas State? Or North Texas State?” Paige said.

“We can wave as we go by?” Angie said, grinning.

“Nah,” I said. “It’d be easy to drive through campus for Southwest Texas State. We go right by there, and it was good enough for one President.”

“LBJ went there, right?” Jas said.

“Yeah. I doubt we’d really consider it, but there’s no point in not looking. North Texas State I don’t know. It’s more out of the way, but not badly.”

“We can’t look at everything,” Ang said. “We’re skipping dozens of little schools. Just in Austin, we’ll miss Saint Edwards, Concordia, and Huston-Tillotson, and then Southwestern in Georgetown. There are a bunch in Houston. Heck, we just drove right past Prairie View A&M.”