Chapter 125: Pre-Prom Preparations

Saturday, May 5, 1984

Angie and I had a fairly quiet morning at home with Mom and Dad. We were rapidly running out of those. At most we’d have a few more in May, and maybe one or two in June and August. After that, they’d be forever changed. Still good — in some ways, even better, perhaps — but once you don’t live somewhere, those quiet mornings have a different quality from the ones you spend with people you live with.

We went out around noon to vote. This would be my, and Angie’s, first time voting in this lifetime. State law allowed her to vote in the primary since she would be eighteen by the general election, which both made sense and was nice.

We were all voting in the Republican primary. It would have been nearly impossible for Angie and me to vote for one of the Democratic candidates for President because of their confusing ‘vote twice’ system. The primary covered other races, but the caucuses — tonight at 7:15, when we would be at, or nearly at, Prom — picked the Presidential candidate. They’d continued to have one of several odd two-step systems until the 2010s.

Reagan was a shoo-in, of course. The more interesting race was the one to replace John Tower as Senator. Phil Gramm had won before, and I suspected he would again. His primary challenger was one Ron Paul, who — at this point — was a libertarian-leaning Republican. I hadn’t been happy with some of Paul’s choices later in life — not at all — but I hadn’t been happy with Gramm, either, so I was planning to vote for Paul, knowing it was likely pointless.

Around one, I headed to my room to double-check that everything I needed for the Prom was either out or packed. Angie did the same. I had no idea what any of the girls were wearing — of course — and would look forward to the surprise. As for me, this would be my new tux’s first outing. In a somewhat unusual development, I was wearing a white shirt. Jas had picked the bow tie and cummerbund, which were still in their closed boxes, adding to the surprise. I wouldn’t see them until I got dressed.

After we’d finished that, Mom took both of us to visit Jane. This might be the last time she did that. After this, our visits to Jane would be our own, both because we wouldn’t live in Houston and because we’d both be eighteen and past mandatory reporting age. Jane had been clear long ago with Mom (and Dad) that they would be out of the loop at that point, and I think Mom and Dad were both fine with that. As adults, we would be in charge of our own lives, and if we did something they didn’t approve of, it was our business, not theirs.

Would we cross the biggest line? The same answer as always applied: we didn’t know, and even if we guessed, we could be wrong. I certainly didn’t see us falling into bed the day after Angie’s birthday, but (on the grounds that it should be a surprise) that might be as good a day as any.

It might never happen, or it might happen again and again. We would all be fine, either way. Well, we would if Paige was on board — something I still didn’t know! — but, if Paige wasn’t, Angie wouldn’t do it in the first place.

Angie went first, as usual, and then I went in as she came out. We touched hands as we passed, as we always did. And, also as we always did, Jane and I hugged once we were in private.

I headed to my favorite chair, Jane settled in hers, and we smiled to each other.

“Maybe the last meeting of high school,” I said.

Jane nodded. “But hardly the last meeting.”

“No. Definitely not. We’ll be friends forever.”

“Something I’m supposed to frown on, but exceptional patients call for exceptional rules.”

I chuckled. “Indeed.”

“It’s been a busy month.”

“Very busy. Fortunately, it’s worked out well.”

She nodded. “You’ve been planning to fight for Cammie all this time, haven’t you?”

“If necessary. I didn’t necessarily expect it to be a literal fight, but all I got was a bit of a smack.”

“Which you agree was probably a mistake.”

“Yeah, I do,” I said. “It worked out well, but I should’ve stepped out of range. There were plenty of witnesses who saw him take that swing at me.”

“How’s she holding up? Both with that and with knowing the truth about you?”

“Good. We went to see a performance by our friend Marshall Briggs — who we’ve probably mentioned...”

She nodded, fairly firmly. Angie might have gone over it, too.

“Anyway, they were putting on ‘The Wiz’. Great time had by all, including Cammie. That put all six of us who know together for dinner and for the drives, and we talked a bunch. That’ll get more common rather than less, if Cammie moves in, except of course...”

“Her girlfriend.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “Mel is a potential stumbling block. None of us want to tell Cammie that she can’t share, but Cammie sees why it’s a risk, and will decide over time. It might eventually be inevitable, and that’s likely fine. I wouldn’t say that the stakes are any lower — they might actually be higher — but we’re more confident that people will keep a lid on things, partly because it just sounds so incredibly insane.”

“I still occasionally question my sanity, though usually it’s after you play havoc with the normal progression of time.”

“That gets to all of us,” I said, chuckling.

“Switching subjects ... State champions, and Tournament of Champions champions. How does that feel?”

“Good. It’s wrapped up with Cammie being there, of course, but ... yeah. That was a goal this year. Well, State. ToC was a mild surprise, though it’s not like we weren’t close last year. It makes us more optimistic about Nationals, too.”

“I can imagine that it would. At this point, now that there are actual people who would’ve been champions otherwise, do you have any concerns?”

“So ... my first reaction is to say no. My second reaction is ... pretty much the same. My ‘unfair advantage’ is limited — maturity, study skills, perspective, and so forth. They matter, but they can be learned. Cammie and I put in a tremendous amount of work, and part of it was practicing with others who also put in a tremendous amount of work, people who will never win State or ToC or Nationals in CX. Gene, Sue, and Amit, for instance. I don’t think we ‘cheated.’ It’s good to think about, because we’ll just keep running into this sort of thing.”

“Indeed. In a way, this is trivial compared to, say, you all winding up having millions that might be considered to rightfully belong to Michael Dell.”

“Some of that is going to depend on how things go. Do we make things better, or do we just take a slice of the pie? $40,000 is big in March. It probably would be trivial in July. But, if it changes the growth curve, maybe the whole pot is that much bigger. If the company grows ten percent more, it’s nearly a wash. On the other hand, maybe we broke it. Or maybe it was always going to do better. Or maybe this universe’s Michael is predestined to go bonkers and run things into the ground, no matter what we do. Maybe the non-performance clause lets us fix what he would have ruined otherwise.”

“In other words: who knows?” she said, chuckling.

“Exactly. We took an educated guess. It’s probably a good one, but it could go wrong. I thought Milwaukee had it in the bag, and they didn’t. Not my doing, but it was a good thump on the nose.”

She nodded. “My job here ... as I see it, anyway ... is twofold: to make sure I think you are behaving ethically, and to make sure you think you are behaving ethically. If either of those is off, we all need to sit down and talk and figure it out.”

“Absolutely. We really want that moral compass. That’s also maybe part of Jas’s role, and Paige’s, but they’re closer to things.”

“And, in this case, biased, since they stand to gain from the same things. I know that’s part of what they have to deal with, but...”

I nodded, then started to say something.

Jane shushed me. “I think I know what you’re about to say, and ... don’t. We’ll get there when we get there. This isn’t the time.”

I nodded, smiling. Of course, the odds were very high that we wouldn’t leave Jane high and dry after all of this, or have her only recompense being her very reasonable therapy rates. She was, by this point, one of our closest friends, and we would take care of our friends.

It was too soon to offer that, though, and we both knew it. I hadn’t been about to, but she was right to warn me off all the same.

“We got another thump on the nose,” I said.

“Oh?”

I told her about Trish and what had happened there. She frowned a few times along the way.

“Angie mentioned that, but missed some of the nuances. That’s ... interesting. You did to her somewhat of what Laura did to you.”

“Exactly,” I said, nodding, “and I don’t feel good about it at all. We need to be better than that. We can’t judge people for things they haven’t done yet. We can be cautious, and just being cautious will affect things, but I think we crossed the line from being reserved to being hostile much too quickly.”

“Tricky line, if you believed they might do something truly awful.”

I sighed, nodding. “There are so many tricky lines, Jane. So many. For instance, I know the real name of a criminal who’s only known by a pseudonym right now. Should I send an anonymous tip to the FBI? What if, somehow, I’m wrong, and it’s a different guy, though? Or what if it’s somehow better for him to be caught later, not now? And, I mean, that one’s not hypothetical, it’s a specific person.”

She sighed, too. “I would tend to say that you have no obligation, and that it’s a case where using your best judgment is the only answer.”

“We’ll vary. There are some specific incidents that I’ll move heaven and earth to avoid, if I can. Others? Maybe, and maybe not.”

“As you said, this might be a cheap lesson. Trish made mistakes — significant ones. You were never going to be close friends. Maybe it’s better that you made a mistake, too, and can learn from it.”

“That’s my hope. It’s bound to come up again, and when it does I’m going to bet it’ll be a big surprise.”

We went over a few other things, but there wasn’t a lot more of real substance. Prom was prom — aside from Angie’s news, which was really her topic, there wasn’t a lot there.

Or, I hoped there wasn’t, anyway.

Next week would be all ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ all the time, after which it would be all finals all the time. And after that, graduation, which we already knew Jane would be attending.

Busy month, but there wasn’t anything big on the agenda.

Well, okay. Cammie was still new to this, Jess had her long-delayed date request (likely more than one? I’d guess so), Sam had her request for a date, there would be the Cast Party...

Perhaps there might be something big after all.

Maybe.

Mom, of course, asked if we’d had a good talk, and we said we had. Her next comment didn’t surprise either of us, and that was likely good.

“After you graduate and move away, you’re still planning on seeing Dr. Stanton, aren’t you?”

Angie and I both nodded.

“I’m not sure that I need to...” Angie said.

“Me, neither...” I said.

“But we’ve become close, and ... things keep happening. To us, around us, all of that,” Angie said. “Good things, for the most part, but ... well, there’s that, and college is going to be stressful, what with going for two majors...”

“Or two minors, for me, probably...” I said.

“So, probably not as often, but we’re going to keep up a regular relationship with her. Professionally, I mean,” Angie said.

“Good,” Mom said. “Maybe that’s another place where I’ve changed, but ... well, at a bare minimum, I can’t fault the results, and that’s what matters.”

“Definitely!” Angie said.

When we got home, Angie and I immediately started changing for Prom. It would take me roughly half an hour less than it would take her, I was sure, but that was fine. I figured she was pulling out all the stops for this, as she should. I was, too, but there’s a huge difference between guys and girls. Even ZZ Top’s ‘Sharp Dressed Man’ — finally something I could sing again, which had not been the case at my previous prom — doesn’t describe something that would take an hour or more to put on.

Angie let me use the bathroom first, since I’d be quick and she wouldn’t. Freshly showered, I handed over the bathroom, then got into my tux. When I fetched the box with the bow tie and cummerbund, it turned out to contain a note saying ‘Don’t bother until you get to my house!’

I found that amusing, and I was sure Mom would, too. She’d get her pictures anyway, so there wasn’t an issue there.

Once all dressed, I took my little suitcase and headed out, finding Mom sitting in the kitchen, reading some magazines and noting recipes.

“You look ... casual,” she said, almost smirking. It was an interesting look for Mom.

“Jasmine put a note in with the tie and cummerbund asking me to wait.”