Chapter 127: Fine-Tuning

Sunday, May 6, 1984

Jasmine woke me a bit early by heading off to the bathroom. It seemed like a good idea, so I took my turn when she came back.

When I got back, she had a better idea that thoroughly messed up the sheets (again) and left us a bit sleepy. Fortunately, we had plenty of time, so we fell asleep and woke up at ten, when we’d originally planned to get up.

We were showered, dressed, and ready to go by eleven, which is when the expected knock came on the door. We opened it and let Angie and Paige in.

“Cammie says they need ten more minutes. I’m guessing that’s all four of them, but I don’t know if it’s that, or just her and Mel,” Angie said.

“Ten minutes is fine,” I said.

“Great prom!” Paige said, giggling. “I’m really glad we went, and I mean, as ‘we.’”

“I agree,” Jas said. “It was very cool. Plus, we had protesters. The least you could do was give them something to protest.”

Angie rolled her eyes. “Idiots!”

“Some of it was political strategery,” I said. Then I realized the word was out of place, and added, “Sorry. That’s a joke that works better much later, after the politician in question uses the word ‘strategery.’”

Paige giggled. “I get it, though. Funny word. I like it!”

Angie said, “Me, too, and it postdates me, in case anyone’s wondering. Tell us what you mean, Steve. I mean, the politics, not the word.”

“So ... we’ve talked about this before, some. There’s going to be a group in Houston that’ll run for city council calling themselves ‘Straight Slate.’ They’ll be anti-gay, of course, and will start out assuming that they’ll win in a landslide, when they’ll actually crash and burn. There’s some unfortunate political stuff along the way, though. Anyway, I think some of the crowd just wanted to complain about gay kids doing normal teenager things, but a few were here to get on TV and push their agenda, which has little to do with our prom.”

“Of course, you also got on TV and pushed your agenda,” Jas said, grinning.

“My agenda is better,” I said, grinning back.

We got a knock on the door again. This time it was Cammie, Cal, Mel, and Andy. The eight of us headed downstairs to the hotel’s buffet breakfast, and spent most of the time talking about how much fun we’d had. That, and making Mel blush repeatedly by praising her and her committee.

Thankfully, we weren’t bothered by anyone. No reporters, no protesters, no one at all. When I called home after breakfast, Dad said there were no reporters beating down the door, either. He also said he was very proud of me for what I’d said (or, at least, whatever had gotten on the air), and that Mom was, too.

I hoped the Clarkes (with the exception of Penelope and David) hadn’t seen the news. It probably wouldn’t have been good for their blood pressure.

We hung out until about one, then went upstairs, packed, and headed off to Study Group.

This was an odd week for Study Group. We mostly split into two camps: those who needed to work on ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ and those who didn’t.

Nothing was going to stop Connie from studying, not with valedictorian on the line. Some of the others felt that way, too, but others turned into a friendly audience (if sometimes critical — in the best of ways). That was good for us, especially when we could play off each other. It would have been helpful to have Jess here, but we’d have plenty of time with her over the next week.

We knocked off early at six so that we could go home and have dinner with our families. Paige and Jas parted with hugs and kisses. We’d see an awful lot of them this week, of course, but we’d be working our butts off when we did.

I took a few minutes to leave a message for Elizabeth, letting her know about Jasper Kent. I figured she would want to check. We still were mulling what to do (if anything) about the way Hedwig Village had handled my interrogation.

I also took a few minutes to call the RV dealership and get ideas on tow cars for the Winnebago. Its weight limit was a bit lower than I’d expected, but then I had vague memories of 2020ish RVs — seeing them towing things, not driving one! — so I wasn’t sure.

They gave me a list of things to look for. All-wheel drive or four-wheel drive mattered if the car was being towed without a dolly (‘flat’), and there were a number of other concerns. Some cars with automatic transmissions would require a transmission disconnect; others would not. That said, there were a considerable number of options. Any of them would need some modification (the Winnebago needed to control brake lights and brakes, for instance). They could recommend a shop to do the work.

They wanted me to come in as quickly as possible and do some practice driving. They could show me how a tow car hooked up at the same time. It looked like I could spare at least two hours on Saturday, so we planned for at least me to get there between one and two.

With all of this in place, I could get started car shopping.

Mom and Dad showed us the TV broadcast. They’d recorded the regular ABC late-night news broadcast and then NBC’s even later rebroadcast.

In both cases, I’d been edited down to a few positive comments. If there was going to be a quote anyone remembered, it would probably be ‘The only “right” that matters tonight is the right for people to attend the prom with their chosen date. That’s not a special right for gay people, that’s a right for everyone.’

It didn’t seem likely to go national. For one thing, it was pretty wordy. I could’ve perhaps put it more succinctly had I thought about it more, but my goal hadn’t been to generate another quote that would hit the national press.

We also had letters from A&M waiting. Sizeable ones. Lots of information about how to select our classes (we wouldn’t be able to until we got there, but they wanted us to know how it would work), purchase tickets to sporting events (ditto), and so forth.

There were forms we would need to return early (for instance, forms declining dorm space, paperwork to get our medical records sent to Student Health Services if we wanted, and so forth). We’d go through them shortly and get everything figured out.

One thing needed a bit of thought. There was a flyer about the ‘Fish Camp’ program that we’d heard about. It turned out to be a three-day, two-night session at a big church-owned retreat center. Thousands of freshmen would be there. They’d divide us up into groups of about one hundred, then subdivide those for some things. We would learn about traditions (there were a lot of those!), how to function on campus, the history of A&M, and all manner of other things, plus typical summer camp things — games and songs and whatnot.

It sounded both gimmicky and over-the-top and also like a lot of fun.

There were multiple sessions. We quickly decided that the last one — August 10-12 — looked best. We could either return the RV first, or keep it for one last bit of traveling around Texas. Either way, we would have over two weeks and a day from the end of Fish Camp to the first day of classes.

I called Jas, and Angie called Paige. Both of them agreed that it sounded fun enough. I was pretty sure that there was some eye-rolling for both of them, but then we agreed that it did sound (pardon the pun) ‘campy.’ Just — the fun sort of campy.

With them in agreement, we’d get the forms for that back quickly.

Mom and Dad headed to bed early, and Angie and I didn’t stay up much later. This was going to be a busy week, and we’d be better off starting it with more sleep.

Before we went to bed, though, my brain caught up with me and reminded me that next Sunday was Mother’s Day. Angie and I brainstormed. We couldn’t make a big deal out of it, but we could get cards and take Mom out for brunch between church and the musical.

Monday, May 7, 1984

I had a surprising number of questions about whether Angie was really gay. I confirmed that, yes, she was really dating Paige, and beyond that they’d have to ask her for themselves.

Angie and Paige got far more comments, or so I heard, plus some unwanted notes shoved into their lockers. Only notes, though, and nothing particularly ominous. Frankly, I was surprised anyone was brave enough to even shove a note into a locker by this point, given the intense scrutiny on anything locker-related. That they had notes at all tended to suggest we might not yet be done with the locker chaos.

Just before lunch, Trish found me and nudged me aside.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling.

“You’re welcome. I’m not sure what I did, or we did, or anything, but...”

“But, at minimum, you weren’t blocking me. Like I said, I know you could have.”

“I hope it was the night you wanted,” I said.

She smiled again. “Honestly ... it was. For a brief minute right at the start I wanted to kill your sister — not for the first time this year — but then I realized I was being a hypocrite. A dumb one, too. If being Prom Queen meant so much to me, how could I get upset about Angie wanting to go to Prom with Paige? That was a complete bolt out of the blue, honestly. I’d heard rumors, but I didn’t think they’d go for it. But...”

She paused, then said, “I think it made the whole evening better. It was a big deal, and I was part of it being a big deal, but it wasn’t just my big deal. Prom should be bigger than just me, or me and Mike, or whatever.”

“That sounds good to me. I’m glad it worked out for you.”

“Maybe I’m growing up or something,” she said, chuckling a bit. “Maybe a bit too little, and too late, but better late than never? Yes, I know I’m talking in clichés.”

I just smiled at that.

“If you hear anything about the lockers — any of them — let me know, please. We’ll do the same.”

“I can do that.”

“We can’t really be on the same team, not at this late date, but we can be on two teams that get along and work together,” she said.

“I like that,” I said. “Honestly, you were right the first time. We jumped to some conclusions too soon.”

“Yes and no,” she said. “Remember, I agree that crashing your study group sucked, and I would’ve done that no matter what. Like I said, maybe I’m growing some, now. I never would’ve grown then, no matter what you did.”

“I need to call Anderson and Rita about the musical. Am I going to be crossing any lines?”

She shook her head. “You’re good. We’re fixing things there. Mike had a lot of stuff to apologize for. I think they’ve warmed up to me some, mostly because I didn’t dash Mike’s hopes against the rocks.”

“I’m glad. They’re good people.”

“They are. This is the first time I’ve actually liked the parents of any of my boyfriends. It’s a weird feeling, but a good one.”

“Good,” I said. “By the way, you and Mike won’t rain on our parade if you come to the musical. No pressure — at all — but I think Anderson and Rita will come, and...”

“Thanks,” she said. “I might take you up on that. I’d have worried, otherwise.”

“I should run,” I said.

“Me, too,” she said, then gave me a quick hug. “Saturday night meant a lot, don’t get me wrong. This isn’t one of those ‘I got what I wanted and now I feel hollow’ moments. It’s just... now I can put it in some sort of mature context, and I felt like you should know that.”

“I’m glad,” I said.

She went her way and I went mine.

I filled in the people who needed to know, and they seemed happy, too. Angie was still a trifle embarrassed, but we agreed that — if she’d made a mistake — it’d been a relatively low-cost learning experience. She might not have, too. Maybe Trish was right. Maybe part of why she’d grown was because we’d pushed back at the start.

Today’s college news was that Calvin was going to UH. That was huge all around. It meant that he and Megan would be able to easily date during her senior year, it put him at UH while they were a very notable program (even if I was pretty sure that they were going to drop off a bit), it kept him around his dad, and put his dad around UH basketball (potentially a feather in their cap — always nice to have an active NBA player in the stands for some games).

I’d get to see him when UH basketball came to visit, and probably occasionally at other times.

Rehearsal went late into the evening, as expected. I really felt like everything was coming together nicely, and I could tell that Steffie did, too.