Chapter 154: Opportunities

Tuesday, June 26, 1984

Jas and I slept a bit late. When we got up, we had breakfast with Camille (who teased me about the ‘walk of shame’), then headed out in the Subaru. The plan for the day was to pick up the RV and start loading it for the trip so that we could get an early start tomorrow. Then I had dinner and my date with Jess.

A little bird had told me that Angie and Paige had a date of their own. Jas would be sitting at home, but I suspected that some of that was because there might be some entertainment through her wall.

We headed to my house first so that I could change. Mom had a bit of a grin when we hugged, but she didn’t say anything. After all, she’d known this was going to happen when we left last night. Jas and Mom got to talking while I changed. I could hear enough to know it was about the upcoming trip.

This year would be different. Everyone had met Jas and Paige last year, but this year it’d be much clearer exactly what the relationships were. Oh, if someone didn’t know, it would be easy to imagine that Paige was simply a close friend, but there were newspaper articles. That, and no one was going to lie if asked.

Odds of an Aunt Helen meltdown were fairly high, unless she was distracted or missed the somewhat obvious. If so ... well, it’d been a long time coming.

Jas and I got to the RV place around noon and had the behemoth parked at her house by one. We had no problem with the rental itself, and we went ahead and towed the Subaru back just so that I could get reacquainted with it.

We spent an hour or so loading Jas’s things in the RV. Overall, I think we did a much better job of packing this time, having the experience of the first trip fresh in our minds.

After we had it loaded, we moved it to Paige’s house. Angie and Paige were hanging out there, and the four of us got Paige’s things loaded pretty quickly.

Jean Seiler came out and watched for a bit, and teased Paige a bit about going to visit our family for a second time when she hadn’t seen her own grandparents since 1982. Paige said perhaps she and Angie would go visit soon, when Tony and Jean did. They hadn’t visited their parents since 1982 either.

Finally, we headed to ... well ... Mom and Dad’s house. I’d started to struggle with the name again. It’d been ‘my house’ or ‘our house,’ and then ‘my parents’ house,’ followed by ‘the Marshall house’ once I was with my ex-wife, then ‘Dad’s house,’ and finally ‘my house/our house’ again. Now it was moving back to being Mom and Dad’s house in my thoughts, though I was sure the shift would take some time.

On the way, I brought up a subject I’d been considering. If I knew of specific people or situations for Jess to be wary of, should I mention it to her? The consensus was yes, but to attempt generalities. The people who were guilty of awful things in my universe might be very different in this one, after all.

When we got to the house, Mom helped a bit with loading the RV until Dad got home. He had to tour the RV again, of course, and Mom joined him. I could see the wheels turning in both of their heads, and I again hoped that this would amount to something.

By four-thirty, we had the RV pretty much loaded for our big trip. It would stay in front of Mom and Dad’s house until tomorrow morning. Jas would pick up Paige in the Subaru and drive here, we would hook it up, and then we’d be off to College Station. We had a meeting with Kathleen (and probably Paul and Glenn) to finalize house plans. Cammie would be heading back up there tomorrow, so we’d all be there. Our hope was that we could hit the road after the meeting and make perhaps two hundred miles.

Mom and Dad would fly up to Chicago on Saturday and meet us there. We would park the RV at an RV place not far from the Hilton and go back and forth in the Subaru. Things were a little less certain in Wisconsin, but we had more options there.

We made a plan with Dad that was a bit unusual. We would pick them up at the airport in Chicago and he would rent a car in Skokie. It was cheaper to pick up the rental at the neighborhood branch than at the airport (something I’d seen before), and we would need to come back down to Chicago anyway if we were heading east (which I thought we probably would).

The best part of it, really, was that it gave us a bit of extra time when they landed. It’d be much more fun to meet them at the airport and drop them off there than for them to just appear in their own car and say goodbye somewhere else, or at least we thought so.

I changed into date clothes around five. Button-down shirt, khakis, fairly nice shoes. Nothing fancy, but befitting the situation.

I picked Jess up around five-thirty. Kimberly — her mother — gave me a little wave this time. I knew Kimberly slightly disapproved, but she wasn’t going to meddle, especially since I’d dated Jess off and on for years and had been with Jas the entire time.

That, and if anyone could take care of herself, it was Jess.

This time we headed to Rico’s, at Jess’s suggestion. It was one I approved of. I wasn’t likely to eat at Rico’s all that many more times, and it was nice to get one more chance. Business was great for him now, and he likely wouldn’t miss us from a financial standpoint. I know he knew we’d helped, though.

As we ate, the conversation came around to a point where I could say, “Um ... so ... about those ‘casting couches... ‘“

Jess smiled softly and said, “Yes?”

“Look, I can’t list everyone to be wary of...”

“And I wouldn’t want you to,” she said.

I nodded. “Nor would I, because people might not be the same. Nevertheless, if I knew something, and said nothing at all...”

“You’d feel awful if someone you suspected of being a problem was a problem.”

“Exactly.”

“So?” she said, smiling a bit. “You can tell me. I think I’d prefer to know. Just ... maybe ... not everything?”

“That makes sense. Okay ... one is, if you wind up working with anyone who’s had a TV show named after themselves, just ask. That’s a lot of people, but 99% of them are innocent. If you don’t wind up working with anyone I’m suspicious of — no harm, no foul.”

She nodded. “That makes sense.”

“And the other, for now at least, is ... well, both more likely and more of a worry. This time I’m going to paint with another broad brush, but narrower. If you take an audition with anything connected to Miramax, just be careful. I’m sure nearly everyone there is just fine. Maybe everyone is, but in my universe, there were people who were very much not fine, and...”

“Got it. I can do that. I can be careful of that.”

“There are more, but those two cover maybe the worst two. Also, the easiest two. There are more and more ‘gray areas’ and ‘he-said she-said’ cases, but neither of those are,” I said.

“I like that you’re watching out for me,” she said. “Here’s one I know I can share. Laura independently also told me to keep an eye on Miramax.”

“Huh!” I said. “I’m pretty sure the whole scandal with them was very quiet until much later in my universe.”

“That, or she had inside information,” Jess said, smiling.

“I didn’t think she was close to ... Jess,” I said.

“There were ... nuances,” Jess said, chuckling a bit. “I don’t think the other Jess got ... harmed ... either, though I’d bet she probably did something she didn’t truly want to. I expect to be pushed into something. There are lines. Some things ... been there, done that. Some things ... maybe. Some things... hell no!”

I nodded. “Your life, your choices, and we’ll support you.”

“But not unconditionally,” she said, winking.

“As we discussed,” I said, nodding, “but that was about you being the bad guy, pretty much.”

“Yeah, I know. I just had to tease about it,” she said, grinning a bit more.

“Tease away!”

“Speaking of teasing,” she said, “It has come to my attention that the walls at Jasmine’s aren’t all that good at muffling sound.”

“I might have been aware of that,” I said.

She giggled. “Doesn’t bother me at all. I’m just glad I wasn’t thinking about it before. Now? It’s not such a big deal.”

“That’s good. Jas enjoyed it, I’m pretty sure.”

“She enjoyed it quite a bit,” Jess said, grinning widely. “I’m very certain of that. She was ... quite clear.”

“I’m guessing that doesn’t bother you.”

“Nah. Seriously, it doesn’t. If anything, it’s yet another way I’m sure that I’m not stepping on her toes. It’s not like the rules aren’t clear, I know, but rules don’t trump feelings. I was very sure of the feelings, or else I wouldn’t have asked — or would’ve talked with Jasmine about it right before asking — but it’s still good to be that much more sure. It’s ... I think we’ll be friends forever — all of us — and anything that would hurt that is way more important than sex.”

“I agree, of course. It’d pretty much break the rules if it was a risk to that, really. One of the rules is ‘not if we think it’s a bad idea,’ and anything that breaks up friendships is a bad idea,” I said.

Then I hesitated, and added, “Except, of course, we’re all smart enough for clever hypotheticals, like ‘What if it broke up a bad friendship that we thought should be broken up?’ Like ... what if it broke up someone and her abuser? But there’s a whole lot of ‘the ends justify the means’ in that.”

“Which loops around to why you won’t — and shouldn’t — support me unconditionally. I can be a bit of an ‘ends justify the means’ girl.”

I shrugged. “Everyone can be, to some extent. Again ... hypotheticals. There are always ends that can be claimed to justify some pretty extreme means.”

“This is a really great date conversation!” Jess said, giggling. “I mean that, too! Whoever I date, I want to be able to have conversations like this. And silly light ones, too, but if whoever-it-is can’t talk about weird, important stuff, it won’t work.”

“Which pretty much adds up to ‘don’t lower your standards.’”

“It does, yeah. Anyway, I really don’t intend to date for a while. Best laid plans and all, but ... well. If I meet someone who’s on your level, or hypothetically on Jas, Angie, or Paige’s level, that’s a different conversation. I just have to be careful with that last part. Laura assures me that it’ll be fine in a decade or two, but right now? Kiss of death.”

I nodded. “I can see that.”

“Of course, if they can keep a secret...”

I chuckled. “That does make a difference.”

“Speaking not at all of which, I tracked down that book.”

“Mm?”

“‘The Princess Bride’,” she said. “It’s terrific! I loved what he did with the story inside the story. And the footnotes, and ... everything. I get why you’d quote it.”

I nodded. “It’s been a favorite for a long time.”

“The notion of ‘true love’ is ... fascinating, really. I think you and Jas have true love, I really do. And Angie and Paige. You and I don’t, but we love each other, and that love is true, it’s just not ‘true love.’ It’s something else.”

“That makes sense.”

“The thing that fascinates me,” she said, smiling a bit, “is that I don’t think I’d have liked any of us in the other universes. Not just you. I mean, yes, every other version of you sounds like someone I would either ignore or dislike. Angie, too. Paige and Jas are black holes, so who knows, but Laura? I don’t know enough about your version, but her own account of herself ... no. And me! The version in your first life? Too shallow! The version in Laura’s? Too ... something. Putting up with her husband dumping another woman at the altar just to be with her? Yuck! I mean, Laura filled in some gaps and I can see why he fit that version of me. He had a lot of what makes you you, minus the ethics but with the ability to back me unconditionally. But getting there that way? That me had put at least one foot onto the dark side, and I don’t think I’d like her very much.”

“I’m at best a moderate fan of my first-life version. Lots of good points, but so many missed opportunities. Far too passive.”

She grinned and raised her wine glass.

“Here’s to not missing opportunities.”

I raised mine and clinked it against hers.

“To not missing opportunities.”

We both sipped.

“Speaking of which, I vote we skip dessert,” she said, winking.

“Oh, I think we can still have dessert.”

She grinned. “So we can!”

Halfway to Jasmine’s, Jess shifted and said, “There’s ... another opportunity ... that I think I might be ... um...”

I looked over to her, raising an eyebrow, just for a second, before returning my eyes to the road.

She giggled. “Jas will be right there, and...”

I gave her another raised eyebrow.

That got another giggle. “I’d like to try, unless...”

“I’m not going to talk you out of it. Nor would Jas.”

“So ... yeah. She can keep a secret. So can Angie and Paige, and either of them ... both of them, maybe! ... are ... it could happen. Not yet, both due to timing and whatever, but ... yeah.”

“Is this going to be a surprise?”

She grinned. “That was the plan.”

“She’ll flip.”

“That was also the plan.”

“How are we doing this?” I said.

She grinned even more, and I said, “You know what I mean by that.”

“Spoilsport! Yes, I do. I think we just tell her, not surprise her. I’d considered surprising her, but ... well ... that involves something like us doing something first, and then me sneaking over to her room, and I feel like that just adds pressure. It’s not like I doubt that she’ll be into it, but I also don’t want anything but a reasoned decision.”

“Ninety-nine percent sure she’ll be into it, but I agree.”

“I agree it’s super-likely, but that one percent matters.”

I nodded. “Definitely!”

Then I paused. After a few seconds, I said, “So ... we both tell her?”

Jess giggled. “Actually ... let me. Please.”

“Happy to,” I said.

I parked out front and we walked to the front door holding hands.

The key was right where I expected it, and the house was dark. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if Camille and Francis were home and awake, but they likely wouldn’t hear anything, and they would pretend not to if they did.

Jess and I headed down the hallway. She motioned me on to the other bedroom. Once I had the door open, she motioned me in, then knocked on Jasmine’s door.

I went in and closed the door, then just waited. A few seconds later I heard a squeal. The squeal cut off in such a way that I suspected a kiss had muffled Jas.