Chapter 16: Second Chance, First Impression

Sunday, July 17, 1983

I picked up copies of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post at the student union. Put together, the two of them were heavy, but I wanted a copy of my own, not just a photocopy. Oh, Dad would buy extras, but I wanted one, too.

The girls and I read the articles together. They were almost identical to what I’d read, with the exception of some additional pro-Northwestern facts and figures and quotes in the Tribune’s piece.

Angie shook her head. “It’s a good thing all that with Jess happened, or one of us would be melting down right now.”

“Probably both of us,” I said.

Cammie grinned. “I’d help you pick up the pieces, except my brain would be melting, too. How in the hell did I wind up with a Debate partner who’s national news?”

“You agreed to be my partner, though technically I never asked you,” I said, grinning right back.

“You would have. I’d have made you, if necessary,” she said.

“True enough!”

“Meg’s going to frame this.”

“Nah,” I said. “And, if she does, at least while I’m still there, I’m taking it down. Yeah, we’re all proud of our individual achievements, but it’s about all of us, about the team.”

Cammie rolled her eyes, then grinned. “I knew you’d say that. I agree, too, but it’s still sickeningly sweet.”

“We get that a lot,” Angie said.

Jas giggled. “I had people in Drama gagging for a bit while we were in that awkward part between knowing we had something and knowing how much we had.”

“Where’s this wind up next?” Paige said.

“I get invited to the White House, where I’m declared czar of high schools.”

That got me four whaps. None of them were in the least serious, at least.

“The first part, maybe,” Paige said. “The second? In your dreams!”

“Nightmares, actually,” I said. “I do not want responsibility for the schools. Not even Memorial. Principal Riggs earns every dollar he makes!”

“Wise,” Cammie said. “Some input would be nice, but then we have that, I guess. You think he might get invited, Paige?”

“Yeah,” she said. “That Washington Post article creates an opportunity. Reagan could either shift some of the more controversial implications of the quote back on you, with you there to point at, or he could double down and cover his ass by playing on the ‘from the mouths of babes’ thing.”

“I see more Extemp in your future,” Angie said, grinning.

“Yeah,” she said. “Me, too. Maybe I can kick a bit more ass in it this year.”

Cammie shook her head. “I think it’s maybe a good thing that the Debate topic is what it is. Lowers the temptation of my partner quoting himself in rounds.”

“I already made a card from the speech,” I said, grinning. “I’ll make some from these articles, too.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course, you did!”

We’d already planned to meet Professor Berman, but by mutual agreement, unspoken, we took the rest of the day off, too. Paige wanted to rent a sailboat and go out on the lake in the afternoon, but we weren’t old enough to rent one, and none of us was a competent sailor. Instead, we walked on the beach all the way to downtown Evanston.

We arrived at the sandwich shop just before one and claimed a table for six. A couple of minutes later, Professor Berman came in, smiled, and waved. He headed right over to the table. I rose and shook hands with him, and then Angie, Jas, and Paige hugged him. Cammie opted to shake hands, which didn’t surprise me.

“Hello!” he said to her. “You must be Cammie Clarke! Steve has said many good things about you!”

She blushed, but smiled, too. “I am, and you stole my joke.”

He looked amused. “I did?”

“I was hoping you’d just say that he’d told you a lot about me, so that I could say, ‘Lies! All lies!’”

That got him laughing. “Very good! I approve!”

We all sat down. We mostly knew what we wanted, and Professor Berman did as well. His pick was their (semi-)famous Reuben, a staple food of many a Northwestern Debate summer student.

We got our order placed, then settled in. Professor Berman chatted with everyone, gradually prying observations about the summer programs and thoughts about the future out of each of us. I could see how effective he must have been in teaching students. He was still gently teaching us a few things.

Our sandwiches came, but we kept talking, nibbling as we talked.

After a bit, he said, “I’m used to being around the best of the best. From what I can see, you all have that potential. That said, sometimes students burn out as undergraduates. I’ll repeat some advice from before. Don’t get wrapped up in what you want to do, get wrapped up in who you want to be! Live! Some of the worst students I ever had were the ones who spent their whole undergraduate lives studying pre-law. You’ve avoided that so far. Keep it up!”

“Thanks,” Angie said, smiling. “Sometimes it’s hard to strike a balance.”

Cammie turned her head a little, then said, “No ... it’s really not. I’m probably the most ... focused ... here, because I just do Debate. No other extracurriculars of note, nothing like that. You have to say, ‘Well, yes, I could do some more research, or I could go to the zoo, or the concert, or whatever.’ As long as you’re doing a mix of both, it works.”

“That works until it becomes work,” Professor Berman said. “When they’re paying you, it’s easier to say, ‘This is what I have to do.’ It’s hell for young lawyers, often. Many firms want you to bill more hours than you possibly can, so you have to figure out ways to count a piece of work against multiple clients. Even then, sometimes there’s no time to do anything else. That can be fine, but it can also destroy people. Doctors have almost the same problem, only they don’t even pay young doctors more than a pittance.”

Cammie nodded. “That’s a good point. Thanks!”

He smiled. “You’re all young, and young people see things differently. They have trouble imagining being my age. Well ... hopefully, you will get to be my age! When you are, or ... even more importantly ... perhaps twenty years younger, I hope that you can look back at your life and be happy about your choices, your life, your career, and all of them.”

Paige nodded. “I see that. I mean, I really do. Just ... well. My dad went through something like that about five years ago, realizing that he needed to change how he worked or he’d keep missing my life and my brother’s life.”

He nodded. “That’s a good example. More than that, but ... that. Definitely. It’s always a balance. Sometimes the balance is more on one side or the other, but if you don’t keep looking to adjust it, it’s easy to make the wrong choices.”

Jas smiled. “That’s how my parents taught me to be.”

“Wise, but I think many Europeans are more attuned to this than Americans. Look how most Europeans approach taking vacation, as opposed to how we do, for instance.”

She nodded. “I’ve seen that.”

“One other piece of advice, and then I’m through. Many teenagers flee the nest. They move away, they find lots of new friends their own age, and they only come home when they need to. I hope your parents can become your friends, too. Some won’t. Some can’t. I hope yours aren’t that way. But, whether or not they can, find things that keep you around people of different ages. Church, perhaps, or volunteer work, or ... well, whatever suits you. You can learn from the mistakes of older people, and you can also help younger people avoid mistakes.”

“Thanks,” Paige said. “That makes a lot of sense. I think we’re weird, though. I mean, Steffie — that’s our Drama coach — is a friend. So’s Meg, the Debate coach. So are some other students. Mostly, though, it’s just, you know ... adults are authority figures, not friends.”

“Some people have, like, youth pastors and the like,” Angie said.

“Yeah, that, and there are counselors and the like, but ... in general...” Paige said.

“We need to pay attention to that,” Jas said. “I mean, I’ll always be close to Mama and Papa, but ... more. However that happens.”

Cammie nodded. “I agree. That’s really good advice, and I can see how easy it would be to not take it.”

“Then my work here is done!” Professor Berman said, chuckling a bit.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I will, however, embarrass my grandson.”

“Uh oh,” I said, smiling.

“I saw you in the papers this morning. What a write-up! I have to give credit to the Northwestern people, but you came off well. The Washington Post piece was the more interesting. I assume that you meant it to put a gentle fire under our President’s feet?”

I may have blushed. Okay, I almost certainly did. “That ... is a bit more ... pointed ... than I’d have put it.”

“Which makes it true! Good! Not only is your heart in the right place — which is a very good thing for a young, idealistic kid — but it’s also, I think, in the right place politically. We should be coming together, and it isn’t a good thing for our country if our political parties become parties primarily of demography rather than principle. Of course people in certain demographics will have similar lives, similar experiences, and they may prefer one or the other, statistically. The more people are frozen out, though, the worse. Reagan’s speechwriter was right to borrow from you. Everyone should agree that people of goodwill are welcome and equal under the law.”

“Thank you. I’m going to be interested to see where it goes. There are certainly ... other schools of thought.”

He chuckled. “I read Ms. Schlafly’s diatribe against your friend. She has a right to her opinions, absolutely, but I think they are ultimately harmful.”

I nodded. “That makes sense to me.”

“One other comment. It may be a long shot, but ... do either of you know a Judge Curtis Richardson? I recently saw that...”

He must have noticed Angie’s face, which had gone red faster than mine did. Jas was nodding, too, and so was Cammie.

“And I believe that is a yes.”

“Y ... yes,” Angie said. “I dated his son for ... quite a while. Gene’s my debate partner, too.”

“My goodness!” Professor Berman said. “I had no idea! He is a former student of mine, and his name came to my attention a couple of times in the last two weeks. I thought he had settled in your part of Houston.”

“He’s in our study group,” Jas said. “I mean, Gene, his son, not the judge. We see him all the time.”

“Very interesting. If you would, perhaps pass along to him via his son that his old professor says ‘hello?’ Not that I can’t write him myself, but I believe, knowing him, that he would be tickled pink that his son wound up dating my grand-daughter and is friends with my grandson! When he knew me, I was a confirmed bachelor!”

“We’d be happy to,” I said. “Very happy.”

“Also, just pass along that I wish him the best of luck. He may, or may not, know what that’s about.”

Angie chuckled. “We can pass it along.”

“That, and not ask what it’s about,” Paige said, grinning.

“Thank you for having lunch with an old man. I’m sorry that Jean couldn’t come, but she was feeling a touch frail, and ... well, also, she knew that I wanted to be a professor again, for a bit, and that’s best done this way.”

“Say hi to Grandmother, please,” Angie said. “It really was wonderful seeing her.”

“It was,” I said, nodding.

He smiled. “Honestly ... while I wish you and your mother had found much happiness together ... given the circumstances, I am thrilled that you wound up moving to live with Sam and Helen. Jean was so ... it was very hard on her when your father died, Angie. I don’t know that she could have put that behind her without you rising like a phoenix out of the ashes. My guess is that the change of cities and schools did you a world of good.”

Angie blushed, considerably, but smiled. “I miss Daddy Frank every day, Professor. I do. But ... my whole life is amazing now. Hearing that it’s helped Grandmother is the icing on the cake.”

“She adores the both of you, and now your friends. We both hope that you will keep visiting once you go off to college. That’s another thing that can vanish.”

I nodded. “We will. We’ll find occasions to visit, even if our summers are busy because we need, or want, summer classes.”

“Good! And now my work here is truly done. I should get back, and you should get on with whatever you have planned!”

We parted with hugs (all around, this time, including Cammie and me) and made sure he was safely on the shuttle bus.

Angie and I exchanged a few significant looks, which I’m sure were hardly unexpected. Of course, it was a big thing that our grandmother was doing better because we were. Of course, him knowing Gene’s father was a big surprise — one particularly amusing for Angie, though also for me.

Except for Jas, who probably got it, or at least a glimmer of it, none of them could know just how big they were. Judge Richardson was Professor Berman’s student? And was doing ... something ... for which good luck from an old professor of his was warranted?

Only Angie and I knew that we might have spared Professor Berman some sad news in a month or so. That’d just been an act of kindness for Gene, but now we would wonder if it meant more. And, if it did, what?

By this point, it was around three. We had to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. Paige again unsuccessfully lobbied for sailboats, mostly just to be a brat. In the end, we decided to see ‘The Return of the Jedi’ again once we found out that Cammie had missed it.

She loved it, thankfully. I’d have hated having to find a new partner.

Monday, July 18, 1983

Debaters read things. It’s part of what we do.

That’s why I wasn’t really surprised when a few of my classmates approached me with copies of one article or the other. No one seemed either upset or overawed, but they were certainly impressed. I wound up autographing some newspapers and far more photocopies.

My fame was still low-key. Dr. Danforth didn’t make a point of it in the assembly. Instead, we were reminded that we were moving on to the competitions. This week would be preliminary rounds with no structure to them. We’d have a mock tournament the week after that. Today we’d get turned loose to meet our partners, then meet at one of eight sections in the afternoon, where we’d work with a teacher and start doing mock rounds.

Partner assignments had been done by our various teachers. I suspected a dartboard might have been involved, but who knows? In any case, they posted lists of partner assignments outside while we were in the assembly. We were broken into eight groups, each with one of the instructors in charge, and told to collect in our groups. It’d be much easier to find our assigned partner in a group of twenty-five or so than two hundred.

My partner turned out to be named Carolyn Pollard. The name ‘Carolyn’ made me worry just a bit, but there were a lot of Carolyns out there, and presumably Angie would have noticed if any of the Debaters had looked like her Carrie.

Presumably.

Within just a couple of minutes, a slightly mousy-looking girl with short dark hair and glasses came over to me. She was wearing a white blouse with a blue skirt.

“Hi,” she said, with an expression that I couldn’t quite read.

“Hello ... Carolyn?”

She nodded.

“I’m Steve.”

“As if I couldn’t figure that out,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

I was getting the feeling that we weren’t going to hit it off right away. Hopefully, we could fix that.

“Sorry,” I said.

“For what?” she said.

“Assuming you didn’t recognize me, I guess. I’m not really used to being recognized except at my school.”

She made another face. “I’m not used to being recognized outside of my classrooms, and not always there.”

“Look ... can we start over? Not that we’ve gotten very far, but it’s obvious that my reputation precedes me. The problem is, I don’t know what that reputation is.”

She frowned, bit her lower lip, then nodded.

“I ... guess? You’re not the person I expected, maybe.”

“Let’s go talk about it.”

She made a face at that, too, so I added, “Maybe in the lecture hall?”