Chapter 19: Squaring Off

Monday, July 25, 1983

We met, as always, for breakfast. The concert was the major topic of conversation. Cammie had lots of questions, and it was clear she wished she could’ve gone, but she didn’t make too much of a point of it. It didn’t feel like we were rubbing it in or anything, anyway.

On the walk to Debate, we held hands, which we did sometimes. I could completely understand Carolyn, Laura, or anyone, getting confused about just how many girlfriends I had here. We knew the score, but I could very honestly say that I loved Jas, Angie, and Cammie (each in their own way, of course, but love nonetheless). Paige? Not yet, but I could easily see it happening.

I looked at Cammie and said, “You could have gone, you know. We never got stopped.”

She shook her head. “I’d have been nervous the entire time. I might have screwed it up just because of that.”

“That sucks, but I understand it,” I said, nodding. “Still ... if we can take you, we will.”

“I know,” she said. “The thing is, I just need to keep my head down and behave and get through the next nine months. I’ll have the rest of my life to be in charge of things after that. I...”

She hesitated, sighed, blushed a bit, and squeezed my hand. “I’m envious of the freedom you and Angie have. Jasmine, too, and Paige, it feels like. And others, but you’re really at the top of the list. The thing is, I’m envious, but I’m not jealous, or whatever. I don’t wish you didn’t have it, I just wish I did. I have so much more than I could have, though, and a lot of that’s you and Angie, and Mike, and Rita, and the whole thing. Also Meg, and the group we have in Debate and Drama, too. If it wasn’t for so many wonderful people who just ... well, you know. If it wasn’t for that, I don’t know where we’d be. Where I’d be. I can make it through that nine months just fine because of all of you. Missing a concert is nothing compared to what I could be missing.”

I stopped and hugged her. “You know I’ll do — we’ll do — everything we can to help you through to the other side of eighteen.”

She nodded, smiling, eyes a bit wet. “I know, and ... by this point, I know how big of a statement that is. I’ve seen you move mountains, partner. Angie, too. Jas. Jess. Meg. A lot of people, and everyone’s got my back. It’s going to work out. I can feel it.”

“Me, too, Cammie. Come what may, you’ve got a lot of friends, and ones that will move those mountains if we need to.”

“C’mon,” she said, blinking a bit. “We’ve got a mountain to move this week. We shouldn’t be late.”

“Works for me,” I said.

Nothing was going to fuck up Cammie’s life now, not if I had anything to say about it. The money I had stashed would buy a lot of legal help — or a place for Cammie to hide out if need be. Nine months? We would get through this!

Beth was back. She went up on stage and thanked everyone for worrying about her, and exhorted everyone to be careful with NoDoz. The doctors said that she still had some arrhythmia and would need monitoring for at least the rest of the summer. She had to avoid any stimulants at all.

The thought that I’d been actually hit by a truck and yet had never been in the jeopardy that Beth had been in was both amusing and sobering. In the words of the old saying, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ More trouble has been caused by that than nearly anything else.

What harm could there be in popping a couple of NoDoz to stay awake just a bit longer, right? They wouldn’t sell it over the counter if it was dangerous! Like most anything, though, it had dosing instructions, and while you could bend them, sooner or later you’d pay for it.

Tylenol was a perfect example. At the standard dose, it was highly safe and effective, but you didn’t have to exceed it by all that much before it could lead to sudden and serious — even catastrophic — liver failure. The risk went up sharply if you, for instance, took your overdose when your liver was already struggling with alcohol. For instance, if you took it to try to clear a hangover.

Just because a drug was legal didn’t mean you could just do what you wanted. It sucked that Beth had gotten that lesson this way.

Most of the assembly covered the tournament. We’d be doing three rounds a day on Monday and Tuesday. The worst two results would be dropped for every team, and we’d be paired based on the remaining four rounds. From that point, we’d be in a number of separate double-elimination tournaments Wednesday and Thursday, with three rounds each day.

The top four teams (by record and then points, if necessary) after Thursday would debate in semifinals Friday morning, and then the top two would square off in the afternoon in this auditorium.

Cammie and I looked at each other. Like everyone else, we wanted to be in that final round. Unlike many of the others, we’d done it at another tournament, so we knew it was possible for us.

Dr. Danforth ended by reminding us that the dance was coming up on Saturday the 30th in the Orrington’s ballroom. I was fairly certain that was the same place as in my first go-round. Why wouldn’t it be, after all?

I wondered if, like Indiana’s dance, this might turn into a ‘last chance for romance’ type of evening for a lot of people, potentially including me. I doubted any of the girls would take advantage, though who knew? Jas hadn’t pushed me in the least, but then the circumstances of the summer hadn’t really lent themselves to my ‘seeing’ anyone. Laura was the ‘new girl’ of this summer, and we definitely weren’t hooking up.

Monday’s schedule was posted when we headed out. My guess was that they’d power-match Tuesday, but who knew? Well ... they did, of course. They just weren’t telling us.

Cammie recognized more names than I did, though I recognized a few. We weren’t debating anyone we were close to, anyway, nor anyone we’d debated in the past, unless perhaps we’d both forgotten the name from a long-ago tournament.

By the luck of the draw, we started off negative in the first round. Our opponents turned out to be two guys, one from California and one from upstate New York. They were opposites of the stereotypes — the kid from New York had long wavy blond hair and wore a t-shirt and cutoffs, and the California guy was in a white shirt, blue slacks, and had a tie.

Both of us were a bit amused by this. I was wearing a short-sleeve green shirt, while Cammie had on a peasant blouse. We were both wearing jeans. I had my suit, and I’d wear it if we got into finals, but that was about it. Well, for that and for the group photo, but I had plans for that.

In these early rounds, the affirmative always has the advantage, or at least that’s how I felt. The guys we were debating squandered it, at least against us, by running an eyewitness testimony case. We’d probably all get tired of those, and perhaps too tired. My guess was that they’d be overused, most teams would drop them, and a few would bring them back stronger than ever later in the year.

We had one, too, of course, and were going to run it, but (in my somewhat humble opinion) ours was much better. In any case, we’d prepared for it and it showed. We had everything from specific arguments to wild and crazy generics.

Sherri, who’d taught one of the classes, was judging. I figured all of the judges would be decent, but they didn’t have enough staff to judge all of the rounds. On the other hand, they’d have brought in everyone they could, simply to make sure we got solid feedback.

In the end, I was pretty sure we’d won. I was also pretty sure we were notably better than we’d been last year. Everything was just ... more crisp, more polished, more practiced. We both spoke faster, but were clearer, and we were better at finding the words to put into our mouths.

Sherri had good things to say about both teams, which felt good. She seemed pleased with our progress. There were, of course, some good pieces of criticism. I’d apparently been slightly unfocused in my cross-ex, at least by her standards, and we’d all read a few pieces of evidence that weren’t all that great. That felt like early-season glitches as much as anything else.

Of course, even if we’d fallen off the rails in terms of Debate, this Northwestern summer would be one of the pivotal moments of my second life. Still, it felt good to know we hadn’t squandered the opportunity we had. I hoped all of the other Memorial teams were doing as well. Haters were gonna hate, anyway. We might as well give them something worth hating.

Angie, Jas, and Paige needed to be caught up on the tournament during lunch. So did Carolyn and Peter, who’d decided to remain a team. They sounded optimistic about their first round, too.

I wasn’t sure who Laura’s partner was, but I waved to her and she waved back. She was still using a crutch, as expected. The odds that she’d be able to go without it before going home were low. I hoped her partner was helpful. I’d hate to have to haul evidence around while using a crutch.

Paige teased me about making me ask Laura to dance. I teased back about not getting in crutch range. Everyone knew we were getting along now, though.

The thing was, I planned to ask Laura to dance. She, of course, had danced many times with me, but for me, this would be our first dance.

The afternoon was much like the morning. We hit another two-guy Bronx Sci team, who were good. Honestly, really good. I thought we were better, and I thought they might have thought it, too. Our last round was against two girls, one from Michigan and one from Florida. Both were good, but neither was great.

The odds were pretty good that we were 3-0.

I didn’t recognize either afternoon judge, but they both had good comments. Apparently, both we and the Bronx Sci guys were overconfident. I could believe that. We needed to work for every round, even if it should be easy.

For dinner, we decided to walk to Evanston and splurge on Italian. We hadn’t been going out much and, for whatever reason, this felt like a good opportunity. It pretty much turned into a double date. Admittedly, that made Cammie a fifth wheel, but a most welcome one.

During the walk to the restaurant, Angie stayed back a bit, then said, “I started researching some of Tom Myerson’s work in the library.”

That explained her staying back. Not exactly a secret at all, but some of the conversation might be.

“Interesting?”

“It’s fascinating! And dense, and full of complicated math, and stuff I don’t understand. I’m going to have to learn a lot of economics to get through it. A lot of math, too.”

“What I’m hearing is that you mean to do that,” I said.

“Uh ... yeah. There’s a lot there. I’m just scratching the surface, but I’m hooked. It’s just that I only have half of the math I need to really understand it...” she said, then, dropping her voice a bit more, said, “ ... and I should have only half of that.”

“Have fun with it. I imagine it’d beyond me, too.”

“You have more math skills than I have, but I need them, and this is a great incentive to study.”

“Let me know if you need anything from me,” I said.

“I will, of course!”

Angie and Paige headed to the apartment after dinner, while Jas, Cammie, and I walked back to campus.

“I miss Mel,” Cammie said, sighing. “We’ve never been apart this long. I feel ... just ... lonely. I mean, all of you make me feel completely welcome, don’t get me wrong. But...”

“But you miss your love,” Jas said. “I know completely how that feels. Three weeks was bad enough!”

I nodded. “Yeah. What she said. We get it. Fortunately, we’ll be back soon enough. Two more weeks and a nice reunion.”

“Three,” Cammie said. “They’ll be on a family trip the first week we’re back.”

“Aww,” Jas said. “Well, that sucks.”

“It’ll be fine, just annoying,” Cammie said.

Jas nodded. “Yeah.”

Cammie paused, then said, “Wait! Weren’t you still home when Steve left, and then not back when he got back?”

Jas paused, then blushed a bit. “Um ... oops! Five weeks, I guess. More! So I know how you feel even more, I guess!”

Cammie grinned and gave Jas a hug. “Hopefully, not something either of us ever has to do again.”

We talked about the rest of the summer and our senior year the rest of the way. It should be a great year for all of us, and then we’d be on to bigger and better things.

Hopefully, it’d play out that way.

Tuesday, July 26, 1983

Today played out pretty much like yesterday. We had an easy round in the morning (two guys from Colorado), then lunch. Our afternoon rounds, which might have been power-matched, put us with a team from Lakeland, Florida and one hometown team from Glenbrook South.

We’d debated teams from both schools, but these weren’t those kids. Both were really good, which reassured me that we were probably near the top of the bracket. In my (still humble) opinion, we were better.