Chapter 22: A Bit of Dancing

Saturday, July 30, 1983

It felt like the summer was rapidly drawing to an end now that the tournament was over. A week from today we’d be getting a cab (or more likely a limo) to O’Hare airport and flying home. A week from tomorrow, Study Group would get rolling, and a week after that school would be in full swing.

Of course, three days after that, school would stop abruptly for a week as Hurricane Alicia did a number on Houston. I still had to deal with my goal of keeping our power on if I could. I had a plan, but it still needed more work.

If the power stayed on, we might be able to sneak in a trip somewhere during that week. Mom and Dad would be fine, as long as we were going sufficiently inland that hotels wouldn’t be swamped with refugees. Of course, we might just stay home, instead. A lot would depend on whether this version of Alicia played out like the previous one.

We met up for breakfast on time and pretty much just hung out for a while. Eventually, Cammie reminded me that we had things to go over. I was getting the ‘We have to talk’ vibe from her, which had me nervous. The obvious answer was ... obvious ... which was more than enough reason to be nervous.

We walked over to a bench near the beach, which didn’t calm my nerves at all. It was sufficiently away from anyone else to be a perfect place for a difficult conversation.

Cammie sighed as she sat, then turned and hugged me.

“I’m not sure how to start,” she said.

“Just tell me. I have a guess.”

“Of course you do,” she said. “Look — no matter how this goes, I love you, I love being your partner, and I don’t want anything to change. I just, um, have to say something. I waited until after the tournament because it’d be a distraction.”

I nodded.

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “You’re hiding something. Something big. I think I’ve known that for a long time, but it’s more obvious now. Laura ... Laura triggered it. Stuff she said makes no sense. I don’t buy the ‘you look like someone she knew’ thing, not really. I mean, I kinda buy it, because, well, fuck it, Steve, I know you, and there’s no way you could’ve made Laura that angry with you, especially since I know you’ve never even lived in the same state.”

I nodded again, sighing a bit.

She paused a second, then continued, “Look, I was there when you met her. I knew then that she didn’t like you. It felt like you knew more than you were letting on, but... how? I don’t get it, not then and not now.”

“Yeah,” I said, then winced inwardly. Thankfully, that didn’t seem to frustrate her. I had been in bitter arguments over less than an ill-timed ‘yeah.’

“It’s not just that. It’s so many things. They say girls mature faster, and that’s true in my experience. You’re the huge exception. When you walked into Debate, I swear you were the most mature person in the room, and that includes Meg. I mean, I didn’t know it then, but looking back, I see it. Anyway,” she said, then paused, and finally continued, “Look, I could go on. I set all of it aside until Laura, but I heard her yelling about you and your cousin, which has to be Angie. Except,” she said, then paused again, sounding frustrated, “Angie has seen her even less! I know about the thing in Michigan, but your parents were there. Unless she wound up in your hotel, anyway.”

“She didn’t. You’re right about the facts. Before that day, I’d met Laura twice. You were there the entire time I talked to her at Hockaday. At Michigan, we barely said anything to each other.”

“Which makes no sense! It just doesn’t! But you know that, and you also know something that makes it all make perfect sense.”

I nodded again. I was just going to let her continue until she asked.

She sighed. “Plus, I saw you and Angie and Laura talking at the zoo, and it was just ... calm. Friendly. In a way, that says there’s some giant story that I don’t know.”

I sighed, then nodded.

“So. I mean, I could go on. That’s enough. I know you’ve got a big secret, and, well, you know me.”

“Yes,” I said. “I do. And I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong. That would just be insulting.”

“You do. Laura does. Angie almost certainly does. If anyone’s as mature as you, it’s her. Different ways, same thing.”

“I have to let her speak for herself on this one.”

“Of course,” she said.

“So: yes. And the next question is, what do we do about it?”

“You tell me?” she said, smiling a bit.

“I could. In fact, I’ll say it more strongly. I will, if you really want me to. But ... I’m not sure if you want me to.”

“Why wouldn’t I? I’m dying of curiosity!”

“Because it’s a big secret. I’m going to make an analogy. It’s a lousy analogy, but it’s one I have handy.”

“Okay. I’ll listen.”

“Suppose I’m a humanoid alien, sent here from some other place, some other race, for whatever reason. A nice, happy, benign reason. If you cut me up, I’d look like any other human, but I’m not. And suppose I could prove it, pretty convincingly, if I wanted to.”

“I’m with you so far.”

“Now, suppose Laura’s just like me, only she knew, um, let’s call him my twin. And my twin was a total bastard to her. She sees me, and she thinks they sent my twin. Of course, she’s furious. Of course, she wants nothing to do with me.”

“And Angie is also just like the two of you?” she said, with a slight smile.

“Back to letting her speak for herself.”

“You’re speaking for Laura,” she said, again smiling just a bit.

“Nah. I said suppose. It suits the facts. I said it wasn’t the truth.”

“Point, Steve. Fine. So?”

“So, we’re supposing that is the truth. If I tell you, and show you, now you know that Steve’s an alien. You know Laura’s an alien. You know that we probably know things humans don’t know. Maybe we’re older than we look. The thing is...”

She got it, eyes widening slightly. “Now it’s my secret. That’s what you’re saying. If you tell me, I’m responsible, both for how I treat you and for what I reveal.”

“Got it.”

She blew out a breath, then smiled that little smile again. “That sucks, you know? I want to know, and now I want to know even more, but ... well, I like you as just way-above-the-average Steve, but still regular human Steve. I don’t know what I’d feel about alien Steve. Probably the same, but ... yeah. And I’d know, and I couldn’t tell anyone, presumably including Mel.”

“Mel would be tough. Having a secret from someone close would be rough, and I’d feel lousy putting you in that situation. Mel is also someone who I could tell, I think, but then she’s in the same position, except with respect to you.”

“Plus there’s that old saw: ‘Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.’”

“There’s that.”

“And you’re already at three. No, wait. Four. What you just said,” she said, looking thoughtful. “Jasmine has to know.”

“Letting her speak for herself.”

I got a whap for that. It was light and silly, but still a whap.

“Paige? No, not her. Not yet. Laura would force the issue, but she wouldn’t force it between Angie and Paige.”

“Same song, different verse.”

Another whap, maybe slightly ... whappier.

Then she laughed, softly. “I can’t even call you a jerk, because you’re looking out for me. But I can’t just stop thinking about it.”

“Of course, you can’t.”

“And we’re clear? There is a secret, and it is a big one, where you looking out for me is justified? And it’s at least as out there as you being an alien?”

“Yes, and yes, and probably? I don’t know how to compare aliens and the truth.”

“Fair enough.” She paused, then took a deep breath. “I can live with that, for now. The offer to tell me if I ask isn’t off the table, right?”

I shook my head. “Unless something major changes between us, it’s always there. That’s the best I can do, because ... people change. It’s like sex. You can’t promise someone that you’ll have sex with them in the future.”

“Huh? I can!” she said, giggling.

“You can’t,” I said, which made her frown. “What I mean is that you can’t promise it in the way we usually count promises. It’s not ‘enforceable.’ No matter who you promise, if they come up to you at the right time and say, ‘A promise is a promise, so let’s get busy,’ you can always say, ‘No, I don’t want to right now.’ Suppose you promised them and then they did something horrible, for instance.”

“I get it. Wow! Did I say you’re mature? Seriously! So, by major, you mean...”

“One of us betraying the other, really changing personality, or the like. Or, say, your being blackmailed into asking me, or asking me for what I think is a bad reason — like, say, to impress someone else — or ... well. I think it’d be anything that would make me say no now.”

She sighed. “Like, if I went off for ‘re-education’ and came back ‘different?’”

“I wasn’t thinking of that, but yeah, I’d have to count that.”

“You should. That scares me so much.”

“Look ... um. Fuck.”

“You’ll save me if you can. I already know that.”

“That’s it. I wouldn’t hold anything back. It would be the top priority.”

“I wouldn’t want you getting imprisoned or anything on my behalf, or killing people.”

“Okay, fine, I’d hold back from killing people. I’ll take a week or two in jail, though — and laugh about it — if it saved you weeks of that.”

She giggled. “I can go with that. Jail would be better.”

“We’re going to get you through this if I have anything to say about it.”

“Yeah. I really think it’ll work out. I’m trying not to believe that too much, though, because I have to stay paranoid.”

“Of course.”

She shifted. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to ask. I just don’t know when. Maybe after high school, when I’m eighteen and that’s behind me. When we’re not ... entwined ... in the same way. If I have to get some distance to keep your secret, I could do that even if we’re both at A&M, but I can’t do that in high school.”

“I get it. Waiting isn’t easy, and I think it would drive me crazy, too.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for all of this. I get that it’s big. I kinda knew that. That means I’d have forgiven you denying it, because, well, you’d kinda have to. I mean, I figure covert aliens are sworn to secrecy. Just knowing I’m not crazy and that there is an explanation makes a big difference.”

“I think I can say one thing, and that’s that the part about just being a guy is pretty much true. I’m not a superhero in disguise or anything. As far as I know, there’s nothing unusual about me that way. Which means there’s something different here,” I said, tapping my head. “But that would be true if my sort of alien was from another branch of humanity, of course, so it doesn’t mean much.”

“Or, if you were secretly some Illuminati baby, and they adopted you out, but then taught you all their secrets over the year.”

“Got me!”

She giggled, then whapped me. Three in one conversation! “I wasn’t serious. Now I have to think that through!”

“You do that.”

She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me. “I really, really do love you. Not that way. If there was ever going to be a guy ... well. And, dammit, I’m curious. I am! But you were right when you said that I can always do something, but I can’t go back and not do it, and I think it matters to me that I’ve never done that.”

“I love you, too, and if you really wanted that, I’d be there, of course.”

“Except you can’t promise,” she said, grinning.

“Well, yes. Still...” I said, waggling my eyebrows a bit.

She started giggling. “Jerk!”

“I’d feel terrible if we did something that you regretted, Cammie. Really terrible.”

“There’s that maturity again. I saw that with Jessica, too. Most of the dads — most of the teachers — would dump their wives for a night with her, and you, a teenage boy, were honorable.”

“I refuse to confirm or deny...”

“Doesn’t matter. I was promoted into Jess’s gossip circle enough to know of whence I speak.”

“Well, there you go, then.”