Chapter 25: School Year Prep

Sunday, August 7, 1983

It was nice to get back to church. Dr. Ott was clearly happy to see us, and so were many of the others. It was a pleasant routine, and I enjoyed the sermons almost every time.

I still wasn’t going to be a good, faithful Missouri Synod Lutheran (or, likely, any sort of Lutheran), and neither was Angie, but I could see room for church in my college life. Just ... a very different church.

Dad took us to the Doubletree’s brunch. We’d had no lack of large meals recently, but it was lot of fun and we had a good time. We hated to leave when we did, but neither of us wanted to miss Study Group, especially not today.

Angie, Jas, Paige, and I got to Study Group just a few minutes late. Rita met us at the door.

“Howdy, strangers!” she said, hugging each of us.

“Howdy, Rita!” we said.

“It’s so good to see you!” she said.

“You, too!” we all said.

“How was your summer?”

“Steve got hit by a truck,” Jasmine said.

“What the hell?” Rita said.

Jas explained the whole thing, which got both her and Rita sniffling. I assured her that I was really all right.

We headed downstairs after that. Besides Mike and Sarah, Cammie was here, as was Cal. Gene and Sue and Jimmy and Connie were also here. That was it. No Andy, no Mel, Morty, or Mark, or Emily.

“Hey!” Mike said. “Look what the cat dragged in!”

“Hi!” we all said.

The others all said ‘hi’, too, followed by a bunch of hugs. It turned out that Mel, Morty, and Mark were out of town, Emily was skipping, and Andy was waiting until Mel was back.

Gene and Sue had great things to say about Gonzaga. Nearly everything either of them said was ‘we,’ too, including things like ‘We’re trying to figure out where we’re going to college.’ It seemed clear that our matchmaking was a success.

After a bit, I said, “How’s your dad, Gene?”

Gene frowned a bit. “Overworked! Something’s going on, and I’m not sure what. He’s had to go into the office a lot more for the past few weeks. He’s admitted something’s up, but not what. I’m certain it’s nothing bad, and Mom seems fine, but ... well.”

“Hopefully, it’s something good.”

“Hopefully!”

“Would you pass along to him that Professor Alan Berman told me to say hello to him? I’m hoping to get to do so in person, but it’s not like we see your dad that often.”

“Yeah!” Angie said. “He asked after your dad specifically.”

“Cool! One of the Debate staff?”

I shook my head. “My step-grandfather, actually. He was a law professor at Northwestern and taught your dad.”

“Oh! Wow! What a small world!”

“It is! Oh, Professor Berman also said to wish your dad luck.”

“I wonder if that’s about whatever’s going on. I’ll happily pass it along!”

“Speaking of,” Sue said, “I saw the articles about you.”

“Articles?” Sarah said.

Everyone else looked curious, too.

Gene said, “Steve got written up in a few newspapers.”

“What for?” Sarah said. “Prom?”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “I missed this.”

“Me, too! What did you do this time?” Connie said, grinning.

“Apparently Reagan ... well, really, one of Reagan’s speechwriters ... quoted me. It was in his weekly radio address before the Fourth.”

“How in the world?” Mike said.

“It was one of my Prom quotes. The one about...”

Angie and Jas said, in unison, “Everyone should be welcomed and respected, regardless of how they look, what they believe, who they love, and so forth, as long as they give the same respect to everyone else.”

“Cool!” Mike said.

Jimmy shook his head, smiling. “Reagan quoted that?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He was talking about how the parties need to stay open to everyone, and that we need to respect people who are different.”

“How’d it get from there to those articles?” Sue said.

“Apparently someone, somewhere, probably at one of the papers, read the speech and remembered the Prom story and put them together, and suddenly I was a human interest story,” I said.

“So you didn’t get to meet Reagan?” Mike said, clearly joking

“Nah.”

“Maybe in September,” Jas said, grinning.

“Huh?” Gene said.

“They’re doing some sort of youth leadership thing and Steve wrangled an invitation,” Angie said.

That reminded me that I hadn’t even read the invitation yesterday. I should do that soon. Like ... tonight.

“I didn’t wrangle it,” I said. “It was a complete surprise.”

“How about ‘rated’?” Jas said.

“Rated is good,” Angie said.

I rolled my eyes. “We’ll go with that, then.”

Sarah said, “You’re going to be a Memorial celebrity again, Steve!”

“Nothing I asked for,” I said, “and I’ve tried being a celebrity, both in high school and at Northwestern. It’s overrated.”

“Why were you a celebrity at Northwestern?” Gene said. “Not that I’m surprised.”

I hesitated, partly because I had to think about what Gene would’ve thought about things if he’d been there, since he had been there the other go-round.

While I was hesitating, Jas answered for me. “He got hit by a truck.”

“What the hell?” Connie said. “A truck? Really?”

“It was really scary,” Jas said. “I’m not kidding. It was a big truck and...”

“I bounced off,” I said.

“Why were you in the road?” Jimmy said.

“Saving a girl’s life,” Angie said.

“This gets better and better!” Sue said.

I sighed, intentionally trying to be a bit over-dramatic. “This girl named Laura, who we’d met before, mistook me for someone else and ran away, right into a fairly busy street. I shoved her out of the way, but didn’t get out of the way myself. Fortunately, I really did just bounce off. She sprained her ankle, while I just got some scrapes and bruises.”

“I thought he was dead,” Jas said. “I was so scared!”

“Everyone was telling me not to move, and I knew I was fine,” I said. “I stayed still, though.”

“I’m glad you didn’t move!” Connie said. “If you had been injured and just not feeling it, you could have made things a lot worse. We’ve been going over that.”

“So...” Sue said, dragging it out. “This girl named Laura...? How’d that work out?”

Angie chucked. “We’re friends now. She got over thinking Steve was that other guy.”

“Good!” Sue said.

We moved on to other topics, then hit the pool.

Late in Study Group, we discussed possibly adding Amit and Sheila. Everyone seemed open to the idea. It’d be nice to have them and, by this point, we weren’t so worried about getting too big.

Jas and I planned on dinner, and almost certainly dessert, tomorrow. Angie and Paige had their own plan, which involved being at Jasmine’s house for a while, too.

Monday, August 8, 1983

After sleeping late, I finally read the White House letter. I was invited to a three-day event held September 8th through the 10th. They were taking care of travel and lodging. We would fly out on the 7th. We’d be busy from the 8th through the 10th, then fly back on the 11th. They were planning a few ‘brainstorming sessions’ amongst the ‘youth leaders,’ plus touring parts of the Smithsonian, visiting the White House and Congress, the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial, and some other scenic points of interest.

It was implied, but not confirmed, that we’d meet President Reagan. I imagined it would be a nice photo op.

I had to wonder if my part in this had been thrown together quickly. There’s no way I would even be on an invitation list a few months ago. Heck, even now it was questionable. My only claim to fame at this level was being quoted in the presidential speech and making the national news (both before and after the speech). Even discounting sports leaders, there were kids with better grades (at least on a grade-point basis), kids winning State in lots of things, kids with businesses and inventions, and so forth and so on. Ones with better SAT scores, too, and most likely several kids my age with college degrees. There are always outliers.

Ultimate Time-Traveler Solipsist Impostor Syndrome said that the universe had done this for me because I was special. It had no answer for why Laura and Angie weren’t going, though. I was going with CYA Syndrome instead. Reagan had quoted me; therefore, I had to be special. How could they prove that I was special? Call me a ‘youth leader’ and invite me to the White House. QED.

We were allowed, but not required, to bring one adult companion. They would act ‘in loco parentis’ if we didn’t. Dad would want to go, but he would want Mom there, too. Maybe we could arrange that. There was some provision for bringing more people at our own expense. If we called it a college visit, and especially if we managed to get by Georgetown or the like, Ang could go. Even her flat-out missing a couple of days wouldn’t be a big deal.

They would entertain the companions, but it wasn’t at all clear that they would get to visit the White House, for instance, or at least not with us. Perhaps Dad could get in on a tour some other way. Those normally booked up in the summer, but in September? That might be a different story. Even if there was a tour for the official companions, we’d need to make sure Mom and Angie could go, if they came along.

We had a lot of planning to do in the next month.

I called the school and made an appointment with Principal Riggs for tomorrow morning at ten. Next, I called the School Board offices and made an appointment with Cam Michaels for one. That should give me time for lunch.

Both of the women who scheduled the meetings recognized my name. Neither seemed surprised that I’d called.

My third call was the one that required some finessing. I’d found a contractor who reinforced power poles, usually for construction jobs. They’d either put up guy wires, wooden braces, or even a second pole.

I pretended to be Dad, and said that a tree specialist had suggested that the power pole wasn’t well anchored and might be at risk in a storm. Dad had checked with the power company, who had pointed him to their outfit.

After some brief but intense negotiation, they agreed to do the job for a few hundred in cash on Thursday at noon between some of their other jobs. My plan was to simply claim Dad was called away, and that I was in charge of paying them.

Angie would distract Mom with school shopping. Of course she needed some new clothes for senior year. Who wouldn’t? I did, too, for that matter, just not on Thursday morning.

I gave Laura a quick call as well. She’d arrived home just fine, as expected, and we promised to stay in touch. She was going to get an answering machine in the next week or so.

I called Meg mid-morning and got her, perhaps surprisingly. I gave her a quick update about how Northwestern had gone, leaving out all of the crazy stuff. She said that she’d heard from some of the others.

She’d already been informed about the pre-qualifications for ToC. She and Steffie were already making plans and hoping to add to the total. That told me we’d be going to ToC qualifiers, but that was no surprise.

Neither of us mentioned the Reagan speech. She didn’t mention the newspapers, either. From my position, it’d be easier to explain the whole mess to everyone at once. She was probably thinking along similar lines.

I took much of the afternoon off to just sit and read and goof off. There wouldn’t be a lot of time for that this year. I had only myself to blame for that, of course, but it was all good. This should be a great year.

The phone interrupted my reading, so I picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Steve?”

“Jess! Hey! It’s good to hear from you!”

“It’s good to talk to you!”

“How was your summer?” I said.

“It was ... great. I mean... really great. I have a lot to tell you.”

“You’ve got me very curious.”

She giggled. “Of course, I do. We should get together.”

“I could do Wednesday lunch, if that works.”

“Wednesday is great. Also, Angie, Jas, and Paige are welcome, or not. Up to y’all.”

“I’ll check with them. Lobster?”

She giggled more. “No! Someplace fun and easy. No lobster this time!”

“Got it. Wednesday lunch it is.”

“You can pick me up. Anywhere from eleven to noon works. Mom knows we’re friends, and ... well. Another thing to talk about.”

“That works for me. Let’s make it eleven.”

She hesitated a second. “One thing ... and ... I feel better about saying this, because I think what I need is coming into focus, and you’re not it.”

“Okay?”

She chuckled. “Love you, Steve.”

“Love you, too, Jess.”

“That felt good. Thanks!”

“Thank you!” I said.

“See you Wednesday!”

“See you then!”

Jas and I met for dinner (at a Chinese buffet restaurant) and dessert (in her bed). Paige and Angie joined us for dinner and had dessert in the next room.

Jas snuggled up and sighed. “It’s good to be home. I’m glad we had Mikayla’s apartment, but...”

“Me, too.”

“Next year we’ll be in our own place.”

“Literally,” I said, smiling.

She blushed, then chuckled. “When we made those plans, I had no idea you might buy a place.”

“I had a white lie ready. The plan was to buy it, put a management company in charge, and pay them rent. I wouldn’t keep anyone’s rent, just save it. Honestly, I’m tempted to buy it through an intermediary and put a management company in charge anyway. The best way to find out if the management company is decent or not is to be a renter they don’t know about.”

“Sneaky!”

“I plan to make money on this, Jas. Not on our house, but on others. I just don’t need to make money by ripping kids like us off. If they’re lousy tenants, that’s one thing, but I’ve seen management companies do awful things. I don’t want to be part of that.”

“Me, neither! How do you know you’ll make money, though?”