Chapter 31: Dramatic Events

Tuesday, August 23, 1983

I finally buckled down and wrote my ‘What I Did Over My Summer Vacation’ paper. Fortunately, Ms. Epstein already allowed typed papers, no fight required. Dot matrix printer output was ugly, but it beat my handwriting, and I could edit things a lot more easily.

Ms. Epstein would have fun grading this one. I was fully aware of the absurdity of it all. But, when you’ve got it, flaunt it.

Once I’d finished that, I belatedly realized that we should have had our first Student Council meeting yesterday. I went down the list of members, called everyone and either talked to them or left a message, in either case asking them to plan for Monday the 29th and to have any major action items they were already aware of ready.

Most of them sounded pretty eager to get going, though I wasn’t getting the feeling that most people were going in with big agendas. There was the typing proposal, which I imagined would succeed in short order. I had my grade-point effort, but I suspected the School Board would take that over. We would certainly go after the dress code again. Beyond that, who knew? The committees were all on solid grounds, and there wasn’t a lot of room for major changes that I could see.

There would be pressure on the Social Committee to change the rules for dances, but we had their back. More to the point, I was pretty sure Principal Riggs had our back. The worst thing would be for Memorial to go from getting national praise to having some big incident with police and lawyers involved.

Mid-afternoon, the house phone rang. I let Mom get it. After a few minutes, she called, “Steve! Phone!”

I ran over and picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Steve Marshall?” a woman said.

“This is he.”

“Hello, Steve. I’m Melissa Cavander. I’m a travel assistant working on the ‘Youth Are Our Future’ event. How are you and your family doing after the hurricane?”

“We’re doing well,” I said. “We didn’t get much damage. School starts up again tomorrow.”

“Good to hear it! We need to get you set for travel. Have you had a chance to talk to your school about the trip?”

“Yes, Ma’am. I spoke to my principal about it a couple of weeks ago. We’re all set there.”

“Good. I have all of the paperwork back from your parents, so all we need are the plane tickets. You’ll be flying from Houston Intercontinental?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good. We’ll be providing you and one adult companion with tickets. We’ll also provide one hotel room with two beds, plus all of your meals and transportation. Most of the time your adult companion will be nearby, but some of the time they will not, as explained in the invitation.”

“We’re still figuring out who’s going, but someone will be.”

“That’s all I needed to know. We can change the name on the ticket without a problem. Can I speak to your mother again, please?”

“Of course.”

I called Mom, then gave her the phone back.

She talked for a few minutes, then hung up. “Sam will want to go, but he’ll want me to go, too. That means we either leave Angie or take her along, too. I’m fine with leaving her, but she’ll want to go.”

“We considered the possibility of calling it a college trip.”

“It’s gotten lost in the hurricane, but ... we’d better get moving! I’ll talk to Sam. If nothing else, he’ll go, but it would be more fun if we all could.”

“It would.”

We had Jas and Paige over for dinner. Mom cooked, with Angie and me helping (just helping, this time). It was Mom’s meal; we just fetched things.

The four of us hung out for a while, playing games, and then they headed home. School was tomorrow, after all, and we should get sleep.

9:30pm

Angie slipped into my room, rubbed noses, then climbed into bed.

“Extra vacation week over,” she said.

“Yeah. It was nice. Would’ve been nice to go somewhere, but that didn’t work out.”

“Soon, hopefully.”

“Well, we may all be going to D.C., anyway,” I said.

“Yeah! I’ve never been.”

“I went once, with my ex-wife and the kids. It was fun. We saw a bunch of touristy stuff. No White House tour, so that’ll be new, and it was in the winter, so it’ll be warmer this time.”

“I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to school, too. This should be a good year,” she said.

“No senioritis?”

She grinned. “I didn’t say that. That’s why it should be a good year!”

Then she winked, and continued, saying, “Really, I’m good. I’ll do the work, but I’m probably the most relaxed I’ve been about school in ... forever. Maybe kindergarten. I know I can do it, I want to do it, and I’m not going to stress. Not next year, either, though I want to hit college running.”

“Me, too, though the definition of that might be shifting.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re looking at having significant investments by the time we’re in college. Owning property, stocks, and maybe a piece of Dell. Maybe a piece of other businesses. Plus probably operating our own business. Hitting college running may be as much about what we’re doing that’s not college as college itself.”

She nodded. “I’d kinda thought that, too. It’ll be weird to use my business degree before I have one, but ... par for the course for us, I guess.”

“I’d like to believe that Laura will let us invest in her company. At arm’s length, of course, but just invest.”

“Me, too. Do you really think she’ll wait until she has her degree?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, it depends on what her stuff does. There’s a pretty big jump in computer performance between now and the end of the decade. If she needs those systems, there’s no real cost to waiting.”

“Makes sense,” she said, shifting. “I’m worried that we’ll wind up competing with her, or opposing her on something we want. That could turn into a mess. I mean, it would if we disagreed, too, but I think we can work through our differences if we have them. Laura’s more of a wild card.”

“We’re very in tune. Laura’s not, and we won’t be around her enough to build trust. Still ... she seems like someone we can work with, I think.”

‘Me, too. I just worry.”

“Nothing wrong with ‘trust but verify,’” I said.

“Don’t say it to Reagan, though!”

“I doubt I’ll get the chance.”

She grinned and said, “Knowing you, you will.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“Hey, I’ve got confidence in you!”

“I’ve got confidence in you, too,” I said.

“Right now I’m confident that I need sleep.”

“Me, too.”

“Love you, Steve.”

“Love you, Ang.”

“Sleep well.”

“Sweet dreams.”

“Always.”

“Forever.”

We kissed lightly, then drifted off to sleep.

Wednesday, August 24, 1983

School was ... strange. People were preoccupied with storm-related matters, but beyond that, it was almost worse than coming back from the summer. At least then we’d expected to have to get back into the rhythm of school. This time, it was as if we should be in the rhythm and weren’t.

No one was. The teachers were just as off as we were. Things got better as the day went on, but nothing felt ... right.

We just turned in our papers in Ms. Epstein’s class. I’d soon find out what she thought of it.

Cammie and I went over the tournaments with an eye toward the new rules. We planned on skipping Clear Lake and Stratford (in favor of football games) and Humble, and going to Cy Fair, Westwood, Michigan, Houston, Bellaire, Lexington, Eisenhower, and UT. That gave us only six State-qualifying tournaments, but we could add Humble if necessary. The odds that it would be necessary were really not that high, in our opinion.

As of now, Cammie had permission to miss Easter for State. She felt like it wasn’t exactly set, but that we should assume it would work. She again offered to switch partners, but that wasn’t happening. As much as I wanted to win State and go to Nationals, I wanted that to be with Cammie. Nothing else would be at all the same.

Thursday, August 25, 1983

Jess met Angie, Jas, Paige, and me in the parking lot, pulling us aside.

“I have news,” she said.

“Tell!” Paige said, giggling.

“It’s probably the least meaningful to you, but maybe. And Steve is here as a courtesy,” Jess said.

“So it’s girl talk,” Angie said.

“Pretty much. Cutting through it ... you all know who Trish Harrison is, right?”

Everyone nodded, though Paige looked a little uncertain.

“Mike Winterford has been ... seeing ... her. Or ... maybe vice versa.”

Angie made a face. “Ugh. That’s a big piece of bad news.”

“I see she’s made an impression,” Jess said.

“You could say that,” Angie said.

“How did this happen? The storm or something?” I said.

Jess shook her head. “I just found this out. I’m not sure why I didn’t know before, except ... well ... people were hiding it from Sarah Weiss, which takes a lot of hiding. Anyway, she arrived in late June and somehow got an invitation to Graham’s Fourth of July party. That got her face time with a bunch of the jocks and some of the socialites, and since then ... well ... she’s got game, anyway.”

“How... seeing ... is seeing?” Angie said.

“Enough that Sarah is on the warpath. He hadn’t told her. I heard it all came out yesterday. There was a screaming fight at Pop’s.”

“Ugh,” Jas said. “I liked Mike, and I like Sarah. That sucks!”

“It really sucks,” I said.

“I just ... well ... I’m trying to not be too much of a queen bitch,” Jess said, “but I don’t trust Trish Harrison as far as I can throw her, and I’m not the sort of cheerleader that throws people.”

Angie nodded. “I don’t trust her any more than you do.”

“I know it’ll affect all of you,” Jess said.

“I bet that’s why Study Group has been off,” I said.

Jas and Angie nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Must be.”

“So...” Jess said, “expect some drama, I guess. Or a lot of drama. Trish is trying to make a move. A lot of it will fail, but ... well ... she’s got Mike, anyway. I have to run. Need to talk to some other people.”

“Thanks for telling us!” Angie said. Everyone seconded that as Jess headed off.

I shook my head. “I can see this going wrong very quickly.”

“Me, too,” Jas said. “If we don’t have Study Group on Sunday...”

“Or if Trish is there,” Angie said.

“Or that,” Jas said, nodding. “Either way. I liked that group.”

“I still do,” I said. “We can find another place if we have to. Not as nice, but...”

“But that’s maybe a bit less of an issue now,” Angie said.

“A bit, yeah,” I said. “More for a few people who’d have big problems if caught in a back seat.”

“Well ... yeah. No, that’s true. Very true,” Angie said.

“Nothing we can do about it now,” I said. “Maybe Mike will listen to reason.”