Chapter 33: Discontent

Tuesday, August 30, 1983

I’d tried to catch Mike yesterday but failed. Today I redoubled my efforts and managed to catch him away from Trish just before lunch.

“Hey, Mike,” I said.

“Hi, Steve,” he said. “What’s up?”

“I ... well, we ... need to know what’s going on with Study Group.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Nothing, as far as I know.”

“So Trish won’t be there tonight.”

“Um...” he said. Then his face reddened. “I ... um ... I mean...”

“No one’s even proposed her, Mike.”

“I...”

“We have rules for exactly this sort of situation.”

He sighed. “I told her she could come and that no one would mind.”

“You know that’s not okay, right?”

“I ... Steve, it’s my house, and I have to be able to invite who I want.”

I nodded. “Of course.”

He looked relieved. “I’m glad...”

“But it’s also a group, and we made rules as a group. You can change them, of course. It’s your house. But everyone else has to decide if they’re okay with one person unilaterally changing the rules.”

He blushed, more than I expected.

“You could help with that?” he said, making it a question.

“I could, except ... honestly, I’m not okay with one person unilaterally changing the rules, Mike. We took a lot of care in making them, and some people won’t feel okay with coming if the rules are changing capriciously.”

“You just don’t like Trish!” he said.

“I barely know her. What I do know is that anyone worth respecting would respect a group that’s been around for three years. We’ve got a system for inviting people and voting on them. Until they’ve been welcomed into the group, they shouldn’t be at meetings, nor privy to anything that’s a secret.”

“I haven’t told her anything!”

“Good, but you probably noticed that no one took any naps last time. No one’s going to, either, while she’s there. Now, that’s not a big deal for most of us, now, honestly. We don’t need the pool house. But it’s a symptom. It says that people don’t trust a group that all of us have trusted for the past three years.”

“I can’t kick her out, Steve. Just you saying this tells me that people won’t vote her in.”

“Prior to Trish, would you have voted in someone new to the school on one person’s say-so? Not that he was new to the school, but we went through this with Max.”

“Trish isn’t Max!”

“No, of course not, but no one knows her but you. Until people get to know her, it’s too soon, Mike.”

He shook his head. “You’re making me choose between my girlfriend and my friends.”

“No, Mike. The rules you agreed to years ago are making you choose. You made a commitment. We all made a commitment. I’m only reminding you of that.”

He sighed. “She’s not going to like it, and ... I ... I can’t do that to her.”

“Then you’re probably going to have to find a new group of people to study with.”

“Dad and Rita both really like you. They’re not going to be happy.”

“I know. I’ll make a point of telling Anderson directly. He deserves to hear it from me. I’ve said multiple times that I’m not the leader of Study Group, and I’m not, but many of the others asked me to talk to you, so I suppose I am, now, after all. I wanted you to be the leader, but a leader who doesn’t follow the rules they pledged to follow isn’t really a leader, they’re just a bully.”

His face had gotten a little paler as I said that. “I ... I wish you wouldn’t. Dad is already upset...”

“Mike, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to disrespect Anderson like that. He’s hosted us for three years, as has Rita. If we’re going to find somewhere else to meet, we can’t just sneak off like thieves in the night.”

“This really sucks, you know,” he said, sounding both more aggressive and whinier. It was an interesting combination.

“I know. You can still fix it, but only you can fix it.”

“Give me ... give me until Tuesday the sixth. I have to invite Trish to the Labor Day party. I mean, I did, and I can’t uninvite her.”

“That’s not a Study Group event, so it’s fine, of course.”

“Good,” he said, sounding relieved. “I’ll ... look. I’ll see what I can do.”

“You do that. And, Mike?”

“Steve?”

“Look,” I said, “I hate that this is confrontational. I like you. Please don’t get me wrong. It’s just that none of us know Trish, and Study Group was built on mutual trust and respect. It can’t work without that.”

“I ... fine! I like you, too, but ... well. Sorry.”

“Tuesday the sixth, then.”

“Yeah. That’ll be ... yeah ... then.”

I shared some of what Mike said at lunch and when I ran across the others. Not all of it, not except for Angie, but some of it.

As expected, none of the other Study Group members went to Mike’s. I suspected that, to Trish, that might be a declaration of war in and of itself, but Mike had until the sixth. Perhaps he’d rescue this mess.

Perhaps. I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

In lieu of Study Group, Angie went to talk to Jane about the letter. I wasn’t sure if they would send it now, or sit on it for a bit, but this was a good excuse to move forward on it, either way.

9:45pm

Angie came in, rubbed noses, then climbed into bed.

“How’d it go with Jane, sis?” I said.

“Good. She likes the letter. We talked a bunch about what I want out of this. I’m finally where I can say that I want a ... reasonably positive ... relationship with Sharon. That mostly means that I want her to be the sort of person I can have a reasonably positive relationship with.”

“That sounds good to me,” I said. “I said she was dead to me, but that’s the bad Sharon. A decent Sharon is different.”

She nodded. “It’s ... um ... I put it together with Mom and Dad. I mean, in my first life. My first priority once out of prison would’ve been setting things right with them, and ... they had reasons to be pissed off and disappointed with me. They’re maybe not as big as mine with Sharon, but it’s not a contest to decide who’s been the worst jerk. I have to give her a chance or I’ll be a total hypocrite. Besides, I have to give her a chance for me. It’ll take a huge weight off my mind if she turns out to be ... okay ... in the end.”

“Good,” I said, smiling. “I’m glad there’s progress there. Good news is nice, given the rest of the day.”

“That sucked,” she said.

“Indeed,” I said.

“I have to say, this has Trish written all over it. Move fast and take control. If she’d tried subtlety, the odds are that she could’ve charmed everyone into accepting her. She can’t possibly guess that I know who she really is.”

I started to nod, then hesitated. “Can’t she?”

“She’s not like us.”

“I didn’t mean that. What I meant was, is it possible that she’s picked up on your dislike? I know you’re a good actress...”

“You’d better!” she said.

“I do! Anyway, good actress or not, I’m not sure that you’re trying to act like you like her.”

“You have a point there.”

“If she knows you don’t like her...” I said.

“Her response would be to try to get me out of the way, and that means just making Mike do the work. Yeah. She did that a few times during my first go-round. People started realizing that disliking her was a bad thing, especially if you were in her circles. If people in other circles hated her, so what? They were beneath notice unless they caused trouble.”

“So she won’t go after you, just around you.”

“Yeah,” Angie said. “I’m beneath notice. I’m a debater and...” She grinned, then made a big flourishing gesture with her hands, “ ... a thespian, so I’m of no consequence whatsoever.”

“Something I greatly disagree with,” I said, chuckling.

“The thing is, if she’d read the coverage of Prom, she’d know all of this. Failure to do your research is a major handicap! Not that I would have, in my first life, but I’ve learned my lesson. The best laid schemes may go aft a-gley, and no plan survives contact with the enemy, but both Bobby Burns and von Moltke would agree that it’s much better to make plans, and that takes research.”

“Pulling out the von Moltke reference! Very nice!”

She chuckled. “It’s one of my Extemp go-tos.”

“It probably should be one of mine, but it’s not. I’d use Robert Burns, or an unattributed version of the other one.”

“Slacker.”

I chuckled. “Too many brain cells already in use.”

“Nah. Well ... hell. I have no idea. We know far more than most seventeen-year-olds, so who the hell knows how many brain cells are in use?”

“Let’s just go with ‘a bunch.’”

“Nice and scientific there. I like it!” she said, grinning.

“So ... Study Group 2.0?”

“Gene’s, if it works. If Curtis moves to New Orleans they either have a half-empty house or Gene’s gone and we find plan C.”

“What are the odds that Gene’s going?” I said.

“Roughly zero. We talked about that. Both of his parents fully agree that it would be ridiculous to move him to New Orleans for part of his senior year. It’d be a clusterfuck all around.”

“First von Moltke, now clusterfuck. It’s hard to keep up.”

I got a whap for that. Not a hard one, though.

“‘Clusterfuck’ is the perfect word, both for Gene moving and for Trish in general. Not that she would ever be involved in something so gauche as fucking in a cluster, but she leaves a trail of them behind her,” Angie said.

“So, out with Mike, in with Gene.”

“I hate to ask, but what if Mike actually gets Trish to back off? Like, not attending Labor Day?”

“He’s not going to even try that,” I said.

“Still ... we’ll get to the party late, and maybe not be in the greatest party spirit. Won’t that drive a nail in things?”

“I don’t think so, honestly. I don’t see a chance in hell that Trish backs off. For my part, I’ll spin it as giving her a fair chance before Steve arrives bringing all sorts of negative energy.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ve gotten so much better at shoveling out the BS! Seriously, it’s amazing! I’d buy it, and I know better.”

“Do you? If the others decide Trish is okay...”

“We’re still out, because Angie knows they’re deluding themselves.”

“Unless — and I’m just playing Devil’s Advocate — she’s a different, better Trish,” I said.

“Zero evidence for that. She’s a snake. But ... yeah. ‘Zorba’ should be fun. I know absolutely nothing about it. I mean, it’s not like first-life Angie had broad knowledge of American musical theater, but that one’s sketchier than a lot of them.”