Chapter 53: With Great Power

Sunday, November 6, 1983

Our trip back was pretty uneventful, all things considered. We talked a fair bit, but none of it was about anything big. Too much chance of being overheard, and there wasn’t any urgency in any of the topics around Laura.

We arrived back in Houston around two, collected our luggage, and then piled into cars. Once we dropped off Paige, the conversation picked up a notch. I had to wonder if Paige had any idea that was happening. Probably not, but if she did, she’d have to be wondering what topics we were keeping from her.

“So...” Angie said. “Laura. Anything new?”

Jas said, “She seems to be doing well. It was cool that she and Jess got to meet.”

“I got some information,” I said. “A fair bit. You two were off being competitive.”

“Spill!” Angie said.

Jas nodded. “Yes, please!”

“We talked for a while after you left for finals. She’s got her college choices down to the U of I, IIT — that’s Illinois Institute of Technology, Northwestern, or — and I quote — Pur-fucking-due.”

“She hates Purdue!” Jas said.

“Yes, but if it’s the only one to offer a full scholarship she’ll go there.”

“Okay. That makes sense,” Jas said.

“Other than that, she’s happy, she’s doing better, she thinks the summer really helped, and so forth. She thanked me for pressing the confrontation and moving things along.”

“That was a good thing,” Jas said. “Just ... not next to a road next time. Any road. At all. Anywhere!”

“I think I’ve learned my lesson on that one,” I said.

“Good!”

“We talked about Jess. That was the big thing.”

“And?” Angie said.

“She was impressed,” I said.

“Jess is really impressive,” Jas said.

“She really didn’t know the other Jess that well. I mean, Asshole Steve dumped her for that Jess, after all. I doubt he was inviting the left-in-the-lurch fiancée over to meet the new lady of the house.”

Both of them giggled. “Yeah, no,” Jas said.

“She had the impression that the other Jess was something of an airhead. Apparently, that was a popular tabloid topic. Of course, that doesn’t surprise me. Most pretty women get that.”

“Including me,” Angie said.

“And me,” Jas said. “Including from myself until not all that long ago.”

“My guess is that she was about the same, but without the same experiences. Change enough experiences and maybe she lacks a bunch of depth that ours has. But ... who knows? Darla is obviously literally a different person from Dave. Maybe her Jess was a slightly different person than ours. There’s no way to know that.”

“That’s an interesting and new theory,” Angie said.

“Well, we presume Darla is what happened when her mom conceived on a different day. Stands to reason, with the different birthdate. But, for all we know, it was the same day but a different gestation period, with one sperm winning the race instead of another. I feel like most of the people I know from before are the same people, but maybe they’re just almost the same. It’s not like there’s ever been research on how different two babies would be if you picked a different sperm from the same population.”

“Almost. There’s fraternal twins ... but that’s a different egg, too,” Angie said.

“Yeah. I think it’s unlikely. I mean, you’re more likely to get Mel, vs Mark or Morty, than some subtle change,” I said. “It’s not a great theory, but ... who knows? We’re sidetracked anyway. She was very impressed with Jess, which really says something about Laura, too, because there are people at Memorial — and I don’t mean Trish — who aren’t nearly as impressed with Jess as they should be.”

“True enough,” Jas said.

“Jess lets people come to her as they are,” Angie said. “But not here. Here she was herself, or as much herself as she gets, maybe.”

“Kinda like you and Steve are as much yourself as you get when we’re in public,” Jas said.

“Well ... yes ... that.” Angie said, stretching the words out. “Really, yes, that. Jess has things she only shows some people and so do we. Not the same sorts of things, but similar.”

“You don’t think...?” Jas said.

“We’ve thought about it,” Angie said.

“In my opinion, no,” I said. “The thing is, Jess is way too sharp to not recognize us for who we are if she’s like us, and I just don’t see where she wins by not dropping some anachronistic reference and seeing if we bite.”

“Me neither,” Angie said. “There’s no angle there. I do think we’ll have to tell her one day. She undoubtedly knows there’s something, just like Cammie does.”

I parked at Jasmine’s house. We all got out, I fetched her bags, and we headed in. Camille and Francis weren’t around, so we settled in the living room.

I said, “Picking up where we left off, Laura touched on that. I have permission to out her to Cammie and Jess, if and when.”

“That’s really cool,” Angie said. “I didn’t think she would go that far.”

“I wasn’t expecting it, either.”

“Well, I’m glad,” Jas said. “Trying to keep just part of the secret would be frustrating.”

“I could maybe have danced around it,” I said, “but Cammie is already certain that Laura’s involved, and Jess might potentially guess. Plus, if Cammie knows, and Jess knows, but Cammie knows about Laura and Jess doesn’t, that’s bad.”

“I’m a little worried about adding people,” Angie said, “but Cammie and Jess are fine, and it’s probably worse to not tell them than to tell them. Paige is inevitable, and ... soonish ... unless something big changes. After that, I can’t think of anyone obvious to add soon. Mom and Dad would be much later.”

“I can’t think of anyone either,” I said.

Jas nodded. “Don’t look at me!”

“Anything else interesting?” Angie said.

“Actually, there was. We talked briefly about Jess’s — her Jessica’s, I mean — movie career. Her big breakout was in a movie called ‘Split Decision’. She won her first Oscar for ‘American Princess’, which was a biopic of Grace Kelly.”

“She doesn’t look all that much like Grace Kelly,” Jas said.

“Laura said that she vanished into the role, even with a different body type and the wrong height. That reshot scenes from Grace Kelly movies were practically indistinguishable from the originals.”

“I tend to trust Laura’s take on it,” Jas said. “Cool! I can see Jess doing it, and it sounds like an awesome movie.”

“I’ve never heard of either of them,” I said.

“Me, neither,” Angie said.

“That’s good, right?” Jas said. “She’s not displacing anyone else?”

“It’s a really good sign, yes,” I said. “We need to run down as many others as possible. To me, the worst case would be her having a minor success with a role that became some other actress’s breakout performance.”

“Me, too,” Angie said. “I don’t feel like we’d be exactly doing anything wrong. We’re not setting out to harm anyone, and Jess doesn’t even know these other people exist. She’s from here. This is her universe as much as it’s anyone else’s.”

“Still,” I said, “it’s probably better if we’re guiding things a bit. Jess would like that.”

“She would,” Angie said. “Needless to say, we didn’t talk about that, but Laura was pretty encouraging about Jessica doing Drama, in a vague sort of way that fit someone she wasn’t supposed to know except by reputation.”

“It’s progress, of a sort,” I said. “I don’t know if Jess and Laura will ever be close friends, but they’re in our orbit and they’re a bit closer now.”

“We are building an eclectic network, aren’t we?” Angie said. “A potential A-list actress. Two potential NFL players, at least. Two likely computer moguls. Several people who are likely to be attorneys, quite possibly very successful ones. At least one doctor, and I’ll bet more. One quantitative analyst in training. Several business types, and I’d bet highly successful ones. Toss in some of our adult connections — a super-wonky quantitative analyst turned high school teacher, several politicians to be, a circuit court judge, and a super-tenuous connection to the President — and we have a lot of reach.”

“I’m not sure where I fit into this,” Jas said.

“To be honest, I’m not sure where I fit either,” I said.

“The two of you, separately and together, are our leaders, I think. Leaders and also the public face of things. Steve’s done it, but I know you, Jas. You’re not going to be intimidated walking out to speak to a crowd. You’ll be self-assured and charismatic. Depending who we need to talk to, one or the other of you might carry the load, or both of you together. Paige, too, if she doesn’t find another specialty. Each of you is going to specialize some in college, and maybe you’ll fall in love with one thing or another and decide that’s what you want to be, but in the meantime, that’s my guess.”

“Again, I’m not sure how I fit in as a leader,” Jas said. “Steve’s the leader.”

“But we’re a team, honey,” I said. “It’s like asking who’s in charge: Francis or Camille.”

“Mama,” Jas said, then giggled. “Okay, I sort of get it. Your parents are the same way. You can start with the straight-people stereotype that the husband is the leader outside the home and the wife is the leader at home, but our parents aren’t that simple. Mama influences how Papa leads, and Helen influences how Sam leads. In turn, both of them have a lot of influence at home. Steve and I might have our spheres, but we’ll work together.”

“That, and I think we need one part of the leadership to be, um ... of this world,” Angie said. “Steve and I, and Laura, too, are ... this is home. This is our world. But we’re also outsiders in a way that no one else is. Each of us might say, ‘Well, this has to go this way, because that’s how we know it went.’ You’re the one who can say, ‘But this isn’t that world. Why does it have to go that way?’ and not feel like you’re somehow breaking things.”

“But maybe I will be breaking things,” Jas said.

Angie shrugged. “Some things are there to be broken. We don’t know if an alternative is better. All we know is that it’s different. We broke the world when we intervened on behalf of Curtis. I think the world is better, but the jury is out. It’ll always be out, too. Curtis could have a brilliant and celebrated career and make wonderful decisions that make everyone happy. Maybe Jess will play Marsha in a biopic of him one day.”

“Marsha’s pretty, but Jess...”

“Twenty years from now, if that — probably less — Jess will be old by Hollywood standards,” I said. “That sucks, but it’s the truth. The solution isn’t to try to be the beautiful young woman forever. They’ll make you play the mothers and grandmothers and whatever. The solution is to play really interesting mothers and grandmothers, and businesspeople, politicians, judges, and ... whatever. Julia Roberts kicked her career up a notch by taking a role playing a pissed-off woman — who happens to be a mom — who goes after a big company for bad behavior. She deserves that role, and I’d warn Jess off of it, but it’s the sort of role Jess should grab. Of course, that Grace Kelly role is perfect.”

“I was a little flippant about Marsha,” Angie said. “Marsha’s a good character-actress role. I derailed on that. What I was trying to say was, suppose Curtis is beloved and people make movies about him. That still doesn’t mean that the guy who would’ve had the job if Curtis had died would’ve been a dud. Maybe that guy would’ve ushered in world peace. We made Gene’s life a lot happier, but maybe pissed-off Gene and Sue would’ve invented some gadget that ends traffic fatalities — all of them. The point is that we can’t know, but we do know when we’re changing something. We need a voice who says ‘Yeah, but this looks like a good direction. Shut up and let’s go for it.’ We can do that — obviously, ‘cuz that’s what we did with Curtis — but it feels right to me to have someone from here in that role, and that’s you.”

Jas blushed again. “That’s a lot of responsibility.”

“This whole thing is a lot of responsibility,” I said. “There’s a line from Spiderman that says ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ The universe has given us comparatively great power, and you’re part of that ‘us.’”

That got a sniffle, a few tears, and then hugs for Angie and me. “I ... um ... so, I know I am, but saying it that way ... it’s a big deal. That makes me feel a lot better about what I’m bringing to this.”

“Look,” Angie said, “if you’d asked me before this summer what role I would have had, I’d have said I’d be a competent manager, a leader, running the business, something like that. Who the hell knew I’d suddenly be digging deep into advanced math and being frustrated that I can’t learn more, and faster? We don’t have to know our roles today. We’re not even in college yet. The business that we do while we’re in high school and college will get done even if we’re not in our ideal roles yet.”

“I guarantee that Michael Dell doesn’t have a clue of how to run a multi-million dollar company today, much less a multi-billion dollar company, but he’s going to be damn good at it as he learns,” I said. “We can’t get wrapped up in feeling like we’re not ready. By the time we feel like we’re ready, we’ll have missed dozens of opportunities.”

“The only one who’s ready is Laura,” Angie said, “and I don’t know how ready she is, either.”