Chapter 61: Lists

Sunday, December 4, 1983

I checked the paper after church. Converse Judson had blown out San Antonio Churchill 39-0, making them our next opponent. More importantly, we had the Saturday game. Plano was taking on Midland Lee in the Friday game.

We’d have a hostile crowd for this game. It was being held in Alamo Stadium, which was about as close to Converse Judson as the Astrodome was to Memorial. For us, it’d be about a three hour drive. Any Memorial students going would mostly travel via chartered bus. I imagined there would be a few of those.

At Study Group, Jas, Ang, Paige, and I agreed that we’d stay in the Hilton again (hopefully with no accusations of misbehavior this time!) after the game. We’d have no problem getting there before the game, and we’d have no trouble getting back from there no more than slightly late for Study Group.

I mean, it’d only be finals week coming up. I’m sure we’d be fine with an hour or two less studying.

We kept things pretty low key at Study Group, but Jas worked a bit with everyone doing some SAT prep. She was ready, and everyone (including her!) knew she was ready, but it certainly didn’t hurt to study a bit more.

Monday, December 5, 1983

Everyone at school was excited about the Converse Judson game. They were also worried. That 39-0 score looked formidable, even factored against Judson’s other wins being much closer and even considering that Churchill had been viewed as something of a fluke to get that far.

Memorial was, at this point, football crazy. It was football crazy enough that they’d decided to move the Winter Formal from Saturday to Friday. A few kids grumbled, but most of them were in favor of it, or at least that’s the impression that I’d gotten.

The Booster Club had quickly arranged for twenty buses to take kids to the game. That wouldn’t be enough, most likely, but it would be a start. We weren’t the only seniors (not juniors) who would drive. We almost certainly weren’t even the only ones who would stay over.

Memorial would have a pretty decent crowd, at least. We would still be outnumbered, but we weren’t going to be intimidated, nor go down without a fight.

We received some more good news in the middle of the day. Principal Riggs called Jas to the office just after lunch. In an unusual twist, the note specifically said that it was good news and not to worry.

It wasn’t great news, but it was quite good. The College Board people had apparently done some more research and had come to the conclusion that Jas was likely not cheating, or at least that’s how it appeared to me. They’d agreed that they would score the test upon receipt, and that they would make sure it was sent quickly. She would likely have results by the end of the week and possibly sooner.

I’m sure it was too much to ask for them to send a copy of the answers and hand-score it. Any exposure of the answers before kids were done taking the test would be a disaster, and anytime you let them out of the College Board’s offices, that’s a risk. They wouldn’t take such a risk just to make one kid feel better.

Still, it was a big win for us. We’d worried that Jas might have to wait for weeks. This would give her the (hopefully good!) results before Christmas.

I finally got around to talking with Angie about Saturday night. Neither she nor I had expected the Seilers to have any problem with her going back to Paige’s room, even if some strange noises were heard, but the first time they’d tried it both of them had been pretty nervous all the same. Maybe it’d be different? It hadn’t been.

They’d talked with Tony and Jean about living together in college, too, and found that both Tony and Jean were supportive. That seemed like a very good sign overall, not just for college.

Wednesday, December 7, 1983

I had a phone message waiting for me when I got home. It was from Kyle Branner. I spent a few seconds wondering why it wasn’t from Martin Connelly, but then remembered that it had to come from Kyle or we’d break attorney/client privilege.

All Kyle had to say (at least on the answering machine) was that Martin had found several ways to slightly reduce my taxes and exposure. He wanted us to get together when I could. I tried his office, but he was out, so I left a message saying that I’d call back tomorrow.

Thursday, December 8, 1983

I called Kyle back during lunch. He explained matters briefly. Basically, my having no other income helped shelter some of the proceeds. I could also write off my gambling losses. Apparently, Martin had joked that I needed more of them rather than fewer. I considered joking with Kyle about going and finding some more, but if he missed the joke, it might get awkward quickly.

One of the ironies here was that this was an all-cash business with no receipts, records, or anything else. What exactly would the IRS have in an audit? I could easily claim that I’d bet more than I had at lower odds, thereby having less in net winnings. As long as it was reasonable, how could they prove that I’d gotten ten to one odds instead of eight to one odds? The difference between those two values would be tens of thousands.

There was no reason to do anything but be honest with the IRS (with the exception of how I’d gotten so lucky, of course!) Life was too long, and I had far too many advantages, to get dumb and greedy when I wasn’t even eighteen yet.

We planned tentatively to get together on Friday the 16th. School would technically be in session that day, but finals would finish on the 15th, and the early rumors were that they would take attendance (around 10, not at the usual time) and then pretty much turn us loose. If some of us happened to take off early, well, we’d been there, hadn’t we?

I met briefly with Principal Riggs. Nothing was final yet, but it seemed virtually certain that colored hair and unusual hairstyles were a go. It was also virtually certain that facial hair was not.

Most of our clothing proposals were going to fly, but some weren’t. They were minor changes, anyway, and would barely affect a few people. Some tweaks to the length of various things, a couple of new fabric options, and some rips in jeans. Nothing like what I’d seen commonly in the 2010s, but it was a bit of progress, and that’s all we expected.

After the meeting with Principal Riggs, Jas and I went out to dinner. We were again by ourselves, with Paige and Angie off doing their own thing. I was sure they’d visit Jasmine’s sometimes, but it was better that, if sex was the goal, they could just retreat to Paige’s room.

While it’d never happened with our kids, both my ex-wife and I had agreed that we weren’t going to play the ‘not under my roof’ game. Jas and I talked about it over soup at Pho King (we were still making up for not going there often enough), and agreed that we weren’t, either. They’d have to be old enough to have adult conversations about sex, we’d need boundaries, they would need to be responsible, and so forth and so on, but we’d rather have them in a nice, safe, warm, comfortable house than in the back of a car or worse. Now, if they wanted to be in the back of a car, that would be different.

It was little surprise that Jasmine and I thought alike, given her parents’ attitudes towards sex, but it was still good to have the conversation. You never know when you might be on different pages on something and not even know it.

Finding Mike’s pool house had been extremely good luck. By the time that had run out, we’d gotten more good luck, and it had mattered less. Without that? I have no idea what we would have done, but I suspect it wouldn’t have been very safe or very sane.

Plus, in a very real way, if we hadn’t lucked into having their guest house, Candice might not even be alive. Our physical relationship had certainly influenced the depth of our feelings, and even a bit less connection might have simply meant the end. Yes, her suicide may well have been a ‘cry for help,’ but she’d come very close to believing she had no one to call.

In any case, our kids would — hopefully — never have to face those challenges. That hardly assured that they wouldn’t face a myriad of other challenges, but I was pretty sure we’d be good parents. I was also pretty sure that our kids would be challenging, but in all of the best ways.

At least, most of the time. First-life Steve had been a jerk sometimes, and Jasmine had had her issues. The odds were that our kids would, too.

After soup, we headed back to Jasmine’s house. As usual, we stashed the leftovers, then took off for her bedroom. Things there took their usual (and highly pleasurable) course, which hardly surprised me considering our conversation over dinner. As we were snuggling afterward, she said something that completely surprised me, though.