Chapter 7: Returning to Normal

Saturday, July 2, 1983

I woke up around eight-thirty. David was already up, reading.

“Morning,” I said.

“Morning,” he said. “You were out late.”

“I was talking with my girlfriend, and then my sister.”

“Must be nice to have all those people from home. Especially the girlfriend part!”

I chuckled. “It’s nice. I’m sure there are some cool people here. You just have to meet them.”

Not that I’d been doing a great job of that, what with Laura, and being hit by a truck, and Jas, but ... hey. What can you do?

“I’m not great at meeting girls.”

I shrugged. “Just treat them like they’re people. Sounds dumb, but it goes a long ways.”

“I’ll ... try that. Thanks.”

It wasn’t clear if he was being sarcastic or not, but then I’m not sure if it was clear to him that I wasn’t just being sarcastic, either.

I called Jane’s office on the way to breakfast. I got her recording, as I’d hoped.

“Hi. This message is for Doctor Stanton. This is Steve Marshall. I wanted to let you know everything is going well right now, and I’ll call you when I can. It’s hard to get a lot of quiet time right now.”

That was pretty much innocuous, and it got Jane the right information so she wouldn’t be too worried.

The girls weren’t there at nine but turned up about ten after.

“Hey, I rushed to get here,” I said.

“You know it takes us a while to get ready,” Cammie said.

“Oh, really?” I said. “Because I do have a bit of experience with how long the other girls here take to get ready.”

“Fine,” Cammie said, pretending to be in a huff. “We were talking.”

“Now that I believe.”

Four (light and playful, fortunately) whaps later, we headed into the cafeteria.

Laura came in a while later. She was wearing a hoodie (a term that wasn’t in vogue yet) and using a crutch. I wasn’t sure if she knew that I’d spotted her. She went around the corner towards the serving area. From there, she had other seating areas to choose from. I wouldn’t see her again unless she wanted to be seen.

The walk to downtown Evanston took us over half an hour. We certainly could’ve gone faster, but it was Jasmine, Cammie, and Paige’s first time in some parts of the campus. Jas and Paige hadn’t even seen the library yet! Cammie and I decided we had to fix that, and so we did. They were duly impressed.

We wandered from building to building until campus ended and the city began. Downtown Evanston wasn’t really big, but it wasn’t small, either. There were lots of little shops, several impressive hotels (I was pretty sure the Orrington was where the dance had been, or would be, or ... whatever), a nice library, a number of churches, and plenty of offices. We criss-crossed, finding a book store and a record store. Each of us wound up with a book or two and a few cassettes.

We also found a locksmith, which was handy. They were happy to copy Mikayla’s apartment key. They frowned at the Northwestern dorm key, but decided they could copy it after all, given a ten-dollar ‘surcharge.’ The key didn’t actually say ‘Do Not Duplicate,’ but I was sure that they knew it was a Northwestern key, and that those weren’t supposed to be copied.

I gave Angie an apartment key and kept the other copy. I planned to stash the extra in my dorm room and keep the original on my key ring. The extra dorm key would get stashed, too.

For lunch, we hit a little sandwich place that seemed to cater to college students at least as much as office workers. I stared at the name, then realized where I knew it from. This place delivered to the dorms! In my first life, many of us had called and ordered sandwiches late at night. Probably people were already doing that this year. I certainly would be considering it.

I mentioned it to the girls, and they gave me a look. I should’ve known that they would’ve found out about it from the other girls.

The afternoon was more of the same. We walked as far as the Davis L station. From here, we could’ve gone to hundreds of interesting destinations.

I doubted that Northwestern had someone stationed out here watching for students who were sneaking off, but I didn’t know that. Perhaps they did, or did occasionally, or ... whatever. We had no intention of going anywhere just now, anyway.

If we did, there were other ways to skin a cat. We could’ve easily taken a taxi from any of the hotels to a different L station, or taken a bus. The thing was, Davis wasn’t the closest L station to campus. Foster was closer, and Noyes was much closer. Surely they wouldn’t have them all staked out, would they?

One ridiculously easy workaround would be to go to Mikayla’s apartment, wait a few minutes, then call a cab. It would be really difficult to watch us there without us spotting the watcher, and a cab pulling up to an apartment building is hardly suspicious.

Most likely we’d behave, and get Uncle Robert or Aunt Monica to sign us out, but knowing our options was a good thing.

Dinner was — what else? — Giordano’s. With the amount of walking we’d done, even Chicago deep dish wasn’t going to wreck anyone’s diet, and it was so good.

We lingered over dessert and (non-alcoholic!) drinks. It was nearly ten by the time we headed back. We’d been out and about for almost twelve hours.

Jas and I walked hand-in-hand, as we had much of the day. Not that Angie and Paige hadn’t, but in a concession to ‘normal girl behavior,’ often Cammie was included in that.

After a bit, she fell back, so I did, too.

“I’m ... good,” she said.

“I’m glad.”

“I can’t blame you for being who you are. You’re obviously a teenager. Do you ever get attracted to ... um ... the sort of women you would have, before?”

I nodded. “I can see older women as attractive in a way that probably a lot of kids our age can’t, but it’s still ... hypothetical. Meg is attractive, and so is Steffie, but they’re not attractive to me.”

“Mama?” she said, eyebrow raised.

“I probably shouldn’t answer that.”

She grinned. “You both flirt.”

“But we wouldn’t, ever. Not because of attractiveness, but...”

“Yeah. I get it. The same with Rita, right?”

“Rita’s different. She’s just plain off limits. Camille could, but it’d be ... just ... no. We’re in bad soap opera territory.”

She nodded. “I agree.”

“If I did, it’d be much more ‘Mrs. Robinson’ than someone who’s age-appropriate.”

“That’s a really good answer,” she said.

“The other thing is, I wouldn’t, not now.”

“What? Oh, wait. Duh!”

I smiled, nodding. “I’m not doing anything illegal that way. For one thing, I would tell Jane, because I tell her things like that, and...”

“She would have to say something.”

“Yeah.”

“This is one of the things that I thought wouldn’t work, when we started dating, and turns out to be really good. You’re a straight arrow, pretty much. You’ll bend the rules all over the place, but it’s only when the rules are stupid. Even then, if breaking the rule would mess someone else up, you’ll stick with it, even if it’s a silly rule for you.”

“Yeah. Like, if we hopped on the L, I think that would be fine, because we’re free to go all over Houston ... hell, we’re free to go all over the state ... without parental involvement. I totally get why Northwestern has the rules they have, though. That’s the flip side. A lot of those kids lack common sense.”

She giggled. “Yes! Oh, so much! I’ve heard the most ridiculous suggestions, and that’s from the girls, who are always more sensible than boys of the same age. Present company totally excluded.”

“I’m shocked, honestly. You know I was here before. I thought everyone was, you know, pretty mature and all. Probably they are, by seventeen-year-old standards, but ... put a lot of these kids in Memorial Debate, or Drama, and...”

“Train wreck! Well, no. They’d learn. We have all sorts of role models now. Not just you and Angie. Cammie, Gene, Sue. Hell, Megan and Anne, and they’re a year younger. Darla. Linda, too. And Carole and Sheila and ... somehow, though I completely don’t understand how that happened ... Paige!”

“Not to mention Jasmine,” I said.

“I didn’t want to blow my own horn.”

“Seriously, I think if you told some of the guys they could go tour the city on the L, a bunch would get lost or in trouble or arrested.”

“The girls would be just as bad. Which saddens me, but yeah.”

“Me, too.”

She sighed. “They’re smart, but they’re ... either sheltered, or nuts, or both.”

“The guys are mostly sheltered and/or clueless.”

“I bet some of the Drama guys are nuts.”

“Well ... okay. Gotta be.”

“I haven’t mentioned my roommate, Gabby. She’s had three personality crises so far. Well, she calls them that, and other girls go with it. She puts so much drama in Drama. Good lord! She’s really nice, and I like her, but she’s threatened to kill herself once — she was never going to, before you worry — she’s threatened to run away, and she spent the better part of a day pretending that none of the rest of us existed. Including trying to walk through people and pretending to be puzzled at the ‘invisible wall.’”

“Sounds ... entertaining,” I said.

“Oh, she’s a riot! I’m having a blast! Some of it is an act, but I’m not sure if she knows which is which.”

“I haven’t heard much about anyone’s roommates. I guess I missed that with all of the drama.”

“I think Angie’s is bland as plain oatmeal. Paige’s is ... Paige, from two years ago. That one’s hilarious. And Cammie’s seems to be kinda ... Cammie. Straight, I think, but she seems nice and studious and focused and fairly fun to be around.”

“As long as she’s not opposed to lesbians.”

Jas chuckled. “We have two very open lesbians so far. Not a couple. They seem nice. No one’s said anything bad. I don’t think they’ve heard about our Prom yet, or figured out that we’re from there, or ... whatever. They will, most likely. That’ll be fun.”

“I bet it will. That’s mostly died down, thankfully, and its time as an Extemp topic is about over.”

“Yeah,” she said, sighing. “Still ... we were there for history, if minor history.”

“That we were.”

She squeezed my hand. “This helps me remember that you’re really just a normal guy with a weird story. I can deal with that. You’re not some unicorn, or demigod, or ... whatever-the-hell. You’re just ... you. And I love you.”

“And I love you, too.”

“See ... that’s something I’d have trouble with, except I don’t. I mean, because ... you kinda also are a unicorn, even if you’re not, and I’m ... not. But...”

I nodded. “But you’re an amazing person and I love you, and that’s what it comes down to. There doesn’t have to be a reason. I mean, well ... take any famous person. Take Prince Charles. He’s the heir to the throne. That’s pretty much a unicorn. Diana was a royal, of course, but there are lots of those.”

“Hrm. I see what you’re saying. Love is more just ... love.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s better. I like that.”

“Good,” I said, squeezing her hand.

“One more thing.”

“Yes?”

“You said something about not being interested in Laura that way. I mean, of course, because she’s psycho, but it was bigger than that, I think. She is a unicorn, plus she’s really cute and I imagine really smart, and you really liked her before. So ... why not?”

“Because that Laura was a fantasy. She was my idealized ‘if only she would love me’ girl, when I felt like no one ever would. We never had a relationship. We might work, but even if we did, I have expectations of her that she couldn’t meet, and she probably has expectations of me that I won’t meet. We have all of the baggage of an interrupted relationship without any of the good stuff. Plus, just simply, I never loved her. I love you. That’s more than enough. As of right now, even if she turns out to not be psycho, I’m not even sure a fling would work, but ... maybe? One day? For now, though ... I’d like to be friends, if she’ll allow it, but that’s it.”

She nodded. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. It would be like me chasing a junior high crush, who knew they were a junior high crush, even though we didn’t have anything.”

“Add in your junior high crush having been hurt by someone who looks just like you, and ... yeah.”

“Ugh. Well ... I promise not to nudge you together!”

“Thanks, honey!”

“I’m going to try to talk to Angie tonight.”

“Sounds good,” I said, and meant it.

She smiled. “I want to... know ... you know? The whole thing.”

“I know.”

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too, honey,” I said.

We’d gotten to where we needed to part. Jas and I hugged and kissed, and then I hugged the other girls. They headed across Sheridan (carefully!) and I walked the remaining blocks to Elder.

David was reading when I came in.

“What’d you do today?” he said.

“Walked around Evanston and shopped, and had pizza. And sandwiches from the place people order from.”

“Cool! I have to get down there.”

“It’s nice.”

“Are you going to the game tomorrow?” he said.

“Wouldn’t miss it. I grew up an Astros fan, of course, but my second team is the Cubs.”

“They’re a horrible pick for a second team.”

I smiled, and said, “My dad is a dyed-in-the-wool Cubs fan. And Bears.”

“How’d that happen?”

“He’s from here. I mean, here. Skokie and Winnetka.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. My grandmother lives in a retirement home about ten minutes from here, along with her second husband, who’s a retired Northwestern law professor. My dad’s dad and brother are buried over in Skokie.”

“Huh. Cool!” he said.

“I’ve been coming up here almost every year since I was little. My mom’s from Stevens Point, Wisconsin. We visit family in both places, usually around July 4th. This year we came up early because of Northwestern. Mom and Dad were still in town, so they were able to visit me in the hospital. I’ve got an aunt and uncle in the area, too. They might spring us a time or two.”

“Cool!”

“Anyway, I’m going to get to bed. Hopefully tomorrow it’s ‘Cubs win! Cubs win!’”

Okay, I did not have the best Harry Caray impersonation.

“Might be. They just won’t win the big one.”

“That’s the knock on them.”

I couldn’t tell him that the Cubs had, at long, long last, finally won in 2016. Partly I couldn’t because that would be nuts, and partly I couldn’t because ... who knows? I had no influence on baseball yet, but that was over thirty years from now. Some (most? all?) of those players weren’t even born yet. I could upset the whole damn apple cart, potentially. Not being a huge baseball fan, I might never realize it until some other team walked off with the Series in 2016.

Hell, I hadn’t had any influence on Milwaukee that I could reasonably see, and already they’d deviated from the path.

The butterfly effect is a bitch when you’ve actually got reason to believe you might smash some meaningful butterflies.

Sunday, July 3, 1983