Chapter 93: Unhappy News

Thursday, March 1, 1984

I’d almost forgotten that we would be going to Austin yet again. The yearly senior trip to the State Capitol was planned for April 13th (which was, of course, also the date of the State Computer Math competition). They handed out permission slips far in advance of the trip. Based on history, I’m sure they’d still be nagging some people the day before the trip.

Mr. Hannity was nagging me to sign up for the Computer Math competition, but I’d refused and would continue to refuse. Our team had done well in my first go-round, I remembered that much. It might say something about how important it’d been to me that I couldn’t remember how well. We hadn’t won, but second? Third? Fourth? Honorable mention? No idea, but we’d gotten some sort of trophy, I was sure of that.

I was pretty sure that I could win this year, even without anyone else on the team, but that made me more determined not to compete. Someone who’d put in the work as a high schooler deserved the credit. I’d done that in Debate. I hadn’t done that in computer math.

Besides, I’d missed the State Capitol trip that time. I wasn’t going to miss it this time unless I had to.

I gave Michael a call in the early evening and caught him at home. He was somewhat more evasive this time, and I thought I caught ‘motherboard’ and ‘floppy’ in the background. It was hard to tell, though. Odds were that he was up and running, but not running very fast. If so, we’d need to be ready to move quickly. I still thought March was the target, and I didn’t have a way to get too precise (was that early March? Mid March? Late March?), but staying in touch with Michael was the best I could do.

I mentioned being on campus this weekend, but busy, and Michael said he might be too busy to get together for lunch anyway, but that we should get together soon. When I hinted at possibly being in Austin later in the month, either for Spring Break or for later, Michael made a surprisingly enthusiastic promise to make time for a meal and catching up. Perhaps he was thinking I wouldn’t actually make it back to Austin. He had no idea just how much traveling we’d been doing and would continue to be doing.

Friday, March 2, 1984

We made it through first period, then left to get on a bus to head to the tournament. As usual, we pretty much filled up the bus. Meg said that she’d heard informally that we had the most students invited to UT from any school. In my first go-round, we’d either had none or so few that Meg hadn’t felt it worthwhile to change plans to take part of the team to Austin.

The only people who’d been invited but weren’t going were Anne and Megan. Megan, of course, was playing basketball — and cheering on her boyfriend — and Anne was cheering on Megan. I’d have wanted to, but ... priorities.

We had a great time on the ride, as usual. Paige and Cammie got everyone singing along with the radio for a while, we played games, and (of course) we talked a great deal.

Including a stop in Columbus for lunch, we made good time and wound up at the motel (the same Howard Johnson from our previous trip) around two-thirty. Everyone called home, got their suitcases put away, changed into competition clothes, and ‘freshened up’ a bit, then we left for UT.

As with the other college tournaments we’d attended, the student center (the Texas Union, in UT’s case), held both the check-in and the main waiting areas. They’d sectioned off an area for us, but there were plenty of college students walking past and giving us funny looks. High school students in mostly either business attire or fairly colorful Drama outfits will do that.

It was a little bit weird for me. I’d been in this building dozens (likely hundreds) of times, of course, but had to pretend it was new to me. Most likely I made that work, but it was definitely not something I really liked doing.

I spent a bit of time walking around the room, saying hi to people I knew. Most of us did, now. You can’t do this for years and not get to know at least a few people. For my part, I said hi to the Duschene girls, gave Marshall a high-five, and caught up with Dave Mayrink a bit. At least I didn’t have to compete against Marshall, but the others? In a way, not my ideal tournament. In another way, better than some alternatives.

When I got back, Cammie seemed just a bit more nervous, or distracted, than usual. I did what I could to help calm her down. She chalked it up to being the last regular tournament of our career, and I could believe that, but I didn’t think that was the whole story. I just had no idea what else might be bothering her.

It only took until our second round to wind up against one of the other teams we knew well. We found ourselves debating Brenda and Natalie from Duschene. Both teams agreed that this could easily be the finals at some tournaments. It could still be the finals; either team could (and probably would) break at 3-1, and hopefully neither of us would be worse than that.

It was one of the toughest prelims rounds I’d ever had, of course. They were on; we were on, too. Whatever was bothering Cammie, it didn’t seem to affect her debating skills. I’d hate to have been the judge. We might never know which team won, depending on whether UT posted prelims records. Some tournaments did, but some didn’t.

Aside from that, the evening was pretty relaxed, but that set the tone for a nervous night.

I got to talk briefly with Angie and Jas, both of whom said they’d sound out Cammie a bit and see if they could get to the bottom of things.

Saturday, March 3, 1984

We had breakfast at Denny’s, managing to be good guests (I thought, anyway). It wasn’t until we were at UT that Angie and I managed to talk. As best as she could tell, it was an end-of-season thing with Cammie, though perhaps that wasn’t all of it. Both of us were guessing that perhaps it was the slowly approaching moment when she’d ask me the big question that was on her mind. Neither of us thought it would be before ToC, barring something forcing the issue, but every tournament was a step closer to that.

In any case, we sailed through our morning rounds. I’d have been amazed if we didn’t win both, and Extemp felt good, too. That might have meant that we’d lost to Brenda and Natalie, and were power-matched against lesser 1-1 teams, or it might mean that we were just that good. Either way was about equally likely.

I picked up a copy of The Daily Texan, UT’s student newspaper, and flipped through it while waiting. As I hit the back pages, I suddenly paused and stared. There, in a corner of the page, was a little ad for PCs Limited advertising inexpensive PCs.

With that, what had been a near-certainty (Laura’s story notwithstanding) was now concrete. Our window of opportunity was definitely open. When to try to take advantage was still a question, but we had a real shot at doing this.

As we’d said a while back, we had many other paths to becoming wealthy, but this one was a very good, very logical one that would be easy to explain. Simply always betting right on stocks would be a much bigger question. We would likely still do it, but starting out with a big hit that came out of supporting a friend would make for a great story.

All we had to do was make it work.

Since they were breaking to octofinals, breaks were posted before lunch. As always (though not for much longer), Cammie and Paige fetched the results and read them off to us.

Cammie went first, saying, “In CX, we have ... everyone. Congrats!”

We all clapped. Five out of sixteen was very much an achievement!

“In LD, we have ... Janice, Danny, Eric, and Jaya!”

That left Lori out, but she had years to learn. I thought that ToC might pick up LD next year. If so, I’d wager on Jaya, Eric, and Lori all going.

“Finally, in Extemp, we have me, Amit, Angie, Steve, Sue, Gene, Linda, and Jaya!”

And that left out Darla and Jeff.

She swapped places with Paige, who said, “First, in Duo, we’ve got everyone. As usual. Congrats!”

Another round of applause, of course.

“In Humorous, me, Jasmine, Angie, Jessica, Lexi, Sierra, and Gordon. And, in Dramatic, me, Jasmine, Sheila, Jessica, Lexi, Sandy, and Sierra.”

Good lineups all. We were in a good place. Everyone who still had a chance of qualifying for ToC was still in a place to get their second bid.

Our octofinals opponents, Micah Brenner and Susan Chadwick, were from San Antonio Churchill. It turned out they’d known Brad and Chelsea, but not well. They were surprised that we remembered them.

That was probably the highlight of the round. They were good; we were better. They were running an exclusionary rule case that we could easily counter, and did. I was certain we had this.

We shook hands after the round and wished them well. It turned out they were only sophomores, so they’d have plenty of chances to improve. Perhaps they’d be frenemies for Natasha and Penny long after we’d moved on.

On the way back, I decided to ask.

“Something on your mind?” I said.

Cammie looked at me. “A few somethings, maybe. My parents are a bit unhappy with the idea of my living anywhere except a dorm. Now, a dorm could be fine, but it’s not really what either Mel or I wanted. For one thing, single beds, and we would need to keep up appearances or court trouble. For another, it’s just not that nice. But the idea of sharing a house with a boy without any supervision is trouble.”

Before I could say anything, she said, “I know. Ironic, right? They’d rather that I be in an all-girl environment? Who’d have guessed? Cal and I must have them snowed. That, or they’re snowing me. Anyway, it’s all a bunch of noise right now. We can apply for the dorm and change our minds later. A lot of people do. I can’t do anything until everything is completely set, no matter what.”

“We’ll help however we can. Of course, that includes backing off.”

She nodded, then said, “I know, and that still means a lot. Of course, it plays into the second thing, which is that I still have something to ask you. Don’t worry, I’m not ready, but I’m very aware of it right now, and that there aren’t that many tournaments left.”

“And, by the time the tournaments are done, you’ll be eighteen, too.”

“That might factor into things,” she said, smiling. “You have to know I trust you implicitly. Whatever the answers are, they’re not going to change anything that way. I just ... sometimes I see something happen and I wonder how it figures into the big picture, and just what it is that I don’t know. I can’t help it!”

“Not a problem. I’ll try to avoid doing anything that causes things like that, but...”

“But you’ve always tried to do that, and yet here we are.”

“Indeed,” I said. “Here we are.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Unless you’re a renegade ex-Nazi who cracked the code on aging, we’ll be good. Even then, you’ve probably reformed.”

“We’re completely good on that front. Not a hint of Nazi, as far as I know.”

“As far as you know?” she said, lifting an eyebrow.

I shrugged. “I am adopted. Who knows who my biological parents are?”

“I don’t think being a Nazi runs in the family.”

“Hopefully not!”

We had lunch (pizza, from Conan’s, which I was eating for both the first and probably hundredth time — they’d been a staple of the undergraduate diet at UT). I had to pretend not to be completely familiar with it. Were they trying to throw me off?

Along with the quarterfinals postings, they announced that rounds for events besides CX, LD, and Duo would now overlap, and if you were in two, they scheduled you early in one, late in another. That might mess with some of the Drama people, but it was the only way to get through a tournament like this and keep everyone awake.

Paige reported the postings first.

“Duo is same-old same-old. Everyone’s still going. Dramatic is me, Jas, Sheila, Jess, and Sierra. Finally, Humorous is me, Jas, Angie, Jess, Lexi, and Sierra.”

That was great for Sierra, who was looking like a big star to be. It also meant Jas, Jess, and Sierra were the ones juggling partially overlapping rounds. Jas was the only one left in three events, but she was used to that.

Cammie got up next. “In CX, we have me and Steve, Linda and Darla, and Amit and Sue.”

Too bad for Angie and Gene, and Natasha and Penny, but they’d have State, at least (and also ToC for Angie and Gene).

“In LD, we have Janice, Eric, and Jaya! And, in Extemp, me, Amit, Steve, Sue, and Jaya.”

We’d lost a lot of Extempers, but Gene had been the only one still chasing a bid.

Everyone applauded, and then we got right back to work.

Our quarterfinals opponents were juniors Doug Hollander and Kent Trent (I had to question his parents’ judgment) from Grapevine. Based both on the school and the round, I had to assume they were good.