Chapter 14

Most of the rest of the summer was more relaxed. Jenny stayed over frequently that summer but instead of sharing our bedroom with Trish she took the guest room. We always did our best, even when she wasn’t staying over, to make sure she knew that we both loved her. We also found that Planned Parenthood would provide an exam, prescription and pills without parental notification and by early August Jenny was no longer a virgin.

The best thing about that summer was how Jenny responded to our love — she blossomed. She gave her love freely and after awhile accepted ours without hesitation. As the summer wore on she started to stand straighter and hold her head high. She hadn’t seemed particularly cowed before but by August the difference in her bearing was apparent to one and all.

In mid-August our SAT scores came back — Jenny’s were mailed to our house — and the whole crew got together at Jodi’s house to compare them. Everyone had done fine, but Felicia had done a whole lot better than fine — 1480!

Alex brought Maria along with him, and she brought her new daughter, Alexis. Mother and daughter were doing fine and we had a little fun teasing Alex about his new namesake.

Of course since the whole crew was together the whole crew got to see the new, more relaxed and confident, Jenny. Everyone remarked on it and we were wondering just how to bring it up when Jenny decided to demonstrate her new self-confidence.

“I found a boyfriend!” she said. Then, after letting the tumult build a bit, she added, “And a girlfriend!”

That threw them. Alex and Maria hadn’t been aware of Jenny’s interest in girls before — Alex seemed to handle it well, but I thought it might end up distancing us from Maria. Felicia and Jodi knew in an intellectual sort of way that their friend might have some leanings that way but I don’t think they expected her to just come out and say it!

After a minute of chaos Felicia finally managed to ask, “Do they know about each other?”

Jenny, the little scamp, just sashayed over, plopped herself down in Trish’s lap and gave her a full on kiss before saying, “Yep!” She then drew out her pendant to show everyone.

The hardening of Maria’s face caused me some concern but I was gratified to see mostly happiness in the faces of the others. Mostly. Jodi looked a little wistful and when I cast her an inquiring glance she said, “I’m just a little jealous. Just a little, though. I’ve got a boyfriend, too — a guy I met at work — but he’s still in the training stages.” The last was said with a big grin, which got even bigger when she noticed Alex’s puzzled expression.

“Jeff always told us,” she said to him, “that guys can be trained. In particular they can be trained to understand the word ‘No’ if it’s delivered with enough authority! Richard has a good handle on that one now — to be fair he had a pretty good handle on it from the start, he just needed to know where I didn’t want him to go and he’s been a complete gentleman since.

“Unfortunately he’s not as talented as you,” she said, turning to me, “but he’s learning. The real shock for me was that Mom likes him! After you I didn’t think she’d ever be okay with a different boy.”

I asked, “Will he be joining our study group?”

“No, he graduated in June. He’s working this year to save some money for college, though, so if we have a study group in Boulder next year he might be in. He wants to study engineering — civil, I think.”

As the conversation went on Maria was looking more and more confused. At one lull I decided to get it over with and asked, “Maria, what’s wrong?”

“I ... I ... I guess I just don’t understand about you and Trish and Jenny. I thought you loved Trish, but you’re also Jenny’s boyfriend? And I thought Trish loved you but she’s really queer?”

Well, that brought a hush!

“I do love Jeff,” Trish said with absolute assurance. “I love him so much it hurts sometimes. But I also realized I love Jenny. It’s a little different with her, but it’s no less love for being different. I’m not ‘queer’, and I’m not a lesbian — Jeff will attest to the fact that I like guys just fine. If you really insist on a label then I supposed I’d be a little bisexual, but I don’t even really think I’m that. I’m not really interested in girls except this blond beauty,” at which point she stroked Jenny’s hair and continued down her back, “and I think the only reason I’m interested in her that way is because it’s one of the best ways I know of to show her how much I love her.”

“And I definitely still love Trish,” I added. “I firmly believe I’ll love her until the day I die. I wasn’t looking to fall in love again — it just happened. I might still have ignored it except Trish felt the same way. We both looked in our hearts and found that we had enough love to share with one more.”

Probably to forestall any more questions from her cousin, Felicia asked a big one, “Do your parents know?”

“Mine don’t and I plan on keeping it that way,” Jenny said, still in her most self-confident voice. Good girl! “I don’t know about Mr. and Mrs. Larson. They haven’t said anything but some of the looks I’ve gotten from Mrs. Larson have been a little strange.”

“Yeah, I think Mom is wondering what’s going on,” Trish put in. “I’m sure she knows you’re more than just a normal friend but I don’t think she has an idea of how much more. The fact that you’ve been sleeping in the guest room when you stay over is probably confusing her even more.”

Maria, however, was not to be deterred. “It says in the Bible that it’s wrong!”

“You’re right,” I said. “It sure does. It also says that eating pork is wrong. Ditto shrimp, and definitely no cheese burgers!”

“Nobody pays any attention to those any more,” she countered.

“Well, some Jews still do, but most Christians don’t. The strange part is that it says those things right next to where it says that it’s wrong for two women to be together — or two men for that matter. I wonder why it’s okay to not pay attention to the one but not the other?”

“But...”

“Nope, right next to one another. Grab an old testament and check out Leviticus.”

That at least left her looking more confused than upset.

I decided to change the subject again so I asked, “So, Felicia, found the right guy yet?”

She just shook her head and smiled. “No, and I kind of hope I don’t for a while. I think college is going to be hard enough without the distraction.”

She then turned to Jenny and said, “I’m so happy for you, little one. You always deserved to be loved and I can’t imagine anyone better than Jeff and Trish to show you that love. I’ve felt really bad that we haven’t been able to get together this summer but I feel better about it now.”

Yep, Felicia was a class act all the way around.

A couple of weeks later we were back in high school for our senior year. The lunch arrangement remained the same — the journalism classroom was still open and Mr. Olson was happy to have us there. My classes were Physics, Pre-Calc, English Lit, World History and Psychology. Trish and Felicia were in the same classes, Jodi took a class called Renaissance Europe instead of Psychology, Alex skipped Physics and Psychology both, taking the Renaissance Europe course and an independent study Creative Writing class. Jenny had Trig instead of Pre-Calc and took another independent study Art class instead of Physics.

Our junior year Felicia had stepped forward and raised us up; this year it was my turn again. Physics was a simplified review for me given a couple of years of it in college in my first timeline. Pre-Calc in my previous timeline had been mostly algebra but I pushed to get us through more real calculus this time around since it would make it easier for everyone else when we got to college. The problem with calculus is that it requires a huge mental jump — you need to really understand that you can add an infinite number of positive values together and get a finite value before you have a chance of really understanding integral calculus. I planned to spend a lot of time helping my friends over that high hurdle.

For English Lit it turned out that Alex was more than a fine writer, he actually was interested in analyzing books. Strange! I worked to understand what he felt authors meant by their stories, but I didn’t necessarily agree with him. He was fine with me not agreeing with him, but he pointed out that the teacher probably did. He had a point!

Our little study group met at Jodi’s house for the final year. I was sure we’d all be a little sad when we met there for the last time. We’d all learned a lot together there and we decided at our first session that we’d have to figure out something special to do for Mrs. Nelson to thank her for the use of her house, her trust and her advice. She had been like a surrogate mother to all of us during the school years — Jodi was a very lucky young lady to have her for a real mother all of the time.

Really we only anticipated two problems our senior year.

The easiest to deal with was that I couldn’t take Driver’s Ed because I wouldn’t be 15 1/2 by the time the last semester started. Oh, well — I’d try to get it during the summer but I’d have officially graduated by then. They weren’t sure how it would work out but they were considering making some allowances for me.

The harder problem was Jenny. Trish and I weren’t getting to spend nearly enough quality time with her. As much as it was bothering us, though, it was bothering Jenny more since Trish and I still had each other. We were with her a lot of the time at school but we couldn’t shower her with affection in school. Our study sessions really were study sessions so except for seating arrangements — Jenny frequently sat in one of our laps — it wasn’t much for close personal contact.

Jodi must have had a talk with her mom because Mrs. Nelson never batted an eye at seeing Jenny perched in my lap, much less Trish’s. Mrs. Nelson, for her part, understood more than most of our friends — and she used her understanding to come up with a workable solution.

As we were getting our stuff together to leave one afternoon in mid-October Mrs. Nelson stopped Jenny and said, “You’re looking a little down there. Not feeling good?”

“I feel fine, just kind of sad at the moment,” Jenny replied.

“I can see that. Missing someone? Or maybe a couple of someones?”

One thing about Jenny — away from school she wasn’t hiding her feelings for us. She just said, “Yeah, I don’t get to spend any time alone with Trish and Jeff these days. I was so happy when we were together over the summer that it’s a letdown now.”

“Hmmm ... would your folks mind you doing extra studying some of the time?”

“Probably not...” The way she drew that out I was sure that she wanted to ask how that would help, but she also knew that Mrs. Nelson had helped us all solve some problems before so she held her peace.

“Well, I was thinking that the subject that you have the most trouble with is math, right?”

Jenny nodded, though she really wasn’t having much trouble with Trig.

“And you’re not in the same class as the rest of them so you’re not really getting any help with your math at these study sessions, right?”

Another nod, though we’d have been happy to help her if she was really having trouble.

“And who is the best person you or I know to help you with your math?”

Her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and her mouth dropped open.

“Yep, I can see you know who I’m talking about. Now, it would mean that you’d have to be able to get home from their house but I believe that Trish has the use of a car...”

That was a heck of a hug! When Jenny stepped back she spoke for all of us when she said, “Mrs. Nelson, you’re the best. You’ve helped us all so much! I know I wouldn’t be going to college if it weren’t for you allowing us to study here — and allowing Jeff to be here to help us.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Nelson replied while ruffling Jenny’s hair. “I remember what it was like when I was your age and it seemed that all of the adults were working against me. As I grew older I found that they’d been mostly right. Only mostly, though. I swore when Jodi was born that I would try to treat her the way that she deserved based not on her age but on how mature she acted. When you all started coming here to study it seemed to calm her down and when her report cards started coming in looking so good I remembered my promise.

“That’s when I realized that I should do that for all of you, not just Jodi. You’ve all earned the right to be treated more like adults than children, almost from the first time you came here but certainly from the time you started high school. Given that, I help where I can. You have all given me a nicer, more respectful daughter — and one who now has dreams that she wants to fulfill. What little help I can give you is nothing in comparison.”

That got her a hug from everyone! After the hugs I stepped forward again and gave her a gentle kiss on the lips.