Chapter 35: Pac-Man Fever

May 2, 1983

Life went on. I caught sight of Julia multiple times over the next several days; she said nothing to me, and made it a point to avert her eyes whenever I was in the vicinity. It was next to impossible not to run into her frequently, for every time I entered or exited the dorm, it was necessary to pass by her room. It continued to amaze me how her feelings toward me had changed that much, that fast. And it annoyed me to no end that I'd never really gotten a proper explanation for what she'd done. At any rate, with the semester winding down, these uncomfortable encounters would cease very soon. I still had not seen her with her new boyfriend, but I suspected that I would not make it to semester's end without that happening at least once.

Dennis and I found an apartment, and planned to move in right after finals were over. That would mark the end of dorm life for me. Like so many other upperclassmen, I decided that the privacy and autonomy afforded by off-campus housing would be more to my liking. And Dennis had agreed with me; we'd signed a one-year lease, and planned to stay there not just for the summer, but for the following school year as well.

On another note, Dennis and Mayra had their first date, and it had gone very well. I was happy for them both. Even though my own love life had been blown to pieces, it was nice to see two friends of mine hitting it off, especially since I was the one who had introduced them.

Inez, of course, was now back at the university; her parents were continuing to make good progress. She had told us that she wanted to get right back into the swing of things as far as the band was concerned. We'd had a couple of practices already, although our next live performance would not occur until the much-anticipated St. James prom gig. During the first practice, I discovered that my recent romantic problems had landed me the most unlikely of all sympathizers.

"What Julia did to you, dude?" Dave had said to me. "That was just stone fucking cold."

Yes, right now I was a loser in love, but I was sure getting my share of consolation prizes.

Today, a Monday, began the final week of classes before final exams. I was planning to meet Evie for lunch at the dining hall, since we both had free time in the middle of the day. I was getting ready to head on over, when there was a knock on my door. Figuring Evie had decided to meet me here at my room instead, I opened the door. But it wasn't Evie at all. Rather, it was her roommate, wearing an aren't-you-surprised smile.

"Evie had to go and talk to one of her professors about something," Inez related, "so you got me for a lunch date instead." I realized that this last-minute switch didn't bother me in the least.

At the cafeteria, we sat down to eat, with Inez seated directly across from me. We got to talking about mundane things like the band, and how her parents were coming along. I remembered something she'd said that night when we'd spent a couple of hours on the phone.

"Let's hear about those male groupies," I grinned, inducing a giggle from Inez.

"I want to tell you a few stories, but it will be better if Evie is there too. You'll enjoy it more that way."

"Aah ... I see."

Inez appeared to grow thoughtful for a second, appearing to weigh something over, before finally deciding to speak.

"You know ... Danny was kind of a male groupie."

I looked at her, mustering all the empathy I could summon, my silence inviting her to go on.

"I mean, he wasn't a groupie in the way you might think. He didn't walk up to me and start bragging about his sexual talents, or anything like that. He used to hang around at a lot of our shows early on, before Eileen got involved. I now think his fascination with us was the fact that we had two girls who were front and center most of the time. But I was more receptive to talking with him than Evie was, so he latched on to me."

"Was he a student here? I always was curious about that."

"He was. He was a few years older; he was actually a senior. He was one of the smoothest talkers I've ever met. And I fell for his lines, and pretty quickly, him as well. The thing is, Pat, he was capable of being incredibly nice and thoughtful at times. But when he was bad..."

"I believe I saw the result of that," I told her softly, to perhaps spare her from having to spill the awful details. But she wanted to go on.

"That was the worst time," said Inez, in a voice so low it was barely audible. "But it wasn't the only time. It was the classic pattern of physical abuse ... after he hit me, he would try to compensate by being extra nice to me for a while. And then he would lapse back again. And there was more. The time when you saved me ... I had just confronted him about something. I caught him with another girl. And you saw his response to that."

"On top of everything else, you had to deal with infidelity," I said in disgust.

She let out a sigh before continuing. "Right. Even though I thought Danny loved me, it turned out that he was eyeing other girls the whole time we were together. And I might as well tell you this, Pat. I was in another abusive relationship back in high school. My problem is, I seem to be attracted to 'lost soul' types. I guess that's never a good thing."

I tried not to think about the Inez in the other timeline as I formulated my reply.

"Thanks for trusting me enough to share that story with me. Here's my take on it. I'm probably not going to tell you anything you don't already know, at least intuitively. But I've gotten to know you a little, Inez. You're extremely caring and kindhearted. And don't ever change, okay? It's one thing I really admire about you, and it's one of your biggest assets. But, under certain conditions, it can also be your biggest liability as well. You just need to learn to set limits, that's all."

"If only it were that easy," she sighed. "My aunt and uncle, and Mayra too, never liked Danny. Even Evie used to tell me I needed to be careful around him."

"There you go," I said in reply, hoping to lighten things up a little. "I've known Evie for a little longer than you have. If there's one thing I've come to learn, it's that Evie is pretty much always right."

That drew a smile from Inez. "But she wasn't entirely right when it came to handling the situation with you," she pointed out.

"No one's perfect. But I've found that Evie's judgment is as sound as anyone I've ever met."

Once I got those words out, Inez appeared to be lost in thought for a moment. A vague, dreamy smile appeared on her face. She looked at me affectionately, but maintained her silence.

I was about to ask her what was on her mind, when out of the corner of my eye, I took in the sight I'd been dreading more than any other.

There was Julia, walking into the dining area, hand in hand with her new boyfriend, accompanied by Jeannette and Kevin. Fortunately, the place was fairly crowded, and the four of them took a seat well away from our table.

Inez noticed my reaction, and quickly figured out what was going on. She reached over and placed her cool, soft hand on my forearm. Her touch gave me goose bumps.

"Eyes straight ahead, Pat," she directed me with a soothing voice and a sympathetic smile.

And I took just a second to regard my lunch companion. When I did so, I was startled at how easy it was to forget about Julia sitting not too far away. Inez was sporting a new hair style. In the back, it was still as long as ever. In the front, she was now wearing bangs that partially concealed her forehead. That beautiful hair framed a face that, trite as it may sound, could only be described as angelic, with fine, very feminine facial features. Her gentle yet piercing brown eyes communicated sincere compassion, and were focused one hundred percent on me.

God, she was gorgeous.

At that moment, my mind decided to play a particularly nasty trick on me.

A mental image – so vivid it almost appeared to be real – flashed through my brain for just a split second. I visualized the face of a middle-aged woman with gray-brown hair, wrinkled skin, vacant eyes, a chipped front tooth, and cracked lips formed into an "O" shape, ready to deliver a wad of saliva in my direction.

I guess I must have recoiled briefly, because Inez momentarily tightened her grip on my arm. Thankfully, the vision faded from my mind, restoring to my focus the lovely young lady sitting across from me. It was apparent that Inez had concluded that I'd just been haunted by a Julia-related memory, for she had a few words of gentle encouragement to offer.

"Everything will be okay, Pat. You'll see. Everything will be just fine."

The conversation mercifully moved in another direction. We sat together and chatted about one thing or another, staying put long after our food had been consumed. Then, outside, it began to rain. Hard. It was coming down in sheets.

"Oh shit," I exclaimed, throwing my hands in the air. "We're gonna get soaked when we go outside! I didn't even bring an umbrella! And I've got a late afternoon class!"

By now, Inez was quite familiar with my tendency to be overly dramatic at times. She looked at me with an exaggerated straight face, and big, sad eyes that were not quite big and sad enough to conceal her humorous intent.

"Oh, Pat," she said, shaking her head slowly. "We are so screwed."

Then, she burst out into that impish, irresistible smile of hers. I started laughing, she started laughing, and before we knew it, we were cracking up to the point where we both were about to fall out of our chairs. When the laughter died down, Inez nodded over in the direction of Julia, who along with her entourage was still in attendance.

"I hope," said Inez, "that a certain silly girl over there noticed you enjoying yourself without her."

After we left the dining hall, Inez pulled me into a video arcade that was located in the same building. She wanted to wait out the rain by playing Pac-Man, and proceeded to thoroughly kick my butt. It was then that I saw a return of that fun competitiveness that I'd seen during my first band practice. By now, I'd realized that it was just her way of letting me know that she liked me. In fact, it was to a large extent flirtatious. And I'd learned to give and take.

"How many quarters have you put into that machine?" I asked her. "I'll bet you had to spend a fortune to get that good."

"Two words: sour grapes," she grinned. "Admit it. I whupped your ass."

That line of conversation continued even as we ventured outside, on the way back to my dorm. The rain had ended, and the sun was out in all its glory.

"I hate to break it to you, Inez," I told her. "But I let you win. And I'm gonna let you win the next time we play, because you're just so damn cute when you're gloating."

May 11, 1983

It was right in the middle of finals week. I certainly had a lot on my plate right now. Besides exams and studying, my fellow band members and I were trying to polish up our act in advance of the St. James prom. We were all attempting to juggle our academic challenges with practices; we were rehearsing about every other day on average. I couldn't wait to put finals behind me.

Today at lunch, my companions at the dining hall were Dennis, Holly, and Annie. That was pretty much what was left of my dorm crew. Jeannette, of course, was loyal to her roommate. Kevin was her boyfriend. And Barry was best buds with Kevin; although he remained friendly to me, he spent more time with Julia's fragment of our little group. I didn't care too much about that, anyway, because the semester was coming to a close. I was grateful for the three loyal friends that I did have.

We got to talking about Lightning in a Bottle. I sensed right away that Annie and Holly had something to discuss. And it turned out that they did.

"Who handles the scheduling of your shows, and all the administrative stuff?" Annie inquired.

"That's Paul's job," I told her. "He's our bassist. But he's always telling us that he'd love to pass that duty on to someone else. It's getting to be too much for him."

Holly and Annie looked at each other and nodded.

"What if we told you," Holly offered, "that we'd like to apply for that job, as co-managers of your band?"

"We've already discussed this," Annie added, "and we both would really enjoy it. You don't even have to pay us, if you don't want to. There's another benefit for us. It will look really good on our resumes when we graduate and enter the job market."

Suffice it to say, this offer caught me completely by surprise.

"I'd have to discuss it with the rest of the gang," I told them, "because understand, I'm just one out of six. But I know you both, and quite honestly, I think you could handle it."

This was the truth. Holly and Annie were both go-getters. They had exactly the right personalities to be effective managers. But would my bandmates go for it? That was a big if.

After lunch, I called the two most open-minded of my cohorts, Inez and Evie, to get their opinion on this.

"We're having practice this evening," Evie noted. "Why not have them meet us at Margarita's afterward? If they really want to do this, I think we should give them a chance. But let's meet them as a group first."

She then handed the phone to Inez, who seconded the motion, and offered some more feedback.

"My only concern is Dave and Paul, as usual," Inez told me. "But Paul, I think, will jump at the chance to let someone else take over. So, it's definitely worth a try."

Eileen was at school right now, and would not be at tonight's practice. But I planned to call her later, and give her a chance to express her opinion. I knew she wouldn't be a problem.

At Margarita's that night, everything appeared to go off beautifully. Annie and Holly made a positive impression on everyone, and by the time our food was finished, we'd taken a vote, and unanimously hired us a couple of co-managers, pending the vote of Eileen.

"She'll make it six out of six," said Dave confidently. "I'll call her myself as soon as I get back to my room."

It all seemed too good to be true. And it was.

Later in the evening, I called my sister. I noticed right away that Eileen was upset about something.

"Pat, for the record," she told me, "I vote we hire your two friends. If you, and Inez, and Evie say they are okay, that's enough for me."

"Uh-oh," I said worriedly. "That doesn't sound so good."

"I just had a big fight with Dave," she related. "It seems that when you guys met for dinner, he and Paul didn't realize that the two girls you hired as managers were your next-door neighbors in the dorm. He told me that he wishes he could take back his vote, and so does Paul. He says it isn't fair that you keep forcing 'your people' on the rest of us. Obviously, I wasn't happy to hear him say that, and I let him know about it."

"My people?" I practically shouted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"He was talking about Dennis, too," said Eileen. "Which is really, really stupid, because he likes Dennis. They hang out together after just about every show."

"You know what, Eileen?" I went on, becoming more and more agitated. "I'm sick of this shit. When will it end?"

"Oh, believe me, I'm sick of it, too," concurred Eileen, in as bitter of a voice as I'd ever heard coming from her. "Dave's acting like a third-grader. I've just about had it with him. If he doesn't shape up – and soon – I'm breaking things off."

May 20, 1983

Finals were over. Dennis and I moved our stuff out of the dorm, and into our new digs. It was a two-bedroom apartment with a small living area and a kitchen. It was furnished with cheap, second-hand furniture, which at least relieved us from the hassle of having to go out and get our own. The living room had a worn out sofa and a couple of chairs, as well as a small table for eating. Not exactly the most luxurious of dwellings, but for a couple of college students, it was pretty typical, and quite sufficient.

Holly and Annie, blissfully unaware of the internal stress their hiring had caused, took to their new job with enthusiasm. They'd already ferreted out an obvious opportunity that the rest of us had missed. We ate all the time at Margarita's, right? I mean, we were just about their most frequent and loyal customers. Our co-managers spoke with the owners there, and cut an informal deal. We would pass out advertising leaflets for Margarita's at all our local gigs, and make it a point to verbally recommend the restaurant to our audiences at least once during every show. In return, they posted leaflets promoting our shows in conspicuous places in the restaurant, and kept our business cards in ample supply near the cash register.

It was a Friday, exactly one week before the St. James prom. It was a couple of hours before our scheduled practice. Even so, I'd already arrived at the Andrade house. Inez and Evie were there as well, along with of course Mayra and her mother. Ever since the breakup with Julia, I'd taken to hanging out with this group of people as much as possible. They just made me feel better about everything. We all just lounged out in the living room, talking about this and that. It was a nice, stress-free environment, absent of all traces of bad memories. Which was exactly what I needed at that point in time.