Joe Bradley showed up while the Buckminsters were still upstairs. He was traveling stag, which didn't surprise me. He never chased women back at RPI, although he occasionally claimed a girl back in New Jersey. I never saw any pictures, though. Regardless, if he was gay, he was so far in the closet as to be undetectable. For certain, after living with him for three years, my gay-dar had never gone off even once.
The five of us were having beers at a table in the bar when Marilyn looked out into the lobby and said, "Oh my God!" She turned back to me with a look of mixed shock and awe. "It's Tusker and Tessa!"
"What's with you? You know he's a bit nuts." I figured it was Tusker's appearance which made Marilyn's eyes pop out. I stood up and turned around to see my friends. Tusker looked fine. It was Tessa who surprised us. "Holy Christ!", I exclaimed.
They had seen us in the lobby and waved and walked over towards the bar. Or at least Tusker walked. Tessa was waddling! She looked to be somewhere around ten or eleven months pregnant. She was grinning like crazy as she saw our shocked expressions. "I told him you'd be surprised!"
"Astonished, is more like it!", I replied. "You know, they have a pill to prevent things like this."
"I told him you'd say that, too. The heck with you. Where's the bathroom!?", she answered.
Marilyn and Anna Lee rushed around and the trio headed off towards the bathroom off the lobby. I introduced Tusker to Joe and Harlan, and we carried his gear over to the registration desk. It was the first time any of them had met anybody else in the group, although I had mentioned who was doing what to each of them. Tusker checked in and then waited for the women to return, and he and Tessa promised to come back down and join us in the bar.
Once they had left, I asked Marilyn, "Did she mention anything about them getting married?"
She gave me a wicked grin. "Nope!"
"I think Tusker would have invited us if they had."
Anna Lee commented, "I didn't see any wedding bands or engagement rings."
"Trust those two to be unconventional!" I told the other three. "Tusker and Tessa are two of my oldest friends from home, back in high school. They're even more different from each other than Marilyn and I."
Marilyn nodded in agreement. "He's like a crazy biker type and she's a sweet and innocent college girl like me."
Joe commented, "From the looks of things, not all that sweet and innocent." I had to grin at that. Compared to my buttoned down Army buddies, Tusker was a long haired hippie.
Anna Lee commented, "I'm amazed they were able to travel. She looks like she's about to give birth any moment now!"
"At least you're a nurse!", I said.
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that!", she returned.
Needless to say, topic number one when Tusker and Tessa came back downstairs was when the baby was due. She assured us that her doctor said it wasn't happening for at least another month, but I was wondering about that. I just couldn't believe that was correct. Topic number two was introducing everybody to everybody else. At least Harlan and Joe and I all had our Army background to join us, but Tusker was about as far from the Army as you could imagine.
At one point he asked Harlan, "Now, I've heard from him how the two of you were conquering heroes back in boot camp. Now I want to hear it from you!"
Joe weighed in, "Me too! I went through training the same year, and I just don't believe it."
"Were you Blue Army or Orange Army?", asked Harlan.
"Orange."
Harlan just nodded and said to me, "Well, that explains it."
"He's one of those people.", I agreed.
Harlan turned back to Joe. "I'm not surprised. After the spanking Buckman and I gave you, the Orange Army probably shot the offenders and burned the files. I sure wouldn't have wanted it known by anybody."
"Harlan, I don't know you, but if you've been hanging out with him, you must be full of shit, too!", replied Joe.
Anna Lee laughed, and Tessa giggled, especially when Marilyn commented, "So, you hung around with him for three years. What does that make you?"
We ordered another round of beers, and Harlan and I explained the drubbing that we had inflicted on the Orange Army. That got us into a discussion of what we were all currently doing, Harlan and me in the Army, Joe going to grad school at Wharton, and Tusker and Tessa, still working at the bar and finishing college. Tessa had finished a year ago, but Tusker was only going part-time and getting his Associates in business.
"What do you plan to do when that's over?", asked Anna Lee.
Tusker looked at Tessa, and then over at me, which the others noticed, and then answered, "We're saving our money. We're going to open a repair shop, a motorcycle repair shop. I want to be a Harley dealer eventually."
I gave him a thumbs up and Tessa took his hand and squeezed it. "Carl's been helping us with that.", she said.
I just waved it off. "I just helped you get organized and focused. When's your place going to open?", I asked.
"1980!", they both said loudly, and then laughed.
"Then it's a goal and not a dream. Your next step is what?"
"I'm revising our business plan.", answered Tusker.
"Send it to me after the wedding but before somebody gets born. That's going to take up a fair bit of time.", I said. I just hoped it wouldn't take all their energy and time away from their dealership plans.
Tessa answered, "We already have that figured in. We're staying in our current place instead of getting a bigger one, and saving that money. I'm going to make him keep pushing."
"Then I'll keep pushing, too." That led into a discussion of their plans and Harlan's and Joe's plans as well. Harlan was stationed at Fort Hood, assigned to a self-propelled M109 155mm battery, and Anna Lee was working at a local hospital. Joe figured he had one more year at Wharton before he had to put the uniform on for real. Harlan was planning on going career; Joe was going to get out as soon as he could and go to work on Wall Street.
Me? I had no idea at the moment what I was going to end up doing. I liked what I was doing now, but I couldn't imagine twenty years in the readiness cycle like this. Thank God I was still young. It didn't matter, though, since I had another three years with Uncle Sam no matter what.
Friday we goofed off until my family arrived. Harlan, Joe, and Anna Lee spent a chunk of the day together talking about Army stuff, and Marilyn and I sat down with Tusker and Tessa to talk about their dealership plans. He had sent me a model business plan as part of one of his courses, and after reading his teacher's comments, I offered a few of my own.
My family must have started out at the crack of dawn. They needed to be here mid-afternoon at the latest. The rehearsal was at five, and they needed to check in by four. On the other hand, the saying was that Dad flew low. He never met a speed limit he couldn't break. This was the last day together for Marilyn and me. She would leave and stay the night with Tammy. Neither of us wanted to test the old bit about bad luck when seeing the bride before the wedding. I planned to lock myself in my room and get a decent night's sleep.