I tossed the rest of the pile of mail at my Dad as I rushed by him once more. I went back into the den and ripped the phone out of Tracy's hands.
"Me too!" I said happily to her. "Acceptance and full academic scholarship!"
We talked for a few minutes excitedly to each other about our plans, about our excitement, about how much we loved one another. During this, Tracy seemed to actually cheer up and Dad wandered into the room to see what was going on. When I finally hung up Tracy was the first to congratulate me. She gave me a big hug and even a little kiss on the cheek.
Dad was next. "Congratulations," he told me. "I'm very proud of you."
"Thanks Dad," I said, still trying to accept the fact that everything was working out for me.
"Be sure and call your mother right away and let her know."
"I will," I promised. "I'll do it right now."
"It seems," Dad said, "that the mail is full of good news today." He handed me a small folding piece of paper, an announcement. On the front of it was a picture of two bells clanging together.
I opened it and read what was inside. The text was written in tastefully printed calligraphy.
THE STEVENS FAMILY: YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE BLESSED NUPTIALS OF JACK JACOB VALENTINE AND ANITA LYNN BROWLING SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1984 AT BLESSED SACRAMENT CHURCH, SPOKANE WEDDING CEREMONY 1:00 PM FOLLOWED BY RECEPTION AT ENDERS HALL PLEASE COME JOIN US IN THIS CELEBRATION OF LOVE
It was that evening, long after work, shortly after Mom had gone to bed. Tracy was in the den sleeping the sleep of narcotic intoxication. Dad and I were sitting in front of the television, each of us drinking a beer, the coffee table littered with empty bottles. This was something we did with fair frequency since I'd shared my secret with him and I valued these talks with him. Being treated like an adult by your father, with all of the respect due from such a relationship, is something that I believe every boy strives for whether unconsciously or consciously.
"So what do you think about Anita's wedding?" Dad asked me, taking a sip out of his fourth beer. We were making short work of the twelver he'd purchased the day before.
"I'm so happy about it," I told him, feeling my own buzz loosening my tongue, "that I could shit. Do you know what this means? It means that I was right. That I actually did something right. That one of my plans actually worked. Wouldn't that make you happy?"
He nodded wisely. "It would," he said, "but sometimes I think you sell yourself short. You have a keen head for hatching schemes and putting them into motion. You have a gift for it. When you told me all the trouble you went through just to get them together," he shook his head. "You did good Bill. You should be proud of yourself. But what I wanted to know was if you thought we should go to the wedding. Your mother and Anita haven't really spoken in quite some time. I think you know why."
"Yeah," I nodded. "My fault. And I'm sorry for that. I wish I could tell Mom how sorry I am that I hurt one of her friendships."
"Don't worry about it," he told me. "From what you've said, the relationship pretty much died after they got married anyway, didn't it?"
"Yeah," I said. "It did. Anita left the area and never looked back. I'm glad she's back on track."
"And the wedding?" he persisted.
"I want to go." I told him. "Whether you and Mom go or not, I still want to. It'll give me closure to this whole thing with her."
"Closure?" he said, puzzled.
"Sorry," I chuckled. "Buzzword from the nineties. I used to hate it then but here it is slipping from my mouth now. It means that once I see that Anita is happy, that she is content with her husband, I'll be able to put the episode with her behind me once and for all. To close it."
"I see," he nodded. "Closure. I like it."
"Don't like it too much," I told him. "It'll be horribly overused and you'll hear it so much you'll want to puke eventually."
"I'll take your word for it," he said, draining the last of his beer. "And I'll feel your mother out about going to Anita's wedding. But for now, I think I'm gonna call it a night."
"Me too," I said. "Oh, and by the way, can you do me a favor tomorrow?"
"What's that?"
"Well, earlier tonight, after dinner, I was going over my net worth. Do you know that I now have more than twenty thousand dollars in stocks?"
"Not bad," Dad said, impressed. "Almost like you were psychic, huh?"
I chuckled. "Almost. Anyway, I figure I can afford to cash out about six hundred dollars worth."
"What for?"
I told him.
He listened carefully to me, not speaking.
"I think that's a good idea Bill," he finally said. "I'll do it as soon as I get up and around."
The next day at work I told Mindy my good news. She expressed sadness that she would be losing me as an employee come August 30 but was very happy for me. I asked her if she would give me a letter of recommendation and by the time I left that night she handed me five copies of the most glowing, syrupy letter you could ever hope to read. According to her words, a hospital would be committing financial suicide by not hiring me as an employee. She assured me that any central supply supervisor would hire me on the spot once they read it. I thanked her and went home, filing the letters away.
The next day I went to the bookstore and bought copies of the two major Seattle newspapers. I began pouring through the want ads, looking for central supply tech positions. I found two. I called the numbers listed and gave my address. They promised me that applications were on their way to me.
The day after that I took the money that Dad had cashed out for me and went to downtown Spokane. It took me three hours but at last I found what I was looking for. I still had more than three hundred dollars left over. Some instinct told me not to put it back into stocks. I listened to my instinct, stashing the money in my checking account instead.
On the Fourth of July Nina, Maggie, Mike, and I took Dad's boat out to Lake Pend Oreille again. We left early in the morning, stocking up with two cases of beer and another onslaught of food courtesy of my mother. The lake was very crowded and it took us nearly an hour to launch once we hit the boat ramp. We spent the day water-skiing, drinking beer, hanging out on various islands, and generally just enjoying each other's company.
Maggie and Nina seemed to lose the awkward relationship they had with each other and worked their way to chatting happily about school, future careers, and even female problems. They had a long, drawn-out conversation about the pros and cons of birth control pills, which eventually led to the discussion of period cramps and water retention. Mike and I put in the obligatory male chauvinist pig comments when they seemed required but basically just kept out of the conversation. I was glad to see Nina developing a friendship with another girl. She had so few friends.
As the sun started to sink in the sky we loaded up the boat and worked our way northward on the lake, heading for the resort town of Sandpoint, which had a fireworks display each Independence Day that drew observers from all over the Pacific Northwest. Nine o'clock anchored us about a half mile offshore amid hundreds of other boats. At ten o'clock the fireworks began.
It was truly a spectacular show and I'd chosen our observation platform well, maybe a little too well. They burst right over the top of us for more than twenty minutes. The explosions were loud enough to hurt and the debris rained down all around us, instilling a sense of danger to the show. When it was finally over we began heading back towards the south end of the lake, a trip of nearly thirty miles.
It was well after midnight before we pulled the boat from the water. Like before, I'd ceased drinking more than three hours before so I'd be sober enough to drive home. Like before, everybody else was asleep before we even reached I-90. As I drove us towards home I remembered the last time we'd taken the boat out, the news that had awaited me when I got home. Irrationally, I worried as I drove, wondering what bad news would be there when I arrived.