Amy looked from me to Kristen and then back down at her hands. After yet another pause, she said, “Thank you.”
Kristen offered Amy a ride home, but Amy lived close enough to the school that her walk was only a couple of minutes.
“That was very thoughtful of you, Jim,” Kristen said.
“Thank you, Kristen,” I said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you how you manage to get Amy to speak to you when she very rarely says anything to anybody.”
“You’ve found the secret, Jim,” Kristen answered. “You just need to talk to her.”
I nodded. It sounded so simple and obvious hearing Kristen’s explanation. Seeing Amy’s face light up in recognition of the tune reminded of the reason that I loved performing myself. I loved seeing how I was able to make people happy just by playing instruments or leading a band.
The next weekend, Kristen and I decided to spend two days in Madison. Although Madison was an hour further away from where we lived than Chicago was, it was smaller and seemed a bit more friendly to us. It was also much more scenic. I had gone there a couple of times with my parents, but after last weekend’s overnight trip, Kristen and I were starting to think of Madison as our own special spot.
Kristen and I arrived quite late Friday night, and we had McDonald’s on the road for dinner. We found a cute little lodge just outside the city where we crashed for the night.
We didn’t have much time the previous week to really check out the city, and we had never gotten around to visiting the Madison Art Center, which is where Kristen really wanted to go, so that was our destination on Saturday. I wasn’t as fascinated by the exhibits as Kristen was, but the two of us still had a great time together, and I found Kristen to be quite knowledgeable about certain of the artists currently featured at the museum. I actually managed to learn a few things about Kristen’s favorite artistic style, called impressionism.
After the Art Center, the two of us had wine, ginger ale, and cheese at a little pub that had a fire burning in its fireplace. Later on, we had some excellent schnitzel and potato pancakes at a place called Wein und Käse that, unfortunately, is no longer in business today.
Saturday night, we made love like infatuated bunnies back at that lodge outside of town. We spent Sunday morning at a park near one of the lakes, and drove home Sunday afternoon.
Our lives proceeded quite nicely into October.
Neither I nor Merry wanted to go trick or treating this year, since we figured it was for younger kids. Kristen solved our problem by deciding to have a costume party at her house and invited all of our friends, including Merry. Kristen also decided that costumes had to be of famous people throughout history, so the Incredible Hulk and Frankenstein would not be included.
On the Monday before the party, Camille approached me.
“Hey, Jim! I haven’t seen you around for weeks! What have you been doing with yourself?”
“I’ve been doing fine. You are coming to the party on Friday, right?”
“Of course! I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”
“Cool!” I exclaimed. “By the way, have you heard from Wendy lately?”
Camille nodded. “Yeah. We have a couple of classes together. I guess you haven’t seen her much, have you?”
“No. Kristen takes up most of my free time.”
“Don’t I know it?” Camille pointed out. “I’m glad the two of you got over your bump in the road.”
I wasn’t going to pass over this opportunity to thank Camille once more. “Cammy, if it wasn’t for you, Kris and I would probably have been past history. I didn’t realize how I was acting, until you put an ugly mirror to my face.”
Camille smiled, and said, “I’m glad you guys were smart enough to be able to deal with it. You two are so much in love, and I know that you’re a good person, Jim. You may not be perfect, but then I don’t think anybody would be able to stand somebody who was.”
I nodded. “So, what’s up?”
“The football team has a bye the day after Halloween. We’re going to initiate the rookie cheerleaders that afternoon.”
I had no idea what happened during those initiations. My mind started thinking about the reports of fraternity hazing that happens at colleges. “Sherry won’t get hurt, will she?”
Camille laughed. “No pain involved, Jim. I promise! The juniors and sophs will have a separate initiation from the seniors, which is a bit more rowdy.”
My mind reeled with thoughts of a rowdy initiation for the seniors.
“It’s easy to read your mind, Jim,” Camille laughed. “It’s not that bad!”
I laughed. “So, isn’t the initiation supposed to be secret?”
“It usually is, but I think I can trust you.”
Those words touched me for some reason. “Thank you. Would you mind if I told Kristen? We don’t have too many secrets from each other.”
“Sure,” Camille smiled. “I trust her as well. Besides, Sherry will probably tell her all about it on Monday.”
I sighed. “I’m glad you’ll be at the party. Kristen and I both owe you big time.”
Camille moved over and kissed me. It wasn’t an innocent kiss, nor was it quite a romantic kiss. I found myself enjoying every second of it. In my mind, I flashed back to an image of Camille completely nude at my birthday party. I found myself getting excited, but managed to hide my reaction.
After Camille pulled away, she smiled and said, “I’ll see you on Friday night.”
I watched Camille walk away afterward, and thought about Wendy. I realized that I might want to start paying more attention to my friends, rather than spending all my free time exclusively with Kristen.
A few days later, a dark haired and dark complexioned girl approached me.
“Jim Crittenhouse?”
“Yes?” I answered. The girl looked a bit familiar, but I couldn’t place her name at all. I only knew that she was a junior.
“I’m Jackie Lombardi,” the girl said.
Lombardi. Isn’t that Camille’s last name? It was! “Are you Camille’s cousin?”
“That’s me!” Jackie answered, flashing me a radiant smile that made me stare at her face a few seconds.
“So, what’s up, Jackie?” I finally asked.
“I just wanted to thank you and Kristen for inviting us to the party on Friday.”
I was confused. “Us? Do you mean you and Camille?”
“Yeah. As well as the rest of the cheerleaders. It sounds like a killer party.”
Were all the cheerleaders going to be attending the party? This was news to me.
“Um, you’re welcome. I think you want to thank Kristen. I didn’t know that you were a cheerleader.”
“I just got in during the last tryouts.”
“Oh. Sherry told me that a junior made it.”
Jackie shook her head. “Yeah. I got a nine. Did you know that Sherry got a perfect score?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Sherry was so proud she was bursting when she found out.”
Jackie giggled. “She is, like, fantastic. She does those running aerials perfectly. She’s a gymnast.”
“I know,” I said, smiling, not knowing exactly what an “aerial” was, but thinking it must be something great. “Camille figured that she’d be perfect for the team.”
There was a bit of an awkward silence. “Jim, the reason I’m here is that I wanted you to thank Kristen for me.”
“Kristen? She’ll be around any minute. I’m getting a ride home with her.”