3809/2801: Terms of Engagement -- Double Fantasy

2801
Terms of Engagement
Double Fantasy

Introduction to Dance

TOC

(You're wondering what all this teenage romance that never happened has to do with a second microcomputer revolution that never happened? It will become plain, real soon, now, I promise. Any chapter, now. Maybe not this one.) 

As I backed the car out of the parking space, Rick asked, "This just ain't making sense. Where and how did you and Sapphire start going together?"

I shifted into first and we left the parking lot. "Sapphire explained some things to me during typing class."

"Are you just acting? If so, you've got everybody fooled. So fooled that by tomorrow about this time, everybody at Permian will know you and she have been at least going steady since ninth grade."

"And apparently that will be okay with her. I don't know. Right now I'm just going with the flow." I turned out of the parking lot, taking the route Rick had taken the previous Friday.

"But Tussa? I was surprised Coach Michaels let her get her hands all over you like that. And then Coach suggested that Sapphire should be doing that instead?"

We stopped at the light. "It's not like Tussa's trying to make out with me. It's kind of like, well, maybe like you visiting the chiropractor?"

"Tussa's doing it on purpose."

"True."  

The light turned green and I turned left on 42nd and we headed west. 

"But I think it's a friendly rivalry between the two of them, and Sapphire seemed to sense you wouldn't be comfortable with Tussa's forward style." 

"She's right about that. So do you and Sapphire get your hands all over each other?"

"Come on. Besides, Coach Michaels said, if it's necessary."

"Do you?"

"You know we haven't."

"Will you?"

We stopped at the light at the 38th/Lyndale intersection. 

I turned to him. "You're asking me if we're going to make out?"

"Yeah."

"It seems a little, uhm, prema ..."

The light turned green and I turned left while I re-thought.

"Okay," I continued. "You're one of my best friends, and I'm going to ask you as a friend to keep this to yourself."

"Is it moral to do so?"

"I think so."

"Reserving judgement. I don't want my naive Mormon buddy to get hurt."

I took a deep breath as I stopped at the light on Dixie.  

"She's asking me to play the role of the long-time boyfriend come over from the cross-town school for reasons that I think I might understand."

He thought about that for a moment before nodding. "Okay. You know. Just don't get yourself in too deep."

"Appreciated." The light turned green and I turned left. Another right and I stopped in front of his house.   

He opened his door, but didn't get out. "But why risk it?"

I rolled my eyes. 

He gave me a lopsided grin and raised his left fist in solidarity.

"I'll know more tomorrow." I raised my right and we bumped the backs of our forearms.

When I parked in front of the house, I ignored the bundle of newspapers on the sidewalk and ran inside. I dumped my books on the coffee table in the living room and called out, "I'm home! Heading out with the papers now." (We called it a coffee table because, even though we don't drink coffee, that was what most people usually called the living room low table in west Texas.) 

I heard Mom call out from the den, "You're running a bit late. Things okay?"

"Yeah." I went around through the kitchen into the den, where she was working at the big dining room table on artwork for programs for a production at the Globe of the Great Southwest. "Any chance I can use the car for about fifteen minutes around six and again around, I'm not sure, nine or ten?"

"Probably. Whatcha got going?" 

"It looks like I've got a study partner tonight."

"Oh?" 

"Tell you when I get back." 

"Okay. Be careful!" 

I went back to my room, grabbed my newscarrier bags, ran back outside, counted the newspapers on the sidewalk to make sure the bundling machine hadn't shorted me, muttered a word of thanks that it was the usual slim Monday paper, stuffed half in front, half in back, lifted the carrier bags onto my shoulders, and set off.

My brother Dan had shown me how to do a creased thirds-fold that didn't use rubber bands, and I folded the newspapers and dropped them on the porches of the customers as I walked. The route was my own neighborhood, and was about a mile, all told. Oh, dodging in and out of the front walks without damaging the lawns adds a little distance and takes a little time, and I guess that makes it a little closer to two miles than one. But I was back well before the five-thirty usual deadline.

Yeah, I walked. No, I wasn't radical enough to fold them first and run the route with the load on my shoulders. Folding first would require rubber bands, and, besides, I was not getting ready for boot camp.

When I walked in the front door, Sapphire's books were beside mine on the coffee table.

"In the kitchen, Joe!" Mom called out from around the doorway.

"Hope you don't mind my coming early," Sapphire added, also from the other side of the wall between the living room and the kitchen.

I stepped into the kitchen. "I guess I'm not going to go pick you up at six, then." 

Sapphire stopped slicing cucumbers and turned and gave me a look that said, you just think you're being smart.

Mom chuckled. "How on earth, and why, have you been hiding this beautiful girlfriend of yours from us for so long?" She expression turned a shade serious and she raised her eyebrows for emphasis before turning back to the pot of canned beans she was slicing wieners into.

Dad was home a little early for family night, and was working on a fruit salad on the other counter. 

Sapphire ducked her head in embarrassment and handed me a tomato. "I've been telling your parents how you saved me from Wes at Hood." She almost slid the short e in his name to a schwa.

I put the tomato on the counter. "Weston Harold Shah, the quarterback and football team captain." 

"Yeah. Wes." Again, it almost sounded like a junior high school epithet.

I went back to the living room and dumped my carrier bags and kicked off my tennis shoes and socks, leaving them on the (Horrors!) floor just around the doorway, and returned to the nearest sink to wash my hands.

"He really took my, uhm, little-boy-with-stars-in-his-eyes notes to you seriously?"

"They were in code. I decoded them loosely. To give myself a stronger position. Sue me." She smirked.

My hands clean, I picked up the tomato, grabbed another knife and a plate, and proceeded to cut the tomato for the salad. 

"Not unreasonable, depending on how loosely." 

Sapphire set her knife down, and went to the living room and took her tennis shoes and socks off, too, leaving them beside mine, and washed her hands again before returning to the salad.

"I liked your notes, by the way. But it was you laughing at him when he saw you in the library and told you to leave me alone that really threw him. And when he sicked Tom Pays on you --"

"Tom Pays?" I interrupted. "That was what him pounding on my head was all about?" 

She paused working on the cucumbers for a moment, took a deep breath and turned to look at me straight-on. "I'm sorry I got you into that. But when Tom couldn't get you to fight him, it just took all the bluster out of things and just shattered the pecking order for that year. And that left me free to tell Wuss I didn't want to be his girlfriend any more."

Mom tilted her head at Sapphire letting the vowel slip all the way to the epithet. 

"Oh." I processed the information. "Now that I know, it was worth it. Poor Wes."

Sapphire gave me a look that could have killed.

"I mean, Pays was not responsible for being raised by a dad who was in prison more than at home. And Wes seemed to be suffering from bad examples at home, too."

"Don't you dare make excuses for either of them."

"Well, yeah, I've been kind of arguing with God on-and-off about why I couldn't fight back and put Pays in his place. Now I think I understand it a little more." 

"Well, I'm sorry."

"No problem." 

I thought through my thoughts while I cut. And I decided to clarify.

"God told me then that if I had fought back, it might well not have ended before one of us was dead and the other in prison. And now that I know that fighting him would not have left you free, yeah, it was worth it."

Sapphire gave me a look that could have raised the dead. Our eyes met and we both stopped cutting again for a moment.

And Mom was in Mom mode, gathering information, holding judgement off. Dad kept working on the fruit salad.

Mom stirred the pot of beans and wieners, put the lid on it, and checked the heat. "Everyone seasons their own in our house," she announced as she leaned back against the counter behind her. "Dad, have we got cheese in the fridge?"

"I think so." He stopped and got the block of cheese out, put it on the counter for Mom, and returned to cutting fruit.

Mom started grating cheese into a bowl. 

Sapphire finished the cucumber and I finished the tomato and we tossed both into the salad bowl with the lettuce. Mom handed me a bell pepper and Sapphire grabbed an onion and we continued working on the salad.

"So," Sapphire began again, "Deja vu, Rocky Carlos has been pushing me to go with him for two years."

(No, you won't find Rocky on the team rosters. This is fiction, remember?) 

"Rocky Carlos?" Mom asked.

"Our star quarterback this year. He's not the only guy trying to get me to date him, but he's been the most persistent and he thinks he's the top dog at Permian. I haven't mentioned your name, just that I had a boyfriend at OHS." 

"That was enough to hold him off?"

Sapphire laughed.

(They didn't call us the Wild Bunch for nothing.) 

"So now I show up and I'm just a 180 pound weakling."

"A hundred eighty pounds?"

"Last I checked."

"Front lineman material."

"Tried it last year, didn't like it. Thought first period physics class was more important." 

Sapphire laughed again, quietly. "That's you all right. But I decided two things when I heard you were coming over for the industrial electronics class."

"You heard that?"

"I like you. We already knew that."

"I guess I do, now. So how did you hear?" 

"I have my sources, but I've been paying attention, too. It was in the newspaper, in that article about your PSAT results getting attention from MIT, and you registering for that early entry calculus at OC. Nice likeness, by the way." (OC -- Odessa College.)

"Thanks. Linda Lee drew it."

"Linda Lee?"

"One of my sisters. So the typing class you don't need?"

"It should help on my resume."

"You have friends in the school office."

"Yeah." 

"I guess Cyndy is a really good friend."

"She wasn't my friend in the office, but she is a good friend. So I decided to make sure you and I had a chance, as I guess you guessed. And I also decided you needed to be warned about the trouble I might cause you, which is why I'm being just a little pushy about it. I'm not usually this forward."

I grinned at that.

"I'm really not. The cheer leading was just --" she put down the knife and looked at me. "A persona. Stage. And leading the cheer dance club now is because I don't want the drama of being a cheerleader any more, but I like the dance." 

She put the onions in the salad bowl and I put the bell pepper in, and Mom took over the salad preparation. 

"Yeah. Okay, now I think I see. You have Rick worried, too, by the way."

"And Rick's a good friend, too." 

I nodded in agreement. 

Dad topped the fruit salad with orange juice concentrate for dressing and set it on the table. "Drama." He grinned at Sapphire. "Makes life interesting."

Sapphire looked a little confused.

"Dad's just being Dad, telling us he's listening and doesn't think he needs to say anything more than,"

"Keep your seat belts fastened," he finished for me. "And keep us in the loop." And he gave me a dead-serious look that let me know what was expected of me.

"Wait." I looked back at Sapphire. "What made you decide to walk over?"

Sapphire huffed (Did I really right that? Isn't there a better word in English for that?) and turned her head away, then looked back at me sideways as if I'd asked a question I wasn't supposed to.

I tilted my head.

She sniffed, and her shoulders dropped as she looked away again. "When I told Mom you'd be coming to pick me up to come study here, all she could say was 'That Marmon boy!' And stuff like that. I couldn't stand it. So I grabbed my books and walked over."

Both my parents looked suddenly worried.

"Oh-kay," I drew a shallow breath. "Does she have our phone number?"

Dad and Mom both nodded approval. 

"I don't think ... no. She doesn't. I'm not sure I want her to." 

I reached around the side of the high cupboard behind me, picked up the phone (a push-button one-piece phone I had bought at Radio Shack) and dialed. (Like the ads said, push-button was faster than rotary. )

"No!" Sapphire panicked, grabbing for the phone. 

I dodged long enough to dial the last digit before she got it away from me. 

"How do you hang this thing up?"

We heard the busy signal clearly.

"Whew!" She found the hook lever on the bottom edge of the phone and pressed it.

"What if she's calling the cops?" I asked.

"She wouldn't." She blinked. "She might."

She hesitated, and then she dialed the number herself this time, and the phone on the other end rang.

"Hello?" The woman's voice on the other end was clear and loud enough for us all to hear. It sounded a lot like Sapphire, and was tinged with enough panic and anger to hear clearly in the one word.

"Mom?"

"Phi!" There was relief in the single syllable.

I leaned close so I could hear better, and Sapphire's eyes met mine across the phone.  

Sapphire hesitated and took a deep breath. "Mom, Joey says you need to know where I am."

"Does he now?" Sharp, laced with suspicion.

"It's in my personal phone book on my night stand, but it's in code. Do you have a pencil?" 

Her mom didn't reply, but we could hear a cupboard drawer opening and shutting.

"Okay. Spill it."

Sapphire gave her our address and phone number. "It's five minutes from Hood, only a fifteen minute walk from home, ten if I hurry."

"I'm sending the police."

"And I'll tell them it's your fault."

"Mrs. Andrews," I leaned in farther to get a better angle on the mouthpiece, ignoring the temptation to think about Sapphire's lips so close to mine. "Sapphire came over to help me with some homework, and we thought we'd study a little together after that. My family is here and we've invited her to dinner. I'll drive her back by ..." I looked directly into those blue eyes so close to mine and asked, "Nine thirty okay?" 

Sapphire nodded. "I think so."

"Nine thirty." 

I wasn't counting or watching the clock, but it was probably a full ten seconds before Mrs. Andrews said, "No missionaries."

"That's an easy promise. No one has asked them to come, and they're probably pretty busy anyway."

"No talking about your Book of Mormon. No talking about your Mormon religion at all."

Sapphire and I were looking pretty deeply into each other's eyes. 

"Can't promise that. I will promise that I won't ask her to marry me tonight."

"What?" Panic returned to her voice.

"If it ever turns that serious, I promise I'll make sure you know about it." 

Sapphire couldn't suppress a giggle. 

"Sapphire. This is serious business!"

"I know, Mom. So does Joe."

"I also promise I won't ask her to be baptized a Mormon tonight." 

That could actually have been a cheap promise. There really isn't such a thing as being baptized a Mormon. But I meant what Mrs. Andrews would understand from it, of course.

"Tonight?"

"Or tomorrow either. If that kind of question comes up, well, we won't be going there without consulting you and her dad first." 

Mrs. Andrews thought for a bit more, then said, firmly, "Nine thirty, sharp, no later."

"Promise." Sapphire and I chorused.

"And no kissing tonight."

"Promise." But this was just me.

"Sapphire?" 

"Mom, I ... yeah, no kissing, no making out. I'll behave myself. Promise." 

"Okay." I could practically feel her relief flooding that one word. "I'll try to explain to your dad."

"Mom, let me."

"He won't let me hear the end of it."

"Then have him call."

"Maybe so. Study hard. Study well."

"Okay, Mom."

"See you at nine thirty."

"We'll be there," Sapphire promised. "Bye."

"Bye." The last word she said was considerably softer in tone than when she had answered the phone.

Sapphire squeezed the hook lever with her thumb, still looking into my eyes and said, "If I hadn't promised, ..."

I took the phone and put my free index finger on her lips. She raised an index finger to mine, and we kissed each other's fingers. 

"We're cheating," she said.

"We are."

And we backed carefully away from each other, and I hung the phone back on the side of the cupboard without looking.

Mom said, "I think you both handled that quite well."

Dad nodded. "Well, and carefully done. Both of you." 

"I hope so." I was still looking steadily into Sapphire's eyes.

Sapphire blinked and nodded. Neither of us looked away. 

"In code."

"Uh huh."

"You have it memorized."

"And you know mine." What her smile said would be hard to translate, so I won't.

I looked down. "Let's get the table ready." 

Dad and I pulled the table out away from the wall so we could all sit around it. 

Annabelle came in from the living room, and Linda Lee from Dad's study, pretending that they hadn't been listening around the corners. Introductions were made while we all set the table, and we sat down to eat. Mom sat at the inside end, Sapphire and I took the wall side, with Sapphire next to Mom and me by the doorway. Annabelle and Linda Lee sat opposite Sapphire and me, Dad sat at the end by me. And Dad asked me to ask the blessing on the food (more or less the same as saying Grace) and I did, offering thanks for good company.

Annabelle grabbed the loaf of whole wheat bread from the counter, and we dug in, passing food around and serving ourselves. 

The front door opened and I looked around the edge of the doorway. Ivette came into the living room, carrying her baby. She looked tired.

"Hi, Joey, Dad. Is there room for me and Jennifer?"

"Long day?" Dad asked. 

She nodded. 

"I'll move to the living room." I volunteered.

"I'll go with you," Sapphire chimed in. 

"I hear a voice I don't recognize." Ivette came into the kitchen. "Don't you move for me. I'm Ivette, and you're?"

"Sapphire."

"Sapphire ...  I've heard that name ..." 

"Should we all move to the dining room table?" Mom suggested. 

"Too much trouble," Ivette replied. "Joey, help me drag the coffee table close so I can join the conversation."

I got up and moved Sapphire's and my books to the couch and lifted the low table close to the doorway while Mom got Ivette a plate and utensils, and then I put my plate on the low table and dragged a stool over to the kitchen table for Ivette to put Jennifer on. Dad moved over so there was room for the stool.

"Joey, I don't want to make you move. You should be sitting next to Sapphire." 

"Sapphire and I will be sitting next to each other for at least an hour tonight, studying. Not a problem. You don't need to be juggling Jennifer at the coffee table."

"And I can help with Jennifer," Sapphire added. 

"Thank you!" Ivette turned to me. "May I?"

I tilted my head in a nod and a grin. "Of course. Who would I be to say no?"

She grinned back and let Sapphire take Jennifer while she slid in.

After a moment's thought, I brought my plate back to the table and crowded in on the stool I'd just set by Dad. 

Ivette served herself. "Now I want to know all about this beautiful girl my --" She emphasized the word, "little," before continuing, "brother has had such a wonderful crush on for, how many years?" She turned to me.

I chuckled. "Long enough I guess."

Sapphire giggled. "I guess we both told our families more about our crushes than we told each other." 

"Yeah."

She and my Mom (and Linda Lee and Annabelle) filled Ivette in while Dad and I mostly listened, although I filled in a few details, too. And I learned a little more of Sapphire's side of things -- while we ate.

Sapphire and Ivette took turns with Jennifer, but she began fussing for real about the time Ivette finished eating, and Ivette took her back.

"Joey, can you get in my bag? There's a nursing blanket in there."

I went into the living room and got the privacy blanket out of her bag, and she nursed Jennifer, and the conversation turned to women's things while Dad and I cleared the food away. And the conversation turned to politics while I washed the dishes and Sapphire dried and Linda Lee put them away.

And Dad suggested we retire to the big dining table in the den and play a few rounds of Pit. 

We helped Mom clear her artwork away from the dining table and gathered around it, and Annabelle said a prayer to open our family night.

And we took turns watching Jennifer while we played. She was fascinated by the noise of the game, and fought off sleep to watch. 

In between rounds, we talked a bit about applying Gospel principles in politics and in making a living, and, at the end of the third round, I went and got my Bible, and Dad read the parable of the talents from Matthew 25 from it and we discussed it for a few minutes. We played another round, and I brought up the parable of the laborers hired at different hours of the day, and we read and discussed that for a few minutes.

After another couple of rounds, cheer dance came up.

"So we showed Joey and his friends the ballet basics that we usually start with. And I'm going to coach him a little tonight." 

Ivette put her cards down. "Is that so?"

"Yeah?" Sapphire let the assertion turn into a question.

"Well good for you. He loves to go crazy to his music, but I could never get him to stand still long enough to show him a proper plié.

"You dance?" There was excitement in Sapphire's voice.

"She dances," I replied for her. "Ballet, modern, ballroom, ...."

"Could you help me? Us, I mean?"

"Just for a little. I've got to get back to the apartments I manage. I've just got dinner break, and I'm supposed to be on call. I do have my pager." 

We played the round, and then Annabelle put away the pit deck and we had a closing prayer. Mom and Dad claimed babysitting duties, sitting on the stoop at the entrance to the den. Annabelle and Linda Lee joined them on the stoop.

Mom said, "Everybody in this family dances but me."

And Dad chuckled. "Except when you dance with me."

"But I'm not very good."

"You do just fine." He gave her a hug. 

Ivette observed us while Sapphire coached me through a review of what we had done that afternoon in the cheer dance practice, with minimal hands-on. The review didn't take long. 

When we'd gotten through the walking practice (It's a big den.), Ivette said, "I'm not seeing anything I need to help you with."

"I'm hoping we'll be able to teach the boys to do lifts. Oh, dear."

"What?" 

I picked up Sapphire's thoughts. "Oh, yeah. We've been forgetting. After practice, we were talking about arranging for Hec and Rick to get extra practice after school, and somebody volunteered our house. Mom, do you think it would be okay if Rick -- and Mara from the other ward -- started coming over to practice while I'm out running my route?" 

"Mara knows Rick?" 

"I guess she sort-of does now. She and Becca are on the cheer dance team. Cyndy and Tussa are co-leaders with Sapphire," I looked at Sapphire. "Did I get that right?"

"Uh-huh."

"And Tussa volunteered Mara because Mara lives kind of close and knows me."

Mom waited for more information. 

"Cyndy and Hec would also join the practice, and I think Sapphire would, usually, as well."

"Yes, I would be here, too. Cyndy is one of my best friends, by the way."

"And Hec is a friend of Rick's and mine from Hood -- from Sam Houston, really." (Sam Houston Elementary School.)

Ivette asked, "While Joey is walking the route? I could come tomorrow about that time, and on-and-off after that."

"That would really help," Sapphire said. 

Mom nodded some more. "Dad? Opinions?"

Dad shook his head. "I don't know why not. We'll probably need to be careful about scheduling, but I don't know of any conflicts for this week."

After a little more ironing out details, we called Hec and Cyndy and Mara. They had also gotten permission from their families, and we agreed to have the first practice at our house the next day. I would call Rick after his shift at the warehouse was over.

"So, Ivette, can you stay long enough tonight to help me teach Joey lifts?"

"Lifts." I chuckled. "Fat chance. I can't even do more than two pushups in a row. One chin, with great effort, an a really good day."

Ivette raised her eyebrows at me. "But you can pick me up in a fireman's carry no problem."

"He can?" Sapphire didn't ask permission, just dragged me down the steps back into the den, turned sideways to me and said, "Let's see this."

I gave her an eye roll and a sideways grin. Then I reached under her arm and around her back, lifting her arm with mine to get it across my back and neck, gripping carefully in a safe position below her armpit. She gripped my opposite shoulder, and I reached under her calves with my free arm, bent my knees to let her sit into my arms so I could get leverage, and lifted her easily into fireman's carry. 

"It's just a matter of applying the right leverage to the right places," I intoned.

She wrapped her arms around me with a grin and pulled close, and then we both rolled our eyes and I said "Nope." at the same time that she said, "Darn that promise."

And I set her back down easily.

"Okay, good, now let's see you do some pushups."

I gave her a wry grin and went face down on the floor. I set my hands and straightened my back and strained with my arm muscles and, with effort, raised my body.

"Do you think I'm guessing he's trying to push?" Sapphire asked Ivette.

"Yep. I've been watching that for the last several years. Muscle against muscle. You don't listen to me, Joey, will you listen to Sapphire?"

 I dropped back to the floor and rolled over, and looked up at them.

"Okay, you tell me this time, Sapphire."

Sapphire hunkered down beside me and stroked my inner forearm with her fingertips. "Radials." Then she tapped my inner upper arm. "Biceps. This isn't their full names, but it's good enough for what we want to do." And she motioned for me to roll over.

Which I did.

She stroked the backs of my arms, both forearm and upper, and said, "Triceps." Then she patted my shoulder blades, her hands lingering. "Deltoid." Then she explored farther in, towards my spine. "Trapezius." And she moved her hands a bit lower, towards, but not reaching my waste. "Dorsals. Tussa wasn't kidding when she said your back is well developed. I think you must get that from carrying the newspapers."

"So the paper route is good for something besides keeping me from watching Star Trek reruns." I grinned sideways from the floor and she laughed softly. 

"Probably. Now when you do pushups, you are trying to push with your muscles."

"Of course."

"Muscles don't push."

"Huh?"

"Muscles pull. That means, when you push yourself off the floor, you don't want to use your radials or your biceps." She paused and stroked my inner arms for emphasis. "Well, they do get involved, but not directly. The muscles you want to energize the most are your triceps and your deltoids." And she massaged the backs of my arms and my shoulder blades. Then she moved inward and down. "Your trapezius and dorsals will mostly be keeping your back straight. Okay?" And she took her hands off.

"Mmm."

"Try it once, just from your knees, not from your toes."

"Okay." I let my knees rest on the floor, then did a knee pushup. 

"Good," Ivette approved.

"No problem, but I've done these before." I did four more. "Some coach said it would help me learn full pushups, but it didn't." 

"Great."  She explained, "But it exercises different muscles. Now get up on your toes. Try pulling with the muscles in the backs of your arms and your back. And let the ones in front just go limp."

I got up on my toes and got that image in my mind, of the triceps and deltoids contracting, and the biceps just going limp. And my body seemed to lift itself. 

"Now there," Ivette pointed out, "is the difference between your dear sweet sister telling you something, and a girl who is not your sister, who you have a crush on, telling you something." 

Sapphire snickered, and I dropped to the floor laughing. Still laughing, I tried five more, stopping in mid-air on the last. 

"This is more in a row than I've ever done. I do seem to be using my, uhm, radials, though."

(Joey is again way ahead of me. I would not learn this about using muscles for another four years. I did learn it in modern dance, but not this directly. Of course, this whole chapter is not about me, not about real people.) 

"True, but not to push." Sapphire clarified.

"Right." I lowered my body to the floor and took a rest, getting ready for another set.

"Don't get greedy. You'll be too tired to practice lifts. Stand up." 

I lifted myself to my knees and looked up at her a little rebelliously. 

She gave me a look that brooked no nonsense. "Ivette needs to get back and I want her help."

Ivette looked up at the ceiling. "Lifts won't work very well here."

Sapphire looked up, too, then looked at the gap between my head and the ceiling. I raised my hand and touched the ceiling without lifting my heels from the floor.

"That's true." She looked out the southern windows at the back yard, still well lit by the late summer sun. "How about your back yard?"

"Heel burrs," I explained. "And thorns from the locust tree. Those thorns can pierce tennis shoe soles." I thought for a moment. "The area between the grape arbor and the rock fountain that doesn't flow any more might be okay if we put our shoes on."

She still gazed out the windows. "I would prefer to do this barefoot, though. How about the front yard?"

Annabelle said, "I cleared most of the stickers out in front of the rose bush a couple of days ago." 

Dad stood up, careful not to wake Jennifer in his arms. "Let's take a look."

In the front yard, I used my feet to sweep an area about two yards square, and Annabelle and Linda Lee and Ivette gathered around to spot for us. Mom and Dad sat on the front porch with Jennifer, who was still sleeping.

Sapphire tested the area with me. Then she faced the street. "Joey, stand behind me and put your hands on my waist, about my tutu line."

"Belt line?"

"What belt?"

I had been avoiding thinking about what she was wearing. No belt loops on her culottes. 

"Uhm, elastic line?"

She laughed and turned around and poked me in the stomach.

"If you insist. About there.

I hesitated. "Are you sure this is okay?"

"You have to put your hands somewhere if you are going to lift me. If you worry about where, you will hurt me. You'd have your hands on my waist if we were doing ballroom dance, too, wouldn't you?"

"I can't argue with that."

She turned her back to me again. "Are we going to dance or not?" 

I looked at Ivette for help. 

"Trust her."

I appealed to Mom and Dad. Dad said, "She's trusting you. Trust yourself, too. If you can't focus on the mechanics of dance, it will hurt her." 

So I cleared my mind of my unnecessary concerns, focused on the mechanics of dance, and put my hands on her sides, a little above her waist.

"Too high. It's going to be too much pressure on my ribs, and you won't be able to get a good grip," she turned to fix me with a stare, "and you're hands will slide where you will worry about them even more." And she turned back.

I obediently moved my hands down until my palms were at her waistband line. "How's this? 

"Okay, when I jump, push up, not in."

"Not in." I eased up and moved my hands down to put my thumbs on the waistband, and she bent her knees and jumped. I was completely out of sync and unable to do much, but I did try to soften her landing.

"Sorry." 

"Late start, but then it felt like you figured something out. Put your hands on my hips again and don't press."

I did so.

"Try to lift me." 

"My hands will just slide all the way up to your armpits."

"Don't press too hard, just try it."

I gave it a try, and, of course, my hands slipped a little. But not as much as I thought. I may have been able to lift her an inch, but no farther before she slipped back down.

"Okay, this time, follow my timing."

She did a couple of pliés, waiting for me to catch her rhythm, and, on the third, turned the plié into a jump. Catching the rhythm, I lifted gently on the way up, holding her for a second at the apex, then gave her some resistant force to slow her descent on the way down.

"Nice. But we didn't get a lot of height. I want to get up far enough to get on your shoulder."

We tried a few more times, adjusting approaches, still not getting the height she wanted.

"I guess I've grown since junior high. I'm heavier, sad to say."

"Not that much. I mean, not heavy at all."

"Quit that."

"You can see over my shoulders now, but you're still really slender." 

"Stuff it. You're going to need to get a better angle."

She was right about the angle, but she was nowhere near what anyone would call heavy. 

Ivette pursed her lips. "Try me."

She and Sapphire traded places, and I put my hands on her hips. 

"Funny that you are shorter than Sapphire now." 

"No. Not odd at all." 

"Last time we tried this, I didn't get any more success than I'm getting with Sapphire."

"And I'm a little lighter than Sapphire, too."

Sapphire looked at Ivette curiously. "How did you get the weight off so fast after Jennifer?"  

"Dance."

"I have heard that dance is good for such things." 

"Yes, it is. Well, let's see what happens." Ivette did three pliés and pushed off, and this time I got myself lower while tracking Ivette's knee bends, and I got good angle, and got her up to my shoulder. And she struck a cheerleading pose. 

Sapphire and my family clapped. 

"Okay, get me down. One, two --" 

I flexed my knees to give her enough lift to get off my shoulder, then kept my hands on her hips, giving her a little lift to land her gently on the ground.

"Tad-dah!" She grinned and did a curtsy. 

"Well, your sister got your first one. I'm jealous," Sapphire said with a grin. "And worried about how heavy I am."

"We'll see just how heavy," I said. Ivette grinned and moved out of the way. Sapphire took her place in front of me and bent her knees in plié. And this time I caught her rhythm, got below her when she pushed off, and almost got her too far above my shoulder. But we landed her safely, and she also struck a cheerleading pose. Then she looked around as if leading a crowd while my folks cheered. 

Her gaze stopped as she looked towards the north corner.

"Let me down. Quick."

"Okay, hang on. Get yourself stable." I let her get her balance back and got myself stable for giving her lift on the return, and we got her down gently -- just as a car pulled up in front of the house.

She ran to the curb, and I followed.  

TOC		Next
Where it starts

3809/2801: Introduction to Dance

2801
Introduction to Dance

Drafts

TOC

(I'm not sure whether Permian High had a cheer dance team at this point in time. Panther Paws -- which is, I'm sure, an intentional pun on the dance term pas, French for "step" -- was much later. The guy Rick is primarily based on would not have let himself be talked into this. And I didn't start studying modern dance until I was 21. Again, Joe is not me. This is very much pure invention -- based somewhat on my dance classes in college.

Why is it necessary? I'll get to that pretty soon now.) 

Cyndy and Hec met us on the way to the field where the cheer dance team was gathering.  Hec raised his eyebrows in surprise when he saw Rick with me.

"What?" Rick mugged. "If Joe can do this, so can I."

"I wasn't saying anything." Hec grinned and they raised hands and slapped palms about mid-five.

I raised the back of my fist in solidarity, and the three of us traded bumps.

We hesitated on the field as we approached the group of girls talking, stretching, and warming up. Some of the girls, I recognized from Hood. I also recognized two girls from church, Maralea and Becca, from the other congregation (the ward I didn't attend), and I raised a hand in greeting, to which they both nodded and continued stretching. 

"The enemy," Hec intoned just loud enough for the three of us to hear -- not quite low enough for Cyndy and Sapphire not to hear.

Cyndy and Sapphire both gave him a dirty look.

"Joking. Joking."

Rick and I chuckled, then straightened our faces when they turned their glares on us. 

"Hmmph." Cyndy grumbled. Then she called out, "Girls, look what the cats dragged in."

And the three of us guys had a few moments of fame -- welcomes, giggles, and even whistles -- until their coach joined us. 

Well, Rick got most of the attention. Hec and I didn't seem to be as interesting.

Maralea and Becca didn't join in the fuss, just kept stretching.

Cyndy introduced us to the coach. 

"Ms. Michaels. This is Joe, and this is Joe's friend, Rick."

"Great! I've been waiting two years for you to join us, Hec. Joe, I've heard good things about you. Rick, is it? Glad you're interested. Welcome! We can use some muscle."

Rick grinned wryly. "They twisted my arm, forced me to tag along."

"We did not!" Cyndy exclaimed. 

Sapphire smirked. "Maybe a little."

Rick laughed. 

Ms. Michaels joined the laughter. "Well, glad you let yourself be persuaded. And you guys are already trained dancers, right? Just kidding. We'll get you up to speed quickly." Then she turned serious. "Some parts of our dance training gets a little physical. If it gets too personal, just say so." 

"Personal?" Rick questioned.

"Cyndy and I will make sure they're okay," Sapphire said. 

"Good." 

But Rick was still looking a bit doubtful. 

Sapphire called out, "Crews!" and the girls separated into three groups. 

"Hec, you're coming with me!" 

Hec followed Cyndy to her group.

Sapphire turned to me. "Joey, I think Rick needs my help more than you do today. You remember Tussa?"

"Uh, yeah?"

She tilted her head. "One of the many girls you've had a crush on, right?" And she poked me in the ribs.

Tussa, who had taken the lead of the third group, was one of the girls I had recognized from Hood.

"She's cute sometimes, but she can be a little pushy." 

Sapphire smirked. 

"Hey Tussa," she called out. "You think you can take this big lug under your wing today?"

Tussa turned around. "Which one, Joe or Rick?"

"Joe, of course." 

She gave Sapphire a raised eyebrow. "You trust me with him?" Then she gave me a sly grin. "Hi, Joe."

"Uh, hi, Tussa." 

"I don't want Rick to think he's in too deep." 

"And you think I'd turn the heat up on him?" She smirked. "You're probably right."

Rick coughed. 

"I think I can help. Come into my parlor, Joe." 

I turned back to Sapphire a little doubtfully, and she pulled the corners of her mouth into a tight-but-flat grin that was somehow encouraging. "You'll be okay," she mouthed. 

I took a breath and said, "Okay, ..." and turned to go to Tussa's group. 

"Take good care of my baby," Sapphire called out behind me.

I looked back and mouthed, "Baby?" She just crinkled her nose up again and grinned some more in reply.

"Get on over here, Joe. I'll take real good care of you."

Sapphire gave me a swat on the backside. 

I didn't know they were called glutes yet, but I tucked them and moved. 

"I'm going. I'm going."

"Sapph! PDA!" Ms. Michaels chastised, laughing.

There was general laughter as I joined Tussa's group. Sapphire gave me one more encouraging grin for good measure before turning to lead her group and help Rick.

"We start by stretching whatever needs to be stretched," Tussa explained to me. "Easy stretches only, don't want to tear anything.

"Yeaaokay." I stood puzzling for a few moments, looking around and trying to make sense of what the girls were doing.

Tussa prompted me. "Try this." And she demonstrated. "Right foot in front, let your left knee bend, keep your torso up, and feel some stretch in your hamstrings."

"Hamstrings?"

She patted the back of my left thigh.

"Uhm, yeah, I guess I'm feeling some stretch there."

I looked over and saw Sapphire going through something similar with Rick, except she didn't pat the back of his leg quite as much.

"Focus."

"Right." I looked back at my feet.

"Now flex your forward foot."

I lifted my right forefoot.

"Not too much. You should feel some stretch in your Achilles and your calf, here, and here." She patted my leg and ankle to show me where, leaving her hand on the back of my ankle. "How much can you flex before it hurts?"

I flexed my foot a little farther. "Doesn't exactly hurt, but that seems to be all it bends."

"Good. That's what you're supposed to be feeling. Now try the other foot."

I switched legs and gave the other set of hamstrings a try.

"Okay, stretching here?" She ran her hand up the back of my right thigh.

"Yeah, I guess." 

"Flex it."

I did. 

"But not too fast."

I put my left forefoot back down and flexed again, a little slower, and she checked my muscles again.

"Good. Now try this."

She sat on the ground with her right leg stretched out and her left foot tucked in front, not under, her hips. "This is the modified hurdle."

I followed her.

"Bend your body over the bent knee, but keep your back straight as far as you can. Don't go too far. Good. Now sit back up and bend over the extended leg. See if you can touch your toes."

I was just able to reach my right toes with my foot flexed.

"You're pushing too hard, ease up." She got up and checked my back muscles. "Gaw--oodness. You have muscles back here. See how straight you can keep your back."

I complied. "How's that?"

"You tell me."

"Uhm, I can feel some stretch, but it doesn't hurt."

"Okay, other leg."

I swapped legs and stretched, following Tussa's demonstrations. She checked my muscles again.

Then she stood up. "Let's try one more thing before we start working out." She put her left leg back and right leg forward and stood with her upper body straight and legs straight, facing over her right leg. 

I copied her.

"Now," she bent over her right leg and put her palms on the ground. 

When I started to copy her, she got up and put her hands on my waste, guiding me.

"Keep your hips perpendicular and your back straight as far as you can without hurting things. Woops. Your hips are slipping sideways."

I glanced over, and Sapphire was also doing hands-on guidance for Rick, but not as much. Cyndy was helping Hec similarly, but also not as hands-on 

"Focus!" She moved her hands to my hips, gently pressing and guiding. "Line that up with your upper body, and get your shoulders perpendicular to the line of your feet." Then she took my shoulders and straightened them and released them. "Good enough. How far over can you get?"

I bent over and touched the ground with my fingers.

"Great. Now the other side." 

She demonstrated again, and I noticed that several of the girls were watching and copying, and others of the group were helping those that were copying. 

Maralea was giving me a frown of disapproval. I wrinkled my forehead in puzzlement, but she turned away and continued with her own stretches. 

"Lots of beginners with us this year," Tussa said with her hands on the ground, as I stretched over my left leg. "Everybody's doing just fine. Now, I'm going to show you something, but don't do it yet."

She walked her hands to her right, bringing her upper body around in front, perpendicular to her legs. "What do you think? Don't do it if it hurts!"

I copied her. Several of the other girls copied her as well.

"If it feels like it's going to tear, stop."

"I'm fine, I think." 

Some of the girls stopped and stood up. 

"Everyone okay? Hold that a moment, Joe. Mary, no full hurdles." 

I blinked and looked at Tussa, but she wasn't talking to me. She was looking at Maralea, who was stretching by herself on the ground with one leg out and the other foreleg tucked outside her hip instead of in front, stretching over her extended leg.

"Sorry. I keep doing what we do in track." Maralea pushed herself up with her hands, slipped her tucked foreleg forward and continued her stretches.

Tussa nodded. "I'm not the one getting hurt." 

"I know, I just forget."

"Yeah, 'sokay. But we don't want to give Joe a bad example, either." 

"Sorry Joe."

"I'm okay. I just learned I probably shouldn't do that."

Maralea looked back at me with an expression I couldn't read. 

Tussa looked at me approvingly. Then she chuckled wryly. "And I've just left you hanging there. Sorry."

"I'm fine. Thought I'd take a nap here."

"Ooohh, Sapphire, this baby of yours is sassin' me."

Sapphire paused explaining modified hurdles to her group and looked around. "Quit flirting with my teammates, Joey." She gave me a wink and the wrinkled-nose grin again.

"Whaddid I do?" I grinned back at her and stood up.

Tussa and Sapphire laughed and I chuckled.

Rick watched us doubtfully from his position on the ground, trying out the modified hurdle.

"Okay, girls -- guys, too." Sapphire announced. "Wrap up the stretches. Then we'll get started with some easy warm-ups."

We finished our stretches and stood up. The girls lined up in their groups, three rows deep, and all three of us guys tried to move to the back.

"Guys in front." Sapphire called as she moved in front to take the lead of the three groups. Becca moved to take over leading her group, standing next to Rick. 

"Leave room so your arms can swing. Girls, remember the guys have longer arms than you." 

The girls were standing with their feet at angles, and Hec and I tried to copy that.

"Ballet position one in turnout." Sapphire was not barking orders, but she was definitely directing. "Keep those knees above your toes, don't turn the legs to an angle beyond what's natural. Turn your legs from the hips, not the knees, not the toes."

"I think that's too much." Tussa said to me, and I felt her hands wrapping around my left thigh, fingertips on the inside. 

"Hey!" My response was involuntary.

"Hmm. Relax." She checked my right thigh. 

"Tussa," Coach Michaels interrupted. "Too much hands-on. Leave that to Sapphire, if it's necessary."

"I was wrong," Tussa replied with a shrug, patting the back of my thigh. "Not too much. Doing good," she said to me as she patted my backside and moved back into the lead position for her group.

(Yeah, my glutes were already tucked from standing in turnout.)

"Tussa!" Coach chided.

"Gotta keep the guys from destroying their knees!" 

Coach rolled her eyes. 

Sapphire's expression was unreadable. 

She continued her explanations, "Don't turn out beyond what's natural. Some of you will have less turnout than others, and that's okay. Guys will definitely have less turnout. Except for Joey, I guess." 

The rest of the workout went more-or-less without incident, although the hands-on help for us boys continued. We practiced the first and second positions for the upper-body as well, and we practiced plié (ballet knee-bends) in first position. We tried rondejamb low, tracing partial semi-circles around us with our toes in the grass. Then we practiced walking in rhythm in turnout.

"That's all we have time for today," Coach Michaels announced after the walking practice. "It'll take us a little time to get things worked out for those with tight schedules, so for now we'll keep the after-school short. We won't be able to do full class sessions after school, anyway, so those who aren't taking the class will need to get someone to work with them." She nodded to me and Rick before continuing. 

"I have the year's schedule here, if you haven't got yours, yet." 

"If you need help," Tussa gave me a sly look "I'm free." 

"Thank you." I smiled and glanced at Sapphire, who gave me a tight smile a slow blink. "My, uhm, personal trainer says she'll help me."

"Darn." Tussa laughed.

I gave her a sideways grin. "Thanks for today." 

She nodded with a wry smile, and I moved to join Rick, Hec, and Cyndy, who were waiting for Sapphire to finish some team business.

"What do you think, Hec?" I asked. 

Hec nodded. "So far, so good. But this is the easy stuff."

"True. How'd it go, Rick?" 

Rick shook his head. "Nothing too crazy here." 

Sapphire joined us and gave me a side hug. "How'd it go?"

"Scary. But I survived."

"You, Rick?" 

Rick said, "Thank you, Sapphire, for not letting Tussa get too close to me."

"I heard that!" Tussa said with a laugh as she approached us with Maralea in tow.

Maralea was looking a little unenthusiastic. 

"Maralea says she lives pretty close to you guys, and she's good at this stuff, when she doesn't forget and do track instead."

Maralea laughed at that and relaxed a little. "Yeah. If Rick wouldn't mind practicing at Joe's house, I could help him there after our practices here."

Maralea's eyes met mine. There's a certain subliminal communication that goes on between members of our church. 

I turned to Rick. "I'm pretty sure my folks wouldn't mind, if it would help you, Rick."

"Merry, I don't ..." He stopped and scratched his head. "Maybe while you're delivering your newspaper route? That would leave me enough time to get back home after, eat something, and get to my job at the warehouse." 

All the girls in the group were looking confused. Maralea, in particular, looked ready to back out.

"Yeah, somebody's usually home about that time, and we've got the room to practice."

Cyndy picked up on my redirection. "If there's room to practice, Hec and I could come over, too." 

Maralea looked relieved, and she thought a moment. "I could catch a ride with Cyndy and Hec and walk home from your place, Joe."

I looked over at Sapphire, and she was giving me an unreadable expression again. 

"I think, though," Maralea continued, "we will all need to check with our parents first."

"Yeah. If I'm volunteering my house, I'd better ask first." I gave her a nod. "I'll call you tonight when I've checked with my folks."

With a bit more discussion, it was agreed, and I looked to thank Tussa, but she was gone 

"Where'd Tussa go?"

"She had stuff," Maralea answered. "I'll give her the update."

Sapphire reached out and touched fingertips with Maralea. "Thank you. And do tell her thanks."

"Yeah. See you guys tomorrow," Maralea said, and turned to leave.

"Yeah, tomorrow." Cyndy reached over and touched fingers with Maralea. "One of you can give either Hec or me a call."

Maralea left, and Sapphire and Cyndy touched hands.

Sapphire said, "I'll give Joe your number, Cyn. Do you have Hec's Joe?"

"I do," Rick volunteered.

"Yeah, Rick has my number," Hec affirmed.

"Well, we need to go. Give us a call." And Hec and Cyndy headed out.

Sapphire checked in with Coach Michaels before the three of us left together, bringing a copy of the year's schedule back for Rick and me.

"Want a ride, Sapphire?" I asked. 

Sapphire thought for a moment. "Nah, you need to get back, and I need to check in at home, too. Pick me up at 6:00?"

"Maybe a little after. Bicycle or car?"

"Don't you dare." She laughed. "Not today, anyway." 

"I'll call if the car is busy."

"If the car's busy, you come to my house after your family night, and we can walk to your place." She gave me a smile that had just a little sly in it.

"Less time for homework."

"Exactly." 

"Oh." 

"See you then." Her smile turned hesitant.

"Mmmyeah, then." 

And Sapphire left, heading home around the football practice field to the far gate.

Rick watched her leave and shook his head. "You think you know a guy."

I also watched her receding figure. "You think I'm not flying blind?"

We headed to the parking lot.  

TOC		Terms of Engagement -- Double Fantasy
Where it starts

3809/2801: Drafts

2801
Drafted

Basic Addressing Modes for All

TOC

(You may find this chapter less dry than the previous few chapters. You may also find it a bit contrived -- and technical in a different sense. It's necessary for the plot.

I should point out that both Sapphire and Joe diverge even more significantly from the real world from this point.) 

When I entered the typing lab, Sapphire was sitting in the front row. The desk beside her had a book on it, and there was a pile of books on the next desk over. All the other desks nearby were occupied already. 

She looked up and waved her fingers, and said, "Hi, Joey."

I raised my hand in greeting and replied, "Hi, Sapphire," and turned my feet to the back.

But she was waving me over, pointing to the desk next to her, which was right in front of the teacher's desk where Ms. Wilson was working on something.

So I headed to the front row, after all. 

"But isn't Cyndy sitting here?" I asked.

"Those are her books," she said, indicating the pile of books on the next desk over, and I recognized Cyndy's notebook on the top. "She'll be back by the bell."

"Oh, well, thanks for saving me a place." I put my books down, feeling a little like the proverbial cat in the room full of rocking chairs, and picked up the book she had left on the desk to save my place.

The book cover looked a little old, but still clean. It was about as thick as two issues of Popular Science, but hardcover. Something about the book felt familiar. Curious, I opened it. 

And raised my eyebrows in surprise. "Your annual from our ninth grade year at Hood." I closed it, perhaps too quickly, and started to hand it to her.

"Do you remember what you wrote when you signed it?" 

"Yeah. I ... remember ..." I was stuck for words.

"Well, Mr. Reeves," Ms. Wilson interrupted. "Cyndy said you had something to use for typing practice today."

"Uh," I looked around. "Hi, Ms. Wilson." 

I looked back questioningly to Sapphire. She pulled her mouth to one side. "Hang onto that thought," she said. "And let's see your letter of inquiry."

"You know about that, too?"

"Cyndy had to drop her books off here, you know."

I set the annual down and dug it out of my notebook. "It's just a draft."

"Drafts often need to be typed up, too. Let's look at it," Ms. Wilson said.

I handed it to her and she started reading it.

Sapphire stood up and walked around Ms. Wilson's desk to read it over her shoulder. 

Ms. Wilson nodded. "Mmm. Uh, huh. Good. Mr. Mori knows what he's doing." She put the letter on her desk and get out her red pen. "But let's think about this. And this." She marked several points in red and wrote some comments. "These are other ways to word things. You can choose."

She handed it back to me. "It is a little advanced for your typing practice, but you can take time during the second half of class today to hunt and peck if you want."

"Thanks." 

"Cyndy and Sapphire seem to want to use it for practice, too," she added. "Do you think you'd mind? They'll see your phone number and address, of course."

"No problem. Cyndy's a friend of Hec's and she's already seen it anyway, and ..." Again, I was stuck for words.

"And it's not like it's something I don't know already," Sapphire smirked.

I swallowed.

Ms. Wilson smiled. "And if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to save it and maybe use it in a few weeks for the whole class," she suggested. "It'll be more interesting than the textbook examples. We'll leave a blank for name and address on the spirit master, of course."

I blinked at her. 

"You two could run down to the library and make me a copy."

"Sure. No problem. But," I looked at the clock.

"Hall passes," She grinned and pulled a couple of green cards from a drawer and held them out to me.

Sapphire picked up her annual. 

I said, "Thanks, Ms. Wilson," and grabbed the hall passes and the draft, and Sapphire and I headed for the door together.

"Don't dawdle, and if Cyndy is still in the library tell her to get back to class," Ms. Wilson called after us.

I turned and gave her a thumbs-up as we went through the door. 

"So," Sapphire said as we walked down the hall. "Look at what you wrote," She handed me the annual. "-- and let me see your draft."

I handed her the draft, but I hesitated at opening the annual. 

"I remember what I wrote." 

"Do you?" 

"I was a teenager."

"We are both still teenagers. I like this draft, by the way. Your writing has improved."

"Thanks. I had no idea what I was saying -- when I signed your annual, I mean."

"You had enough of an idea that you went to the trouble to write it in your code."

When I was in seventh grade, one of my older brother's buddies at church had been called to a mission in Japan. I had read his letters to the congregation and noticed the return address written in Kanji, and that had spurred an interest in ciphers, crypts, and scripts. i had turned that interest into a simple substitution cipher using non-alphabetic symbols I made up -- probably inspired by something I read somewhere. And, somehow, I had had the social creativity to give her a copy of the key.

"And you took the time to decipher it."

She poked me with her elbow. "Yes. Didn't you want me to?" 

"I wasn't sure I expected you not to have thrown the key table away." 

"Okay," and she sighed before continuing. "I understand that. I had trouble letting you know I was interested in you. Too. So, do you have any better idea about what you meant, now?"

"I think I understand a little better. My sister and I were talking once, and she explained about crushes."

"Did she now." Not a question. 

We turned a corner. 

"How it's okay to have crushes and it isn't the same thing as what people get married for."

"Which of your sisters was it? I think I'm going to have to have a talk with her." 

"Uhm, ..." 

We stopped outside the library door and she fixed me with her gaze.

"Joey, it's a simple four-letter word. It starts with "L". It's not profane."

I blinked. 

She sighed and tilted her head and gave me a wistful look. "Just please look at the page where you signed my annual."

I couldn't deny her that. 

I opened the back cover. The book cover covered the edge where I had signed it a bit over two years back. I lifted the book cover away.

Beneath the mandatory, almost meaningful message about the past and the future, I'd confessed my ninth-grade feelings for her in that script cipher:

 

Under my confession, there was a line in her handwriting: "When will you tell me this in person?"

"Just so you know," she said, "I did not write that yesterday. I wrote that a couple of nights after the signature party, after I decoded it."

The ink didn't look new, at any rate. 

"We need to see if Cyndy's still here," I said.

"You're stalling."

I swallowed and looked at the floor. "Yeah, I guess I still have that huge crush."

"Crush." She sighed. "You guess."

"I get crushes easy."

"I remember. You could be a little scary that way. That's probably part of why I couldn't quite open up." 

"But, for what it's worth, I've been nursing this one at least since you encouraged me to do my algebra homework in 8th grade."

We turned and entered the library in silence.

"It's enough, I guess," she said quietly. "Two years I've waited." 

She grabbed my hand and dragged me into the stacks.

"Cyndy," she whispered.

Hec's head poked around a stack, followed by Cyndy's.

I chuckled at their expressions. 

Sapphire whispered, "You both look like a couple of cats that have gotten into the catnip. It's time to get to class."

Hec tried to suppress the overly happy look on his face and give me a puzzled look. Tried to.

"We gotta make a copy of my draft for Ms. Wilson," I explained in a whisper.

He grinned. "How Sapphire worked that, you're going to have to tell me some time."

"Maybe, if she and Cyndy tell me. You guys don't have hall passes."

"True. We'd better go." They hurried out of the stacks, holding hands.

"See you guys. Don't take too long," they chorused in normal voices, breaking the stillness of the library. 

The librarian peered around the end of the stack after they were gone. 

I held up the hall passes. "Came to make copies." 

"Right," she said. "I'll go warm up the copier," and disappeared. "Don't be long!" There was amusement in her voice.

Sapphire grabbed my hands, and looked me in the eyes. "And I still have my huge crush on you."

"Even though I'm scary."

"Since the seventh grade. You backed off when you could tell we were feeling creeped out. A lot of guys don't know how to back off." 

I could only nod. 

"I didn't know how to get your attention. You know how guys just seem to like me, and how I had a hard time saying no to the wrong guys at Hood. Anyway, you helped me start saying no. I know I can be trouble, but we need to talk. I need to talk. Two years worth of talk, at least."  

"Five years worth."

She nodded.  

"I'm sorry I didn't follow up. I tried to, but cheerleaders are scary, and I kept hanging up the phone before it could ring on your end because I didn't have any idea what I'd say."

"Cheerleaders are scary." She smirked, then turned serious. "We're often scared to death. You hung up?" She giggled. "I remember getting a few prank calls ..."

"Maybe I wasn't fast enough every time."

"Or, maybe, too fast?" 

I looked down, embarrassed.

She giggled again. "Oh, I know, you were shy."

"Still am." 

"Me, too. I guess we just hide our shyness differently."

We stood, holding hands, gazing into each others' eyes like the teenagers we were. 

She asked, "Can we study together tonight and maybe talk a little? Or a lot?"

"We could do that. Oh, wait, It's family home evening tonight."

She looked puzzled. "What's that?"

"Weekly family time. It's nothing spectacular, but you'd be welcome." 

She grinned. "I'd like that. Let's make this copy and get back to class."

Making three copies of the draft letter didn't take long. We held hands on the way back. Didn't talk much, didn't walk too fast. I was overloaded, couldn't think of anything to say. But I wasn't complaining. And neither was she.

Just outside the door, she held me back and said, "By the way, there's something Cyndy and I would like some help with. I think Hec's going to help. It's entirely up to you, though."

"I can't agree or disagree if I don't know what it is."

She looked in the door. "Uh, oh, Ms. Wilson's starting timed practices."

We hurried in. 

After twenty minutes of timed practices, Ms. Wilson let us do free practice. Cyndy and Sapphire and I worked quickly through Cyndy's notes and Hec's draft letter to RCA, and Cyndy created her own draft to Intel.

Cyndy commented, casually, "Hec says he can do the cheer dance club after school." 

Sapphire replied, "That's great." She looked up from Cyndy's draft. "Isn't it."

I raised my eyebrows and looked back down at the draft. "Sure. Sounds fun."

"Good." 

Ms. Wilson gave us some pointers, and Cyndy started typing her draft. I started in, trying to touch-type instead of one-fingering. 

And Sapphire typed a copy of my draft. 

"Are you really okay with helping us with the cheer dance club?" she asked quietly.

"You never found out how much I like to dance."

"Oh. Nice." 

 "But I get kind of wild."

 She snickered. "Now I'm trying to imagine that."

"And I'm not that good at line dancing."

"That's okay, we can practice." 

"I'm driving today, and there are newspapers waiting to be delivered at my house. How long is your practice?

"We keep it under forty-five minutes. Will Rick mind waiting? Street clothes are okay today."

I nodded. "We'll ask him."

Sapphire borrowed Cyndy's draft to type for more practice while Cyndy typed a copy of Hec's, and I continued typing on mine.

We were done a little before the bell.

Cyndy said, "We don't want to put too much pressure on Rick to join." 

"Oh, yeah, he claims he doesn't dance," I replied. "But let's ask. If he doesn't want to help, he'll say so." 

At the bell, Cyndy left quickly. "Got to take my notes to Mr. Mori, and go meet Hec."

Sapphire waited for me to collect my books and we left together. 

Rick saw us in the hall and waited for us. 

Sapphire seemed to pick up on his pensive mood. 

"Hi, Rick," she said, cheerfully.

He grinned a little darkly. "Well, hello you two love-birds."

She grinned back, then gripped his upper arm. "Hmm. Yep. I think we should recruit you, too."

"Recruit? Me?" Rick took a step back.

"We are being drafted for cheer dance." I raised my hand to slow down the response I saw coming. "Cyndy and Sapphire kept talking about needing guys all during typing class, in between working on the drafts."

Sapphire turned and wrinkled her nose. "All during class."

I grinned back. "Okay, we did talk about a few other things."

She laughed, and Rick chuckled darkly.

"I'm not going to guess what else you were talking about. Shoot. I should give you my draft to type up. Tomorrow?"

"We can ask Ms. Wilson if we can do it again," Sapphire suggested. 

"So what about your newspapers, Joe?"

"I'll can the paper route sit for an hour."

"Just an hour." Rick's mood shifted somewhat.

"Forty-five minutes," Sapphire said, and turned back to me. "And you are sure that's okay?" 

I shrugged and gave her a lopsided smile. "I can do the route faster when I'm motivated, and they give us until 5:30." 

I turned back to Rick and said, "Are you okay with this? Won't be late for work?"

He thought for a moment, and measured his words. "I've got a little time before work. You're driving today. I guess I have to tag along."

"I can drop in on their practice tomorrow to check it out, and walk home."

"Yeah. No. I'm going to see this. Tomorrow will be tomorrow." 

He raised his fist for a hesitant bump, and I returned it, not putting too much energy in it.

He grumbled, "We can call this an adventure." 

(You thought fist bumps were a recent thing, didn't you? I don't remember knowing who Fred Carter was, but Joe seems to have found time to watch a bit of basketball on the little black and white TV he bought with newspaper money at sixteen.) 

TOC		Introduction to Dance
Where it starts

3809/2801: Basic Addressing Modes for All

2801
Basic Addressing Modes for All

Register Sets for 1802 and 9900

TOC

(Continuing the  dry technical stuff, but it's still important. Don't go away.) 

Mr. Mori continued his explanation, not yet putting anything on the whiteboard. 

"Every CPU needs to address its registers, so register addressing should be considered something every CPU has."

I volunteered, "Is the 1802 X register how it addresses its index register?"

"That's a good way of looking at it." He frowned approvingly and nodded before continuing. 

"Now, the register is often implicit in the instruction. For instance, the 6800 has an instruction to set the carry flag and another to clear it. The carry flag is explicit and inherent to the instruction, but the condition code register is implicit."

Chuck asked, "Is the stack register implicit in call instructions, then?"

Mr. raised both eyebrows approvingly. "You could say that. Yes, you could definitely say that." 

He paused and thought. "But maybe not exactly for the 1802." 

He tilted his head in thought. "Maybe."  

"Anyway, another mode pretty much every CPU has is called the immediate mode in the documentation for all five of the processors we are looking at. It can also be called literal mode, among other things. 

"A constant value in the instruction stream is used as the source of a load or move instruction. In some cases the constant might be in the instruction itself, in others, it will come immediately," he paused and began diagramming on the whiteboard, "after the instruction op-code, like this:"

He paused when he finished the diagram. 

"You know, for the instruction stream, it's natural to draw memory putting the lowest byte at top, but that will feel upside down for data." 

Barry asked, "So which way is it?" 

"Whichever way makes most sense."

"Oh. And how do we know which we makes sense?"

Mr. Mori didn't elucidate. Instead, he continued, "Where that immediate constant is used and what is done with it is determined by the instruction."

Hec volunteered, "Is the PC implicit in immediate mode instructions?" 

"Yeah." Mr. Mori shook his head in amusement. "I don't think I pay you guys enough to do my job for me."

He grinned as we all laughed.

"Note that immediate constants can also be two bytes in some cases." 

He drew this to the side: 

Bob asked, "Is byte 1 the low byte or the high byte?"

"Yes." Mr. Mori waited. 

But we didn't laugh.

He shrugged in mock disappointment, but continued. "It depends on whether the processor is less significant byte first, or little-endian, or more significant byte first, big-endian. In the 8080 and 6502, byte 1 will be the low byte, but in the 6800, byte 1 will be the high byte." 

Scott asked, "Isn't least significant first the canonical form?"

"I have read partially valid arguments for making either byte order canonical, but the best argument is just that everybody should do the same thing -- and that is usually actually a good argument to not do the same thing." 

Scott scratched his head.

Mr. Mori thought a moment, then added, "For what it's worth, IBM usually designs their processors most significant first. I suppose we should discuss the advantages and disadvantages and historical reasons at some point, along with other philosophical questions like Barry's. Can you wait for that?"

(Irony in history, but IBM did not design the CPU for the 5150, did they?) 

"Yeah, I guess."

"Thanks." Mr. Mori turned back to the board and erased and rewrote parts of the second diagram, then added to it: 

"Absolute mode is where the address of the operand in memory, not the operand itself, is part of the instruction stream. The CPU loads the address out of the instruction stream into a temporary register, then loads the operand from that address. In this case, I'm showing the data operand as a 2-byte operand, but the data could be one byte or three, or any length, really, depending on the instruction, and on the instructions that follow.

"This mode is also called extended mode, or external address mode, among other things."

Barry asked, "So it's kind of like immediate mode, but the immediate value is the address where the actual operand is?"

"That's one way of looking at it."

"How does the CPU know the difference?"

"Basically, by the instruction op-code. For example, if it's an ADD instruction, there will be different op-codes for ADD immediate mode and ADD absolute mode. The immediate mode op-code grabs the number in the instruction stream as the operand. The absolute mode op-code first grabs the address from the instruction stream, then grabs the actual operand from memory at the address it just grabbed. Either way, once it has the operand, it can ADD it."

He let us digest this, then he added, "There are some CPUs  that do things differently. For instance, in some, the operand itself says it's an address. But I don't want to talk about them, at least, not now. Likely to just confuse everyone. I don't know of any microprocessors that do that, anyway." 

(No microprocessors that did that yet, anyway.) 

Cyndy asked, "So little-endian processors will have the low byte first for addresses, too, not just data?"

"Yep."

She asked another question, "Is there a single-byte form of absolute address?"

Mr. Mori grinned. "Thank you for bringing that up. The 6502's zero page mode and the 6800's direct page mode are just that, short absolute addresses in the first 256 bytes of memory." He wrinkled his forehead. "I don't need to draw that one for you all, do I? It's just a single byte following the op-code, and you the address unit concatenates zeros on top of that?"

Nobody asked him to.  

But Cyndy had one more question -- "Can you put addresses in registers?"

Mr. Mori mugged astonishment. "Cyndy, I'm beginning to feel threatened! That was just where I wanted to go next." Then he grinned. "Guys, is it time for talking about addresses in registers?"

Cyndy looked pleased with herself, and no one said no.

"You can, indeed, put addresses in registers. In fact, when any of these CPUs gets an absolute address and uses it, it stores it temporarily in a register or buffer that programmers can't access directly and puts it on the address bus from there. But we can also keep addresses in registers that we do have access to.

"Using a register like this is a mode that is often called register indirect mode. The instruction specifies a register, and the register contains the address. It feels a little superfluous to draw this, but we'll want to refer to the concepts in a moment:" 

Mr. Mori paused again. "Oh. This time it's data I'm diagramming with the high addresses on top." He picked up the eraser, hesitated, then put it back down. "Nah, Well go with this. There's a reason. Bear with me."

Bill chuckled. "I don't think any of us really knows enough to complain." 

Mr. Mori grinned again and continued.

"The 8080 has limitations, as I've mentioned, about which register pairs can be used with which instructions. But the 1802 and 9900 allow any register to be used to point to memory. The 6800 and 6502 are a bit special, but, again, as I've mentioned, they use their index registers to do this.

"But before I talk about register indirection on the 6800 and the 6502, I want to talk some about indexed mode addressing. I'm going to erase and rewrite parts of this diagram. You probably want to draw a second diagram instead in your notes."

Cyndy had already started making her second diagram as Mr. Mori altered the one on the board. 

"We start with a register pointing to something in memory, in this case we'll make it a name with a length byte. I'm showing the ASCII character codes in decimal here. 

"The base register points to the length of the name. But say we want to take a look at each letter in the name. We can add one to the pointer and look at the 'M', then add one again and look at the 'o', then add one again and look at the 'r'." He indicated each location in memory as he spoke. "But if we now want to look at the length again, we have to back up." He pointed back. "We have to subtract three, if we remember that's how far we've bumped."  

"Or we can keep the original, copy it to another register, and bump that register up and down to look at the letters one at a time. That way we don't forget where the name is. And that's the two registers I'm showing in this diagram.

"Adding and subtracting one are so common that, in most CPUs, they have their own op-codes, mnemonically named INC and DEC or something similar, for INCrement and DECrement." 

"Now, what if we want to jump directly to the score that comes after the name? Does everyone see how to do that?"

I waited for somebody else to say it, but no one did, so I said it. "Make another copy of the base address, load the length in from memory where it's pointing, and add the length to the copy?"

Mr. Mori nodded. "That's one way. Good catch about getting the length from the string itself. A common beginner's mistake would be to just load it as the immediate value 4. That would work with my name, but not yours. 

"By the way, this technique of adding an offset to a base address in registers requires multiple instructions on all of our microprocessors." 

(This would change, of course, with the 68000 and 6809, but that's down the road a ways.)

"This practice of pointing at parts of objects in memory at offsets from the base of the object is called indexing, essentially from the concept of indexing into an array or table. Or from matrix algebra. 

"While we can do it in steps like we've been talking about, the 9900 provides a short-cut indexed addressing mode for arrays when their location is a constant known beforehand, where the instruction stream provides a constant absolute base address and a register provides an offset. This mode doesn't help if you have both the base and offset in registers." 

He took some time to draw the following: 

"Base address literal in the instruction stream points to the base of the name, and the register gives the offset to the letter." 

Karl complained, "I'm not seeing why that has any advantage over just putting the address in the register and adding."

Mr. Mori pursed his lips and nodded before replying. "You do have a point. But you can do this addressing in a single instruction. And sometimes, you're short of registers. And sometimes, you're more interested in keeping the offset as a variable than in having the addresses themselves. 

"Now, in fact, this only works when the base address is known in advance, so you do have a point or two."

"But I don't know what point I have," Karl laughed, and most of us laughed, too. 

"More things we need to talk about later," Mr. Mori answered.

"One useful case we can talk about might be when making an identical copy of something. The 9900 also has auto-increment and auto-decrement modes which can be used, but maybe you can see that the same offset in the register can be used with with the base offset of each array. I will need to show you some concrete copying examples, later."

"But for now," he erased and rewrote parts the diagram, "I want to point out that the 9900 indexed mode is just adding numbers, so we can also do indexing like this:" 

"Using the indexed mode this way, the register points to the object in memory, and the instruction stream contains a constant offset. We can see that this can be useful if we know in advance that a constant offset directly accesses the test score for records of a certain type -- which would not really be the case above. But diagramming a case that would apply would require more explanation than I want to dig into now.

"Can I skip that for the moment?"

Silence.

"Nobody says no, so we'll come back to it. As I say, this mode can help make the 9900 a bit faster than it otherwise would be, because what would take several instructions on, say, the 8080 or the 1802, can be done in one on the 9900. 

"Now the 6800 has a similar mode using the X index register, but the constant in the instruction stream is limited to a single byte. This works well in the mode I just showed you, where X points to the object and the instruction specifies a small constant offset.

"But if you want the constant part in the instruction stream to address the base of an array, and the X register to contain the offset, on the 6800 the array has to start in the direct page."

I raised my hand. "Hang on. So the constant offset is a byte. I think I can see that. But you can use that byte as a short address in the first 256 bytes of memory, and then use the X register to hold the offset."

"Correct."

(Again, if constant base + variable index mode is interesting, but the 6809 and 68000 are overkill, check out the addressing modes of the 6805, which, as I say, would not be introduced for another couple of years.) 

"Okay, I think I'm following this."

Cyndy looked at me. "I'm glad you are."

Chuckling again. 

"We'll go over this more carefully later. Does anyone else want to stop to think out loud or ask questions?"

We didn't. 

"By the way, for the 6800, register indirect is provided by using a zero offset in the indexed mode. This feels wasteful, but it allows the 6800 to provide indexed mode addressing in addition to register indirect for all general operators, which the 8080 and 1802 do not. There are lots of trade-offs in CPU design.  

"And again providing this mode actually does help make up for the dearth of registers."

He paused, took a breath, and looked around at us.

"Uhm, the 6502 does things sort of similar to the 6800, but different, and it gets really confusing. I'm afraid I'm losing too many of you, so let's take a breather."

We all leaned back and some of us stretched.

I raised my hand. "Rick and I are going to write and ask for documentation, like you suggested, and, I think, about whether they can make prototyping kits available to students."

Rick interjected, "I'm actually more interested in that computer kit from Southwest Technical."

"You've got that kind of money?" Hec asked.

"I was about to say," began Mr. Mori.

Rick responded, "Maybe, from the part-time job I'm working. Or maybe I can talk Joe into pooling money with me. Anyway, I want to ask about it." 

(I know. I'm stretching belief here. But it's necessary for the story.)

"Okay," Mr. Mori turned the projector back on and got out some blank transparencies. "Let's talk a little bit about how to word technical inquiries, and what information to include. That's actually an important technical skill." 

Mr. Mori prompted us through the basics of writing letters of inquiry about engineering documentation and equipment, letting us do as much of the writing as we would. As a class we came up with lots of good ideas. 

In the process, several of us put together draft inquiries. 

Mr. Mori also gave us his contact information at the school to include in the letters.

Cyndy took lots of useful notes about inquiry letters, and Mr. Mori came over to check them.

"Can I commandeer these notes and type them up for the ditto machine for the whole class?" 

"I want to use my notes for typing practice," she replied.

"But can I get a photocopy?" 

Cyndy twirled a curl, and said, "Sure. I'll bring them by after school."

And the bell rang. 

"By the way, since you're students, hand-written letters of inquiry for documentation will be okay, if your writing is legible. We'll pick up the addressing overview again tomorrow. I think you guys need some time to let what we've covered sit and simmer a bit, anyway." 

(Did I mention that, if Mr. Mori had both the knowledge and wisdom he is demonstrating here, he would have been head-hunted away from the high school into engineering management by any one of a dozen companies at this time?) 

Cyndy gathered her books, glanced quickly at Rick and me, and left. 

Hec looked at Rick and me, too. "Uhm, I've got to go, guys, okay if we check notes later?"

Rick and I nodded, and Hec left, after which we finished touching up our notes.

"Looks like your letter is pretty complete," Rick commented as we left.

"I might be able to use it for typing practice today, if you don't mind waiting."

"I can do that. If I don't see you after the bell, I'll come to the typing lab."

"Sounds good." 

He turned in to his class and I headed to the typing lab. 

TOC		Drafts
Where it starts