“You are not like that,” Teyla said.
He shrugged again. “I’m Air Force, and it’s a little different. But you get those guys in the Air Force too.”
“Why are you not one of them?”
Teyla had expected he would ignore the question, but perhaps the darkness of the room and the lateness of the hour encouraged honesty. Or perhaps he was beginning to trust her a little bit.
“Never drank the Kool Aid, I guess.”
There was this girl. That’s a good way for the story to begin. There’s always a girl, and that’s always a reason. Her name was Mel, and she sat in front of him in Introduction to US/Soviet Relations the first semester of sophomore year. She had short, short hair with a little ducktail in the back, and you could see the back of her neck when she bent her head to take notes, pale skin and that ducktail. Auburn hair, not really red. Blue, blue eyes. The kind of trim, athletic body that girls work really hard for, the body of a fencer. She was a fencer. He heard her talking about it with one of her friends. She was hoping to make the Varsity squad next year, she was that good. And that was saying something. There was a guy on the Varsity squad who was going to the Olympics in Seoul next summer unless he blew it.
Anyway, there was this girl, Mel. Melissa Hocken. He couldn’t catch her eye in class and say something witty because he sat directly behind her. He couldn’t sit next to her because she always sat with her friends. And there were about 200 people in the class because it was one of the big poli sci courses that fulfilled interdepartmental requirements.
John tried following her after class, trailing along with his backpack, hoping she’d go to the cafeteria or something. But it was a 9:00 class, and all he discovered was that she had a 11:00 in life sciences.
There was this girl, and that was really the start of it. That was really the reason, not anything else.
His mom called him on Monday night two weeks into the year, wanted to know if he’d come home that weekend. A long drive for almost nothing, even if she meant the house in Tahoe. “What for, Mom? You saw me two weeks ago.”
“I need you to come this weekend, John,” she said, and he thought her voice sounded funny, like she’d been crying. “I’ll see you on Friday night.”
And because it was his mom he went, even though he might have had plans. He didn’t have plans, not yet, but he might have plans by Friday. Hell, he might have asked Mel out by then. Or at least talked to her. It was a theory anyhow.
He got into Tahoe late, nearly midnight. It was a seven hour drive. The lights were on and she was in the kitchen. It was spotless, tile topped counters scrubbed clean. “Where’s Dad and David?” he asked, and she put her arms around him too tight.
“David’s gone to bed. And I don’t know where your father is.”
John patted her awkwardly, let go. Something wrong, something wrong.
She held him at arms length, hair set in perfect waves, tipped and streaked just like Crystal Carrington on Dynasty. “Your father is divorcing me.”
It was a really old story, not much to tell, actually. An affair, of course, but not with a bimbo like you’d expect. She was a torts attorney, thirty, brilliant, with a JD from Stanford and an undergrad from Harvard. They were going to get married. Linda was so much smarter, so much more of a go-getter. She wasn’t some old fashioned boring type who played tennis at the club and supported the symphony. She was partner track.
And beautiful, of course. Sitting at the genuine antique mission table with its hand embroidered runner, hearing the whole story, John knew his mom wasn’t beautiful. She kind of had been, in the wedding picture circa 1963, but that was twenty four years ago. She was fifty one, the same age as Dad. She dieted all the time, she did Jane Fonda, she used Esteé Lauder and she’d had a face lift last year. But she was dull, dull as old silver. He loved her anyway, because who wants their mom to be a blast? But she was dull. She mostly talked about tennis and wine tasting benefits for the symphony and what he and David were doing in school. She wouldn’t know a tort if it bit her.
“He didn’t want me to tell you. He wanted to do it himself. But I couldn’t keep it from you boys.”
David was fifteen. It would be hard to keep it from David, in the same house. Surely David already knew.
“It’s going to be ok, mom. It’ll be fine.”
She gave him a brave smile. “Of course I will be. I haven’t worked since we were married. He’ll have to pay alimony, and I’ll get one of the houses. This one, I hope, rather than the Austin house. And David…he’s got to pay child support. And he’ll pay it through the nose. It’s you I’m worried about.”
John just stared at her.
“You’re nineteen. He doesn’t owe you a thing. He has no legal obligation to pay for anything for you ever again.”
There was this girl. That was what it was really about. Monday after class he walked up to Mel and said, “You were really smart, what you said about Prague Spring. I agree that our response should have been different, and it’s a good idea to examine the difference in our reaction to Prague Spring from the Berlin Airlift in light of our commitment in Vietnam.”
Mel looked at him suspiciously for a second, then put her head to the side. “Do I know you? Who are you?”
“John Sheppard,” he said. “I sit behind you. That’s probably why you don’t see me. Because I’m behind you.”
“Oh.” She looked at him again as if he were some sort of interesting specimen. “You see what I mean about Johnson’s political constraints?”
“Absolutely,” John said. “I mean, this was totally about not wanting to tie the hands of the next president, and given the domestic situation at the time I’m not sure he could have made a military commitment to help the Czechs even if he wanted to.”
“A constraint Truman didn’t have.”
“Right. Different time, different sitch. If it hadn’t fallen apart right on top of the disastrous Democratic convention in Chicago…”
Mel was smiling at him. That was why he dared. “Do you want to get some lunch?”
“I have a class…” she said.
Duh. He already knew that. And it was ten in the morning. “I mean later. At lunchtime.”
She shrugged. “Ok.”
The thing with his Dad blew up at fall break. They were supposed to go skiing, but it was just him and David and Dad. Friday night they skied. It was ok. Nobody talked about anything.
Saturday they skied in the morning, and when they stopped to get lunch John went to take a shower to warm up. He put on a turtleneck and went to go meet Dad and David in the restaurant.