Mr. Fuchs said, “I’m impressed you know so much about computers as young as you are. If it would help improve Heather’s grades, I’d consider it, but I don’t know anything about software for it.”
“I’d be happy to help with that,” I said, with a satisfied smile.
After about half an hour of conversation with Heather’s parents, she interrupted them, “Michael stopped by to learn more about playing chess.”
Heather led me to her family’s den where a small table stood with an inlaid wood chess board, and a carved wood, Staunton chess set sitting on it. A chess clock sat off to the side.
“You can be white since you’re the guest, and let’s dispense with the clock since we’re just playing for fun,” she said.
I began by pushing my king’s pawn two squares ahead. Heather pulled out a chess score sheet and recorded my move. Then Heather made her move and wrote it on her score sheet. I watched her scrunch up her nose as she considered her possible future moves. Although it wasn’t a real date, spending time with a girl as smart and pretty as she was made my heart beat faster.
Within half a dozen moves, I was in deep trouble. Heather took no prisoners–she played with a slash and burn strategy. She captured one of my knights, then I lost my queen. I could have played on, but without the queen, it was a losing cause, so I conceded the game after 14 moves. Maybe I’d spent too much time watching her and too little paying attention to the chessboard.
After my quick defeat, Heather reset the pieces on the chess board. She showed me where I’d made my first major mistake by not protecting my knight. Second, she pointed out my next mistake by moving my queen where it could be attacked.
Heather’s mother frequently checked on us. She first asked if we’d like a soft drink. A little later, she brought some pretzels. Initially, it seemed nice of her to offer us snacks, but the look on her face appeared as if she’d sucked a lemon. It seemed she didn’t trust one, or both of us.
We played a second game. This time, Heather explained why she moved her chess pieces where she did, then demonstrated how I could counter her moves.
Awhile later, Heather’s mother popped in to see how our chess game was going. Heather just rolled her eyes when her mother left.
As 10 PM arrived, I decided to leave, not wanting to overstay my welcome. I’d enjoyed spending the evening with Heather and hoped she’d be willing to tutor me again.
Heather’s parents were watching TV as I prepared to leave. Mr. Fuchs said to me, “Mike, I’ve considered what you said about a computer, and if I buy one, I’d like to talk to you about teaching Heather and me how to use it.”
“Yes sir, I’d be happy to help you, and I think it’s a good decision to purchase one. Be sure you order one with two floppy drives and extra memory.” I looked forward to spending more time with his good-looking daughter.
The following Monday, Heather told me her father had talked to someone he worked with who owned an IBM Personal Computer and they convinced him to get one. I still hadn’t had a date with Heather, but I could see I was getting closer to winning my bet with Jeff, Shawn, and Brian.
Of course my friends wanted to know if I’d had a date with Heather yet. I said that I’d been to her house and met her parents on Saturday evening.
“That doesn’t count,” Brian said. “Our bet was that you’d go on a date with her.”
“I’m still working on that,” I said.
Jeff growled, “We need to put a time limit on the bet. Otherwise we’ll graduate from high school, and you still won’t have had a date with her.”
I answered, “Give me a couple more weeks. It’s going to take a while to get an ice princess to thaw out.”
Shawn pounded the table with his fist, “Okay, two weeks–but that’s it”
I probably wouldn’t have pushed Heather for a date after the experience I’d had meeting her mother, but there was that $30 hanging in the balance. So, I decided it was time to go for broke.
That evening, I finally got up enough nerve to call and asked, “Heather, I’d like to ask you for a date on Saturday night. Maybe we could get a pizza and then see a movie?”
“Just a minute,” Heather answered, then I heard her speaking to her father in the background. Then she answered, “Yes.”
Well, at least I’d get $30 for my effort. The next day Jeff gave me an evil smile as he asked if I had asked Heather for a date.
“Matter of fact, I have a date for a pizza and then a movie on Saturday night,” I said, with all the confidence I could muster.
The three of them looked at me in wonder. “How’d you swing that?” Brian asked.
“You just have to be smooth when you ask a girl out,” I said.
Shawn scowled, “We want proof.”
I recalled Dad had a Polaroid camera in the closet, so I responded to Shawn with, “Would a photo of me with Heather be proof enough?”
The three of them looked at each other for several seconds. Then Jeff shrugged and said, “It’s okay by me if Shawn and Brian agree.”
* * *
Saturday evening I showed up at Heather’s house wearing a sports jacket and tie. I may have been overdressed, but I wanted to impress not only Heather, but also her parents. Linda met me at the door and invited me inside. She told me Heather was still getting ready.
I asked Mr. Fuchs if he’d gotten his computer. He said he’d ordered one, but it hadn’t arrived yet. He further mentioned he’d ordered IBM DOS as the operating system. We spent several more minutes discussing what other kinds of software he needed. I suggested he stop by the Bits & Bytes computer store and I’d demonstrate the WordPerfect word processor and the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet.
At that point, Heather came downstairs wearing a white blouse and a sky blue skirt which matched her eyes. She wore her hair down and curled–different from the ponytail that she usually wore. I thought she looked even prettier than at school.
Now that I was assured I’d won my bet, I figured we’d go to Lou Malnati’s Pizza. It was more expensive than Pizza Hut, but their pizza was rated among the best Chicago pizza restaurants in town, and I’d have an extra $30 to play with.
Heather and I shared a deep dish pizza. She told me she’d never had a better pizza, which made me feel good about taking her there.
Since we only had two theaters in our area, over our pizza, we discussed our choices: ‘The Right Stuff’ or ‘National Lampoon’s Vacation.’ We settled on ‘Vacation.’
During our meal, we had a lively conversation. Her humor, vivacious personality, and bubbly laughter immediately endeared her to me. Cupid’s arrow had hit me squarely in the heart.
I asked Heather what she planned to do after graduation. She said she wanted to get a nursing degree at ‘U of I’ as the University of Illinois is called locally. She mentioned she volunteered at Northwest Community Hospital as one of the Candy Stripers in order to learn about nursing.
I said I hoped to get an athletic scholarship at Stanford or Princeton studying computer science, but if I didn’t do well in next spring’s track meets, I might wind up at U of I, too.
Our evening out went reasonably well. I learned that besides chess, Heather and I had similar interests. We had a good time, and when the movie ended, it was only about 9:30 PM. Heather suggested we go back to her house and we could play a game of chess.