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It's hard to name drop when you won't recognize most of the names. For instance, I'm sure you've never heard of Aqixi Tzuxasa.
But you may have heard of Lee Krasner, an artist in your world, of similar talent and modes of expression.
"What do you think of this abstract painting by Aqixi Tzuxasa?"
The painting she indicated was a study in parallel lines and rectangles of various colors, with rhomboid connecting lines giving it the illusion of three dimensions.
"Aqixi Tzuxasa? Who is he?"
Trisha looked at Karel in mock disgust. "She. You don't know Aqixi Tzuxasa?"
"Sorry."
"It can be forgiven." She turned back to the painting with a sly grin, framing it with both hands. "So what do you think of it?"
"I'm standing here wondering if maybe she'd been seeing semiconductor layouts in her nightmares."
"You have no artistic soul!"
"Just kidding. But doesn't it remind you, just a little, of a bunch of transistors on a silicon wafer?"
Trisha cocked her head and thought for a bunmu before nodding with a chuckle. "Okay, I'll give you that."
They moved to the next exhibit.
Karel stopped at one painting. "This painting seems to have a lot of religious
symbolism."
"Mm hmm?"
"The snake is being crushed by a large construction block that could be a cornerstone."
"Yeah."
"And the woman has her foot on a globe of the world. She glows from within, maybe she symbolizes faith?"
"You wouldn't be alone in thinking so."
"What do you think?"
"I tend to think of her as representing all the virtues."
"This one of a painter painting a picture of a woman in an indigo dress seems to be by the same painter. Rather attractive young woman. Ah, Wanjoqo, it says. It is the same."
"Mm hmm."
"And this one." Karel indicated a painting of a young woman in an indigo turban. "Could be the same young woman. Maybe the painter's daughter?"
"Maybe. What do you know about Wanjoqo?"
"Uh, just that he's one of the painters from the
Xeliqutzu period."
Trisha looked turned to look at Karel expectantly.
"What?"
"And what do you know about Xeliqutzu art?"
"Very intricately worked, very ornate, very complex. Some critics say overly
so."
"No pun?"
"Mmmm, not particularly, why?"
"Never mind." She turned back to look at another painting.
"If it ain't Xeliqutzu, don't fix it," Karel muttered.
Trisha rolled her eyes.
"One of my bosses used to say it."
She shook her head and smirked.
"You know, you look more than a little like her. The young woman in the third painting, I mean."
"Ri-ight."
They moved on, stopping occasionally to comment.
The women in my family seem to tend toward the graphic arts.
The men in my family lean more towards the mechanical and dynamic arts -- engineering, physics, electronics, computer programming, working on the car, martial arts, dance.
So I'm not going to waste a lot of time trying to make you think I know anything about the art that Trisha and Karel looked at.
How it was that OHU was able to bring in three well-known paintings by Wanjoqo,
I'm not sure. The paintings were protected by a glass display, but that
was all. I guess, at the time,
Wanjoqo didn't quite yet have the reputation as a leading artist of Xhilr's Xeliqutzu period that Vermeer, whose style and subject matter are very similar, has now as a leading artist of
the Baroque period in our world.
Oh, and, yes, the art museum at Orson Hyde University is often
open fairly late on Saturday nights, specifically to give the students
constructive things to do on dates.
As they left the museum, Trisha caught Karel's hand.
He resisted for a moment, then relaxed.
"You're a complex person. I take back what I said about you not having an artistic soul."
"Thanks, I guess."
"I mean, your joke about the silicon wafers. There is something artistic about wafer layouts."
Karel grinned. "Actually, I can't take all the credit for that. When I showed
my mom a scrapped wafer from work under a microscope, she said it looked like
modern art."
They walked in silence for another bun before he continued. "But I think there is a lot of art in wafer design, too. Designs that don't work often seem to be missing something aesthetically. And after I got used to inspecting them, I found I could usually tell the wafers that didn't make it through manufacturing by patterns in the reflected light that were missing or changed, and just looked wrong. I always tested, of course, but looking at the patterns often told me what to test first."
"How did you get into semiconductor engineering?"
"I'd done some solid-state work in my physics and chem classes, and I just thought it was fun. Someday, you know, we're going to be putting whole computers on a wafer."
(Forgive the prescience?)
"Do you think I'd like it? Semiconductor engineering, I mean."
"I'd have to get to know you better to be able to say one way or another. Lots of boring stuff to it -- you have to use calculus to prove that certain arrangements are worth experimenting with, and use more to design the tests and analyze the results. And the tests can be really boring to watch, but you have to watch them. And the fabrication equipment is expensive, so management wants to keep it running as much as possible, and they want to hire semiskilled technicians to run the lines, to cut costs. Hard to get time to get your hands into things, to complete the tests and to try new ideas."
"Sounds exciting."
They walked together in silence for a few bunmu.
Trisha looking off into the sky, at the stars in the gap between the larger orb of the hinter moon and the smaller orb of the nether.
"I imagine a fabrication line, and I think it might look like a kind of
dance,"she said, absently.
"Heh. Where did that come from?"
"Are you interested in dance?"
Karel thought for a moment. "Some friends and I are taking a folk dance class."
"How about modern dance?"
Karel had to let go of Trisha's hand. "Yeah. Sure."
Trisha seemed not to notice the sudden distance. "I'm working on the lights for a student modern dance concert next month. I could get you backstage, if you're interested."
Karel was quiet as Trisha began to talk excitedly about the lights and the
control panel. But he got caught up in her enthusiasm, and soon they were not
just holding hands, but his arm was around her waste as she talked about the
wiring, the math for setting things up, the timing, and so forth. He seemed as
much surprised at his own actions as by hers when she suddenly turned and
tilted her head just enough to steal a kiss.
He smiled sheepishly and returned the kiss, and they continued walking and talking. An observer might have noticed a certain distance returned to his expression, posture, to tone of voice. Trisha seemed not to, or maybe she chose to ignore it, continuing to chat with him about dance and art and technology.
*****
"So, who do you think is more important, Tama Kulosa or Riqae Huqumas?"
(These were two dancers whose influence and fame were similar to Isadora Duncan's and Loie Fuller's in our world.)
"I have to make a choice?" Bobbie closed her eyes and chuckled.
"Just trying to make conversation, I guess. They're both important?"
"I think so. All the early dancers contributed a lot to what we have now." Bobbie looked at her program. "Do you know many of the dancers here tonight?"
"Sure. I know them all. We're all friends. In fact, I was kind of drafted to bring you here."
"What?"
"You're famous. The poster from when you came for your master's project hung on the wall in the office up until recently. Half of the teachers say your workshop several years back is what inspired them to continue."
Bobbie hung her head. "No way! That poster. They took it down, of course?"
"Sister Cherry, the department head, was so upset that you were taking ballroom dance instead of something of substance that she tore it down. But I rescued it.
"What have I wrought?" Bobbie said under her breath.
"What? I didn't catch that."
"Nothing."
"I've watched the film they took of one of your lessons. Your technique is so free! You wouldn't be willing to do something impromptu tonight, would you?"
"Charles. Mmm, You said you prefer to be called Charles."
"I wouldn't really mind if you wanted to call me Chuck."
"No. Charles is probably what I should call you." Bobbie glanced sideways. Charles was beaming, seeming not to be in the real world. He seemed to be wanting, but not daring, to say something, and his expression began to take on hints of frustration or sadness.
"Charles, were you among the students who joined my workshop?"
"Yes, I was!" he said eagerly.
Now she felt a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry I don't remember you. But you should understand that the woman who gave that workshop no longer exists."
"What?"
"She never did, really. She was a slave to a lot of things. Dance was almost idolatry for her." She paused. "More than almost, maybe."
Charles's face clouded in confusion, but he did not say anything.
"She was not free at all. If she looked free, I would have to
assume it was because she was trying so hard to be, and dance was her only outlet. But she was not free. And she is
not the same person with you tonight." Bobbie paused again and looked down. "Oh, I shouldn't be telling you all this."
Charles's face cleared a little.
"Okay, so you've given up dance, ..." He said, a little sadly.
"Not completely. I still dance for exercise pretty much every day. But other things are more important now. I definitely don't keep much dance vernacular in my head any more."
At that, he brightened considerably. "Well, even so, you have to come backstage afterwards. Everyone will be so disappointed if you don't."
"Okay, I'll join the party after. So you're performing after intermission, right?"
"Yes. The second number. I hope you'll tell me where I can improve."
"We'll see if I have anything useful to contribute." She smiled at him, and he became positively radiant.
After the last number and a curtain call, the audience left, except for a few who were friends and relatives of the students who had performed.
Bobbie followed Charles through the curtain to the stage area.
Several students gathered around immediately, asking her opinion, and Bobbie recalled their performances and offered her impressions. As she did, more students gathered, and she gave them her impressions of each number performed that night, congratulating the students on their work.
Teachers also gathered around, and soon there was clamor for an extemporaneous performance. At first, she demurred, pointing out that it had been several years since she had performed or produced any choreography.
But Sister Cherry, who preferred "Sister" to "Professor" or "Dean", said, "Once a dancer, always a dancer! And dancers are always choreographing in their heads. Life is a dance and choreography is breathing. You, yourself said so."
So Bobbie was prevailed upon, and she improvised a series of dance impressions from the performances, which was well received.
Sister Cherry seemed to have wanted more, but she refrained from pushing Bobbie. As Bobbie and Charles left, she caught up with them. "Thank you, Bobbie."
"Thank you for letting me come. It's been a while."
"Glad to have you. And I want to say, thanks especially for keeping the critique light."
Bobbie smiled. "You know I prefer to focus on the good unless there is real reason to do otherwise. Definitely noticed no reason tonight."
On their way back, Charles chatted happily. An observer might have noticed something of her work as a professional nurse, staying with him, letting him lead the conversation, refraining from talking about the internal conflicts she might -- no, must have been feeling.
He seemed satisfied to exchanged a clasped hand and a hug at her door, for which she was grateful.
*****
"So how was your date with Trisha?" Dan asked.
Karel was a little evasive. "Nice girl, but it seems like we don't really connect. Guess I learned a bit about modern art."
"So you're don't need to go on any more dates with her, right?"
"Actually, she wants me to take her to the modern dance concert next month. She seems to think she can instill a love of art in me. I always thought I liked art just fine."
"Are you going to take her?"
"Unless she changes her mind, I guess. I wonder if Bobbie will be there."
"Don't do this to yourself. Or to her. Let her find someone else to take her."
"I tried suggesting that she would be fighting an uphill battle with me, but that didn't discourage her."
"You're doing it again."
"Huh? Strange behavior on the playing field?"
"Exactly. You might as well have waved the red cape at her."
"Bulls are male."
(Yes, Xhilr has its versions of both corrida de toros and course libre.)
"Doesn't make a bit of difference. Some women go crazy when offered a challenge."
"Oh, dear."
*****
"So, is Charles going to be a better guy for you than either Karel or Dan?"
"How would I know yet? He is awfully young, 'though. He's asked me to join him for the modern dance concert next month."
"You accepted." But Kristie's tone was not accusative.
"Yes." Bobbie visibly relaxed. "Oh, Kristie, I wish I knew why I think I have to do this."
"Maybe the last few months have been too easy."
*****
"But I thought you and Dan were married!" Claudia seemed quite at ease with being melodramatic.
Other students in the classroom looked up in surprise.
"We're just friends." Kristie looked a little flustered.
"Good friends," Dan clarified.
"You're not dating?" Kirk asked. And, without waiting for an answer, continued. "Do you like baseball, Kristie?"
"Anyone in this room who asks me for a date fails the lab unit." Kristie declared.
There was laughter and complaining as the male students returned to their studies. Some of the female students were whispering and looking at Dan.
"And the same goes for Dan!" Kristie added.
Dan laughed a little ruefully. "Not that I think anyone is going to ask me out, but, yeah. Well, not really fail, but not while we're your TAs."
And there was more laughter and complaining.
"But you're all welcome to join us this Saturday," he added, "when a bunch of us go up in the mountains for some more snowshoeing and winter park maintenance. Lots of work to do."
*****
(I hope you'll forgive a little distance in point-of-view in the following. There's a lot of stuff to get through.)
Dan and Karel were acquainted with some local Scouters, and had arranged for a
joint service project in a couple of remote mountain park areas. The
maintenance was primarily aimed at keeping some of the wilderness areas
accessible and checking up on the winter wildlife population. (Might as well translate it as Scouting.)
Some thirty students joined the project for the day, including a number of
former Scouts and some active Rovers and Explorers. After meeting the Scouts
and their leaders, they split into five groups and snowshoed in to their
respective areas, our friends splitting up as well.
(You guessed it. Scouting in our world has lots of parallels in theirs. Or is it our world that has the parallels? We'll use the terms from our world, again, even though the organizations are not connected in anything but concept.)
After two chippu or so of work, they snowshoed back and met as prearranged in a clearing near where they had parked, and built snow forts and had several snow battles. Several times, our four friends singled each other out for attacks, or ganged up three against one, or even went two-on-two, before suddenly grouping and turning on everyone else who happened to be nearby.
Then they all took down their snow forts, scattered the snow evenly around the clearing to reduce the impact of their activities, and trekked back out.
Again, the students met at a cafe on the road back for hot cocoa and non-alcoholic cider. And again our four friends met back at the girls' apartment to say goodnight.
The next week, our four friends made time for a visit to the temple, and some of the students in their classes and study groups joined them.
The following week, they spent Saturday helping at the hospital. Again, some of the students from their classes and study groups joined them.
For two weeks in a row, Karel and Bobbie spent almost all their spare time studying together for their island cultures class. Bobbie had weekend graveyard shifts at the hospital again, but this time Karel went to the hospital and did some volunteer work. During breaks, he and Bobbie would test each other's memories on their homework. Sometime after midnight, Karel found a place to sleep, and he drove Bobbie home in the morning before returning to his dorm and reporting in. On the two Sundays, Kristie took her to church after she showered and changed clothes.
Sometime during all of this, Valentine's day passed without a date for any of them, and Bobbie
and Kristie's roommates tried unsuccessfully to tease them about it. The
following Sunday, Karel and Dan came over in the afternoon to make chocolates
for all the girls in the apartment. (Of course there's a Valentine's day equivalent for Xhilr, and of course it's in mid-winter.)
And nobody talked about the upcoming modern dance concert.
*****
"Hi, Trisha."
Trisha seemed hesitant. "Hi Karel. Are you ready for this?"
"I don't know." Karel didn't elucidate. "Anyway, let's go. It should be interesting."
At the theater in the PE building, neither Karel nor Bobbie sat in the audience. Karel stayed backstage and helped Trisha with the lights. Bobbie was also backstage, making herself useful with props and costumes and a little last-bunmu coaching.
Kristie and Dan were in the audience.
Somehow, between numbers, Bobbie managed to sneak into the lighting booth with Charles, and Charles got to meet Trisha and Karel.
Trisha showed Charles the control panel while Karel took over getting the lights ready for the next number, and that's where Charles was for the rest of the concert, except when he was on stage.After the concert, Dan and Kristie joined the dance students and Karel and Bobbie and Trisha and Charles. Bobbie and Charles organized a spontaneous "happening" style improvization, at Sister Cherry's urging. Karel found it interesting and even enjoyable, but Trisha was enthralled to be able to participate.
At Trisha's dorm, she thanked Karel for the fun and unusual date, and they promised to keep in touch.
Similar things were said between Charles and Bobbie as they said good night at Bobbie and Kristie's place.
(Mind you, this was not deliberate match-making on Karel and Bobbie's part. It just happened to work out cleanly.
Not all the dating that the four of them did that semester ended so cleanly.)
*****
"Chad, what are you waiting for?"
"Well, I don't know, Kris. I guess I was kind of hoping for a little something to remember the night by."
Kristie refrained from mentioning that she didn't like to be called Kris. "I think it has been sufficiently memorable, don't you?"
"Can I call you again?"
"Well, I don't know. We don't seem to have that much in common."
Chad seemed to crumble.
Kristie took him gently by the shoulders and tried to get him to look up. "What's wrong?"
(How she knew this would work with Chad and not result in even worse problems, well, God knows. But she was praying.)
Chad couldn't answer.
Just then, Bobbie and Dan came back. Kristie dropped her hands, and Chad tried to put up a brave front.
Bobbie and Dan stopped on the sidewalk and said goodnight, giving each other a mock salute, and saluted Kristie and Chad, too. Kristie had signaled them with her eyes, so they refrained from hugging, and Dan just left. And Bobbie went inside.
Then Karel came out. He had been lazy about getting a date, so Bobbie and Kristie's roommates had invited him over to play Monopoly. He shook Kristie's hand and then Chad's hand, and left.
"You have a lot of friends."
"Sure."
"Could I be just a friend?"
"If you can be 'just a friend', sure. We do a lot of group activities, and you're welcome to join. If you don't mind being just a friend."
"That's all it would be, isn't it?"
"That's not a fair question to ask at this point. I can't swear nothing would ever change, but you have to assume for now that nothing would ever change. If you hope something will change, you'll be setting yourself up for disappointment."
Chad's face crumbled again.
"Life is like that. You have to invest in a lot of different low yield stock. The one that ends up being worth more than the rest is not always the one you wanted or expected it to be."
"How can you know that?"
Kristie shook her head. "From experience."
Chad looked up at her. "I don't believe you. What sort of guy would break your heart?"
Kristie laughed softly. "That's not quite what happened. But I had a crush on a guy for more than five years. He happens to be one of my best friends, but we probably won't end up getting married. I think he sort of belongs with another of my best friends."
Finally, Chad could make some sense out of what she was saying.
"Could that happen to me?"
"It could happen to you, if you make the small investments in the friends you have. And listen when you talk with God."
He straightened up for real and smiled. Kristie could see that he was fighting back tears, and her eyes were moist, too.
"Thanks."
"Sure."
And they said goodnight, and he left.
Well, that one eventually worked out. Chad came over to play board games and such sometimes, and two of the roommates went out with him on several occasions. And he made friends with Dan and Karel and Bobbie.
He eventually got up the courage to start hanging around with students in his own congregation at Church. It was one of the tougher student congregations, with a heavy prevailing cynicism. But he was able to make some friends, and, at least for him, many of the barriers disappeared. And that is another story that might deserve to be told sometime.
"So far, our mission experiences are keeping us from having to work too hard for our religion credit." Kristie was feeling a bit better about the Doctrine, Commandments, and Covenants class by this time.
"A half chip a day studying the scriptures isn't too bad, and that includes writing." Bobbie was also pleased with the course. "I'm getting a bit more confident about my understanding of things."
"And with Karel getting revelations for us all the time, we all have top grades." Dan grinned.
"If I were getting all the inspiration, I don't think any of us would be getting the extra credits. We're all working hard and listening to the Spirit." Karel was serious. "Working with you guys can be pretty inspiring, by the way," he grinned.
"I have a question about the agreement thing," Bobbie said. (She was referring to some scriptures similar to the beginnings of sections 41 and 42 of the Doctrine and Covenants of our world.) "Karel said, in class, that we didn't have to agree on everything, and Professor Trilemma said maybe. What is that all about?"
"Well, Karel?"
"Well, yourself, Dan. the prof stopped me on purpose. That'll be cheating if I tell you guys. Besides, you guys already know the answer to this one."
"Not that I particularly like it." Dan raised his eyebrows and made a face.
"Sure you do."
"But how are we guys supposed to be the ones in charge if the women can disagree on the answers?" Now Dan grinned.
"Hey."
"Woops."
Dan and Karel laughed.
"Answers?" Bobbie smiled.
"Reading the assigned scriptures, I think," Kristie said slowly, "that the point is to at least agree on the questions when we pray together."
"Maybe I can see that. That would allow us to get personal instruction, while helping us to keep together even when our answers don't match perfectly."
"Good point, Bobbie. I hadn't really put that part into words for myself yet."
"See, with Karel around, we don't even have to bother stopping to pray," Dan joked.
Kristie tilted her head and gave him a lopsided smile. "Well, I just said a little prayer of thanks in my heart."
Dan turned serious. "Yeah, Kristie. That's part of the reason we get along so well together. We aren't afraid to pray when we're together."
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You can find the original first draft of the chapter this chapter was extracted from, and various approaches I have tried with it here: https://free-is-not-free.blogspot.com/2016/07/economics-101-novel-ch06-pt2-dating.html.
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Keep it on topic, please.