Mr. Boutin Doesn't Know How People Work (RB Vs. Empress Theresa, Chapter 3) · 5:53pm Apr 16th, 2021
Previously, on Empress Theresa:
No one did anything, but they did nothing aggressively.
And now:
We open the chapter with a short description of Boston College, which, as Theresa says, is not actually located in Boston.
BC has nine thousand undergraduates and a nationally known football team, but that’s not why I went there. I got a full scholarship plus room and board. It had to be the work of Father Donoughty and the Cardinal.
Lucky you. I guess Empress Theresa predicted the Ivy League nepotism scandals. Theresa herself seems to feel no shame at cheating her way into a scholarship:
With these people fighting for me I would be stretching my luck going my own way. Besides, I had some responsibilities to my parents who were comfortably well off but not rich enough for astronomical tuition costs.
Not that I'm bitter about my student debts. Or anything.
(Note: Boston College is a Jesuit establishment. This is never explained in the book, but is relevant later on.)
Every Freshman wants to make a good first impression. The first night on campus the girls wandered from room to room socializing with their dormitory mates as if the first day determined their social life for the next four years.
Is this what we were supposed to do in college? I just stayed in my room and hissed at anyone who lingered outside my door for too long. Perks of having a roommate who graduated early.
That night I realized I was not going to be the sparkplug of the college scene, but that was okay.
Hey, remember when Theresa mourned the end of her life as a normal girl and dreaded being the centre of attention? Yeah, neither did Mr. Boutin.
After Theresa's first set of classes, she gets invited to eat with another group of girls.
We got our food and sat down. From long habit I looked around the room. There was a group of kids at a nearby table looking at me. A girl learns to read expressions. One boy was intently looking at me. I called him Mr. Intense. He was very handsome, with short hair as black as my own, and he was around six feet which was a good match for my five feet four inches. I liked taller guys and apparently he liked smaller girls. He wasn’t gawking at a pretty girl, or lusting for her body. He looked interested. And that’s ok. A girl gets used to being looked at.
And this is how you can tell this was written by a man.
But it wasn’t Mr. Intense who made the first move. A boy next to him, Mr. Fastmove, brought his food tray over to my table.
“Hi,” said Mr. Fastmove.
"Goodbye," said Mr. Reviewer. Are we supposed to take this scene seriously, or is this supposed to be a comedy? I honestly can't tell anymore.
“I’m Jack Koster,” said Mr. Fastmove. “Aren’t you Theresa Sullivan, the baseball player?”
I had been on television a lot.
Bullshit. What are the odds.
That night I looked up both Jack Koster and Mr. Intense on the computer. BC provided free disk space and all the students were urged to set up a webpage about themselves before they got to school.
A webpage? I never had to do that, and I'm a bloody web developer!
The kids’ dormitories were listed which made it easy to find people if you didn’t know their names.
This seems like a catastrophically bad thing to make publicly available.
It turned out that not only did Jack and Mr. Intense both live in my dormitory, they were two doors away from each other. So, if Jack and I were an item, Mr. Intense was unlikely to interfere.
Not sure why that makes it any less likely, but is anyone else kind of creeped out by Theresa's way of thinking, here? She's already assumed that her and Jack are going to be an item, and now she's strategically planning around that. It's the sort of behaviour you might expect out of a sociopath.
Jack, as it turns out, is from New York, but not the city.
Jack was going to be a history major, a guarantee of a job in his father‘s store.
Telling it like it is, I see. Interestingly, Theresa herself has not yet mentioned what she's majoring in, despite that apparently being important in the last chapter?
Also, it's excruciatingly minor, but notice that that apostrophe is actually a single quote. That's copied directly out of the ebook, folks. Just thought you should know.
Mr. Intense was Steve Hartley. His father was a physicist for Intel and Steve was majoring in physics too. That was interesting.
If you say so.
Alright, y'all are going to have to help me out, here. I'm ace, I don't get to feel these feelings. Is this what love is supposed to sound like?
Jack was a genuinely nice guy, a good talker, and the stereotypical boy from New York City who had plenty of stories to tell. He seemed to be a gentleman. Jack knew I was not the kind of girl who had to put up with foul language or crude jokes, and he carefully avoided them. He was one smooth operator.
Because somehow I imagine there's supposed to be some sort of passion, rather than... impersonal indifference and acknowledgement. Or whatever you want to call this.
Steve seemed nice in person. He always gave me a little smile like he was glad to see me. He and Jack were casual friends and apparently didn’t talk about me. But I’d seen the looks. Steve was genuinely interested.
I didn’t know what I felt about him; we never had a conversation alone. There was nothing wrong with dating Jack for a while. It was already clear that we were not compatible enough for a lifetime of commitment. He was a little careless about schoolwork and had no passion for his major. I was fanatical about mine. But Jack was fun to be around for the time being.
"It was already clear that we were not compatible enough for a lifetime of commitment."? This sounds like something a Vulcan would say. Or something. I dunno, I've never watched Star Trek.
Moving on from... this, Theresa gets stopped by a campus cop.
It was a campus cop. “Yes?”
“We have a problem. Can you come to our office?”
“I don’t know where it is. I’ll follow you.”
A campus wasn’t so big that you couldn’t reach any central place in five minutes. I followed a hundred feet behind the cop so people wouldn’t notice.
Is this normal human behaviour? This doesn't feel like normal human behaviour.
Anyway, it turns out the campus police caught a couple of OOPS people following Theresa. Oops. I guess they aren't that good at their job. Anyway, the president of the college is here.
“You seem to be a very interesting young lady, Miss Sullivan. The Holy Father himself paid for your scholarship.”
The Pope himself. I wonder why a religious figure would have so much interest in—
Okay. Not making that joke. Sorry. We do have some standards, here.
Anyway, Theresa tells her watchers to call their boss. Their boss then calls the President of the United States, at which point everyone not in on it starts shaking in their boots.
A few more moments and the watcher handed the phone to the senior cop. “He wants to talk to you.”
The cop took the phone and was read the riot act. “Yes, sir….” “Yes, sir….” “No, sir….” “I understand, sir….” “I wouldn’t want that either, sir….”
I think this copper is the most sympathetic character in the book thusfar. I feel bad for him.
Anyway, we jump ahead to October. Homecoming week, to be precise.
And guess what?
Something actually happens.
Jack’s door was open and I walked in. There were six boys visiting Jack including Steve Hartley, and one girl. As soon as I entered everybody went silent. I knew something was very wrong. I waited as everyone looked embarrassed. The girl stood next to Jack. She looked possessive.
“Hi, Theresa,” said Jack with not a lot of enthusiasm. “This is Ginny.”
So this is a thing. Romance! Drama!
Now, I want to to imagine, or remember (I'm sorry), that you are in Theresa's circumstances, here.
What would you do?
Get angry?
Shout?
Walk away and never look back?
I'm going to bet you wouldn't do what Theresa does.
I went back upstairs. This was the most humiliating experience I ever had. All those boys were watching.
So! Two timing Jack was coming up for a last look, was he? I’d give him something to look at!
I went to the closet and pulled out my ’little black nothing’. It was a backless dress made of flimsy, clingy material. It was something appropriate for a party, but in my room, with no other girls to look at, Jack would find it hard to forget. He deserved the VIP treatment.
Six inches above the knee wasn’t a big deal these days, but to make it more interesting I folded back the hemline three more inches inside the skirt and taped it. Now that was a dress!
I put it on and looked in the full length mirror on the door. Yup. This would kill Jack. He’d promise to throw Ginny out the window if I took him back. Sorry Jack. Too late for that.
Yep. That's the thing. That she does.
Yep.
What a dramatic conclusion to this beloved relationship that started a whole eight pages ago.
But Jack takes his sweet time going after her, so instead she turns on the TV. Now, given that Theresa was in high school a few years after that ad with the horses, which aired in 2015, I find her having a television in her dorm room somewhat suspicious. Maybe Netflix doesn't exist in this universe. I don't know.
Anyway, it's here that Theresa, but really Mr. Boutin writing through Theresa, begins to muse on literature.
I'm not joking.
They were showing the early part of “The Caine Mutiny”. I’d seen it before. Captain Queeg was a paranoid personality who couldn’t take adversity. It made him a dictator on the ship...
My dad who’d been in the Navy read the book and said half of it was about a love story between Ensign Keith and a girl who wanted to be a singer. Eventually her career took off and she left the Ensign. Dad guessed that this boring love story meant something to the author, but it dragged down the book. The movie producers wisely dropped the singer’s story and concentrated on the mutiny. It worked because the chief mate’s willingness to sacrifice his career to save the crew was a very effective love story of sorts.
I noticed something similar in a book called “The Robe” which my grandmother gave me. It was written by a Methodist minister who filled it with quotes from the Bible. It was a spectacular bestselling book in World War II when the world looked like it was falling apart, but it would probably bomb today.
This comes to a head in a sentence that made me smile.
But Burton and his girl marched off to martyrdom from a more dramatic Emperor’s throne room scene than was in the book. Sometimes subtle messages work better than speeches.
That’s how I operate. I could have criticized Jack in front of his friends for dating me without telling about Ginny, but I said nothing. I let people think it out for themselves.
It wasn't a very nice smile.
Thusfar this book and Theresa herself have been about as subtle as a brick to the face. You can just feel the masturbatory hand of the author in these words.
trial. The next movie was one of those horrible made-for-TV -walking-dead movies. I couldn’t stand them and turned off the TV. The problem with that trash is it didn’t address an individual’s decisions in life. It was insulting to avoid challenging the viewer’s ideas as if his ideas didn’t matter.
Am I supposed to be having my ideas challenged? Because I don't feel like my ideas have been challenged. If anything, my preconceived notions about this book and that which surrounds it are being further cemented.
Also, anyone who thinks you can't tell a deep and enriching story through a zombie film can suck my knob.
Apparently nothing had been said before the trial. I stared at my roommate’s wall. There was nothing to do and I was milking my loneliness. People who never went to college believed it was one continuous party. In fact, parties were rare.
Not at the one I went to!
Some colleges had nearby drinking spots just outside the campus where kids crowded in until the fire codes were broken twice over, but BC wasn’t like that. It was all residential zone and no commercial. College life was mostly studying and killing time with inane activities. It was a test. If you could stand this life for four years you could stand anything. A lot of kids went nuts and dropped out.
No comment.
Anyway, she mopes around (her words, not mine) for a while, and then who should show up at her door but Steve Hartley. Turns out Ginny was Jack's hometown girlfriend, to nobody's surprise.
“Anything going on in the dorm?” I suggested.
“There’s an all night card game.”
I heard about the boys playing cards all night. You would think something exciting was going on, but all they did was throw cards around. There was no intelligent conversation possible when all you did was look at your cards. Why did they do it?
Uh... huh? Are card games too far below your high horse, ma'am? I imagine it must be hard to play anything when you can't reach the table.
“You’re quiet, Steve. Something on your mind?”
‘Yeah. You want me to leave?”
“If you leave now I’ll have to kill myself.”
It took a few seconds before Steve got the joke and laughed.
That was a joke?
And then we get meta.
The DVDs were of the famous BBC production series ‘Victoria’.”
“You ever watch this, Steve?”
“No.”
“You’ll like it” I said while walking over to put the first disk in the player. “An eighteen year old girl becomes Queen of England and Empress of the British Empire. Everybody wants something from her. She survives eight assassination attempts. You wonder how a teenage girl got through it. You wonder if you’d have the nerve to take on what she did.”
Gee, I wonder what that could be referring to.
They go on to talk about how wonderful and complex Victoria is, in a manner that can only be described as mastubatory. We do get this fun little tidbit, though.
She went out to be seen by the people despite assassination attempts, and made heavy decisions like sending a band of traitors to Australia instead of letting them being drawn and quartered.
Frankly, I'd rather the horses.
They end up staying up all night, and then go to breakfast. Theresa has not changed out of her dress. For someone who was willing to follow a hundred feet behind someone so rumors wouldn't start up, Theresa sure doesn't seem to care anymore.
Oh, and we get more 'humor'.
Nosy girls filled our table and asked what we did all night.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Surrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre, Theresa!”
Steve joked, “The video is on YouTube”. We suddenly had lots of friends. An attractive couple was invited to everything.
Am I just too old for this hip new millennial humor?
Anyway, Theresa and Steve are now lovey-dovey, and she goes on at length about how perfect they are for each other, and how their love is like the love between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. I kid you not.
It was like the situation with Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson we studied in American History class. The two men were both in Washington’s Cabinet and argued about everything.
Hamilton spent his youth on a horrible Caribbean island that made Devil’s Island look good. It was the last refuge of criminals trying to escape the law. Slaves had a five year life expectancy. Human life had no value.
So why did they fight each other in the Cabinet? They were founding a nation. They should have been friends.
I feel like there's some serious lack of context here. But anyway.
Despite almost universal skepticism, there really are gentlemen like Steve in the world, and every girl wants to be a lady who catches one.
Because he's such a nice guy.
I noticed girls looked at us with envy. They could see we had that eternal love of a Disney full length animated movie. “Someday my prince will come,” sang Snow White. Yeah, well, I had my prince.
Eckgh. I love how he has to spell out 'Disney full length animated movie'. Seriously though, I'm pretty sure this isn't how people—
In a month we knew we’d get married and we wanted it soon. Well really, now! Could we go four years without doing it?
Wait hang on no stop—
Mom and dad raised the parental eyebrows when they learned of our plans following a whirlwind courtship. Fortunately Father Donoughty got to know Steve well in our meetings to plan the wedding.
No hold up—
There was nothing to indicate our marriage wouldn’t work. On the other hand, discouraging it might cause harm. It was a dilemma for my parents. Eventually they approved.
Ehhhh??????
These two have known each other for a grand total of seven pages. Now you're having them get married? You couldn't, I don't know, build the relationship up over time in a natural way, rather than telling us how in love they are over and over again while resorting to more and more bizarre similes? Would that have been too hard, Mr. Boutin? Or was it just too much of an actual plotline for this book too handle?
Might I also remind everyone that Theresa has only just turned eighteen?
And then we're whisked away to the wedding itself.
For the church service I wore a two piece wedding gown. A floor length wide skirt with spaghetti shoulder straps was made from matte duchess satin. Over this I had a jacket made of peekaboo cotton Venice lace that more or less covered my shoulders and the top half of my upper arms so as not to scandalize the congregation. At the reception the jacket and train came off and my shoulders and cleavage charmed the crowd.
This wedding dress gets more description than the growth of their relationship does.
And then we start talking about Thoreau.
And now we set off to find out what life was all about. Henry David Thoreau was a 19th century philosopher who lived not far from Boston. He spent a year in a one room shack in the woods next to Walden Pond to find himself. He said other men could journey to Africa to shoot giraffes if they wanted, but he preferred to stay home and shoot himself. What he meant was you should explore your inner self. You’ll find you own a territory greater than the Russian Czar’s. Men try to prove their courage by going to unexplored jungles, hunting lions with spears, or climbing the tallest mountain, but they don’t have the courage to examine themselves. Thoreau said that, not me. Blame him.
No, I don't think I will.
Anyway, Steve and I would explore ourselves and each other. We hoped to like what we found.
So then they get a private apartment together for Summer break, and they're given a Chevy as a wedding present.
I was driving the car alone one Saturday to go grocery shopping, thinking of the wonderful future waiting for me.
And that's the end of the chapter.
No, I'm serious, that's actually how it ends.
So, in the spirit of things, I'll also be ending right about...
See you next time, folks.
I question how well your sanity remains intact, and the hounds of tindalos are being good boys and girls in the corners while they wait?
5499017
I've had to put down newspaper. Otherwise, they're pretty friendly.
Answered your own question a few lines down! :D
Part of me is glad that he skipped building the relationship for Theressa and this guy.
Considering how he barely knows how proper human beings function I doubt he would be able to actually pull off a half-decent romance between these two.
I already have enough bad experiences with poorly written romance as it is too.
I do have to nitpick a little with this statement.
It is possible to be Ace and still have a romantic attraction to others, as asexuality is defined, in broad terms, as a lack of sexual attraction to others.
If you also do not have any romantic interest in others, then you are Aromantic/Asexual, or AroAce
I myself am Ace, I am also Panromantic, I love my boyfriend to pieces, but I have no desire to be intimate with him.
I apologize if that came off as a little preachy or condescending, that was not my intention at all.
Anyway, to answer your question, sort of... she's showing an interest in his field of study and his family life, you could classify that as the start of love.