After the summer vacation arrived, and we had some time before our Freshman year at the university, Eve said that she’d rather not work this year, and instead have a lot of “clean fun with my friends”. We decided to restrict ourselves to California and vicinity in our touring.

Using our car, we drove everywhere. We went everywhere we could think of. We hiked in Yosemite, been to Disneyland, visited the San-Diego Zoo. We went to a lot of Linux-related conferences that took place in the summer, and met a great deal of fellow enthusiasts. Eve decided we should take the tour through Berkeley University, and after the tour, she went to see the rooms where BSD (= an early and pioneering version of UNIX) was developed, and where the GIMP (an image manipulation program) was developed. I think it was her idea of heaven.

When Eve wasn’t driving, she spent a lot of time writing things on her PDA. She said she worked on a lot of articles, and Wikipedia entries. Eventually, at the Saturday before the last, we took a quiet day and went to a beach north of Los Angeles. As the boys went swimming again, Amanda, Eve and I sat on some chairs on the seashore. Eve sat on her chair wearing her bikini, I sat next to her with a shirt over my bathing suit, and Amanda sat beside me with Eve’s laptop. The laptop had speakers connected to it which we used to play music.

We were finishing to hear an interesting punk song that Eve was fond of, and has sort of grown up on Amanda and me. In fact, it was Amanda who picked it up this time. After the song ended, Eve said:

“Yeah, Baby, yeah! I really like the guitar-and-drums solos in this song. This guy has an excellent voice. His technique is usually not too good, but here he does it pretty well.”

Amanda said: “Eve, are you sure you shouldn’t become a music critique?”

“Nah,” Eve said, “I’m a woman of many talents, but I need to work at what I’m likely to earn some money from.”

Amanda giggled, “OK. OK.” and added, “So what song would you like to hear next?” she asked.

“I’d like to hear ‘I’m not a Girl, not yet a Woman’ by Britney Spears” Eve said.

“Britney Spears? I thought you hated her.” I said.

“Yeah,” Amanda said, “I’m surprised you even have this song on your laptop.”

“Oh, give the poor girl a break. Some of her songs are pretty decent.” Eve said to us.

“One Britney coming up.” Amanda said.

“You know,” Eve said, “I think I’d like to be an Objectivist-slash-Libertarian. I mean, they rebel against the system, which works for me. But they are also pro-Capitalistic and everything, as long as it’s uncontrolled Capitalism, which is also something the new and improved me, really believes in, instead of the ‘Anti-Big-Business’ crap.”

“Eve,” I said, “you’ll be a wonderful Objectivist-slash-Libertarian.”

“Yep.” she said, “Man, I’m going to miss my punky anti-Capitalistic self…”

“No feelings of yearning here.” Amanda said.

“None here either.” I added.

Eve said, “Hmmm… you’re right, there’s nothing to miss really. Man, to think of how I wasted all this time being what I was. I can write my own replacement for In Search of Lost Time, and publish it, and it would be better than the original, and I will win the Pulitzer Prize for it, and be on shows like Oprah…”

I stopped reading my book and placed it on my lap. Then I said: “Oh Eve, come on, look at you! You’re a beautiful person: you’re smart, cool, talented, likable, … you look great…” Eve smiled, “and you’re my best female friend, and you’re dating my best male friend.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’ve wasted any time.”

Eve rose up, and I quickly followed her. She approached me and before I knew it, she hugged me and I hugged her back. “I love you.”, she said. “I love you, too.”, I said to her. We remained hugging each other for some time and then went back to our seats.

Then the guys returned. “Hey, did we miss anything?” Taylor said.

“Yep, ” Eve said as she rose and tied her hands around his neck. “I am a beautiful person…”

“I can see that.” Taylor said.

“…and Jennifer and I love each other dearly. We’re seriously considering dumping you guys, living together, eloping, et cetera”.

“But luckily for you, we may wish to have some babies, so…”

You can always count on Eve to convey the serious things in a completely non-serious way…