American History 1988
Chapter 183 - 177: Responsible Dean

Chapter 183: Chapter 177: Responsible Dean

"Darling, are you sure you won’t come in and sit for a bit?" Jennifer Connelly asked, holding onto Dean’s hand, reluctant to let go on Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights, New York.

"Are you sure?" Dean glanced at the white house behind her, "If that’s what you want..."

As he spoke, Dean had already picked up his suitcase, ready to head straight for the house.

"NO~" Jennifer Connelly hurriedly stopped him with a laugh, "I’m not ready yet, at least wait until we graduate from college..."

"You know I don’t care about that," Dean said, cradling her delicate cheek with his warm palm, "This time has been the happiest days of my life."

"Me too," Jennifer Connelly was lost in his blue eyes, "Dean, won’t you stay a few more days?"

"Come on," Dean said with a smile, pointing at the Motorola in his hand, "If I don’t get to Virginia soon, Duane is going to kill me."

Thinking about the back-to-back calls Dean had been making these two days, Jennifer Connelly laughed as well.

"OK, my Dean needs to work hard," Jennifer Connelly said as she straightened his collar, "You’re always so charming."

Seeing her dependency, a mischievous smile appeared at the corner of Dean’s mouth, "It’s a pity we’re on the street; a knight can’t just draw his sword whenever he wishes."

"Hey~" Jennifer Connelly playfully slapped his chest, "Don’t let my father see, or he’ll give you trouble."

Dean shrugged, "Perhaps we’ll have a friendly exchange."

"I look forward to that moment," Jennifer said, gazing into his eyes and slowly bringing her soft lips closer to his.

The passionately in love couple completely forgot they were on a busy street, and right in front of Jennifer Connelly’s doorstep at that.

Only when they started to run out of breath did they reluctantly let go of each other.

"Remember to contact me when the movie is released," Dean said, as time was getting late and he needed to leave.

"I’ll remember," Jennifer Connelly stepped back a few paces, glancing back at the house behind her, "So I... should go in now?"

"Goodbye, my darling," Dean waved, the cab he had called waiting nearby.

Jennifer Connelly nodded obediently like a joyful princess and then turned to walk towards her home.

"By the way, Dean, I have a surprise for you next month."

Just as Dean was about to turn around, he opened his hands in confusion, "What?"

"You’ll know when the time comes," Jennifer Connelly winked at him and then walked off briskly towards the familiar house on Henry Street.

Well, Dean had already received enough surprises from Jennifer Connelly lately.

The Hollywood beauty, having fallen in love with Dean, agreed to almost anything he asked for when they were together.

Dean quite enjoyed her company; the young Jennifer Connelly fulfilled all his fantasies.

They had originally planned to spend roughly a week together for the holiday, but that period was stretched to twice its length.

In San Francisco, California, they went surfing at the beach, took photos at the Golden Gate Bridge, admired historical sites on Alcatraz Island, and ate seafood at Fisherman’s Wharf...

Under Bell Duane’s urging from the south, they finally flew to the East Coast city of New York.

But once there, Jennifer Connelly, who had originally planned to go home, dragged Dean to Central Park, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty after hearing it was his first time in New York.

In the last few days, Manhattan, Long Island, and finally Brooklyn Heights were dotted with their footprints.

To play the perfect host, Jennifer Connelly hardly set foot in her house; she preferred staying in a hotel with Dean rather than going home.

But good times always fly by quickly, and in a couple of days, she was due to head north to Canada for the Toronto International Film Festival.

And Dean needed to make his way to Virginia, or to be exact, Washington D.C., where Duane was waiting for him.

New York to Washington is the busiest route on the East Coast, with flights taking off nearly every moment.

After bidding farewell to Jennifer Connelly, it took Dean only half an hour to reach the airport, and then another hour and a half and he was landing in Washington.

"Duane, I’m already in Washington," Dean’s first task after disembarking was to call Bell’s man in the south.

"Oh~, thank God," Duane breathed a sigh of relief on the other end upon hearing Dean’s voice.

"Dean, if you didn’t show up, I was about to call the police; you were almost on the missing persons list."

"Relax, buddy; it’s not easy getting so many internet service providers together.

I’ve been busy with this all this time; can you imagine? I even gave up dates with pretty girls for it!"

As Dean stood in the arrivals hall with his suitcase, looking around, he quickly spotted Miranda enthusiastically waving at him.

"I’ll make it up to you, buddy. I know a place with all kinds of girls that can satisfy all your quirks."

"Come on, I don’t want to show up in the papers looking haggard the next day," Dean said, waving back to Miranda, "I’m hanging up now, Duane. We’ll talk more tomorrow."

Putting away his Motorola, Dean pulled his suitcase through the passenger tunnel.

"Dean~!" Miranda cheered, dashing into his arms.

"Oh, my love! You have no idea how hard it was to get through these days without you!"

Dean’s loving chest, within just two hours, had already embraced two beautiful girls.

"Me too, Dean," Miranda clung to him and took a deep breath in his arms.

But soon she began to sniff around, nosing left and right like a little dog, rummaging over Dean’s body.

"What’s wrong, Miranda?" an innocent Dean, was very puzzled by Miranda’s behavior.

"Good, there’s no scent of other girls," Miranda, having completed her radar search, could no longer restrain herself and presented her eager kiss without waiting another moment.

Dean raised an eyebrow, then comfortably savored her tender lips. It turned out the touch of a pretty girl’s lips was indeed different.

Jennifer Connelly was innocent and charming, while Miranda had the cool demeanor of a mature woman on the outside but was passionate and unrestrained inside.

As for the radar search? Joking aside, Dean had already changed into a fresh set of clothes before boarding the plane in New York.

Responsible Dean would never let any girl be sad; he took very good care of everyone.

"Dear, perhaps we should find a place to rest. You know, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you."

Although Jennifer Connelly’s needs had already been fully attended to by Dean.

But after seeing Miranda’s black stockings, Dean felt he could go for another round.

"Come with me, I’ll take you to a nice place," Miranda said seductively, glancing at him, then took Dean’s hand and headed toward the parking lot outside.

She had already resigned from Cleveland State University and now Miranda had found a job in the Republican Party office thanks to her father Mather’s connections.

Without a guide in Washington, your power plays won’t get you very far.

Since her work had moved to Washington, Miranda had also rented an apartment here.

This business trip to Virginia for Dean naturally meant staying with Miranda, whom he hadn’t seen for a long time.

Look, conducting business while also satisfying Miranda’s needs, was killing two birds with one stone.

...

In late September, in Arlington, Virginia, Dean finally accomplished a historic meeting with Duane.

Although they had spoken on the phone countless times, this was their first face-to-face meeting.

"Honestly, you look younger than I imagined," Duane wasn’t at all unfamiliar with Dean from television or newspapers, but still, he was surprised by his youth in person.

"Thank you, many people say that," Dean replied with a smile and shook his hand, "So can Southern Bell handle the policy restrictions?

Just to be clear, if you can’t get past this hurdle, there’s nothing more I can do."

"This is one of the reasons we’re here. The White House is just a dozen miles away, and Southern Bell is confident they can handle it."

The first business deal Dean was to discuss that day was the trade already arranged with Southern Bell.

Yes, as the newspapers had reported. The Byte Company and Bell Company’s reconciliation involved other behind-the-scenes trades.

In addition to the symbolic $500,000 licensing fee, Dean had also agreed to bring Southern Bell into the Internet connectivity project.

Duane had not opted for the future IP telephony market but set his sights on the about-to-be unveiled privatized network market.

Even though Dean’s depiction of IP telephony had tempted Duane, he was very clear that it was not necessarily a good thing for Southern Bell.

Because Bell had been split up once before, and now what remained was just scattered regional Bell companies throughout the states.

Take Southern Bell as an example, its main business was the local telephone market, with long distance falling under AT&T.

The charges for local phone services in America were very low, usually around 10 cents a minute, one of the federal government’s mandatory requirements for phone companies.

Because local phone companies typically held monopolies locally, in order to ensure that the public enjoyed convenient phone services,

The federal government not only capped the cost of local calls at an extremely low price, but also required phone companies to ensure that even users in remote areas could connect to the telephone network.

Phone companies couldn’t refuse to lay phone lines just because an area was remote and users were few; that was the condition for their market monopoly.

If IP telephony were to be widely promoted, the local phone market would unavoidably take the biggest hit.

At 10 cents, the profit margin was already slim, so even if IP telephony could save 80% of the cost, the charges would inevitably fall as well.

Upon precise calculations, Southern Bell found that this wouldn’t bring them added revenue and might even result in a decline.

Of course, the states under Southern Bell’s control had some long-distance business, but local calls were still the mainstream.

So after much contemplation, Southern Bell gave up the allure of IP telephony, at least for the current immature market.

As for whether they might be forced to reform to IP telephony in the future, that was a concern for another time. For now, they would delay it as long as possible.

And Duane, who was negotiating business with Dean at the time, accidentally heard about the Internet connectivity project from the latter.

This proposal deeply moved Duane. IP telephony conflicted with his own business,

But an internet service wouldn’t because it was an added value service.

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