A/N: OOOPS! I accidentally uploaded the wrong version of chapter three. I must have saved it under a different name after I edited it. This revised version has an extra scene between Matt and Julie before Tami's phone call to her mom.
[*]
Matt held the wrapped CD he'd bought for Julie for Christmas, as well as the necklace. He knew he had to get something romantic too. Girls expected that. He hoped she liked it. He had no idea what to give her when it came to jewelry.
When he approached the Taylors' driveway, there was tall, well-dressed man leaning against a Buick, laughing into a cell phone. His mostly gray hair was peppered with black.
Matt put a hesitant foot in the driveway, and when the man spied him approaching, he said, "I have to get going. See you next Saturday?"
He slid the phone into his pants pocket and looked at Matt. "Can I help you?" he asked.
"Uh…I was just…bringing a present for…" He pointed to the house.
"Are you Julie's boyfriend?"
"Uh…yes?"
"You're not sure?"
"Umm…" Matt looked behind himself.
When he looked back, the man was studying him. "That's not something you should be vague about, son."
"I am," he said. "I am her boyfriend."
The man extended his hand. "James Taylor," he said.
"Like the musician?" Matt asked as he shook.
"Yes. I'm a five-time Grammy winner. Julie didn't tell you?"
Matt shook his head. That was a joke right?
"No, not like the musician, son. Like the football player." The man dropped his hand and sighed. "Not that you ever would have heard of me. I'm Julie's grandfather. Maybe you've heard of me in that capacity?"
"Um…she mentioned you once or twice I guess."
Mr. Taylor glanced down at the gifts in Matt's hand. "Hope you got her something nice. She deserves the very best."
Matt swallowed.
"You play football, son? For the Panthers?"
"Yes, sir."
"What position?"
"Quar…Quarterback."
"I was an offensive tackle in the AFL."
Matt peered at him. He didn't look like an offensive tackle. He was a decent-sized man, but he didn't have much extra weight at all. He certainly didn't have that round belly. Maybe he had it when he was playing for the AFL, or maybe he was just quick. Maybe his muscles and height were enough. He was pretty tall, taller even than Coach Taylor. "They, uh….They have the highest Wonderlic scores."
Mr. Taylor chuckled. "Julie says you're pretty smart yourself." Then his tone grew from mild to interrogatory: "What's your GPA?"
"Uh…3.7."
"Should be at least a 3.8. What's your best academic subject?"
"Art."
"I said academic subject."
Matt looked helplessly toward the house. Maybe Julie would come out and save him. "Math I guess."
"Do you have a job?"
"Yes, sir."
"And that would be?"
"Umm….I work at the Alamo Freeze."
"That can't pay well."
"It…I'm…."
"You treat her well? My granddaughter?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Women are to be respected." Julie's grandfather raised a finger. "And an honorable man never pressures a woman."
"Yes, sir."
"How old are you?"
"16. I'm going to be 17."
"Yes, 17 usually comes after 16. I'm glad you can count. It's a useful skill, even in this modern age. What kind of music do you listen to?"
Matt looked toward the house again. When would this interrogation end? "Uh...alternative."
"Alternative to what?"
"Um..."
"I like the old crooners. And big band music. And country. The old country. Not this pop with a twang crap they put out now."
Matt wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that. "I like, uh…Johnny Cash."
"Of course you do. There'd be something wrong with you if you didn't. You say you like art. Who's your favorite artist?"
Matt couldn't think of his favorite artist at the moment. He could barely think at all. So he said the first name that came to mind: "M.C. Escher."
"Is that the guy with the hand drawing the hand and the staircase?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well at least he's marketable. Favorite book."
"Umm…I don't….I don't know."
"Don't you read? My granddaughter reads a lot. She's a great reader."
"I read…I just …I guess, um, Lord of the Rings." That was Landry's favorite book, anyway. Landry had talked about it for half of 7th grade. Matt had tried to read it, just because Landry kept asking him to, but he only got half way through. There were an awful lot of details about cultures that didn't really exist. Matt didn't even like investing that much time learning about cultures that did exist.
"Lord of the Rings? Tolkien, right?"
"Um… yes?"
"He was Catholic."
Was that good or bad? Matt didn't know. The Taylors weren't Catholic. They didn't dislike Catholics though. They didn't dislike anybody. Well, Coach Taylor did. Sometimes it seemed to Matt as if he disliked everyone who wasn't his wife or daughter. Mrs. Coach, on the other hand, seemed to like everybody.
"Lord of the Rings," Julie's grandfather repeated. "You don't play Dungeons and Dragons do you?"
"What?"
"My son used to play that."
For the first time Matt exclaimed rather than stuttered: "Coach Taylor?" No way. Julie's grandfather must be talking about another son. Coach Taylor must have a brother Matt didn't know about.
"When he was in junior high. I don't know what that was about. Dice and elves and nonsense." Mr. Taylor looked back toward the house. He glanced at his watch. "I guess we can go in now."
Thank God.
[*]
Julie looked upset when Matt came in and handed her the presents. He wanted to find out what was bothering her, but he also wanted to escape the scrutiny of her grandfather, who kept looking at him as though sizing him up. He tried to say he was just dropping off the gift and to make a graceful exit, but Mrs. Coach insisted he stay while they all opened presents.
"You staying for dinner?" Coach Taylor asked.
"Uh…no…I have to get back to my grandma."
Matt bit his bottom lip while Julie unwrapped first the CD and then the necklace. "I love it!" she said, her sweet smile breaking out across her face. A wave of relief washed over him and she happily put it on, a relief that was short-lived because of the way both Coach Taylor and Mr. Taylor were looking back and forth between the jewelry and him.
Julie gave Matt some sketch pads and drawing pens, and then she opened about eight gifts from her grandfather, including a necklace that was five times more expensive than the one Matt had given her. She didn't put it on, though. She kept Matt's on.
Mrs. Coach plied him with two cups of non-alcoholic egg nog before he finally made his getaway.
[*]
Julie followed Matt out the door. He must have walked here, because he was halfway down the block already. She ran to catch up with him. When he turned around, she threw his arms around his neck and kissed him and thanked him for his gift again. "I couldn't thank you properly in there," she said.
They stood kissing on the sidewalk for a few minutes until he pulled away. "Did your grandfather use to be a cop or something? After he played football?"
"What? No. He was a manager and then an athletic director."
"Well, he sure grilled me when I came up your driveway."
Julie snickered. "About what?"
"About everything."
"Gramp's harmless. He just looks and acts tough. Don't worry about him." She took both his hands in hers and took a deep breath. "So my mom's pregnant."
"What?" Matt exclaimed the word more than asked it.
"Yeah, that's what I said." Julie let go of his hands. "Weird, huh?"
"And you guys are still staying here while your dad goes to Austin?
Julie dug under her fingernail and nodded.
"My dad left when my mom was pregnant with me. The first time he left. Then he came back and my mom left."
"My dad's not leaving! He's just…he's going away for work. For a while."
"Sorry. Hey…" He pulled her close, because she was beginning to cry a little. "I didn't mean it like that. Your parents would never get divorced."
"I don't get why he doesn't just stay with the Panthers!" Julie murmured into his chest. "Mom and I both want to stay." She stepped back. "Okay, it's a ton more money and it's more prestigious and all that…but…really?"
Matt scratched the back of his head. "I guess…his work is more important to him than people." The betrayal of Coach Taylor leaving the Panthers still stung, even if Julie was staying.
Julie shook her head. "I didn't think he was shallow like that. You know?"
"All those speeches he gave," Matt said. "I didn't either." He bent and kissed her. "But you're staying. You're staying, and we're going to be together."
[*]
"You can't have it all," Tami's mother said.
Tami had just made the international phone call to Italy to tell her mother she was pregnant (since apparently Eric's dad already knew) and to wish her a Merry Christmas. Tami's mom had moved there three years ago with her husband Antonio, who had retired to his home town of Milan. Eric and Tami kept planning to take a trip to Italy, to see her mother and to enjoy a second honeymoon, but it never came to fruition. Things like life and new jobs and troubled teenagers and unexpected pregnancies kept getting in the way. Tami's sister Shelley had been to Italy twice already, but Shelley only had her own schedule to worry about.
"What are you talking about?"
"This plan of yours to keep your job while Eric goes to Austin for his job, while you have the baby…it's like you think you can have it all."
"Mom, you always advised me to establish a career, to have something to fall back on instead of a man."
"Yeah, but now you've got a man who will always be there when you fall back. That's a rarity, Tami. You need to support him."
"I am supporting him. That's why I wouldn't let him give up this job and stay in Dillon! Because I'm supporting him in reaching for and fulfilling his dream."
"Then why don't you just move to Austin with him?"
Tami sighed. There were a dozen reasons. Her little girl was in love, and although Tami certainly did not allow her teenage daughter to make decisions for them, Matt was definitely in the plus column for Dillon. Changing schools and adjusting to a new curriculum was always an academic challenge. Selling a house was a pain in the ass. But most importantly, Tami had a family of children here in Dillon, broken teenagers who were relying on her for guidance and whom she did not want to abandon. Eric was proud of her on some level, but he didn't really understand how important her work was to her. Tami had been half lost as a teenager, and her guidance counselor had been one of the few people, along with Eric, to believe in her and help her turn her life around. Tami thought maybe she was about to do that for some of these kids. "I love the work I'm doing here as a counselor."
"A job?" Tami's mother asked. "You're putting a job before your husband? Before your children, who need their father?"
"This work is meaningful for me. I'm about to make a breakthrough with some of these kids. You don't know what it's like to have meaningful work."
There was a stony silence on the other end of the line.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I – "
"- Tami, secretarial work wasn't profound, but it paid the bills. Let me tell you something. It was hard being a single mother."
"I know it was. That's not lost on me, Mom. I know how hard it was for you to – "
"- Then why would you want to be one yourself?"
"I'm not going to be a single mom! Eric will be home on and off, and his salary will be paying all the bills. We'll be putting mine in Julie's college fund."
"Well Lord knows I can't change your mind about anything. Never could. You always had to learn from experience, from picking yourself up and dusting yourself off."
"I called to wish you Merry Christmas! I didn't call for a lecture!"
"Merry Christmas, Tami. Congratulations on the pregnancy. Tell Eric I said hello. Can I talk to Julie?"
Tami covered the phone with her hand and yelled, "Julie!"
When Julie came into the kitchen, she handed off the phone a little violently.
