[Saturday, December 24, 1988]

Eric took Tami's hand, squeezed, and smiled. She looked up from her church bulletin and smiled back. Pastor John walked to the pulpit and began his Christmas sermon. Tami's mother shushed Shelley, who was leaned forward and whispering to the teenage boy in front of her. Mr. Taylor slid an arm around his fiance's shoulder. Tami heard him whisper to her, "The Episcopalians have a lot more fanfare on Christmas" and heard Karen Jones whisper back, "Shush, darling."

Eric and Tami had Christmas Eve dinner at the parsonage, and the family exchanged presents. Pastor John got Tami's Mom a diamond heart pendant, which caused her eyes to widen in both pleasure and concern. "John," she said. "This is too much. This - "

"- My love, it's Christmas."

Eric got Tami a necklace also, with a small birthstone. "Not quite so impressive," he whispered to her, and she whispered back how much she loved it.

When Mom was in bed, and Pastor John was in his private sanctuary in the loft, and Eric had gone to his father's house to spend the night, Tami asked Shelley how she was doing in school.

"School, school, school. Tam, there's more to life than school!" Shelley insisted. She leaned forward and whispered, "Last weekend I lost my virginity! To Danny!"

Tami closed her eyes. "You're barely 16, Shell."

"Geez, Tam, we used protection. And you were 15."

"I regretted it. Does he love you?"

"I bet he does now."

Tami wasn't sure if she wanted to throttle Shelley, cry, or gather her baby sister into her arms. In the end she just sat where she was and said, "When you get your heart broken, remember, I'm just a phone call away."

[Sunday, December 25]

On Christmas day, Tami joined Eric at his father's house for dinner. His aunt and uncle had made the drive from Oklahoma, and Mr. Taylor's fiance was also present for the meal.

Eric's Aunt Patty drew Tami aside and showed her photos of Eric as a baby in a small album she'd brought with her.

"What are you doing?" Eric asked her when he wandered into the living room and peered down at the book, which was open to a picture of him sleeping on the floor on his stomach, his butt stuck up high in the air.

Tami laughed at the picture. "He still sleeps like that sometimes," she said, and then flushed, and covered her mouth with her hand.

Aunt Patty raised an eyebrow but said nothing. She turned a page, where Eric sat in his father's lap, chewing on the top of a football. Mr. Taylor looked so very young, not much older than Eric was now, and tired, his hair a frazzled, medium brown, not so dark as it was now. But he was smiling at his son, and Tami saw a lot of Eric in that smile.

Eric sat down on the other side of Tami. "I've never seen these," he said, leaning over the album. "I don't think my dad has a baby book of me."

"Men," his aunt said. "They don't understand the importance of such things."

Now Mr. Taylor, Eric's Uncle Joe, and Karen Jones wandered in and took up seats. The book was passed around, Karen laughing at "how adorable, how very adorable," Mr. Taylor was as a young man.

"I'm not adorable now?" he asked her.

"Well, I adore you," she said.

Mr. Taylor asked Tami what classes she would be taking next semester.

"Calculus - because I have to as a prerequisite for statistics, Psychology of Personality - "

"- That sounds interesting," Karen told her.

"I'm really looking forward to it," Tami agreed. "Anatomy and Physiology - that's required for a Psychology Associates for some reason."

"I've been through that course," Karen said. "There's a lot of memorization, but it's not difficult."

"Public Speaking. It's recommended. I guess it will help me with counseling one day."

"Eric should take that," Mr. Taylor said. "He needs to learn to speak before groups."

"I do just fine speaking before groups, Dad," Eric insisted.

"You could learn to enunciate better," Mr. Taylor suggested. "In case when you retire as a quarterback from the NFL, you want to coach."

"Maybe he'll coach instead of going to the NFL," Tami said. She didn't like how certain Eric's father seemed to be that Eric would fulfill the goal he never had. She thought Eric could, but if he didn't, the fall would be hard, especially when his father seemed to expect nothing less.

"Why would he want to do that?" Mr. Taylor asked.

Karen put a hand over his hand. "Are you taking a fifth class?" she asked Tami.

"Business Writing," Tami said, letting the moment pass. "It fulfills a core requirement."

[Monday, January 16, 1989]

Tami looked away from the blackboard and out the window. The snow had started to fall hard a few minutes before she walked into her Calculus class. It rarely snowed in this part of Texas. They'd get a light dusting a few times a winter, which wouldn't even stick to the ground. But these were rare, large, soft flakes, coming down in sheets.

She returned her attention to the teacher.

When she walked out of the building after class, the snow was a gentle sprinkle, but there was at least five or six inches on the ground, more than she'd ever recalled seeing. As she slipped on her second glove, she was suddenly seized by the waist and pulled into a half hug.

Eric stood there, white flakes of snow in his dark hair, a red scarf around his neck, grinning. He kissed her.

"What are you doing all the way on my campus?" she asked.

He took her hand and tugged. "C'mere. I want to show you something."

"What?"

"It's a surprise."

He led her to his pick-up truck, which he kicked into four wheel drive to crunch over the accumulated snow. Stumpy would laugh at them, she was sure, for thinking there was anything at all to a few inches of snow.

They drove for a while and parked in a ditch at the bottom of a hill. There were kids on the hill, sledding on cardboard boxes and For Sale signs and trashcan lids and whatever else they could find, because no one actually owned a sled in Waco.

Eric opened the back of his pick-up as Tami leaned against the truck and watched the laughing children. The titters of joy made her grin. Eric came around the side of the truck holding an actual plastic sled. "Where did you get that?" she asked in amazement.

"That's my little secret." He grinned and tugged her up the hill.

They sped down the hills three times, laughing, Tami leaned back against Eric's chest, before they were willing to surrender the sled to one of the begging children. The kids took turns, and while they waited, engaged Tami and Eric in a snowball fight of epic proportions, which ended with Eric as the primary target, covered from head to toe in snow.

When they headed back to the pick-up truck an hour later, Eric leaving the sled behind with the still eager kids, Tami paused. "I have to make a snow angel before we go. I may never be able to do this again." She threw herself down in the snow, looked up at him grinning down at her, and flapped her arms and legs in joyful geometric patterns. He helped her up and looked down at her creation. "Not bad," he said.

She draped her arms around his neck, felt the flakes gathered in his hair, and kissed him. "Thank you," she said. "I needed this today."

"I love to make you smile," he told her. "I'm surprised that smile didn't melt all the snow."

She laughed at his cheesy line and rewarded him with a deep kiss. She glanced back at the hill, which was more mud than snow by now, but still the kids were sledding down it, would, she was sure, until it was completely impossible to do so. And then they would roll down it.

"I miss being a kid," she said. "I miss my father." It was always that way – whenever she thought of her father, it happened suddenly, out of seeming nowhere, simply because some childhood memory was triggered.

She thought the comment must seem abrupt to Eric, but he only put an arm around her waist and kissed the top of her head. "I know. I'm here."

[Tuesday, February 14, 1989]

When Tami got home from her Valentine's date with Eric (she hadn't invited him back to the apartment with her, as she had an 8:30 AM class on Wednesday, and he had an early work-out), Gretchen was sitting with her feet up on the coffee table and watching TV. A red rose lay on the table beside her black boots, creating a stark contrast.

Tami slumped down in the chair. "Where'd you get the rose? Didn't you have to work tonight?"

"Stumpy came to Bazooka's tonight. Left it for me with his check. I kind of hate that he can stop by and see my tits whenever I'm working. I've made it clear he's not getting past first base with me, no matter how many times I let him take me out. But he can just pop in at my work and...gaze."

"Then maybe you should consider another job."

Tami didn't really understand why Stumpy kept fixing things in exchange for dates with Gretchen, when she wasn't allowing him to do anything more than pay for her dinner and then neck with her on the balcony. He had plenty of girls who were willing to go to bed with him. Tami supposed he was playing the field, but she would have thought he'd have given up on Gretchen by now, that he would have figured out she was using him.

("They're using each other," Eric told her when they discussed the weird relationship over dinner tonight. "Stumpy's getting something out of it too. He really likes her, Tami. I mean, he just likes being with her. I know you find it hard to believe. So do I. But it's true.")

"As soon as I have my associates," Gretchen told her. "This summer. Trust me, I will. But I need the money now."

The phone rang, and as Gretchen made no move to answer it, Tami did. On the other end of the line, Shelley was crying.

"Are you with Eric? Or can you talk?" Shelley asked.

"No, Eric's not here."

"Danny dumped me!"

Tami slid down the wall to sit on the floor. She figured she was in for a long talk.