Reverend Hayes looked over the flyer advertising the clothing closet. "Looks good to me," he said, and handed it back to Tami over his desk. "Only next time, show me before you run the copies?"
"Yes, Daddy."
"Take them on over to Mrs. Tidwell. I think she's in the fellowship hall right now."
The sound of voices drifted from the fellowship hall as Tami neared it, punctuated by a great big guffaw from Mrs. Tidwell, the Women's Ministry Coordinator. "Janet," she said, "I swear, you're going to give me a hernia from making me laugh so hard!"
Tami tiptoed in. Coats and other clothing seemed to have exploded all over the tables the church used for fellowship meals. Apparently they were sorting donations. Eric's mother was standing there, her face radiant with her smile, and chatting with Mrs. Tidwell. "Well, you know it's true," Mrs. Taylor said. "And you should have seen the expression on Principal Manner's face, too."
Both women turned and looked at Tami as she approached.
"I brought flyers," Tami said with a hesitant smile, feeling like she'd just stumbled on some kind of secret: Mrs. Taylor was funny? And outgoing? And she had friends in the church? Of course, Eric had said she was "like a different person" when she wasn't around his father.
"Oh, thank you, Tami." Mrs. Tidwell took the flyers from her. "Janet, Tami is the Reverend's eldest daughter. Have you met?"
Mrs. Taylor flashed her a warm smile. "We've only met at the church door. Thank you for running the flyers, Tami. We're going to put them up at the Y and the unemployment office and wherever else we can get the word out."
"So you're the one who suggested the idea of the clothing closet?" Tami asked. The church already had a food pantry, but they were going to expand it to give our winter clothing as well.
Mrs. Taylor nodded. "We did something like it at our church in Houston. I'm just excited about helping others. I remember what it was like when I was out of high school and trying so desperately to make ends meet, before I met my husband. It meant so much just to have a warm coat."
Mrs. Taylor made it sound as if she had been on her own immediately after high school, but Tami couldn't imagine such a scenario, a teenage girl supporting herself in a time before women's liberation. "What did you do after high school?" she asked.
"Whatever I could. I worked lots of different jobs, but my most steady work was as a bar maid."
That could explain how she'd met Eric's father, if he was already in the bar business back then. Tami had guessed they weren't high school sweethearts, since Mr. Taylor did look to be a few years older than his wife.
"Want to help us sort, Tami?" Mrs. Tidwell asked.
Tami didn't think her father had anything else for her to do at the office, so she dug in to the task at hand. Mrs. Tidwell and Mrs. Taylor chattered excitedly to one another as they sorted, and at one point Mrs. Taylor held up a tiny, fleecy coat with the Dallas Cowboys logo. "Awww…." She said. "This is adorable. I remember when Eric was this size. He had the cutest giggle when Kathleen would make faces at him."
"They grow up so fast don't they?" Mrs. Tidewell asked.
"They do. I can't believe my baby is going off to college this summer. I'm going to be all alone."
"Well, not all alone," Mrs. Tidwell said. "You'll have your husband."
Mrs. Taylor didn't reply. She looked at the coat again, her lips falling into a nostalgic pout, and added it to the kids' pile.
[*]
Chairs clunked one by one onto the tops of tables. Tami pretended not to hear and only looked up when Eric sat down across from her.
With her hand on the Chemistry book she'd just closed, she said, "Your father's kind of a jerk."
"I'm aware."
"He rides you hard."
"I'm aware."
"Why do you put up with it?"
"What am I supposed to do?" he asked. "If I push back, it just makes it worse."
"Why does your mother put up with him? She seems nice enough. I just sorted clothes with her."
"Listen…my dad doesn't cheat on my mom. He doesn't beat her."
"There's a lot more to being a good husband than just not cheating or beating."
"I know," he said. "I just don't want you to get the wrong impression. He's just hard to live with. He's not evil. I mean, if he ever hit my mother, you know, I wouldn't allow that. I'd…" he nodded to himself. "I'd throw him against the wall." He said it like maybe he wanted his father to give him a justifiable reason to throw him against the wall. "And when it comes to his…the other stuff, my mom…I think she just…she doesn't want to make waves. It's easier that way."
"I'd be making a whole lot of waves," Tami said.
"I bet you would. I heard you made a lot of waves your sophomore year."
Tami's muscles tensed. "What did you hear?"
"Just that you rebelled for a while. Typical preacher's kid stuff. And you told me about your grades."
Tami was relieved that he didn't seem to know anything about Boone. She didn't want anyone knowing about Boone. "I made some mistakes. I regret them. I was trying to fit in with an older crowd. Trying to figure out who I was apart from the pastor's daughter."
"And did you figure it out?" he asked.
"I'm still working on it." She didn't want to talk about her rebellious year, so she grasped for a new subject. "Who do you think you'll take to senior prom?"
"What? That's like six months away."
"You're going, though, aren't you?"
"Sure," he said, "if I have a real girlfriend by then. But prom's a big deal. I don't want to go with someone I'm not serious about."
"Well, you're not going to have a girlfriend by then if you don't ever ask anyone out. You keep ignoring the girls who try to flirt with you. Like, for instance - Kimberley."
"You and Kimberley." He shook his head. "What do you get out of it?"
"It's just…people find it a little odd that you aren't dating anyone yet."
"People, huh? Like people named Tami Hayes?"
"It's not just me," she told him.
"I'm just not there yet. If I went out with some girl at this point, I'd just be using her to get past Lisa."
"Well that's thoughtful, to consider that. But sometimes you make a good shot on the rebound. I did, with Mo." She was thinking about how Boone had broken her heart, and Mo had lifted it that Sunday with his Amen.
"Who were you dating before Mo?"
Crap. What did she say now? She couldn't tell him about Boone. "No one, really."
"Then how were you rebounding?"
"Just from a bad crush," she said, and then, hastily, "Got your eye on anyone?"
He shrugged.
"What's your type?" Maybe she could figure out who to fix him up with if he wasn't interested in Kimberley.
"I want a cheerleader."
Tami was a bit disappointed by his response. She had thought him to be less cliché than that. "Well, Sue Beth is on the honor roll. She's pretty and not too catty. She – "
"- Not that kind of cheerleader. I just mean…someone supportive. An encourager. Someone who will build me up."
"You mean a yes woman?" Tami asked.
"Nah. No. I need someone strong, who knows how to stand up for herself."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want to end up like my dad, for one. How about you?" he asked. "What's your type?"
"Well…I'm dating Mo. So you can deduce from there, I guess."
"How's that going?" he asked. "You and Mo?"
"Great. Why?"
He looked out the glass door. "It's getting dark," he said. "I'll walk you home."
[*]
"Hold up, girls, I'm coming with you," the Reverend Hayes said, grabbing his black fall coat off the rack that stood in the foyer of their house.
Shelley and Tami looked at one another quizzically.
"To the game?" Shelley asked.
"Of course." He plucked his brown fedora down as well, and situated it on his head.
"To the football game?" Tami asked.
"Yes, yes," he said, gesturing to the door. "Let's go."
Tami had been planning to borrow the family station wagon and take Shelley, as she usually did, but tonight her father drove, with Tami riding shotgun. Shelley was sulking in the backseat, Tami knew, because she wasn't going to be able to flirt shamelessly with that junior from the baseball team if their father was sitting with them in the stands.
"I know it's been an awesome season," Shelley grumbled, "and that we've only lost a single game, but I didn't expect even you to catch Tiger fever."
[*]
A cool fall breeze drifted through the open door of the church. Mr. Taylor's hand slid into Reverend Hayes's, and they shook. "You should work some football metaphors into your sermons," Mr. Taylor told him. "All those historical and literary references don't really play in a small town like this."
"I liked them," Mrs. Taylor said quietly. Tami wished she would say it loudly. She wished Mrs. Taylor would tell her husband that he was being an ass.
Reverend Hayes nodded to Eric. "Good game on Friday."
"You saw it?" Eric asked, as though he was pleased with the idea, as though he actually cared whether or not Tami's father saw him play.
"I did. You played impressively."
"Well," Mr. Taylor said, "until toward the end there, when he threw that interception. You really weren't concentrating there, were you, son?"
Eric's whole body tensed. "We won by 6," he said.
"You could have won by 12. If you hadn't thrown that interception, the Owls never would have made that touchdown in the fourth quarter."
Eric's mother put a hand on the small of her husband's back. "Time to go, darling," she said, and they headed out the church door.
Eric was about to follow when the Reverend called his name. "Son," he told Eric when the boy paused, "the Bible says, whatsoever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if you working for the Lord, and not to please men. Your worth does not lie in the approval of men."
[*]
"You really get engrossed in your studies," Eric said when the chairs were all up and he was seated across from Tami at the coffee shop.
Tami closed her book and drained the last sip of her coffee. "I don't understand how your mother can stand to live with your father."
"You're very blunt."
"Not usually."
"So it's just with me?" he asked.
"Okay, maybe I am blunt. Sorry."
"Listen, don't judge my mother. She's a good mother. She's always made sure I know she loves me."
"I wasn't judging her," Tami insisted.
"Yeah. You were. For being with him. And for not pushing back more."
"I'm sorry. I'm sure she has her reasons. You know, my parents got marriage counseling for a while. I think it really helped them. Maybe it could help your parents."
"My dad would never agree to anything like that. He would see it as a sign of weakness." Eric looked outside. "It's getting dark. I'll walk you home."
As he began walking her back to the parsonage, he asked, "You cold?"
Although it had been in the low 60s that afternoon, it had since dropped fifteen degrees. Her sweatshirt wasn't cutting it. "A little."
He took off his letter jacket and handed it to her.
"No. You just have a long sleeve shirt on," she said.
"I don't get cold," he insisted.
She slipped on the jacket.
A few steps later, he said, "My ex-girlfriend called me last night."
"Oh."
"It ended badly with that new guy."
"That was quick," Tami said.
"Yeah. And she said if we make it all the way to the finals game in College Station, which it looks like we might, she'll come see me play. That's less than a two hour drive from Houston."
"Oh. Does she want to get back together?"
"I think so. I got that impression."
"Do you?" Tami asked.
"If you had asked me that a week or so ago, I probably would have said yes. Now…I don't know." He rubbed his hands together and then slid them in the pockets of his khakis. They'd been in his jacket pockets before. "I was just starting to get over her, and then she pulls this! I mean, she just threw me over for that guy. Two years and she just…." He swallowed and looked out at the street. He always insisted on walking on the street side of sidewalk.
"That must have been hard," Tami said softly.
"It was hard. And now she thinks she can just waltz back into my life. And honestly? I still miss her, but…I mean, what does that say, if I just take her back?"
"My dad always tells me, there's no weakness in forgiveness."
"Maybe," he muttered. "But I'm not sure I can trust her anymore, you know? And that's a big investment – phone calls, letters, weekend trips - if it just blows up again."
"Well, my dad also says that just because you forgive someone doesn't mean you have to reconcile with them. Forgiveness is just…you know…letting go of the anger. It's more for you than for them. You could forgive her, and still not get back together with her."
"Your dad is a wise and thoughtful man."
"He is," Tami agreed, a little proudly.
Eric looked away, out across the street at a vacated shopfront on the other side. "I wish I had a father like that."
