Chapter Twenty-Five

When Dale refilled their empty glasses, Eric could already feel the slightest buzz. He'd had some wine at dinner, but he'd also had a hefty steak. He hadn't expected to feel the bourbon so soon. Maybe the buzz was good, though, because it gave him the courage to pose a personal question: "So…are you just leaving that woman behind in Cairo? The one you're fond of?"

"I'm hoping this ex-agent I know in Dallas will sponsor her for a work visa as a translator. She speaks Arabic, French, German, and English fluently. He heads up an international law firm now. If he agrees, and she agrees, she could move here, and we could keep dating."

"That's a long way to move for someone who just wants to date you."

"She wants to get out of Egypt anyway. And if she keeps dating me even after she has her ticket to America, well, then, maybe she really does love me." Dale took a sip of bourbon and sighed. "I've been thinking," he said softly. "Seeing you and Tami and Julie together when I was here ….I don't know. I don't think at this point in my life I could ever have something like your family has. "

"Why not?"

Dale looked at the flames leaping lazily from the firepit. He coughed and shifted in his chair, as though he was uncomfortable with his own seriousness, and he abruptly switched the subject. "Where did Tami get those panties I found under the couch?" he asked. "Was that from a store around here? Because I might want to get my woman a pair."

Eric was partly annoyed by Dale's embarrassingly personal quip, partly proud of the hot sex life he enjoyed with his wife, and partly pleased that his brother seemed to want to banter with him. He settled on a half amused, half irritated "Screw you" before taking a swig of bourbon.

"Well that would be my goal in buying Cleopatra the panties."

"What?" Eric asked. "Cleopatra? That's not really her name is it?"

"It is."

"You're making that up," Eric insisted.

"Scout's honor." Dale made the Boy Scout sign.

"You quit scouts after a year."

"Well, you quit it after two."

"Yeah," Eric said, "but not before I learned to tie a knot."

"Oh, is that how Tami likes it?"

"Screw you," Eric said again, but he said it with a grin. "What do you call her? You don't actually call her Cleopatra, do you?"

"Only when she wears a sexy breastplate and calls me Antony."

Eric chuckled and took a sip of his bourbon. "Tami wore a sexy Cleopatra costume one time, our senior year of high school, to this Halloween party."

"Is that when you started dating?"

"No. She was still dating Mo then. And I still had a steady long-distance girlfriend. She'd moved, but she hadn't broken up with me quite yet."

"Kimberley."

"Yeah." Eric was surprised he remembered. "You never met her, did you?"

"No. But you mentioned her on the phone. "

"Anyway, Mo was busy being the life of the party, so Tami was hanging out with me all night. In that damn Cleopatra costume. I swear," Eric leaned over in his chair and half whispered, "I had a hard-on the entire night."

Dale laughed. "Was it obvious? "

Eric had never been comfortable with the locker room talk in high school or college, but he'd joined in from time to time, just to experience the comradery. This conversation, however, felt surprisingly natural. Maybe it was his desire to bond with his brother. Or maybe it was the bourbon. "I don't think she noticed. I mean, she even asked me to drive her home, because she was tired and didn't want to wait for Mo."

"She noticed, brother."

"Nah."

"Yes, she did. Why do you think she asked you for the ride?"

"All she did when I dropped her off was kiss me on the cheek and say thank you. Honestly, though, that was enough at that point. I almost lost it."

"You ever tell her this?"

"God, no," Eric said. "She'd think it was crass. She probably thinks my feelings toward her at that time were more...I don't know…."

"Honorable?"

"Dale, man, I just wanted to…" Eric shook his head. "God you should have seen those things in that breastplate. They were glorious."

Dale laughed. "You're empty." He poured Eric some more bourbon and then topped himself off. "When did you and Tami finally get together?"

"I first asked her out in late November," Eric answered. "Kimberly had dumped me, and Tami had dumped Mo."

"Why did Kimberley dump you, anyway?"

"She said I didn't seem into her enough, so she couldn't commit to following me to A&M after all. She had to do what was in her best interests, and she could get in-state tuition at Oklahoma State."

"Sounds like a smart girl." Dale mused. "Most girls that age would just follow their hearts, instead of thinking it through."

"She was smart. And pretty. I have no idea why I didn't love her more than I did."

"Because she wasn't Tami," Dale said. "And why did Tami dump Mo? Was it because you and Kimberley weren't together anymore?"

"Nah. She even said no when I asked her out the first time. She dumped Mo because he was cheating on her."

"Did you know about it?"

"We played football together," Eric said, as though that were answer enough. "I didn't tell Tami, though. You don't do that to your football brothers. But when Kimberley broke up with me…" He shrugged. "We were all friends, me and Mo and Kimberley and Tami. We hung out all spring and summer. So when Kimberley moved, we kept hanging out, just the three of us. And I kind of got to feeling like Mo didn't deserve Tami. And if he didn't deserve her, and I didn't have a girlfriend…well, I might as well have a shot."

"So you told her Mo was cheating?"

Eric shook his head. "I knew Mo and this girl made out under the bleachers during lunch A, because Tami had lunch C. Tami and I had Physics while Mo had lunch. The class was doing individual projects, and she wanted to do something about gravity, dropping objects or something, so I say – you should really ask if you can get a pass and go out and do that from the bleachers. You can get up really high in the bleachers and drop that stuff."

Dale laughed. "You little Machiavelli, you."

"So she catches Mo and breaks up with him. I wait two weeks, and then I ask her out. She says no. So I wait three days, and I ask her out again. She says no. So I wait -"

"- Sounds a little stalker-like."

"She liked me. She was just upset about Mo. She wasn't over him, wasn't over the betrayal. So finally I tell her, look, I get it, we'll just hang out as friends. Two friends going out for ice cream. Two friends going out to the movies. Two friends going to a party on Christmas Eve. Two friends happening to find themselves under the mistletoe."

Dale laughed. "You knew exactly where the mistletoe was, didn't you?"

"Of course I did. But I tell you what – after that kiss, she agreed to officially date me. But only if I agreed to take it slow." Damn this bourbon was good. He didn't even care what he was saying anymore. "So we didn't …you know…go all the way until May 26."

"You remember the exact date?"

"It was kind of unforgettable, Dale. No girl had ever made me wait that long. I guess after getting burned by Mo, she wanted to know I was serious. But I wasn't used to that. Being put off that long."

"Ah…the life of a small town football star."

"What?"

"You really don't know how easy it was for you, do you, little brother? Do you know I didn't lose my virginity until I was 19?"

"What? What about high school?"

Dale shook his head.

"Your freshman year of college? Before you and Cindy were together?"

Another head shake. "Nope. Lost it to Cindy. When I was 19."

"Not possible."

"True story. Bourbon tells no lies."

"Why?" Eric asked.

"The girls were all chasing the football players."

"Girls like baseball players too."

"Yeah, but I wasn't that good."

"You were the best. I remember you knocking them out of the park."

Dale laughed. "Then your memories are clouded, brother. I was an average player. Completely average. And I was damn lanky back then. I didn't really fill out until I started seriously lifting weights in college. And I was covered in zits in high school. Do you not remember the horror of my face?"

"Nah. Not really. You took a girl to homecoming, to senior prom, to – "

"- I was the last-minute cancellation fill-in. Every time. Yeah, I might have had the opportunity to get laid by some random girl at a party my freshman year of college, but Cindy was my first serious girlfriend. And as much as I wanted to get laid, I wanted it to be with an actual girlfriend. Not some…rally girl."

"Hey!" Eric sat forward in his chair and almost sloshed some bourbon out of his glass. "Amy was…we were dating. Three whole months we'd been dating. It wasn't even football season. It was spring. That was my birthday present."

"You were still a freshman, Eric. You were fifteen and an hour. Would you want Julie losing her virginity at fifteen?"

"That's different."

Dale swirled the remaining bourbon in his glass. "Because she's a girl?"

"No. Because she's my girl. My little girl." Eric took a large swallow. His emotions moved in rapid fire from anger to annoyance to regret. He sighed. "But you're right. I was way too young," he admitted. " Honestly, it wasn't even that good the first time. It took like…I don't know…"

"15 seconds?"

Eric laughed. "Not long anyway. And it must have really not been good for her. She said it was…and I let myself believe her, but I realize now that she just wanted me to like her. And she probably thought sex was what she had to do to make me keep liking her."

"Was it?"

Eric grimaced. He sipped his bourbon, hissed, and said, "I was an asshole. Is that what you brought me out here to tell me? That I used to be an asshole?"

"Every teenage boy is an asshole." Dale held up his glass. "Make sure Julie knows that."

"Oh, I will."

"It's a good thing I'm moving here, little brother, because you're going to need someone to run background checks on her dates in a couple of years."

"She's not dating until she's 18."

"If you want, I can pick up a chastity belt in Cairo, before I move."

Eric smirked. "You're empty." He poured Dale some more, and topped himself off while he was at it. The bottle was getting low.

"Who was after Amy?" Dale asked. "Who was your fling that July? I thought her name was Amy."

"Angie."

"Oh yeah. Angie. I met her when I came home to surprise Mom for her birthday. She was a lot older than you, wasn't she?"

"Two years. "

"She was good-looking, all right. Dumb as rocks, though, wasn't she?"

"Hey!"

"I know. It's an insult to rocks."

Eric laughed. "Yeah, she wasn't too bright."

"It must have been hard to have a conversation with her."

"We uh…we weren't having a whole lot of conversations."

Dale laughed and topped them both off with a smidgen more bourbon, even though the glasses weren't near empty yet. "That couldn't have lasted long, though. How long did that last after Mom's birthday? Another two weeks?"

"Three months. After you flew back to Miami, that night, Dad comes in my room, just stands there in the door frame, and says, Dump her. Just like that. I say, Why? And he says, She's an idiot, and she'll be a distraction when the season starts. Dump her by the end of the week. And then he walks out the door."

"So that's why you stuck with her for another three months, then? Just to piss him off?"

"Yeah. Probably. And it was a pretty torturous three months."

"So who was your next girlfriend? Ava, right? Cheerleader?"

"Damn, Dale, how do you remember all this?"

"I think you were working your way through the A's. I met her too. I didn't come home often, but every time I did you introduced me to a new girlfriend. Here, Dale, look how often I'm getting laid! Don't you wish you were me!"

"It wasn't like that," Eric said.

"How long did Ava last?"

"I don't remember exactly," Eric muttered.

"And next it was….Sharon?"

Eric rolled a little bourbon on his tongue and then swallowed. "Shannon."

"Was she the one who brought you pot?"

"Mo McArnold brought me pot. You made him piss his pants. You don't remember?"

"I thought you had a girl with you that night."

Eric laughed hard. "Ah….I'd love to tell Mo that."

"You guys are still friends?"

"Nah. He stopped talking to me after I started dating Tami. Blamed me instead of himself for losing her."

"Whatever happened to him?" Dale asked.

"I don't know. Heard he dropped out of Georgia State after he got injured, moved back to Texas, went into real estate or something. That's the last I heard." Eric sipped.

"Who was after Sharon?"

"Shannon," Eric corrected him.

"There was someone before Kimberley, right?"

"Layla."

"Layla!" Dale sang. "I'm down on my knees, I'm begging you please, to –

"- Come home!" Eric sung.

"Layla!"

They both laughed.

"She was mostly the one down on her knees, though, I bet," Dale said.

Eric imitated his brother's voice. "Grow the fuck up, Dale."

"What?"

Eric grinned. "You don't remember telling me that? You know, that summer you caught me smoking pot?"

"I don't, but if I did tell you that, I'm sure I was right."

"You were right."

"And now we're up to Kimberley, correct? She was next?"

"That," Eric said in a defensive tone of voice, pointing at his brother with his glass in hand, "lasted seven months and then another nine weeks long distance. If she hadn't moved, I might be with her instead of Tami today." He steadied his glass, seeing that he'd almost sloshed out some precious liquid, bobbed back and forth a bit, and contemplated the bizarre possibility of being married to anyone but Tami. It was like trying to imagine himself inhabiting some other man's body.

"Does Tami know about your checkered past?"

"Hers is just as checkered."

Dale studied him over his glass. "Really?"

"Nah," Eric said, hastily, regretting his thoughtless response. "Not nearly as checkered."

Tami had dated two guys in high school before Eric – the drummer and then Mo. There was a third one, an older boy she'd had a crush on half of her freshman year. She'd run into him at a party and wanted to impress him, and, a little bit drunk, she'd agreed to follow him into one of the bedrooms. She lost her virginity at that party, when she was just fifteen, and the next day, the boy acted like he didn't even know her. She didn't tell Eric about that until a year after they were married. He'd always assumed the drummer was her first. She'd been so ashamed of her foolishness that she hadn't wanted to tell Eric about it. She was afraid he'd think less of her, and while it surprised and somewhat disappointed him that she would give her virginity to a boy she wasn't even dating, he knew they had both matured.

"We were so young," Eric told Dale. "And we were so naïve. We thought nothing could hurt us. We thought high school was the most important time of our lives. And we didn't have much guidance."

Dale looked thoughtfully into the small line of brown liquid that still lingered in his glass. "This is some grown-up shit we're talking about."

He said it with such seriousness that Eric laughed. "Well, Dale, we're some grown-ass men!"

Dale smiled. They toasted each other.

"To being grown-up," Eric said.

They sipped.

Eric laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"I don't even know," Eric admitted.

Dale laughed. They both sipped again, and then Dale, as if coming to a sudden revelation, said, "So wait a minute! Christmas to May 26. Five months Tami made you wait even after you started dating? You? The star quarterback of the Midland Mountain Lions? Fucking football-throwing Eric Taylor?"

Eric laughed. He could feel his head starting to spin a bit. "I thought my balls were going to fall off," he said. "I swear to God. I was in so much pain."

"Been there," Dale assured him.

"But by the time we did do it, I was in love with her. I mean, I'd fallen hard. And the sex was completely different. I'd never had that kind of sex before."

"You weren't in love with Kimberley?"

"Not like that. I was fond of her. Isn't that what you said? You're fond of Cleopatra? "

"She goes by Queen of the Nile," Dale said. "Or Cleo, you know, to her friends."

Eric chuckled, sipped, swallowed, and swirled the bourbon glass in the air. "Are you fond of her, Dale, or do you looooooove her?"

"You're going to be seriously hung over in the morning. I hope Tami doesn't make you go to church tomorrow."

"So I guess you haven't set foot in a church since high school, without a wife to make you go."

"I've been to Cleo's church at few times. She's Coptic Orthodox. That service is almost three hours. And you stand the whole time. They don't even have pews. I don't even get to stand with her. I have to stand with her bother because the men are on one side and the women are on the other. But she asks me to go, so I go."

Eric peered at him over the rim of his glass. He was grinning somewhat wildly at this point. "So she's really old school, your Queen of the Nile, huh? Separate sections for the men and women in church?"

"It's Egypt."

"But…I mean…." Eric smiled. "C'mon. Three years you've been seeing her? I mean…you know what I'm asking? You know, right? You knoooooow."

Dale grinned. "Modest in public but abandoned in bed. She just doesn't ever stay the night. We take long lunch breaks."

"During work?"

"Yeah. And her family didn't know we were seeing each other for the longest time. She just kept calling me her American co-worker."

"They knew she worked with the DEA?"

"They cooperated with us, that community."

"But you eventually told her family you were dating?"

"No. Her brother figured out we were seeing each other. Told me if I dishonored her, I'd end up in a ditch."

"What did he mean by dishonor? Does he know you're having sex with her?"

"I don't know. But I'm not in a ditch yet."

"So let me get this straight, Dale. For this woman, you'll go to a three-hour-long church service. You'll risk ending up in a ditch. But you're just fond of her?" Eric threw back his head and laughed, a deep, hearty laugh that turned into a cackle.

The sliding glass door rolled open. "What the hell is going on out here?" Tami asked. She was dressed in sweats and an Owls t-shirt. Her hair was rumpled, as though she'd been sleeping. "Eric, it's midnight. You're going to wake the neighbors."

Eric turned back and looked at her. He thought he was whispering, but it was more like a raspy shout. "Hey, Tami, where'd you get those panties? Dale wants to know."

"What?"

"The red silk ones," Eric said, "with the little ties on the side?"

"Eric, let me tell you what's going to happen here." Tami's words fell one by one, calmly and deliberately, almost in slow motion. At least, it felt like slow motion to Eric. "I'm going to slide this door closed. In five minutes, you're going to come inside and drink three glasses of water. Then you're going straight to bed."

There was a creek as the glass slid shut.

Dale had been biting down on his laughter but now it rumbled out. "You're going to be in soooooo much trouble tomorrow morning!"

Eric shook his head. "Nah," he said. "You don't understand why I loooooove my wife. Love her love her love her love her!" He swirled his empty glass in the vague direction of his brother. "She'll be annoyed. She's going to call me an idiot and she's not going to have sex with me tomorrow. Or Monday. But that's all. See – Tami's gonna be happy that I was happy cuh, cuhnec, connecting with my big brother. Cuh-nect-ting. Cuhnec-ting. That's a funny word. Cuh-nect-ing."

Dale reached down, picked up the bottle of bourbon and proceeded to empty the last of it into their two glasses.

"Shhhh!" Eric told him. "Don't let Tami hear you pouring!"

"Quiet as a mouse," Dale whispered.

Eric laughed.

Dale laughed.

"Shhhh!" Eric said.

Dale leaned over and put an arm around Eric's shoulder. "I love you, man. I love you, little brother."

"I love you too, man." Eric hugged back. "I love you so much." He pulled back and pointed his glass at Dale. "But I tell you what - if you ever mention my wife's panties again, I'll fucking kill you."

"You're drunk."

"You're drunk!"

"Shhh!" Dale said.

"Shhhhhh!" Eric shouted. "Tami will hear you!"

"Shhhh! We have to get you inside, little brother. Quietly."

They stumbled their way in, through a curtain of giggles.