Chapter Two
All the waitresses in the diner recognized Tami because her mother worked there, four nights a week, from 8 to 12, on top of her other job. Tami knew Mom needed the money, but she wasn't sure it was such a good idea for her to leave a 13-year-old Shelley home alone in the evenings. Tami's sister was not known to practice the best judgment. Of course, neither had Tami when she was her sister's age. She hadn't really started to develop good sense until she was almost 17. She could only hope Shelley would do the same.
Eric pushed the bowl of cream across the table to her, and she poured one in her cup and stirred.
"Well if it ain't Eric Taylor." Tami turned to see Joey, one of Eric's old teammates on the North Dillon Pirates, that one year he had lived here. Eric's father, an Athletic Director, was always moving for better jobs, but also for better football teams for Eric.
Eric smiled and slapped Joey's extended hand. "Hey, man. Heard you got moved up to QB1."
Joey nodded. "Heard the Wildcats made it to playoffs. Thanks to you. Good luck Saturday." He smiled at Tami. "Hey, Tami." Joey had asked her out the day she dumped Mo McArnold, but by then, her heart was already set on Eric, who had been a real friend to her, encouraging her to apply to college and pursue her dreams. "How's college?"
"Good."
"Lots of wild parties?" Joey asked.
"I don't really have time."
Joey nodded again. Eric gave him a look that seemed to say – Get lost. I'm with my girl. Slowly, it registered, and Joey said, "Well, see you around."
"So…" Eric said. "Is that true? What you told Joey? You aren't going to parties?"
"I went to one last Saturday night after work, for a couple of hours."
"You…uh….dance with anyone?"
She smiled. It was a bit of a relief to witness his insecurity. He was a year younger, and at first he'd been the one to pursue her - albeit subtly - but with the distance between them now, and his growing popularity as first string quarterback of the Wildcats, she sometimes feared they'd drift apart. It was comforting to see he was maybe as worried about losing her as she was about losing him. "No. I just played poker with some guys."
"What kind of poker?" he asked tensely.
"Strip poker."
He was silent.
"I'm kidding, Eric. I'm joking. We played nickel poker."
"I bet those guys loved you, though, huh?"
"They did. Until I took all their money."
He laughed. God he was cute when he laughed, she thought. She reached across the table for his hand. They were just lacing their fingers together when the waitress interrupted them to take their order and top off their coffee cups.
They went back to holding hands when she was gone. "Haven't seen you smoke since I've been here," Eric said.
"I quit."
"Good. How'd you manage that?"
"I was never that into it." She'd done it to rebel against her mother's strict religious views and to look cool. She'd never much liked it. "And you have to sign a paper at MWU that says you won't smoke or drink. Not that anyone honors it. But…I'm done with the smoking."
Eric talked excitedly about his upcoming playoff game for awhile, but then he suddenly asked, "Do you mind if I go to the winter dance the first week of December? This girl needed a date. We'd just go as friends, of course. I've told her all about you. She won't try anything, I promise."
Tami felt suddenly cold. She drew her hand away from his. The waitress arrived and set their food down.
Eric picked up his fork. "Tami, is that okay with you?"
"Sure," she lied. "What's her name?"
"Kimberly."
Every fourth girl Tami had met at college was named Kimberly, if she wasn't named Jennifer. She'd met a few other Tammy's, but they always spelled it with the y, not the i. "Is she pretty?"
"No. She's not."
"Liar."
"Actually, Tami, she's not. She's kind of…homely. I told you she needed a date."
"So…what? You're being chivalrous?"
He sighed. "Girls can be such bitches to each other."
Tami had seen her share of cattiness in high school. She'd expected college to be better, especially an all-girls Christian college, but in some ways MWU was just the same old high school bullshit with a larger vocabulary. There were sororities, and off-campus parties, and rivalry for boys at the community college around the corner, and jostling for position, and backbiting. Classes were far more interesting, but the group politics were about the same, as far as she could tell. She went to the occasional party and she had one study buddy, a sort-of friend who was also on the volleyball team with her, but she was lonely.
Tami didn't feel like she fit in there. She'd been popular in high school – Homecoming Queen, the girl half the football team wanted to date. At MWU she was nothing but an above-average student and a mediocre volleyball player, "that Tammy girl, you know, Amy's roommate, the one who's always studying." Maybe she shouldn't have gone to an all-girls school. Yet she loved the psychology program there, the way it seamlessly combined theory with practice.
"Explain," she said.
"Ah…these cheerleaders. There's two of them who think it's kind of fun to…you know…make fun of this girl. Because of the way she looks."
"Bitches," Tami agreed. Even when Tami was a bad student who snuck out of the house and smoked and went farther with boys than she'd really wanted, she'd never been one of those mean girls. She didn't form female friendships easily, but she also didn't tend to earn the resentment of the other girls.
"Anyway…they thought it would be funny if they made her ask me out. They sort of dared her, with a threat - do this or we'll do this other thing to embarrass you even more. I heard about it from John Paul."
John Paul was one of Eric's first cousins, the only one of the six boys who went to the same high school as him. Two of his cousins were at a private Catholic school, one was in junior high, one was in college, and the sixth was working full-time as a mechanic.
"So when she asked," Eric continued, "knowing those girls were trying to humiliate her, I didn't say no. I said I would think about it."
"So you really were being chivalrous."
"I guess. You're really okay with it?"
"Yeah. Sure." This time, she wasn't lying. "I wish I could see those cheerleader's faces when she shows up at Homecoming with the West Odessa Wildcats' hot new star quarterback."
Later, after breakfast, they parked by the lake and snuggled together in a sleeping bag in the bed of his pick up truck. They left the window open to let in some air, but he had a cover, so they had some privacy. The lake was largely deserted, anyway, because of the cool fall temperature. You never knew what you were going to get in Texas in the fall - it could feel like spring or even summer some days - but today it was only 40.
They kissed slowly for a long time, but eventually Eric snaked his hand under her sweater and unhooked the front clasp of her bra. She gasped when he began to toy with her breasts. "You like that?" he asked.
"Mhmmm…" she murmured. "I love your touch, sugar." Eric liked verbal assurances when they were fooling around, she knew. He was less experienced than she was. Despite being good-looking, and a good football player, he'd been shy, and moving from school to school every year of his high school career hadn't helped. He'd had only one girlfriend before Tami. She moaned when he pinched her nipple. "Yes. Just like that," she told him. "Do that again."
"Yeah?" His breath was heavy in her ear. "You want this?"
"Mmhmmm," she whimpered.
Their clothes got jumbled in the bottom of the sleeping bag, and they rocked together in its soft enclosure, warmed by skin against skin, until she moaned his name in the midst of her release, and he cascaded over after her saying, "Damn, Tami. Damn."
She curled against him as they caught their breath. "I missed you," she whispered.
He smiled. "No kidding. That was…that was…"
"Maybe we should always only have sex once every few weeks."
"No."
She chuckled and kissed his cheek.
He turned and looked at her. "I love you," he said.
"I love you, too."
"But…"
"You have to start driving. You have a game tomorrow. And you probably have to meet with the team tonight."
He nodded.
"And I have to start driving to MWU."
"Only a little over three weeks until your winter break," he assured her.
"I'll be counting the days."
[*]
"Mail," Tami's roommate Jenny announced as she dropped four envelopes on her desk next to the electric typewriter Tami's mother had given her as a graduation gift. "Including one from that boyfriend of yours."
Jenny flopped down on her bed and opened a magazine. "Why are you still with a high school boy, anyway? There are plenty of hot college guys at University of Houston."
Tami tore open the letter. "Trust me, Eric's plenty hot. He's a quarterback. His team is going to the State Championships in a couple weeks."
"I prefer baseball players. My God. Those arms."
"Eric has spectacular arms."
"Well I guess I've got to meet this guy of yours." Jenny flicked a page in the magazine.
Tami unfolded the letter, which was handwritten in Eric's wide, somewhat messy cursive.
Dear Tami,
So the dance went well. I think Kimberley had a good time. Those mean girls kept looking at us with their mouths open. The only bad part was when one of them came over and asked if I was gay or something. John Paul laughed and said, "Or something." Then he made a point of dancing with every single girl but them. He may not play any sports, but the girls all love him. I guess they think he's really good looking or something. Plus I guess they like that he can sing, even if it's in the school musicals. Anyway, it was kind of fun. But I wished I was dancing with you instead. Can't wait to...dance...when you come to Odessa.
He'd underlined dance three times and then signed the letter Love Eric XOXOX.
She always wished his letters were longer, but he'd never been one to mince words, and he wrote them faithfully. She folded it up and added it to the others in her shoe box. Then she took out a sheet of paper and wrote him one back, two pages - both sides.
