Chapter Fifteen

Eric did scale back his work hours a bit, but Tami also scaled back the party-going. They had more quiet evenings at home. By the spring semester, Tami was spending even more time studying. Meanwhile, Eric was working out violently, trying to get back in shape so he could try out for the Cougars when he went back to college. Sometimes he would press himself too hard, until he was in real pain, and he and Tami would fight about it.

In May, when Tami graduated a year early from MWU with "high honors," her mother took a dozen photos and told her, "I'm so very proud of you!"

As they walked to the car to go to dinner, Eric trailing quietly behind them, Tami's mom put an arm around each of her daughters, Tami in her cap and gown, and Shelley in a spring dress, and said, "I need to tell you girls something. I'm getting married."

"What?" asked Tami, coming to such a sudden stop that Eric nearly bumped into her.

"It was bound to happen," Shelley said. "Or haven't you been paying attention?"

Tami had not been paying attention, in point of fact. She'd been so busy this past year that she hardly knew what was happening in the lives of either her mother or her sister.

Eric and Tami went to the Dallas wedding in July, and Tami was shocked to discover herself attending a traditional Catholic ceremony.

"Well, what did you expect from a guy named Antonio Merretti?" Shelley asked at the reception, which was being held in an upscale restaurant inhabited by circulating, tuxedoed waiters.

"I feel like I've just entered the Twilight Zone," Tami said. "I don't even know that woman who was her maid of honor. And are they serving wine?"

"Of course they're serving wine," Shelley told her, grabbing a glass off a passing tray. "Only you and Eric would be so gauche as to have an alcohol-free reception."

"But Mom doesn't drink!"

"No, but Antonio does. He's not a drunk, though. I promise you. He's actually an okay guy. I like him."

Tami plucked the wine glass from her sister's hand. "You're too young." She sipped the wine and said, "How could so much change so fast?"

Shelley shrugged. "Things change. I'll be finishing high school in Dallas, for one. That's a hell of a lot different from North Dillon. I hope they have hotter guys."

"I don't know," Tami said, "North Dillon has always had an unusual number of attractive guys."

From beside her, Eric said, "You've got me to prove it."

"You're from Odessa," Shelley said. "You aren't representative. But Odessa does have some really hot guys. Just look at all your cousins, Eric. How is Philip Andrew by the way?"

Eric just sighed, so Tami answered. "He's at St. Edward's University in Austin," Tami said. "Living with John Paul, who's finishing up his theater major at UT."

Shelley grabbed an appetizer from a passing tray. "What's Philip's major?" she asked before she popped the bacon wrapped scallop into her mouth.

"Catholic Studies," Eric said. "With a minor in Philosophy. Not your sort of thing."

"Well, it sounds interesting," Shelley said. "Do you happen to have his phone number?"

Eric shook his head and walked away.

Tami walked the perimeter of the reception hall, chatted with her uncle and a cousin, and then settled in a corner to watch her mother closely as she danced with her new husband. She felt a strange sense of disconnection. She had been so glad to move away from home, to escape that small town and her mother's moral lectures, and she hadn't seen the transformation that had unraveled while she was gone. Her family was pulling away from her, and she was forging a new one with Eric. It was like a country falling and a new one being built - there was something sad and beautiful in it at the same time.

"Hey, you a'right?" Eric asked softly as he drew up next to her and slipped an arm around her waist

"Yeah. It's just...it's weird you know. My mother is married."

"He seems a'right."

Tami nodded. It was hard to judge, from a one time meeting, but Antonio was polite and respectful, conducted himself soberly, appeared to be quite fond of her mother, and apparently had a decent income. She couldn't really ask for more for her mother. He just didn't seem her mother's type. Catholic. Sophisticated. Foreign. Well, he wasn't really foreign. He'd immigrated here when he was a child. But he wasn't exactly a Texan either. Tami had always imagined, that if her mother were ever to re-marry, it would be to some ultra-conservative, smarmy, wide-grinning Texas minister, not an Italian Catholic corporate middle manager.

Eric kissed the bare skin between her shoulder and her neck. "You look really pretty in this dress."

She smiled, turned, and kissed him. She tugged at his tie. "You don't look half bad yourself. I almost hate to take this off of you later."

He grinned and pushed against the small of her back, guiding her to the dance floor.

[*]

In August, Tami secured a full-time job as a junior high school guidance counselor, "for last names I through P," as she told her mother on the phone.

"Big school?" her mom asked.

"It's Houston."

She was nervous on her first day, her stomach dancing with butterflies, but it went well enough. She ended up doing more scheduling and paperwork than counseling, which disappointed her, but the job paid the bills.

Eric quit his bookstore job to take his turn in college, though he continued to tutor occasionally for extra cash. He also tried out for the football team as a walk-on. He made the cut, but there was no scholarship involved. Sometimes his leg still hurt, and he struggled to keep up with the other players who had never had to sit out a year. He was left to warm the bench. During games, he would watch the coaches on both sides, observing how they interacted with the players and with each other, and wondering about their calls and whether or not he would have made different ones.

Frustrated with his lack of play time and his fall from glory, he quit the team at the end of his sophomore season.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Tami asked him in bed one night, when he told her his plan. "You love football."

He was spooned against her, and he kissed her cheek. "Training and practice and the travel...it takes up way too much time. What's the point if I don't get to play? Time to focus on my education. I'm getting Cs. Need to do better."

Tami rolled over in his arms, put a hand on his cheek, and looked him right in the eyes. "I think you're going to regret this."

"Nah, I'm not. Listen. I asked Coach if I could shadow him at home games and one practice a week. It won't take nearly as much time as being a player. Won't be traveling for away games or doing all of the training. But I'll learn how to coach. He said yes, long as I'm willing to fetch things and assist him in other ways without pay."

He sounded so excited about the opportunity. "You've decided that's what you want to do now? For a living?"

He nodded eagerly. "Well, and teach. Have to. Coaching doesn't pay that much, especially the first few years, when I'll just be an assistant." He smiled. "But if I ever get to be head coach of a college team, I'm buying you a huge house with a pool and taking you to Bermuda."

She laughed and kissed him, a long lingering kiss with a little bit of tongue. She pulled back and asked, "You know I don't need a huge house, right?"

He rolled her onto her back and eased a leg between her legs and rubbed his half formed erection against her hip. "As long as other things are huge, right?"

She groaned. "You are so sophomoric sometimes."

"Well," he told her, "I am a sophomore." And then he peppered her neck with kisses, until she was giggling and squirming.