[Saturday, September 1, 1990]
Tami hated that she couldn't see Eric's first game of the season, but there was no way they could afford for her to go all the way to Nebraska, not when she had to work on Friday and study over the weekend and they had no money for her to drive there anyway.
She did, however, drive twenty-five minutes to Gretchen's apartment in Crawford. She'd kept in touch with her old roommate, and they'd remained unlikely friends. Tami was used to the girl's brusque manner by now, but still found her to be continually unpredictable. One day, when they were still living together, Gretchen had told her, "You're real sweet, not fake sweet. Took me a few months to figure that out. I've never met real sweet before."
Tami didn't have a lot of friends, other than the neighbor couple Jacob and Rebekah, who didn't have cable television. Gretchen, however, had sprung for it now that she was making decent money at her salaried job, and Eric's game was going to be on ESPN, one of the few Bears games that would be televised this season.
Tami brought the play gym for Julie and a well-packed diaper bag. "Do you see your daddy?" Tami asked the baby as she cradled her in her arms.
"Can they even see that far at this age?" Gretchen asked. She had her feet up on the coffee table. She had a new tattoo on her left ankle, a tear drop. Tami wondered how she hid that at work.
"She can't focus on it, no," Tami said.
"Stumpy's ass looks fine in those pants, don't you think?" Gretchen asked.
"Are you two still dating?"
"If you want to call it that," Gretchen said. "We hang out sometimes. And we fuck sometimes."
"I thought you were against casual sex."
"Promiscuous sex," Gretchen clarified. "Stumpy's the only guy I'm fucking."
"So he's agreed to exclusivity?" Tami asked.
"I don't know what he's up to," Gretchen said. "I don't ask about that."
"Don't you care?"
"I learned how to avoid disappointment in high school." She leaned forward. "Look at the tits on that Baylor cheerleader!"
Tami was glad Julie was not old enough to understand.
"She'd get a lot of tips at Bazookas," Gretchen said. "More than I ever did. Mine are perky, but men like them big like that. Does Eric know her?"
"I don't know. I doubt it."
"It doesn't make you jealous?" Gretchen asked. "All the girls swooning over him? Kissing his trading card at night?"
"They can kiss his trading card all they want, as long as I'm the only one who kisses him."
"Ooooh! Ouch!" Gretchen cried.
Eric had just fumbled the snap.
Tami winced. She knew he hadn't slept much Thursday night. Julie had been up at 1 AM for her feeding, and when Tami came back to bed, Eric was wide awake, staring at the ceiling, worrying about his first game. He got up with Julie for her 5 AM feeding, and Tami wondered if it was because he hadn't slept between them. When he'd left for the team bus Friday morning, he'd looked sleepy.
The game went downhill from there. The coach pulled Eric after the first quarter. "Say goodbye to Daddy," Tami told Julie, who had nodded off to sleep. Tami lay her under the play gym and sat back down.
"Well, if it's any consolation," Gretchen said, "this other quarterback they put in is sucking too."
The Bears lost, 13 to 0. The camera panned the stands at the end of the game, and Tami saw Mr. Taylor throwing his fedora down on the stands. The man really did go to every one of his son's games.
Gretchen switched off the television with the remote.
"Can I ask you something personal?" Tami asked.
"Why the hell not?"
"Are you…sort of...bisexual?" Tami had been reading in one of her psychology textbooks the theory that sexuality was on a continuum of some kind, and people might be anywhere along the two ends. "Or are your observations on women's anatomy just professional? Since you used to work at Bazookas?"
"I've got wine coolers if you want one," Gretchen said. "I keep them for guests. Hell, I'm going to try one. I've decided moderate social drinking is acceptable. You want?"
"I'd love one. Since I completely failed at breast feeding anyway."
Gretchen brought her one and handed it to her before sitting in the arm chair and popping the cap off her own against the end table. Tami guessed she didn't care about marks, so she did the same thing with hers and took a big pull.
"Let's put it this way," Gretchen said. "I'd absolutely do you. But I know you're heterosexual. And faithful to Eric."
Tami choked a bit on the wine cooler.
"Uncomfortable yet?" Gretchen asked.
"No," Tami lied. But then her discomfort was eclipsed by her own smile. "It's kind of nice to know someone has the hots for me. No one seems to anymore."
"Not Eric?"
"Well, I mean besides Eric. I used to get a lot more attention from guys."
"You've got the attention of the hottest guy this side of the Mississippi," Gretchen said. "I wouldn't sweat it."
"And who's the hottest guy on the other side of the Mississippi?"
"Well…Stumpy's from New York." Gretchen flashed her wry smile. "You know who else is really hot?"
"Who?" Tami asked.
"Your father-in-law."
"Ewww…Gretchen, c'mon."
"What? I'm older than you."
"By three years. He's old enough to be your father."
"Didn't he have Eric when he was like 15?"
"19," Tami said. "Maybe even 20."
"Nothing at all wrong with me noticing how hot he is. I swear, when Stumpy brought him to the apartment to get your furniture that one day, I could not stop looking at that man's ass."
"Gretchen, I don't want to hear this."
"And the way he stands, you know, a little heavier on one foot, kind of cocky, like he's used to wearing a heavy tool belt all the time…and working with his hands…mhmmhmmmm…."
Now Tami was beginning to think Gretchen was just trying to get a rise out of her.
"He'd be really good as one of those male strippers who dresses like a construction worker," Gretchen said. "You know the kind."
"I don't know the kind, actually. And be quiet. Julie's waking up."
Gretchen laughed. She tilted her head to look at Julie yawning and stretching on the floor. "You and Eric sure made a cute baby."
[Sunday, September 9]
Eric had left Friday for another out-of-state game, this time in Arizona, and he didn't come back until midnight on Sunday. Julie had just woken up when he walked through the apartment door, and Tami was sitting on the couch, the TV on mute, the lights on low, feeding her.
Eric eased down on the couch next to her and sighed. She winced sympathetically for him. She'd listened to the game on the radio. Baylor had lost again, 13 to 34.
"At least y'all were on the score board this time," she said as she rubbed Julie's back up and down to work out a burp.
The baby let out an impressive belch, and Eric turned his head with a raised eyebrow. "See, she knows that's bullshit consolation."
"Eric," Tami said. "You played well."
"When coach finally let me in. We might have won if he hadn't waited until he'd given up to put me in."
Eric had thrown a long touchdown pass in the fourth quarter.
"Well, he probably knows that now, and you'll play more next time."
"He needs to decide who his quarterback is," Eric said.
"He does like to switch y'all around a lot."
"If I were a coach, I wouldn't keep switching horses in midstream like that. It creates confusion on the team. Causes a leadership vacuum."
"You want to put her to bed?" Tami asked, not waiting for an answer, and simply handing Julie over. He hadn't seen his baby in two full days. Of course he wanted to put her to bed. While he was, Tami crawled into bed herself.
"I know I lost," he said when he came to bed later, "but can I maybe get some small reward for that spectacular pass?"
She smiled. "What kind of reward did you have in mind?"
"Just a quickie. I know you're tired. And I promise, I'll romance you tomorrow evening."
"I'll put it on my calendar, after work and dinner and before studying and Julie's first feeding of the night."
"Well block out at least forty minutes for it, babe, because there will be wine and wild flowers picked from the side of the road and deep conversation."
She laughed and slid her panties off from under her nightshirt. With a baby in the apartment, Tami was learning to appreciate the value of the quickie.