[Sunday, April 21, 1991]
Julie took her first steps on draft day, in Gretchen's apartment. She was a little over nine months old, and she'd been standing with her hands on the coffee table, squealing and pounding its surface, when a flash of colors on ESPN caught her attention. She took three steps toward the TV and fell down.
Tami cheered and clapped while Julie crawled back to the table and pulled herself up. Eric got down on his knees, held open his arms, and said, "Walk to Daddy."
Julie laughed, fell to her hands and knees, and crawled to him. He gathered her up, sat her on his lap, and settled in the arm chair.
Stumpy put an arm around Gretchen's shoulders where they sat on the living room couch, and she lounged against him. A moment later, he exclaimed, "Holy shit!"
"Stumpy, not in front of the baby," Eric insisted.
"Sorry. But they just picked another defensive player. The first six were all defensive players! When was the last time that happened?"
"Never," Eric said. "No draft has ever begun with more than three consecutive defensive picks."
"Your husband is quite the repository of trivial knowledge," Gretchen said.
"It's not trivial," Eric insisted. "This is important stuff."
"And who do we expect to be drafted from the Bears?" Gretchen asked.
"Maybe Chuck," Stumpy said. "But probably not until day two." He shook his head. "Seven guys declared early this year. I don't know why you'd do that, renounce the rest of your college eligibility, when you know you're probably not going to get drafted. Eric has better odds than any of those guys, and he's still waiting and improving another year."
"What about you?" Gretchen asked.
"I'm waiting and improving two more years," Stumpy said. They had five years of eligibility. "I'm taking the minimum credits from here on out. This engineering major is really kicking my ass."
"Stumpy," Eric said, "the baby! Watch your mouth."
Tami chuckled. Eric said damn and hell and ass plenty around the baby. At least he didn't drop any f-bombs, though. She was sure Gretchen would at some point today.
Julie wriggled down from Eric's lap and crawled over to Stumpy. She pulled herself up on his knee and squealed at him.
"Hey, there, sweetie pie," Stumpy said. "You're going to grow up to give your daddy lots and lots of grief, aren't you? The boys are going to be beating down your door, aren't they?" Julie squealed and laughed while Eric frowned. "Eric, man, why don't you take the full five years, too? Spread out your course load. Take it easy?"
"I've got a family to support, Stumpy. I can't dick around in college for another year when I can get my degree in four. Next spring, I'll either get drafted or I'll finish my B.A. Either way, I'm done with college, and I'm ready to work full-time."
"Did you not notice you just said dick around?" Stumpy asked him. "In front of the innocent baby?"
"I didn't say dick around!" Eric insisted. "When did I say dick around?"
"You said dick around," Gretchen told him.
"Y'all," Tami interrupted, "I do not want my daughter's first word to be dick! Can we stop?"
Julie made a "Ddd….ddd….dddd" sound before squealing again. She dropped to the floor and crawled to Tami.
"When do they say their first words?" Gretchen asked.
"Usually between about now and 11 months," Tami answered as she pulled Julie up into her lap. "She's been early on everything else, but she hasn't even said mama or dada yet."
"We're taking bets," Eric told them, "on which one she'll say first. I predict dada."
"I'll put $10 on mama," Stumpy told him.
"I'll put a $20 on dick," Gretchen said. She cocked her head at Stumpy. "So, in two years, then, are you actually going to apply for the draft?"
"I'll be automatically eligible then, but I'm not getting drafted, Sunshine." Stumpy had picked that pet name just to annoy Gretchen. "Only one in 50 college players makes it. I'm not anywhere near that good."
"Yet," Eric said. "But you've been holding your own this season."
"I'll tell you what," Gretchen said, "if you make it to the NFL, I'll officially be your girlfriend."
"Is that supposed to be an incentive?" Stumpy asked with a smirk.
"Well you've been asking to make it official."
"I don't even see how it could be any more official," Tami said.
"He wants to shack up," Gretchen told her. "I think he just likes my TV."
"It is a good size," Stumpy said. "And you do have cable."
"This apartment is a bit of a commute to Baylor," Eric said. "Compared to the on-campus dorm you're living in."
Stumpy shrugged. "I like driving."
No Bears were drafted on day one, and Eric and Tami did not return to Gretchen's apartment the next day, because they had work and classes. When Eric got home that night, however, he told Tami, "Chuck made it! Redskins. Mind if I go out with the guys to celebrate?"
[May 17, 1991]
Pastor John had given Mom a Polaroid camera for her birthday, and she went through four packs of film before, during, and after Shelley's high school graduation. She let the photos accumulate in small piles as they developed, and just kept clicking away and switching out film. Tami felt a pang of jealousy. Mom had not been quite so avid at her own graduation, and Shelley wasn't even going to college next fall.
"What exactly are you going to do after your gap year?" Tami asked her after the graduation cake had been cut and they were all sitting around the table. Tami had not planned to allow Julie to touch cake until her first birthday in July, but as the girl sat on Eric's lap now, she brought a fistful of smushed icing to her mouth. Eric had scraped his off and left it on the side of his plate.
"I don't know, Tam," Shelley answered sarcastically. "Maybe I'll meet a prince in Europe and marry him and rule a small kingdom."
"You need a plan, Shelley," Tami insisted. "You need to go to college eventually."
"College is not the only way to make something of yourself," Shelley retorted. "I want to live. See the world. Experience things and people!"
"I'm sure you do," Tami said. "Just be aware you can't always do it on somebody else's dime." She glanced at Pastor John.
"I already told her that, Tami," Pastor John replied. "I only gave her a little money. She's saved up from her after school job, and she's doing this on the cheap."
That night, Shelley danced around the living room with a giggling Julie in her arms and sang, "Going to Europe…going to Europe, your aunt Shelley is going to Europe! Aunt Shelley! Shelley Shelly Bo Belly…Shelley!"
Julie laughed, squealed, and said, clear as day, "Ant Belly!"
Eric groaned. "No," he said. "No, that can't be her first word. Just…no."
[June 1991]
Tami had finished her spring semester with a strong 3.4 and regained her 50% academic scholarship for the fall. This summer, she was working forty hours a week in the admissions office, Monday through Thursday, from 8 to 6. Since she wasn't taking any summer classes, that gave her three full days a week to be with Julie.
Eric was taking two classes in addition to his football training and his twenty hours a week at the bookstore. He wanted to avoid history classes in the fall and take the minimum six credits, so that he could concentrate on improving his chances in the draft during his last season. Both were on track to graduate in May of 1992.
Though her job was administrative support, this past year, Tami had learned a lot about what the admission committee was looking for in applicants. She'd learned, too, about some of the less savory aspects of the admission process, and she was thinking more and more about becoming not a private therapist, but rather a high school guidance counselor.
She told Eric of her thoughts one Friday night, after Julie was in bed and they were having one of their "kitchen table date nights," which they'd promised themselves to squeeze in once a week. It was the same routine every time: candles lit on the table, no television on, a bottle of cheap wine between them, one to two hours of conversation, and then to bed for love making.
"I think you'd be really good at that," he said. "You'll have the admissions office experience, and the pysch degree…and you've been there… been that kid who needed that extra push. That would be a great match for you."
"If it weren't for Mrs. Mason's guidance, I'd never have gotten to know you and made it to Baylor. I want to encourage kids like me. And now that I know about the underbelly of the admissions process, I can navigate students through it. But a guidance counselor job wouldn't pay nearly as much as private therapy, you know."
He smiled. "Babe, if I make it to the NFL, we're not going to need the money."
Tami tried to avoid planning on Eric making it to the NFL, in case he didn't, but sometimes she couldn't help but enter the fantasy. "What is the average rookie salary these days?" she asked.
"The minimum was around $250,000 last year," Eric said with a grin.
The full-time guidance counselor positions she had been investigating in the career center only paid around $25,000 a year.
"What kind of car do you want me to buy you, babe?" He reached for her hand across the table.
They shouldn't play this game, Tami knew, in case he didn't make it, but she couldn't help it. She laced her fingers through his. "A 1992 Mustang. Red."
"Convertible?"
She nodded.
He pulled his chair around next to hers, draped an arm across her shoulder, and kissed her, first her lips, and then her ear, into which he whispered. "First, I'll pay off all your student loans." She'd probably have close to $9,000 by the time she graduated. That would be over a third of her entire year's salary as a guidance counselor, but only about 3% of his if he made the NFL. It almost made her own efforts to pursue a career seem insignificant. "Then I'll get you that diamond ring I still owe you." He kissed her ear again and pulled back to look at her. "Then the Mustang. And then a house. How many bedrooms do you want?"
She smiled, shook her head, and thought of stopping him. Instead, she found herself answering, "Five is plenty. I'd like a pool though. Assuming we're in the south."
"Well, if the Buffalo Bills want me, we can get a house with an indoor pool."
She put a hand tenderly on his cheek. She should stop this. She should remind him this dream might not become a reality, and that they might have to work their way up to home ownership over a period of years, just like everyone else. But she didn't. Instead, she said, "I want enormous walk-in closets. His and hers closets," and she envisioned hers, in all its glory, with built in shelves and benches, majestic storage space, plush, wall-to-wall carpet, and a full-length mirror.
He kissed the palm of her hand. "Of course, babe. I'll get you one. For all your shoes."
She giggled.
"The red pumps," he said with a wiggle of his eyebrow, "and the sexy, black high heels…" He lowered his voice. "And you're going to need room for all the lingerie I'm going to buy you."
She leaned in and kissed him. He rested a hand on her knee. Their kisses deepened, and his hand found its way under her blue denim skirt.
"And I'll get us silk sheets," he whispered into her ear as he began to push her legs apart. "And we'll have the perfect stereo system in the bedroom." He slipped two fingers under the edge of her panties. "And we'll play all your favorite music." She gasped as he began to stroke her. "And we'll get those expensive candles you love but never buy yourself." He nibbled on her earlobe but freed it to whisper, "Dozens of them. All around the bedroom." Tami couldn't believe how excited she was, with so little foreplay. Normally, Eric didn't go straight for the sweet spot like that, but she couldn't deny that she was already responding to his touch. She began to move against his fingers.
He drew his head back to look in her eyes as he increased the tempo of his touch. She whimpered and bit her bottom lip. His eyes held hers intensely as he spoke. "And you'll be lying on our king-size bed, in all that candlelight, and you'll be wearing my new jersey and nothing else…And I'll push up that jersey slowly…"
She closed her eyes. "Oh God, Eric," she whimpered.
"Undo my pants, babe."
She opened her eyes so she could pop free the button of his jeans and draw the zipper down while he continued to touch her.
"Touch me too."
He was hard when she slid her hand in his boxers. She kissed him hungrily as they played with one another until neither could stand it anymore, and he sat her on the kitchen table. Eric lowered his jeans and boxers to his knees while she wiggled out of her panties.
He'd just pushed into her with a low groan when Julie started crying in the nursery: "Mama, dada, dada, mama, mama!"
Tami was completely distracted, and her arousal plummeted almost immediately, but Eric kept going. He finished quickly, groaning with mingled pleasure and annoyance, as Julie's "Mama! Mamam! Dada! Mamama!" continued in the background.
Tami pushed him away. "I have to check on her," she said, and stood and lowered her skirt.
Eric was breathing hard, but he still managed to spit out words. "What, does she have a radar or something? This is the third time we've been interrupted in two months!"
"I know," Tami muttered, no less frustrated than he was. More frustrated, actually. At least he'd had satisfaction, if a hurried kind. "You'd better take damn good care of me later, sugar."