[Thursday, December 17]
Eric got a substitute teacher and took two days of leave before winter break started. Tami was surprised. As careful a planner as he seemed to be, she thought he would hold onto that leave in case he really needed it later. Perhaps football season had wiped him out. "I gotta burn that leave somehow," he told her, "And I can't get any work out of those kids two days before Christmas break anyway. Besides, I need some daddy daughter time."
So on Tami's Thursday off, Eric took Andrew and Julie to the Science Place in Dallas, where he expected them to spend most of the day digging for fossils. Meanwhile, Tami met her old college roommate for lunch at a Czech bakery in West, Texas, which was about thirty minutes from Gretchen's apartment and an hour from Tami.
"Who would expect a rest stop at a gas station to have such fantastic kolaches?" Gretchen asked as she devoured her third. She looked different to Tami. She'd grown her hair longer and was dressed quite professionally, and her make-up was less bold. She also seldom swore now.
"They do have a sizable Czech population here," Tami said.
"Y'all coming to the John Hancock Bowl?" The Bears would be playing Arizona at Sun Bowl Stadium. It would be Stumpy's last college football game.
"I don't think so," Tami said. "Eric would love to see the game, but that's over an eight hour drive to El Paso one way. We'd have to pay for gas and get a hotel. We can't even afford a hotel for our anniversary this weekend."
"How many years is it now? Three?"
Tami nodded.
"Hard to believe. Time flies."
"Tell Stumpy we're sorry, we'd love to see him play, but we think, with Julie and all...we'll just have a quiet New Year's Eve at my father-in-law's."
"He offered Stumpy a job, after college, your father-in-law. I guess he's seriously grown his business. He's renovating an entire apartment complex? Needs a mechanical engineer for the HVAC or something?"
"I don't know the details. I just know he's doing really well for himself."
"Stumpy's thinking about it." Gretchen pulled the coffee to herself. "He's played a lot better this season, but he doesn't expect to get drafted. He'll finish his degree in the spring, and then maybe go to work for Mr. Taylor. I'm not sure what I'll do if he takes that job, though."
"You don't think you'll follow him to Dallas?" Tami asked. It would be nice to have a friend just thirty minutes away.
Gretchen shrugged. "I have a great job already. But this thing is getting serious. He's moving in with me after Christmas."
Tami raised an eyebrow. "Really? I thought you didn't want to live with him."
Gretchen smiled slightly. "If I had someone to help pay the rent, I could save a little extra."
"So, if he moves to Dallas after graduation," Tami asked, "you'd just do the long distance thing?"
"I'm not quitting a job and packing up and moving without a marriage proposal, and I doubt I'm getting a marriage proposal."
"Do you want a marriage proposal?" Tami asked with some surprise.
"Well...funny thing happened. I went and fell in love with the guy. I have no idea why. And if I am going to start making compromises, I think I better have some assurance he's still going to be there for a long time after I make them."
Tami pushed her coffee cup aside. "Does he know you're thinking all this?"
"I don't want to say the word marriage, Tami. For a guy, that's like jumping out from behind a door and shouting Boo! He's gonna have a heart attack."
"I don't know. Stumpy's kind of...traditional. I mean, he comes from a big Catholic Italian family."
"He's a college football player. He's good-looking. Maybe not as good looking as Eric, but not bad at all. He's smart too. And funny. On top of all that, he's probably going to build himself a kick-ass career in engineering. He could have his pick of a lot of women. I don't think he's looking for a ball and chain right now."
"He's the one who wanted to move in with you," Tami reminded her.
"Move in, yeah," Gretchen said. "That's just the thing. He wants free milk."
"You see him wanting to move in as a lack of seriousness on his part?"
"Eric didn't want to move in with you. He wanted to marry you."
"Only because I was knocked up."
"Well, I'm not getting knocked up."
"Good call," Tami told her.
"And Eric would have proposed your senior year, baby or no baby. You know it."
They talked for an hour longer before Gretchen suggested going to the Dr. Pepper museum in Waco, which had opened last year. Both agreed the museum was a waste of the entry fee, although they did have fun laughing about the memorabilia and old movie posters, and they got a fix at the soda fountain afterward. Tami had a Pink Cow, which was made with Big Red and vanilla ice cream, and on her drive back to Arlington, she felt a little sugar buzzed.
[Friday, December 18]
On Friday, Eric stayed home with Julie. He told Tami he had big plans for a tea party and a several of hours of game tape. Tami had a fulfilling but exhausting day of counseling sessions, and the traffic was awful on her way home. As she stopped and started her way through the continuing construction, she hoped Eric had started dinner. She suspected he had not, and that she would find him glued to his recliner, football on the television, Julie snacking on something unhealthy.
When she came through the apartment door, however, he not only had dinner on the table, but candles and champagne, and he had soft, romantic country music playing from the living room stereo.
Tami's eyes widened. "What's all this? Where's Julie?"
"You know what Sunday is, don't you?" Eric asked. He had on khaki pants and a dark green, button-down shirt that set off his hazel eyes. He'd dressed up for her.
She smiled. "It's our anniversary. But that's in over a day. I wasn't expecting..." She looked at the breakfast nook again. He'd even put on a white tablecloth. "Where's Julie?"
"She's at your mother's in Tyler. I drove her there this morning, after our tea party. They're going to keep her all weekend. I'll go get her Monday morning. I can't afford to take you on an anniversary get away this year, so I thought we'd get away right here."
She took the few steps toward her husband, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. When she pulled back, he looked very pleased with himself. "Sometimes you surprise me," she said. "You can be very thoughtful and romantic."
"And that surprises you?"
She chuckled.
"That's kind of offensive, babe."
"Well...you are a big, strong jock," she said with a teasing smile.
"And you hate that."
She toyed with the hair at the back of his neck. Their eyes smiled at one another. "Yeah, I hate all that virile, masculine, hard..." She leaned in and kissed him. Their tongues danced. Tami didn't know what food he'd put on the table, but she knew it was about to grow cold.
Somehow, she ended up sitting on the lowest kitchen counter, her panties pulled down, her high heels still on, Eric between her legs, her hands gripping the counter top, his hands gripping her hips, his name spilling repeatedly from her lips.
Later, he reheated the food, and they toasted themselves for surviving three married years together.
For the next two days, they turned their apartment into a resort. They took walks, hand-in-hand, on a path through the sparse woods behind their apartment. They pretended their bathtub was a hot tub, and filled it with bubbles and covered the rim with tea candles. They ordered take out as if they were ordering room service - pizza, Chinese food, and then subs. They cuddled on the couch and watched all of their VCR-ed episodes of the shows they didn't have time to watch during football season. And they made love anywhere and everywhere they wanted, without fear of interruption.
Eric would often surprise Tami on their anniversary in the years to come, and he would usually take her for the night to a fancy hotel or a bed and breakfast, and sometimes he would even take her out of town for two or three days, to Austin or San Antonio. But she would always remember that budget, at-home, third year anniversary celebration as her favorite.
[December 25, 1992]
Christmas was hosted by the elder Taylors and attended by Tami's mother and Pastor John, but Shelley was going to her boyfriend's for the holiday.
"They've moved in together," Tami's mother muttered over dinner. "I don't understand these kids today. Living in sin. You and Eric never did that."
Eric and Karen both seemed uncomfortable. Pastor John looked as if he had gone off into some other world within his mind, but Mr. Taylor appeared amused. He smiled into his water glass.
"No," Tami said, unwilling to let her mother rewrite history, "but Eric knocked me up pretty good before we were married, didn't he?"
"There's no need to go around mentioning that, Tami," her mother insisted with a near gasp.
"Who wants wine?" Karen asked suddenly, and Mr. Taylor smiled at her. Karen winced, as though she'd suddenly remembered Tami's mother was a teetotaler.
"I'll have a glass, thank you," Pastor John said.
"John!" Tami's mother exclaimed. "You don't drink!"
"My love, I do drink. On occasion. I suppose it's time you knew, especially now that I'm working on my novel." Pastor John had officially retired as of December 15. He apparently didn't want to preach one last Christmas Eve sermon. "I might imbibe more often now."
"What? What do you mean?"
"I didn't drink publicly when I was a pastor because some of those parishioners can be so...petty. But I have some whiskey up in my study. Eric knows. I think he's hit it before."
Eric looked down at his plate.
"John!" Tami's mother explained. "Well I never...I..." She shook her head.
"Just a nip here and there, dear. Nothing to get excited about. Truly. Don't worry yourself."
"Don't worry myself? What else are you hiding from me?"
"Just your birthday present. It's in the same place as the whiskey."
Karen had disappeared and now reappeared with the wine bottle, which she handed to her husband, along with a corkscrew, to open. Meanwhile, she pulled wine glasses down from the hutch.
"Well!" Tami's mother exclaimed. She sat back in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest. She scowled at her husband, who smiled back at her, a smile that was partly affectionate, partly wearied, partly challenging, and partly afraid. Their relationship was still a mystery to Tami.
Karen began to pour, catching Mr. Taylor's eye as she did so. He suppressed a chuckle.
Tami's mother sighed. "I suppose you might as well pour me one too, Karen."
"What?" Tami and Eric asked in unison.
Tami's mother threw up a hand. "If you can't beat them, join them."
Two glasses of wine later, Tami's mother was saying, "Good Lord, Garrett, I had such a crush on you after that first time you came over to fix those things around my house. Just the look of you in those dark jeans and that tight shirt and that tool belt! I mean, good Lord!"
Eric grew wide eyed and seemed to freeze in place. Karen studied the sediment in her empty wine glass. Pastor John narrowed his eyes at Mr. Taylor, who appeared flattered, embarrassed, and amused. Tami sprung up from the dining room chair. "Mom, why don't you and I go for a little walk?" she suggested. "Get some fresh winter air?"
"Indeed," Pastor John muttered underneath his breath.
[December 31, 1992]
Tami and Eric rang in the New Year at the home of the elder Taylors. Andrew was walking confidently now and doing his best to keep up with Julie. They watched the bowl game which was televised on CBS. Stumpy got quite a lot of playtime.
"He's much improved. He's a good learned. That's why I think he'll make a fine employee."
"Did he say yes?" Eric asked.
"Not yet," Mr. Taylor said. "But I extended a favorable offer. I'm sure he will, once he graduates in May. I certainly hope so, anyway, because the project I need him for starts in June."
"You won the bid?" Eric asked.
"Not yet. But I will."
Karen chuckled. "Confidence is sexy, darling, but so is humility."
"I will win the bid," Mr. Taylor said, "but then I'll bring my paycheck home to the beautiful wife I don't deserve."
Karen leaned over and rewarded him with a kiss on the cheek, made through her laughter.
"Oh yeah!" Eric shouted, standing from the arm chair where he'd been sitting. Mr. Taylor leaned forward. Stumpy had just caught a forward pass and was headed for the end zone.
"Tooch-dow!" Andrew shouted when he saw his father cheer.
"Do you know that was his first word?" Mr. Taylor asked. "Touchdown?"
"It was not," Karen insisted. "His first word was mama."
"No, he said touchdown three weeks before he said mama," Mr. Taylor insisted.
The Bears won the bowl game, 20 to 15, but before they did, both Andrew and Julie fell asleep, Andrew belly down on the living room floor, and Julie across Eric's lap, legs draped over the armchair. Mr. Taylor went to get the champagne at a quarter til midnight.
"Is that the champagne you bought when you thought I was going to make it to the NFL?" Eric asked when his father brought the bottle to the living room.
"No," Karen told him. "We drank that months ago for our third anniversary."
Eric looked at Tami and smiled. He was no doubt thinking of their own celebration of their third anniversary. Tami blushed a little at the memories they'd made that weekend and smiled back.
"We'll need to buy another one when you finish up your degree," Mr. Taylor told Karen. Then he addressed Eric and Tami: "She's going to be doing her residency at Texas Presbyterian." He squatted down and tickled Andrew gently awake.
Andrew stirred and murmured.
"Ball's about to drop, Drew, my boy," Mr. Taylor said. "You want to see it?"