The door rattled in its wooden frame as the Reverend knocked. "Tami, open up."

"I want to be left alone!"

"I made Eric tell me what happened. I know what happened with Mo. Open up and let me…just let me."

"Go away, Daddy!"

Silence.

[*]

Twenty minutes later, another knock. Her father's voice at the door: "Your mother made a delicious corned beef and cabbage. It's one of her best. Come eat with us."

Her cry was muffled by the tissues against her nose: "Go away."

Silence.

[*]

Fifteen minutes later, another knock.

"I've left a plate in the hallway," her father said. "In case you're hungry."

[*]

Tami never did emerge from her room. At some point, she cried herself to sleep. Friday morning, another knock came to her door, Shelley's voice this time: "It's almost time to leave for school, Tami!"

The pep rally would be this morning. Tami couldn't stand the thought of attending it. She couldn't tolerate Mo trotting out there proudly on the gym floor, to the beat of the band, with Anita doing her stupid, slutty cheers. She didn't want to confront Mo about his infidelity yet, not in front of the whole school, at this time of feverish excitement, on the morning of the State Championship.

"I'm sick!" she hollered through the door. "I can't go!"

"But it's State today! You promised you'd let me ride with you and Kimberley! I'm sure Daddy won't let me go if you're not there to supervise me! You promised. You - "

Tami heard her father's voice, calling Shelley's name. He must have led her away to talk to her.

[*]

Several minutes later, the Reverend's voice, even in its softness, broke through the barrier of Tami's door: "I've arranged for Shelley to go to State with a family I trust. If you need to stay home today, very well. If you don't want to go to State, very well. But this afternoon, when I come home from the office, we will talk."

[*]

Tami cried herself back to sleep. She slept until 10:30 AM, when, famished from her skipped dinner the previous night, she thought of venturing out to eat, but she knew her mother would be home. Mrs. Hayes volunteered from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM at the food pantry. So Tami waited another half hour before going to the kitchen. She found the leftover corned beef her father had returned to the fridge when it was clear she wasn't going to open her door to eat it. It didn't taste like anything at all when she gobbled it down, but it stopped the gnawing in her stomach.

When the kitchen phone rang, she answered it instinctively. As soon as she had said hello, she feared it might be Mo, but it was only Kimberley.

"Hey, Tami. I'm calling from the school office. They said you're out sick today? Are you going to be able to ride to Abilene with me for the game?"

"I can't go," Tami muttered.

"Do I still need to take Shelley?"

"She's going with another family."

"Tami, are you okay?" Kimberly's voice was high with concern. "You sound like you've been crying."

"I'm just…stuffed up."

"You can't take a bunch of medicine? I mean…it's State."

"I'm throwing up every couple of minutes," she lied.

"Oh, poor thing. What horrible timing. Well, you won't miss Mo playing. Rumor is Coach Tanner is going to bench him for the entire game just because he was fifteen minutes late for the practice yesterday."

Tami suddenly felt like she did want to throw up.

"Seems kind of harsh," Kimberley continued. "Jack thinks Coach just expects Eric to carry the entire game and he wants to try out that new JV guy for a little when he's resting Eric. Not fair to Mo, though. I mean, to not be able to play at State!"

Tami dug her nails into the formica countertop. She didn't want to hear the words fair and Mo in the same sentence. As far as she was concerned, nothing would be too unfair for Mo right now.

"You should probably know," Kimberley said, "that Mo and Eric go into a fight after the pep rally, in the hall, before the team bus left."

"What were they fighting over?"

"You, apparently."

Oh God. Did everyone know already? Did they all know what a fool she'd been? How she'd been thrown over for Anita Nisebth? Did everyone know before she'd even had a chance to confront Mo? No, she thought. If they did, Kimberley would be acting very differently right now.

Kimberley continued, "Mo said that Tony said he saw Eric hugging you in the parking lot yesterday. Is that true?"

"Yes, but it wasn't like that. I just got some bad news and he was comforting me." Tami would tell Kimberley about Mo, eventually, but she couldn't bring herself to do it right now, not while Kimberley was standing in the school office and about to head to State.

"Comforting you?" Kimberley asked doubtfully. "You were being comforted by the guy you told me is adorable when he smiles?"

How could it possibly be that Tami was the one being painted as a cheater here? "I told you that because I thought you were talking about him and that you liked him. I was trying to fix you two up. Eric and I are just friends!" That was, if he still considered her a friend after the awful things she'd said to him yesterday. "And yes, he was just comforting me."

"Well, Mo sure didn't like it. He got up in Eric's face about it. And Eric just stood there, looking really pissed off, not saying a word."

A temporary relief soothed some of Tami's tension. Eric, it seemed, had not told anyone – not even Mo - what Tami had seen.

"And Mo just kept after him, calling him a liar, telling him to stop coming on to you, and then Eric just…bam! Without a word, he threw Mo against a locker. Then Mo shoved him against another locker, but before it could get any worse, Principal Coolidge broke it up. They were in his office until the team bus left."

Tami couldn't believe the nerve Mo had, to calling Eric a traitor. Mo didn't know the meaning of betrayal.

"What were you doing after school that late yesterday anyway?" Kimberley asked.

"I stayed to watch the practice."

"I didn't see you there. I was there. Why didn't you come hang out with me?"

"Kimberley, I have to go. I think I'm going to throw up." Tami hung up the phone.

[*]

The trash basket beside Tami's bed was overflowing with crumpled tissues. She'd just tossed another one on top of the teetering mound when there came a knock at the door. She didn't answer. The doorknob rattled. "Tami, unlock this door," her father demanded.

Reluctantly, she did. She crawled back into her bed and sat up on top of the comforter against the headboard. The Reverend Hayes pulled out her desk chair, turned it to face her, and sat down. "Mo won't be the last boy you ever love," he said.

"He'll be the last boy I ever trust."

"No. He won't. But it's okay to be angry right now. And it's probably a good idea if you don't date for a while. Maybe not until college."

"Daddy, if I ask you some questions, will you promise to tell me the truth?"

"Yes."

"How will I know if it's the truth?" she asked.

"Have I ever lied to you?"

Tami blinked to hold back the tears. "How would I know if you had? I didn't know Mo was lying!"

"You suspected. Part of you suspected."

She gritted her teeth. Speaking of liars, how often had she lied to herself?

"What are your questions, sweetheart?"

"Did Eric tell you Mo was cheating on me? Before I found out, did he tell you?"

"No."

"He didn't tell you, not on a single one of those afternoons you spent at the bar? I know about your Saturday afternoons."

"We never talked about you."

"Did you know that Mo was cheating on me?" she asked. "Did you set me up to discover him?"

"I never would have put you in such a situation, Tami, and shocked you in that way, but it doesn't particularly surprise me that he was cheating. I watched him change. You watched it too. You just didn't want to see it. First he let the attention go to his head toward the end of last season, as I warned you he might, and then when Eric stepped in, and Mo lost all that attention," the Reverend snapped his fingers, "like that, he let the jealousy go to his head. And he sought that attention elsewhere."

"But I gave him attention!" It wasn't until she'd said it that she realized the admission she was making.

Her father's face reddened, and he looked almost sick to his stomach. But he didn't ask about what kind of attentions she'd paid Mo. Instead, he said, "You can't satisfy an ego that's collapsing into a black hole, Tami. And that cheerleader won't be able to satisfy it either. Until Mo realizes that, though, he's just going to keep spiraling down. Don't let him take you down with him."

"One more question." Tami looked down at her bedspread, a swirl of pink and purple patches, which had been quilted together by her grandmother in a more innocent time. Tami was far too old for such a girlish pattern now, but it had been the last gift Grandma Hayes had given her before she died, and Tami still cherished it. "Have you ever cheated on Mom?"

"What?"

"Have you?" Tami looked up, a little defiantly. "Is that why you had marriage problems?"

"No. Tami, no. How could you think that?"

"Well I didn't think Mo was cheating on me!"

"Tami, adultery is so destructive. It tears apart hearts. It tears apart families. It overthrows people's minds, makes them doubt themselves. It's a psychological torture to the victim. I haven't always been the best husband. But I have never, ever, done that. I swear to you. Please believe me."

Tami was relieved to discover that she did believe him. It wasn't all dead, her faith. "I do," she said quietly, and then repeated his words, "A psychological torture." She picked at a loose string on her comforter. "I know Mo and I weren't married, but…that's kind of how I feel right now. Like I'm being… tortured."

"I'm sure it is." There was silence between them for a moment, and then he said, "When you were a little girl, and you would fall and skin your knee, and you would come to me crying, I would kiss it and make it all better. I wish to God I could do that now."

She smiled weakly. "You used to take me for ice cream, too. You said ice cream freezes the pain away."

He nodded. "Want to go for ice cream?" he asked hopefully.

"I don't want to go anywhere. But if you were to go buy a pint of Blue Bell's Mint Chocolate Chip, and bring it home…I wouldn't say no."

They ate the ice cream before dinner, and Tami's mother didn't even scold them for running their appetites. Tami was glad Shelley was gone for State. Her little sister would be asking too many prying questions about why Tami wasn't going.

During dinner, Tami's mother was strangely attentive, constantly offering to refill her glass, get her a second helping, and asking her if the thermostat was too high.

"I wish we had cable," Tami said. "I didn't want to go to the game, but it would be nice to know what's going on." The game was being televised on one of the cable stations, but the Reverend refused to spring for that modern technology. They had rabbit ears and got five stations.

"We could turn on the radio," Mrs. Hayes suggested.

The Reverend dropped his napkin on the table. "I'll do you one better. Let's go watch it at Taylor's."

"I don't know..." Tami said. "People will wonder why I'm not at the game. And it's probably already halfway through the second quarter anyway."

"Everyone you know will be out of town at the actual game. It shouldn't be crowded, and they have a huge television."

"Are you coming?" Tami asked her mother. She didn't want her to. Tami could relate to her father much better than her mother, and she didn't want to be beneath her mother's scrutiny while she was watching the game.

"I'm not much for bars," Mrs. Hayes said. "I think I'll just stay behind and clean up."

"Okay," Tami said to her father. "Let's see how the Tigers are doing."