After dinner that night, when Eric had gone home, Shelley had gone to "study with a friend," and the Reverend had retreated to his study, Tami washed the dishes as her mother cleared the table. She was running a brush around a plate when Mrs. Hayes said, "Can you believe Shelley's suggestion at ice cream the other night?"

"That was very rude of her," Tami agreed, the tension cinching every muscle in her body. She didn't know how much her parents talked about her. She knew they didn't see eye to eye on parenting styles and rules, and her father had always had more heart-to-heart talks with her than her mother. In fact, her mother didn't do heart-to-heart talks at all. She issued dictates, ultimatums, and admonishments. Parenting differences was one of the things that had brought Tami's parents to marriage counseling in the first place, and perhaps they had learned to communicate better since then. Her father probably had told her mother she was having sex with Eric. Tami was quite possibly busted. She better be careful what she said.

"She was implying that because Eric's parents were out of town, you went to his house and had sex."

"She was implying that," Tami agreed. She knew her mother wasn't going to be direct and ask if she was having sex. It was shocking enough for her father to have done so, but her mother was never too personal with her. She maintained her emotional distance, Tami thought, to maintain her authority.

So far, Tami wasn't lying.

"But of course you know that premarital sex is a sin," her mother said.

Tami made no reply. She slid the dish in the drying rack they kept on the counter. The parsonage didn't have hook-ups for a dishwasher, and her father wasn't paying for them, not when the house wasn't really his, and not when he had a wife and daughters to do the dishes.

"You know," Mrs. Hayes continued, "that your body is a temple, and you should never give it away cheaply to some young man you aren't even married to."

Tami made a non-committal murmuring sound.

"You know that, don't you, Tami?"

"What do you think of Eric, Mom?"

"You know I like Eric. I like him better than that Mo fellow. He has a servant's heart, Eric does, but strength too. I saw that in the hospital. I can't imagine Mo being that kind of rock at that moment. But as much as I like Eric, all teenage boys are the same when it comes to what they're after from teenage girls."

"No, they're not all the same," Tami insisted. "Eric and I have talked about the future. About where we'd like to be, one day, together."

"So you think this is the boy you're going to end up marrying?" her mother asked.

"I think there's a possibility," Tami said, glad to have moved off the topic of sex.

"Make sure you finish college first."

This demand surprised Tami. "You didn't."

"I didn't even finish high school. I was an eighteen-year-old drop-out, trying to help my father raise my little brothers and sisters, when I met your father." She looked a little dreamily out the kitchen window. She was clearly looking at a picture in her own mind, because there was nothing attractive in the narrow alley that separated the parsonage from the insurance office next door. "He was twenty-three. So confident, Tami. So on fire for God."

On fire for God was not how Tami thought of her father. His was a steady but quiet faith, not a loud, churning fire. Perhaps he had been different in his younger years, as a recent college graduate and new seminary student.

"He made me feel like I could have a future beyond the farm," her Mom said. "A future in the town." She chuckled to herself. "And now, when Shelley's out of this house, I'm going to have a future in the city." She leaned back against the counter. "But you, Tami, you can have future anywhere you like, and you don't have to wait twenty-five years to seize it."

"I know that, Mom."

"Don't have kids until you've had a career for a little while first. Wait until you're at least twenty-nine. Because once those little babies are in your arms, you're not going to want to go back right away. If you have them too early, you'll lose ground in your career, and you won't ever have gotten in the groove."

Tami raised an eyebrow. Another surprise. She thought her mother considered it God's command, and a woman's duty, to be fruitful and multiply.

"It may be the 1980s, Tami," her mother said, "and I may have lived to see women's liberation, but some things haven't changed, especially not for a traditional boy like Eric. A mother's role is more demanding than the father's. And you're going to end up with more of the household duties. That's just the way it is. And he's going to expect support in his career. And I don't guess being a coach's wife is going to be any easier than being a pastor's wife."

Tami put the last dish in the drying rack and turned off the water. "How so?"

"The pastor and the football coach are both central figures in a town, especially a small town, and being married to one will put you in a sort of spot light. You'll be expected to do things you might not be interested in doing, and to do them with a smile. You'll have to invite people in your house you'd just as soon not." Tami's mother sighed. "It's going to be a nice break when your father is a professor in a big city, when no one but his students and colleagues know who he is, and I don't have to stand by his side in a doorway every week."

"I thought you liked being a pastor's wife. You're so…religious."

"Your father does good work, Tami, and I'm glad to support him in it. He's one of the better men of the cloth out there. But sometimes I'd just like to be Linda Hayes. Linda Hayes, and not the pastor's wife. And I think if you end up married to Eric, and he does realize his dream of becoming the head coach of a high school, there are going to be days you wished you were something more than the coach's wife. So you better make sure you have that college degree, and you have some work under your belt, so any day you feel you need to, you can be more."

"Well I intend to do all that, Mom," she said. "I don't know about waiting until I'm twenty-nine. Maybe twenty-six. I want energy for my kids, too, but I intend to do all that."

"Good."

"It's not like we're getting married tomorrow. We're just talking about a possible future us."

"Just talking," Tami's mother murmured. "Uh-huh. And how many eighteen year olds do you think are talking at all about their futures together, Tami? How often did you just talk to Mo about it?"

"Never," Tami admitted, and felt a sudden chill of excitement.

[*]

Kimberley skated out of the joint, whirled around, and set the tray of milkshakes on the stone table. Tami took her strawberry shake and handed the chocolate one to Eric. Jack plucked up his banana shake and said, "You're pretty hot in skates. And those uniform shorts."

"They're way too short," Kimberley grumbled, sitting down on the bench next to Jack. "But they do earn me better tips." She took a sip of his milkshake.

"Hey!" Jack said. "The manager's not going to like you stealing food from the customers."

"Aww…well, I'll give you a taste." Kimberley kissed him.

"Enough already!" Eric said. "We're in public."

"Your boyfriend never kisses you in public, huh?" Kimberley asked Tami.

"I don't know. Let me see." Tami kissed Eric, and he smiled and blushed beneath her kiss, but pretty soon he was responding. She pulled away. "I guess he does."

"Three more weeks," Kimberley said, "and we are done with high school. Done. Glorious freedom!"

"College is going to be a lot of work," Jack said. "Especially for those of us who are playing ball." He fist bumped Eric.

"That's like two full-time jobs right there," Eric agreed. "Of course, I don't have the pressure of trying to make it to the NFL. I can just have fun."

Kimberley laughed. "Jack's not going to make it to the NFL." Jack frowned, and she toyed with his hair. "I'm just being realistic. How many college players make it? What? Two percent?"

Tami didn't think anything of her comment. It seemed reasonable enough to her, but Eric was looking at her kind of funny. "Do you not realize how good Jack is?" Eric asked. "He didn't get a full scholarship to the #7 college football team in the entire country for nothing."

Kimberley glanced at Jack, appearing a little impressed, and then back at Eric. "But you don't expect to make it to the NFL, and you were the one who brought us to State."

Eric laughed. "I'm the quarterback. The quarterback always gets the limelight, but the quarterback can't win games without good receivers. Jack has been consistently the best player on the Tigers, since before I ever got here." Jack was looking down in his milkshake now, smiling a little. "He's a way better player than I am."

Kimberley laughed happily. "Well, then, who knows," she teased. "Maybe you'll have millions of dollars to support your ten kids and you can buy your own pew at church." She kissed Jack's cheek and didn't notice he was frowning. "I better get back to work." Kimberley skated away.

"I have to get going," Jack said, and seized his milkshake and left the table.

"What's he so upset about?" Tami asked Eric.

"She said your kids. He knows, Tami. He knows she's going to dump him before the summer's over. And he's not happy about it. He loves her."

Tami's lips turned down sympathetically. "Poor Jack. But, you know, it's probably for the best she does it before college, so he can be free to find someone else."

Eric slid and arm around her waist and scooted a little closer on the half-circle, stone bench. "You know I don't want to be free to find someone else, right?" he whispered.

She smiled. "I know. Don't worry. I'm working on your shackles." She winked, he chuckled, and they kissed.