The Tailgate

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D
abney had no problem finding a ride to the game; everyone on campus owed her. Three weeks out, it looked like she would be driving to New Haven with two seniors from Owl, but she didn't know how to announce this fact to Clendenin without making him uncomfortable. Though he tried to hide it, he clearly became threatened every time Dabney mentioned another boy's name. Dabney and Albert Maku, for example, were
just friends,
but Clen was jealous because Dabney, apparently, went “on and on” about how much she enjoyed Albert's accent.

“I could never be romantically interested in Albert,” Dabney said with a laugh during one of their Tuesday night phone calls.

“Why not?” Clen challenged. “Because he's
black?
” Clen was studying journalism and was obsessed with probing “issues.”

“Because he's Albert,” Dabney said. “You know Albert.”

“Yes,” Clen said. “I do know Albert.” His tone was accusatory, meant to emphasize the fact that Clen had traveled to Cambridge four times freshman year, had seen her dorm room and strolled her campus and met her friends, while Dabney had yet to visit New Haven even once.

There was a reason for that, which they left undiscussed.

But at the start of sophomore year, Clen had announced that he would not set foot in Cambridge again unless Dabney came first to New Haven.

She had promised to come the third weekend of September and canceled, and then promised again the long weekend in October and canceled, saying she had too much studying to do. Her father paid eighty dollars a month so she could park her car on campus. But every Friday afternoon when Dabney got behind the wheel of the Nova, it took her to Hyannis, where she caught the ferry home to Nantucket.

It was a pathology, both Dabney and Clen knew this, but they did not speak of it. Or rather, they did not speak of it
anymore.
The topic was exhausted. What else could they possibly say? Dabney had been seeing a therapist since she was twelve years old, but aside from the fact that she had matriculated at Harvard, not much had changed. Harvard was a big step, and from this big step, Dabney felt, might be born smaller steps. Such as a trip to New Haven. But not yet.

November, however, presented a unique opportunity: The Game. Clen had come north for the game the year before with a carful of his new “friends” from Morse, his residential college. It had been strange to see Clen unpile from the beat-up woody intermixed with all those other…guys/boys/men—Dabney was never sure how to refer to males between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. Clen had been one of them, part of the group, right there in the scrum, whereas all through high school he had remained friendless, except for Dabney.

She had felt oddly betrayed by his having these friends, by this new membership in a group, a place he clearly belonged and fit in. The guys/boys/men were all tackling one another in Harvard Yard, holding each other in headlocks, calling one another raunchy names. Dabney had watched from the steps of Grays Hall, thinking,
He's become someone else.
He had sounded the same in his letters and during their weekly phone calls from the dormitory pay phone. But in that moment, Dabney had seen that he was different.

After a while, he had noticed her and trotted over. His bearing was more confident than she remembered, and he was growing a beard.

“Hey, Cupe,” he said. He kissed her deeply, theatrically, dipping her backward. The guys/boys/men whistled and hooted.

“So that's her, Hughes?” one called out.

“Well, let's hope so,” another said.

Dabney had reached up to touch Clen's face. “Beard?” she said.

“No,” he said defensively. “I just haven't had a chance to shave. Deadline, deadline, deadline.”

Right—because, even as a freshman, Clen had secured a spot as a feature writer for the
Yale Daily News
. He had been a superstar in high school—a “hundred-year genius,” their English teacher Mr. Kane had called him—and apparently his star shone just as brightly in New Haven. Dabney had been salutatorian to Clen's valedictorian but had gotten into Harvard, whereas Clen had not, but she found that her skills and intellect were average, nothing special. Her only standout talent was her matchmaking; she had already set up two couples in Grays Hall and had another potential match brewing. This hobby of hers was local legend back home and the source of Clen's nickname for her: “Cupe,” short for “Cupid.”

The game, the game! It was the perfect opportunity for Dabney to visit New Haven.
Everyone
from Harvard was going. By the time the week of the game rolled around, Dabney was able to tell the guys from Owl that she had found another ride, one that would be far more palatable to Clen. She would drive to New Haven with her roommate, Mallory, and Mallory's boyfriend, Jason, who was first line on the ice hockey team.

Just like Oliver Barrett!
Dabney had swooned the morning after Mallory had first hooked up with Jason.

Mallory had looked at Dabney with the vacant expression that occasionally overcame her pale, pretty face. Once or twice a week Mallory exhibited behavior that made Dabney question how she had gotten into Harvard. She was from Bozeman, Montana; that was, quite possibly, the answer.

“Oliver Barrett?” Dabney prompted. “From
Love Story
?”

Mallory shrugged. She was tired and hung over, her impressive mane of permed hair mussed from love gymnastics with Jason the hockey player. “Never seen it,” she said.

Dabney didn't know why she felt surprised. She had found few of her classmates were versed in the classics. Like much of the student body, Mallory was more interested in Howard Jones and
Top Gun.

Dabney then discovered, on a weekend when she, Dabney, gave Jason a ride to visit his sister at Tabor Academy, that Jason hailed from Ipswich, Massachusetts—
just like Oliver Barrett!
Dabney started calling Jason “Preppie.” Mallory didn't like when Dabney used this nickname for her boyfriend, nor did she like it when Jason offered to take Dabney to the game. But, as Jason pointed out, he owed Dabney a ride.

Dabney thought that riding to the game with Mallory and Preppie would be fun. She would do it.

She would do it!

Every Monday afternoon, Dabney spoke for fifty minutes to her therapist, Dr. Donegal. These calls she took on a private line in the Office for Student Life. Unlike Clen, Dr. Donegal never tired of discussing Dabney's issue, her rare form of agoraphobia, or maybe he did, but it was his job. He couldn't “fix” the problem—after eight years, they had learned it was something that couldn't be fixed—but he helped Dabney manage it.

“I'm going to New Haven,” she announced to Dr. Donegal the Monday before the Game.

“Excellent,” Dr. Donegal said. “It's a big step. I'm proud of you. Are you driving?”

“No,” Dabney said. “I'm afraid if I drive myself, I'll panic and head for home. So I'm going to catch a ride with my roommate and her boyfriend.”

“Mallory and her
boyfriend? The hockey player?”

Dabney loved how Dr. Donegal remembered the details of her life. He was a very good therapist.

“Yes,” Dabney said. “His parents just gave him a Camaro for his birthday.” Dabney had a bit of a car fetish and
was a devoted Chevy girl. In truth, the idea of riding in Jason's new Camaro thrilled her, even though she would be smushed like a thirteenth donut in the backseat. “Camaros are actually very safe cars.”

“Indeed they are,” Dr. Donegal said. “You'll be fine.”

“Fine,” Dabney said.

In her weekly phone call from the pay phone at the end of the third floor of Grays Hall on Tuesday evening, she told Clen. “I'm coming.”

He said, “I hear you saying that.”

She said, “You think I'm going to cancel.”

There was silence on his end. He was debating, she knew, whether to state the obvious truth—she always canceled—or to prop her up with false confidence.

He chose the latter. “I know you're coming,” he said. “I know there is no way you would cancel on coming to the game. You go to Harvard and I go to Yale. I am your boyfriend. You love me, and you'll be safe.”

“Safe,” she said.

She planned a picnic for the tailgate party: chicken salad sandwiches, a caramelized onion dip made with real onions and
not
dried soup mix, some crackers and good cheese—aged Cheddar, soft Brie—a jar of salted almonds, some plump Italian olives shiny in their oil, and several bunches of good-looking grapes. On Thursday, Dabney started preparing everything in the sad, small communal kitchen in the basement of Grays, then posted signs threatening libel and slander if anyone touched it. She could just imagine the softball players on the second floor coming home after a party and devouring the chicken salad.

Next, Dabney considered her outfit. She always wore jeans or a kilt, although for the game, she considered jazzing up her look. But it was November and the forecast for New Haven was sunny and forty-six degrees. Jeans, Dabney thought. White oxford shirt, navy peacoat, pearls, penny loafers, headband. That was fine for the game, but Clen had made them a dinner reservation afterward at Mory's Temple Bar, and Dabney needed something fancier. Luckily, Dabney lived just down the hall from Solange, a sophisticate from New York City who had gone to Spence and whose wardrobe included vintage YSL and Valentino pieces that she'd either stolen or salvaged from her mother's closet.

Solange was eager to help Dabney find a new look, not only because Solange liked dressing up her hallmates like life-sized dolls, but also because Dabney had set up Solange with her boyfriend, the fabulous Javier from Argentina, whose family owned a ranch bigger than the five boroughs and who, like Solange, was majoring in Romance Languages. Dabney had seen a rosy aura around Solange and Javier as they walked out of a Camus seminar together, which meant they were a perfect match. Dabney's special vision had yet to be proved wrong.

Solange rummaged through her closet. Dabney loved how Solange's room was decorated like something from Arabian Nights—jewel-toned Persian rugs, a silk pillow the color of a persimmon that was big enough for Dabney to sleep on, and an elaborate hookah that their R.A. had yet to know about.

Solange produced a black sequined batwing blouse. When Dabney tried it on, Solange smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Sexy.” Dabney had never worn black in her life—Dabney's grandmother had been of the opinion that a woman should not wear black until she turned twenty-five.

“And here,” Solange said. “I can't let you wear that blouse with your Levi's.” She pulled a pair of velvet cigarette pants out of her closet and a pair of black suede kitten heels with a dangerously pointy toe.

Dabney practiced walking around the room in the heels. Was she asking for trouble? Would she trip over herself at Mory's Temple Bar and face-plant in someone's cheese soufflé?

“We're going full throttle here,” Solange said. “There is no way you're carrying your Bermuda bag. I want you to take this.” Solange handed Dabney a silver cocktail purse that was fringed and beaded like a flapper's dress. “My grandmother carried this as a debutante in 1923. Look!” From out of the purse she produced a silver dollar from that year. “This is my lucky charm. I want you to take it with you on your special weekend.”

“Okay,” Dabney said. She wondered if lucky charms were transferrable. Solange was offering it so earnestly, Dabney decided to believe it would work.

Dabney gazed at herself in the mirror, fully dressed in black. She swished the beaded fringe of the purse so that it looked like the purse was dancing. Dabney no longer resembled herself; she had become someone else—someone exotic and sensual, someone who wasn' afraid to go new places. Someone who wasn't afraid of anything.

On Friday afternoon, Dabney was in her room starting her paper on J. D. Salinger's
Franny & Zooey,
when there was a knock on the door. It was Kendall, from down the hall.

Kendall said, “There's a call for you.”

“Call?” Dabney said.

Kendall nodded and tapped the toe of her raspberry-pink Chuck Taylor with clear impatience.

“Is it Clen?” Dabney asked.

“I think so,” Kendall said. “Sounded like it.”

This was highly unusual. Clen and Dabney only spoke on Tuesday evenings. On Friday afternoons, Kendall spoke to her “best friend,” a girl named Alison who went to UNC. Everyone on the floor knew that Kendall and Alison were more than just friends. Their phone calls were routinely eavesdropped on because Kendall liked to talk dirty, and every so often Kendall and Alison would have a fight that would be explosive enough to count as high entertainment.

It was ten minutes to four.

“I won't be long,” Dabney said, as she ran down the hall in her socks to where the receiver was dangling from the pay phone. It looked ominous, like an empty noose.

“Clen?” she said.

“Hey, Cupe,” he said.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. There was a pause, when Dabney realized he meant just the opposite.

“What is it?” she said. “What's wrong?”

“Uh,” he said. “Well.”

“What?” Dabney noticed that Kendall was lurking in the hall about ten feet away, ostensibly gazing out the window at the Yard, her attention riveted to the campus visitors rubbing the foot of the John Harvard statue, which was supposed to bring applicants good luck in the admissions office. But really, Kendall was there so that Dabney did not linger on the phone. Kendall played water polo. She had ten inches and fifty pounds on Dabney and was not unintimidating.

“Well,” Clen said.

Dabney's palms started to sweat. Unlike Kendall and her “best friend” in Chapel Hill, Dabney and Clen never fought on the phone; they never fought, period. All through high school it had been wedded bliss. They had always been in sync, navigating their emotional, physical, intellectual, and sexual blossoming side by side. Their only stumbling block now was the 140 miles that separated them. Despite the fact that they coexisted in two elitist bubbles of higher learning—one red, one blue—they had decided to keep up their relationship because to do otherwise was unthinkable. Freshman year had taught them that long-distance relationships were an art and a discipline. The weekly phone calls were part of the discipline. The art came in the letters. Dabney was more prolific, Clen more creative. He had once traced his hands on paper, cut them out, and sent them to Dabney so that she might place them on her shoulders when she needed comforting.