The Tailgate Read Free Page A

Dabney said. “Bye-bye.”
    She replaced the receiver at 4:00 on the nose. “It’s all yours,” she said to Kendall.
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    Her small overnight bag contained her nightgown, toothbrush, clean underwear, and a pink oxford shirt for Sunday. Dabney had returned the black outfit to Solange with a heavy heart.
    â€œI won’t need it after all,” Dabney said. “We aren’t going out.”
    â€œMerde!” Solange said. “How come?”
    Dabney shrugged. She was too dejected to explain.
    Solange, realizing this, pulled the silver dollar out of her grandmother’s cocktail purse and pressed it into Dabney’s palm. “Take this though, okay? You can give it back to me on Monday.”
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    Dabney placed the chicken salad sandwiches and the rest of the picnic in her laundry basket with some strategically placed ice packs. She took one of the valiums Dr. Donegal had prescribed for emergencies. The silver dollar was deep in the front pocket of her jeans.
    She was ready.
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    Jason had a sign in the window of his Camaro that said Yale Bowl or Bust! Mallory was already in the front seat working the radio when Dabney climbed in. Mallory was wearing a crimson Harvard hooded sweatshirt and she had woven crimson ribbons through her blond hair. There was a cooler of beer in the backseat, a fact that Dabney might have found alarming—for the past few years the most popular public service announcement had been DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE—but all around them, cars were similarly decorated and cans of Miller Lite were being waved out of windows, and strains of very loud Tears for Fears competed with even louder Spandau Ballet. It was a tornado of crimson red fun and Dabney was in the swirling middle of it. This was a novelty; in going home to Nantucket every weekend, Dabney had missed much of college party life. She occasionally went to a party at Owl or Porc on a Thursday night, but that usually meant a disjointed conversation with a couple of upperclassmen/guys/boys about whether Simone de Beauvoir was a genuine intellect, or just a slut. Dabney was always back in her room by midnight.
    Now, Dabney let herself be swept away. She reached over the seat and grabbed a Budweiser from the cooler.
    â€œYale Bowl or bust!” she cried out.
    â€œWhoa there, sister,” Mallory said. “Easy now.” She settled the radio on “The Boys of Summer,” which was a pretty good choice for Mallory.
    Jason said, “I like seeing your wild side, Dab.” He grinned at her in the rearview mirror.
    Mallory swatted Jason’s arm. Dabney cracked open her beer and sucked off the foam. She hadn’t eaten any breakfast; the only thing in her stomach was the valium. Jason pulled onto the Mass Pike.
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    â€œBetter Be Good to Me,” Tina Turner.
    â€œMaterial Girl,” Madonna.
    â€œChange this, please,” Dabney said. “This song makes me ill.”
    â€œSummer of ’69,” Bryan Adams.
    â€œCalifornia Girls,” David Lee Roth.
    â€œHe ruined a perfectly good song,” Dabney said.
    â€œAgreed,” Jason said. “You know, I was thinking of writing my thesis on the phenomenon of the cover song—which artists enhanced the originals, which artists desecrated them, which artists equaled them. Do you think that’s meaty enough?”
    Like many athletes at Harvard, Jason was an American Studies major, which was another way of saying “anything goes.” But a thesis about cover songs?
    No, Dabney thought. However, her brain had been hijacked by the valium and the beer, and so the answer that came out of her mouth was, “Yes! That’s so creative. It will definitely get approval.”
    Mallory said, “I hate it when you guys talk over me.”
    Dabney said, “Oops, sorry, you’re right.” She sank low in the backseat, resting her legs over the cooler.
    â€œCareless Whisper” by