The Tailgate Read Free Page B

Wham!
    Something was up with Clen, but Dabney couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t as though she had expected a parade, but yes, she had expected a parade. She had expected dinner at Mory’s, she had expected Clen to hold her arm proprietarily and introduce her to everyone he knew.
    My girlfriend, Dabney Kimball.
    She had not expected to be left to her own devices for seven or ten hours.
    â€œWhat are you guys doing after the game?” Dabney asked.
    â€œI figure, get drunk before the game, take a flask into the game, nap in the car, then go find the parties,” Jason said. “But we’re leaving tomorrow morning at ten o’clock sharp. I have a paper to write on Mark Twain.”
    â€œTen o’clock sharp,” Dabney confirmed.
    â€œYou must be excited to see Clen,” Mallory said. “You guys go, like…months. I’m impressed by the level of trust.”
    â€œTrust?” Dabney said.
    â€œMe too,” Jason said. “I mean, you’re both in college. Does he ever worry that you’re going to cheat on him?”
    â€œCheat?” Dabney said.
    â€œDo you, like, have an understanding?” Mallory asked.
    Dabney wasn’t sure how to answer this. Words like trust and cheat didn’t really apply to Dabney and Clen. They were melded together; they were, essentially, the same person in two different bodies. It would never occur to Dabney to cheat, and she knew Clen felt the same way. They did have an understanding, which was that they were an unsplittable unit. After college, they would get married.
    â€œDon’t You Forget About Me” by Simple Minds.
    Dabney finished her beer, crumpled the can, and closed her eyes.
    Â Â 
    She awoke as they pulled onto Yale’s campus. As far as the eye could see, there was an ocean of blue and red.
    â€œWow,” she said. “Wow.”
    People were everywhere. There were the current students, who came in one of the two palettes, and then there were older alumni—couples in their early thirties with kids in strollers and retrievers on leashes, middle-aged couples with sullen-looking teenagers, and older couples, the men wearing blazers and school ties, the women in wrap dresses and sensible shoes. There was no reason for Dabney’s anxiety; what she was witnessing was continuity and tradition. The Harvard-Yale game had been played since 1879. Watching the alumni now was like watching different versions of herself and Clen—ten years from now, twenty years, forty years. They had already decided that, no matter what was happening in their lives, they would attend the Harvard-Yale game. Years the game was held in Cambridge, they would root for Harvard, and years it was held in New Haven, they would root for Yale. Presumably Yale would, in time, feel comfortable and familiar to Dabney. Safe. Not like now.
    â€œEast entrance,” Dabney said. “That’s where I’m meeting him. Where is it? Do we know where it is?” She felt her angst mounting, straining against the muting effects of the valium like a bulging tummy against a girdle. She did not like new, unfamiliar places. They terrified her. The only person who halfway understood was her friend Albert Maku, who came from Plettenberg Bay, South Africa.
    Were you afraid to come to Harvard? Dabney asked him.
    Yes, afraid, very afraid, Albert said. It’s like setting foot on another planet, where no one is familiar and I do not know the rules.
    Planet New Haven was overwhelming, even for sane people like Jason and Mallory.
    â€œJesus,” Jason said. “I’m just going to park here.”
    â€œIs this near the east entrance?” Dabney said.
    â€œI don’t know,” Jason said. “But it’s a parking lot and there are other Harvard cars here. This is where we’re parking.”
    Dabney squeezed her eyes shut and wished that she had taken a ride from the guys at Owl. Clark, who wore horn-rimmed