The Tailgate by Elin Hilderbrand

 
    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.
    â€œI could never be romantically interested in Albert,” Dabney said with a laugh during one of their Tuesday night phone calls.
    â€œWhy not?” Clen challenged. “Because he’s black? ” Clen was studying journalism and was obsessed with probing “issues.”
    â€œBecause he’s Albert,” Dabney said. “You know Albert.”
    â€œYes,” 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.
    â€œHey, Cupe,” he said. He kissed her deeply, theatrically, dipping her backward. The guys/boys/men whistled and hooted.
    â€œSo that’s her, Hughes?” one called out.
    â€œWell, let’s hope so,” another said.
    Dabney had reached up to touch Clen’s face. “Beard?” she said.
    â€œNo,” he said defensively. “I just haven’t had a chance to shave. Deadline, deadline, deadline.”
    Right—because, even as a freshman, Clen had