Page 12 of Endless Summer: Stories
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 to ten hours.
“What are you guys doing after the game?” Dabney asked.
“I 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.”
“Ten o’clock sharp,” Dabney confirmed.
“You must be excited to see Clen,” Mallory said. “You guys go, like, months. I’m impressed by the level of trust.”
“Trust?” Dabney said.
“Me too,” Jason said. “I mean, you’re both in college. Does he ever worry that you’re going to cheat on him?”
“Cheat?” Dabney said.
“Do you, like, have an understanding?” Mallory asked.
Dabney wasn’t sure how to answer this. Words liketrustandcheatdidn’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.
“Don’t You (Forget About Me),” Simple Minds.
Dabney finished her beer, crumpled the can, and closed her eyes.
She awoke as they pulled onto Yale’s campus. As far as the eye could see, there was an ocean of blue and crimson.
“Wow,” she said. “Wow.”
People were everywhere. There were the current students, who came in one of the two color palettes, and then there were 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 1875. Watching the alumni 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 always attend the Harvard-Yale game. The years the game was held in Cambridge, they would root for Harvard, and the 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.
“East 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 had 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.
“Jesus,” Jason said. “I’m just going to park here.”
“Is this near the east entrance?” Dabney said.
“I 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 gotten a ride from the guys at Owl. Clark, who wore horn-rimmed glasses in a perfect imitation of Clark Kent, had promised to hand-deliver Dabney to Clendenin. Now Dabney would have to find him on her own while lugging her picnic-in-a-laundry-basket.
She climbed out of the car and smoothed the legs of her jeans, straightened her pearls, and took a deep breath. Clen was here. He was at the east entrance. All Dabney had to do was find it and she would be safe.
She looked down at her penny loafers. They were resting solidly on the earth.
Jason and Mallory offered to walk with Dabney, which really meant that Jason offered. Mallory seemed put off by Jason’s show of gallantry; in fact, she seemed downright jealous, huffing under her breath that she didn’t see why they had to do this; Dabney had gotten into Harvard, she could find the east entrance herself. Jason forged ahead, undeterred. He was carrying the laundry basket, which got him a lot of attention.
“Hey, man, you looking for the Wash ’n’ Dry?”
“No, man, it’s a picnic,” Jason said. “Chicken salad, the best you ever tasted.”
“I don’t know why you would say that,” Mallory snapped.
