Page 15 of Endless Summer: Stories
Clen filled their cups with ice and poured generously from the Popov bottle. He shrugged. “Tell you what? She works on the paper. Arts editor, flair for the dramatic.” Clen was overly enthusiastic with the tonic and the first cup bubbled over. “She can be a real bitch.”
Dabney accepted her drink and reached for a wedge of lime. “Well, yeah. I noticed.”
“Your picnic is beautiful, Cupe,” Clen said. “I mean, look, it’s almost gone.” He gazed off in the direction of the stadium. “Jocelyn’s just jealous.”
“Jealous of what?” Dabney said. She wanted clarification. Was she jealous that Dabney went to Harvard? Was she jealous that Dabney could cook? Or was there some other reason, something that had to do with Clen?
Clen didn’t have time to answer, because at that moment, voices filled the air. The Whiffenpoofs were forming a semicircle in front of theDaily Newstailgate. The Whiffenpoofs! Dabney felt a flutter of celebrity awe. She loved traditions like this; the most famous a cappella group in the country wasright here!Dabney forgot about Jocelyn—she had disappeared into the crowd anyway—and grabbed Clen’s arm.
“The Whiffenpoofs!” she said. “They’re going to sing!”
“That’s what they do,” Clen said. He bent down and whispered in her ear. “Wallace’s twin brother is the one in the middle. Ralph, his name is. Ralph Waldo Emerson Wallace.”
“You’re kidding me,” Dabney said. Sure enough, the tall guy in the center looked exactly like Henry—same hair, same smile, same glasses.
“Henry asked Ralph to stop here,” Clen said, “because I told him you would want to see them.”
Dabney felt a thrill run up her backbone and explode in euphoria at the base of her neck. The Whiffenpoofs were here… to sing to her!
Ralph leaned in and hummed to give everyone the key, then they launched into “Ride the Chariot.”
Dabney swooned. The voices blended and separated and blended again, melodies, harmonies, top lines, bass lines.
Next “The Boxer.” Then “Is She Really Going Out with Him?” And one more—“Brown-Eyed Girl,” which was Clen and Dabney’s song. Clen led Dabney to a clearing a short way from the car and they danced.
“Did you ask them to sing this?” she asked.
“What do you think?” he said.
Dabney looked down at her penny loafers. This time, she was surprised when she saw they were touching the ground.
It was almost a disappointment to head into the stadium. Dabney had managed to eat one chicken salad sandwich and grab a few bites of the onion dip before the bowl was licked clean. Everything she had brought had been devoured.So there!Dabney thought.
Harvard 1, Yale 0.
Dabney saw Jocelyn again inside the Yale Bowl. She was sitting three rows ahead of Clen and Dabney and five seats to their left. She was with a girl with curly blond hair and two guys/boys/men, one of whom was wearing a white cardigan sweater with a blue Y that looked like it had been rescued from a 1952 time capsule and the other of whom wore a plain gray T-shirt and a baseball hat and seemed like he had just rolled out of bed.
Dabney prayed that either Letter Sweater or Boy Who Just Woke Up was Jocelyn’s boyfriend.
There was a lot of fanfare before the game began. The Class of 1935 ran out onto the field—seventeen men were remaining, more than double that were killed in World War II, a moment of silence. The presentation of Handsome Dan, the bulldog—wild applause. Then the Spizzwinks sang the national anthem; the Spizzwinks were the underclassman version of the Whiffenpoofs. The person who named these groups must have been smoking opium with Lewis Carroll, Dabney thought.
Then… kickoff! The crowd went bananas. Dabney and Clen stood up along with the rest of the stadium and cheered.
Jocelyn turned around and appeared to be searching for someone. She was wearing brown cat’s-eye sunglasses.
The kickoff returner for Harvard was tackled on the twenty-five-yard line, and the crowd sat down.
Clen turned to Dabney. “Do you want anything?”
She said, “Nope, I’m good.”
He fidgeted in his seat. For all his enthusiasm about the game, Clen didn’t really like to watch football, or any other sport. Dabney was much better at that. She had been the head of the pep squad at Nantucket High School and the editor of the yearbook, had played tennis and sailed at the Nantucket Yacht Club, and had surfed every beach on Nantucket that could possibly be surfed. She had fished for stripers off the tip of Great Point and hunted for ducks on Tuckernuck with her father. She had written her college essay about the duck hunting, actually, tying it into her relationship with her father, which was important and special, since her mother had left when Dabney was eight years old.
Abandoned her.
Half the crowd was cheering, the crimson half. Harvard’s quarterback, Blood Dellman, had completed a seventeen-yard pass for the first down. Dabney bowed her head. Something was still off. Why this gnawing sense of insecurity? Why did she feel the need to mentally list all of her accomplishments and assure herself of her own value? And why, at this particular moment, when she and Clen were finally together, did the memory of her mother leaving have to steal in—the one thing certain to make her feel worthless? Goddamn it—tears were now blurring her eyes. This was ridiculous and uncalled for. Dabney did not do drama. Along with Most Popular, Smartest Girl, and Most School Spirit, Dabney had been voted Most Comfortable in Her Skin on the senior-class superlative page.
Dabney raised her head in time to see Jocelyn leave the stadium without looking at Clen or Dabney. Her eyes stayed forward, her chin raised, her camel-colored cashmere wrap flowing off her like cool water. Dabney gazed at the empty seat Jocelyn had left behind with the kind of relief one felt upon having an aching tooth pulled.
