Page 10 of Endless Summer: Stories
It was ten minutes to four.
“I won’t be long,” Dabney said. She ran down the hall in her socks to where the receiver was dangling from the pay phone. It looked ominous, like a noose.
“Clen?” she said.
“Hey, Cupe,” he said.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. There was a pause, during which Dabney realized he meant just the opposite. “What is it?” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Uh,” he said. “Well.”
“What?” Dabney noticed that Kendall was lurking in the hall about ten feet away, gazing out the window toward Harvard Yard, ostensibly riveted by the campus visitors heading there to rub the foot of the John Harvard statue, which was supposed to bring applicants good luck. But really Kendall was there so that Dabney did not linger on the phone. Kendall played water polo. She had ten inches and fifty pounds on Dabney and was not unintimidating.
“Well,” Clen said again.
Dabney’s palms started to sweat. Unlike Kendall and her “best friend” in Chapel Hill, Dabney and Clen never fought on the phone; they never fought, period. All through high school it had been wedded bliss. They had always been in sync, navigating their emotional, physical, intellectual, and sexual blossoming side by side. Their only stumbling block now was the 140 miles that separated them. Despite the fact that they existed in two separate elitist bubbles of higher learning—one crimson, one blue—they had decided to keep up their relationship because to do otherwise was unthinkable. Freshman year had taught them that long-distance relationships were an art and a discipline. The weekly phone calls were part of the discipline. The art came in the letters. Dabney was more prolific, Clen more creative. He had once traced his hands on paper, cut them out, and sent them to Dabney so that she might place them on her shoulders when she needed comforting.
“Clen,” Dabney said. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re definitely coming this weekend, right? There’s no chance you’re going to cancel?”
Dabney would be lying if she said the thought hadn’t crossed her mind a thousand times. She had lain in bed panicking about the trip for over an hour the night before. Despite the carefully prepared picnic and the curated outfit, Dabney’s overwhelming urge was to head back to Nantucket for the weekend the way she always did. She sometimes thought of herself as a humpback whale. She could hold her breath for the four and a half days a week she spent in Cambridge, but eventually she had to come up for oxygen. Nantucket Island was her oxygen. It was the only place she felt safe, healthy, whole. The weekends the year before when Clen had come to Cambridge had been torturous, despite his presence, simply because Dabney had to stay on campus instead of going home. Two of those weekends she had actually gotten sick, and Clen had spent hours at her bedside, reading and bringing her soup from the dining hall.
But now that Clen was expressing doubt, Dabney redoubled her fortitude. She would go to New Haven no matter what.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m definitely coming. We’re leaving here at seven thirty in the morning. I’ll be there by ten, just like I said.”
“Okay,” Clen said. “Because some things have come up.”
Kendall emitted a loud, exasperated sigh. Dabney turned around and forced a smile at Kendall, holding up a finger indicatingJust one more minute. The hall clock said 3:53. “Things like what?”
“I have to cancel dinner at Mory’s,” Clen said.
“Why?” Dabney said. She felt a sharp sting of disappointment, and not only because she wouldn’t get to wear the fabulous borrowed black outfit or carry the debutante purse. Mory’s was a legendary Yale supper club. Dabney had envisioned cold martinis, shrimp cocktail, and dancing to Sinatra between courses.
“Turns out, I’ll be on deadline,” Clen said. “I have to go back to the paper right after the game.”
“You’rekiddingme,” Dabney said. “I thought we agreed I was staying over. What about the postgame party at Morse? Are we doing that?”
“We can go for a little while, I guess,” Clen said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be at the paper, though, Cupe. It might be late.”
“So you’re telling me I’m on my own?” Dabney said. “You’re leaving me after the game and you won’t be back until late?”
“It’s work,” Clen said. “I’m writing a big story.”
It’s work,Dabney thought.He’s writing a big story.It was a college newspaper—granted, the oldest newspaper in the country—so how big a story could it be? Dabney didn’t want to be the kind of girlfriend who complained. Clen had wanted to be a journalist his whole life; it was a consuming passion, and wasn’t that one of the things she most loved about him? Nevertheless, a part of her wanted to scream:Screw the deadline! I have finally mustered the courage to travel to New Haven and you should have cleared your plate!Clen knew Dabney would not do well with beingleft alonefor… what? Seven hours? Ten hours?
She flashed back to her eight-year-old self at the Park Plaza Hotel.Where’s my mama?
Your father’s on his way,May, the Irish chambermaid, said. Then she sang “American Pie” to Dabney in a lilting accent.
Clen must have known this news would be a deal breaker and that once he announced that he had to work, Dabney would cancel altogether.
Hewantedher to cancel, she realized.
Kendall cleared her throat. The clock said 3:58.
