Tami balances the two warm packages on the palm of her hand and slides in next to Julie on the bleachers. Down on the field, the marching band is pumping out something with lots of brass. The familiar rumble of the crowd is starting to set in. "This is a football game. What were you expectin, a steak dinner?"
Julie presses a finger along the pleat of her jacket lapel. "At soccer games in Rouen they eat oysters."
Tami's eyebrow quirks. "Well, I don't know if you noticed this, baby, but you're no longer in Rouen."
The corner of Julie's mouth turns up in a smirk. "It's not roo-ON, it's ROU-EN." Her mouth twists into something that's somehow guttural and nasal at the same time. Tami flinches. It cuts, like the dozen and one other little wounds Julie's been inflicting since the minute she got off the plane from New York.
Julie smoothes the sides of her hair, tucking in the few stray strands that have fallen out of her clip, and Tami looks down at herself. All she sees is jeans that don't quite fit and a tummy that's hanging out a little too far these days. She covers herself up with the edge of her sweater.
She's still surprised Julie agreed to come back for homecoming this time at all. It's the first time in three years. In her junior year the study abroad had made it impossible, and then in her senior year she'd breezily insisted that she had better things to do than fly back to Dillon for a football game. Tami'd been ready to hang up the tradition for good. But now Julie's here, complete with a wardrobe Tami doesn't recognize and a haughty smile and a brand-new leather briefcase to match the brand-new fancy corporate job. Tami's fingers twitch in her lap. She's not quite sure what to do with this sophisticated young woman who seems to have left her Texas accent on a flight between Paris and New York City.
"Anyway, it's fine." Julie takes one of the hot dogs from Tami's hand and unwraps it, biting into the edge. Her mouth puckers and she raises a hand to her lips, gulping the hot dog back. "Although the Velveeta's a bit much."
Tami presses her lips together and turns away. A familiar shriek draws her gaze to the aisle in time to see Grace dart down it in pursuit of a couple of older kids. She's got to slow that kid down. "Gracie, honey? Grace!"
Grace stops in her tracks and looks up at Tami. "What?"
"C'mere."
Grace's eyes are wide and innocent. She walks toward Tami, and the others follow. Vaneeta, the oldest kid, hangs back a little, her eyes wary.
Tami takes Grace's hand. "Now, you know you're not supposed to run on the bleachers. You're gonna trample somebody to death." The buckle's come undone on Grace's overalls, and Tami refastens it with a pat. "You wouldn't want that, would you?"
A stream of giggles topples out of Grace's mouth. "Yes!" she shrieks, and lets out a pint-sized roar.
Tami can't help but smile. "Let's just all be a little more careful, okay?" She tilts her head at Vaneeta.
"Okay," Grace says, and then she's off again. Instead of running, she's sort of bounding now, her curls bouncing with every step. Tami's smile widens. She unwraps her hot dog and takes a bite.
"You don't send her to school in those, do you?" Julie's voice is a scoff.
"In what—the overalls?" Tami frowns. "What's wrong with em?"
"It's just..." Julie's smirking again. "I don't know, she looks like she should be wandering around in some field or something. With a hoe in her hand. Whistling a tune." Julie mimes slinging a hoe over her shoulder.
There's a twinge in Tami's chest. It curls around her heart, tightening into something colder and angrier. "I'll have you know that Grace has a mind of her own, and that she picked out her own clothes this mornin."
Julie shrugs. "I'm just saying that they're not very stylish, that's all."
Tami leans in toward her. She gestures in the air with both hands. "She's six, Julie, not sixteen!"
"Okay, okay." Julie holds up a hand. "Forget I said anything." She takes another bite of her hot dog.
Tami's fingers tighten around the foil wrapper in her lap, squeezing the end of it into a ball. She looks up again at Grace. She's crouched down on the steps now, grabbing for a ball one of the older kids is holding. Her blonde curls are messy and scattered across her shoulders. Maybe Tami does dress her like a hick.
Tami's eyes narrow, and she glares across at Julie. How dare Julie make her second-guess herself.
Julie holds out a hand and shoves at her cuticles. "Amelia and Brian have a six-year-old. You know, Amelia from HR?" Her nostrils flare, just a little. "She's the one with the house on Fire Island."
Tami remembers the stilted phone call about that trip. She gives Julie a stiff nod.
She rubs her fingers together and lets them settle into her lap. "Anyway, they got her this little skort set for the beach. It's just the cutest thing. She looks like a little movie star in it." She meets Tami's eyes, anticipating her objection. "And she played in the sand in it and everything, so it's not like it wasn't practical for a little girl."
Tami presses her lips together. Why is she supposed to care about how some strangers named Amelia and Brian dress their kid?
Julie's shoulders stiffen, and suddenly her eyes are far away. Tami follows her gaze to the next section over. It's Matt Saracen, sitting there with his old friend Landry. He's filled out some in the shoulders, but he's still got the same old shy smile. Looks like the whole gang's back for homecoming this year.
Julie sits up straight, her shoulders back. She crosses her legs at the ankles. There's something about it, something that looks more like a runway model than her daughter. Tami frowns. "You know, maybe I don't think it's appropriate for your little sister to look like a movie star."
Julie's gaze snaps back. "All I meant was that nobody would let their kid be caught dead in a pair of overalls on Martha's Vineyard, okay?"
"Martha's Vineyard?" Tami shakes her head. "I thought you said they had a house on Fire Island."
It's an innocent remark, but Julie's eyes darken like she's been cornered. Her mouth opens, then shuts again.
Tami blinks. "Wait, isn't Martha's Vineyard the one that's up near Boston?"
Julie's hands clench into fists in her lap. She stares down at them.
An alarm bell sounds in Tami's head, loud and long. Some sort of primal motherly instinct races through her veins like a shot of adrenaline. Something's wrong. "Hon? Hon. Look at me."
Julie's head is bowed. It bobs up and down, but she doesn't look up. Then she does. Her face is stone.
"What are you not telling me?" Tami asks.
And then Julie's lower lip is quivering, and she bolts. What's left of her hot dog topples to the ground.
For one short moment, Tami is frozen into place, but then she's up, chasing Julie down the stairs and around the corner. Julie's back is turned. She's clinging to the wall like it's the only thing holding her up. "Okay, what is going on here?" Tami says.
Julie turns around. Her eyes are overflowing with tears, dark mascara stains welling up beneath them. "Why couldn't you just leave it alone?"
"Leave what alone?"
Julie digs a tissue out of her jacket pocket. She looks down at the ground, steels herself. She looks up at Tami. "I didn't go to Fire Island."
Tami's forehead creases. She shakes her head. "You went to Martha's Vineyard?"
A fresh set of tears springs to Julie's eyes. "I didn't go to Martha's Vineyard. I spent the whole summer in that stupid apartment with six other girls who can't stand me, missing—" She lets out a sob, and her face contorts into something unnatural and horrible, like she's coming unwound before Tami's eyes.
"I think you'd better explain, honey, because I'm afraid I'm not gettin this."
Julie clenches her hands into fists and thrusts them against her eyes. "I hate my job," she chokes. She tosses her head back against the wall, and despair cuts across her face like a scalpel. "I hate my life." Her sobs turn into a low wail, a painful keening.
"What are you talking about? You love that job! Public relations is what you—"
"It's not a PR job." Julie gives her head a vehement shake. "I mean, sure, it's in my title, but I'm just a glorified secretary. My boss gives new meaning to the word 'control freak', and so any authority I've been trying to build up for myself?" Her hand slices through the air. "Gone. All I do all day is file papers and write reports. And the rest of them spend all their time together...like a pack of wolves or something...and all they all care about is driving the right cars and owning the right properties...and I try and try to fit in, but I just can't, and trying keeps taking me further and further away from anything that's really real, and I just can't believe this is my life now."
A knife stabs into Tami's heart. This is her girl, her little girl. "Oh, Jules," she says, and reaches out to pull her close. Julie collapses against her, sobbing.
"It was like this sometimes at Brown, too, but this is just...so much worse. I miss you...and Dad...and Grace. All the time." She's gulping back breaths against Tami's cheek. "I even miss this stupid town. And I feel like—like maybe I've spent so many years trying not to be you that I left behind stuff I actually liked." She pulls back, and her face screws up again. "And now maybe I can never get it back."
Julie throws herself back down onto Tami's shoulder. A lump grows at the back of Tami's throat, and she curls an arm around Julie's back. Julie's trembling beneath her jacket.
"I don't know how to be me anymore." Julie lets go of a shuddery breath and clutches at Tami's sweater. "It's like—it's like I got lost somewhere or something. And it's getting worse all the time and I don't know how to stop it."
"Oh, honey." Tami pulls back to arm's length. "You're not lost." She uncurls Julie's fingers and pries the tissue loose from them. She dabs it against Julie's cheeks, clouding it with dark mascara stains. "Maybe a little covered up."
Julie makes a noise that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob. She grabs the tissue and wipes her nose.
"Okay, you know what, baby?" Tami plants one hand on Julie's hip and presses the other to the center of her chest. "If they don't appreciate you for the brilliant woman you are, and they don't value the skills you've got to offer them—well, then you're just plain in the wrong job."
Julie's face screws up again. She dabs at her eyes. "I can't just—"
"Yes. Yes you can. You can just."
"You're telling me to quit my job." She gives her head a shake. "So next you're probably going to tell me to move back home to Dillon. And back into my old room, right?"
Tami shakes her head. "No, hon, I'm not sayin that. I'm not sayin that at all. I'm just tellin you that you're twenty-two years old and you've got your whole life ahead of you. And if that life isn't makin you happy, well, then you damn well better go find another one you like more, cause there's a lot more of it left."
Julie runs a hand across her forehead. "It's not that simple."
"Yes it is, Julie. It's exactly that simple." Tami grabs her hand and squeezes. "You're smart, and you're funny, and you have a degree from one of the most prestigious universities in this country. You can do anything you want to do." She looks into Julie's eyes. They're wide and scared. "You just gotta believe in yourself and then go make it happen."
Julie goes limp, her arms hanging loose at her sides like a ragdoll's. From behind them, the band is playing the fight song, and the rumble of the crowd grows to a dull roar. "I just—I don't know what else I can do." Julie's voice comes out small and weak. "I don't know what I want."
"Well, that's where bein twenty-two is a blessing, right? It means you got plenty of time to figure that out."
Hope curls its way across Julie's face, blanketing over the despair in her eyes. Tami reaches for Julie's other hand, but something's caught Julie's eye over Tami's shoulder. Tami turns. Matt Saracen's standing by the bleachers, just within the line of sight. He shoves his hands into his pockets. He smiles, but it's more than that.
Tami's heart stutters. She knows that look. It's the same way Eric looked at her for the first time across a crowded room, and then again just before he asked her to marry him.
Julie lets a smile cross her lips. It's a little forced, but it's not fake. And then her eyes flick back up to Tami, and she pushes a breath out through her nose.
Tami gives both of Julie's hands a little squeeze. "Why don't you go on over there and say hi?"
Julie sputters out a laugh. "Are you crazy?" She twists her fingers around the tissue in her hands. "I'm a complete mess."
Tami runs a thumb underneath Julie's eyes, wiping away the last of the mascara stains. For the first time since she got off the plane, she seems human. "You look beautiful."
"Yeah?" Julie's voice wobbles.
Tami steps back, appraising her. She tugs at Julie's jacket. "Gimme this."
Julie takes it off. The dress underneath it is simple and elegant and one hundred percent Julie Taylor.
Tami grabs the jacket and slings it over her shoulder. Julie gives her a little smile and undoes her hair clip, and thick blonde strands fall across her shoulders. "There," Tami says. "You're the most gorgeous thing within a hundred miles." She cups a hand around Julie's face. "Besides, hasn't Matt Saracen always liked you just the way you are?"
Julie laughs. She blows her nose, and then lets out a little sigh. She throws her arms around Tami, burying her face in Tami's neck. "Thank you," she mumbles against it. And then she turns around, straightens her shoulders, and walks over to Matt.
They hold back for a moment, like they're circling each other, but they're both grinning like fools. Tami wonders how much they've kept in touch since high school. There's so much she doesn't know, so much left to learn about this enigma of a young woman she gave birth to twenty-two years ago. But there's time. There's lots of time.
Tami's smiling as she turns around, and then Eric is right there.
"What are you doin out here?" Tami looks down at her watch. Ten after seven. "It's twenty minutes to game time!"
He shrugs. "Mac's got things under control. I just wanted to see how things were goin with Little Miss New York City."
A smirk crawls across Tami's lips. She angles a finger over toward Julie and Matt. Matt bends toward Julie in an awkward hug and plants a kiss on her cheek.
Eric's eyebrows fly up. "Oh."
"Yeah, 'oh'."
He blinks. "Well, isn't that interesting." He shakes his head. "It feels kinda like one of those vicious circles. Y'know, where everythin ends up back where it started."
Tami smiles, tucking Julie's jacket under her arm. Not quite. But maybe things aren't as far from that starting point as she'd thought.
Eric's eyes are narrowed at Matt and Julie, scrutinizing them. There's a flare of protectiveness, and then it's gone. "Well, he's a good kid. Always was."
Tami stretches an arm around Eric's waist. "Yes, he is."
He looks back at Tami. "Things are goin all right, then? No fireworks?"
She picks a piece of lint from his collar and lets it fall to the ground. There are things they need to talk about, but they can all wait until after the game. She looks back at Julie and Matt. Julie's gazing up at him, smiling, and it's her old smile. Her real smile.
She leans back, relaxing against Eric's shoulder. "Things are gonna be just fine."
