Jack sat up. “Wow, moving along quickly here, aren’t we? That’s not what I was going to ask, but if you want to remain a woman of mystery who wears enormous granny underpants, that’s okay for now. I’ll tell you about me instead. Okay?”
Lizzie nodded. “I’d like that.”
“I’m twenty-two; I grew up in a tiny town in West Texas. My high school was so small that we could only play six-man football, but still people felt that if you weren’t a football player you were a wimp. Only they used other words.”
“And you didn’t play, right?”
“Right,” Jack said. “I think it’s a sport for barbarians. It’s like we’re the ancient Romans watching the gladiators. But life was even worse if you didn’t play football and your favorite class in school was English. Then you were in real trouble. But you know what’s weird?”
Lizzie had no idea.
“I still go back there every summer, to the same job mowing lawns that I had all through high school. It’s like I have to go home and mow lawns. Either it’s the real world—the dust and dry air and the emptiness all around us—and I need to revisit it every year, or this is the real world, the books, and the libraries, and professors wearing cords and suede patches on their jackets—and sometimes I need to be done with it.”
Lizzie got a peculiar pain in the general region of her heart. “What about this summer?”
“Oh, you mean because I’m graduating? Of course I’ll go home.”
Jack waited to see if she had any more questions, but Lizzie remained silent. “Do you still want to remain mysterious?” Lizzie nodded. “Okay, then the question I was going to ask, which started this whole detour, is this: If this”—he indicated their naked bodies—“is going to be repeated frequently, which I definitely hope it is, what would you think about making an appointment at Planned Parenthood to get a prescription for the pill? So there wouldn’t be any possibility of babies in our near future? I’ll go with you if you want.”
“Really? Really?” She hugged Jack, the fact of his going home for the summer forgotten for the moment. “I love that question. Let’s do it. Let’s call right now and see if we can go in this afternoon.”
*?The Offensive Tackles?*
The right and left offensive tackles were the cringe-worthy Cringebeck twins, and that was the best you could say about them. Lafe (rt) and Rafe (lt) were somewhat attractive in a hayseedy sort of way, especially if you were drawn to very large, loopy guys with freckles and dirty-blond hair. They were known for their weird sense of humor, which had caused Lafe to have lt tattooed on the right side of his neck, while Rafe’s tattoo, on the left side of his neck, said rt. They both thought this was hysterically funny and didn’t understand why nobody else did. They sometimes were a little unhinged on the football field, which Maverick had assured her was fairly typical for tackles. But in bed they were perfect lambs. Rather than have sex with Lafe the week after Rafe (which seemed to Lizzie to be a little too kinky for comfort), she scheduled the kicker and wide receiver in between them.
*?Jack Sends Some Postcards?*
The day after they visited Planned Parenthood, Jack sent Lizzie a dozen red roses, along with a postcard that read “Take your pill.” Even more than the roses, Lizzie thought the card itself, which was a photo of Edna St. Vincent Millay, was wonderful. Marla, who hadn’t yet met Jack but wondered aloud whether it was entirely wise for Lizzie to become so involved with him so quickly, agreed that it was a very romantic gesture.
For the next twenty-seven days that the doctor had said to wait before they could rely on Enovid for birth control, Lizzie got a postcard in the mail that said simply, “Take your pill. Love, Jack.” Each card had a photo of a different writer, many of them poets. It was clear that Jack had spent a lot of time at the bookstore choosing cards that he knew Lizzie would like.
She saved every one of them until a few days before she and George got married. Afraid that he might discover them and ask her about Jack, she cut them into strips and ceremoniously burned each one of them in a large ashtray she’d taken from her parents’ house. Photos of T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, and others quickly disappeared in the flames. More quickly, much more quickly, than her memories of Jack.
*?The Tight End?*
The tight end Dylan Mosier also ran track. His goal was to compete in the 1998 Summer Olympics in Tokyo in the long jump. He worried constantly about potential injuries, that he’d tear his ACL or wreck a shoulder in a game. He’d just as soon not have played football at all but he didn’t want to disappoint his father, who had been Ann Arbor High’s tight end back in the day. Dylan was killed when his motorcycle skidded on a dry road late on the night of the senior prom. It was still not clear what happened or whose fault it was, if anyone’s. That was a sad story.
*?Spring Quarter, 1992?*