“Sorry, I hadn’t noticed,” laughed Teddy. “That would make me a sad, divorced, middle-aged man, trying to relive his youth. And I am far from it.”
“Hey, Betsy, do you think any of these girls wear giant T-shirts over their bathing suits when they’re in the hot tub like we did?” said Caroline.
“Watch your use of pronouns, Car. There was no ‘we’ in the hot tub, because, you know . . .”
“Yes, I know that you thought you were going to get the clap from some residue left behind.”
“Doesn’t the chlorine kill all of that stuff?” asked Teddy.
“Not according to my mother,” said Betsy. “Anyway, I don’t think any of the girls I’ve seen today would get in a hot tub. It would ruin their blowout,” said Betsy.
“Anybody want a beer?” Caroline nodded hello to the grumpy semicircle of men protecting the cooler, poured one into her cup, and started a roundtable discussion about the Florida quarterback at the time, Tim Tebow, and his alleged virginity.
“So did Remi start that preschool? You know, the labor camp one where they all have ‘jobs’?” asked Teddy.
“Oh, yeah. She started this year,” said Betsy, surprised that Teddy and Gavin had spoken so recently.
“And Gavin? How’s he?”
“Well, it sounds like you could answer that question as well as I could.”
“I remember that night I saw you together at Weird Bobby’s, before you took off for New Orleans,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought, ‘They’re going to hate each other’s guts, or they’re going to get married. Nothing in between.’”
“Or both?” added Betsy, with a weak smile, but she quickly regretted it.
They could hear the distant sound of the marching band through the crowd.
“If you ask me, you got lucky. Really lucky,” he said. “It just works that way for some people. But if I talk anymore about feelings, they’re going to run me out of town. Maybe even the state.”
“It’s true,” Betsy said. “It’s Florida. Men who talk about their feelings would be happier elsewhere.”
“Speaking of, I’m headed back to Tampa to see my folks before I fly back home tomorrow. You want to skip the recap on the bus ride home and come along?” said Teddy.
“Oh Lord, yes, please,” said Caroline, who had given up on trying to sully Tebow’s reputation and returned to the conversation. “You’ve had enough of this by now, right? No need to barrel back down memory lane when the mascara starts to run. Blood, sweat, and tears, am I right?”
After making plans to text Teddy after the game, they made the long ascent to the upper deck. Once inside the stadium, they wound their way through the crowd, up the endless ramp to the very top. By the time they were out into the stadium, the dizzying height, the roar of the crowd, and the heat conspired against her. The two friends sat pressing their shoulders against their sweat-drenched seatmates. At the end of the first quarter, a halting, commercial-interrupted bore of a game, Betsy made her confession.
“Caroline, I just realized, once and for all, that I don’t really like football,” she said, at almost a whisper.
“Holy shit! Are you serious? Do you seriously hate football?” her voice escalated slowly, and Betsy started to remember why they were friends. She stood up.
“Wow, you hate football?” Caroline was practically yelling.
“You are an ass,” said Betsy, trying to suppress her smile, pulling on her arm to get Caroline to sit back down on the hard aluminum bench. The fans around them started to boo, yelling at Caroline to sit down, and Betsy made a run for the exit while the people in the surrounding seats launched trash at her. Caroline followed her out, cackling with laughter over their loud jeers. They sprinted down what seemed like thousands of concrete stairs, like a low-security jailbreak, and burst back into the vast parking lot. They made their way across the street in search of someplace familiar, only to realize that all of the old places had been replaced with slicker, more polished but somehow sadder versions of their predecessors, kind of like Times Square. She was devastated to discover that Bagelville was long gone, replaced by a Schlotzsky’s. She wondered what happened to Tom. The old vegetarian restaurant in the Victorian house had been converted into a plantation-style bar with shady outdoor seating, outfitted with fans that sprayed a delicate mist of cool vapor on its inebriated patrons. There was over an hour wait for a table at the hostess stand, but Caroline being Caroline had talked her way into two empty seats at a table in the far corner of the wide patio occupied by a couple of meek grad students who didn’t have the balls to tell her she couldn’t sit down, directly under a mister with an unencumbered sight line to the TV. By the third quarter, Caroline was giving Charles, the smaller one with the recessed chin, dating advice, and Betsy was showing Albert photos of Remi on her phone.
“Just don’t tell her you love her, Charles,” said Caroline. “Trust me, she’s walking all over you.”