“Good to meet you, Porter. That was a hell of a game, son.” My dad intercepted Porter’s hand to shake it while simultaneously slapping him on the back.
“Mrs. Steele, nice to meet you as well.” Porter turned his full attention and high-wattage smile to my mother. Helen nodded but did not return the compliment, focused as she was on evaluating every inchof Porter from the ground up. This exact scenario was what inspired our meet-the-parents plan. After Charles and Porter had showered in the locker room, Quinn and I met the two of them back in their shared room to go through Charles’s multiple suit jackets, dress pants, and button-downs for something appropriate for Porter to wear with our parents at The Peacock Inn.
Charles’s curated wardrobe was compliments of his mother and her long-standing relationship with Brooks Brothers, where she outfitted her three sons. Porter’s most formal piece of clothing was one pair of Levi’s 501s that had never been in the fields, still stiff from few washings. While nothing looked better than what Porter referred to as his “wood hauler’s ass” in a pair of jeans, I knew that Helen Steele would be the only woman in the entire state of New Jersey who would not appreciate the denim-clad view. Luckily, Porter did not take my outfit input for our families’ first gathering as anything other than smoothing parental dynamics.
By fall of our sophomore year, Charles and Porter had become inseparable. Between football, living in the same suite, and dating best friends, the only hours they were apart were when they slept. There was no denying that there were few Black students on the Princeton campus in the early ’90s. It would seem a Southern farm boy with a photographic memory had nothing in common with a wealthy, mathematically minded New York City kid who knew how to execute the elite social game as well as the game of football. Charles and Porter, however, formed an immediate and impenetrable bond over their otherness in this storied space.
“Beating Harvard never gets old,” my dad chortled.
“Yes, sir, that’s what they tell me,” Porter agreed, looking him directly in the eyes, a good instinct. Rhodes Steele didn’t trust averted gazes.
“They?” my father asked, looking slightly put off that Porter did not feel the same requisite passion for beating the Harvard Crimson as he should have as a fellow Princeton Tiger.
“The old heads,” Porter answered.
I froze. My parents had not yet hit fifty.
“Who are the old heads?” my father probed quizzically,old headsnot being a common colloquialism used in his medical circles.
Porter turned to me, his usually serene face looking unsure. “The, um, alumni, sir,” he clarified.
Porter’s dedication to the truth at the expense of everything else was something I admired in him. Integrity was a challenging quality to find in a twenty-year-old male, but in this moment a little white lie would have kept his grave shallow. I closed my eyes and prayed that Porter’s parents would walk in, distracting from the regional language barrier.
“Ha! I love it!” my dad bellowed. “I like this guy, Callie. You almost have as good of taste in men as your mother.” My mom smirked at her husband’s compliment about himself.
Porter’s shoulders relaxed back into place from the near fumble. And I had to keep from publicly gushing to my parents, to the entire Peacock Inn, how much I liked this guy too.
“Shall we wait at the bar until your parents arrive, Porter?” my mother suggested, turning the group’s attention from my father, who tended to monopolize conversations. “We still have a few minutes until our reservation, and I for one could use a gimlet.”
Since I was with my parents, I hoped the bartender wouldn’t ID me, because I, too, needed a drink to settle the nervous butterflies in my stomach while I waited to meet Porter’s parents. Porter and I had been dating for nine months, and while I talked incessantly about my family, Porter shared more about the farm in Manning than he did about Delsie and Olden Beaumont and his much younger sister, Rose.
The summer between freshman and sophomore year, Porter wrote me long, illustrative letters about the sun setting over the peeling white-painted barn, the stickiness of the humidity that felt like molasses coating his skin as he walked his family’s land, and his frustrations trying to wrangle the hundreds of chicks his father had invested in that spring. As free as Porter was with his language in his letters, he was tight with our time on the phone. Since he was unreachable from sunriseto sunset, he insisted on calling me when he got in at night, rather than me calling him. I would rush home from my coffee-retrieving and errand-schlepping internship with NBC at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, shower and wait by the phone for Porter to call. If it didn’t happen by 8:15 p.m., it didn’t happen at all for that day. Disheartened, I would usually drag myself back into the streets to meet Quinn and Charles for a late outdoor dinner. If I couldn’t talktoPorter, at least I could talkaboutPorter with our closest friends, because he was all I thought about when we were apart.
When Porter and I did connect, we’d talk for about twenty minutes, after which he would claim he didn’t want to tie up my parents’ line for too long. I offered to call him back, long-distance charges being expensive and all, but chivalry reigned supreme, and Porter would refuse. I mostly heard from Porter before dinner in Manning, South Carolina, and he routinely maintained he needed to eat and hit the hay so he could get up and get in his summer football workout before the sun, the searing heat, and the soybean plants were at their peak. When I told him I hated waiting to hear his voice until the last part of my day, Porter repeated to me the phrase he commonly reserved for my extreme tardiness at school: “Better last than never.” And I couldn’t deny that he was right.
“Uh, my parents weren’t able to make it this weekend, so we can sit down for dinner or get a drink first, whatever you like,” Porter answered my mother, fiddling with the top button of his jacket, intentionally dodging my gaze.
“Wait. What?” I blurted, confused.
“Oh, now that’s a shame,” my mother cut in with real sincerity and disappointment.
“Sure is. I bet your father would have loved to see that game, but I know how it goes when work keeps you home,” my father surmised while gesturing to the bartender.
“Something like that.” Porter smiled, still avoiding me.
“It’s Delsie and Olden, right?” my mom asked, hooking her hand through the crook of Porter’s elbow, rubbing his forearm as if to wipe away any pain Porter might feel over his parents’ last-minute unavailability. “I would love to get their address from you and let them know we missed them this trip, but we look forward to meeting them another time. Maybe after you two go through bicker to choose your eating club. It’s so fun to visit where your child ends up,” my mother gushed, seamlessly changing the subject to one of her choosing.
“Of course, ma’am.” Porter nodded to my mother, then gestured with his hand to an open bar seat for her to perch upon.
I had told my parents everything about Porter. I could barely shut up about him, leaving an opening for my dad to question if he was paying $20,000 a year for me to fall in love. I had begged my mom to let me charge a new dress on my credit card deemedonly for emergenciesso I would have an outfit that I felt confident in when meeting Porter’s parents. I spent most of the football game craning my neck for two people who looked like they might have created my boyfriend. I was sure there would be a matched set of broad shoulders and distinct jawlines in the crowd, maybe even a mom or dad more engrossed in a book than the game. But I didn’t spy anyone who fit that description.
The week leading up to Parents’ Weekend, Porter had let me go on and on about how much I was looking forward to meeting his mom and dad. I was excited to know if his little sister was coming too. I asked for advice on what I should talk to his mother about, what her hobbies were, if I should sit between his mom and dad at dinner, or would it be better to be across from them. One of my strategies, if Delsie Beaumont wasn’t quick to warm to me, was to get Rose on my side by offering her a sleepover in Quinn’s and my room following dinner. Porter listened late into our nights and during professor pauses in our classes, but reflecting on it now, I did all the questioning, and Porter did very little answering. That was not wholly out of our norm, but I realized that, this time, it was intentional. Porter didn’t mention that his parents weren’t coming, but thinking back on the week, he nevertold me they were for sure coming either. I assumed all families showed up to Parents’ Weekend to check in on their college kids, then returned home to brag to their friends and colleagues about how well they were faring at school.
“Porter, why didn’t you tell me your parents weren’t coming?” I whispered in his ear, trying to keep the edge of irritation out of my tone. We had yet to have a fight, and I did not want our first one to be in front of my parents on their initial meeting of the man I dreamed would one day become a part of my family.
Under his breath, Porter alleged, “Callie, it’s complicated.”
“Is it me? Did I do something wrong?” I implored under my breath. My mind swirled with last summer’s memories of one-way calls, long letters, and little talk of Porter’s family.
