“Isn’t that something,” Mrs. Beaumont drawled out with extra syllables.
“Yes! Because you know Porter; sometimes he’s so stubborn.” I paused so Mrs. Beaumont and I could connect on a mutually agreed upon characteristic of Porter’s, but no shared familiarity came.
“I finally convinced him to go to the school health center. That’s where I called you from. And then they started the transfer process to the hospital. I thought I could ride in the back of the ambulance with him, but apparently that’s not allowed, so I ran back to Porter’s dorm room and got him a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and his thesis materials.”
“Well, bless your heart.”
I blushed from Delsie’s encouraging words. “Oh, it’s no big deal. I wanted to. When I got to the hospital, Porter was settled in, and I sat with him but not for very long. They took him into surgery pretty quickly. He’s in the recovery room now, and trust me, it’s all going to be okay. Oh, where are my manners. I forgot to ask you, how was your flight?”
“My flight was fine, darlin’, and I do appreciate the information, but I prefer to hear from the doctor.”
Mrs. Beaumont stared at me, face slack, for an uncomfortably long moment, and I got the feeling I had babbled on too much, but my mouth kept running even though my brain was telling it to slow down. “Oh, yes, of course. I’m sure the doctor will come check on him once Porter’s left recovery and is back in his room. I want you to know I really have been trying to make sure Porter is getting the best care.”
“The patient has returned to his room,” the nurse informed us. “You’re both welcome to go back now.”
“Thank you. Can you direct me?” Mrs. Beaumont pointedly asked the nurse.
“Oh, it’s this way. I’ll show you.” I picked up Mrs. Beaumont’s bag and started walking down the hall, listening for her footsteps behind me.
Mrs. Beaumont was silent as we headed down the sterile pale-yellow corridor. “Here it is. Room 216.” I couldn’t wait to see Porter’s face when his mother entered the room with me.
“Porter may be a little bit out of it, so we should probably go in quietly,” I advised in a low whisper, proving that I was being considerate of her son resting on the other side of the door.
“Thank you for carrying my bag, dear,” Mrs. Beaumont said, retrieving her luggage from me. She cracked open the door to Porter’s room and slipped inside. “You can head on out now. I’ll take it from here.”
Before I could say anything in response, I heard Mrs. Beaumont lovingly call out, “Mah boi!” And the door clicked closed in my face.
Chapter Twenty-One
December 1992
“Last night my parents called and asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Guess what I told them?” I tempted Porter, poking his shoulder with my bare big toe. I was trying to extricate him—only momentarily, per our agreement—from studying for his Twentieth-Century Poetry final. It took three and a half years, but Princeton had finally delivered a written word and a brilliant woman Porter was struggling to admire—Sylvia Plath. For a man who held his emotions close to his chest, Sylvia’s confessional writing made Porter squirm.
Sitting on my bedroom floor in Little Hall, Porter slammed the tome shut and slid it across the floor. It was so rare that Porter willingly broke concentration when we studied together that I let out a small yelp of glee and clapped. Rolling onto his knees, he buried his face in the crook of my collarbone and began to nibble. Over the months and then years and too many failed attempts to count, we had learned to set ground rules for studying together, particularly during finals. Otherwise, our prime study hours were used up by our inability to keep our hands to ourselves and our clothes on. Over the phone, I stipulated to Porter that he could only study with me if he could focus. He said he could. Then he asked me the same; I lied as well. By senior year, oursuccess rate at studying first and having sex second remained abysmal, but we tried.
We were about to be apart for a month, and I wanted to surprise Porter with the winter-break plan I had cooked up so that we could finally spend a New Year’s together. He wanted to forget Sylvia Plath’s sex life and focus on ours.
“Did you ask for another vacation to the Bahamas that includes me?” Porter had all-out refused my parents’ offer to buy his plane ticket for spring break, claiming he had more than enough money to cover it from his summer of intense work on the farm. I knew Porter wanted to prove that he was nobody’s charity case, but once he had allowed himself to settle into the luxury of five-star resort living, he took to it like a fish to water. Porter’s early-morning runs on the beach turned into sunrise tee times with my dad and Charles on the last three days of our trip. The first morning at breakfast, he refused to sit and have anything to eat in the dining room, saying he wasn’t hungry and announcing he was going to go scout the pools. I knew otherwise. Porter was always hungry. So, the second morning, I was waiting for him on the beach when he finished his run, and I told him discreetly that the breakfast buffet was included as part of the hotel stay, not an extra cost. With that intel, Porter joined Charles, eating enough for the entire Princeton football team. The kitchen couldn’t peel the papayas as fast as Porter and Charles were eating them.
“I still dream about that banana cake and you in a bikini—or out of one,” Porter whispered between kisses up my neck, brushing my hair out of his path to what he wanted. His abilities on the field, to simultaneously run and catch a football, translated to his skills working me over while unbuttoning my shirt. Both done so flawlessly, every time, that I almost forgot what I had interrupted his grappling with Sylvia Plath to tell him in the first place.
As Porter climbed up onto my bed to hover over me, I looked down at my now-bare torso and realized that with my December paleness, I could definitely use some Caribbean sun. But that was not what Iwanted to be doing with Porter the week after Christmas. I did not want Porter to spend New Year’s with my family in the Bahamas, in New York, anywhere. I wanted to spend New Year’s with him and his family in South Carolina.
“I asked my parents to buy me a plane ticket to visit you for New Year’s.” I lifted my hips for Porter to pull off my pants, but he dropped his hands from my waist and fell back to the floor, scooching across my room as far away from me as he could.
“Of all the things you could ask for, why’d you ask for that?” Porter’s voice bit with an air of condescension that I would want to do something as absurd as experience my boyfriend’s family holiday traditions. Porter crossed his arms tightly over his bare, muscled chest, his body language challenging me to provide a logical answer.
“What do you mean, ‘Why’d you ask for that?’” I shoved one arm back into my shirtsleeve, then the other. “Oh, I don’t know, Porter, maybe because we’ve dated for almost three years, and you say I’m the love of your life.” Porter’s facial expression was unmoved with my opening argument, his mouth set tight. “You’ve vacationed with my parents. You finally came for Thanksgiving this year at our apartment. You even invited my dad to join you and Charles for that Giants game last week. At this point, you may be my mom’s favorite Princeton senior, not me.”
I began to button up my shirt without taking my eyes off him. Over winter and summer breaks, I had let Porter determine when we talked on the phone, for how long, and who called whom. I listened to him list, innumerable times, his version of all the reasons why I didn’t want to travel to sleepy Manning. His favorite excuse was that he had to work all the time when he was home, and when he wasn’t farming, he was accompanying his parents to church, so I would be bored stiff. Porter drove the rhythm of our relationship, doling out the details of his life on his timing, at his pace, while I never hesitated to buoyantly answer the questions he asked me. From the moment I’d tricked him into joining me at Rockefeller Dining Hall freshman year, I wantedhim to know every aspect of my being. I shared freely, contenting myself with the drips of information he parceled out to me. It was clear our relationship had run on his schedule and was designed to suit his comfort. He knew how to be a teammate on the gridiron, but not in a relationship, and I was done with it.
“Porter, are you embarrassed of me?” I asked directly, barely holding on to control of my emotions.
Porter bit down hard on his lower lip before answering, “Come on, Callie. You know I’m not,” his eyes softening. “How could I be?”
Though I tried to hold them back, tears filled my eyes, and my breath hitched. Oh my God, all this time, I had been so stupid. So naive. How had I not put it all together before? Porter writing me letters more than calling me when he was home. Short phone conversations when he did call. Porter never inviting me to say hello to Rose when he was on the phone with her. His mother not knowing he had a girlfriend at Princeton when I called to tell her Porter needed his appendix removed.
“Porter, do you ...”Breathe. Breathe.I was heated from the inside out and felt sick to my stomach. I opened and closed my mouth three times and knew, once the question was out there, I would not be able to unhear an answer that might ruin my life. I wished Quinn was not with Charles at that moment. I wished she were right here to catch me, because I knew I was about to crash. Hard. “Do you have a girlfriend back home?”
