The Tailgate Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mallory was so cold, her lips were blue.
    â€œAre you having fun?” Dabney asked.
    Mallory shrugged. “No,” she said.
    No, Dabney wasn’t having fun either. She admired Mallory for just being able to admit it. Maybe that was the Montana girl in her. Dabney had inherited the Puritan stiff upper lip, but today it wasn’t doing her any good.
    Mallory said, “I think Jason likes you.”
    â€œWhat?” Dabney said. She looked up at Jason, mortified that he might have overheard this, but Jason was wholly absorbed in the game.
    â€œI think he, like, like-likes you,” Mallory said.
    Dabney was impressed that Mallory had managed to use the word like three times in a row and still make sense.
    â€œNo, he does not. Don’t be stupid. You’re beautiful, Mallory. He likes you.”
    â€œYou were gone for, like, five minutes and then he wanted to try and find you. We’ve been searching for, like, half an hour. And he kept telling me how you loved the idea for his thesis.”
    â€œOh my God,” Dabney said. She did not love the idea for Jason’s thesis; at best, she thought it might make an amusing party game at four in the morning while drunk or stoned. Which is better: original or cover?
    â€œAnd when he was eating your sandwich?” Mallory said. “He was making noises. It sounded like…like he was having an orgasm. ”
    â€œYou have to stop,” Dabney said. Jason was standing right between them, although she could tell he wasn’t paying attention. He let out a loud, piercing whistle for something that happened on the field.
    â€œI’m serious,” Mallory said. “You somehow managed to steal my boyfriend.”
    â€œI did no such thing!” Dabney said.
    â€œI really like living with you,” Mallory said. “But I don’t want you to ride home with us tomorrow.”
    Before Dabney could respond with the obvious question—HOW WILL I GET HOME, THEN?—Jason plopped down into the seat between them and wrapped an arm around both Dabney and Mallory. “How are my best girls?’ he said.
    Dabney stood up. “I’m going to find Clen,” she said.
    Â Â 
    She headed up the stairs toward the concession area. Jason did not like her. Or rather, he liked her, most people liked her, but he was not interested in her romantically. Possibly he thought she was smart or interesting or a good cook. Jealousy was making Mallory irrational. Dabney had not stolen her boyfriend! She erased from her mind the time when she had driven Jason to visit his sister at Tabor Academy and he had noticed Dabney chewing on her pearls, and he had, gently, removed them from her mouth and arranged them back around her neck. His hand had lingered on her clavicle for an extra second or two. Dabney had laughed and said, “Thanks, Preppie.”
    Now she would be stuck here in New Haven, unless she could either talk Mallory out of her nonsense or find Clark from Owl. How would she ever find Clark?
    There were many scary things about new places, the scariest perhaps being all the people Dabney didn’t know. So many people. On Nantucket, Dabney knew nearly everyone; she had known most since she was born, and those she didn’t know knew her father, or her grandparents, or her great-grandparents. Even at Harvard, now, in her second year, she knew approximately one out of every four people she saw. But here at the Yale Bowl she faced a mass of unrecognizable humanity.
    Until she spotted Clen and Jocelyn.
    They were standing together, an island in the shifting sea of red and blue. Dabney blinked. Jocelyn had her arms around Clen’s neck, her fingers were deep in his thick, dark hair. He looked like he was trying to pull away; his hands were on her shoulders but he seemed to be trying to keep her at bay rather than bring her closer. Dabney’s eyes saw a green cloud, like tear gas, hovering above them.
    Well, she thought, they