Dairy Queen (19 page)

I shook my head. This was getting heavy. The problem was, I didn't know where it was going. She was saying some amazing things, but I was so busy waiting for the But that I didn't have anything left to appreciate them. They were just wasted.

She sighed again, rubbing my leg like it was a magic lamp or something. "I just want you to know that you don't have to prove anything to us. To me or Dad. We love you so much."

Again: what was coming next? Because you don't just say words like that just to put them out there. Not those words. Not in my family, anyway.

"You don't have to play football for us."

"What?" I asked, sitting about a foot higher in bed.

"Your trying out, it makes me see how we haven't been appreciating you enough. But you don't have to—"

"How do you know about that?"

Mom eyed me. "Jeff Peterson came to the Board of Ed meeting last night to give us a heads up."

"Oh," I said. "I didn't know about that."

"Neither did I," she said, probably sharper than she meant to.

Ouch. I mean, there you are, acting principal, and the football coach stands up and says your daughter wants to play football? Of course everyone would look at you, and you'd look pretty stupid when you said you had no idea. The last thing I wanted was to make her life any harder than it already was. Here she was, stuck between Dad and Win and Bill, with Curtis not talking, and it wasn't fair for her to go around thinking I was losing it too. I didn't mind Dad thinking that, but it wasn't fair to her.

Finally, just to say something, I blurted out, "It's got nothing to do with Dad." I tried to find the words. "It's just that I spent all summer feeling like I was doing everything I was supposed to, and seeing everyone around me doing what
they
were supposed to, and no one seemed happy. They just seemed caught. And I was so unhappy I tried to find something that made me happy, and then I had this idea of playing football. And that made me happy. So I thought I'd try."

Whew.

Mom swallowed. "Do you think I'm unhappy?"

Oh, boy. Out of the frying pan into the fire. "No," I lied.

"Because I really like my job."

"But it takes all your time," I said.

"Well, teaching and administration, that's a lot."

"But you're never home," I said.

Mom looked away. I had this feeling she was doing everything she could not to lose it. "It's just," she said, "that there's not a whole lot for me at home right now."

That hung there in the air for about a million years. What do you say to that? Maybe Oprah would know what to say Maybe if we were driving back from Madison I could come up with something. But I didn't have two or three exits to work it through. I had only my crummy old bed, and that wasn't good enough.

"They offered me the job," she said, so quietly it took me a couple moments to register. "The principal job. Give up teaching and just do that."

"Wow." I chewed on that for a little bit.

"What do you think?" She asked it like my opinion really mattered to her.

I thought about her saying how much she liked her job. Just visiting her office, you could see how happy it made her. "Go for it."

She burst into this huge smile and threw her arms around me.

Finally, just to get her off me, I asked, "Are you okay with me playing football?"

She pulled back and studied my face. "Oh! When did you cut your hair?"

"In Madison." I tried not to blush—she was really looking me over. "I spent all the money on it. I'm sorry."

"It looks great," she said, turning my chin.

"It didn't fit under the helmet," I said. "With the ponytail."

She brushed a wisp out of my face. "Oh, D.J."

"Did you tell Dad?" I asked. "About football?"

"I wanted to talk to you first. You don't have to be so hard on him, you know. He never wanted to be a farmer. He gave up a lot for this place."

"Jeez." Which Mom doesn't like, but there wasn't anything else I could think of to say.

She patted my knee. "He's not that unhappy. He loves to cook."

There was another long silence, but it was okay. I could hear Dad downstairs, banging around.

"I should go," Mom said, patting my knee again. "This was real nice, us talking."

"It was," I said, feeling like someone at the end of an Oprah Winfrey show.

"Do you really like football?"

I nodded.

"Then that's a good reason to play."

"If I make the team," I added.

"You'll make the team."

"You always say that," I said.

"I always know," she said with a smile, and she left.

I lay there for a while longer, staring out the window. And you want to know what I thought about? That maybe I should leave those curtains up just a little bit longer because my mom wanted them so much. For me, her only daughter.

I spent Friday, what was left of it anyway, waiting for Brian to show up so he could see my hair and get all surprised about me playing football, now that Jeff officially said I could play. But then after lunch the phone rang and Mom answered it and said, "D.J., it's for you," with this little smile that I had no idea what to do with, and it was Brian.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey." He sounded like there was something wrong.

All I could think about was his bloody nose, and I started blushing.

"Hey" Brian repeated. Something was definitely wrong. "Listen. My dad works with this guy who has this house on Lake Superior. It's really cool. It's got a pool, and—anyway he just invited us up. For the weekend."

"Oh," I said.

"And I was wondering—I know we're working out this afternoon and all, but I was wondering if it would be okay if I went."

"It sounds pretty great," I said. Because that's what you say.

"Hey, want to come?"

Which was just so completely out of the question, so wild and so crazy and so darn sad, that I had to laugh. "Sure," I said.

"Really? That would be so cool!"

And I couldn't tell if he was kidding, although he must have been kidding because there's no way in a million years that I could leave the farm and the calves and the twice-a-day milking, and more important, there is no way that anything in the world I do, ever, is cool. Except maybe my haircut. Which now he wouldn't be able to see.

"I can't," I said. "we're haying tomorrow. But thanks for asking."

"Oh. Do you need my help?" he asked. But it was obvious he didn't mean it.

"Nah," I said, my heart breaking.

"Then I'll call you Sunday night when I get back. Okay?"

"Sure," I said, counting the days. And that's how we left it.

I went back and sat down like nothing had happened because in our family that's what you do. And when Dad made a crack about knowing Brian would quit, I didn't say a word.

Grandpa Warren told me once that there's a town in Pennsylvania named Schwenksville, which just about knocked me out. A whole town full of Schwenks? Then he explained a little more that it was just named after someone with our name, which still tickled me a lot. When I got older, though, and I'd be stuck on the farm working while every other kid in the world was out having fun, I began to think of our place as Schwenksville. This little spot that I'd be stuck in forever with only my family.

The next three days, I was in Schwenksville. Dad's hip had healed enough that he could drive the tractor without it falling out or anything, which meant he could mow and roll and bale all by himself which I guess I should view as a good thing. But we still had to bring the hay in, me and Curtis, while Dad drove the hay wagon around the field and told us what we were doing wrong, him complaining nonstop about the weather when he wasn't complaining about us. And me the whole time thinking that if this was a real family I'd be off with Brian at Lake Superior if he even meant his invitation, which he probably didn't but he knew he could ask because I'd have to work. I couldn't figure out which was worse to think about, him meaning it or him not.

It was nice, though, working with Curtis. Sometimes we'd catch each other's eye and grin a little, and that was okay.

Saturday night I thought a couple times about calling Amber, I was so bored and lonely. But I couldn't. I mean, what were we supposed to say to each other? We couldn't even talk about my haircut, seeing as it would really hurt her feelings that I drove all the way to Madison instead of using her. And that's not even bringing up the, you know, big stuff, the stuff we
really
couldn't talk about, like Brian. And her. Mom even said that she hadn't seen much of Amber lately—I think she was trying, you know, to egg me into getting out or something—but I just mumbled that she was busy and changed the subject.

Sunday it rained and Mom insisted on taking me out shopping for school clothes, which is not one of my top thousand favorite activities, but she said if I stayed in the house moping I'd drive her to drink. So we went to this mall and along with jeans and T-shirts and stuff, Mom ended up getting me a couple new sports bras and some training shorts and things.

And you know what the nicest thing was? She never said a word. She never said that I'd need those clothes for preseason. She never pointed out how my old sports bras were covered with paint and all worn out because I'd worn them every day, without a shirt a lot of the time. She never asked when I was going to tell Dad about football, although I could tell it was just about killing her, my not doing that. Most important, though, she never pulled an Oprah about Brian. Because if she had, I would have died. Seriously. I would have broken into a million little pieces and died.

But she didn't, for the same reason she never got involved in The Fight to begin with, or mentioned she was e-mailing Win and Bill. Or made me talk to Dad directly about cleaning the barn, or took me on for walking out on Sunday dinner that one time. Because that's not her job, not in our family, anyway. Her job is to keep the peace, make sure everyone is doing okay, and not say too much about it. And you know, my mom might not be the most perfect mother in the whole world, but on that score, at least, at keeping quiet about awkward subjects, she's pretty great.

So once I stopped being scared that she was going to Ask Something and stopped worrying that maybe
I
should, which would have messed this whole thing up again, it got to where we could just talk. And she told me about how excited she was to be principal, and how she needed to take all these education classes because apparently teaching sixth grade for twenty years doesn't count, and she just seemed so happy. It was great, actually. It was like we weren't even family, it was more like we were friends.

We talked for so long that I even forgot about Brian, until I got home and Brian didn't call. He had promised to call me when he got back from the weekend and he didn't. If I ever have kids, which of course would depend on me meeting someone and getting married and everything, all of which I have real doubts about, but if I do, the one thing I'm going to teach them is that if they ever promise to call someone, they better keep that promise. You can wreck the car or flunk out of school or anything you want. But if you break a promise like that, you're no longer my child.

Then I started getting worried that maybe something had happened, like he and his folks had a car accident or something coming back from Lake Superior. And it got later and later and I finally just called him.

His cell phone rang about three times and then he answered. "Hey! I was just thinking about you!" I could hear all this noise in the background, music and people shouting and laughing.

"Hey," I said, so happy to hear him. "I just, um, wanted to make sure you're okay."

"Who's that?" a girl asked in the background.

"I'm doing great," Brian said to me, ignoring her. "It's been totally insane. Practice starts tomorrow and everyone's a little crazy. I wanted to stop by this afternoon and see you—"

"Who are you talking to?" the girl asked. She didn't sound too pleased. At least Brian was ignoring her.

"How about tomorrow after practice? Are you going to be around?"

"Um, I think so. It's just that—" I started to explain about football.

I could hear more laughter in the background. "I've got to go! I'll see you then, okay?"

"Have fun," I said, but it sounded like he was already.

***

So I lay in bed that night going over our conversation in my mind, thinking about how happy Brian sounded to be talking to me. Like he said, things are crazy the day before preseason. At least he'd wanted to stop by. I was extra relieved now that Mom had taken me shopping, because if I'd known I would have gone insane waiting for him to show up.

That girl in the background asking who I was—you know what I really liked? That he seemed a lot more interested in me than he was in her. I don't know who she was and I don't want to know, but she wasn't making him happy the way I was. Maybe, it occurred to me, he and I would end up as friends. I knew a couple people like that, guys with friends who are, you know, girls. Not girly girls or anything but just girls, which pretty much defines me to a T. I liked that idea. He'd come by tomorrow after practice, and if I made the team or at least made it through practice we'd joke about it, and maybe throw a couple passes or something, and try to figure out how to survive the season as enemies and everything. It was too bad, actually, that we were on opposing teams, because it would be awesome to play running back to his quarterback. Dominate offense and all. If I made the team, that is. If I made it through the first day of practice.

Monday morning, after about the worst night of sleep ever, and after milking because who else was going to do it, I drove the pickup down to the high school. I really should have asked Dad if I could use it, but I sure didn't want to talk to him so instead I just took it.

I got there early and sat in the truck trying not to think too much because when I did all I could think about was all those guys looking at me when they figured out what I was doing. All those sullen, angry eyes.