Dairy Queen (24 page)

Brian didn't say anything but he looked at me like he wanted to kill me. And it really cut me. Because I know what it's like to take garbage from Justin Hunsberger, and of all the people I'd want knowing about Brian's family, Justin would be very last on the list.

But then I heard out of the stands, over all that screaming and cheering, "That's my ball! That's my ball!" Bill was bellowing. And then Aaron started chanting it too, and the guys on the field all around me picked it up, hollering it before each snap. For the record, I will say I never shouted it with them. But a couple times, a couple times during Brian's countdowns, right before the snap when I was bent down ready to burst out, I'd whisper it to myself. And then, full of Win's intensity and Bill's craziness, I'd explode.

So after those first couple plays, my touchdown and Justin's sack, the second half calmed down a little. Brian stopped passing because most of the time when he tried it me or someone else from Red Bend would be right there, and so that left Hawley with just running plays. And they'd churn their way through a couple downs until we'd stop them, and then we'd go in and manage a down, maybe three, until we got stopped, and that's how the game went. Only it was different from the first half because, well, because I wasn't the only one who was full of crazy intensity. We all were. Instead of it being a big strong school against a little weak school, it was kind of even. We knew it. Hawley knew it, or else why would Brian be bawling his team out every chance he got? And everyone in the stands knew it. And they were, well, they were pretty loud.

Whenever Hawley's offense left the field, I could see Brian shouting at Jimmy Ott. In case you're wondering, even though Jimmy's practically our uncle and he eats over all the time, it wasn't like he spent the whole game telling everyone to be nice to D.J. Schwenk. He got really mad at the ref for not calling me on interference once, and he was pretty vocal about telling Hawley to block me. But even so, Brian would go up to him and start screaming, basically, and Jimmy would scream right back.

And then Brian would have to go in with the whole Red Bend defense making fun of his dad, asking if he was going to sue them, asking if they were hurting his feelings. It got pretty rough, to tell you the truth. Sitting here now writing about it, I see that Hawley isn't the only football team in Wisconsin with jerks on it.

But Brian—I have to admit Brian kept playing. He didn't quit, and he even stopped yelling at his team. Instead he got quiet, which was a lot more intimidating. He'd come out of the huddle like a general or something—like Win does—and he'd bark out orders with no other talk, and those Hawley players would fall in line like soldiers.

But even so, we held them off. And then finally there we were seven yards from Hawley's goal line with only twenty-eight seconds left. Football games really end like this, not just in the movies. Only in real life we'd get slaughtered, Hawley would intercept us and win 7–17 instead of 7–10. That's what reality is in Red Bend, Wisconsin.

So there we were with two downs left, with me playing halfback because Joe Krazuk had messed up his ankle again, the left one he's got to be careful about because he broke it last winter playing ice hockey, and Jeff had put me in instead. Now. Let me say that at this point in the game I was so sore, just so destroyed, because football it turns out is a really brutal sport, that all I could think about was how I was going to have to play ten more games this season. And then I'd think about my brothers playing college ball against real opponents, real scary ones, and get even more impressed with them than I normally am. Because all I wanted was a long,
long
hot shower and a cool bed. And maybe a whole bottle of aspirin. And then the same thing again tomorrow.

So we got into the huddle and I guess maybe Kyle saw that I was whipped because he called for a trap using me as a lure but with Kyle really taking it himself. We lined up and everyone hunkered down like total pros all ready to block for me. And Kyle called it, and the center snapped it back and Kyle passed it to me. Only he didn't, he just faked it, and I did my very best with the three brain cells I had left to pretend I had a ball in my arms, and I drove off to the right surrounded by blockers while Kyle ambled to the left, and God bless the Hawley defense because they hated me so much that they followed after me even as I took off
up
the field—in the wrong direction for Pete's sake—and Kyle had only one defender, who he dragged across the goal line.

So now the score was 13–1 0.

And Red Bend piled all over Kyle and pounded on him while I lay on the field trying to recover from my last tackle, which felt like six elephants instead of three Hawley linesmen who would have been happy to leave me dead, until I finally had to get up just out of simple human pride and join the celebration, and then wait for Beaner's extra point, which of course he made because this was a very special night, and it brought the score up to 14–10, which was even better.

And we won.

And finally they got all the Red Bend players off the field and we all huddled together for a minute on the bench feeling, well, feeling about the way I think I'd feel if I ever tried skydiving and survived it. And then we had to line up and slap hands with the opposition, which is something you have to do after every game. Win even told me once that it was in the Constitution, and I believed him until eighth grade when we studied the Constitution itself and I was surprised to see it wasn't there.

I worked my way down the line, slapping hands like I'd done a thousand times before at basketball and volleyball and summer softball. I could see Brian coming down the line, slapping hands and saying, "Good game," the way you do from the age of six or something on up, up to the pros I guess, and then all of sudden our hands touched and he looked me right in the eye—or I looked him right in the eye if you want to think of it that way—we looked each other in the eye. And he didn't say anything, and neither did I. But I felt, well, I felt a whole book could be written about what we thought, looking at each other. A book with words like Honesty and Trust and Loyalty and Maturity and all those other biggies. I felt like he understood everything I'd been through that night but we would probably never speak again. Not because I was a bad person, or because he was, but because, well, that's just the way the world worked.

And let me say this: of everything that's happened to me this crazy, stupid summer, in that one second that we looked at each other, that's when I felt I grew up the most. And I'll just tell you now, it's not ... it's not a particularly pleasant sensation.

Brian turned and walked away with his team back to their bus, and Red Bend headed off too, the guys in groups of twos and threes, stopping to cheer with people who'd come onto the field. Beaner had his arm around my shoulders, which was nice except that he kept howling, which made it a little hard to maintain a conversation.

And then in the distance I saw someone and did a double take because she looked so different with her hair brown, and then I took a deep breath and told myself that if I could play a football game I could handle this, and I made my way through the crowd to Amber.

"Hey," I said, coming up beside her, all out of breath.

"Hey. Good game."

"Thanks," I said, so glad she was talking to me. "I didn't think you'd be here."

She shrugged.

The woman next to her, or the girl—sort of between the two, if you know what I mean—shook my hand. "Hey. Amber's told me a lot about you." She had this really cool voice, kind of crackly.

"D.J., this is Dale," Amber explained. "She works in the meat department at the Super Saver."

"Awesome game. You totally rocked out there!"

I shrugged, trying not to make too big a deal out of it and also because I didn't know what to say.

"You know," Dale continued, "we should go partying sometime, the three of us."

"Sure," I said, wondering if the partying would involve Advil. "That'd be fun."

"So ... we'll see you around?" Amber asked, and I nodded and they ambled away.

I tried with my little beat-up brain to figure out what was different about Amber. Besides the fact that her hair wasn't orange anymore and all. I finally figured it out: she looked happy. I guess I hadn't seen her like that. Ever, really.

And I was happy for her. I really was. But for one thing, I hurt all over. I had a bruise on my thigh that killed me whenever I moved, and my back ached, and I'd done something to my right shoulder during a tackle that made me not want to move my arm too much. But more than that, well, you have to admit it's kind of ironic. I mean, here we are in Nowhere, Wisconsin, and Amber Schneider manages to hook up with someone, someone who actually seems pretty cool and okay. And, well, I don't.

Just then Mom found me to say that there was a reporter looking for me, and even though that would make almost anyone in the world really happy, I knew that if I had to talk to that person the only thing I would do was burst into tears.

"Mommy," I said with all the energy I had, "I just want to go home."

And Mom, God bless her, she understood. She got me over to the Caravan and I stood there stripping off all that goddam gear while Bill and Dad and Aaron shot the breeze like there hadn't even been a seven-month silence between them. Well, not with Aaron, but you get my point. Bill and Aaron had to get back to school right away—Bill had snuck away to see me, which was really great of him, and Aaron had come along because it was his car.

Bill looked over at me at one point. "Jesus, girl, what were you doing all summer?" I guess he was referring to, you know, my muscles and stuff, from all that haying and painting and training and work. Or maybe just to my tan.

Aaron put his arm around my waist. "Damn, Bill. You sure have a good-looking sister."

That part felt nice, if you want to know, his arm around me. I'm big, which I guess you've figured out by now, and my whole family is big. Bill is probably 250 now, and Win's around 215. But Aaron is
big.
It kind of struck me how great it would be to go out with a guy that size. And if you, you know, got tired of dating him, you could always use him as a house or something. So I was happy for a moment, until that little bit of happiness drained away and left me just plain old miserable.

So we all said our goodbyes and Bill and Aaron promised to come to my next game if they possibly could, and Aaron gave me an extra-big squeeze that made me really hope he would, and they left. Curtis had wandered off with a girl somewhere, which normally would be the most amazing thing in the world except I was too bummed out to even care, and Dad took the pickup, so it was just me and Mom.

I stared out the window as Mom worked her way through the parking lot, people waving to us and cheering, and then out on the street. I felt like I'd been playing football for weeks.

"You know what I was thinking about?" Mom asked.

"Mmm," I said, watching the fireflies blink across the fields.

"I was thinking about how hard it must be to play pro ball."

"They earn like two million dollars a year," I couldn't help pointing out.

"I know. But it must be hard being on a team, making all those friends. And then when you're traded, those friends become enemies. You've spent all that time playing with them, learning all their tricks, and then you're expected to go out there and fight them. I think that would be really hard."

I studied her as she drove along, trying to figure out if she was making the point I thought she was making. But she never batted an eye.

"Yeah," I said. "It would be hard." Yeah, I thought to myself. It would almost break your heart.

When I woke up the sun was streaming through the curtains. I panicked for a second about milking and then it all came back to me: the scrimmage, Dad's milking this morning, the touchdown, Bill showing up, Curtis's girlfriend, and then Brian's face when we touched hands after the game. I lay there for a bit just trying to process all this, uneasy because something had woken me up but I couldn't remember what. Then a car door shut—that was it! A car had driven in. That's what woke me. And then I heard, "Hey there, Smut."

Brian.

I leapt out of bed and gave such a scream, because oh my God I hurt all over. If you'd taken me out back and driven the tractor over me you couldn't have done more damage. I sort of staggered and fell on the bed but my butt was sore too, I can't even remember why, and I just had to hold real still and catch my breath for a moment, trying to figure out how to even start moving.

I sat there wriggling my fingers, thinking I'd start slowly, and then the front doorbell rang and it had to be Brian and I—I'd like to say that it's because I'm a terribly strong and courageous person, but actually I was just too dumb to know better—I grabbed a pair of jeans and headed down the stairs, trying to pull them on as I went down. But I hurt so much I lost my balance halfway down and sort of fell and had to grab the railing for support because my legs didn't work too well and even if they did they were halfway inside the jeans already so I couldn't move them or anything. So instead of walking to the front door I ended up sort of falling against it with a big crash, and I got my jeans zipped up as best I could and took a deep breath and opened the door.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," said Brian, not looking at me.

The silence lasted about a million years as I tried to pretend I wasn't panting and we both ignored that huge elephant-crashing sound I'd just made, and we both—or I did, anyway, I can't speak for Brian—tried to think of something, anything, anything in the whole wide world, to say.

Plus it didn't help that Smut was exploding with joy to be with both of us.

Brian kicked at the doormat. "I have to talk to you."

"Oh," I said.

Brian looked like he'd rather be anywhere than on our front porch.

Finally I said, because he deserved it, "I'm real sorry."

"About what?" he asked, still not looking at me.