Dairy Queen (7 page)

A couple times when Dad and Mom were laying it on extra thick Curtis caught my eye and I'd grin. But most of the time, because I was crazy, I sat there thinking about how I could build Brian's arm up, and his wind, and how his kissing up to Dad probably was a pretty good idea since we'd be sneaking around behind his back for the week because there was no way on this earth I was going to tell Dad what we were doing.

That night Amber called. "Hey, what'd you do today?"

"Nothing." On top of everything else, I'm a terrible liar.

"Liar!" Amber laughed. "Come on, tell me."

"Really. I milked the cows and took a nap." All of which was true, at least.

"What else?"

"Nothing. Really. What did you do?"

Eventually I got her talking about how much her job stinks, but I wasn't really listening. I hate keeping secrets, especially from Amber who hates it too—hates it when people keep secrets from her. But I sure didn't want her finding out about Brian, any more than I wanted Dad to.

And then all my enthusiasm faded away. What if Brian blew me off? What if he told his friends and they all made fun of me for thinking a dumb F-in-English farm girl could even be a football trainer? Because there's never been a teenage girl football trainer I've ever heard of. What if it turned out I couldn't do it? What if Brian did everything I said—which I didn't have too much faith in to begin with—but nothing happened, and Jimmy Ott said sorry but he'd made a mistake about me knowing football?

And what if it turned out just the opposite, that I was pretty good, and Brian stuck with it and people found out who turned Hawley's snotty, lazy QB into a real player? My folks would talk to me probably, but Curtis wouldn't. Amber would pretty much kill me, and so would everyone else in Red Bend, just for that one game if nothing else.

Let me tell you about that game, that one Hawley–Red Bend game two years ago.

Bill had trained all summer just to play Hawley. Every afternoon he'd go out to the heifer field and run his guts out, run until sweat poured off him like water, gasping Hawley's name every time he started his next sprint. He wanted to beat Hawley so bad—Win had beaten Hawley his senior year, and now it was Bill's senior year and everyone said he was even better than Win had been, bigger and faster and more versatile. By the time the game started Bill had worked himself up until he was in another place altogether.

Bill is a linebacker—someone who works defense behind the line of scrimmage, tackling runners, slowing down receivers. But that game Bill was everywhere. Every play he'd be somewhere else, up at the line or back, on either side of the field depending on where he thought the ball was going, ready to run down anyone, anyone at all from Hawley who came near him. Every time the Hawley QB reached for the snap, Bill would holler at the top of his lungs—we could hear it up in the stands; it gave me goose bumps—"That's my ball! I'm gonna get that ball!" And the QB—first their starter and then another guy, and then Brian, who was brought in at the end even though he was only a sophomore because the two other quarterbacks were so beat—would shiver a little, you could see it, and Hawley's offensive linemen would give this little twitch and step away from Bill without even realizing it. And not on that play, maybe, but within three or four plays Bill would run them down, get the ball somehow, get possession for Red Bend.

Then the Red Bend offense would screw it up. It wasn't like when Win was still playing when he was on offense and Bill was on defense and they balanced out. Instead, because our offense sucked so much, Hawley would get possession again and back in would go Red Bend defense, meaning Bill. That's what the game was: the entire Hawley team, eight at a time, against my brother. Hawley was ahead by seven for most of the game, and then in the last five minutes Bill intercepted a pass and ran for a touchdown, which would have been just fantastic except that the Red Bend kicker—I won't say his name because he's suffered enough—missed the extra point. And Hawley won.

And God, were they jerks about it.

Especially Brian. Every time he missed a pass or got tackled you could hear him chewing out the other Hawley players even though it was clear Bill would have wrestled a bear to stop the play. After the game, when Bill was crying he was so upset, Brian stood there in a crowd of Hawley players and jeered at him, calling him a baby and a girl and every name you could think of.

Remembering that game, well, you can imagine that didn't make me too pleased about Brian. He'd been fun this afternoon—that pickup game was okay, it really was. And he'd worked hard unloading the hay—worked like he should have worked three days ago, but still. And he was pretty civil to me, even. And that's what made me so confused. How could a guy who was such a jerk, how could he act so nice?

I was also thinking that if Bill ever found out I was training Brian Nelson, I wouldn't make it on to a TV show about crazy people. Because my brother would drive right up to Red Bend and kill me. You don't need to be speaking to someone to do that.

All through morning milking I tried to figure out how to get out of this mess. Me from Red Bend training Hawley's QB was a really bad idea, I could see now. I just had to figure out how to say it. I was still thinking about it, cleaning the barn, when Brian walked in.

"Hey." He was dressed in sneakers and everything, but he didn't look all too pleased.

"Hey," I said. I took a deep breath. "You know, we don't have to do this."

"I know. But Jimmy really wants it to happen."

"Oh." That sort of put a monkey wrench in my plans, knowing Jimmy was in on it.

"For a week," Brian added, just to clarify.

"A week," I agreed. So, not knowing what else to do, I showed him the free weights, waiting for his crack about the dust.

But all he said was "Jeez, I hate lifting," and started at least. After a couple minutes he sighed. "Win did this every day?"

"No." I wouldn't have said anything, but he brought it up. "Every other day. On off days he'd do sit-ups and jumps."

Brian gave me this really strange look. "Yeah. Of course he did."

I kept an eye on him while I scraped crud off the walls with a snow shovel. Once or twice I'd mention if I saw an elbow going out or his speed increasing or something, the way Win and Bill checked each other. I tried my very hardest to say it in a way Jimmy Ott would approve of, trying to earn Brian's respect and all. Not that I wanted his respect, but I owed that at least to Jimmy. Brian was okay about listening too, which I have to hand to him.

"You should power wash that," Brian offered once. "My dad has a power washer down at the showroom you could use."

"This is okay," I lied. I didn't know what a power washer was, and I sure wasn't going to ask. Instead I said, "When you're done there, we'll run some."

Well, "run" is an awfully flattering word for what we did. "Shuffle" is more appropriate. Because it was broiling already and it wasn't even noon. But at least we were moving forward, and breathing hard, though that was more from the heat than our pace. I knew if I didn't go with him he'd quit within a hundred yards, and then once I was with him I couldn't quit either, so we ended up running two whole miles without stopping. A couple times he tried to stop but I'd tell him to keep going, mostly because I wanted it to be over so bad.

"You know," I said at one point, just to take my mind off how hot it was, "Bill ran this course every day his senior year."

I glanced at Brian. He looked furious.

We ran the rest of the way without saying a word. What a stupid thing for me to say, pointing out again how great my brothers were. So much for earning respect. This whole training idea was turning out to be too stupid for words.

We finally, after a hundred years, made it back to the farm. Brian climbed right into the Cherokee, slamming the door behind him.

I thought about asking if he was coming back but I was pretty sure what the answer would be.

"Wait," he said. He sat there picking at his steering wheel.

"You okay?" I asked finally because he wasn't saying anything.

"I ... I'm sorry I was such a jerk at that game."

It took me a minute to figure out he was talking about Bill's football game.

"He worked real hard. He—Red Bend should have won." The words came out of him like they were being dragged, like it was ripping his guts out just to say them.

I swallowed. I hadn't been expecting this.

"And—I'm sorry those guys called you names last week. And I'm real sorry I said that stuff about you being a cow, and dying and all."

"Oh," I said. "Um, thanks."

He started the Cherokee. "See you tomorrow."

Well, that gave me a little something to think about for the next couple hours. An apology? That was downright shocking. You could probably fill a book with all the stuff us Schwenks aren't good at, but what we're worst at is apologizing. Just ask Dad and my brothers if you've got the guts, because any one of them would smack you for bringing the subject up. Apologizing is like taking a little ache you feel inside and making it ten times worse. Like punching a bruise. Who'd want to go through that pain?

And you can see, just from Brian, why apologizing sucks so much. He was dying when he said it. Although he didn't look like he'd been all that thrilled beforehand, now that I thought about it. All that time I thought he was angry at me, because that's what you think if you see someone angry—it's what I think, anyway—but he was just angry with himself. That was interesting to think about too, the idea that you could be so mad at yourself that you'd need to apologize. Again, not something I've had much experience with. And you know, after he'd said all those things, banging away on his bruises, he still looked pretty cut up. But at least he didn't look mad anymore. I guess apologizing sort of re-leased that.

But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed that he hadn't released all those bad feelings, he'd just passed them right to me. Because it hurt to hear him talk about what his friends had said, how they'd mooed and laughed at me and all. I'd forgotten how much I hadn't liked it until Brian brought it up. It shows why
not
to apologize: it just makes the other person feel bad. At least it made me feel bad.

Especially because then I started thinking about that last thing Brian had said, about me being a cow and all. I'd blown it off when he'd first said it when we were fighting. But now I tried to remember, because it obviously bugged him that he'd hurt my feelings. It took some time and some effort, but I did remember. And then I spent the next few weeks wishing that I hadn't. I wished it a lot. I still wish it sometimes, to this day.

Brian had said I was just like a cow, something about me dying—probably because he'd just seen Joe Namath go off to the slaughterhouse. He'd said I'd go up on a truck to die and I wouldn't even mind. Which was stupid, because people go in ambulances and die in hospitals like Grandpa Warren did. Besides, unlike cows I at least knew what I was doing. I mean, at least I got mad about stuff sometimes. I didn't much like getting up every morning, especially in the winter or when I was really tired, and I sure didn't like having to work every day with Dad breathing down my neck and treating me like an idiot.

Now that I thought about it, though, what good did it do me, getting mad? Because I sure didn't tell Dad off—which he deserves—or quit. I just kept nodding even though I was about ready to kill him inside and went off to do exactly what he said. Which, I now remembered, Brian had also pointed out in his you-are-a-cow speech. That I did everything without complaining. Well, I was complaining inside, but who would know? My complaining inside just made me feel a little better. It kind of covered up—well, it had covered it up until now—how much I did what Dad wanted. Covered it up the way that frosting kind of covers up a bad cake, makes it go down easier. I just did what my parents told me, and my coaches, and Amber, and Smut, even. If Smut wanted to run back to the barn, I'd run even if I didn't feel like it, most of the time. I was nothing more than a cow on two legs.

Heck, maybe cows get mad too. I've seen cows get so mad they bust a fence or something, although that's rare. But maybe all day long they're seething inside and you just can't tell. They just keep getting milked and chewing their cud and having babies because they just don't know any different. Don't know any way to stop. Maybe they don't even like silage but they eat it anyway because that's all there is. I don't like Dad's food but I force it down or else I'd starve. If it was between that and starving, I'd probably eat silage for that matter, and act just like the cows do. I wouldn't get mad so anyone could see.

I sure didn't like thinking these thoughts, let me tell you. But every time I tried to stop they'd just come back into my head a different way, the way that Smut when you put her outside sometimes comes right back in through another door.

When I got in from evening milking Mom was at the kitchen table doing paperwork. After I'd eaten a bit and drunk about a gallon of milk, she looked up. "This afternoon I ran into Mary Stolze." Meaning the English teacher who flunked me.

I'd just been thinking that I couldn't possibly feel any worse and—BAM—now I did.

"She's real concerned about how you're going to manage this fall," Mom continued. "She still thinks you can finish some of the work you didn't turn in."

"So on top of everything else I'm doing, I've got to write a whole bunch of stupid papers?" I couldn't believe it. Those
stupid
English papers. Why of all nights did Mom have to bring them up now? Here I was trying to figure out what the whole point of my life was. The last thing I needed was to have to write a stupid paper on
Hamlet.

"Honey, you won't be able to graduate without that class."

I kept eating, my head down. Mom kept talking but I didn't say anything else because that's what we Schwenks do. If there's a problem or something, instead of solving it or anything, we just stop talking. Just like cows.