Anyway, Amber started talking in this goofy deep voice like she was the guy duck. "Hey, baby, why don't you let me snuggle up against those glossy feathers of yours," she said. "Hey there, you duck female, wanna make some eggs together?"
For a while I tried to be the girl duck and talk like I was blowing him off, but it was so much more fun to do the guy-duck voice that I joined in, and we spent hours on that park bench cracking each other up. I'm sure the guy duck thought we were there for him. At one point Amber said, "Hey there, ducky, what's your name? I'm Bob."
"Bob?" I asked in my normal voice. Because it didn't, you know, seem like that appropriate a name to me.
"Yeah, baby. Bob the duck." Which, again, doesn't sound funny when I write it down, but at the time I was dying with laughter at that dumb-guy sound she was making.
So we had to explain this all to Dale, Amber quoting some of her best lines—my favorite was "Hey, baby, wanna fly south with me?"—and Dale either got a kick out of it or did a good job pretending she did. Plus she knew, don't ask me how, that a guy duck is actually called a drake, and she came up with "Hey, babe, this drake's for you." Which made us laugh even more. And all of a sudden I realized my nervousness about Dale was long gone.
Just so you know, Dale Wagner is really cool. I mean, I don't know that much about cool people. I don't hang out with the cool kids at school, I'm not even sure who the latest cool kids are except that I'm not one of them, and the only really cool person I know is Brian. Not that I like him for that reason, but he is. And I don't know what Dale was like in high school because she's twenty-two now. But that's not what makes her cool, the fact that she's so much older than we are. She's cool because she's got this voice that cracks, and she has a great belly laugh, and she drives a pickup with a little camper on the bed, the littlest camper you ever saw, kind of a dollhouse for truckers. She uses that camper too, because on weekends when she's not working she drives all over the Midwest, down to St. Louis sometimes, for barbecue competitions.
Did you know people actually compete at barbecue? I didn't, but I learned pretty fast. Like there are teams and you join up with a team—an amateur team, not the pros, which she said like of course everyone knows that—once word gets out that you're available as a sub and that you're pretty good, and the competitions run for days, and there are different categories and special woods and sauces that are Carefully Guarded Secrets. That's why Dale works in the meat department at the Super Saver, where she met Amber, because she was so in love with barbecue when she got out of high school that she studied to be a butcher, figuring that it would be a great way to learn about barbecue's most important ingredient.
"Man," she said, "you get a couple contacts at the slaughterhouses and you don't know what you'll get, it's so good."
She said this sitting on Amber's back steps, the three of us eating barbecued ribs that she'd been working on all day with this machine that looked like a war tank gone bad. She hooks it to her pickup like a trailer, but at the moment she had it set up behind the house. Amber's mom, Lori, was gone as always because that woman would perish if she wasn't off with a boyfriend every second, so it was pretty relaxing sitting there, wiping barbecue sauce off with paper napkins and finishing each bite with pop from Dale's little fridge.
"Tell her about that pig," Amber said. Amber—I had never seen her like this. She couldn't take her eyes off Dale. She was totally into her, and Dale was into Amber too, keeping her shoulder by Amber's as they ate.
Dale laughed. "The pig, huh?" She grinned at me. "You ever been to a pig roast?"
"Oh, yeah, all the time," I answered, glad I had something to contribute to Dale's huge library of food knowledge.
"Yeah, well, this guy I was working for—Larry—he ordered this whole hog one day, and the two of us headed out to this farm to pick it up. Well, we got there and the guy said that the hog was out back, but the only thing behind the barn was a pigpen. With a pig in it. It just lit up, seeing us. Probably thought we had food. Farmer shows up right then and Larry says, 'I asked for a whole hog,' and the farmer says, 'Yep,' and Larry says, 'A whole dead hog,' and the farmer says, 'You didn't specify that part.'" She laughed, remembering this. We all laughed.
"So you had to butcher it?" I asked.
"Larry looks at me and I hand him my knife and say, 'I'll cut it into whatever you want, but I'm not killing it.' Well, Larry can't kill a hog. That's a big job, and messy, too."
"So what'd you do?" I asked.
She sighed. "Only thing we could. Filled the feed trough with sauce and started marinating it from the inside out. Want another rib?"
I laughed so hard my belly hurt—from that story and a bunch of others about mistakes she'd made, confusing cayenne pepper with chili pepper because apparently the two of them are different, and all the things that can go wrong at a barbecue competition, like the judges who forgot paper plates so they had to use wood shingles that someone had brought as kindling.
"We've got to get you to Texas," she said to Amber. "Texas barbecue—it's something to see." They grinned at each other.
All of sudden I felt extremely much like a third wheel. "Well, I better be getting home."
"Hey baby, you taking off so soon?" Amber asked in her Bob-the-duck voice.
"Yeah, sweetheart, I got some chicks to check out," I answered.
"Hey, Bob," Dale said, getting right into the voice, "don't you mean ducklings ?"
"Well, yeah, baby. But I get around, you know." Which made us all chuckle.
"Hey," Dale said in her normal voice, "I forgot to tell you congratulations on your brothers playing today."
We'd been so busy laughing I'd forgotten them for a bit. "Thanks," I said.
"And congratulations on your playing football. That's about the coolest thing ever."
I just shrugged and thanked her, but I sure let those words—her normal-voice words—linger in my mind the whole drive home.
4. Big Trip to the Big City
SUNDAY MORNING BRIAN SHOWED UP just as we were eating these eggs Benedict things, and Dad made Brian stay and have some, which he did after only being asked once. Brian said he'd had them before but Dad's were better, especially the sauce. Which made Dad's day, I can tell you. And then Brian said his mom wanted him to go to Minneapolis with someone responsible and so of course he picked me, and that made Mom's day just as much.
Dad wasn't going to church, which has been pretty much standard since his hip healed. "The Lord and I have our own personal relationship," he'd say, which was what Grandpa Warren always said too, and Grandpa never set foot in church that I can remember except for Grandma Joyce's funeral, and then for his own too, although he didn't have much say that second time. Today Dad needed to work on the barn door hinges, one of those projects that was going to take either ten minutes or ten days, but either way it wouldn't involve Sunday services.
Curtis, though, was already dressed, his blond hair so neatly combed that I got suspicious and touched it. "You gelled your hair?"
He jerked his head away, turning eight shades of red.
"At least someone takes this day seriously," Mom said in that way she has.
"You bought hair gel?" He'd never do that. It'd be like asking him to buy something from the ladies' aisle he won't walk down.
"You look good," Brian offered, which only made Curtis blush more, and work double quick clearing the table just to get away, and then we left, Mom calling after us to be safe.
The drive to Minneapolis was so much fun, I can't even tell you. Brian and I talked and talked and talked, about the football games each of us had played Friday night, and Bill's game, which Brian hadn't seen, and Win's game, which he had. Even though I'm sure Brian has heard so much about Win over the years that he just about wants to barf, he still really praised Win's playing.
Then Brian asked, in that comfortable space that happens in conversations sometimes, what I'd done last night.
"Nothing," I shrugged. "Just hung out with some friends
." I frowned a bit, thinking about Amber and Dale. "Do you know anyone who's, you know, gay?"
Brian laughed. "What's that question for?"
"Just curious."
"Not really. My dad has a second cousin in Chicago who lives with another guy. We had dinner with them once."
"Wow." That was a pretty astounding thing to think about. "What's he do?"
Brian shrugged. "Works for some insurance company as a claims adjuster."
"That's too bad. I mean, if you're going to go to all that trouble of being gay, you might as well do something interesting."
Brian started laughing so hard I was afraid he'd drive off the road. "'If you're going to go to all that trouble, you might as well do something interesting'? It's not a haircut!"
"I know ... But on TV, no one gay is ever an insurance adjuster."
"No one's an insurance adjuster, period." Which is true. Which led us into a discussion of how unrealistic TV is, and from there to how bad football is on TV, how you can never see the whole play, and Brian went on about how much better college ball is in person and made me promise to do everything I could to see Bill, and Win too if we could manage it, although with what pot of gold coins I don't know because just getting to Seattle is expensive, let alone finding someone to manage the farm because we sure as heck can't take thirty-two milkers with us to the stadium. Although we'd probably end up on TV ourselves if we did that.
That was such a funny image I had to tell Brian, and we had a great time imagining the cows, who they'd cheer for and all that sort of stuff, just totally goofing, and then all of a sudden there were the signs saying Minneapolis.
Brian filled me in on the whole purpose of the trip, which I hadn't even wondered about because I was just so happy to be with him. It turns out one of the customers at his dad's dealership had ordered this really fancy custom pickup, and the guy has it not two days before he backs it up with the tailgate down and trashes that poor tailgate completely, and so the tailgate had just come in for Brian to pick up, and get paid to do it to boot, which pretty much amazed me, that you could earn money just for picking stuff up. I offered to drive anywhere his dad ever needed, and Brian laughed and said he'd think about it.
When we got to the supply place, the guy was waiting for us already, not too pleased about coming in on a Sunday. He did a double take when he saw me, which is something I don't get too much because most people I'm around have known me for years. But when I'm with strangers I'm always reminded of how tall I am, and how big I am in comparison to most people. Like my arms and stuff, and shoulders.
"You play ball?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said, surprised he knew about Red Bend football.
Brian laughed. "I think he means basketball, you goof."
"Oh. Um, yeah, I do."
"You play football too?" The guy's eyes went wide.
I shrugged.
Brian, though, was totally into it. "She's Bill Schwenk's kid sister. That linebacker for the u of M?" Nudging me when he said this in a way I didn't mind at all.
"Whoa!" the guy said, his face getting a wait-until-I-tell expression. "So what are you doing hanging around with this moron?"
I grinned. I couldn't help it. I mean, it's sort of the other way around.
"She intercepted me two weeks ago. Scored too." Brian nudged me again.
Well, the guy had to hear all about that, and took his time loading the tailgate into the back of the Cherokee, and shook my hand like I was some sort of important person, and said he'd follow us in the papers, which was a laugh because I can bet our games don't get covered much in Minneapolis.
I couldn't help busting Brian a bit as we drove off. "I bet that's what you tell your friends. 'She intercepted me and scored too.'"
"Shut up," he said, grinning. "It's cool and you know it. Hey, we don't have to go back yet, you know. You want to do some shopping?"
Meaning: the Mall of America. Which of course is the largest mall in the whole United States. It's so big you need days to do the whole thing, plus more money than I'll ever have. But it was still awfully nice to be there with Brian. Loads of high school kids were there shopping, lots of couples, and I felt awfully good walking with this handsome guy and knowing that people thought we were a couple too. I didn't even mind getting eyeballs about my size because I was with Brian. plus there were real couples, families with kids and old folks and people you don't see in Red Bend, Wisconsin, the whole world wandering around and riding the rides because the Mall of America is so big it has its own indoor amusement park, with a roller coaster that isn't quite as scary as a real roller coaster but at least you can ride it in the middle of a blizzard.
Thinking back, I can't remember ever being that happy, straight happy, like I was that day. I mean, I get excited enough watching sports and doing them, but it wasn't the same. Maybe you can understand the difference.
Anyway, we did a lot of things I don't normally do in malls even beyond roller coasters, like get my ears pierced. Which I guess you wouldn't do every time you go to a mall or you'd end up with nothing but metal hanging off the sides of your head, but it was something I'd never done once. We were walking past one of those little jewelry stores with free ear piercing—meaning that if you buy the earrings they'll shoot them for free into your ears—and Brian said to go for it.
"I don't know," I said, wondering how you could ever pick just one pair of earrings.
"Yeah, it's probably totally painful. Way more painful than playing football." Which was extremely unfair of him because now I'd have to get them just to prove him wrong.
"Shut up," I said, laughing. "For your information, I never got them pierced because Bill couldn't get his pierced."
Brian laughed even harder. "What?"
"Bill really wanted to get his ears pierced so he'd look, you know, like an NFL player, and Dad flipped, and after that I figured I'd just lie low about it."
"So you wouldn't hurt Bill's feelings?" Brian grinned.
"Yeah. And my ... friend Amber did it to herself and they got infected and it seemed like a lot of work."
"Oh, yeah, it's a lot of work. Sit down."
So I sat down, and he and the girl picked out a pair of earrings for me, one of the six different piercing-stud kinds, and then all of sudden bang-bang with her little gun my ears were pierced. And do you know what? They looked okay. I really liked the way they looked, actually, with my hair so short. Brian kept grinning at me, though I couldn't tell if he liked the way I looked or he was just tickled he'd talked me into doing it. Plus he paid for them.
Then—and this was really amazing, but Brian insisted because he said I deserved something for the drive, and also said that he hated calling me on our home phone because of Dad, which I can understand—he bought me a cell phone. A really cheap one that doesn't take pictures or have games or anything, and with the cheapest calling plan because I only call about four people, but he said that at least then we could talk to each other and at the end of three months I could just cancel if I didn't want it anymore.
So that was pretty awesome, and the two of us spent a fair amount of time calling each other and having the goofy conversations you have with your first phone. He bought himself some stuff too, CDs and a T-shirt I helped him pick out, a Minnesota T-shirt in honor of my brother, which was awfully great of him, and Brian made a big scene in the store, telling everyone how I was Bill Schwenk's little sister and I played football too, and how I'd scored on an interception. I would have pretty much died of embarrassment if I hadn't been so pleased.
On the way back home, the sun low in the sky already, we had our bags from the different stores and my instructions on how not to get earlobe infections and a couple ice cream cones, and we just chattered about football and basketball and hockey, which Brian plays, and what we'd seen in the mall, the old lady who got caught pushing her cat in a baby carriage because cats aren't allowed in the mall, although I argued (to Brian, not the security staff) that any cat that can be trained to s
tay in a carriage should get an exception, and then Brian all of a sudden pulled off into one of those little rest areas, the kind where there's always an eighteen-wheeler parked and a trash can. Although this rest area didn't have an eighteen-wheeler. He came around to my door and asked me to get out, and I did even though I was totally confused, and then right there with both of us standing next to the Cherokee he started kissing me, and oh boy ...
I have to hand it to him that he didn't even bring up that bloody-nose business because it wouldn't have set the mood so well, although even if the Cherokee exploded right behind me, I think I wouldn't have noticed because this was real kissing. Movie kissing. And my whole body was on fire—maybe from the exploding Cherokee, I don't know, although I could feel that solidity right behind me and I needed it too, to push back against Brian.
I don't know how long we stood there, but I was prepared to stay there forever. All those talks Mom had given, us kids dying of embarrassment, about Being Strong and Not Doing Anything Stupid—which I have to say she gave to Bill a lot more than she gave to the rest of us because Bill has always been an enormous fan of Doing Anything Stupid with girls, starting back in grade school when he dated a seventh-grader—well, even though I wasn't thinking this at the time, looking back I can see how easy it is to Do Anything Stupid, and how I'd have been willing to do pretty much whatever Brian recommended.