The Off Season

But at that moment I didn't come close to Doing Anything Stupid, because right when we were moving that way and I had my hands under Brian's shirt, learning that his back felt even more fantastic than I'd imagined, his cell phone rang. He let it ring a couple times but that sort of thing kills the buzz if you know what I mean, especially when it's the theme from Rocky, and finally we pulled apart, panting a little, and Brian with a little sigh answered it.

  "Hey," he said. "Nothing." But he couldn't help looking at me when he said this, and grinning because he hadn't been doing nothing at all. "Yeah, sure. See you there." He closed the phone. "I've got to go," he said, kissing me again, a more normal kiss this time, not the Cherokee-exploding kind.

  "Sure," I said, because to tell you the truth I was pretty overwhelmed by all these feelings that were turning my insides into giant tornadoes, and a little time-out sounded okay by me.

  So we got back in the Cherokee and headed home, although every time I looked at him the tornadoes started up all over again, and when he turned into our driveway he stopped for a second right there at the bottom, out of sight of the house, so we could have a last goodbye kiss before he dropped me off like we were just friends.

  And I waved goodbye and went inside with my new cell phone and my pierced ears that Mom really liked, and Dad too, because I guess it's okay to be a football player with pierced ears as long as you're a girl, and I called Brian exactly five minutes later on my new cell phone to thank him, and he thanked me for the ride home like I'd given him the best gift of all, until he had to go and I had to help Dad with the barn doors, which were now a ten-day project, Curtis helping as well, though he'd washed the hair gel out I noticed, and life went more or less back to normal except for the tornadoes that hit me whenever I thought about Brian.

  5. Skimming Along

  THE NEXT FEW WEEKS of school my feet were barely touching the ground, like I was just skimming along without too much effort at all. Of course stuff happened, like Friday we played Prophetstown and just beat the stuffing out of them, and even more people were there, a bunch of them cheering just for me. I didn't score or anything because I mostly played linebacker, but I sacked their QB three times with everyone in Prophetstown knowing it. That was pretty great. And I was keeping up on my schoolwork seeing as everyone from Jeff Peterson down to Curtis kept checking to make sure I wasn't going to fail another class. Plus Curtis kept reading my A&P book over my shoulder and asking me a million questions (well, four, which is a million for him), to the point you could tell he'll pretty much be Mr. Larson's sidekick all through high school.

  Curtis, well, he didn't wear hair gel to school, but he was making some interesting fashion choices.

  "It's for Sarah," Mom whispered one morning. Then, realizing she'd spilled the beans, she changed the subject and wouldn't let me talk.

  On rides home from football practice, and on the way to school in the mornings, and on weekends too, I kept asking Curtis about this Sarah person, each time Mom giving me the eyeball to be nice. I might as well have been asking Curtis to give himself a brain operation, but I did finally learn that Sarah went to our church (which explained the hair gel) and she was on the chess team and came to all of Curtis's football games except when she had a chess meet, and she got pretty good grades, which is kind of obvious given the chess thing.

  When I asked what they talked about, he shrugged and said, "You know. She's teaching me chess." That was good to hear at least, that they'd have something to say instead of sitting there in dead silence, which I could so clearly picture Curtis doing. The Saturday after our Prophetstown game, Mom drove him to Sarah's so they could study together, and it was good that Bill wasn't around because it would have been like Christmas for him, making fun of that, and then when Mom got back she busted me for not working as hard as I could be, so it ended up that Curtis's new girlfriend got me stuck at home all day doing homework. What do you think of that?

  Not that there was much else for me to do. Brian had to work for his dad and then had something Saturday night, and Amber and Dale were gone to some competition. Plus the whole second half of Saturday was taken up watching my two brothers play so well, and Win did a lot of rushing, which always really impresses everyone, that a QB can run and pass. Every time he got tackled Mom covered her eyes. But Washington won a pretty tight game, and Bill and the University of Minnesota won their game too, and Jimmy and Kathy stayed for dinner to celebrate.

  There was some rumbling off to the west as Jimmy and Kathy left but we didn't think much of it. Next thing I knew, though, Mom was shaking me awake in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. Dad was outside on the milk house roof because a tree had just crashed down through the milk house. He was working away with a chain saw so we could get a tarp over the hole. The lightning was going so much that I didn't even need a flashlight up there on the roof, which was good because I had to use both hands to rip those tree branches away as fast as Dad cut them up. Curtis was doing the same thing from inside the milk house, dragging branches out the door. On the other hand, the roof probably wasn't the safest spot with all that lightning, plus the wind was blowing so hard it's a miracle I didn't get blown off. Then when we finally got the tree gone, the tarp almost took me sailing away like Dorothy in her storm before we got it nailed down. But in the end we sealed the roof more or less and went inside for some hot cocoa Mom made, Smut crawling out of the basement, where she spends every thunderstorm, to be with her people in all this drama.

  The next morning, the sky had that pretty blue I-didn't-do-nothing look it always has after storms, and you could see the milk house roof completely trashed, the tarp ripped already. Inside, leaves and water covered the floor. Which would make the milk inspectors just thrilled, you can be sure, and it was a miracle they hadn't shown up already. So we had to get to work at once repairing everything.

  Actually, it was kind of fun. It's not like we're master carpenters or anything, but toe-nailing fresh rafters isn't the hardest job in the world, and ripping up the old shingles was a blast. Although I ripped up one section and almost fell off the roof I leapt back so fast, because there were a couple dozen dried-up rats in this pocket in the wall, just about the grossest thing I'd ever seen. Rats are always part of farm life—there's too much grain to keep them away, especially in a barn as old as ours—but no matter how many times I see one scurrying into a hole, they give me the total creeps. So a pile of dead ones that had gotten trapped there who knows how long ago was not the greatest thing for my morning.

  Dad and Curtis heard me shrieking and came running, and Dad was some kind of disgusted when he found out I wasn't even hurt. Curtis's eyes got really big, and he dashed inside for a cardboard box and started packing up those rats like they were precious jewels or something.

  "That is so totally gross," I pointed out helpfully. In case he didn't realize.

  "I like them" was all he said, and he carried them off to join his skull collection, barf.

  The great news is that Brian showed up—luckily not until after the rats were good and hid, thank God. I hadn't been expecting him at all, so it was just as much a surprise for me as for Dad and Curtis. Which might have been his whole idea, to surprise us like that, because he sure looked tickled about our expressions. He ended up helping for a bunch of hours, which was pretty great as well, ripping off the rest of the shingles and lugging up plywood so we could seal it up quick.

  And, it was awesome working with Brian. We stayed pretty close to each other, which isn't so hard when you're on a roof as small as the milk house's, and then Dad and Curtis went into the milk house to move the plywood from below so we got a few seconds of make-out time—we didn't plan it at all, it just happened like a flash—and then Dad sent us into the toolshed to get more nails and we got another couple seconds, and all that day whenever we had a minute alone we'd just leap at each other and make out like crazy. It's a wonder I didn't put a nail right through my hand, I was so preoccupied with thinking how great it felt to kiss Brian Nelson, and h
ow many minutes it would be before I got to kiss him again.

  We got the roof pretty much finished by evening, not that we'd win awards from the roofing council or anything for our work. Dad wanted me to skip school Monday to finish helping him but Mom pointed out that then I wouldn't be able to go to football practice. Plus I'd miss turning in an English paper and my first A&P quiz, on the skeletal system, which I'd spent all Sunday night studying for. I ended up with an A– on my quiz and a B+ on my paper too, which you'd think would make Mom really proud but instead she twisted it around the way she does and asked how come I can't get grades like that all the time.

  As it turned out, Dad really did need my help on some plumbing he couldn't do with only two hands. I ended up going in late a few days, enough that squeaky Paul Zorn worked up all his courage and asked if I was okay, and I said yes so as not to have to explain the truth. Also Jeff Peterson got a note from the school and told me off in front of everyone for "screwing around with attendance," as he put it, which wasn't so fun especially because he asked if I had a good reason and I didn't have an answer any better than what I gave Paul Zorn because I'm not such a good explainer under pressure. But we still beat St. Jean High School that Friday night and I played almost the entire game, linebacker and running back, and Brian won his game too.

  That's the thing: when I say that I was skimming along, it didn't have anything to do with the milk house or doing so well in school, or even winning all those football games and feeling like I was really part of the team. It really meant just being crazy in love with Brian Nelson.

  6. Dad's Big Fat Turkey Idea

  THE MILK HOUSE ROOF didn't get me down too much, but for some reason it got to Dad. It's not like that was the first thing to ever fail around here, but all of a sudden he was obsessed with money. Like when this reporter called to interview me and Dad asked how much they'd pay, and Mom sent me and Curtis outside so they could Talk. I never found out what happened with that reporter, which was okay because there'd been a big story about me in the local paper with an awful picture and everything, me sounding about as smart as a dried-up rat. After that article, I tried to get out of it whenever anyone from the newspapers or the radio called. I mean, Win and Bill were interviewed on the radio once and all Bill did was laugh at everything Win said because Win sounded so serious, and the two of them ended up having huge fight afterward.

  But Dad wouldn't let up on the money thing. At dinner a couple days after the thunderstorm, he brought up, like it was the most natural thing in the world, the notion of raising turkeys.

  "Instead of cows?" I said. Because I know as much about raising turkeys as I do about raising giraffes, which is zero.

  He shrugged. "I dunno. I was doing some research. There's real money there."

  "Turkeys like for Thanksgiving?" I asked. "Like the ones you get free at the Super Saver if you buy enough?"

  "These are special turkeys. Wild turkeys."

  "If you raise them, how can they be wild?" I pointed out. Curtis snorted.

  Dad ignored this. "These are old-fashioned turkeys, the kind people used to eat. Heritage birds, they're called. People'll pay four, five times as much for that."

  "When they can get them for free?"

  "People in Chicago. Rich people."

  Which was an argument I couldn't really take on, seeing as I have no idea what rich Chicago people do. "Sure," I said. "Whatever."

  "Well, the sort of money I'm talking about isn't whatever. I got a couple guys coming by Saturday to take a look."

  Mom never stopped eating through this whole conversation, so I could tell it was just talk. Dad had guys coming by all the time, like that fellow from the farming museum who would have paid good cash for our old machinery if it hadn't been a rusting pile of junk, or that builder who wanted to buy a field from us just to plunk down five houses, though he offered darn near nothing and Dad in the end realized he didn't want to spend the rest of his life looking at five houses and listening to all those families gripe about farming smells.

  So I didn't give it another thought, though when Brian came by Saturday morning, the day after we'd trounced Saint Jean, I told him about Dad wanting to raise turkeys. Brian went off about turkeys and cows sharing a pasture, how the birds would have to duck when they walked under the cows' bellies.

  "But they're not ducks, they're turkeys," I said, and we both cracked up because sometimes really silly jokes do that.

  We had the place to ourselves. Mom was at some elementary school thing, Dad had a big trip to the feed store (looking into turkey feed, I bet), and Curtis was still sacked out in bed. Brian and I goofed around in the kitchen for a while, making ourselves more breakfast and talking about our games and just really enjoying waiting for the toast to pop up. Dad had asked me to clean the toolshed, so we straightened it a little bit and put away one can of nails and then I found our basketball, which meant we had to find the tire pump and blow it up, and then we had to shoot some hoops in the yard.

  It really wasn't fair because I am at least five times better than Brian. Even if he played winter ball I'd probably beat him because I am really good at basketball, and any concerns I might have about, you know, getting too much in his face had been pretty much eliminated by playing full-contact football and also by the fact that Brian's face was where I wanted most in the world to be.

  But we played anyway, me shooting with my left hand just to make it fair, and I have to admit that being guarded by a guy you really like who keeps bumping into you on purpose is a lot more fun than being guarded by some stuck-up girl who's trying to get you to foul.

  Anyway, I was driving in for a lay-up, Brian all over me, when the turkey guys pulled in, and I finished my lay-up just to show off a little before I went over to say hello. They introduced themselves but I immediately forgot their names, although the guy with the camera said they'd come from Chicago, which is a huge drive and made me pretty impressed.

  "So, you want to look around?" I asked, wishing Dad were there.

  The non-camera guy shrugged and said sure, and the camera guy took lots of pictures including lots of me but I didn't know how to ask him to stop. I just walked them around the yard and barn, telling them what everything was because I didn't know how much turkey guys know about dairy farming.

  "And what's your story?" the non-camera guy asked Brian, who was tagging along.

  "He's just a friend," I grinned. "He's QB for this nothing school."

  "Really?" the guy asked. He seemed a lot more interested in this than in turkey farming, kind of like that guy in Minneapolis when we picked up the tailgate.

  So we ended up talking about the Red Bend–Hawley scrimmage and how I'd trained Brian all summer and how we'd painted the inside of the barn—where we happened to be at that moment, so it came out kind of naturally—and the two guys really seemed to enjoy themselves because, let's face it, it's a pretty good story.

  Then Brian had to go, and before he left I gave him a little kiss goodbye, which was the first time we'd ever done something like that in front of anyone, but it's not like turkey farmers are going to mind. Then, remembering my manners finally, I offered the guys some coffee, which really surprised Curtis, who was in the kitchen in his briefs. He disappeared pretty darn quick but the guys didn't seem to mind too much. Dad must have just about talked their ears off on the phone because the non-camera guy had lots of questions about Win and Bill, and whether I was playing linebacker to be like my brother, which is a question I'm getting a little tired of, and what I thought about Win's playing (which was amazing, duh) and Minnesota's chances, and Washington's, all the normal football talk that even turkey farmers can manage.

  Finally Dad pulled in and the three of us headed out to meet him.

  They shook Dad's hand and introduced themselves again.

  "They're the turkey guys," I explained, because they weren't saying that part.

  The non-camera guy looked at the camera guy. "Turkey guys?"

  "Yeah. From t
he wild turkey farm."

  The two guys started to laugh, and the camera guy said, "Oh, that explains a lot," and the non-camera guy looked kind of embarrassed and said that he'd been called a lot of things but never that, and that actually they were from People magazine. "We called a couple days ago and it sounded like it'd be okay to come by this morning. That's what the boy said—"

  Dad and I hollered out at the exact same time, "Curtis!"

  Which Curtis didn't want to hear so much, seeing as those guys had already seen him in his underwear. He came slinking out, dressed at least, and let on that yeah, he'd talked to the non-camera guy but he thought it was a joke and forgot about it right away. Which amused the non-camera guy to no end, seeing as most of the time people are just about dying to get into People and our family couldn't even manage to write the message down.

  So they ended up staying for lunch and talking a lot to Dad, who made them sandwiches with this smoked turkey that the wild turkey farmer had sent him that was really amazingly good, and shooting the breeze with him and actually asking a lot of questions about turkey farming. Then Mom showed up and they talked to her. Then the real turkey farmers showed up, and the non-camera guy got to talking about doing a story on them while the camera guy made all four of us come outside for a bunch of pictures, Mom trying to suck in her belly. Then the non-camera guy came back and gave us this little talk about how the story might not run depending on what the other stories were that week and how many celebrities were having babies, which People readers care about a lot more than girl linebackers from Wisconsin. Which was A-okay with me.

  After they left, Mom gave us the same warning all over again about not telling anyone, because a TV crew came once to do a story on Jorgensens' Ice Cream and Randy Jorgensen bragged to everyone in town and they watched the news for a week, and all the TV ended up showing was a little girl with ice cream on her face that could have been anywhere in the world. Randy still gets grief about that, and the very last thing I needed was someone accusing me, again, of playing football just for the attention.