Dairy Queen

"It's just macaroni and cheese. With some other stuff mixed in."

  I could see now. There were beans and hamburger and some green stuff, maybe peppers I think, all mixed together. It didn't taste all that bad, but I had to close my eyes to eat it, and breathe through my mouth too, because I was so sure it would smell like puke.

  "You act like that, you can just eat outside," Dad said.

  Oh, that made me mad. There was so much I wanted to say, about how I'd worked all morning on his stupid barn trying to make it look how Grandpa Warren kept it, how if he'd had his stupid operation back when the doctors said, he wouldn't still be in his walker with me flunking English and working like a slave. How if Win and Bill were around, if Dad hadn't started that huge fight that ruined our whole family, maybe none of this would be happening.

  I think Dad kind of knew what I was thinking because he looked at me and held on to his fork like it was an ax handle. But no one said anything because, well, even when we fight we're not the world's best talkers. So I just shoveled that puke in and went to bed.

  6. Jimmy Ott Steps In

  Saturday morning, things were a little better. At breakfast I told Mom I was cleaning the barn and she told Dad, which is how Dad and I communicate most of the time because Mom actually likes talking to him, and a little while later Curtis showed up in the barn with this look like he knew I was about to put him to work. Which I did.

  The day before with Brian, even when we hadn't been talking or when I was rubbing something in, I'd had the sense that talk was possible—if Brian, you know, changed into someone human. But with Curtis, no matter what you say you might as well be talking to yourself. Actually, talking to yourself is better, because at least you know you'll answer. Mom keeps getting Curtis tested to make sure there's nothing wrong with him, like his hearing or his mouth or anything. Or his brain. But the testing people just say that he's fine and he'll talk when he feels like talking.

  Cleaning the barn with me, he didn't talk at all. It was like being with someone who does exactly as much as he needs to do to stay out of trouble. Which I guess pretty much describes Curtis to a T.

  Luckily Jimmy and Kathy Ott came for lunch. I was really happy to see them, not just because it got me off work but because they're two of my favorite people. Jimmy's kind of short, and he's got red cheeks and this little belly that make him look like Santa Claus, but he's really fierce as a football coach. Hawley football is always really good, so I guess that Santa Claus fierceness pays off. Kathy's the only person in the world who still calls me Dorrie. Before I was born Mom wanted a girl so much she promised God she'd name me after both my grandmothers, which is why I'm stuck with Darlene Joyce which I totally hate. When I was little my family called me Dorrie until I switched to D.J. Kathy still uses Dorrie, though. Coming from her, it's like a reminder of the best parts of being little.

  Anyway, she gave me a big hug even though I was all dusty and Jimmy patted me on the back, and Dad came over with his walker and said I was doing a top-notch job cleaning the barn. Isn't that weird? Dad had all day to say that to me and he didn't. And then right when I was so busy being friendly that I didn't even have time to enjoy it, he jumps in. Maybe he thought I wouldn't notice. Or he was showing Jimmy what a great guy he was. In any case, the compliment was nice but it would've been nicer if I thought it was his idea.

  For lunch Dad made chicken.

  Mom couldn't have a garden this year what with Dad so hurt and her teaching sixth grade plus being acting principal at the elementary school because Mr. Ivanovich retired. And on top of that she had to spend all year going everywhere interviewing people to be the next principal, which no one wants because the pay's so little and who wants to work in Red Bend. So that's why they didn't have a garden, but Dad said not to worry because once everyone found out they'd dump their extra vegetables on us. Boy, was he ever right about that. Every day there was some more stuff left in the mailbox.

  So we had zucchini with lunch too. Some recipe Dad made from you-know-where. With Parmesan cheese, like no one has ever eaten Parmesan cheese before.

  Kathy couldn't get enough of it. "This zucchini is so good! Did you really make this?"

  Mom smiled. "He's turning into quite a chef."

  "This is the best zucchini I've ever tasted. I've got to get the recipe."

  Which made Curtis and me bust a gut trying not to laugh at the idea of Dad writing one of those recipe cards.

  Jimmy eyed me. "So, what'd you think of Brian there?"

  Well. I buttered a roll and frowned, trying to look mature. "He's got a great arm. But I don't know how he'll handle the season." I took a little bite of roll because Mom gets on me about stuffing it all in my mouth at once. "He doesn't need a job so much as a personal trainer."

  "You think so?" Jimmy asked.

  "Oh, yeah," I answered, pleased that I could sound so grown-up when what I really wanted to say was that Brian wasn't worth a pound of salt and that Jimmy was crazy even to think about keeping such a stuck-up, lazy whiner on his team.

  "I guess I was wrong, then, thinking he could help you folks out."

  They all went back to talking about zucchini because I guess they hadn't discussed it enough the first time. But whenever I looked up for the next couple of minutes, Jimmy Ott would be sitting there studying me. It made me feel so weird that I stopped looking up and just plowed through my plate and ate all my zucchini without even realizing it.

  After lunch and Kathy's amazing banana cream pie, Jimmy asked if he could see what I was working on. So he and I went out and walked around the barn, not saying anything, in this weird way I couldn't understand. He didn't even mention the wagons in the hayloft still full of hay because I hadn't unloaded them yet.

  "You've taken on a lot here," he said finally.

  "Yeah," I sighed, surveying the mess of the barn.

  "I didn't mean the cleaning. I mean everything. Milking, field work ... You're doing an awful lot."

  I shrugged, getting all uncomfortable. It wasn't like I deserved the compliments anyway, seeing as all I did was feel sorry for myself. "I've got Curtis."

  "Your dad ran this farm with two boys plus you." Jimmy stepped over a cowpie we hadn't cleaned up.

  I didn't know what to say, so I just rubbed at one of the windowpanes. Which was a mistake because it showed how dirty the windows were.

  "I shouldn't have sent Brian over that way." Jimmy sighed. "I think you're right. You should train him."

  "That's okay—What, me? His trainer? I didn't say I wanted to be his trainer!"

  "You watched your two brothers train. You saw where it got them."

  "Yeah, but—"

  "You played Pee Wee football yourself. For four years if I remember it right."

  "Only because Mom kicked us out! Dad had to take all of us on Saturdays—"

  "You were pretty good."

  "I was nine." I felt like I was in the middle of some practical joke. "Brian Nelson would rather chew glass than work with me."

  Jimmy studied me. "I think you'd be a real good influence on him. And he could help out around here."

  "He would never do it. Even if I wanted to," I added, just to make it clear that I didn't.

  "My experience has been that an athlete will work for anyone he respects."

  "Well, Brian Nelson doesn't respect me."

  Jimmy polished his glasses. "Respect, D.J., is something you earn."

  Ouch. I didn't like that statement one bit. Jimmy seemed to know more about Brian's haying experience than he was letting on. "Okay," I sighed finally, just to say something. "I'll think about it."

  "That's all I ask, D.J." He patted me on the shoulder.

  We strolled back to the house, not saying another word.

  "You going to join us?" Mom asked from the porch, offering me an iced tea.

  "I—I've got to check on some things," I said, heading off to the barn.

  "Dorrie is so responsible," I heard Kathy say. "You two are blessed, you really are."
br />   Then they were out of earshot, thank God, because I had way too much to think about without adding anything more.

  I sat in the equipment shed for about an hour, picking hayseeds off the baler, which of all the jobs on a farm is probably the very stupidest. Even sleeping is more useful. Although, our baler's so old it should be in a museum. That extra weight, those three or four ounces, probably isn't helping it any.

  Why would Jimmy Ott say I could be a trainer? That was the craziest thing I'd ever heard. Although, well, I could be a trainer, and a pretty good one. I used to hang around Win and Bill all the time, watching them with their weights and their sprints and their drills. Win needed a receiver to catch his passes, and Bill being a linebacker needed a receiver so he could intercept those passes, so when we played together that's what I got to be, a receiver. I got pretty good at outrunning Bill, but I got even better at getting tackled because that happened a lot more often.

  After Win went away to college, Bill still needed someone to practice with, so he'd get me to throw. The bad news is, I can't throw a football worth beans—I guess from all those years of basketball and volleyball. Most times it just ends up skittering off into nowhere. And every time this happened Bill would stop and look at me with this serious expression and say, "I thought you were a gifted athlete," because Mom made the mistake of repeating this once when she came back from parent-teacher conferences, and I'd chase after him trying to punch him and he'd laugh hysterically and hide behind Curtis, who'd be cracking up too. Luckily Curtis has a pretty good arm, so most of the time I got to be receiver instead and end up all black and blue from Bill's tackles.

  Thinking about that made me really miss Bill. I wished I could talk to him. Find out what he was doing and stuff like that. But there was no way I was going to call him, and even if I did he'd probably hang up on me right away considering everything that's happened, which I'm not going to explain thank you very much. So I tried to stop thinking about him and think instead about what it would be like to train someone. Because it would be fun to work with someone like Kyle Jorgensen, who's QB for Red Bend this year. He's Kari's twin brother and just as nice as she is. I could think of a lot of stuff he and I could do together that would really help his game. Maybe coaching is just in my blood, from Dad and from Jimmy, who's as close to an uncle as I know, and from Win, who's going to end up coaching as sure as shooting.

  After a while it was like those games I play with Amber where we talk about what we'd do with a million dollars. I was really liking the idea of being a trainer, in that way you like something while knowing it's never going to happen. Because even if I decided I could work with Brian, which I wouldn't, he wouldn't go for it in a million, billion years.

  When I went back to the house, there was Jimmy leaning against their Explorer. He grinned at me. "You're interested. I can tell."

  "Well, kind of. But I don't think it'll work out." Which was the most tactful way I could think of to express my feelings about Brian.

  "You want me to ask your dad about it?"

  "Don't you dare!"

  Jimmy jumped a bit. "Okay then! I guess not."

  "No, it's just—he'd want to get involved is all." Again, super tactful.

  "Suit yourself. Kathy, you ready yet?"

  Kathy came out with Dad's zucchini recipe and we said our goodbyes and they left. But the memory of them being here made the rest of the afternoon that much nicer.

  Sitting here now, writing this all down, I'm beginning to see how Jimmy Ott might be a pretty good insurance salesman.

  That evening at dinner when no one had said anything for a while, I screwed up my courage. "Dad, when you were coaching, did the kids, you know, respect you?"

  Just as I thought he would, Dad made a crack. "Heck yeah, or I'd show them who was boss." He popped out his teeth and grinned at me. Dad lost a whole bunch of teeth playing football in the army, so he's got false ones now. When we were kids he'd take them out all the time and show us his big old toothless mouth. Curtis, the weirdo, used to love it.

  "It's a good question," Mom said, of course. "Respect goes both ways, you know." She and Dad always double-team you on this stuff, backing each other up, I guess because they've been married so long.

  "She's right," Dad added, scooping out some more leftovers. "You don't care for someone, they can tell."

  "You cared for your players?" I asked, kind of incredulous.

  "Of course I did! I was their coach."

  "He bought us pizza," Curtis chimed in. When he says something, which is never, it's a big deal. Then he gets embarrassed because we all look at him.

  Dad grinned. "It's true, I did. After every Pee Wee game." He looked so pleased that Curtis relaxed a bit. Curtis had officially been too young for Pee Wee football but they let him play anyway because he was so big, and because he was a Schwenk and all. Plus Dad was the coach and had to baby-sit Curtis whether he could play or not.

  "You have to be fair," Mom said, "You can be firm—you should be. But the kids have to know you have their best interests at heart."

  Dad nodded. "Winning helps too. But even if you don't win, you have to care."

  In bed that night I thought over what Dad and Mom had said. I didn't care about Brian one bit. I made fun of him, I didn't make him wear gloves, I bragged all the time about my brothers, and I sure didn't buy him pizza. No wonder Brian didn't respect me. He might be lazy and spoiled and full of himself, but he wasn't stupid.

  7. Sunday

  Mom goes to church almost every Sunday. I used to go too when she made me, but one of the best things—actually, the only good thing when I think about it—about Dad's dumb hip was that I no longer had to. Milking fourteen times a week kind of got me out of that. Of course, since Dad slept in now and hobbled around complaining about how much he hurt, church was kind of an obvious activity for him. So he was stuck putting on his best shirt, which no longer fits because his gut's gotten so big, and groaning his way into the car, and riding off so the good Lord could mend his bones. His soul, I'm not so sure of. Not wanting to fight about it, Curtis had to go too.

  I on the other hand, knowing there were three million jobs I should be doing, went back to bed, which was about the most satisfying thing I've ever done in my entire life.

  Only instead of sleeping for three straight hours like I was hoping to, I woke up with a start only twenty minutes later when a blue Cherokee pulled into the yard. What the heck was Brian Nelson doing at our house on Sunday morning?

  Not that I cared, because finding out would involve talking to him. Besides, he didn't come to the kitchen door or anything—just kind of snuck into the barn. If he was coming to steal something, the joke's on him—nothing to steal except cows, and he wouldn't put one of them in his Cherokee. But there was certainly a lot of stuff he could trash if he wanted to. Take our broken-down stuff and break it further. Or spray graffiti or something, graffiti about Red Bend.

  So, pretty angry about having to get up, and even angrier about Brian, I pulled on a pair of jeans and boots and headed out.

  Well, blow me down, as Grandpa Warren used to say. Because there was Brian Nelson in the hayloft, unloading the wagons. All by himself. With new gloves, I noticed, but still.

  Now what was I supposed to do? I sure couldn't go back to bed. If nothing else, it would look pretty lame if he found out he was slaving away while D.J. Schwenk was napping. I could work cleaning the barn, but that would be a little weird, him in the hayloft while I scraped away below. The noise might freak him out or something. Besides, haying is hard work. You really need two people at least.

  So in the end I angled my way into the loft and went to work emptying the second wagon. He looked surprised, embarrassed, actually, but he didn't say anything and neither did I. We worked in silence for a long time. Long enough that we were, you know, working together. That it was clear we were both doing the job.

  "Hey," I said.

  "Hey. I thought you'd all be at church."

&nbs
p; So that was it. He showed up when he figured we wouldn't be here. That explained why he'd been working so fast and everything, trying to finish up before we got home. Only I already was.

  We worked away for about twenty bales without saying anything more.

  "Jimmy told me I had to do this," he explained, lugging a bale to the top of the stack. Which of course explained why he showed up at all.

  "Oh."

  We unloaded about ten more.

  "You saw him?" I finally managed to ask.

  "Yeah. He came by yesterday. Talked to me for a while."

  "Yesterday afternoon?" I slid a bale up to him.

  "Yeah."

  "Did he, um...?"

  "Your big idea?" Brian eyed me kind of sideways.

  "It wasn't my idea!"

  "You mean you being my trainer and all?" Saying this, Brian's mouth sort of twitched.

  "Can you believe it? That guy is totally insane!" I shook my head.

  "Yeah, well, you should try having him as a coach." Brian wiped his face.

  "Bill said he was real tough."

  "Your brother said that?" He looked pleased.

  We worked away for a long time. After a while I went inside and grabbed a couple pops and came back to the barn and tossed one to Brian. He caught it one-handed and nodded thanks. Then it hit me. A day before—even an hour before—I would have paid money to watch Brian Nelson perish of thirst. And here I was giving him a pop. Isn't that weird?

  You should have seen their faces when Mom and Dad and Curtis came home. I can't blame them. Brian had made his feelings about us pretty well understood, and vice versa, and here we were three days later working together like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  "Jimmy sent him over," I explained, like that made it all clear, and Dad eyeballed the haystack but I guess he thought better than to criticize it, and they went inside. Curtis kept looking back like he was worried about me.

  We were just finishing up the last bales when this nice feeling spread through the barn, this really nice, hungry feeling, and it took me a while to figure out it wasn't a feeling but a smell: Dad was grilling. And all of a sudden I was so hungry I could barely stand up.