Dairy Queen

  Mom appeared at the barn door. "Will you stay for lunch, Brian?"

  Oh, jeez. Please say no. Please please please say no.

  He shook his head. "I just want to finish this up."

  "Oh, come on. Just one burger. We'd love your company." Mom beamed at him.

  ***

  Brian must have been starving because he ate that burger in about two bites, which was a mistake because Dad had made some fancy Texas barbecue sauce that almost took the roof of my mouth off. Curtis coughed so much Mom had to pound him on the back.

  "Too much for you, huh? How do you like it there, Ryan?" Dad grinned.

  "Oh, it's great. Sir," Brian answered, not correcting him on the name thing.

  "Get you another one?"

  "If there's enough, that would be great." God, he was playing Dad like a violin. "But I can, you know, put my own sauce on."

  Even I had to laugh at that.

  It wasn't that awful having him there. He and Dad talked about Jimmy Ott, and Mom asked him about his family, and when she found out he was an only child she said, "Isn't it nice you have football, then," in that really Mom way she has, but it didn't seem to bother him.

  "Mr. Schwenk?" Brian asked, "why's your dog named Smut?"

  Dad grinned. "You ever seen corn smut, son? It's a—what's that word again, D.J.?"

  "Fungus," I muttered, my mouth full.

  "Yeah, that corn gets. Turns the whole stalk black and powdery."

  "You named your dog after a fungus?"

  "D.J. did. It was her idea."

  Brian glanced over at me but I just stared at my plate, wishing I weren't blushing. Finally, so he wouldn't think I was a total idiot, I explained, "Smut had this real soft black fur when she was a puppy and it reminded me of corn smut. That's all." I hated talking about it, and I knew Brian would make a crack. But when I finally got up the courage to look at him he was just smiling. Not smiling like I was an idiot, smiling like it was okay. That helped a bit.

  After lunch Mom brought out the rest of Kathy Ott's banana cream pie. There wasn't too much left, and split five ways it wasn't much at all, but those three bites still made your mouth really happy.

  So we were sitting there on the porch feeling pretty good, when Dad tossed a football to Brian. "Let's see what kind of arm you've got. Go on, you two, you catch for him."

  Well, that was about the last thing I wanted to do, especially with Brian Nelson, especially especially with the last bit of banana cream pie still in my mouth making me happy. But you can't argue with Dad. So we hauled ourselves up, Brian looking even less excited than me and Curtis, and spread out on the front lawn.

  "You want anything in particular?" Brian asked Dad, fishing for time.

  "For you to throw the damn ball," Dad said so Mom shushed his language.

  So Brian started tossing some passes with that really pretty arm he has. I could tell Curtis was impressed, and he had to really sprint at first, they were so long.

  "Where the heck you think your receivers are?" Dad called from the porch, so Brian cooled it a little.

  Actually, he didn't have the world's best aim. But it was fun running after them. Sometimes Curtis and I would go for the same ball and run interference on each other, the way we used to when Win and Bill were around. I love catching footballs. It's not like basketball where once you get the ball you have to immediately shoot or pass or something. With a football all you have to do is run, which is pretty great. Especially when you don't get tackled by your 230-pound brother Bill right afterward.

  So it ended up being a lot of fun. We had a good time, Smut chasing us like she was on the team too. Once I caught the football and tossed it back to Brian, this pitiful wobbly pass, as awful as a pass could be, and Curtis paused and looked at me with this really serious expression. And I knew—I knew—that he was thinking that I was some kind of a gifted athlete, just the way Bill used to say it when the three of us would play together. And I took off after him like I used to chase Bill, and the way he ran showed me he really had been thinking it and I hadn't been wrong, and eventually I caught him because he was giggling so much, and I got him down on the ground even though he's half an inch taller now but still skinny yet, and I started beating on him and tickling him while he shrieked with laughter.

  Brian and Mom and Dad stared at us like we were crazy. They didn't know the joke, and of course they hadn't heard Curtis say anything. But they were laughing too, just because it looked so funny.

  After a while Brian looked at his watch and said he had to go, but he said it in a way that meant he really had to go, that he wasn't just trying to weasel out.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't even ask." Mom frowned. "Your parents must be concerned."

  "They don't care," Brian said flatly. "I just—I have to meet some friends." He tossed Curtis the football. "Thanks for the game."

  I walked him back to the Cherokee because I owed him that much at least.

  "That was fun." He sounded kind of surprised.

  I wanted to say something about what it was like back when Win and Bill were around, but that was too painful. So instead I just said, "Yeah, it was fun." And then—I guess maybe because I was still feeling good from our game, or maybe just to clarify—I added, "You know, I really do know a lot about football."

  "I know," Brian said. "Jimmy said so. He said you'd be a real good trainer."

  My head came up. "You want to do it?" I couldn't believe it.

  "No! I'm just saying ... Why, do you?"

  I studied my hands, all scratched up from haying. "Nah."

  Brian picked at his steering wheel. "It's just ... I need to get in shape. Jimmy said that with you beating up on me I probably could."

  "Is that how Jimmy said it?"

  "Well, yeah. You know Jimmy."

  I thought about it. "I wouldn't beat you up that much."

  Brian smiled at that. "So ... you want to try it?"

  "Maybe for like a week," I considered. Because he was just teasing me.

  "Okay."

  Which totally shocked me. "Okay then," I said back.

  He cleared his throat. "But we don't have to, you know, tell anyone, do we?"

  "Duh."

  And he left.

  Anyway, that's the story of how I became Brian Nelson's trainer. Which is the reason you're reading this. Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

  8. People Who Are Crazy and Need to Have Their Heads Examined

  If there was ever a TV show called People Who Are Crazy and Need to Have Their Heads Examined, I'd be the very first guest. They'd put me on one of those couches and a guy with a beard and funny accent would ask me questions, and the audience would ooh and aah as they realized this girl was crazy. What else would explain what I had just done? I've been thinking about it for months now, and I still don't have a good explanation. All I come back to whenever anyone asks me, including me, is that it sounded like fun. And—though it took Jimmy Ott to point this out—it was my idea. It's always a lot more fun to do something that's your idea. Plus Brian actually agreed to it, which still amazes me. I guess he decided that training with me for a week was better than benchwarming come September.

  I know these aren't very good reasons, but they're all I can come up with. Maybe a shrink could figure out more if I had millions of dollars to spend on shrinks. But I do know this: I don't have many ideas, and not very many good ones. But this one got me excited.

  And I stayed excited for the whole rest of the afternoon. During milking I thought about the lifts Win had used back when he was a high school QB, and how Brian could weight train in the barn while I worked. The free weights were still in the barn too, under a tarp. Mom wouldn't let Win and Bill keep them inside because their room is small enough as it is, and the two of them plus the weights would probably bring the house down. The weights were all dusty, but it's not like any football player ever said, Oh these are too dusty for me to train with. Thinking that gave me a grin. If Brian said anything, that's the crack I'd u
se on him.

  At dinner Dad and Mom kept going on about how great Brian was, how hard he'd worked and on a Sunday too, how much he liked Dad's cooking, how nice he was, and on and on and on like he was the kid they should have had instead of us. If it had been one day earlier I probably would have barfed out of disgust. I mean, you could tell Brian was being nice just to impress them, and he was only doing the unloading to get in good with Jimmy. And sure he had an arm, but his aim stunk and he didn't have any wind or anything. You could see he was falling apart just by the end of our pickup game.

  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.

  9. Dairy Queen

  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.