The Off Season (7 page)

The only good news was that
People
came out without one single mention of me. I read it in the drugstore like it was a dirty magazine or something, hiding behind the nail polish display, but it was all celebrities having babies just like the non-camera guy had said. Which was such a huge relief, because can you even imagine how much it would suck to have an article about you playing football appear the same week you can't even play because you got busted for defending some freshman from the kind of name your best friend is being called? Although I bet stories like that never get printed in
People
anyway. Plus it was a huge relief not to have to break the truth to Brian about the turkey farmers—that was a conversation I'd been dreading, and now I didn't have to have it, thank God.

So that was the one nice thing I could think about when people would cluck about me getting benched and how it never happened to my brothers, which it wouldn't because Win was absolutely perfect at everything related to football and at being perfect, and Bill could always talk his way out of stuff, ever since he was little.

Friday night I had to go to the high school and suit up so I could sit on the bench for the West Lake game with everyone looking at me. But the game got called for lightning. Which was great for about two seconds until Jeff informed me that I still had to be benched, which meant benched for the next game, which was Hawley.

Just so you know, I was not the only one a tiny bit bummed about this. At least Beaner was nice enough to invite me out to Taco Bell with him and a couple other players to cheer me up some.

Beaner was in a great mood actually, like he always is, and in no time he had us cracking up. He was talking a mile a minute—which is about as fast as he can run—I guess because he was still so pumped from getting ready for the game that didn't happen. He went off on this bit about the four of us forming a band, doing imitations of all of us, especially me, acting out what I'd be like as lead singer, which of course is the very worst job in the world for me. I couldn't imagine being in front of a crowd of people like that, which Beaner of course knew, and he pretended to be me with a microphone barely able to get out one word at all. I guess it could have been mean of him to make fun of me like that, all my bad talking skills, but I was laughing too hard to care. Beaner never even cracked a smile, just faked a big scared gulp, his pretend microphone in front of him. "Um—ah ... we're, um, here ... to um, rock ... you..."

All of sudden, I did a double take because walking in the side door of Taco Bell was Brian, shaking the rain off his Hawley jacket and laughing with some other Hawley football players. I gasped, seeing him across the room like that, looking so handsome with his hair all glittery wet and a huge smile on his face.

I tried not to watch him too much because that's not so cool, and also I had a feeling that it wouldn't be so great for Hawley and Red Bend to meet the week before their big game, even in a fast food restaurant. But I could see Brian checking the room out, looking around for anyone he knew. His eyes worked in my direction and then all of sudden he saw me and—you know how a person looks when they see someone they know, how their face lights up? Well, at that moment his face did exactly the opposite. You'd have thought I was the person he knew least in the world. And he right away turned his back and said something to his friends and in five seconds they walked out.

Maybe I'd made an I-don't-know-you face at him too. But I don't think so. And it wasn't like Brian was trying to avoid a Red Bend–Hawley confrontation or anything, because I didn't get the sense he even recognized who I was sitting with. No, he just saw me and he left.

"Hey, rock star, what's up?" Beaner asked.

"Nothing," I said.

"You see those Hawley guys just now? Chickens! They see us and they fly away."

Which led into a long discussion of the upcoming Hawley game, although I didn't join in because I too busy was trying to figure out what had just happened and why it made me feel so bad.

***

Saturday morning I got to play plumber with Dad even though he's not the world's best plumber and always ends up losing his temper. Which he did this time too, up on a ladder cursing away with me standing ready with the blowtorch, which you'd think would be fun but actually isn't, not after the first couple times, when Brian ambled in.

"Hey," he said.

"You know anything about plumbing?" Dad snapped at him.

"My dad's got a great plumber. Want me to get his number?"

Dad snorted like the idea of spending money on a
plumber
was the stupidest idea he'd ever heard in his life. He started banging away on the pipe with his big wrench.

Brian grinned. "That's right, Mr. Schwenk, you show that pipe who's boss."

I couldn't help grinning too. Here I was still all churned up about Taco Bell, and now churned up at the thought that some people out there had cash to drop on luxuries like plumbers, and even so Brian could make me smile. Then when he saw that I was grinning, he grinned back so it was all we could do not to laugh out loud.

He stuck around for a couple hours helping out Dad and me, long enough that everything felt kind of back to normal, and he even said how sorry he was that I'd be benched for the Hawley game. Dad grunted that the Hawley folks must be thrilled.

Brian grinned at me. "Oh, they are. Everyone's pretty scared of D.J."

Which cheered Dad up, hearing that.

Plus Brian—I've got to hand it to him for not shying from tough conversations—as soon as Dad went in to finish lunch, he right away apologized for not saying hello last night.

"That's okay," I lied, because even though it wasn't okay that he'd ignored me, it was way
more
than okay that he was acknowledging it now.

"No, it's not. I just—I was real surprised to see you there. It was like this one galaxy I know suddenly colliding with another galaxy I know. Know what I mean?"

"What are you, an astronaut?" I asked so that Brian had to elbow me, and then we stayed stuck together for a while, long enough that Dad had to holler twice to come in for lunch.

Dad had enough food for an army because Jimmy and Kathy were coming over for Bill's game that was about to start, and Jimmy was so glad to see Brian—seeing that he's Brian's coach and all—that Brian stuck around, all of us with big yummy bowls of this beef stew Dad had made, and Jimmy and Dad with beers. Dad probably would have offered Brian a beer too if Jimmy hadn't been there. It was all pretty perfect until Brian's cell phone rang and he said he had to take off.

I walked him out to his Cherokee and asked if everything was okay, not knowing how else to ask about that phone call that had dragged him away. I must have sounded so serious that he checked to see if anyone was looking, then put his arms around me and gave me a kiss. He grinned. "Just remember that when you're sitting on the bench next Friday watching us win."

"You wish." I gave him a shove. "You better get to the gym, get some training in yet."

"I don't need training, just a big old ice pack, because my arm will be on fire." He gave me one of his tornado smiles and drove off grinning.

I grinned back, but then my happiness faded away, like pop bubbles do when you leave the cap off. I sure didn't have any interest in returning to Taco Bell anytime soon, I can tell you that, not if it was going to make Brian's galaxies collide or whatever it was he'd said. To tell you the truth, I felt a little sick. Things had been going so well for a while there with football and Brian, and school even, and now ... Being benched for stupid Donny Donovan, Brian ignoring me, that scare with
People
that almost got me talked about all over the country, Amber getting so harassed just for having a girlfriend, even the milk house roof collapsing and Dad so freaked about money—none of this was good. Not one bit. It seemed like after that nice quiet spell, a whole herd of trouble was coming my way.

F
RIDAY AFTERNOON
, classes were canceled for a huge pep rally for the big Hawley game, and all the football players had to come out including me, which totally sucked because some of the kids booed. Although it was hard to tell whether they booed because I was a girl or because I got benched or because I shouldn't have been. I noticed that Donny Donovan was booing pretty loudly, and I decided if I ever met him in a dark alley he would end up one sorry little sausage.

The game was a complete disaster. Jeff Peterson made me put on my uniform again, and go out as an example of Why We Shouldn't Fight, even though if people were so concerned about fighting they should never have invented football. Hawley ended up winning by eighteen points, which is an awful lot different than us winning by seven like we did in the scrimmage back in August. Which I had played in, which only about four hundred people reminded me of just in case that little fact had slipped my mind, in case I didn't feel bad enough already. A bunch of Hawley scumbag players spent every moment they weren't playing just rubbing in their victory, which made the experience about that much worse. So the fact that Brian ignored me the whole game didn't bother me all that much.

Dad made Curtis get up for breakfast with us on Saturday morning, which was weird. Usually they let him sleep in. I'd sleep in too, but most of the time I can't. I guess my farmer ancestors have me hard-wired to wake up at the crack of dawn.

"So what'd you think of the game?" Dad asked Curtis, serving up a mess of scrambled eggs with cheese and little chopped peppers.

Curtis shrugged. "It was disappointing."

"What'd you think of that third interception on Kyle?"

My head came up at this. I noticed Mom watching too.

Curtis shoveled in a big forkful of eggs. "Not good," he said around the eggs.

"There were only two interceptions," I couldn't help pointing out.

Curtis stopped chewing. He sat there staring at his plate.

Dad set his fork down. "I ran into Bill Heil after the game." Bill Heil is the middle school football coach. "He told me you missed two practices this week."

Curtis didn't move. It was like he was thinking that if he stayed perfectly still, maybe we'd forget about him and leave. Like birds do sometimes with dogs.

Mom leaned forward. "Curt, honey, what's going on?"

"Nothing," he answered, which seemed like a bit of a stretch to me.

"Where were you during the game?"

"Nowhere. I just—I went over to Sarah's uncle's, okay? He lives right near there."

"Were there any grownups around?" Mom asked, and I nearly choked. Curtis's ears turned bright red so I guess he also figured out what she was saying. Jeez, Curtis? I mean, Mom wouldn't have trusted Bill mailing a letter, but I had a hard time picturing Curtis fooling around. Although I never would have pictured him missing practice, or lying about going to the game either.

"Her—her uncle was in the living room," he whispered.

"And where were you?"

"In the kitchen," he said miserably.

Mom blinked a bit at that one. Me too.

"We were—we were working at the table," he continued.

"On schoolwork?" Mom asked. She sounded suspicious.

Curtis nodded. You'd think he'd been caught selling drugs or something.

Dad and Mom shared one of their looks. This wasn't going the way they'd expected.

"If you need more time for homework, we can do that here," Mom said. "But you can't lie to us like this."

"Or miss practice," Dad added.

Curtis nodded. There was a long silence while Curtis didn't look at any of us, and then I guess he figured his torture was over because he cleared his plate and went back up to his room, and wouldn't even come down to watch the games.

Saturday afternoon I called Brian to see what he was up to, if he wanted to hang out that night or anything, but he didn't pick up and I didn't bother leaving a message. That's one great thing about cell phones. They keep track of who calls so you don't have to talk.

He came by Sunday morning at least and helped a bit with a bigtime barn clean-out we were doing, changing the wood shavings and all. He didn't once rub in how badly Red Bend had lost. "It would have been different if you'd been playing," he said at one point, which was really nice of him—one of those examples of what a great guy he can be.

"I called you yesterday," I said, working right next to him because it was so satisfying being in his body zone, "but I didn't leave a message."

"Well, leave it now," he grinned. "'It's Brian—beep.'"

"Uh, hey, it's me," I started, and Brian immediately cracked up because even faking it I sound pathetic. I'm sure if there was ever a contest for the worst messages in America, I'd make the semifinals at least. "I was, you know, just wondering, you know, what you're up to."

"You have to press the off button," Brian pointed out. Which I faked, which made us grin. "Okay,
now
I got your message. I was just hanging out."

"Doing what?"

"A bunch of us guys went to the movies. It was dumb, though. We left halfway through."

"Oh," I said, and there was this little awkward pause and then Dad talked about barn cleaning until Brian had to go home to watch the Packers game. I didn't walk him out, though, because I was trying to figure all this out. I mean, I'm not saying Brian should abandon his friends once the two of us, you know, started kissing. And I sure appreciated the time he spent with me, pretty much every Saturday day, and Sundays sometimes, waking up really early just to drive over to Schwenk Farm. That's a lot. But that's the thing: wouldn't two people who spent so much time talking and playing with blowtorches and eating Dad's food, and making out—wouldn't you think that once in a while they'd want to go to the movies together, something like that? Instead of Brian going with his bozo Hawley friends?

Sunday night I was supposed to be doing homework, especially this Spanish paper about what I would visit in Madrid, which I'm sure I'll never go to so why bother. But all I could do was think about Brian, going around and around in my head how much it bummed me out that he'd been with his friends instead of me. Then I'd get mad at myself for being a total selfish whiner like some of Bill's girlfriends who insisted they spend every possible second just the two of them together. God knows I don't want to be that kind of girl, not ever. But I couldn't understand why, just once, we couldn't take a break from farm work and do something fun. Only maybe
I
should ask
him,
right? This isn't the Dark Ages—a girl can ask a boy out without it being a federal crime. Not that I had one clue how to do this. Brian was much more that kind of person, the kind who can ask someone out without needing CPR. So why didn't he ask me? And then I'd start right back at the beginning and cycle through all these thoughts again.