The Off Season Read online

  Also, having Brian at the picnic would have been especially awkward given that pretty much everyone there had been at the scrimmage, and all afternoon whenever I wasn't pitching, folks would come up to tell me how well I'd played, how I looked almost like Bill out there on the field, and how great my interception of Brian had been. Which probably wouldn't have made Brian's day, hearing that, even if I was probably the first girl linebacker to score in the whole history of Wisconsin, which several folks had to tell me. Plus that scrimmage was the first time in four years that Red Bend had beaten Hawley in football, so it mattered a lot to everyone in Red Bend, and three days later at the picnic they were still celebrating. Even when I was eating ice cream, I'd get slapped on the back and stuff. I tried to act like the guys on TV saying it was all teamwork and the season hadn't even started. Which is something you never see on TV guys being forced to talk with their mouths all full of vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce and walnuts. And chocolate on their chins too, probably, if it was me on TV.

  Still, it was great having Brian giving us an extra hand with evening milking, the barn still fresh with that new paint the two of us had slapped up, and him finally looking comfortable with our big, big cows. He sure hadn't been comfortable with them at the beginning of the summer, but then, he hadn't been comfortable with any of us. It's not exactly Disney World when your coach sends you off to a rundown old farm because he doesn't think you have a work ethic. By the looks of it, though, Brian sure had found one, because he sure seemed to like hanging around us now.

  As we were finishing up, Dad asked Brian if he'd like to stay for dinner. We'd already eaten a ton of food but I was starving again, go figure, and I guess Dad was too. Plus Mom had brought home a big chunk of meat from the pig roast that made me twice as hungry, remembering that.

  Brian checked his watch. "Aw, I should go home. You know, first day of school and all." He sounded really nice when he said it, like he wished he didn't have to.

  I walked him out to his Cherokee.

  "So there, did you have a nice Labor Day?" I asked, doing my best imitation of Mom.

  Brian laughed. "I just hung out with some guys. We didn't do anything as fun as that softball game. That would have been a blast."

  That was so great, hearing that. "Yeah, well, you can come next year," I said. "Skip college, come play softball instead."

  "Don't tempt me." He grinned at me. There was this little pause, and I wondered what was going to happen. The last time we'd been together, Brian had kissed my forehead. It had been really nice, actually, not bloody or embarrassing at all. This time, however, we sort of shuffled a little, and he climbed into the Cherokee still grinning. "I didn't know you were a pitcher too. You're good at everything, aren't you?"

  And then he left before I had time to come up with an answer, an explanation about how I'm not good at most things, it's only with sports and cows that I can even pretend to be okay. I stood there in the yard for some time watching the dust settle back down to earth from the Cherokee, enjoying his compliment so much even if it wasn't true, and thinking how much I liked Brian Nelson.

  3. Football and Barbecue

  NORMALLY IN SCHOOL I'm one of those invisible people who the cool kids don't notice and the jerks don't pay attention to because I'm too big to pick on, and it's just me hanging out with Amber. Only Amber wasn't there Tuesday morning for the first day of school. Which really freaked me out, and made walking the halls even harder because now I didn't have anyone to talk to while bunches of people—and I mean bunches—kept looking at me. All because I was playing football. Kids slapped me on the back, saying hello, which wasn't bad or anything but sure wasn't something I was used to.

  Even this little freshman whose locker was next to mine kept staring at me as he tried to open his combination.

  "Hey," I said. To be friendly and all.

  The poor kid nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of my voice.

  "Want some help?" I offered, because he was really struggling.

  He shook his head. There are times when I'm next to someone and I don't feel incredibly taller than that person, and bigger too. This was not one of those times.

  "I'm D.J.," I said, taping up pictures of Win and Bill in their college uniforms, and Smut wagging her tail off with her slimy old football.

  "I know," he said, sounding kind of like a mouse. Kind of squeaky. At least he got his locker open finally. "I'm Paul Zorn."

  "Pleased to meet you," I said. I slammed my locker shut the way you do.

  Paul jumped again at this noise, then apologized for jumping. Oh boy. "Hey," he managed to squeak out as I walked away. "Good game!"

  That was what the first day of school was like for me.

  My favorite class, I knew already, was going to be anatomy and physiology. Mr. Larson is one of the coolest teachers in Red Bend. Even Bill, who in a perfect world would play football three hours a day and spend the other twenty-one drinking beer with pretty girls, he liked Mr. Larson. When Mr. Larson isn't teaching A&P, or physics, which only the smart kids take and which no one named Schwenk has ever signed up for, he's enforcing the rules. In the fall he's a football ref, in the winter he's a basketball ref, and in the spring he's a baseball umpire. In the summer, I don't know, maybe he's a lifeguard. This means that in class whenever he's explaining something really complicated, he's got a great sports analogy to make it understandable, and whenever he needs to describe some horrifically disgusting injury, he has a real-life example. Like when he was talking about knees and he brought in a guy who'd been illegally clipped—the guy had a cane and everything—to illustrate it.

  Plus I had English with Mrs. Stolze again—but not sophomore English, which was a really good sign because it meant that maybe she'd actually passed me—and Spanish, and algebra, and world history with a textbook that was written back before there was even a United States, it looked like, and a health class you can sleep through, and computers. Which was good because our computer is so old that it's a wonder it even works off electricity. It should use coal, or a little treadmill a goat walks on. One of my ancestors invented that for churning butter—we've even got a picture—although it probably didn't work any better than most of Dad's inventions. So anything related to computers was something I needed to know.

  All day long kids kept talking to me about the scrimmage like I was some sort of public property that anyone could just walk right up to. Which I didn't care for much. I mean, I didn't set out to play football because I wanted lots of attention, I was doing it—well, I was doing it because for a while last summer, I wasn't sure what the whole point of life was, andtrying out for the football team was the best way I could think of to prove to myself that I was alive and, you know, a unique individual, not just a cow doing what I was told. Only it's not like I could ever explain that to anyone, and certainly not in the hallways of Red Bend High School. Or in the locker room after school either, when I was suiting up for football with all the volleyball players glaring at me and not so curious about my cow worries because they were too busy being mad that I quit volleyball for football, and because of me Kari Jorgensen quit volleyball for cheerleading, and then Amber quit to work at the Super Saver, so the volleyball team was now worse than ever.

  Luckily once I got to football practice there wasn't any time to think. From the way Jeff Peterson acted, you'd think we'd lost that scrimmage by thirty-five points instead of winning like we did, and he put us through some kind of workout.

  By the time we headed home, I was just beat. Plus I had a ton of homework already. It was like, boom, yesterday was summer and today I was up to my neck in work. Curtis was just as beat from his football practice, although he spent the whole ride reading my A&P book, probably the section on teeth considering he secretly wants to be a dentist. Even Mom seemed fried. I guess being principal can be just as tough as being a kid.

  Right as we walked into the kitchen, though, the phone was ringing, and Dad hollered that someone better pick it up, a
nd it was Brian, and all of a sudden my exhaustion evaporated like sweat. I took the portable phone into the little office, which is as far as you can go with our phone because it's so old. "Hey, how are ya?"

  I could hear Brian smiling through the phone. I'm sure that seems impossible, but I know what his smile sounds like. "Not so bad ... How was your first day?"

  "Oh, awesome," I lied, and we laughed. Oh, man, did it feel good to talk to him.

  We chatted about classes for a bit, and then Brian said like he couldn't wait any longer: "Hey, there's this truck part my dad needs in Minneapolis, and he wants me to go pick it up on Saturday morning. You wanna come with me?"

  I couldn't believe it—a road trip to Minneapolis with Brian.

  "My mom wants me to go with someone," he added, "and she figures you're, you know, safer than some of my friends."

  Smart woman. I wouldn't trust Brian's Hawley friends with a broken tractor. "Sure!" I managed to say finally. "That would be awesome."

  "That's great. I'll pick you up around ten, I figure—"

  "Oh no, wait." Saturday. Saturday, if you don't know, is college football day, every weekend all fall, and both my brothers were playing on national television. That is, Win, my oldest brother, was a backup QB, which meant he could go in at any moment, and Bill they were talking about starting even though he's only a sophomore. I couldn't give that up, even for a trip to Minneapolis with Brian. Sure, we tape the games with our dusty old VCR but you can't watch the tape. Well, you can, later. But you have to watch the game exactly while it's happening because ... Well, I can't explain. You just do.

  "I'm sorry, it's just the Saturday games—"

  "Aw, jeez! I should have remembered. I didn't even think—"

  "It's okay. Maybe some other time." Boy, did I hate saying those words. I mean, if there was some way to do both things ... but no. So we talked another minute, and then I went to dinner feeling like a bug that had run into a windshield, just in time for Dad to serve this thing with goat cheese, which tastes extremely weird if you've never had it before.

  About ten minutes later, though, Brian called again. "Hey, guess what! We can go Sunday instead. I mean, if you can make it."

  So I asked Mom and Dad, and of course they couldn't say yes right away because they had to go into all these extremely embarrassing questions about where we were going and how long we'd be gone and when we'd be back, and what kind of driver Brian was, like I had his record in front of me, and Mom had to point out I hadn't been to church in a while, like that would be a deal breaker, but finally they said okay, and I got to tell Brian okay and get off the phone before Dad got too much grumpier about his goat cheese getting all cold, and let me tell you, that goat cheese tasted a heck of a lot better, and everything else as well, now that I was going to get to go on a road trip with Brian Nelson.

  Wednesday, Amber came to school at least, with all these stories about driving to St. Paul with Dale and insisting I hang out with her and Dale on Saturday night. Which gave me something to think about you can bet, given that Dale is, well, I guess you could say that she's Amber's girlfriend although Amber didn't actually use that word and you can be sure I didn't. Then after practice Jeff announced that I had officially passed sophomore English, which meant I could officially play football, and from the way the guys cheered, I felt more than ever like I was part of the team. That was the other second-day-of-school news.

  Friday night we played Cougar Lake, which is always a tough game because we're so evenly matched. Not to mention the Cougar Lake players, and some fans it sounded like, didn't care one bit that there were TV cameras filming the game, and a bunch more spectators than normal, so long as they could kill that girl from Red Bend. After those first couple tackles, I fought back as much as I could, and whenever I played offense I'd stay really close to Kyle Jorgensen because the refs always keep an eye out for the QB. At one point this Cougar Lake guard even grabbed my face mask, which is extremely illegal, and Cougar Lake lost fifteen yards and we ended up scoring, which Jeff Peterson couldn't help pointing out is what happens when you lose your temper and he was sure none of us would be so stupid. We ended up winning 24–16, which was pretty great, and during that whole game I only thought about Brian and Minneapolis three times. Maybe four.

  Saturday morning, even though I was so sore I could barely move, I still had to help Dad and Curtis get the first of the silage in, and the last of the alfalfa, the three of us working like dogs, even Mom lending a hand though she's not supposed to be lifting bales, so we'd be ready when Jimmy and Kathy Ott came over to watch the games.

  The Otts come to watch every game they can at our house, or we go to theirs, because they're as much a part of our crazy football family as, well, as me, when I think about it. Actually, it's pretty funny that we're all so close given that Jimmy Ott coaches the Hawley football team and he spent a bunch of years training his players to beat the stuffing out of Win and Bill, and now he's training them to beat the stuffing out of me. But because of all that stuffing training, I guess, or because he and Dad are such good friends, and Mom and Kathy are too, the Otts care about Win and Bill playing just as much as we do, and Jimmy follows their games so closely that you'd think he was their personal coach. Plus it was Jimmy's idea to send Brian over here to work for us in the first place because he's the number one fan of the Schwenk Work Ethic. So if nothing else, I'll always be grateful to him for that.

  Bill started! They said his name right there in the opening lineup, that he was a sophomore from Wisconsin and grew up on a dairy farm and his older brother plays for Washington. Oh, that was so awesome, and I was so glad I was sitting in our living room with my family and my parents' best friends rather than driving to Minneapolis, even with Brian. Minnesota lost, but Bill played really well, although it's hard to tell because all the camera ever does is follow the ball, which a linebacker doesn't spend too much time with. But Bill had some great tackles that we could see, and if nothing else he didn't embarrass himself, which some days is the most you can hope for.

  Right after Bill's game ended, Washington was on another network. For some guys, backup QB would be the most frustrating thing in the world because in four years of college you might not play fifteen minutes. But Win is so serious about football that it didn't matter, because he works so hard and gets everyone else working so hard that he's absolutely critical to the team. And let me tell you, if I had Win right behind me breathing over my shoulder, I'd work my butt off trying to stay ahead of him. And the impression I got from Win was that Washington's starting quarterback felt exactly the same way.

  But here's the thing: five minutes into the second quarter, the starting QB took a bad sack and had to be pulled out. So right there before our eyes Win ran in, the announcer mentioning how he grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and has a younger brother who plays for Minnesota. Which we already knew from the previous game.

  Actually, it was pretty frustrating because the phone kept ringing with neighbors congratulating us and making sure we were watching, letting us know they were taping it too. I was so busy being polite I missed this pass Win threw, a good thirty-six yards right to his receiver, but they replayed it about six times, and the touchdown that came from it. And right near the end of the game, Win scored a touchdown from the eleven-yard line and the announcers couldn't stop saying how good Washington's backup quarterback was.

  By the time that game was over, all of us had to help with the milking, we were so late. Even Jimmy came out to rehash it with Dad as we worked. Curtis joined in a couple times with these little observations that catch you totally off-guard, like how Win spun to the right before he ran to make it look like he'd be passing instead, which I hadn't even noticed and now I had to look at Curtis twice, trying to figure out what made him so smart.

  Halfway through milking, Mom came trotting out to say Win was on the phone, which is a very big deal because Dad and Win hadn't talked since December. I got to the kitchen in time to hear Dad tell Win how
proud he was, and get all choked up and have to blow his nose. That was pretty great—not the nose-blowing part, but the rest of it. I had to blow my nose too.

  So all in all it was a pretty big Saturday, and it wasn't until I was in the shower getting ready to go to Amber's that I had the time to wonder about this Dale person. I mean, I'd never known one of those kind of people before, not counting Amber, who hadn't bothered filling me in on that particular aspect of her personality until this summer, which hadn't been so fun for a while. Were the two of them, you know, going to talk about it? Or—jeez—kiss or something? By the time I got dressed I was actually pretty nervous, but when I came downstairs Dad and Jimmy were camped out in the living room to watch Win's game again in slow motion, and as much as I love Win there were other ways to spend an evening, so I took the pickup and headed out.

  I was still pretty nervous walking up to Amber's house, but as soon as I caught sight of Amber, she said, "Hey, baby, check out my wingspan," in this deep husky voice.

  "Yeah, baby," I said back the exact same way, "you should take a look at my tail action."

  Dale looked at us like we were both crazy—which she had every right to do—especially when we both just about collapsed with laughter, and then we had to calm down enough to explain.

  Which turned out to be hard because it actually sounded pretty stupid when we tried to put it in words. You see, a couple years ago—wow, maybe five, now that I think about it—I was hanging out at Amber's house one weekend and we rode our bikes over to the town park, which of course has a lake because this is Wisconsin, and after we'd played on the little-kid playground for a while, we ended up on this bench watching the ducks do their waddling-around thing along the shore. Only there was this guy duck who was totally into one of the girl ducks, and he would not leave her alone no matter how many times she walked away. He just kept waddling after her and quacking in that gossipy way ducks have, like eventually she'd change her mind and let him, you know, date her or something.