Dairy Queen (15 page)

It occurred to me, pulling into our driveway, that I wasn't the only person in our family keeping secrets.

I didn't think about Mrs. Stolze's project for the rest of the week either, if you want to know the truth, because there was so much else going on. For one thing, thinking about The Fight took up some time. Talking to Brian had brought it all back, I guess you could say, and then finding out Mom was writing Win and Bill for all these months without mentioning it, not even to
me
—well, it was a lot to think about.

And other things were changing too. It wasn't like Brian and I were flirting or anything—it was the opposite of flirting, probably—but things were getting ... different.

We were still running in the afternoons, which was nice because we had a lot more wind now, and it wasn't so hard, running down that country road. We'd always take our shirts off because it was always so hot. Don't get the wrong idea—it's not, you know, like a sports bra is revealing or anything. At least it isn't on me. Besides, it's not fair that guys can go around without their shirts whenever they feel like it but girls have to stay all covered up like we're nuns or something. Especially when it's as hot as it gets here in August.

So we ran along not talking too much, me keeping Brian going and him keeping me, and after a while a truck came up behind us, which doesn't happen too much where I live, and it slowed down a bit and then I heard:

"What the hell are you two doing?"

I jumped a foot. Dad was leaning out the passenger window as Curtis drove.

"Nothing." Which wasn't true because we were running, but I sounded guilty.

"You get some clothes on, you hear? I'm not running a goddam beach party."

I pulled out my T-shirt from my waistband, watching Dad adjust the rearview mirror so he could keep an eye on us, but then they drove over a hill and couldn't see us any more and I just tucked that T-shirt away and kept running. Brian didn't say anything and neither did I, but I could see out the corner of my eye he was grinning.

That night at dinner Mom kind of looked at me like there was something I wasn't telling her. Which there was, but I think what she thought I wasn't telling her was different from what I wasn't telling her actually. Anyway, I blushed.

Friday afternoon when we got back from running, Smut all thrilled to see us because we'd been half an hour and she'd started to panic, Brian asked what I was doing this weekend.

"I dunno. Work on an English paper, I guess."

Brian laughed. "
Romeo and Juliet
and all that?"

"Kind of. Remember back when all we had to do was draw a picture?"

"'My family.' With the blue line along the top for the sky." Brian grinned.

"Curtis used to draw these great pictures with the animal legs going in every direction like they'd been run over or something. Mom still has one on her dresser."

We grinned at that. Brian tossed me a water bottle from his trunk. "So that's what you're going to do? A picture of Romeo and Juliet and the tower and everything?"

"Yep," I said, dead serious. "All sixteen colors of crayon." And then, because it was just such a perfect moment, the light hitting Brian's face and his hair that's so shiny even though it's short, and the barn so pretty in the sunshine, I couldn't help it. I sprayed him full in the face with my water.

He let out a yell and came after me with a bottle in each hand, but I got to the hose in time and really blasted him, which would have been great except that once he was wet he didn't seem to care how much wetter he got and he started wrestling me for the hose so we both were soaking, and Smut was jumping everywhere and getting mud all over us, and then he got the hose away from me and his other arm around my waist so I couldn't get away and he just blasted me, and let me tell you the water was
cold.
It comes from our well and must be like fifty degrees and Brian must have been pretty mad because I couldn't get away even though I was really wriggling and hollering and laughing hysterically—

And right then Amber drove up.

I froze.

Brian got me right in the face, but I wasn't playing anymore. He saw Amber and let go of me. "Who's that?"

"A friend of mine ... Amber," I called, "this is Brian Nelson."

"I know who he is," she said, leaning against Lori's Escort.

I turned the spigot off. Brian pulled a towel out of his trunk and started wiping off.

"So, I'll see you around?" I asked, wishing Amber would blink at least. I so wanted to say something else, ask if maybe he wanted to do something over the weekend. Not a date or anything like that, just something. But I couldn't. Even if Amber wasn't sitting right there watching us like we were some kind of laboratory experiment, her hair all orange and everything.

"Sure," he said. But he smiled at me as he pulled out. I think it was a smile.

I made a show out of getting my T-shirt on, wanting to keep that smile memory a bit. I didn't think Amber would be too pleased about Brian and me goofing off together like that.

"So," she asked, sauntering over, "are you two doing it yet?"

Nope. She wasn't pleased.

"Come on, Amber. We were just horsing around."

"For your information, guys like that don't go out with girls like you."

"I
know
that," I said, trying not to get mad.

"So you're thinking about it, then."

"Amber!" This is what she does. We don't argue much but when we do it really sucks. "It was hot, we were goofing off. Can we forget about it? Please?"

"Because you were all over him."

I tried to take a deep breath. "I was not."

"Now that I think about it, he probably would do it with you. But he'd tell everyone about it afterward, and they'd all laugh whenever they saw you."

"Shut up." Now I was mad.

"What, you think I'm not telling the truth?" she asked innocently.

"Just shut up."

"You're really hot for him, aren't you? That tight little butt and those strong arms? Is that why you never told me about him? Are you having sleepovers?"

"If you don't shut up, I'm going to punch you." I took a step toward her.

"Jeez, calm down already. Forget about it. Let's go out."

"Uh-uh." I walked toward the house.

"Come on. We'll go to the movies or something. I've got beer."

"Go to hell." I didn't even turn around.

"Jeez. I'm sorry."

But there was no way on earth I was getting into that car. Not without strangling her first. I slammed the door behind me. After a while I heard her car start up so I guess she drove away. With her beer.

Boy oh boy, was I mad. I was so mad that if I'd been a different sort of person I'd have kicked Smut or punched Curtis, which neither of them deserved, plus Curtis would punch me back. I ended up in the hayloft punching the hay bales instead, which cut my hands all up and got me over being mad pretty fast.

So then I just sat there ripping up hayseeds and thinking what a jerk Amber was. About how she made fun of everyone in the world but no one could make fun of her, how she didn't know anything about boys anyway because she'd never even had a boyfriend, not counting this kid Andy she used to arm-wrestle until he moved away.

Not that I'm the world's biggest expert on boys—which is probably clear seeing as I've written a million pages already and haven't mentioned them at all in that way—but at least I've gone out with a couple. Well, one. If you call seeing a movie your freshman year with your big brother and his girlfriend and his friend Troy Lundstrom "going out." But Troy well, it's not like our family is a bunch of rocket scientists or anything, but we are compared to him.

Then last year I didn't really hang out with anyone, especially after quitting basketball. I didn't even go to the prom because Amber didn't want to go with any guys from Red Bend and besides I didn't have a dress or anything, so instead we hung out in my room with a bottle of schnapps she'd stolen from work and we drank it all and I threw up, and I had to get up the next morning to milk and I threw up again in the manure gutter, and if I live my entire life without seeing another bottle of schnapps, that would be absolutely fine with me.

So I just want to make it clear that it's not like I don't like guys. I do. And I've had a boyfriend if that's what you want to call Troy Lundstrom, for a couple hours at least. But I didn't have one at the present moment. And I wished someone like Brian's Oprah mom who was good at asking questions would ask Amber why she needed to be such a jerk and say all these things just to make me mad and hurt my feelings.

But then what would I say back? Why did the things she'd said hurt so much? Because it's not like Amber hasn't talked like that a million times before, and most of the time it makes me laugh. If she'd said it about Brian a week before, it probably wouldn't have bothered me at all. I probably would have agreed with her, even. Guys like Brian, they don't go for girls' basketball starters who also know about dairy farming. They go for cute short girls with lots of hair and lots of makeup and long fingernails, and there's absolutely not one thing on that list that applies to me. So why did it make me so mad now?

Because I guess I pretty much liked Brian. I sure didn't want to think about it if you haven't noticed, but I liked him a lot. I liked being around him. I had friends in school and I had Amber, but I'd never felt this way before, of wanting to be with someone all the time, and talk to him, and run with him in my sports bra. I didn't mind that last part one bit.

But Brian, as Amber explained, wasn't for me. Girls like me dated tackles and guards, guys who probably lettered but wouldn't get scholarships, and would go to local colleges maybe and end up working in hardware stores. And you know, I've never minded that. I was okay with that because I'd lived with a couple star players and watched girls climb all over them and I didn't like those girls at all.

But now it made me sick to my stomach, the thought that I was one of those girls too. But I didn't like Brian because he was a quarterback, I liked him even though he was a quarterback. Which is a big difference that no one would understand but me. Certainly not Amber. She could make fun of Brian all she wanted, but I'd had more conversations with him, real conversations about real subjects, in one week than I'd had with Amber in all the time we've been friends. At least with Brian I was thinking about feelings, not just my feelings but other people's feelings too, which Amber never does.

Anyway, now I was stuck home on Friday night with no one to talk to but Smut. And figuring out all this stuff about Brian, about how I felt and everything, just made me feel ten times worse. All that padding I had around me from my great idea to play football was gone. So much had happened over the week, all these revelations and lies and talks and workouts and hair problems, all this liking-Brian business, that it had just worn away. And right now I really needed some of that padding back.

Saturday was about the most fun anyone has ever had in the history of the world. Listening to Jeff Peterson talk about subflooring would be a trip to Disney World in comparison. I milked, of course, and did some work around the barn, and tried not to think about Brian, which was like trying not to breathe. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore and went to see Kari at Jorgensen's Ice Cream. She was really busy but she gave me a big smile, which cheered me up a lot, and invited me to a party at the gravel pit, which cheered me up even more.

So after milking I took a long shower and tried to figure out what to do with my hair, and ended up with a ponytail again—someone out there has all the hairstyling brains I should have been born with—and a clean pair of jeans and a Red Bend T-shirt, so you can see how totally sexy I was, and went off in Mom's Caravan as she yelled "drive safely" after me because if she didn't the police will come and arrest her and put her in prison. That's what she told me, anyhow.

The party turned out to be pretty big, with kegs and a bunch of teen counselors from local summer camps. I don't go to many parties like this, which probably doesn't surprise you too much, and I'm not much of a drinker, but it was nice anyway. I talked a bit with Kari's brother Kyle, who's Red Bend's starting QB and who said it was too bad Curtis couldn't play for Red Bend because it would be really nice to have a Schwenk on the team. That was weird. Then his girlfriend came over and didn't want to talk football, so they went somewhere else.

Brian wasn't there.

I ended up sitting on an old log with Kari, looking over all those people talking and having fun. Kari chattered away for a while but then she got quiet too.

I sighed this huge sigh, feeling just so miserable. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, D.J.," she said, looking ready for some big conversation.

"What's your favorite ice cream flavor?"

She broke up like it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. It might have been the beer. It cheered me up too, if you want to know the truth. We laughed pretty hard.

Just then Amber of all people showed up, nodding to me like we hadn't had a huge fight the day before. The three of us sat there not saying too much. All of a sudden I asked, "Can you two keep a secret?"

"It depends." Kari grinned.

"Uh-huh," Amber said, not taking her eyes off me, and I knew she was thinking about Brian.

I dug at the log, peeling the bark off.

"What is it?" Kari asked, nudging me. "Come on. My lips are sealed."

"Your lips are covered in beer," I said, which made her giggle.

There was this long silence again. I guess I could have said forget it and walked away and that would have been the end of it. But I don't think that fast. If I thought that fast I wouldn't have opened up my mouth in the first place.

"It's just—please, don't tell anyone—I'm going to try out for the football team."

"Jesus," Amber said.

I kept working away at that log. "Jeff Peterson is finding out if it's even possible ... Please don't tell Kyle." I already regretted opening my mouth. If he found out, or anyone, and it turned out I couldn't ... that would be the worst. Finally I looked at Kari.