Dairy Queen (22 page)

What was I going to say to Brian? I could do the bad-news-and-good-news bit, the bad news being that I was playing linebacker and the good news that I wouldn't be playing at all. That would be funny if we were still friends and all, but these days I didn't think I'd hold his attention long enough to get the words out. He'd probably just tell me again that my family really sucked at life.

Which we did. Because here we were at dinner—seeing as it was dinnertime and all, and we were sitting together chewing on something made out of hamburger—and we hadn't said a single word.

So I said, just to shake everyone up, "Looks like I'll be playing linebacker."

Everyone stopped eating. I might as well have said that I was going to run around buck naked. Isn't that just the saddest thing you've ever heard? I'd been playing football for almost two weeks and I couldn't even say that fact out loud in my very own house. Not because anyone told me not to, but just because, well, we hadn't talked about it. And once you don't talk about something in our family, then, well, you can't bring it up.

But I had.

Curtis slouched down even lower in his chair.

I just kept plowing along. "On the football team."

"That's great," Mom managed to get out. I'm sure she'd noticed by now that Dad and I weren't talking, but she sure hadn't said anything about it. Maybe she figured that eventually I'd move out and then she could just start e-mailing me.

So we all went back to eating, except that we were on code red family drama alert. Eventually we finished, and Curtis and I carried our plates to the sink because the last thing we needed was Mom getting hysterical.

All this time Dad hadn't said a word, just stared into space, working away at his hamburger thing. I paused in the doorway and looked at him, still feeling raw and angry about our whole messed-up family and everything we weren't.

"Are you going to tell me to clear out too?" I asked, because that's what Dad had said to Win and Bill during The Fight. And then I left. But he—well, there's a chance he started to say something but I was already out of the room, and there was no way in heck I was coming back. So I guess I'll never know for sure.

Instead I decided right then and there to make the call. So before I lost my nerve or anything, I stomped up to Mom and Dad's room and shut the door and dialed the phone.

He didn't pick up. I figured he wouldn't, what with his cell phone saying SCHWENK, WARREN and all. I listened to it ring and ring, and then the message started and it almost killed me to hear his voice, his deep voice that always sounds like he's saying something sexy because he's probably hoping it's a girl, a real girl and not me, calling: "I'm busy, leave a message." And then the beep.

I took a deep breath and said, "Hey, Bill, it's me, it's D.J. You know, your sister? I was just, you know, thinking about you and, you know, thought I'd call. And anyway, I hope you're okay and I hope preseason is going okay and all, and I don't know if Mom told you but I'm playing—well, never mind. It's nothing. Anyway, you know, so, have a good day and everything and, well ... bye."

I hung up, and then sat there for about five hours, staring at the phone and wishing there was some way I could call back and erase my entire message, which—I'm not sure about this but I'm willing to guess—was the stupidest voice mail in the history of the world, going back to the Egyptians and everything.

But at least I'd called. I'd punched that bruise and I'd called my brother.

In the morning I left before anyone else got up because I just couldn't handle one more minute of Schwenk family misery. And we had our practice and after that a scrimmage, offense against defense to practice for the Hawley game, with people in the stands watching us and everything so it felt almost like a real game only without that energy and anger. Sometimes I played linebacker on defense, and sometimes I played running back, usually halfback. I got to catch the ball some but most of the time we worked on running plays when Kyle would hand me the ball and I'd try to cross the line of scrimmage and move it downfield. Or I'd block for someone else like Kyle who was carrying. Let me tell you, blocking is hard work. It's like haying in that you're using your whole body, throwing all your weight into a thrusting jerk. Only hay bales don't fight back.

Plus there were a million things I didn't yet know about football, little tricks and habits and facts that you learn only from years and years of playing, that you can't pick up on the sidelines as someone's little sister. I had to focus like crazy just to feel like I was barely on top of things.

Then, right before the last play, Kyle elbowed me. "Isn't that your old man?"

Jeez, it was. And he'd been there a while too. Not that I'd noticed it was him—which I felt stupid about now that I did—but I'd known there was someone sitting in that spot. It wasn't like this was the first time in my life Dad ever watched me play. He and Mom come to every basketball game they can, especially the night ones after milking, and he came to track meets too if his schedule worked out. But still, this was different, and I knew it. And you know it too.

So we got in a huddle, me trying really hard not to think about Dad, what he thought of the team and my playing, what sort of smart-mouthed comments he'd make, and then the huddle broke and I had to ask Beaner what the play was. He whispered it back, and luckily it was a passing play so I didn't have to do much except keep from tripping, and Beaner caught it like the pro he is, and practice was over.

Well, it was over in the sense that we stopped working, but Jeff talked to us in the locker room for a while, reminding the players—which didn't include me—what time to show up tomorrow and the JV—including me—to show up to watch, and how important this scrimmage was and how many people would be there, like this was all stuff we weren't aware of. And then we went back outside, with the stands a lot emptier than they'd been earlier, although Dad was still there, I could see. I cleaned up as slowly as I possibly could because the very last person I wanted to talk to was him. Jeez, I was supposed to listen to his cracks? Or his silence, which was even worse because then I'd just imagine what he was thinking, and I have a pretty active imagination. Maybe when he started I'd just say in a real Oprah voice that I had to focus on the scrimmage and I didn't want to hear any criticism. Only I wasn't sure I had the guts to do that—

"Hey there, Mr. Schwenk," Kyle said. "How'd we look?"

Holy cow, Dad was right behind me. I didn't turn around.

"You got an arm there, son. Like someone I know," Dad said.

"It's not much," said Kyle, bursting with pride. "What'd you think of D.J.?"

I froze right there on one knee, cleats in my hand. I could hear Jeff fifteen feet away, rustling papers on his clipboard. I could hear cheerleaders working in the next field. I could hear a small plane in the distance. I could hear the grass growing, it felt like.

"She looks okay," said Dad slowly. "She really does. It's something to be proud of."

"You hear that, D.J.?" Kyle slapped me on the back. "Your dad's proud of you."

"You ready, Dad?" I asked, gathering up my duffel bag. Because I wasn't going to make a big deal out of it in case you're wondering. But it, well, it wasn't the worst thing he could have said.

We set off back across the field together, Dad and me, taking our time on account of his hip. "I checked on the heifers this morning," he said, looking off into the distance.

Well, that just about gave me a coronary. Because of course right there in the middle of the heifers is our football field all marked out in lime, with little flappy car dealer flags around it and everything.

"Oh," I said, adjusting my bag.

"That's quite a setup you got. You do that all by yourself?"

I shrugged. "Yeah. With, you know, Brian. We did some training up there."

"So that's what you two were up to all summer." He sounded amused, frankly.

I tried not to blush. "What'd you think of the scrimmage?"

"You looked good." He looked around at the bleachers, the peeling Red Bend Wolves sign. "It takes me back. Makes me wish I'd stayed in coaching."

"Well, why don't you? They always need an assistant."

He waved this away. "The only thing I'm halfway good at is farming."

"You can cook," I offered, without even having to really think about it.

Dad eyed me. "You don't even like my cooking."

"I do too. It's good. It's real good."

"You never said anything."

"Well, I didn't want it to go to your head."

Dad laughed and messed up my hair. "It looks okay, that haircut," he said.

"Makes me look like a boy," I grinned.

"No, it doesn't. It doesn't at all," he said, settling his arm around me.

And that's how we walked off the field, the two of us together, Dad's arm around my shoulders.

I spent Friday so relieved that I wasn't playing, especially when I went down to Jorgensen's Ice Cream and watched Kyle wandering around looking green and Kari working herself up into a tizzy for her very first game. Cheerleaders are a lot braver than people give them credit for, people like Amber and me anyway. But then just as I got home Jeff Peterson called and told me to suit up.

"I'm playing?" I gulped in a not very Schwenk way.

"You're going out with the team" was all he said.

I couldn't figure out what he was talking about until I got to the locker room that afternoon and found the guys in a lather, even Kyle who's usually puking by now.

Beaner frowned at me. "Did Hawley's QB work for you guys?"

How the heck did he find
that
out? "Brian Nelson? Uh, yeah, a little."

Kyle snorted. "Did he sue you?"

"What?" I asked.

"Because he's suing the school," Beaner scoffed.

"What? Why?"

Beaner grinned at me, amused as all get-out. "Because of you. Claims you're ineligible."

And of course at that very moment Jeff stood up to give his little pep speech, and I was left there with my mouth hanging open, trying to figure out what was going on. Brian was suing Red Bend? It must be his dad, Mr. You're-Always-Perfect Nelson, who probably knew from Brian about my grade issues, or at least about me being a girl. But still, suing us ... jeez. I felt sick just thinking about it.

I didn't hear much of Jeff Peterson's speech, but what I heard sounded good. I mean, how many different speeches can there be? I've heard a bunch before every basketball game, and little ones at every b-ball time-out. But he did a good job. Said that he'd be a lot prouder of us if we lost as a team than if we won as showboaters, which isn't true but it was still good to hear. He kind of looked at Justin Hunsberger when he said that showboating line, in case the point wasn't clear enough.

Then we had to line up and go out on the field, the bleachers full and people standing all around the track outside the fence to watch, and we went out one by one while the announcer said our names, and that's when I figured out why Jeff wanted me there, because when my name was announced there was extra cheering from the Red Bend side and a bunch of booing from the Hawley side, and I guess Jeff decided I needed to be out there rubbing Hawley's nose in it. Our announcer is a Red Bend mortician who's been doing it for years. The joke is that he's the kiss of death for our team, but he sure loves his job and he buys a big ad on the back of the program every week and everything. He couldn't help but point out that I was Win and Bill Schwenk's sister just in case, you know, there was someone in the crowd from Iceland or someplace who wasn't aware of the connection.

If nothing else, I was glad Dad already knew I was playing because it sure would have been a shock if he'd found out then.

Kyle won the coin toss and opted to receive the kickoff, and the game began. It was kind of weird, actually, because I've always been a starter on basketball and I play every game until I foul out, so watching the game from the sidelines without feeling angry or guilty about all those fouls, that was new for me. And it would have been fun too, except that I was watching my team lose.

We were holding it together pretty well, all things considered. Red Bend made it all the way to the 23-yard line before Hawley shut us down, then we lost on downs and Hawley got control. When the sides switched—our defense going in against their offense—Brian went as QB, I noticed.

I watched the game as closely as I've ever watched football in my life, especially because I knew a whole bunch more after playing for two weeks. Hawley's top receiver didn't have Beaner's speed—he plays baseball in the spring for Pete's sake, and no one ever built speed doing that—but he could get where he needed to go, and Brian was looking really good. Even the announcer pointed it out. Finally Hawley scored, on a scrabbling little running play from the 15, and then made their extra point so the score was 0–7.

I could go through the whole game play by play, but I'll spare you except to say that for most of the half Hawley's offense was on field with Brian playing the game of his life. Red Bend held them off as well as we could, but then with about eighteen seconds left, they scored again with a field goal, so the score was now 0–10.

Then the buzzer sounded and the half was over.

And then as everyone was walking off the field, a Hawley player—I don't know his name and I didn't even notice his number, which is too bad because in a weird way I'd like to thank him—he came up behind me and gave my butt a squeeze and said "dyke" under his breath. Just like that.

Now. Let me say first of all that I am not completely unfamiliar with trash talk. For one thing I play basketball with Amber Schneider, who can make a point when she wants to. And I know how rough it can get on the football field. From the stories Bill tells, I'm surprised fights don't break out all the time. And I know all about getting patted on the butt. Heck, if Dad squeezed Mom like that she'd act like he'd given her flowers. You watch pro ball and those guys spend so much time with their hands on each other's rear ends, you'd think they were feeling for diamonds or something. If a Red Bend guy did that to me I wouldn't think twice about it.