Dairy Queen (6 page)

Dad grinned. "It's true, I did. After every Pee Wee game." He looked so pleased that Curtis relaxed a bit. Curtis had officially been too young for Pee Wee football but they let him play anyway because he was so big, and because he was a Schwenk and all. Plus Dad was the coach and had to baby-sit Curtis whether he could play or not.

"You have to be fair," Mom said, "You can be firm—you should be. But the kids have to know you have their best interests at heart."

Dad nodded. "Winning helps too. But even if you don't win, you have to care."

In bed that night I thought over what Dad and Mom had said. I didn't care about Brian one bit. I made fun of him, I didn't make him wear gloves, I bragged all the time about my brothers, and I sure didn't buy him pizza. No wonder Brian didn't respect me. He might be lazy and spoiled and full of himself, but he wasn't stupid.

Mom goes to church almost every Sunday. I used to go too when she made me, but one of the best things—actually, the only good thing when I think about it—about Dad's dumb hip was that I no longer had to. Milking fourteen times a week kind of got me out of that. Of course, since Dad slept in now and hobbled around complaining about how much he hurt, church was kind of an obvious activity for him. So he was stuck putting on his best shirt, which no longer fits because his gut's gotten so big, and groaning his way into the car, and riding off so the good Lord could mend his bones. His soul, I'm not so sure of. Not wanting to fight about it, Curtis had to go too.

I on the other hand, knowing there were three million jobs I should be doing, went back to bed, which was about the most satisfying thing I've ever done in my entire life.

Only instead of sleeping for three straight hours like I was hoping to, I woke up with a start only twenty minutes later when a blue Cherokee pulled into the yard. What the heck was Brian Nelson doing at our house on Sunday morning?

Not that I cared, because finding out would involve talking to him. Besides, he didn't come to the kitchen door or anything—just kind of snuck into the barn. If he was coming to steal something, the joke's on him—nothing to steal except cows, and he wouldn't put one of them in his Cherokee. But there was certainly a lot of stuff he could trash if he wanted to. Take our broken-down stuff and break it further. Or spray graffiti or something, graffiti about Red Bend.

So, pretty angry about having to get up, and even angrier about Brian, I pulled on a pair of jeans and boots and headed out.

Well, blow me down, as Grandpa Warren used to say. Because there was Brian Nelson in the hayloft, unloading the wagons. All by himself. With new gloves, I noticed, but still.

Now what was I supposed to do? I sure couldn't go back to bed. If nothing else, it would look pretty lame if he found out he was slaving away while D.J. Schwenk was napping. I could work cleaning the barn, but that would be a little weird, him in the hayloft while I scraped away below. The noise might freak him out or something. Besides, haying is hard work. You really need two people at least.

So in the end I angled my way into the loft and went to work emptying the second wagon. He looked surprised, embarrassed, actually, but he didn't say anything and neither did I. We worked in silence for a long time. Long enough that we were, you know, working together. That it was clear we were both doing the job.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey. I thought you'd all be at church."

So that was it. He showed up when he figured we wouldn't be here. That explained why he'd been working so fast and everything, trying to finish up before we got home. Only I already was.

We worked away for about twenty bales without saying anything more.

"Jimmy told me I had to do this," he explained, lugging a bale to the top of the stack. Which of course explained why he showed up at all.

"Oh."

We unloaded about ten more.

"You saw him?" I finally managed to ask.

"Yeah. He came by yesterday. Talked to me for a while."

"Yesterday afternoon?" I slid a bale up to him.

"Yeah."

"Did he, um...?"

"Your big idea?" Brian eyed me kind of sideways.

"It wasn't my idea!"

"You mean you being my trainer and all?" Saying this, Brian's mouth sort of twitched.

"Can you believe it? That guy is totally insane!" I shook my head.

"Yeah, well, you should try having him as a coach." Brian wiped his face.

"Bill said he was real tough."

"Your brother said that?" He looked pleased.

We worked away for a long time. After a while I went inside and grabbed a couple pops and came back to the barn and tossed one to Brian. He caught it one-handed and nodded thanks. Then it hit me. A day before—even an hour before—I would have paid money to watch Brian Nelson perish of thirst. And here I was giving him a pop. Isn't that weird?

You should have seen their faces when Mom and Dad and Curtis came home. I can't blame them. Brian had made his feelings about us pretty well understood, and vice versa, and here we were three days later working together like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Jimmy sent him over," I explained, like that made it all clear, and Dad eyeballed the haystack but I guess he thought better than to criticize it, and they went inside. Curtis kept looking back like he was worried about me.

We were just finishing up the last bales when this nice feeling spread through the barn, this really nice, hungry feeling, and it took me a while to figure out it wasn't a feeling but a smell: Dad was grilling. And all of a sudden I was so hungry I could barely stand up.

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.

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 use 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.