The Off Season

by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

  They were there for us. For Win. It was like a parade, only he was the only person in it. He sat in the van in his wheelchair looking out at all this, and Maryann leaned over and whispered, "You gotta wave," and she was crying, and I was crying, and the people outside had huge tears running down their faces as they smiled away, and I realized with a start that not being able to control what people say about you sometimes includes their good words too. And Win waved to them with his weak-triceps wave, and they cheered even more because Win is the best football player Red Bend has ever produced, and nothing that happens to him can ever change that.

  When we made it to the farm finally, I had another surprise, because Amber and Dale had come back from Chicago to help Mom with dinner. Which Mom kept secret just to see the look on my face. Actually, Amber and her mom were talking again. Lori had come over to cut Mom's hair and after hearing all about Win's problems decided that maybe having a gay kid isn't so bad considering she can still walk. Lori was supposed to come too, but she was late because of her new boyfriend, which surprised no one and didn't bother anyone either.

  Guess what Dale made for dinner.

  Actually, she and Dad hit it off like gangbusters, which I should have figured out if I'd thought about it for even a second. Whether Dad knows about her and Amber I don't know—sometimes the not-talking thing works out just fine—and he and Dale spent a couple hours outside with beers and her barbecue machine gabbing away about seasonings. She got him all fired up again about organic cheese and said she'd build him a smokehouse even, so that he came back into the kitchen looking like he'd just met Santa.

  I went searching and finally found Curtis's science fair trophy stuffed in the back of his closet. I brought it back downstairs, Curtis scuttling over to grab it but I wouldn't let him because it's the first trophy any Schwenk ever won for brains. It actually got pretty rough and I had to use some basketball moves that are illegal, but I insisted we keep it right on the dining room table, next to Win's candlesticks. And I made Curtis tell Maryann and Kathy and Jimmy Ott all about it, Kathy so proud that she cried a little even though rats give her nightmares.

  This whole time Mom looked so happy to have Win home finally, and she fluttered around him beaming like her face was going to split in two. She'd spent days getting the house ready, and she'd cleaned out the little office—or made Dad and Curtis clean it—and even got a hospital bed in there somehow so Win could take a nap after that huge exhausting trip. Which he actually did, and her being able to help him like that, you could tell it took away a big chunk of her pain about not being with him in the hospital. She spent a lot of time with Maryann too, showing her around and talking about Win. And Smut, even though she's got tons of enthusiasm most of the time, she crawled up on Win's hospital bed as gently as she ever could, and nestled down next to him like she knew with her good-dog sense that he was hurt, and stayed curled up with him for his entire nap, looking so proud to be there for her man like that.

  Right as we were finally sitting down to dinner, Bill and Aaron—or Milkshake and Tink if you want to be that way—showed up, even though Bill had told us he didn't think he'd be able to make it back in time. They'd ducked out of their football game the second it finished so they could race over here. And we all sat down to the best food I have ever eaten, especially compared to all that hospital food these past months, and more than that to the best people I know, and we all bowed our heads in thanks. Even Win.

  29. Easy Lives

  AFTER DINNER WE GOT WIN all packed up and he and Maryann and Mom headed back to Minnesota. Even Dr. Miller said Mom was good enough to go so long as she doesn't try lifting him. I get to stick around in Red Bend with Dad and Curtis, for a while it looks like, as the female head of household, which is a term that always cracks me up because there isn't a household I know that isn't headed by a female, and most of the males in those households wouldn't last two minutes if it was the other way around.

  Which meant that the first job I got stuck with as female head of household was cleaning up Thanksgiving dinner, only it turned out to be a blast with me and Amber and Dale and Kathy Ott laughing our heads off, even Kathy dancing to this CD Dale had brought—Melissa somebody—while Amber lip-synched the songs. And Aaron went out to help Bill and Dad and Curtis milk, only he had them laughing so hard it's a wonder they got a drop out of those cows.

  They all stayed around for a while, playing cards and picking at the leftover pieces of barbecued turkey even though everyone was so full. I didn't say much because I was thinking about how happy Mom looked behind the wheel of that new van, getting to drive her son, and I got this idea and before I lost my nerve I went into the little office and called the Nelsons. Not Brian's cell phone. Their house.

  The phone rang a couple times while I got second thoughts. What do you say to a man you've never met who never liked you too much and still does something as amazing as that van? Does "thank you" cut it? Maybe I should write instead, like I'm any good at that either—

  "Happy T-Day," Brian answered, sounding pretty pleased with life.

  "Hey. Um, it's—"

  "D.J.?" I guess it's pretty easy to identify me on the phone.

  "Yeah. Hey, Brian ... I just wanted to call and thank your dad for that van. And, you know, wish you folks a happy Thanksgiving."

  "Oh. Don't mention it."

  "No, that van—that's the most generous thing I've ever seen in my life. Really."

  "Well, it meant a lot. He got more satisfaction from that, jeez, than anything I can remember."

  I couldn't think of a thing to say. Now I really regretted calling. I'm sure it looked like I did it just to talk to Brian. And I guess that secretly I did want to talk to him, but using the van like that made me look pretty pathetic—

  "So, you're back in town?" Brian asked.

  "Uh, looks that way. I'll be doing basketball and everything."

  "Boys' or girls'?" he asked, grinning a little—you could hear it.

  "I dunno. I have to check out the Hawley teams, see which one is, you know, good enough for me to play against." We both laughed, and for a moment it felt like it used to. Like it should.

  "Listen..." Brian began, and I knew what was coming. The apologies, the explanations. Solutions he'd thought up that wouldn't work, not in Wisconsin, anyway.

  "Don't," I said. "Please. You take care, okay?"

  "You too," he said, and I held on to that phone, wishing there was something else to say, but I guess there wasn't because after a while I heard the click of Brian hanging up, and I did too, and I went back to this poker game Dale had organized with Bill and Aaron and the Otts, Dad insisting that red queens were always wild, which Amber backed him up on—the first time in my life that's happened, Amber and Dad on the same side of a discussion.

  Last summer I had to write this huge English paper about why I wanted to play football—write because of flunking sophomore English and everything—and that paper was supposed to be my official makeup project. Anyway, it turned out that it really helped me figure out a bunch of stuff that was going on in my life. And Mrs. Stolze said some awfully nice things about it, which doesn't happen too often, getting praise from English teachers. She's the one who gave me the idea to put down everything that's happened this fall. She says it's like having a baby: you think you'll remember every detail and then all of a sudden that baby is grown up and everything went too fast.

  It turns out she's right. These months have been one thing after another, and yet if I hadn't written it all down, I'd barely remember the details, all the awful stuff. Besides, these days I'm too busy thinking about basketball, and school, and Amber, who's talking about coming back to finish her senior year and Dale's encouraging her, telling her to stick it out with her mom. Plus I've got to teach Curtis to be proud of his brains, help him find new friends if he has to because kids who make fun of you aren't really your friends. And you know what? After all that trauma and drama and pain, Win is going to survive. He's going to be bette
r than he ever was, if you want to know the truth. Because the one thing he never was was humble.

  I keep thinking about what Dad said over French toast, that night he came to the rehab hospital in the van. He said Brian had an easy life. I mean, Brian's handsome and rich, and he's always been popular, and he gets along with almost everyone and he knows how to talk about things that we Schwenks couldn't manage without being cattle-prodded. And he's probably the smartest kid in his school. But I don't think that's what Dad was talking about. Dad hasn't had an easy life. He got stuck with the farm when there was no one else to run it, and he's had to watch it bleed away money—I still don't know if it's going to make it, though I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll come up with something, Dad and me, some way to get folks to buy Schwenk milk instead of that cow-factory stuff. Plus Dad's hip pained him all those years until he finally got it replaced, and now Win being hurt—that's tough. And he knows how hard my life has been too—not just farm work but that I'm not so good at school, and I've never had many friends or even a boyfriend until Brian. I don't know how much Dad knows about what went on between the two of us, but I bet his theories aren't that far off.

  But the thing is, Dad's not too fond of easy lives. Probably jealous, for one thing. But he's also seen how a tough life can make you stronger. It got Win and Bill all the way to college because they worked so hard at football. It got Win fighting for his survival. That's why Dad agreed to take Brian on last summer, because Jimmy Ott wanted Brian to get a work ethic and Schwenk Farm grows that better than anything. And Brian did learn how to work hard, and all season he started as QB thanks to us. But I guess he never learned those other kinds of toughness, like how to stand up to your so-called friends, and how to defend those people who really are your friends even if they're unpopular or poor or the wrong size. I think what Dad was saying that night—although I'm not sure because I'm never going to ask him—is that Brian's life has been too easy, and that maybe, just maybe, I deserve someone better. Someone else who's strong enough to take on a whole herd of trouble when it comes their way.

  Acknowledgments

  Win's Minnesota hospital is a fictitious amalgam of the Model Spinal Cord Injury Centers, federally funded institutions throughout the United States that specialize in SCI rehabilitation and research. Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia is one such center; I will be forever grateful to Magee's Sarah Myer and Mary Schmidt Read, and the unlimited time, consideration, and enthusiasm they gave me.

  My thanks to Adam Tagliaferra, Katrine Seghetti-Mayhew, Travis Roy, and the contributors to Richard Holicky's Roll Models for sharing their stories with the world. Doctors Marc McKenna and Garath Maenpaa, and physical therapists Drew Wallace and Brian Jerva, patiently answered my many strange and obscure inquiries. Patsey Kahmann and Becky Bohm at the University of Minnesota could not have been more hospitable.

  Thanks as well to Hillary, Liz, Mari, Mimi R., Tracey, Uncles Nick and Rod, Mom, Dad, Dave, and the girls of Holton-Arms and Radnor Middle School for all your suggestions and hard truths. Jill Grinberg, my perfect agent, and Margaret Raymo, my perfect editor, had the great good sense to know when I needed to sulk, and to prod me when I needed to stop. Nick and Mimi listened closely and asked excellent questions. And thanks, most of all, to James, who first heard this story many moons ago and has bolstered me in more ways than he will ever know. Whatever courage I have, he gave me.

  Reading Group Guide

  Have you read Dairy Queen? (If you haven't, go get it! Quick!)

  At the end of Dairy Queen, what did you think would happen? How does The Off Season compare to your expectations?

  Many characters in The Off Season face tough decisions, decisions made all the more painful by the expectations of the community, or the expectations the characters believe the community holds. How important do you think community expectations are—in their decisions, and in your own life?

  In the second half of The Off Season, D.J. is separated from her parents during an enormously trying time. How would her experience have changed if they were with her? How would you react in her situation?

  At the end of the first chapter of The Off Season, D.J. says that her description of the Jorgensens' Labor Day picnic "doesn't have much to do with anything" in the rest of the book. Do you think that's true? Why or why not?

  D.J. and Brian clearly have a complex relationship. How does D.J.'s opinion of Brian evolve over the course of The Off

  Season? What would you do in D.J.'s situation? In Brian's? Do you agree or disagree with D.J.'s ultimate feelings about him?

  Amber and Dale also have a complicated relationship. How does it differ from Brian and D.J.'s? What makes their relationship more successful? How would you react if Amber attended your school?

  The Off Season describes the family's financial difficulties. Did the book affect your views of American farming? Do you think Schwenk Farm will succeed?

  Why is Win's injury—a rarity in football—included in The Off Season? How does his injury change D.J.? What would his recovery be like if D.J. weren't there?

  Curtis spends much of the book getting in trouble and keeping secrets. What did you think he was doing? Do you think his secrecy is justified? How would you handle such a situation if you were Curtis? If you were one of his classmates?

  Meet the author

  Dairy Queen was very well received, and readers fell in love with D.J. Schwenk and her family. Did this make it more challenging to write another story about her?

  The challenge, I have to say, came much more from the responsibility of writing a second book at all. I've heard from many authors that sophomore books are the hardest, and I completely agree. Dairy Queen I wrote as an exercise; I never dreamed it would be published and certainly never dreamed it would get such a positive reception. The sequel, however, came with all sorts of pressures: my editor's and agent's expectations, the fact that I was being paid (what if I screwed up? I'd have to return the money!), that looming deadline (I had no deadline whatsoever with DQ)...all of those made for a very painful experience. So the responsibility of treating D.J. correctly was incidental in some ways to all this other trauma. I knew that once I got through this agony I would treat her well—though whether everyone else will agree is another story.

  Did you always intend to write a sequel?

  Actually, no. My mother finished reading an early draft of the book and said she couldn't wait for the sequel, and my response was "Oh, well." (But in a nice way, because she's my mom.) To my mind, there really wasn't much room for a sequel, certainly not for the dramatic character evolution of Dairy Queen. At the end of that book, D.J. was "launched," to use one of my favorite terms. She developed so much over those thirty-one chapters that I really considered her a full-fledged ... well, not an adult because she's only sixteen, but a full-fledged human with an enormous capacity for mature emotional insight.

  You're not finished with D.J. and her family, though—right?

  Right. Front and Center completes the trilogy. I let her rest for a while after finishing The OffSeason, but the whole issue of college sports recruiting—which I'd learned about while researching college football—kept nagging at me, and I finally had to write it down. Just as The OffSeason begins the day after Dairy Queen ends, Front and Center begins just as D.J. is returning to high school after Thanksgiving, and finishes somewhere around Valentine's Day. Whew.

  The Off Season addresses the financial challenges many contemporary American family farmers face. Is this something you are concerned about?

  Yes, it is, for a number of reasons—not only because I sympathize with the plight of small farmers but also because I have a lot more faith in small farms than in agribusiness. I'd rather eat a pig raised with two other pigs on table scraps than a pig raised in a warehouse and fed a diet of antibiotics. So I guess you could say that I'm concerned for very selfish reasons. If, after reading The OffSeason, kids and adults think a bit more about what goes into their mouths and recogn
ize that the decisions they make in the grocery store or farmer's market can have a profound impact, well, I wouldn't consider that the worst thing in the world.

  D.J. is a very responsible young woman. Do you think this is typical of teenagers today?

  Yes, I believe she is more responsible than many kids, but in large part that's because she's forced to be. The entire second half of the book, when D.J. is basically on her own dealing with this tragedy, comes about because her mother is incapacitated. If her mother were present, it would be a very different story. You can't rise to the challenge if the challenge isn't there. D.J. didn't want that responsibility, but she had no choice but to take it. That's an important lesson, I think.

  That said, I've heard from several mothers who use D.J. as an example to their own kids. And I once found my son in the basement washing the floor with a mop (so he could set up his toy soldiers). "Am I like D.J.?" he asked. Yes.

  Did you always know D.J. and Brian's relationship would end the way it did?

  No, I didn't know how their relationship would play out except for a vague sense that it needed to go beyond "happily ever after." Naïve and optimistic though I am, I do recognize that two people from such different worlds would have a challenging time making a go of it. And frankly, I'm not sure myself what's going to happen in the future, where they'll end up ultimately. That's what Front and Center is for, I guess!

  Find out what happens next in D.J.'s life in the final installment of the Dairy Queen trilogy, Front and Center.

  I've always liked Beaner—I mean, everyone likes him, he's that kind of guy. But we've always had a special kidding-around thing, like the way he jumps on my back. Even after he used that date word, though, I didn't think about him as anything but a friend. And then I got to the party and found a bunch of guys out back grilling brats even though it was twenty degrees outside, because that's Wisconsin, you can't keep us from our sausages. They were also sneaking sips from a bottle someone brought, because I guess that's a Wisconsin thing, too.