Dairy Queen

by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

  I walked out to the parking lot with Kyle and Beaner and a couple other guys, and Beaner was just going on and on about what a great linebacker I would be.

  "I don't think so," I said. I didn't want to be a linebacker. I wanted to catch the ball like a baby. That's what I'd trained for.

  "Oh, come on. You're better than Bill!"

  Which made us all laugh because it so clearly was not true.

  "You should do it," he said. "You're one heck of a tackler."

  "I like running back." I grinned, so happy to hear this. "I like playing offense."

  "Uh-oh," Kyle murmured.

  I heard this really snotty voice say, "So how was practice, girls?" And standing right there in the middle of our parking lot were a bunch of guys in Hawley jackets. I'd forgotten about this part of preseason.

  "Screw you," Kyle said like he was telling them to grow up.

  "Jesus Christ," the Hawley guy said, "that's a girl! You've got a girl on your team!" The Hawley guys started cracking up.

  "This isn't just a girl." Beaner stepped in front of me. "This is Bill Schwenk's sister. So you tell your wimp of a QB that he better watch his back because she is going to take him down." Which was about the bravest thing I'd ever seen, because Beaner is about half the size of those guys. He sure sounded tough, though.

  By this time the Hawley guys were roaring with laughter. "You hear that, Nelson?" the first Hawley guy asked. "You're playing against a girl." And just then this guy who'd been talking to someone turned around, and I was looking right at Brian.

  "Yeah," said Beaner. "She's playing linebacker."

  Brian stared right into my face. I stopped breathing.

  Beaner threw his bony arm around my shoulder. "She's been training all summer too. So you better start saying your prayers." And with his arm around my shoulders he walked me to the pickup. Which was good because my legs weren't working too good.

  The look on Brian's face—I'll never forget it. It's carved into my brain forever. He looked like he'd been slapped. Like I'd slapped him.

  When I got home it was almost milking time. Dad was at the kitchen window, and just from the way he was standing I could tell he was angry. Probably he was going to light into me about taking the pickup. So instead I went right into the barn in my stinky football clothes and everything to start milking.

  I was halfway finished when Dad came in, using the cane just a bit because his hip was doing so well now. I was setting up Don Voss, a Wisconsin All-American back in the fifties who blew out his knee before he could go pro. Dad stood there for a minute and watched me in that way that always gets me nervous so I screw up even though I've done it a million times.

  "I got a call just now from Randy Jorgensen," he said. Randy is Kari and Kyle's dad. "He told me you're going out for football."

  Oh, I'd been dreading this moment. I didn't say anything, my head pressed against Don, feeling her warmth through my cheek. I couldn't even look at Dad.

  "So are you?" he asked.

  I nodded. I didn't know what to say.

  There was this long silence. I could feel my heart beating, waiting for Dad to make fun of me, bring up all the reasons I couldn't do it. Tell me what a mistake it was.

  But it was even worse than I'd ever imagined. Instead he just poked at the manure gutter. "When's the last time you cleaned this out?"

  "Yesterday."

  "You better get on it, then. It's getting pretty ripe." And he walked out, not even really using his cane. Not bothering to even try to talk to me.

  I stayed frozen there against Don Voss. I couldn't begin to tell you what I was thinking, my brain was so completely scrambled. I'll tell you one thing, though. A lot of things happened to me this summer. Really bad things, some of them. But that bit with Dad, well, that's what got to me the most. It just destroyed me.

  I rested my head against Don Voss's soft flank and I sobbed like a little tiny baby.

  26. Dog Days

  Dad stopped speaking to me. You know about The Fight, how Dad hasn't talked to Win and Bill since Christmas? Well, now I was in their club. Yippee. On the other hand, I wouldn't have had much to say if Dad did talk to me, because I was so mad at him that the thought of trying to engage in some heart-to-heart Oprah Winfrey conversation was about number 34,679 on my list of priorities. So I guess to be fair, I should say that it wasn't so much that Dad wasn't speaking to me as we weren't speaking to each other. Which wasn't as awful as it sounds, because I was barely home, and when I was home I was either writing in my room or asleep.

  The good news, I guess, is that Dad's hip was getting so much better that he could milk in the afternoons at least. Not that he told me or anything. He just started one day before I got home so I could just go on inside and ignore him back.

  Brian also stopped speaking to me. But just like Dad—even though before this I'd never thought of the two of them having much in common—he also never told me.

  Monday night I tried his cell phone and just got a recording. I'm not too good at leaving messages, so I hung up fast before it got to the beep part. Tuesday morning I got the recording again, which was frustrating. I couldn't stop thinking about that slapped look he had when he saw me, and how bad Beaner must have sounded, saying I was playing linebacker and that I'd take him down. I wasn't going to do either one of those things, but it's hard to explain that into an answering machine.

  Besides, you know, I missed just talking to him. I'd notice something like the trim on the barn windows and I'd remember when we painted that and what we'd talked about, and then I'd wish we just could get together to joke about how much preseason sucked and just shoot the breeze the way we used to.

  Finally, because I was getting a little nervous and everything, because I just wanted to talk to him, Wednesday night I called his house.

  "Hello?" a woman answered.

  "Um, hello," I said, sounding like the brain surgeon I always do on the phone. "Is, um, Brian there?" Then I added, remembering my manners finally, "It's D.J. Schwenk."

  "Oh. D.J.," said the woman in this voice that I couldn't figure out at all. "Just a minute." She was gone for a while—long enough for me to start feeling sick—and came back on and said, "I'm sorry, but it looks like he left."

  "Oh. Can you, um, tell him I called?"

  "I'll leave him a note. Goodbye."

  It was so obvious that he was really home—she might as well have said that Brian told her to say he was gone. And then it hit me all of a sudden that Brian's cell phone has caller ID. He knew all the time it was me calling, or at least someone from the SCHWENK, WARREN household because the phone's still in Grandpa Warren's name because we never got around to changing it. And he was probably betting it wasn't Curtis.

  That's when I figured out he wasn't talking to me.

  Well, of course he didn't want to talk to me, because he was spending all his time around Hawley guys. You heard how sweet they were in the parking lot. Those guys are evil. Okay, that's a little strong. But they're not good. I'd bet a million dollars they were tearing me to bits, making all these cracks about me and ragging on Red Bend, and saying all sorts of nasty things that would make anyone bummed out if they listened enough. That plus the shock of seeing me Monday afternoon, well, no wonder Brian wasn't talking.

  So I gave this a lot of thought, trying to figure out how to handle it in a real Oprah kind of way, and finally I decided to throw a brick through his window. Ha ha, just kidding. Although what I came up with wasn't that far off. If he wasn't going to talk to me on the phone and we probably weren't going to run into each other, not until the scrimmage, which probably wouldn't be too good a place for a heart-to-heart conversation, I decided to go by his house before practice when he'd be sure to be there.

  Which, I just want you to know, was real brave of me, and shows how serious I was.

  So Friday morning I left home extra early in our rusty old pickup, right after milking so I missed breakfast even, and headed over to Hawley. Brian's house was
really new-looking, with new little trees around it and all, with a bunch of other houses in what used to be a field. I even remember when it was a field, which makes me sound like Grandpa Warren or something, but it's true.

  I didn't even make it to his house, though, because just as I was pulling onto his street his Cherokee came the other way. I'll tell you one thing: he sure looked surprised to see me.

  I stopped right there in the middle of the street and rolled down my window, and I guess because he didn't have a choice, Brian rolled down his window too.

  "Hey," I said.

  He glared at me.

  "What are you so mad about?"

  "Tell me you don't know," he said bitterly. "I spent every day with you all summer, and you never told me?"

  "About football, you mean?"

  "Duh! Of course about football!"

  "I didn't think it ... mattered." Which wasn't quite true. There's a lot I would say if I could have this conversation over again. About me feeling like a cow, about my feelings for him, maybe even about Amber if we talked long enough. But I couldn't say all that right there in the street. I don't think that fast, and certainly not when I'm getting yelled at. Which I was.

  "Do you think I'd train like that, every day, with someone who'd be playing against me? Would you do that if you were me? I trusted you. But you—you just used me."

  I didn't have one word to say.

  Boy, did Brian look mad. Mad and hurt. "You Schwenks, you're messed up. You might be good at football but you really suck at life." He shook his head in disgust. "When you don't talk, you know, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said."

  Which, sitting here now writing it down, sounds pretty obvious and a little stupid, even. But hearing it then, boy, it just about killed me.

  I headed back to Red Bend on autopilot or something. How would I feel if I'd spent all summer playing pickup with someone only to find out they'd been planning the whole time to play against me? After learning all my weaknesses, all my tricks? If that happened ... I could see how Brian was mad. Because I'd pretty much want to throttle whoever that person was. Training someone, that's a commitment you make. And by deciding to play myself, I'd broken that. I like to think of myself as an honest person. If I had to list what I like about myself, I'd put "honest" right near the top. But not telling someone something—even though I'd always planned on telling him once I was sure it was happening and all—after a while not telling is about the same thing as lying. I'd lied to him.

  I didn't like thinking that at all.

  It wasn't until later that I remembered I'd never had a chance to say that I wasn't even going to be playing linebacker. So I'd never even be on the field at the same time as Brian. We'd never really be playing against each other. But by the time I thought of saying that, well, by then it was way too late.

  So that was how absolutely wonderful my life was at this point, and the only thing that made it that much better was that I had to spend every free minute I had, until I passed out in bed because I was so exhausted, working on English. Every afternoon I'd eat everything in the fridge and take a shower until the hot water ran out, standing there wishing Amber and I were still friends because then she could give me one of her amazing back rubs, missing her in a way just as much as I missed Brian. Then I'd head into my room the way Smut walks into the vet's. Which if you're wondering means I was pretty darn reluctant. Even though Mom had brought a good computer home from school because ours is so old it could probably use Dad's walker.

  The only reason I was even writing at all was because by now everyone in town, in the whole state it seemed, knew about me and football. And if they found out I couldn't play because I'd flunked English and hadn't finished my makeup work, that would be just about the worst. I'd pretty much have to leave the country. So if you're ever looking for motivation, there's one idea. Get everyone talking and you'll be sure to do whatever it is you need to do. Well, maybe it wouldn't work for you, but it sure worked in my case. I mean, I hope it does. It's not over yet.

  And it turned out, if you want to know the truth, that writing wasn't half as hard as I thought it would be. Except for the fact that all I could do was think about Brian and want to die.

  One evening as I sat there staring out at the sunset and feeling like a dried-up old cowpie, Curtis stopped by my room.

  "Hey," I said, not turning around. I could see his reflection in the window.

  "Hey." He stood there all hunkered down and uncomfortable. Finally he asked, like he was offering to fall on a grenade or something, "Are you okay?"

  "No," I said, because I was too beat to lie.

  "Do you, um, like Brian?" Which I have to give him a lot of credit for because it was probably the bravest thing he's ever done, asking that.

  "Yeah." I thought about it. "Yeah, I like him a lot."

  "Oh." He stood there a bit longer. "I'm sorry."

  I turned around to look at him standing there looking as cut up as I felt. It just about killed me, seeing how much he cared. "Thanks," I said. I meant it too.

  27. Making the Team

  So I guess I should tell you before you bite your fingernails off worrying that I did make the team. Which didn't surprise anyone too much except Justin Hunsberger, who told anyone who would listen how stupid Jeff was, and I was, and everyone was except him. Then after a couple days Jeff took Justin into his office and told him—I heard later—that Justin was the only starter who'd voted against me and that Justin needed to find either a new attitude or a new team and maybe he'd better sit out practice until he decided which one it was going to be. Which really made Justin's day, I can tell you.

  Just so you know, it wasn't like all the other guys on the team were in love with me and thought that having a girl on their football team was the best idea they'd ever heard in their entire lives. It was more that Red Bend is so desperate they'll take pretty much anyone. They'd take Smut, or that cow Don Voss even, if either one of them could wear a uniform and show some sign of beating Hawley.

  Still, it was nice to know that most of the guys didn't hate me outright.

  Practice, though, was brutal. I had it a bit easier than some because I was in shape, from working with Brian plus all that weightlifting known as farming. But the guys had one up on me because they were used to all that gear. Boy does that suck. And I say this as someone who really loves football. I was awful glad I'd done all those sprints by myself in the heifer field just to get used to it. Because a two-hour practice in full gear on that burning-hot field ... jeez. Let me just say that when basketball season starts I'm going to fly like a bird down that court. My feet won't even touch the ground. Assuming, that is, I survive that long.

  Plus I had the whole burden of being a Schwenk. Which in some ways is good because it pretty much got me on the team, being Win and Bill's sister. If Amber had tried out, someone without that last name, they'd have eaten her for lunch. Not without a fight, though, if it was Amber, anyway. But because I'm a Schwenk and Schwenks work so hard, that meant I had to be at every practice from beginning to end, giving my Schwenk all. Which meant, say, that when Jeff wanted the water break to end and everyone to line up for sprints, he'd say, "Line up for sprints," and no one would move. And then he'd say, "D.J.?" and I'd get up—just like a cow but don't you make that crack—and head over to the end line. And then everyone else would have to stand up too, because I'd started it and I was a girl and also going to beat them if they didn't haul their butts.

  Sometimes Jeff wouldn't say anything—he'd just look at me. And sometimes he'd just wait. I bet in his mind he was saying, D.J. Is Responsible, and my Schwenk radar would pick it up right through all that sweat and moaning and groaning, and I'd head out to the field and start. And then on the second sprint I'd be the first one on the line again. And the third sprint. And the fourth ... Anyway, you get the idea. Basically, I was a big old Schwenk Motivator getting the rest of the team in shape.

  Besides Justin Hunsberger and Schwenk motiva
tion and all that, there were other teeny little problems too, like the whole locker room thing. I always figured I'd just go in a closet or something to put my gear on. I'd spent all summer around Brian, after all, without him ever even noticing, it seemed like, and any guy who wanted a glimpse of me in a sports bra, well, that's a guy who needs to spend a lot more time online.

  But apparently I'm the only person in Red Bend who feels this way, because people kept calling Mom about it, and coming by the school, and Jeff had to get keys to the girls' locker room so I could change in there. Only most of the time the cheerleaders were in there too, which would have been awful if it hadn't been for Kari, who was in cheerleader heaven, and they'd all watch me suit up, asking all sorts of questions, and then when I was dressed a couple cheerleaders would hurry to the boys' locker room to say I was ready and try to go in with me. Jeff finally took them aside and I couldn't hear what he said except the word Distraction came up a couple times, and after that they got better about it. A little, anyway.

  And then I'd sit in the locker room with the guys, and some of them would be jerks about jockstraps and stuff but most of them wouldn't, and Jeff would go over plays and workouts, preparing us for our first big scrimmage, the annual scrimmage less than two weeks away, on the Friday night before Labor Day, against Hawley.

  And then we'd go out and practice until I could barely stand up.