The Off Season (20 page)

I was almost home before I remembered Curtis and had to turn around. He wasn't very happy to see me, especially with Sarah's mom so pleased with him again, but he caught sight of my face and drove with me to the truck right away, not saying a word, which was good because if he had, I would have removed his head right from his body and put it in a box for the next middle school science fair.

It was pitch dark when we walked into the house finally, Smut so relieved because it was way past her dinner, which I'd forgotten about. Curtis hit the answering machine button that was blinking away although I didn't care one bit, and the very first message, from nine o'clock that morning, was Dad.

"D.J.? Pick up, sport. Your mother, she hurt her back again, really bad ... We need you here. We need you to stay."

And all the rest of the messages said the same thing only with curse words by the end because Dad couldn't figure out where I was, and why I wouldn't answer my cell phone either.

It's not like I'd been ignoring Dad on purpose, you know, I'd just forgotten to take my cell. Which I got him to admit after about ten minutes of cussing me out, that maybe it was an honest mistake. Then Kathy Ott showed up—she'd been talking to Dad all day and sounded just as stressed as he was—and said she'd spend the night with Curtis so I could drive back to the hospital as soon as possible.

I suppose I could have said I wouldn't do it. That's what some people would say and they have a right to, I guess, when the situation gets too overwhelming. I sure didn't want to go back to Minnesota and Win, no matter how much Mom needed me. But I couldn't come up with any other solutions; I needed a couple days just to figure out what had happened with Brian. It's not like I decided that thinking about Brian would be a great thing to do in Minnesota, though. It's more that I wasn't thinking, period. Instead I stuffed a bunch of stuff in a duffel, more stuff this time because who knew how long I'd be there, and a basketball in case I had some free time to practice, although at the moment the chances of me playing girls' basketball were looking about as probable as me playing for the Vikings.

I said goodbye to Kathy and Smut, who'd gotten fed at least, and to Curtis. Dad called again and Kathy said, "She just left," and told me to drive safe because Mom wasn't there to say it, and off I went.

At least my cell phone was charged. And I had a ton of messages, which I didn't want to check one bit but I needed to erase them, and most were from Dad still cussing me out, and then a happy-sounding one from Amber checking in, and the last one was from Brian.

"I'm so sorry about what just happened. I really screwed up. Please call me."

I erased that one too. It's not like keeping it would help any. And I didn't call him back. I wasn't ready for that yet.

Instead I drove our rattling Caravan on the same highway Jimmy took to drive Dad and me to the airport, and that Brian used for the Mall of America. That Mall of America trip had been one of the best days of my life. And not just because we ended up making out like movie stars at the rest area I was just passing now, the Brian Nelson Memorial Make-Out Truck Stop. It was because that whole day he'd been so great. He bragged about my football to everyone and he kept really close to me with hundreds of people all around us, he even put his arm around my shoulders when we were looking at something extra exciting. Plus he got me that cell phone, and even paid for my pierced ears.

But—I suddenly realized with a gasp—you know why? To make me cooler. I could see it now. I mean, the earrings looked good although by this point I didn't even notice them. And calling our house on the home phone probably wasn't much fun. But that day he wanted to buy me so much more, and get me to buy more, clothes that were cool even though I didn't need them, and CDs of music I don't care about. And it was only after coming back from the mall with my brand-new earrings that he kissed me. Because by that point I guess I was cool enough.

But not
really
cool enough, or he wouldn't totally ignore me whenever we ran into each other, and refuse to invite me out with his friends or go with me to the movies, and then uninvite me—or try to if I hadn't uninvited myself already—that one Saturday we were planning to watch TV at his house, once it looked like his friends were coming over. Because apparently blowing me off was easier than disappointing them. Because being my kind-of boyfriend in the Mall of America with thousands of strangers, or with that tailgate guy, or those two turkey farmer reporters didn't bother him one little teeny atom as much as it bothered him to be seen with me in Taco Bell in front of his buddies.

Maybe that was the solution to all this. If I could find a place, if Brian and I could find a place where no one knew us, then we could do whatever we wanted and be happy about it. A town full of strangers.

As soon as this thought came into my head, though, I knew it wouldn't work. Someone would always know one of us. That's why Brian had gotten so upset about
People.
I mean, I got upset too, I'm not denying that, and I sure took a lot of grief about it. It's not like I wanted the entire United States to know about the two of us. But at least I wasn't
embarrassed
about him.

Just then my cell phone rang: Brian.

Wait a minute, I said to my paranoid and miserable brain. Brian isn't like that. There must be another explanation of all this, and he had a right to explain it. If he was brave enough to call me—to call me twice—then I could talk to him at least.

"Hey," I answered.

"Jeez, I'm glad you picked up."

Just hearing his voice made me feel so much better. Almost all better, in fact. Just those few words. "No problem," I said. "So, how's it going?"

"I called your house looking for you, and Curtis said you were going back to Minnesota. Is everything okay?"

"Mom's back went out again ... Listen, I never, you know, asked you, but remember that
People
magazine thing?"

Brian laughed. "Yeah. Why, are they doing a sequel?"

"No. Um, wait—would that be a bad thing?"

"Are you kidding? Just tell me now so I can leave town." He chuckled again.

"It was that bad, huh?"

"You have no idea. The crap I got, you don't even want to know."

"Because I was from Red Bend?"

He paused. "Yeah. My friends had no idea I was, you know, seeing you. They—they don't know what someone like you is like."

"What do you mean, someone like me?"

"Well, you know ... You're really different."

"Meaning I'm not cool." And it was kind of icy, the way this came out.

"Come on, you know how kids are. I'm sure your friends acted the same way."

"Actually, my
friends
didn't. They thought it was okay. They even thought you were cute. And they're
lesbians.
" Which was the first time I ever said that word out loud, and I hope it never gets back to Amber and Dale, my using them like that. Although it sure felt good at the moment.

"Oh," said Brian. Because that was a curve ball, I admit.

"Is it uncool when we make out? Is it uncool when we talk about Win and all his problems?"

"D.J.! You think I don't feel bad about what happened tonight? You didn't even warn me you were coming by!"

"Yeah, it's my fault I don't
warn
you whenever I appear in public."

"That wasn't public—don't do this. We have a complicated relationship, okay? It's not normal."

"I'm not normal?"

"That's not what I said! And by the way, you're not. Normal means average. Average girls aren't six feet tall, and they don't play football or run dairy farms, and they date..."

"Who do they date?" I needed to hear this, what he said.

Brian sighed. "I did not want to be attracted to you. Don't you understand? It was not something I did on purpose, it was something I fought. Because I knew how hard it would be."

"More than hard, it sounds like," I said. "I guess I'm just too big for you."

"Jeez, D.J. I feel so bad right now—"

"Yeah, well, go tell your friends." Then I hung up.

All this time I'd thought Brian was brave because he could talk about really painful subjects. Like just now when he said how bad he felt—that's something Schwenks suck at, discussing feelings. I'd thought how great he was too. But a guy who's really great would have friends who are great as well. Not friends who make fun of me and badmouth me all the time. And if friends did do that, a guy who was really brave would be able to make them stop. And invite me over to his house, and to the movies, and say hello when he saw me on the street even if that street was Hawley High School.

Brian wasn't brave. Talk is easy, compared to action. Brian was a coward. And worse than that, he wasn't my friend. This whole time he'd been using me, like a guy uses a girl for fooling around but in a different way. A worse way, even. He was pretending we were really close, that we were girlfriend and boyfriend even, but only on our farm and at the Mall of America where it didn't matter. Where he wouldn't upset his real friends. And that's why finding a town full of strangers to live in wouldn't work out ever. Because he'd always be looking over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't going to get caught with his embarrassing pretend pal, D.J.

D
AD AND BILL WERE INTO THEIR FIFTH BEERS
, it looked like, when I got to the apartment, and Mom was asleep on the floor with a couple pill bottles beside her. I popped myself a beer, which is pretty unusual for me but what the hey, and slumped at the table next to Dad. Bill was turning the beer can in his hand like he'd been doing it for hours without even noticing. Dad didn't react to any of this. He just sat there, looking so much like Grandpa Warren. So old. "Jesus. What are we gonna do?" he sighed.

Which sort of put a damper in my plans to announce that Brian and I had broken up. It's not like I much wanted to say it anyway, seeing as I'd never even really discussed the fact we were going out, but I'd figured I could at least be brave enough to speak the words. Now, though, I didn't think another dose of bad news would be too helpful. So instead we sat together and finished our beers without saying anything, which I think is the conversation we needed most.

Bill and I saw Mom and Dad off the next morning, helping Mom into the back of the Caravan and me telling her over and over again—lying over and over again—that it was absolutely okay for her to be going home, and that I really wanted to be here, and that she needed to heal so that she could help Win later. Between all the stress of Win's injury plus trying to lift him, she'd brought the slipped disk right back, and now she was at square one again. She was pretty doped up on pain pills, which was good because that ride home was going to be a monster, but still she tried to give me all these instructions on taking care of Win, to keep telling him we loved him. Her clothes hung on her so much that I was afraid her pants were going to slip right off, and then I realized it was because she'd lost so much weight.

"Keep feeding her, Dad," I said as they left, which is something I never thought I'd say to my father. I didn't bother asking how long I'd be staying because I had a feeling it was going to be something like "As long as it takes," only no one knew what "it" was and no one wanted to talk about it. Then I waved at them, faking a smile, and watched them drive away. Just like Dale and Amber had driven off, only they were going in the opposite direction. And I walked into the hospital next to Bill, who was so hunched over that he looked as shriveled as Mom. He didn't even get checked out by the nurses, that's how bad it was. They just looked bummed out too.

The next couple days, oh boy. Win wasn't cooperating at all. He wouldn't even answer the PTs when they asked if he felt dizzy. One big thing with SCI is blood pressure, and when patients first sit up—which makes anyone dizzy if you do it too fast, even regular people—they have to be really careful. They might only sit up halfway, or one fifth, even, until everything gets stabilized a bit. It might take a couple days of practice just to get all the way up.

The PTs said that as soon as he could sit up, we'd all get to practice moving him into a wheelchair so he could go down to the cafeteria to eat. They're really caught up in having everyone eat together so patients can get to know one another, and staff too, and families. I couldn't help but think that hell would freeze over solid before Win sat at a table chatting it up, and then once I saw the cafeteria, I got even more worried.

The room itself was really nice, with photos on the walls of all sorts of patients who were now Successful at Life. And it had the counters of food and trays and stuff just like any cafeteria space. only all the shelves and doors were built with wheelchairs in mind, and the tables had very few chairs because, duh, most of the people arrived with their own. Some of the tables were extra high for the patients in power wheelchairs because those seats are higher than normal, and the regular walking people sat at those tables like they were kindergarten-size or something, the table up around their armpits. The silverware holders had forks and spoons with extra-long handles so patients whose hands didn't work so well could still feed themselves, and a lot of the plates and bowls had suction cup bottoms so those patients wouldn't knock them off their trays as they ate. Some of the patients were eating with spoons strapped to their arms, and others who couldn't move at all, the complete quads, were being spoon-fed by aides or by their family members sometimes, their caregivers.

All of a sudden I almost lost it, realizing this was Win's future, and I had to drop my head down and squeeze my eyes shut tight, and hope with all my heart that my tears wouldn't ooze through anyway and drop with a splat on the floor.

"It's really hard, coming here for the first time," said Maryann, the PT who was showing me around. "Some people just fall apart." She waited a minute, then she added, "They've got some really good vegetarian chili today. Are you a vegetarian?"

Now, I don't know if she asked that because she was sincerely curious or because she was just trying to change the subject—which shows how nice she is—but even in all my misery I couldn't help but snort because the thought of me being a vegetarian is right up there with the thought of me becoming president of the United States. "Do they have any real food?" I asked. And then remembering my manners I added, "I mean, not that there's anything wrong with being a vegetarian. I mean, it's okay to be one—if, you know, you are already."