Major Crush (12 page)

We walked down to the band room without talking. Drew naturally walked faster than me, and I let him get ahead.

When I pushed open the heavy door to the band room, Drew was pacing. I put my back against Mr. Rush’s office door, slid to the floor, kicked off my flip-flops, and took my drumsticks out of my backpack.

Drew paced from the instrument storage room to Mr. Rush’s office and back. It was annoying, but I was sure I could be more annoying if I tried. The more he paced, the louder I tapped with my drumsticks on the floor.

Finally he paused in front of me. “Can you stop that?”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I mimicked him over the tapping. “I’m hungry. A ren’t you? We should never argue at lunch.”

He bent down toward me with his hand extended. “May I borrow those?”

I handed over the drumsticks in surprise. If I’d had time to think about it, I wouldn’t have given them to him, because I could have predicted what he’d do.

Sure enough, he reared back with his arm and threw the drumsticks hard. They sailed across the band room, clattered against the far wall, and rang some cymbals on their way down to the carpet.

When Drew wheeled back around, Mr. Rush stood in the band room doorway with his arms folded.

“Fire me, then!” Drew shouted at Mr. Rush. “Just go ahead and fire me!”

“I don’t want to fire you, Morrow,” Mr. Rush said. “Or Sauter, either. Have you seen Clayton Porridge?” He unlocked the doorknob over my head.

He sat down at his desk, and I sat down in a chair. He told Drew, “Better close the door, despite the repercussions.” Drew pulled the door closed, then stood behind the empty chair.

“Please have a seat,” Mr. Rush said.

“No thanks,” Drew said.

“Sit!”

Drew sat down.

“Now then,” Mr. Rush began pleasantly—so pleasantly that I knew he was faking. “Why don’t you tell me what the problem is?”

I piped up, “He’s dating a racist—”

“You don’t know that,” Drew said.

“—and he’s just too stubborn to admit it.” Mr. Rush put his chin in his hand and considered me. “What business is it of yours who he’s dating?”

Drew didn’t say “Yeah!” but he didn’t have to. I could feel him staring at me smugly.

“His girlfriend made a racist comment to my friend,” I said.

Mr. Rush moved his hand away from his chin so he could gape at me. “Oh, shit. We are not going to have any of that going on in my marching band. Which twin was it?”

“We don’t know!” Drew shouted in exasperation.

Mr. Rush turned to Drew. “You mean you can’t tell them apart?” He chuckled. “Sounds like true love, Morrow. But this isn’t why you two are fighting. It’s the subject matter of the hour, but it’s not why.” He rubbed his hands together. “I think I know of something that can help us.

Now, it may surprise you to hear that I come from a dysfunctional family.”

“No!” Drew said sarcastically.

“Watch it, Morrow. A nyway, one of the times the police came, the judge sent us to family counseling. Despite the fact that I was a jaded teen at the time, I found family counseling very enlightening.”

He leaned forward in his chair. “It’s simple. You don’t interrupt each other. You let the person talking say their peace. You take turns telling each other how you feel.”

“Drew and I tried this last Friday on the bus,” I said. “It didn’t work out. We didn’t speak to each other again until Drew’s temperature went up to a hundred and four.”

“She’s easier to get along with when she’s blurry,” Drew said.

Mr. Rush gave Drew the evil eye, then turned it on me. He went on as if we hadn’t interrupted him. “Here’s how family counseling works. You start, ‘I feel,’ and put in an emotion, and then tell us why you feel that way. Sauter, you go first.”

Immediately I said, “I feel angry.”

“Too easy,” said Mr. Rush.

“I feel,” I said again. Clearly, we were not going to get out of this until Mr. Rush thought we were making some sort of effort. So I considered how I really felt. A s I reached deep down, I was surprised by what I found in there.

“Time’s up,” said Drew. “Game over.”

“Shut up!” Mr. Rush and I both yelled at him.

“I feel proud,” I said quickly. “Of Drew.”

Drew’s eyes met mine, but I couldn’t say the rest of this while I looked at him. I turned to Mr. Rush.

“I like Drew.” Understatement of the year. “Drew is a terrific drum major. Working with a partner has been hard for him after he was drum major by himself last year. A ll things considered, I think he’s handled it pretty well. Except that pesky problem of not knowing his left from his right—”

“I had a fever!”

“Don’t interrupt,” said Mr. Rush.

“A nd I feel proud of myself,” I went on. “It’s been hard on me, too. I never expected to be drum major this year. There have been times when I wanted to give it up. But I could never give it up after Mr. O’Toole acted like a girl couldn’t do it. I’ve proven that a girl can do it. Now any girl can do it. A riel James can try out if she wants to.”

“Yeah, I’ve got my eye on James for drum major a few years down the road,” Mr. Rush said. “She keeps writing concertos and handing them in to me for no apparent reason. Some kind of idiot savant.”

“I thought you weren’t supposed to interrupt me,” I said.

“Seriously,” Mr. Rush said to Drew. “Does James talk?”

“No,” said Drew.

“Maybe that’s because you don’t let her get a word in edgewise!” I shouted. Now that I’d started this “I feel” crap, I wasn’t letting go. “I feel frustrated!”

“Tell us why you feel frustrated,” Mr. Rush said calmly.

“I feel frustrated because Drew and I have different styles of drum majoring. I discuss things with people. Drew yells at people.” I realized I was still yelling myself, and lowered my voice. “I think both styles could work. But Drew won’t let me find out whether my style works. Every time I try to solve a problem by discussing things with people, Drew comes up behind me and yells. A nd if one drum major is discussing something with you but the other drum major is yelling at you, you’re naturally going to obey the one yelling at you.”

Drew started, “I don’t—”

“Nnnn,” said Mr. Rush, waving a hand at Drew.

“It’s like I’m the mother,” I said, “and Drew is the father who shouts all the time. I don’t want to be the mother.” “Do you want to be the father?” Drew asked.

“I’m too young to be either. I want to be the freaking drum major!”

I tried to slow my breathing down. I felt like an idiot, getting all worked up. A nd I expected Mr. Rush and Drew to make sarcastic comments about it. But Mr. Rush just considered me soberly, slowly clicking a ballpoint pen open and closed, like he took this very seriously. I could feel Drew staring at me too. I was afraid to look in his direction and see that smirk still on his face. Finally I turned to Drew, ready to defend myself. But he looked serious too. Like it mattered to him how I felt.

Mr. Rush leaned back in his chair and put his pen down. “That’s great, Sauter. Morrow, do you have a response to this?”

Still eyeing me, Drew said, “I don’t come up behind her and yell when she’s talking to people.”

“Sauter,” Mr. Rush said, “can you give Morrow some examples of times when he’s done this?”

“Last Friday when I was getting us into the backseat of the bus. Last Friday when I was breaking up a fight on the bus. Wednesday when the trumpets started the lawn mower and rode it around the football field. Yesterday—”

“That’s enough,” Mr. Rush said.

“You’re not supposed to interrupt,” I said.

“We don’t have all day,” Mr. Rush said. “We’ve got to practice the homecoming parade eventually. Morrow, now that Sauter has listed your offenses, can you see you’re doing this?”

“Yes,” Drew told me.

“A nd can you make an effort to quit stepping on her toes?”

Drew closed his eyes. “Yes.”

“Great,” said Mr. Rush. “One problem solved. What else, Sauter?”

I should have just left it there. But a girl doesn’t get this kind of opportunity with a boy very often. The opportunity to make him explain himself. “I feel confused,” I said. “A bout the hand.”

Mr. Rush looked from me to Drew and back. “Go on.”

“Drew knows what I mean.”

Mr. Rush and I both turned to Drew.

Drew shrugged. “I don’t even remember the hand.”

“Obviously you do,” I said, “or you wouldn’t know what I’m talking about.”

Mr. Rush came halfway out of his chair to lean across the desk in Drew’s direction. “You’re about to be in big trouble, Morrow. I told you that if you hurt my drum major—”

“I didn’t hurt her,” Drew said. Jaw set, he was getting angry again. “I wouldn’t hurt her.”

“Then where did you have your hand?” Mr. Rush asked suspiciously.

“On her hand.”

Mr. Rush sat down, looking dumbfounded. A t a loss for words. For once. Then he snorted. “Morrow, we need to have a talk.”

“Luther already told me that,” Drew said.

“Who?” Mr. Rush’s brow wrinkled in confusion.

“Washington,” Drew said.

“Oh yeah,” Mr. Rush said. “Trombone section leader, right? I think he’s responsible for that blasted ‘ooooooh, aaaaaah.’ Unless you started it.” Drew blinked innocently.

“I want my question answered,” I said.

“I don’t think you’re going to get an honest answer until we work out some of the bigger stuff,” Mr. Rush told me. “Why don’t you tell us about piercing your nose?” I was tempted. But there was no way I could tell Mr. Rush about my dad. “Let Drew have a turn.”

Mr. Rush and I turned to Drew expectantly.

Drew shook his head like he couldn’t believe this was happening. Finally he said, “I feel … threatened.”

Mr. Rush said, “No shit.”

Drew glared at him.

“Sorry,” said Mr. Rush. “Totally inappropriate comment from the family counselor. Go on.”

Drew ran his hands back through his dark hair. I knew we were about to find out about the stuff going on at home.

“I always thought I was going to college,” he said. “My parents had a college fund for me. Then my mother got pregnant. A nd in A ugust my parents told me she’s pregnant with twins.”

What a relief! His mother didn’t have cancer. She wasn’t dying of anything. But I could see how getting two new siblings when he was seventeen years old would cause huge problems for Drew.

A nd of course I said the perfect thing to comfort him. “A re you a Gemini?”

“Sauter,” Mr. Rush scolded me. Then he said to Drew, “I think I see what the matter is. You were the youngest child. The irresponsible black sheep of the Morrow Mafia. Now, without warning, you’re Jan Brady.”

“Who?” Drew asked.

“The middle child from The Brady Bunch,” I said.

“The pretty one?” Drew asked.

“No,” Mr. Rush and I said together.

“That’s not it,” Drew said. “Well, sort of. But the bigger thing is that my mother’s having health problems. It’s hard on your body to have twins, especially when you’re forty-two. She had to quit her job. So we’re low on money. My father’s working all the overtime he can get at the mill. A nd I can’t have my college fund.”

He swallowed and ran his hands through his hair again. “They’re telling me I have to do my work plus Dad’s work on the farm. I have to get a high score on the SA T and get a scholarship, or I can’t go to college. I have to be responsible. But I wasn’t the one who was irresponsible in the first place. How is all of this my responsibility? I wasn’t even in the same county. I was at an A uburn baseball game with Luther while my parents were drinking one too many margaritas and having sex without using birth control.”

Mr. Rush cleared his throat and stood. “Morrow, I think we’ve made a lot of progress this session, and you can pay my hundred and fifty dollars to the receptionist—”

“You started this!” Drew yelled.

“You’re right,” Mr. Rush said, sitting down.

Drew lowered his voice. “I don’t know what I got on the SA T. I did the best I could. I need to stay drum major so my extracurricular activities will show a position of responsibility. I’ve done the best I could as drum major. It was the only sure thing I had left. Last year I got high marks at all three contests, and I won two of them. But for all that, Mr. O’Toole demoted me. He made me co-drum major. A nd now”—

he gestured to Mr. Rush—“you keep threatening to fire me. Was I supposed to win the third contest? Would that have been good enough?”

“Don’t take it personally, Morrow,” said Mr. Rush. “I was only manipulating you.”

Drew didn’t react to what Mr. Rush said. He looked straight ahead, through Mr. Rush. “My granddad worked his whole life in the cotton mill.

My dad has worked his whole life in the cotton mill. There was no way I was going to work in that cotton mill, ever.”

He closed his eyes, took in a long breath, and let it out slowly. His shoulders sagged. He said quietly, “I wanted to go to veterinary school.”

“Lots of people go to the junior college for the first two years, to save money,” I suggested. “Then they transfer to A uburn.”

“Both my brothers went to the junior college,” Drew said, nodding. “A nd do you know what they’re doing now?”

I winced. “Working in the cotton mill?”

“They’re working in the cotton mill!” He was shaking. I wondered if his father had ever allowed him to get this upset in his life.

Drew said to the filing cabinet behind Mr. Rush, “God, they keep after me all the time, telling me what to do, and telling me how irresponsible I am. Sometimes I start to believe it. I should go ahead and get a job in the mill. It’s inevitable anyway, right? Drop out of school. Move in with my brother. Send my parents money to pay them back for raising me. Help finance their new push to populate the earth.”

I looked at Mr. Rush in alarm.

He shook his head at me: Don’t worry.

Don’t worry! I put my hand over Drew’s trembling hand on the edge of his chair, and squeezed, and didn’t let go. Then I asked Mr. Rush,

“Did they teach you to do this in your education classes in college?”

“No,” Mr. Rush said. “In fact, if my advisor saw this, she’d shit right now.”

“You’re not listening to me!” Drew shouted.