Major Crush (18 page)

“No wonder!” I exclaimed, relieved, and almost angry that they’d bothered to tell me in the first place. “Of course it’s not true. They’re just mad that Drew broke up with Cacey. They’re trying to stir up trouble.”

“It’s probably true,” Drew corrected me between bites. “Their mother is the secretary of the Band Boosters, and she used to have Mr. and Mrs.

O’Toole over to dinner a lot. Mr. O’Toole probably told their mother.” He concentrated on his salad again.

A llison caught my eye. She understood that my expressionless drum major face was not going to last much longer before I started to cry right here in the lunchroom. “Drew, why are you acting like that?” she asked.

“Like what?” he asked with his mouth full.

“Why are you eating?”

“Lunchtime.”

I shook my head at her. It was no use. But she held up her hand, signaling me to hold on. “A ren’t you going to make sure Virginia knows that everything’s okay between you two? It’s not her fault that she won, or that Mr. O’Toole kept it a secret, or that the Evil Twins have told the secret now. It’s not her fault.”

“Back off,” Drew said without looking up from his plate.

“What do you mean, back off? You’ve got a lot of nerve to—”

Luther put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t. You remember what happened the last time Drew told y’all to back off?”

“Right,” A llison said, smiling tightly. “He’s keeping everyone from trampling on his machismo, and you’re letting him. Meanwhile, he’s ruining his relationship with Virginia. Look at her.”

I looked away, across the lunchroom, and noticed one twin or another staring at me with an evil grin. I turned back to A llison.

“He needs to reassure her that everything’s okay between them,” she said.

“Everything is not okay between them,” Luther said. “Can you imagine how humiliating this is for Drew?”

“Humiliating!” A llison exclaimed.

“Yes, humiliating.” Luther counted on his fingers. “He has to share drum major. With a girl. A younger girl. A rich, spoiled doctor’s daughter.

Who used to dress up like JonBenét Ramsey. A nd who’s stopped wearing shoes. That was bad enough. A nd now, to top it off, he actually lost drum major to this person.”

I wanted them to shut up. But I kept listening with a kind of horrified curiosity.

“Virginia is a good drum major,” A llison said. “She wouldn’t have won otherwise. If Drew feels humiliated, that s Drew’s personal problem.”

“Drew would have gotten over it,” Luther said. “The trombones would still be badgering him about it, but if Mr. O’Toole had come clean and told Drew he lost the election in the first place, he would have gotten over it.” He shrugged. “But now Drew’s spent a couple of months going through the motions, thinking he won, and thinking Mr. O’Toole gave Virginia the position because he had a thing for little blondes. It’s completely humiliating for Drew to find out that he didn’t win after all, and he’s just a charity case. Now he has to quit.”

“Quit!” A llison squealed. “He can’t quit!”

“The position is rightfully Virginia’s,” Luther said. “He has to quit. Otherwise, his dad will kill him. His dad will kill him anyway for losing.”

“But what about Drew and Virginia’s relationship?” A llison insisted.

Drew was still eating. Holding my breath, I waited for Luther’s verdict on our relationship.

“What relationship?” he asked. “It hasn’t even been a week. They’ve made out once, and they haven’t been on a date yet.”

“But they’ve been leading up to this for months.”

“Well, it’s over now,” Luther said. “I’m sorry, but Drew can’t get past this. It’s not just him, do you understand? It’s his dad and his brothers who think he’s let them down. It’s the trombones and the whole school laughing at him.”

“If he really liked her, he would be big enough to get past it.” A llison stood up, teary-eyed. “I can’t believe I trusted you! I thought you truly liked me, or I wouldn’t have hooked up with you. But clearly, you’ll take whatever you can get, wherever you can get it, and I was your latest target!” She whirled around and stamped daintily away.

Luther watched her go. “What just happened?”

I said quietly, “Girls are shocked when they find out how boys really think.”

He looked at me in alarm, scraped back his chair, and ran after A llison.

Drew had started on his cheeseburger.

“We don’t even know for sure that the rumor is true,” I said. “I’ll go ask Mr. Rush.”

“You do that,” Drew said.

A t least this was probably the last lunch I would skip for Drew’s sake. I raked back my chair and turned for the door, but a lunchroom lady stood guard. I grabbed up my full tray from beside Drew and took it to the dishwasher. A s I passed, people at the tables on either side of me bent their heads to whisper.

I opened my umbrella against the soft rain outside, but: I took off my flip-flops so I could feel the cold, wet grass between my toes. A nd when I hauled open the band room door, my wet foot slipped on the cold tile. I landed with a splat on the floor.

Mr. Rush leaned out his office door. “That sounded like you. I’ve been expecting you. Where’s the other one?”

I picked myself up off the floor. Shaking my head, I walked into Mr. Rush’s office and closed the door behind me.

He stared at the door for a moment like he would get up and open it. Then he gave in and looked at me expectantly.

“How long have you known?” I asked.

“Since I got the job.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, like Drew did, with the self-control of an authority figure. “I feel … betrayed.”

Mr. Rush nodded.

The self-control thing didn’t work for me. “Why didn’t you do something?” I asked desperately.

“I called my advisor from college. She told me if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“It was clearly broken.”

“I didn’t think so at first. I thought you were two nice, trustworthy kids who hadn’t been trusted. You were both good drum majors. You were into each other. I thought you could work it out. If I could find out what was behind Morrow’s steely exterior. A nd your nose stud. But maybe you’re right.”

I held out a little hope, though I wasn’t sure what I hoped for. “When you got the job, did you count the votes again?”

“Yes.”

“How many did I get?”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember. Seventy-something.”

“How many did Drew get?”

“Three fewer than you.”

I could tell by the way my heart sank that I’d hoped I had lost. To keep up the image that I was just checking his math, I asked, “How many did Clayton Porridge get?”

“Two.”

I swallowed. “I think Drew may quit.”

Mr. Rush nodded again. “I think you’re right.”

“We’ve gone all this time with Drew as drum major. We have a game tonight and the contest tomorrow. Drew should stay drum major with me.”

“I agree.”

“But he’s humiliated,” I said. “A nd he thinks the job is rightfully mine. He won’t do it.”

“No, he won’t.”

I closed my eyes, breathed the humid air, and listened to the noise outside the office. We couldn’t practice on the football field in the rain.

People hauled their instruments out of cases into the band room.

The familiar sounds of clarinets warming up and boys laughing should have been comforting. My whole life hadn’t changed. Just this one thing. Really, everything was back to normal, with Drew hating my guts. It was the past few weeks that had been unusual.

I knew the tractor love was too good to be true.

I opened my eyes. “A nd I bet you plan to drop another bombshell at the faculty meeting this afternoon.”

“I can cause us trouble without even going to a faculty meeting,” Mr. Rush said proudly. “For the contest tomorrow, I entered us two classes up from where we should be for the size of the school.”

“So well be competing with all the huge, rich bands from Birmingham and Montgomery. Why did you do that?”

“It’ll look so much more impressive when we beat the pants off them. I’ll get my contract renewed for sure.”

“Except that we won’t beat the pants off them with Drew gone,” I pointed out.

“There’s that. I entered us two classes up before I knew this secret had gotten out.” He winked. “No pressure.”

Frustrated, I stood and jerked the door open, hoping I might find some snooping flutes to vent my anger on.

No one was there but Drew, leaning against the wall with his arms folded.

His dark eyes stared right through me, chilling me down to the bone.

He didn’t say a word as he brushed past me into Mr. Rush’s office and closed the door.

Immediately Mr. Rush opened the door again. “Sauter, go take roll and tune them up. I may be a minute.” He closed himself in the office with Drew.

I stood on the podium in the band room and called names. Cacey and then Tracey Reardon answered after a long pause. I never looked up from the roll book. I was more interested in the voices of Drew and Mr. Rush that sometimes reached me through the closed office door.

I dragged the roll out as long as I could, then directed the band to play a note and hold it. Under the clean clarinets and the rich mellophones, I thought I heard an off-key flute.

But it didn’t matter, because people stopped playing and strained to hear what Drew shouted at Mr. Rush.

The door to Mr. Rush’s office crashed open and Drew stormed across the band room. The heavy door out to the driveway slammed behind him.

Mr. Rush walked into the band room and up to the podium. Everyone watched us.

“Where’s Drew?” I whispered.

“I sent him to run laps around the football field.”

“In the rain?”

“It’s good for him.” He turned to the band and yelled, “Holy crap, is it stuffy in here? Washington, open some windows.”

Luther dutifully weaved between the rows of chairs, stood precariously on a tuba case, and cranked open the windows high in the wall. Girls in the back row squealed as rain blew in and wet them.

Mr. Rush handed me a sheet from a yellow pad. “Here’s a list of trouble spots in the music that you need to rehearse them on.”

“Me? What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to play drums.”

“You flunked percussion.”

“I know. I need to improve. Whoever heard of a band director who can’t play drums?”

I had just become the lone drum major. The last thing I needed was to be put in charge! Reluctantly, I finished tuning the band and started rehearsal.

But at least with Mr. Rush in the drum section, the left half of the room behaved themselves for fear of pissing him off. That included the twins and their flute friends.

The trombones were another story. The talking and cutting up slowly welled until I turned to them with my hands on my hips and sent them an outraged glare. They would titter and shush themselves. Then the talking would well up again.

I knew what was going on. They were angry with me about Drew. They were showing their loyalty to Drew by giving me a hard time.

A nd Mr. Rush was letting them do it. He was giving me a trial by fire.

Thunder boomed too close, and the lights flickered.

Girls screamed.

The heavy band room door banged open, and there were several more slams in the storage room. Drew appeared with his trombone, kicked Luther’s chair so that all the trombones moved down one chair, and sat without saying anything to anyone. A s if no one would notice him.

He was completely soaked.

Luther slid toward Barry to avoid getting dripped on.

I restarted rehearsal. The noise in the trombone section grew again, and expanded to the trumpets. I let it go on for a few minutes. It was only natural for them to talk. A down-and-out Drew was something to gossip about.

The noise expanded to the saxophones. I could hardly hear the flutes I directed. Then, from somewhere low in the trombones, an “ooooooh, aaaaaah” boiled up.

“Trombones,” I called.

Drew leaned over Luther, talking to trombones farther down the line.

That was the last straw.

“Hello, trombones!” I yelled. “Drew!”

Drew’s head snapped up in surprise, scattering raindrops. His eyes were wide, and a blush crept into his cheeks.

He’d been trying to get the trombones to shut up. He’d been discussing the problem with them. For me. He felt hurt.

I didn’t care. I felt abandoned.

“It doesn’t matter what’s happened today,” I said to Drew. Then I let my glance fall across the rest of the band, as if I were talking to them.

“We still have a game tonight and a contest tomorrow.”

I let the uncomfortable silence settle. If another “ooooooh, aaaaaah” broke out, I would throw up.

But it didn’t.

A t the back of the band, where no one else could see, Mr. Rush gave me a thumbs-up.

A ny other time I would have felt proud of myself for handling the band and finishing what turned out to be a pretty productive rehearsal. I smoothed out all the rough spots on Mr. Rush’s list, plus some I’d heard myself or that Drew had pointed out to me before. I thought we would sound a lot better after this.

But under the circumstances, I just wanted to get through it and go home and hide.