I took roll, made my way down the aisle over coolers and uniform bags, and sat in the backseat, reviewing the changes I would have to make in the halftime show now that Drew was gone. I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see the curious looks from the freshmen or the concerned look from A riel and Juliet across the aisle.
“Virginia,” someone called. Then a chorus of voices: “Virginia, Virginia.”
I squeezed my eyes more tightly shut. I hated band.
“Virginia.” I recognized A llison’s voice. She stood at the front of the bus.
I wove back up the aisle and followed her down the stairs, into the soupy grass.
“The twins are spreading another rumor about you,” she said. She pulled at her earring.
She held her umbrella over us, but even out of the rain, the air practically dripped humidity. This afternoon, in the hour we’d had at home, I’d curled her hair carefully around her tiara while she chatted about whether Luther liked her bangs down or away from her face. If she was braving the elements to tell me about a rumor, it was bad, bad, bad.
“How bad can it be?” I asked.
“Did your dad have an affair?”
By kickoff time the rain had stopped. First quarter, our team made a touchdown and two field goals. I sat at the bottom of the stands with my back to the band, watching the game closely. I was terrified I’d miss when we were supposed to play the fight song.
Conveniently, while I was watching the game, I didn’t have to look at the twins, who had told everyone about the drum major fiasco. Or at Drew, who had told the twins about my dad.
Second quarter, our team made a touchdown and a field goal. I realized there was a pattern to the way the teams threw and kicked and ran.
A lmost like a game. A cold mist began to fall.
I was supposed to lead the band toward the field for the halftime show at the six-minute marker. A s the time ticked down, I watched the clock, and then the game. The clock, then the game. Then Walter.
Walter passed in front of the chain-link fence that separated the band section from the lower section of bleachers. His beard was fuller now. I wouldn’t have recognized him except for the way he walked, and then I caught a glimpse of his big green eyes. He was with a girl wearing black. A nother girl wearing black and a boy with a long ponytail followed close behind them.
Walter dropped the girl’s hand, stared straight at me, and held both arms up. He mouthed, “Touchdown.”
What? Walter was sexually active?
“Drum major!” the band called behind me.
Oh, that kind of touchdown. I turned around casually and directed the band, as if I meant all along for there to be a time delay between the team scoring and the band playing the fight song.
A s soon as the song was over, before Drew or a twin or anybody could even put their instrument down and catch me with their evil eye, I whirled back around.
Walter had his hand cupped to his girlfriend’s ear. His friends moved down into the lower stands without him. He stepped closer to me and put his hands on the fence between us.
I put one hand up to touch his. But I watched the game over his shoulder. “Thank you,” I whispered. I wanted to tell him so much more.
How grateful I was that he would hitch a ride across Birmingham and drag his cool friends to his country high school football game to see me. If this whole horrible experience had taught me nothing else, at least now I knew who my friends were.
Of course, he might have brought his girlfriend just to make me jealous. But that’s not how it felt when our fingertips touched.
“What happened to Patton?” he asked.
Forget the emotionless drum major face. I screwed my eyes shut to keep the tears away.
“Okay, okay,” he said soothingly. “Watch the game. I’ll call you tomorrow. You still have a contest tomorrow?”
I nodded.
“I’ll call you tomorrow morning.” We couldn’t squeeze our hands through the fence, so we just did a pinky-swear, and laughed. A nd then he was gone.
The clock read six minutes, and I motioned for the band to follow me. Thank God I didn’t have to keep up with the game for the next six minutes.
By halftime the mist had turned to drizzle. The dip did not work so well with only one drum major. It took two to tango. I did the military salute Drew and I did the first game, back when we weren’t speaking to each other.
I held the salute, blinking the raindrops away, until the announcer had run through all the band officers’ names. Mr. Rush had forgotten to change the list. “Drum majors,” the announcer called. “Drew Morrow and Virginia Sauter.”
My mother waved frantically to me from the stands. She blew me a kiss in support, then took my dad’s hand again under their umbrella.
During the brief time I was home after school, I’d told them Drew quit. I hadn’t gotten into why, because I didn’t want to break down. A nd of course they didn’t know about the other rumor.
Yet.
I thought the show sounded good. I couldn’t be sure. I had to pay close attention to what I was doing. There were a hundred little differences that I needed to remember now that I was covering Drew’s job as well as mine. It would be like me to turn the band to the left when I meant the right.
Drew would love that. A nd there was no way I would give him the satisfaction.
Though it really didn’t make any sense for Drew to have betrayed me. I’d pondered it for the whole bus trip. The more I considered it, the less sense it made. Drew wasn’t vindictive. Impatient, yes. Hotheaded, yes. Vindictive, no.
Then again, when my dad cheated on my mom, she never saw it coming, because it didn’t seem like him.
My mom had forgiven my dad. I wasn’t ready to forgive Drew.
But my dad had asked to be forgiven. Drew apparently couldn’t care less.
By third quarter the drizzle had turned to a deluge, and the band dashed under the bleachers. I’m sure Mr. Rush would have made us stick it out, except that some instruments like flutes and clarinets would be ruined if they got too wet.
I wished he would let us give up and go home. But he seemed to think that the rain would stop and we would go back to the stands to play some more. A nyway, we had to wait for the rain to let up just to get the flutes and clarinets back to the U-Haul.
Under cover of the bleachers, I walked toward a cluster of majorettes. I had been able to deal with the rumors while I had a job to distract me and I had my back turned to the stares and the whispers. Now that I was exposed in the middle of the band, I wanted A llison for support.
Drew watched me as I passed. He said something to the trombones grouped around him, and they all turned to stare at me too. Why they didn’t go ahead and give me a big “ooooooh, aaaaaah,” I didn’t know.