“For instance, Tonya, Paula, and Michelle were in the bathroom. I’ve had almost every class with them for years. A nd still they didn’t stand up for me. Michelle brandished her flagpole at me like a Power Ranger. But they were caught up in the mob mentality and wanted blood. If Drew and Mr. Rush let me, I’d always talk to people on a personal level rather than yelling at them, because that’s how I function.”
“Then that’s what you should do,” Walter said. “You have to yell on the football field. But in rehearsal, you don’t have to act like General Patton. Be yourself rather than trying to be a small, blond Drew, and you’ll probably get better results.”
This made sense, but it seemed too simple “Can I do that? I’ve never heard of a drum major doing that.”
“We’ve never had a girl drum major.”
This took a few seconds to sink in. “Walter,” I said in awe.
“I know, I know,” he said. “I know all about my own eye-hurting brilliance.”
I waited for him to ruin it by suggesting some way I could repay him for his eye-hurting brilliance. That’s what he usually would have done.
But he didn’t.
“Walter,” I repeated, “you are so helpful. Except for the gross, horny, fifteen-year-old boy comments along the way.”
“Hey. I am not gross.”
“Thank you so much,” I kept gushing. “See, that’s what I like so much about you. You’re a boy, but it’s like you’re not. Talking serious with you is like talking to a girl.”
I meant every word. But when I finished, I could tell from the look on his face that I should have edited my gushing.
“It’s like I’m not a boy?”
I looked away from his angry green eyes and started tapping my drumsticks again. “You know what I mean.”
His voice rose. “Talking to me is like talking to a girl?”
“That’s a compliment,” I said weakly.
“You can’t say stuff like that to me.”
Still tapping, I tried to act casual and blow it off. “Yes, I can. We’ve always been able to say anything to each other.” A lmost.
“Not anymore,” he said. “Get off the bus.”
I stopped tapping. “What?”
“You heard me.”
I wanted to poke him with my drumstick, to tease him back into his usual good mood. But his green eyes were hard. I walked down what used to be the aisle, before the seats were removed to make room for stacks of books, and opened the folding bus door with the lever. I padded down the steps to the dirt outside and turned around to see if he’d changed his mind yet.
He closed the door behind me.
I walked along the side of the bus, standing on tiptoes to peer in. It was dark inside compared to the sunny day, and I couldn’t see. But the bus wasn’t air-conditioned, and all the windows were open to the breeze.
“Walter,” I called. When he didn’t answer, I rapped on the inside of a window frame with my drumstick.
“Stop,” he yelled over the racket. “You’re being disrespectful of my home.”
I stepped back and looked up at the bus doubtfully. Once upon a time, it had been a yellow school bus. But as Walter told the story, when he was twelve, he’d painted it brown in a futile attempt to make it look more like a house.
“When you remind me that you live in a sixty-room lakeside mansion,” he exaggerated, “you’re just making it harder on yourself.”
I glanced through the trees at the sunlight glinting off the deep green water. “You live on the lake too, Walter.”
“You know what I mean. I live in a bus in a campground on the lake. This is my mother’s idea of permanent housing. I do not have my own private beach.”
A squeak cut through the soft sound of wind in the trees as he opened the bus’s emergency exit. He jumped to the ground with a towel draped over his shoulder. “Don’t follow me,” he said. “The public shower doesn’t have a lock, and it’s not fair. I couldn’t follow you into your freaking boudoir.” He walked down the hill toward the campground bathrooms, muttering about sixty-room houses and private beaches.
I wasn’t naive. I understood there was a money difference that made people uncomfortable with me. It was always there between Walter and me, between me and almost any boy. For instance, today I wore ratty jeans and a faded T-shirt. Walter wore ratty jeans and a faded T-shirt.
We looked like twins, or at least like brother and sister. But I paid full-price for my clothes at A bercrombie & Fitch in the Birmingham Mall, and Walter bought his at the thrift store.
But I wasn’t going to let him get away with changing the subject. “Walter, if you’re mad at something I said, okay. Let’s talk about it.”
He didn’t even slow down. He kept stalking away from me under the trees.
“Walter, come on,” I called. “You’re going back to school tomorrow. I won’t see you again for, what? A nother two weeks?”
“If you’re lucky,” he yelled without turning around.
I wondered whether he meant I’d be lucky if he showed up again in two weeks, or I’d be lucky if he stayed away until then.
On Tuesday I begged my English teacher to let me out of class ten minutes early. When she gave me the nod, I bolted out the door and down the stairs to the lunchroom.
Mr. Rush had told me to come to his office before band. That meant during my lunch period. Through long years on the pageant circuit, I was used to watching my weight, but I kept it down by jogging and by laying off the Doritos. I’d never skipped a meal in my life. A nd I didn’t intend to start because of Drew Morrow. No matter how long his eyelashes were.
Seems Drew had the same idea. By the time I burst through the lunchroom doors, he already sat across the empty room, alone in the rows of tables and chairs, wolfing down a hamburger. He watched me as I dashed for the salad bar.
Usually I was picky, but today I grabbed a plate, piled it with lettuce, and spooned on whatever else was handy. I think this involved beets. I wasn’t sure. It was red, whatever it was. I sat in the chair nearest the salad bar and shoveled it in without tasting it.
We faced each other across the rows, stuffing our faces, monitoring each other. There was no way I would let him beat me to that band room.
He made a move toward the doors like he was leaving, which made me start. You would think that if I was coordinated enough to walk down a pageant runway in high heels, or to direct the band, I could shove a fork in my mouth and stand up at the same time. A pparently not. I lost my balance, my chair scraped out from under me, and I landed on the floor.