Major Crush (3 page)

I imagined Mr. Morrow lecturing Drew in a Tony Soprano voice. “I’m counting on you to uphold the family name. I want you to off the broad. Capisce?”

“You are a good drum major,” Walter said. “I mean, I assume you could be. You haven’t had a chance. But there’s no reason for you not to be a good drum major. You’re musically talented. You’re responsible. A nd besides, you look cute in your uniform pants.”

I rolled my eyes. He made this kind of flirtatious comment more and more often lately. It made me so uncomfortable that I probably shouldn’t have come over to the bus today. But my dad had the day off and was likely to organize some wretched family activity if I was around. A llison was at a pageant all weekend, as usual. A nd I needed to talk.

I inched farther away from Walter on his bed, which he had cleared of difficult-looking books so we could sit down. Some of our friends referred to the bus as the Bookmobile because the walls were stacked like a library, giving Walter and his mother even less space to move around.

The bus was divided into two rooms. The back room was Walter’s mom’s bedroom. I don’t know why she bothered. She was hardly ever home. In fact, in the entire past year that Walter and I had been close friends, I’d probably laid eyes on her twice.

She was working on a PhD in psychology at A uburn University. This sounded impressive, like maybe they would move into a real house soon. Until you found out that she’d been working on one psychology degree or another almost since Walter was born and his dad left. A nd then you heard that she partied with her friends and didn’t always make it home from A uburn at night. You wondered why she didn’t use some of this book-learning in psychology on herself. This was the one thing Walter and I couldn’t talk about, besides my dad. A nd Walter’s crush on me.

The front room of the bus was Walter’s room, the living room, and the kitchen combined. We sat on his bed because it doubled as the sofa.

My old-fashioned mother had forbidden me to set foot in a boy’s room or sit on a boy’s bed. I had never checked with her to see how the rules changed when a boy lived in a bus. Normally I would just shrug her warnings off, because I knew what I was doing. A nd it was only Walter, after all.

The way he’d been acting lately, though, I was tempted to give him the trusty old “my mother won’t let me go inside a boy’s bus unchaperoned” excuse. I tried to ignore that he inched toward me as I inched away. A t least I had my drumsticks in my lap. I could jab him if he inched an inch too far.

“I’m starting to think it has nothing to do with being musically talented or actually directing the band,” I said. “Drew can direct the band, and I can direct the band. But what Drew can do that I can’t do is yell at people and make them jump. These girls in the bathroom reacted to me like I was one of them, or below them, even. They reacted to Drew like he was in charge. I’m supposed to be in charge too. What’s the matter with me?”

Walter frowned at me and stared with his big green eyes like he was really considering this question. While I waited for the big revelation, I noticed that his eyes exactly matched the green leaves in the trees out the bus window behind him. He really was cute. I could totally see how I would be head over heels in love with him, if I were fourteen years old instead of sixteen.

I started tapping out a nervous rhythm on my knee with my drumsticks. I used to take my drumsticks with me everywhere because I wanted to practice constantly and be a better drummer. Now I took them with me because I felt naked without them.

Finally Walter said, “You’re not a screamer.”

I stopped tapping. “Oh, for the love of—”

“I’m serious. Drew hears a fight in the girls’ bathroom and goes in to break it up. His first instinct is to yell. Well, let’s say you heard a fight in the boys’ bathroom, and you broke it up. What would you do naturally if you could solve it your way?”

“I would run in the other direction. You really expect me to go in the boys’ bathroom? Let them kill each other.”

“You know what I mean. Hypothetically.”

I’d been thinking a lot about what Mr. Rush had said to me after he told Walter and A llison to beat it so he could talk to me alone. Don’t challenge students in front of other students, because all you get is lip.

“I’d pull each person to the side and talk to them one-on-one about what was going on,” I said. “I’d act like if they would please back off, I would consider it a favor. A nd I really would. I mean, I know everybody in band. Everybody in band is a friend of mine. Except for the Evil Twins, and anyone who happens to be calling me a bitch at the moment.

“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.

Drew half-stood as if he were coming to help me up.

Too slow. I jerked up my backpack of books and ran for the door. A lunchroom lady blocked my way because I didn’t take my plate to the dishwasher. Hurdling chairs, I raced back to my table, scooped up the plate, and made for the dishwasher. Drew was already there. He passed me, heading out.

I followed him as he sprinted down the hall. The bell rang, and the hall flooded with people. They blocked his way. They blocked my way too, but I was smaller. I ducked between them.

Then came a lucky break for me. The vocational ed teacher caught Drew by the arm and lectured him on running in the hall. Shameful, a responsible senior like himself. I blew right past them. I had a lead on him, but he would gain on me if we took the same route. I kicked off my flip-flops, stuffed them in my backpack, and took a shortcut outside the building.

“Ha,” I puffed triumphantly as I sprinted barefoot through the cool grass. One for every step: “Ha ha ha ha ha!” I rounded the last corner of the building and heaved back on the heavy band room door. My eyes hadn’t adjusted from the bright sunlight outside, but I dashed in the general direction of Mr. Rush’s office. “Ha!” I shoved at the door.