Major Crush(37)
Author: Jennifer Echols

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.

Which I did. For about an hour. Then I had to come right back to school to pile onto the bus for the away game in Birmingham.

A s we stood outside the waiting buses, A llison gave me one last supportive hug underneath her umbrella. Then she got onto the senior bus.

Drew was already on it in his regular band uniform, I guessed. I walked alone through the rain to the freshman bus. It didn’t matter how wet I got. I couldn’t use an umbrella at the game, anyway. Drum majors had more important things to worry about.