Down in Albany River, Ashley and Lyle were sitting at a picnic table in the shade to one side of the Dairy Queen. They’d long since finished their cones, and were just talking, enjoying being with each other, getting to be friends instead of acquaintances.

Mostly they were talking about people they knew. There was much to talk about; Ashley was one of the leading gossips in their class, if not in Spearfish Lake as a whole – but there were other subjects of mutual interest, too. As far as she was concerned things were off to a fine start with Lyle. He was friendly, intelligent and gentle, belying his size, and while he wasn’t a boyfriend yet he seemed to be on the way to becoming one, at least if she didn’t screw things up. Never having done this before, there was some fear on her part that she’d do just exactly that.

“Boy,” she commented at one point, “while I don’t like the heat all that much, I’m not looking forward to summer being over with and going back to school. I mean, it’s going to be interesting to see how Mrs. Wine handles things, and that’s going to shake things up a little bit.”

“Probably will,” Lyle agreed shyly. Like Ashley, he could see a good thing starting, and he didn’t want to screw it up by saying the wrong thing, either. Maybe Ashley did have a few extra pounds – well, more than a few – but that meant that she was a solid person, not like those spindly little cheerleaders. “Football practice starts Tuesday, so you know what tomorrow night means.”

“Yeah, the assholes will be having their big pre-practice beer bust,” Ashley snorted. “That probably means that at least some of the cheerleaders will be spreading their legs and taking on all comers. And of course Sunday morning everyone will know just exactly who they were, and God knows why, that’ll add to their reputations in this town.”

“I guess I’m just as glad I’m not going to be there,” Lyle said. “I mean, if I was I’d be doing nothing but catching shit because I’m not on the football team.”

“Yeah, that’s a shame, I guess,” Ashley said. “You don’t like football, huh?”

“Oh, I like it well enough to watch it on TV sometimes, if there’s nothing better on and I feel like watching TV at all,” he said. “I realized a long time ago that I wasn’t going to be an athlete, so there’s no point in wishing about it. It would have been nice to be able to play football or something, but that would mean I’d have to hang out with that bunch of assholes. That’s the good side of having this asthma problem, it means that I don’t have to do that. Actually, the asthma has been getting a little better the last few years, but it’s still a problem.”

“Well, that’s something,” she said. “Maybe things will continue to get better for you.”

“I hope so. It has been a pain in the butt, but at least I hope it won’t keep me from going to college. So are you planning on it?”

“Probably,” she said. “I haven’t made up my mind what I want to do yet, but I think I’d like to go if for no more reason than it’ll get me out of Spearfish Lake. You’re still thinking wood products engineering, right?”

“Yeah, there’s a lot that can be done with wood and people tend to overlook it since it’s so common. It’s a great resource and renewable, and I figure there ought to be some things that can be done with it that no one has thought of yet. My guess is that there ought to be ways it could be used to replace plastics, for example. There’s no reason we just have to burn the stuff.”

“You’ve thought about this a little, then?”

“Actually, I’ve thought about it a lot. It’s going to take a lot of work in college, mostly chemistry, but some other stuff too. I’m hoping I can do some good with it. So how about you?”

“I don’t know, I mean, I’ve given some thought to maybe being a newspaper reporter, but looking at the last few years I’m not sure how well newspapers are going to hold out. The Internet is really making life tough for them. I really doubt that anyone would want to hire me to be a TV reporter, and it’s not the same thing. When you get past that point, it starts to look a little rough and I’m not sure what I want to do.”

“Well, going to college won’t hurt you,” he told her. “I mean, it’s got to be better than hanging around Spearfish Lake.”

“There is that,” she said, “but in the short range I don’t think it’s going to matter for a while yet. I’ll wind up doing something, and my guess is that it’ll be something I really don’t like all that well. I mean, I’ve had my fill of working at the Frostee Freeze, and I would hate like hell to have to do that the rest of my life. I mean, it’s all right for now, and I can get out and see people a little, sometimes hear a few things about what people are doing. It makes the time pass a little quicker. So any idea where you’re going to college?”

“Still working on it,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of schools that offer the program I want. The best is one in Maine, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to get together the money to go that far away.”

“But it sure would be nice to get as far away from Spearfish Lake as Maine, wouldn’t it?”

“Sure would,” he agreed, “but it’s all damn expensive and the best places are very expensive. My folks don’t have a lot of money, you know that. About all I can say is that I’m going to have to work on it, just like you’re going to have to work on figuring out what you want to do. I’ll work it out somehow or other.”

“I think you’ll manage it just fine,” she told him.

“Going to have to figure out at least some of it in the next six months or so,” Lyle shrugged. This really wasn’t what he wanted to talk about with Ashley, anyway. It was nice being with her, nice talking to her, and he’d like to extend that a bit. “But that’s still a ways away. Hey, if you’re not doing anything tomorrow night, how about we head down to Camden and catch a flick or something? I think I can get the car.”

“I’d love to,” she said, “but I’ve got to work at the Frostee Freeze. That’ll be fun, too. With all the football players out getting drunk on their ass, there’ll be some kids show up who wouldn’t dare be there otherwise for fear of getting kicked around. It’ll be a zoo, but it’ll be a fun zoo for once.”

“Aw, heck,” he said, “although with what you said I’m tempted to show up there tomorrow night just for the fun of it.”

“You might enjoy yourself,” she smiled. “But I’ll tell you what, I don’t have to go on until six, so there’d be plenty of time if we wanted to head down to Camden for an early matinee.”

Howie and Misty had good intentions of heading to the beach right after lunch, but there were other things to do, too, and a little kissing, hugging and touching were among them; both of them considered that to be more important. That went on for a while – no point in overdoing it, after all – and then the Nintendo controllers seemed a little lonely and wanting some exercise. What with everything, it was the middle of the afternoon before they got around to changing into their swimsuits and heading for the beach on their bikes.

This time next year I won’t have to be screwing around on a bicycle, Howie thought. Damn, being fifteen sucked! There was a good chance he’d get relegated to the Jeep that Jack was driving these days, at least after Jack left for college. It would be good to have wheels, good to be able to get out of town with Misty a bit, good to go someplace where people wouldn’t be looking on. He glanced ahead to where Misty was riding in front of him, wearing the white bikini with blue trim that had grabbed his attention less than a week before. She had on a short white T-shirt that left her cute little bikini-clad butt pretty well exposed and he had a good look at it from a short distance behind her. It was fascinating to watch the way the material shifted around as she pedaled her bicycle, and it really got his attention and kept it all the way down to the city beach.

Spearfish Lake – the lake, not the town – is pretty big, and it never warms up very much even at the height of the summer. However, the town had a heck of a beach, almost downtown, sitting big and wide for almost a quarter mile. Misty led the way to the north end of the beach, the part away from downtown, to where a week before the two of them had been friendly for a while, before Frenchy showed up and started throwing his weight around. That proved to have been a hell of a favor for Howie, although he hadn’t realized it at the time.

The two of them let their bikes flop down in the shade on the grassy strip near the sidewalk, and both of them peeled out of their T-shirts. In a minute or so they were out in the lake, which seemed about as chilly as it had the week before, splashing and yelling and carrying on if not doing much actual swimming. The cold got to them after a while, and before too long they were out of the water, unfolded a blanket that Howie had brought along bungee-corded to his bike, and flopped down on it. Both of them knew it wasn’t a good idea to be doing any serious making out in public on the beach, but they just sat there talking for a while. Damn, she looked good in that bikini, Howie thought.

Of course, it was too good to last. They had just gotten comfortable when they heard someone call out, “Hey, Erikson! You might as well give up, you ain’t gonna be getting any off of her.”

Howie knew from the voice that it was Walt Lethbridge, who had been the quarterback on the JV team the year before, not that he’d done a very good job of it. Howie thought he’d done better, even though he’d only been a freshman. “Hey, Lethbridge,” he yelled back, “go mind your own business. Find your own girl, if you can, which I doubt.”

“Aw, fuck you, Erikson,” the guy yelled back. It was clear that he was just being an asshole, not looking for a fight or anything. “At least I get to go get blitzed at the pre-practice party tomorrow night, not like you, you fuckin’ JV.”

“Go get fucked up,” Howie yelled back. “It’ll be the most fun you’re gonna have all season since you’re gonna spend most of it riding the bench.”

“Yeah, but I get to be a part of the real deal, not a wanna-be,” Lethbridge shouted over his shoulder as he hiked on up the sidewalk in the direction of the Frostee Freeze.

Howie decided that a comeback wasn’t worth the breath. He turned back to Misty and shook his head. “That asshole,” he said. “He’s just a Frenchy wanna-be but doesn’t have the guts.”

“No shit,” Misty replied. “He’s like my brother. He wants to think of himself as a bad-ass but hasn’t got the stones to carry through with it. God, ever since he got grounded he’s been a real pain in the ass. That’s part of the reason it’s been so nice to hang out with you, Howie. I don’t have to put up with his shit when I’m with you.”

“Glad to have you,” Howie said. “I’ll tell you what, I’m going to be on varsity in another year, and I don’t know how bad I want to go to that party. I don’t know how people have gotten away with that for as long as they have. I mean, shit, everybody knows about it.”

“My brother would go if he could,” Misty shook her head. “Of course, he’d just get drunk out of his mind to prove what a big man he is. Howie, if you’re on varsity next year and we’re still going together, don’t expect me to go to that party with you. In fact, I wouldn’t be very happy if you went to it.”

“I don’t know,” Howie sighed. “It’s one of those things that you’re sorta expected to do when you’re on varsity, not that I particularly want to go. It’d be a hell of a lot harder to be on the team if I didn’t show up. At least that’s a decision I don’t have to make for another year.”

“Howie, maybe I’ll feel a little different about it in another year,” she said, “but right today I’m glad you’re not going. Going to that party just would mean that you’re another football asshole, and I don’t want to hang around with football assholes like my brother.”

“Well, I’m not going this year, that’s for sure,” he said, “and I don’t think my folks would be too happy about my going next year, either.” He thought about it for a moment and realized he’d better say something that would reverse the negative vibrations he was getting from her. “My guess right now is that I probably won’t go next year, either. Maybe we could go catch a movie that evening instead.”

“I’d like that,” she smiled. “After all, you’re going to have to be the one to make up your mind which is more important, a girlfriend or a beer party.”

“It’s not exactly a tough choice,” Howie replied, hoping that would cool her off. Inside, a little snippet of doubt that hadn’t been there before started to make its way to the surface. Misty was a nice girl, and a very pretty one. They had been having a lot of fun together the past few days, and had shared a tough time, too. They both enjoyed a lot of the same things, including Nintendo and making out. The Nintendo was fun and that making out had been more than worth it. In fact, he’d rarely enjoyed himself quite as much, and that made hanging out with her worth the effort . . . but still, that little doubt in the back of his mind raised the question, why did she want to run his life? This wasn’t the first time she’d said something “my way or else” like that; she’d complained about his wanting to spend some time with his friends that he’d spent much of the summer hanging out with. Granted, guys like Greg and Mike and Jeff were loud and obnoxious, and sometimes put him off, too. It was more fun to hang out with Misty, but when the subject had come up she had made a my-way-or-else deal out of it that rubbed him the wrong way, now that he stopped to think about it.

Now, here that attitude was again, and he wasn’t very happy about it when he stopped to think about it. While she had every right to not like something he might want to do, did that give her the right to boss him around like that? Well, yeah, she had some strong opinions and her brother was an asshole. Kissing her was sweet and her body was nice to the touch, but that little voice in his mind started to make him wonder if she was worth all the trouble. After all, it wasn’t bad yet, not really, but who knew what could happen in the future if he let it go on?

Oh, well. For now, it was fun to have a girlfriend, especially one as soft and cuddly and nice to look at as Misty, and liked to play Nintendo too. That seemed to make it worth the effort, for now, anyway. Maybe not forever; he’d have to think about that – but for right now, Misty still looked awful darn cute in that white and blue bikini.

Not too far away from where Howie was busy trying to talk his way back into Misty’s good graces, Brandy Wine was trying to talk her way back into her brother’s.

“Brandy,” Danny snorted, “you’re really looking for trouble, aren’t you?”

“Not my idea,” she admitted, glad that Spearfish Lake Furniture and Appliance was empty at the moment. “Part of the deal that I was presented with is that Weilfahrt has to go, and frankly, I agree with it. He’s not the whole problem, but getting him out of there is a key to cleaning up the mess.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Danny said. “That guy wouldn’t know a football team if they ran over him. But he has a lot of friends in this town, and Brandy, you know as well as I do that people are going to bitch about anything that happens with the football team.”

“Hell, they’re bitching now,” Brandy said, glad that since she was with her brother she could be a little more free with her language than she could otherwise. They’d always talked a little rough with each other, clear back to when they’d been kids, much too long ago. She tended to be a little foul-mouthed in private anyway, not a surprise with all the time she’d spent in rough mining camps and towns in her younger years. What was better was that they didn’t have to be quiet with each other. “The whole question is who’s doing the bitching about what. I’d rather have people bitching at me because I’m trying to make things better, rather than because I’m not doing anything about a bad situation. Don’t forget, I went through that shit before, back when I started coaching boys’ basketball.”

“Yeah, and I remember that you had to have Dad and some of his martial arts buddies come to the home games to keep people out of your face so you could concentrate on the game. People in this town take their high school sports too damn seriously. I’ll admit, I didn’t think that was bad when I was on the football team, but I’ve had time to grow up since. A lot of those people who make trouble have never bothered to do that.”

“No doubt you’re right about that,” Brandy said, taking a different tack. “Hell, you know as well as I do that things today aren’t like they were back when Hekkinan was coaching and you were playing. That’s got to be fixed, or I might as well call Hekkinan up and tell him I can’t take the job after all. I like him enough that I don’t want to leave him hanging out like that.”

“Well, yeah, I like him too,” Danny grudgingly admitted, “and I wouldn’t want to leave him hanging out in the breeze, just like I don’t want to leave you hanging either. But Brandy, you’re going to get a peck of trouble out of this.”

“Don’t I know that?” she said. “Have I ever turned my back on trouble when I’ve had to do the right thing?”

“Well, no,” Danny said. “That’s what I’ve always admired about you. You always face this shit straight on, but that’s your job, especially if you’re going to be principal. You have to be crazy to want to do that.”

“You’re probably right,” she sighed. “The thing of it is, I really don’t want the job. I like what I’ve been doing, but Hekkinan is right. There’s nobody else in this town who can do it the way I can, especially when it comes to straightening out the football team. After all, there’s a bunch of trophies down in the trophy case that show how serious I am about sports, so I hope some people will get the message.”

“You say Kulwicki is going to go along with this?”

“I said I think he’s going to go along with it,” she shook her head. “He was doing his best to talk himself into it before I left, so I think he’ll come through. He’s going to need some help though, Danny. I think he can supply a lot of the guidance and skills, and an example of what it takes to do it right. I happen to think that’s real important. The problem is that he’s from out of town and no one knows him, which also has its good points. You, on the other hand, are still remembered a little bit as a guy who knew how the Marlins are supposed to play football. I’m hoping you can provide a little inspiration, too.”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “Since I’ve been back in town, and that’s going on ten years, I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone remembers how to play football. The thing is that it’s going to eat up a hell of a lot of time for the next three months. I want to be able to spend some time with Debbie and the kids, too.”

“Look at it as in investment in the future,” Brandy pointed out. “Sky is what? Eight now? It’s not too long before he’s going to want to be playing football, and Hunter won’t be that far behind him. Do you want them playing in a program as fucked up as this one is?”

“Jesus, that was a low blow, Brandy,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind if they played football, but I sure wouldn’t mind if they didn’t either. But you’re right, I don’t want to see them playing for a program that’s as fucked up as this one. All right, Brandy. If Kulwicki goes along with it, I guess I can do it for a year, just to try to help things out. But I’ll warn you right now, that’ll give you a year to find someone who actually knows what they’re doing for the long run.”

“Actually, in a year I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, especially if you and Rick can make any headway with the team. If nothing else, that’ll give me some time to look for someone who knows what to do and actually wants to do it. The real problem with this is that it’s coming up at the last minute and it isn’t leaving me any wiggle room.”

“No fooling on that,” Danny shrugged. “Cripe, practice starts what? Tuesday?”

“Yeah, the official practice,” she said. “And I can’t officially do anything about Will-Fart and his buddies until Monday, maybe late Monday, so that really cuts it tight.”

“I hope you realize that Tuesday isn’t going to be anything but a mess, with nobody knowing anything about what has to be done, players or coaches.”

“No doubt,” she said. “I’m planning on being around for the opening session so anyone who wants to yell can yell at me, to keep a little of the heat off you and Kulwicki.”

“That’ll help,” Danny agreed. “So do you want me to talk to Josh, or do you want to do it?”

“I think maybe we’d better both do it,” she said. “Probably after work, too.”

“If we can catch him then,” he said. “This time of year, he comes home from the office, gobbles supper and works dogs until it’s dark. It’s too damn hot to work huskies during the middle of the day.”

“Maybe you could give him a call at his office and have him clear away a little time for us,” she suggested.

“Probably the best way to do it,” he said. “Do you think Josh and Kulwicki and I ought to get together over the weekend sometime to do a little advance planning?”

“Sounds good to me, so long as no one knows anything about what’s coming down,” Brandy said. “I don’t want Will-Fart to get wind of it and get the rumor mills going before I have a chance to hit him between the eyeballs with it.”

“Good thinking,” he agreed. “That’d just make things worse than they already are.”

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