in a half circle and my legs swept under it. I imagine my father, hidden away behind the bleachers next to the football field spying on me and wondering … what? If I have any legs? Realizing that I look like the Little Mermaid, I reposition and just sort of sprawl. Tyler especially has to believe that I am a casual person with lots of options who hasn’t thought twice about him. Mr. Shupe finishes handing out the forms, catches sight of me languishing on the sidelines, and waves me over, yelling, “Lightsey, double-time it! I need you to work with Johnson on field blocking!”
I don’t move.
“Lightsey!”
I don’t look up. After trying to get my attention two more times, Shupe gives up, orders the drum major, “Johnson, get them started on ‘Joy,’ ” and walks over to me.
The thought of marching up and down a field with the words “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!” playing in my head makes me even more certain that, even though I don’t know how to have a new one, I can never, ever, ever go back to my old life.
Shupe’s big, puffy white sneakers appear beside me. “What’s the deal, Lightsey? You’re section leader. We covered for you during band camp, but we need you out there now. Do we need to talk about electing someone else?”
It is almost funny that he thinks that the threat of being replaced as section leader is going to make me leap to my feet and run for the plumed hat. “Actually,” I say in a weak, whispery voice, “the doctor says …”
He can’t hear me, so Shupe squats down in front of me like he is Jeremiah the bullfrog. The up-close view of the Shupe crotch helps me sound woozy. “The doctor says I can’t be out in the heat yet. So I am just going to sit here in the shade and, you know, take notes on the formations and stuff.”
“But it’s hotter than …” I appreciate that he stops himself and doesn’t say “balls.” “It’s really hot out here.”
“Uh, actually, the doctor says I can be out. I’m just not supposed to march.”
“But you’re section leader. These jabonies”—he jerks a thumb back to the chaos that is the first week with a bunch of incoming freshmen—“need a lot of work. A lot of work.”
“Maybe you should just go ahead and tap Wren. Or Amelia. They both know the drills as well as I do.”
“What? You told me that you’d only need a week to recover.”
“Well, yeah. That was the initial diagnosis. But the doctor says it’s more serious than he thought at first. One more degree and there would have been permanent brain damage.” Three years of working in the attendance office is paying off. I know exactly what to say and even how to say it to make a teacher start worrying about lawsuits. I squint like both the sun and his questions are making my head hurt.
Shupe bounces a little on the balls of his puffy white shoes, and I go on even whisperier, as if all the talking is wearing me out. “Actually, the doctor says that I might never regain the ability to regulate my body temperature.” I slump a bit to help him imagine me with a pointer strapped to my head, blowing into a tube to control my wheelchair.
Shupe exhales and puts his hands together like he is going to ask me to pray with him. But he just looks over his shoulder at the mob scene, winces when LeKeefe Johnson yells, “Left face!” and all the returning people go left and smash into all the freshmen who have turned right. “When did they stop teaching left and right? Is that too much to ask of our educational system?” He stands up. “We could really use you out there, Lightsey.”
“OK, Mr. Shupe.” I pretend to try to struggle to my feet, letting my head flop as I do.
“No, no. Keep your place.” He waves his hands over his head to signal LeKeefe to stop, orders me, “Get well,” and runs off without even asking to see the doctor’s note that I’d carefully forged using the wide variety of forms I have amassed while working in attendance. I guess that after three straight years of my not being anything—not emo, not Christian, not prep, not jock, not ghetto, not punk, not hipster, not skank, not prude, just a half-assed band geek—no one can believe I’d do anything so well defined as