“He says he’s quitting band, Ms. Lindqvist. He turned in his music folder after third period and he won’t tell me why, and I think you ought to know before Friday.”
That was Mr. Emil Fadness on the phone, the band director at the high school in Findlay, Ohio.
It was a Wednesday in March, and I was standing in the break room at the dental office with half a sandwich in my hand.
I have been a dental hygienist for nineteen years. I am forty-one, I live alone in a little brick house on the east side of town, and my name is the second one on my nephew’s school emergency form.
Teague is my brother’s boy. He was fifteen that spring, a sophomore, with red hair that sticks straight up in the back no matter what he does to it, and he has played the trombone since the fifth grade.
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“Quitting,” I said. “Teague? He practices in the garage so loud the neighbors know every song on the halftime show. He would sooner quit breathing than quit band.”
Mr. Fadness was quiet a moment. He is a young man still, thirty-eight, with glasses and a patient way of talking that the kids like. I could hear a clarinet squawking somewhere behind him.
“There’s something else,” he said. “I went through the trip list this morning. His balance for Orlando is still eight hundred and sixty dollars. Nothing has come in since his deposit in October.”
I set the sandwich down on its wax paper. The break room clock said twelve forty.
I had a patient at one, a cleaning and a set of bitewings, and for a second I could not remember her name.
“That can’t be right,” I said. “He mowed all summer for that trip. Thirty-one lawns. I watched him do half of them myself. He paid for it with his own two hands.”
“I believe you,” Mr. Fadness said gently. “I’m only telling you what the book says. The final payment was due the first of March. I have been holding his spot because I can’t stand to take it away.”
The trip was the big one, the one the band saves for every few years.
The marching band was flying out of Detroit to Orlando over spring break to march in a parade at one of the big theme parks and play a concert stage.
The boosters had sold fruit and run pancake breakfasts and washed cars all year to bring the price down.
What was left for each kid after fundraising credits came to just over a thousand dollars, deposit included.
Teague had paid his two hundred dollar deposit in October himself. I know, because he came to my house afterward and showed me the receipt like it was a report card with all A’s on it.
The other eight hundred and sixty was supposed to be paid out of the coffee can. That was the deal he and his father had made in June, when Teague started mowing.
“Ms. Lindqvist?” Mr. Fadness said. “The buses leave Saturday at eight for the airport. After that I can’t do anything. The district won’t let a student travel with a balance, and the tour company has the final count by then.”
“I understand,” I said. “Thank you for calling me and not just letting it go. I’ll find out what happened. Don’t take his name off that list yet.”