Part 1 (2/2)

All those misty images of cheerleaders frolicking in locker rooms, pom-poms sprawling over bare bud b.r.e.a.s.t.s. All those endless fantasies and dirty boy-dreams, they're all true, in a way.

Mostly it's noisy and sweaty, it's the roughness of bruised and dented girl bodies, feet sore from floor pounding, elbows skinned red.

But it is also a beautiful, beautiful thing, all of us in that close, wet s.p.a.ce, safer than in all the world.

The more I did it, the more it owned me. It made things matter. It put a spine into my spineless life and that spine spread, into backbone, ribs, collarbone, neck held high.

It was something. Don't say it wasn't.

And Coach gave it all to us. We never had it before her. So can you blame me for wanting to keep it? To fight for it, to the end?

She was the one who showed me all the dark wonders of life, the real life, the life I'd only seen flickering from the corner of my eye. Did I ever feel anything at all until she showed me what feeling meant? Pus.h.i.+ng at the corners of her cramped world with curled fists, she showed me what it meant to live.

There I am, Addy Hanlon, sixteen years old, hair like a long taffy pull and skin tight as a rubber band. I am on the gym floor, my girl Beth beside me, our cherried smiles and spray-tanned legs, ponytails bobbing in sync.

Look at how my eyes shutter open and closed, like everything is just too much to take in.

I was never one of those mask-faced teenagers, gum lodged in mouth corner, eyes rolling and long sighs. I was never that girl at all. But I knew those girls. And when she came, I watched all their masks peel away.

We're all the same under our skin, aren't we? We're all wanting things we don't understand. Things we can't even name. The yearning so deep, like pinions over our hearts.

So look at me here, in the locker room before the game.

I'm brus.h.i.+ng the corner dust, the carpet fluff from my blister-white tennis shoes. Home-bleached with rubber gloves, pinched nose, smelling dizzyingly of Clorox, and I love them. They make me feel powerful. They were the shoes I bought the day I made squad.

2

FOOTBALL SEASON

Her first day. We all look her over with great care, our heads tilted. Some of us, maybe me, even fold our arms across our chests. We all look her over with great care, our heads tilted. Some of us, maybe me, even fold our arms across our chests.

The New Coach.

There are so many things to take in, to consider and set on scales, tilted always toward scorn. Her height, barely five-four, pigeon-toed like a dancer, body drum-tight, a golden collarbone popping, forehead high.

The sharp edges of her sleek bob, if you look close enough, you can see the scissor slashes (did she have it cut this morning, before school? she must've been so eager), the way she holds her chin so high, treats it like a pointer, turning this way and that, watching us. And most of all her striking prettiness, clear and singing, like a bell. It hits us hard. But we will not be shaken by it.

All of us, slouching, lolling, pockets and hands chirping and zapping-how old u think? looka the whistle, WTF-the texts flying back and forth from each hiccupping phone. Not giving her anything but eyes glazed, or heads slung down, attending to important phone matters.

How hard it must be for her.

But standing there, back straight like a drill officer, she's wielding the roughest gaze of all.

Eyes scanning the staggered line, she's judging us. She's judging each and every one. I feel her eyes shred me-my bow legs, or the flyaway hairs sticking to my neck, or the bad fit of my bra, me twisting and itching and never as still as I want to be. As she is.

”Fish could've swallowed her whole,” Beth mutters. ”You could've fit two of her in Fish.”

Fish was our nickname for Coach Templeton, the last coach. The one plunked deep in late middle age, with the thick, solid body of a semi-active porpoise, round and smooth, and the same gold post earrings and soft-collared polo s.h.i.+rt and sneakers thick-soled and graceless. Hands always snugged around that worn spiral notebook of drills penciled in fine script, serving her well since the days when cheerleaders just dandled pom-poms and kicked high, high, higher. Sis-boom-something.

Her hapless mouth slack around her whistle, Fish spent most of her hours at her desk, playing spider solitaire. We'd spot, through the shuttered office window, the flutter of cards overturning. I almost felt sorry for her.

Long surrendered, Fish was. To the mounting swagger of every new cla.s.s of girls, each bolder, more coil-mouth insolent than the last.

We girls, we owned her. Especially Beth. Beth Ca.s.sidy, our captain.

I, her forever-lieutenant, since age nine, peewee cheer. Her right hand, her fidus Achates. fidus Achates. That's what she calls me, what I am. Everyone bows to Beth and, in so doing, to me. That's what she calls me, what I am. Everyone bows to Beth and, in so doing, to me.

And Beth does as she pleases.

There really wasn't any need for a coach at all.

But now this. This.

Fish was suddenly reeled away to gladed Florida to care for her teenage granddaughter's unexpected newborn, and here she is.

The new one.

The whistle dangles between her fingers, like a charm, an amulet, and she is going to have to be reckoned with.

There is no looking at her without knowing that.

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