Part 3 (1/2)

But then I remember it was Casey Jaye, this girl I tumbled with at cheer camp last summer, but Beth didn't like her and camp ended anyway. Funny how people you know at camp can seem so close and then the summer's over and you never see them again at all.

Coach has her eyes on me, and there's a shadow of a dimple in the corner of her mouth.

”Show me,” she says, poking out her cigarette. ”Show me how to love-knot.”

I say I don't have any of the thread, but Emily does, at the bottom of her hobo bag.

We show her how to do it, then watch her twist the strands, to and fro. She picks it up so fast, her fingers flying. I wonder if there's anything she can't do.

”I remember,” she says. ”Watch this one.”

She shows us how to make one called Cat's Tongue, which is like a Broken Ladder crossed with a simple braid, and another she calls the Big Bad that I can't follow at all.

When she finishes Big Bad, she twirls it on her finger and flings it at me. I see Emily's face flicker jealously.

”Is this all you guys do for fun?” she says.

And no, it's not.

”It was like she was really interested in our lives,” Emily tells everyone after, her fingers whisking across my new bracelet.

”Pathetic,” Beth says. ”I'm not even interested in our lives.” Her finger slips under the bracelet and tug-tug-tugs until it snaps from my wrist. not even interested in our lives.” Her finger slips under the bracelet and tug-tug-tugs until it snaps from my wrist.

The next day, after school, the parking lot, I see Coach walking to her sprightly little silver crawler of a car.

I'm loitering, fingers hooked around my diet soda bottle, waiting on Beth, who is my ride and occasionally sees fit to make me wait while she talks up Mr. f.e.c.k, who gives her reams of pink fluttery hall pa.s.ses from his desk drawer.

I don't even realize Coach has seen me until she beckons, her head snapping toward her open door.

”Well c'mon then,” she says. ”Get in.”

As if she knows I've been waiting for the invitation.

Driving, Coach is shaking one of those strange, muddy-looking juices she's always drinking, raw against your teeth. I don't think any of us have ever seen her eat.

”You girls have lots of bad habits,” she says, eyeing my soda.

”It's diet,” I say, but she just keeps shaking her head.

”We'll get you right. The days of funyuns for lunch and tanning beds-they're over, girl.”

”Okay,” I say, but I must not look convincing. First of all, I've never eaten a funyun in my life.

”You'll see,” she says. Her neck and back so straight, her eyebrows tweezed to precise arches. The glint-gold tennis bracelet and s.h.i.+ne-sleek hair. She is so perfect.

”So, which one of those footballers is your guy?” Coach asks, staring out the window.

”What?” I say. ”None of them.”

”No boyfriend?” She sits up a little. ”Why not?”

”There's not a lot to interest me at Sutton Grove High,” I say, like Beth might say. I'm eyeing the cigarette pack on the console between us, imagining myself plucking one and putting it in my mouth. Would she stop me?

”Tell me,” she says. ”Who's the guy with all the curls?” She taps her forehead. ”And the crook in his nose?”

”On the team?” I ask.

”No,” she says, leaning forward toward the steering wheel a little. ”I see him run track in those high-tops with the skulls.”

”Jordy Brennan?” I say.

There was a group: ten, twelve guys you might loiter with, might lap-s.h.i.+mmy, beer-breathed at parties, might letter-jacket him for a week, a month.

Jordy Brennan wasn't one of them. He was just there, barely. Scarcely a blip on the screen of my school.

”I never thought of him,” I say.

”He's cute,” she says. The way she breathes in, turning the wheel, you can feel her thinking all about Jordy Brennan, for just that second.

And then I think of him too.

My s.h.i.+rt sc.r.a.ping up my back, the nervy-hot hands of Jordy skittering there, and before I know it, my cheer skirt twisting 'round my waist, nudging up my belly, his hands there too, and mine coiled into little nerve-b.a.l.l.s, and am I going to do it?

This is in my head, these thoughts, as I rustle under my Sutton green coverlet in bed that night. I've never had it happen like that before, a sharp ache down there, right there, and a put-put-put pulse, so breathless.

Jordy Brennan, who I never blinked at twice.

After, I'm about to call Beth for our nightly postmortem, but then I decide not to.

I think she'll be mad at me for not waiting for her after school. Or for something else. She is mad at me a lot, especially since last summer at cheer camp, when things started to change with us. I grew tired of all my lieutenant duties, and her no-prisoners ways, and I started stunting with other girls at camp. It goes deep with Beth and me. Our history is long and lashes us tight.

So I call Emily instead and talk with her for an hour or more about basket tosses and her s.h.i.+n splints and the special rainforest wax Brinnie c.o.x bought in Bermuda to tear off all her girl hair.

Anything but boys and Coach. My head a hot, clicking thing. I want to quiet it. I want to hush, hush it and I hold my legs together, tense as pincer grips, and clutch my stomach upon itself. I listen endlessly to Emily's squeaking voice, the way it sputters and pipes and dances lightfoot and never, ever says anything at all.

5

WEEK THREE

We're getting better all the time. all the time.