Part 24 (1/2)

Beth sighs loudly. ”What happens,” she practically sings, ”when a pretty young coach takes a ragtag team of misfits and feebs under her wing? Why, they fly, fly, fly.”

Coach looks at her.

”We just needed someone to believe in us,” Beth finishes.

”Stop gaming her, Ca.s.sidy,” Coach says, staring her down, duel-at-dawn, but her tone still flat, toneless, ”or I'm gonna ground-bound you instead.”

”Look at her leg,” Beth says, ”like a wishbone tw.a.n.ging.”

”Ca.s.sidy,” Coach says, like she's forgotten the caution she's supposed to use with Beth, or she's just stopped caring. ”When you start showing me you can do more than flash your t.i.ts and treat your mouth like a sewer, then maybe we'll have something to talk about.”

Don't, Coach, I think. I think. Don't. Don't.

”You heard the coach,” Beth says, turning to us with a smile. ”Load her up and let her fall.”

The music thumping again, Beth counting off, Mindy and Cori line up, Bottom Bases. Spotters Paige and a JV stand behind them and load up the second level, RiRi and me, our bodies springing up to shoulder stands, their palms cradling our calves.

Facing each other, we lift Tacy between us, throwing her above us into a stand, our arms lifted high, hands tight on her wrists. Her arms outstretched, Jesus-style, her left leg knee-bent in front of her, the girls beneath grasping her right foot to hold her in place.

For a second, she is solid.

Seven, eight, Beth counting off until the Deadman and it is time. Time for us to drop her backwards into a stiff-spined horizontal fall. Ready for Paige, the JV, all her spotters to catch her down below. Beth counting off until the Deadman and it is time. Time for us to drop her backwards into a stiff-spined horizontal fall. Ready for Paige, the JV, all her spotters to catch her down below.

We let go.

Her eyes wild, Tacy drops, but her body seems to rubberize, limbs like spaghetti. As her hand grapples for me, I feel myself sliding down with her, Paige and Cori, on the ground, shouting, ”Slaus, here, here, here. Hold it!”

But she plunges, our hands empty.

The sickly sound as Tacy, still half in Paige's sloping arms, hits the mat, face first.

RiRi and I still on high, I think my knees might give, but I hear Coach's voice, iron smooth, ”Hanlon, slow down that dismount,” as RiRi and I sink down.

I feel something clamping on me, and Beth is right there, her hand gripping my arm all the way down. Depositing me safely on the mat, feet first.

Coach is on the floor with Tacy, strewn from the spotters' tangled arms, her feet still in their grip even as her head, neck tilted, her chin split wide open, swabs the mat.

”At least she can fall well,” RiRi mutters.

Her mouth opening in a strangled sob, Tacy's teeth blare bright red.

”You come at the king,” Beth says, ”you best not miss.”

RiRi and I take Tacy to Nurse Vance, who slaps on the b.u.t.terfly bandages and tells me to take Tacy to the hospital for st.i.tches, which sends her into a new round of sobs.

”Your modeling career is over,” I say.

Walking to her locker, Tacy is purple-lipped and cotton-tufted, crying about the Game and the scouts and how she's got got to do the two-two-one, she's the only one light enough, which isn't even true, and Coach d.a.m.n well better let her cheer, no matter what she looks like. to do the two-two-one, she's the only one light enough, which isn't even true, and Coach d.a.m.n well better let her cheer, no matter what she looks like.

Then, a new sob choking in her, she takes a deep breath.

”But it should be Beth anyway,” she whispers, dramatically. ”Beth's Top Girl.”

For a second, I hear RiRi. What about Addy? What if Addy were Top Girl? What about Addy? What if Addy were Top Girl?

But it never has been me, has it? I never wanted it to. I was never a stunter, I was a spotter, a hoister. That's what I am.

And Top Girls were different from the rest of us.

I think of Beth last year, after the Nors.e.m.e.n game, all of us drinking with the players up on the ridge, and Brian Brun thrusting her above his head, hands gripping around her ankles, her feet tucked in his palms, then one leg flung behind her, rendering her celebrated Bow 'n' Arrow, as she spun and lifted her right leg straight in the air, slipping it behind her glossy head, making one beautiful line of Bethness, all of us gasping.

It's all we could talk about, dream about, for days, weeks.

”It's always been Beth,” she slurs, grazing her temple with the back of her wrist. ”And the squad is what counts. Cheer, I never knew it mattered so much. Not until Coach picked me. She changed my life. Now it's all I can think about, Addy. I hear the counts in my sleep. Don't you? I don't ever want them to end.”

I tell her to stop talking.

”Don't you see, Addy?” she says, words tumbling in her mouth, eyes s.h.i.+ny and crazed. ”When we go out there Monday night, we need to show them what we can do. What we are. We need to make them know it. We need to give them more than awesomeness.

”We need to give them greatness.”

It hurts to turn the steering wheel. I can still feel Tacy's grasping fingers, the fear my arm socket might pop. The sound of Beth saying, ”Ride that b.i.t.c.h...ride her.”

And Beth, the way her hand fastened on me, stopping my fall.

And after, Coach saying, as I walked the limping Tacy across the gym, ”Next time, Hanlon, when you let her go, keep those arms to the side. Don't let her see your hands are there. If she does, she'll grab for them. Wouldn't you?”

Wouldn't you? I want to ask.

I think of injured Emily again, withering up in the stands. And I remember how, last week, she posted on my Facebook wall: ”U never call me anymore. None of U.” And I decided it was a joke, one of Emily's endless LOLs.

I couldn't be bothered.

At the games she sits, just barely separated from the bleacher crowd-in the borderland, the nowhere zone between our bronzed glory and the gray blur of everything, everyone else in this sad world.

At home later: U put a hex on Slaus, I text Beth. I text Beth.

U shoulda given *her* the hamsa, she replies. she replies.

Like at a hypnotist's cue, my head floods with the image of my bracelet in Will's apartment. A crimson ring on his carpet.

But I keep hearing Beth's words in my head:...Coach must've told you they asked her about the bracelet. You two thick as thieves.

Why hasn't Coach told me?