“Okay, so if I make the squad, we’ll have practices after school, and maybe a couple of Saturdays,” I tell my folks.
The breakfast nook is my courtroom, and my parents are the judge and jury. I pace back and forth, having planned my case thoroughly during Mass this morning. Tryouts are tomorrow and the homily was on why God gave us free will, so I’m making my move while the iron is hot.
“As it gets cold, I won’t be able to run around outside or ride my bike, so it’s an excellent way to get exercise. You can’t be on the squad without good grades, so of course I’ll stay on top of that, too. I’ve saved enough money this summer that I won’t have to ask for spending money on away games. And apparently cheerleading is really important to the girls at school, meaning I’ll be making the kind of friends who value work ethic and doing their best.”
As my dad takes a bite of blackberry cobbler I think I see him trying to hide a grin under his mustache, and my heart skips. This is working! So I continue, really hamming it up.
“Now, you might be thinking, ‘Why the sudden interest in cheerleading, Ricki Jo?’ Well, we all know that what I lack in height and size, I make up for in spunk. I really want to fit in at my new school, and I figure that cheerleading is the best way to boldly display my intense school pride to my peers. Four-H just isn’t gonna cut it anymore.”
I pound my fist into my palm, furrowing my brow. My dad chokes on his dessert. I am emboldened.
“I want to wear the maroon and gold—the same maroon and gold you two wore when you fell in love all those years ago. Without that maroon and gold, you never would have fallen in love at prom, and I never would have been born. I am maroon and gold.”
The drama builds.
“I have spirit! Yes I do! I’ve got spirit, how ’bout you?” At this, I wildly wave fierce spirit fingers and heartily attempt the splits.
Key word: attempt.
“Ow!” I cry, my crotch a foot from the floor, pain burning my groin.
At this, neither of my parents can hold it in anymore and, along with their eye rolling and head shaking, there is gut-wrenching laughter. I fall over to one side—sweet relief.
My dad pushes his cap back and wheezes, “What are we gonna do with this girl, Toots?”
My momma wipes at the tears in her eyes. “Don’t ask me. She’s your daughter.”
My dad slaps at his knees and my momma starts snorting. Snorting! I’ve got ’em. I’ve so got ’em. I get up off the floor, sit down at the table, and cut myself a piece of cobbler. My work here is done.
Trying out is one thing; making the squad is another thing altogether. I walk into the gymnasium and freeze. All around me, ponytails and gym shoes are back-flipping, round-off-back-handspringing, and toe-touch jumping. I don’t see a whole lot of “cheering,” per se, but I’m seriously rethinking the marching band idea.
“Ericka! Over here!” Mackenzie waves me over to where she and Laura are stretching. I force one tennis shoe in front of the other and walk toward them, terrified.
“Are you okay?” Laura asks, wrangling her long auburn hair into a tighter ponytail. “Your face is white as a ghost!”
Mackenzie offers me her water bottle, but I shake my head. “I’m just a little nervous,” I croak.
I sit down beside Laura and begin to stretch out, mimicking her every move. Mackenzie is going on about how worried she is as a new girl, whether or not she’ll fit in with the Kentucky style of cheering, but all I hear is blah, blah, blah and the strange buzzing sound in my ears that I usually get right before I vomit. A whistle blows from somewhere in the atmosphere, bringing me back to my senses.
“Ladies!” Coach Thomas yells, her voice authoritative. She reminds me of a beauty pageant queen past her prime. “We’ll see one tumbling pass, a short group number to the fight song, and then your individual chants. Let’s go!”
As Coach passes out sheets of paper printed with our chants, I grab Mackenzie’s elbow and pull her aside. “I think I’m gonna get out of here.”
“What? Why?” she asks, her hands suddenly tight on my biceps.
“I just think maybe it was a bad idea. I can’t do all those crazy flips, and I’ve never learned a dance routine. I don’t even know the fight song!” I assert.
“Neither do I,” she reminds me. Hmmm… I should’ve pulled Laura aside.
“Listen, can you do a cartwheel?” Mackenzie continues. I nod. She perks up. “Awesome! So for your tumbling pass, you’ll do as many cartwheels in a row as you can. And if you want, end it with a round-off—it’s basically just a cartwheel where you bring both feet down at the same time. Okay?” Her vigorous head bobbing is intoxicating.
I nod along, involuntarily.
“Then, for the group routine, stick by me and Laura. When we go through the practice with the senior girls, just keep the count in your head. Count out loud if you need to; just keep the count. One through eight, over and over again. It won’t be super dance-y; it’ll probably be more like motions and angles.” She demonstrates a few arm movements that look pretty easy. I’m feeling… less nauseous.
“Finally, the individual chant. Sounds scary, but I bet it’ll be your best part. You’ve got tons of energy, you’ve got a huge smile, and you really want this. That’ll go a long way,” she assures me.
“But we have to do a jump in the individual chant!” I remind her.
“You can’t touch your toes?” she asks. I shake my head, embarrassed. “Can you bring your knees up like this?” She demonstrates a tuck. It looks possible. I take a deep breath and try it.
“Perfect! Just do a tuck jump!” she squeals. “Listen, the secret to great cheerleading is confident head nodding and nonstop smiling.”
The whistle blows and we take our places among the masses in a three-row formation to learn the dance. Mackenzie squeezes my hand, her blue eyes sparkling, then tightens her salon-blond ponytail. That girl’s one helluva cheerleader.
Following the seniors as they dance to the Lady Gaga party mix blaring from the gym speakers, I count to eight like my life depends on it. The majority of my previous dance experience consists of one preschool ballet recital and self-taught moves to Top 40 hits in front of my full-length mirror at home. After thirty minutes of learning and rehearsing this routine, I’ve decided to never show my aforementioned self-taught moves to the public. Today’s dance style seems to involve a dash of bump and a cup of grind, with a heavy dose of attitude… ingredients I haven’t incorporated before. Not having cable television can really keep a girl out of the loop.
“Watts! Whitman! Wilson! Winstead! Let’s go!”
Mackenzie, Sarah, Kimi, and I take the floor. Sarah looks awake and focused, and even unconcerned about her bangs for the first time since school started. And Kimi is the picture of confidence in an old cheer T-shirt that she’s cut deep at the neck and tied up into a knot in the back. All three girls are smiling fiercely and standing at perfect attention, so I pull myself up to my full height and flash my biggest smile to the coaches as the music starts again.
“Five, six,” Coach counts. “Five, six, seven, eight.”
The music is blaring, and I’m glad Coach counted us in. With each mark, I bump, hit, and grind as hard as my little body will let me. The angles aren’t a problem—I’m all knees and elbows—but “rolling my body” just feels creepy and unnatural. Still, truth be told, the dance routine isn’t as awful as I’d imagined it would be. A few jazz squares and grapevines, but mainly a lot of hand slicing in the air. It’s kind of like karate mixed with aerobics. The eight count is brilliant, and Mackenzie’s smile-and-nod method, although a bit perkier than the one I’ve been using at school, is a tool with which I am already comfortable. There are a few moments of borderline flailing, but overall I gallop off court feeling okay.
My tumbling pass is another story. My confidence wavers as I watch Mackenzie’s nonstop back tucks and Sarah’s sky-high back layouts. Then Kimi and Laura back-handspring their way across the floor without a hitch. On my turn, I take a deep breath and manage eight cartwheels before ending with my first ever round-off (which I nail). Looking up excitedly at the judges, I see shock and pity in their eyes. So I do the only thing I can do: smile wider, wiggle spirit fingers ferociously, and give a few controlled fist pumps into the air, shouting, “Let’s go! PCHS! Number one!”
The hour and a half that we’ve spent in the gym has flown by; I guess self-discovery is a fast-paced affair. I’m getting a lot of encouragement from the other girls who are trying out and feel good about myself for trying something new. As I watch my classmates go through their individual chants, I’m glad to be a W for the first time in my life: It allows me to watch everyone else and learn from their routines. I go through the words over and over in my head and mark the motions modestly on the sideline.
“Winstead!” Coach Thomas calls out.
Now or never.
I muster up all the spunk I’ve got and run/skip to center court, prepared to give the performance of my life.
“Ready? O-kay!” I head nod with all my might and plaster the biggest smile you’ve ever seen across my face. Then I freeze.
I am mid-court, by myself, all kinds of pit stains and body odor, when I see Wolf saunter into the gym with some other guys from our school. He’s wearing a Stallions basketball jersey, probably his older brother’s, and his lean body climbs up the bleachers quickly and effortlessly. The cheerleading chant has something to do with our team, winning, and yelling, but my mind is void of all but the killer grin laser beam he gives me when he sits down. He passed me a note today in Spanish—“ Buena suerte. Good luck.”—and signed it with X’s and O’s.
“Miss Winstead?” Coach Thomas’s voice echoes over the loudspeakers and I snap to attention. Does she really need a microphone?
I smile and begin again, my focus strong and my will to impress even stronger.
“Ready? O-kay!” (fierce head nod)
“Cheer for the Stallions!” (pom-poms up in a V)
“Cheer for a win!” (poms down in a V, spin)
“Come on, crowd!” (crazy uncontrolled pom-pom air chops)
“Yell go, fight, win!” (and the tuck jump of my life)
There is the briefest pause before I hear Mackenzie and Laura cheering for me. The coach seems more curious than pleased, and I gallop off the floor, yelling, “Let’s go Stallions! Go, fight, win!” and pumping my pom-poms in the air.
Back at the sidelines, Mackenzie gives me a huge hug. “I’m so proud of you, Ericka!”
Laura gives my thick ponytail a playful tug and says, “Yeah, you hustled us out there!”
I feel incredible. Seriously, I know I’m not the best, but I did my best, and I’m on top of the world. I’ll get better with practice. I’ll work hard. I grab a Gatorade and soak it up. Tryouts are officially over. My pulse can finally slow down.
From the bleachers comes a screeching male voice: “Let’s go, Stallions!” We all look up and see Wolf, surrounded by a small group of guys, all of them cracking up. Coach gives him a quick, stern look, he waves and gives a big thumbs-up, and she turns back to the tabulation table with the other coaches. Once her eyes are off him, he stands and ties his jersey in a knot, puts his hands on his hips, and flashes a wicked smile. None of us knows what to expect, but Mackenzie and I share a look. After just a week of school, we know he’s got “mischief” written all over him.
“He’s gonna get in so much trouble,” she whispers to me, and I nod in agreement.
“Ready? Okay!” he starts, slapping his hand against his outer thigh.
I can’t help but giggle.
“I am a redneck! New to this school!” he yells. “I wanna be a cheerleader, so I can be cool!”
His motions are herky-jerky, fists balled up tight, shooting directly out at me. I feel them like punches in my gut.
I originally thought that the guys around him were looking in my general direction, but at this moment, I fully comprehend that those knee-slapping, laughing-their-butts-off idiots are looking in my exact direction. And now a few of the girls are, too.
I feel the blood rush to my face and know I’m bright red. I want it to stop. I need him to stop.
“I’m just a farm girl, short and flat!” he continues, hands smoothing down his own chest.
A whistle echoes through the gymnasium, high and angry, effectively cutting him off. For a beat, all eyes leave my face for Coach Thomas’s. I take the opportunity to blink.
This is not a dream.
I don’t think he’s finished, or maybe he can’t find a word to rhyme with flat, but Coach is furious and making her way up the bleachers two at a time. “Basketball tryouts aren’t for another twenty minutes! If you can’t behave like a gentleman, then you can wait outside. Wolfenbaker, out of here! Now!”
He slides out of his row, getting high fives and fist pumps along the way, and exits the gym a general hero, blowing a kiss at me as he leaves. His bleacher posse erupts.
Coach’s whistle takes the brunt of her anger; she blows it shrilly over and over as she explodes. “That’s it! All of you, out of here! Let’s go!”
Wolf’s pack exits the gym in a fit, blowing air kisses to me or throwing up mocking spirit fingers. My face and ears are on fire, and I can’t look down or the big tears that line my lower lids will definitely fall. I lean back against the wall padding behind me, keeping my chin as up as it will go, and stare at the far basketball hoop until we’re dismissed. I feel small and ugly and country.
In the tunnel behind the bleachers, I finally crumble, knees up, head on arms, and let the tears fall.