After six hours in bed but hardly any sleep, I get up and make my way to the shower. The sun is beaming through the small window that’s neatly covered with thin, yellow curtains, curtains that we’ve had since I can remember, curtains that I’m sure Mom probably picked out herself. The towels and dirty clothes are still piled on the floor from yesterday—yet another reminder that I am a loser. Had I stayed home last night, I’d have a cabinet of neatly folded towels and ninety-two dollars still in my purse.
I start the water, undress, and grab a washcloth. As I get in, my hair receives the steam, and WHOA the cigarette smell is back. The smoke oozes from my skin cells, and it’s nauseating. I breathe through my mouth to keep from smelling last night’s debacle.
I’m tired.
I want nothing more than to wash this smoke off my body and go back to bed. Maybe I could dream of Mom and picnics, and maybe she could give me some advice as to how to get myself out of this predicament.
What would she say?
Quit the cheer squad?
Don’t give up?
Find an honest job?
Lighten your load?
I need direction.
I turn the water off and step out of the steam. I sit down on the tub, and all of the sudden I’m six again. In the tub.
__________
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Will we ever get a new Mama?”
He stops washing my hair, frozen for just a few seconds. “What do you mean?”
“Will we ever get a new Mama? Or do we just have to wait and see if ours comes back?”
He takes the showerhead from the handle, and tests the water temperature on his hands. “Lean back.”
He rinses the shampoo then applies the conditioner.
“Lean back, kiddo. You’re going to get it in your eyes.”
I lean back, and he rinses.
He stands and gets a towel from the cabinet, and tosses it onto the floor. “Time to get out.” For the first time ever, he leaves me to get out by myself.
__________
Cassidy finds me at my locker before school. The hallways are sparse—a couple minutes before the tardy bell, and I’ve already declared myself late since I started cleaning out my locker.
“Where were you last night? I tried to call you. When I came by your house your car wasn’t there.” I continue pulling out loose papers and tossing them on the floor by my feet.
“When?”
“What do you mean, when? Like all night long.” She’s irritated.
I start taking my textbooks out one at a time and stacking them neatly on the floor. Lies begin to formulate in my head, and I hesitate a little too long.
“Chelsea! Where were you? I thought you’d been kidnapped or something! I didn’t know whether to call your dad at work or what!”
I stop what I’m doing to look at her, and then go back to my cleaning. “I just had a lot of errands and stuff. I went to the store. We were out of everything; it just took me a long time, that’s all.”
“Why weren’t you answering your phone?”
“My battery died . . . shit, back off. I didn’t realize you were my keeper.” I drop a textbook to the stack—whack. I’m not in the mood.
She doesn’t respond but stands there looking at me. The bell rings, and she leaves.
I rub my hand across the bottom of my locker to remove the fuzz balls and dust then stack my books back into my locker, this time vertically. I pull my health book from the stack, knowing this new locker organization system will work so much better than before.
A locker cleanse.
Just what I needed.
After school I go to practice.
Some are already stretching when I walk into the gym, their hair pulled up in messy buns on top of their heads. The gym is humid and stinks like socks. I go to the locker room and change into my practice clothes, and as I’m tying my cheer shoes, another cheerleader, Reagan, walks in.
I just need a moment.
A moment to decide if I’m going to do this. So I sit down on the locker room bench that’s so waxy it looks wet, criss-cross my legs, and slowly start rolling my head around to stretch my neck. I watch Reagan out of the corner of my eye. She has a huge, black, Coach gym bag. It has to be a $400 bag, at least. She sets it on another bench and checks her smartphone.
“Hey, Chelsea.”
“Hey,” I reply.
She’s obviously been tanning. When she slips into her red practice shorts, there’s a striking contrast between her brown legs and her white cheer shoes. She tucks her Kate Spade clutch purse into her gym bag, then zips the bag and stacks it long ways into her locker. She uses one hand to push her bag in, and the other hand to close the door, then locks the digital combination lock.
I keep rolling my head and extend my left leg across the bench to stretch my hamstring. Reagan pulls her hair on top of her head without even looking in the mirror. I know just by looking at her that her check for fees has already been written.
“You comin’?” she asks me on her way out the door.
“Yeah, I’ll be out there in a sec.” But she’s already gone.
What am I doing here . . .?
I don’t belong.
The door swings open and Cassidy busts in, clearly in a rush. I jump up and start heading for the door. She apologizes for getting on to me this morning and jokes that I’m “grounded.” I laugh it off and exit out onto the gym floor. I go through the motions of going through the motions. It’s old choreography we’re polishing, so my body’s on autopilot.
“Sharper! Shaper!” Miss Mound yells 352 times and slips in the occasional “Toes!” or “Formations!”
The practice, to an outsider, would be an ironic joke. The coach couldn’t extend her leg— much less make it “sharper” even if she was held at gunpoint and her life depended on it. She is dressed to the hilt, as always. I’m sympathetic to the extra pointy, black, shiny heels she has on, thinking they’re going to surrender to the weight above them—and break off and die—any second. Miss Mound . . . She’s nice enough, but she is constantly prying into the rich, popular cheerleaders’ business. She checks them out head to toe and asks things like, “What ski resort are you staying at?” and “Did your mom get a new Escalade?” and “Where are you shopping for your prom dress?” Every practice she’s barking out orders and popping peanut M&Ms at the same time. Except for one day she completely changed it up and was eating Skittles. I caught her reading the nutrition label on the back of the bag. Zero fat in those chewy little candies.
Needless to say, she’s never gotten into my business.
She likes me.
As the music plays from her old-school CD player, thunder starts to rip outside, and the already humid air in the gym becomes even heavier. Every move I make takes everything I have because I am so tired from last night. Now would be a good time to go ahead and quit so I could go home and take a nap. But when the coach says we have just one more run through, I decide to hang in there.
We know practice is over when we hear the usual, “Good job, girls.” She says it because she has to.
“If you,” she pauses due to loud thunder, “haven’t paid your choreography fees yet, I need a check today.” She looks my direction.
My decision has been made for me.
This has to be it.
__________
In the locker room, I’m slow to pack up my stuff while everyone else is in and out in a flash. I stall by using the bathroom, wash my hands for an extra-long time, and change back into my school clothes. When I walk back out onto the gym floor, she’s visiting with the boys’ golf coach so I linger and wait my turn.
After a few minutes, Miss Mound says goodbye to the other coach then walks to start turning off the lights.
“What’s up, Chelsea?” She asks, continuing her balancing act on those heels.
I take a deep breath.
I double check to make sure we’re alone.
“Miss Mound, I don’t have the money yet for my fees so I guess I need to quit the squad.”
“When will you have it?” She asks.
Wait.
I thought I just quit.
“I just need another week. My dad’s waiting on a big bonus at work, and I think he gets it this weekend.” I start chewing my thumbnail.
“It’s too late to quit . . . It would screw up our formations. I’ll talk to the director and see if there’s any way we can send your money in a little late. And anyway, you’re too good to quit, Chelsea.” She knows me, and I think she knows that things don’t come easy for me. She likes me because in the materialistic sense, she has nothing to be jealous of. “We’ll work it out, hon. Just get it to me as soon as you can.”
I look away.
“Thanks, Miss Mound.”