I cracked open the bathroom door and tiptoed out into the hallway. When I'd gotten up, Rachel wasn't even home yet, so I kept an eye out for her. She could come stumbling in at any moment. Instead, it was my brother Joey who nearly gave me a heart attack when he seemed to step right out of the wall.
"Hey Baby. Good luck today." He sidled past me and slipped into the bathroom.
"Thanks Joey," I said weakly, just before he clicked the door shut. I hated to admit it, but it hadn't crossed my mind that Joey and I would be competing for the bathroom in the morning since we were the only siblings still in school, and we hadn’t gone to the same school since I was in seventh grade and he was in ninth. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw him. Joey and I both spend so much time avoiding the rest of the family that we don't cross paths all that much. I guess we've found different places to hide.
I crept into the kitchen and opened the fridge, the rubber seal making a loud sucking sound as I pulled the door open and poked my head inside.
"Oh good, you're home."
At the sound of my mom's voice, I stood up so fast that I cracked the back of my head on the freezer compartment. "Ow!" I rubbed my head and scowled, closing the refrigerator door. There wasn't much in there anyway.
"I ran out of cigarettes, can you go and get some at the store?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Well, you know, besides the fact that I'm not allowed to buy them legally, Kaia will be here any minute to pick me up for school. I don't have time."
My mom poked her blonde curly head over the half-wall that separated her "office" from the rest of the kitchen. Crap. I should have known she'd be there.
"Oh. I thought you were Rachel." She stood up behind her desk. "What the hell are you wearing?"
Shit. Well, she was bound to find out sooner or later. "It's my cheerleading uniform."
"Are you trying to be funny?"
"No, I'm trying to be normal." I turned and opened a cabinet door way harder than I needed to, reached in and pulled out a box of Pop Tarts. I ripped open the flimsy foil wrapper, took out a cold pastry and bit into it.
She rubbed her hand against her face, pulling a hair out of the corner of her mouth and sneered. "Jesus Christ. Cheerleaders are dancers gone retarded."
I talked around the chalky wad of Pop Tart that refused to disintegrate in my mouth. "That's funny mom. Except for the Jesus Christ part, I swear I heard that same line in
Bring It On.
" I knew it would pay off to memorize that movie.
"Cheerleaders are hypocritical sluts. Are you gonna start going to youth group so you can marry Jesus, but still spread your legs for any boy with a letter on his jacket?"
"I dunno, maybe." I pitched the remainder of my Pop Tart, foil and all, into the garbage can in the corner of the room and grabbed my backpack off the counter. I wouldn't wait for Kaia to get here. I could meet her on the road.
My mom moved away from her desk, grabbed my arm, and twisted it hard. "Baby, goddamn it I will not let you turn into one of those fucking bitches. You are no better than me, you remember that."
I wrenched my arm away. That one would probably bruise. "My name's not Baby."
"Oh yeah? Then what is it? Janet? Miss Jackson if you're nasty?"
"Stop it! I'm sick of your crappy quotes. Just because you're my mother doesn't mean you can treat me like shit."
"No, no, of course not. Now that you're a cheerleader I guess I have to kiss the ground you walk on. Can I do anything for you? Make your bed? Buff your bible? Schedule your abortion?"
Did I hear tires crunching in the driveway? Kaia would never honk the horn this early. Dear god, let that be tires.
"I'm the same person I was when I went to bed last night," I said, walking towards the front door. "I haven't changed."
"Then I guess I never knew you at all, Baby."
I stopped. "My. Name. Is. Not. Baby."
"Oh, really? What is it? Do you have some slutty new name to go with your peppy new outfit?"
"I do. Everybody calls me Tawny now. You can too."
Mom raised her hand up like she was going to smack me, and maybe she would have, but once again Joey materialized out of nowhere and stepped in front of her. When did he get taller than her?
"Come on Tawny," he said. "Time to go."
It
was
Kaia's car in the driveway, thank god, and she didn't say anything when I flipped the passenger seat out of the way and climbed in back, leaving the front seat for Joey. Joey shut the car door, but not hard enough. It popped back open.
"You have to slam it," I said from the back. I sat in the middle on the hump of the bench seat, my knees hugged up to my chest. Fuck seat belts.
"Oh, is that why you do that?
”
Joey said.
“
I always thought you were pissed off or something."
"Yeah, well, that's a good guess too," I muttered darkly.
Joey grabbed the inside door handle and slammed the door with authority. The handle ripped off in his hand and he held it out in front of himself. "Crap. Sorry."
Kaia sighed. "It was bound to happen sooner or later."
She started the car and made a wide circle in our driveway so that she wouldn't have to attempt reverse.
"Kaia, do you remember my brother Joey? He's a senior." It was kind of weird having to introduce my cousin to my brother, since he was her cousin too, but as far as I knew they hadn't seen each other since Kaia and I were in Pull-Ups.
"Hey. Nice of you to join us this morning," Kaia said. "This gonna be an everyday thing Baby?"
Joey turned around in his seat and looked at me, but he didn't say anything.
"Yeah," I said. "I think so. If you don't mind."
Joey gave me a small, tight smile.
"No problem. Since Joey's a senior, does that mean we can park in the upper lot?"
"Yeah, you should be able to," Joey said. "But can you do me a favor?"
"What's that?"
"Call me Joe. And my sister's name's not Baby, it's Tawny."
Kaia was stopped at a red light, and she pivoted slowly in her seat to look at me with incredulous eyes. "Really? You don't say?"
"Baby's a stupid name anyway. No offense," he said, shooting a look over his shoulder at me. I shrugged, pretty much unable to speak. "It's not as bad as Joey though."
I did have a voice after all. "What's wrong with Joey?"
"Uh, everything? How would you like to be named after a Friends character with an I.Q. of forty? You want to be called Tawny, I've got no problem with that. But in exchange, I want to be called Joe."
"I'm sure Tawny and I can accommodate that, Joe," Kaia said, grinning at me.
Behind us, someone leaned on their horn. "Oh my god, please don't call me Tawny. Either of you. That was an accident. And you've got a green light," I said, pointing out the front of the windshield.
Laughing, Kaia turned her eyes back to the road, stomped on the gas, and killed the car.
* * *
"Your brother seems okay," Kaia said as Joey loped away across the parking lot toward the school's main entrance.
"Yeah, my brother's cool I guess. It's the Anderson women you have to watch out for."
"Tell me about it." Kaia came around to the front of the car and fell in step with me. "The one I know keeps lying about her name. Third time's the charm, eh Tawny?"
"Oh god, seriously, don't call me that. I only said it to piss my mom off. It was just bad luck that Joey—I mean Joe—overheard me."
"Your mom got up to help you get ready for school? I bet that was kind of a surprise."
"Please. She never went to bed. She was probably online all night talking to someone she hasn't seen in person since the third grade."
We jogged up the outside steps that led to the school's maroon and yellow rear doors, the ones that overlooked the football field. "So what happened?" Kaia tugged open the door and propped it with her elbow so that I could walk in.
"Thanks." I hitched my backpack higher on my shoulder and turned left down the hall that led toward the gym. Besides wearing the uniform all day the first week, I also had to change into it for sixth period cheer practice every day of the year. I pretty much had to have a uniform at school all the time, so I didn't have to share a locker with anyone, and our lockers were supposedly near the gym. Definitely a perk.
I sighed. "What happened is mom hates cheerleaders, and now that she knows I am one, she hates me even more than she did before."
"You hadn't told her?"
"God, no."
"Jeez. My parents took me to Olive Garden when I gave them the news."
"Must be nice." I kicked my toe a little on the thin, industrial grade carpet but stopped pretty quick. I really didn't want to get these blindingly white shoes dirty on the first day.
"I'm sorry. That was a stupid thing to say."
"No it wasn't. Your parents were happy for you. That's cool."
"It's just that my dad was a gymnast. A really good one, I guess. He barely missed being an alternate for the summer Olympics a few years before I was born. So they're really supportive of anything gymnasticky."
"I didn't know that about your dad."
"Yeah, that's who I learned tumbling from. He got some sort of injury when I was really little, so he's totally retired, but, you know, they're happy about the cheerleading."
"That really is cool, you know? I mean it."
Kaia smiled. "Thanks."
I'd printed out my locker assignment. 1009. This was it. Kaia continued to hers, she was in 1015. I opened the door and there was my winter cheer uniform hanging on the hook. Most of my uniforms were sleeveless, and cut so high you could count a few of my ribs between the bottom of my shirt and the top of my skirt. The uniform hanging in the locker was for colder weather, and I guess it had taken longer to make or something. I'd gotten an email that said it would be in my locker today. I fingered the wool material of the skirt and pulled out the long sleeve sweater to examine it closer. It was beautiful, white with maroon sleeves and two gold Vs across the front that would make my waist look smaller than it really was. It was, by far, the nicest thing I'd ever owned. Total score.
"Smells like they're serving fish today girls. Oh I'm sorry
Keeks
, I didn't see you standing there. My mistake."
I popped my head out of my locker and snapped my head sideways to see whose peppy voice could turn so nasty when she spoke my cousin's nickname.
Three girls stood behind Kaia's locker. The short one with the flyaway blonde hair curled her lip. "Lovely. I'm in 1016. Now all my stuff's going to smell like shit. You," she snapped her fingers at me, "Totem Falls girl. Trade with me."
I was about to tell her to fuck off, but one glance at Kaia's pinched face stopped me. I grabbed my uniform out of 1009. "It's all yours."
I brushed past her and opened 1016. I yanked the blonde's winter uniform out and tossed it on the ground behind me.
"What the hell?"
I pivoted on my heel and stared down at her. She couldn't have been more than five-foot-two; I was a good six inches taller than her. Most people would find that intimidating, but she stared right back at me, her hands on her hips. "Pick that up."
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"I said no," I repeated pleasantly.
"Why not?"
The hallway was getting a little crowded as more students filtered in. Other cheerleaders queued up in front of their lockers, and guys were starting to hang around, presumably to check out the new crop of short skirts, but I only had eyes for the blonde. "Because I don't take orders from cum dumpsters. Especially not when they're rude to my cousin."
The two girls with the blonde gasped, and I swear I heard one of the guys who was walking by snicker, but he kept on moving.
The blonde girl's eyes narrowed to slits. "You just made the biggest mistake of your life."
"Oh, no," I said mockingly. I slammed the metal locker door shut and snapped a clunky combo lock onto my locker, spinning the dial a couple of times. "The biggest mistake I ever made was when I accidentally put a fork in a light socket when I was five. That was horrible. But you know the feeling, you obviously did it yourself this morning."
The blonde's hand flew to her hair, smoothing the little curls that had wormed their way out of her tight ponytail.
I linked my arm through Kaia's. "See you at cheer practice, frizznap."
I led Kaia down the hall and forced a spring into my step, so my silky ponytail had an extra bounce as we walked away. I wasn't exactly sure where I was going, for all I knew my first period class was in the total opposite direction, but putting space between us and Frizzy back there was imperative.
"Oh my god, that was freaking awesome," Kaia said after we rounded the corner. "What exactly did you call her?"
I squeezed Kaia's arm and leaned my head close to hers as we walked. "What, frizznap or cum dumpster? To be honest, either way I'm not sure. But that's what my sister Monica calls my sister Rachel when they fight, so it can't be good, huh?"
"Whatever, it was perfect," Kaia said. We entered a commons area and sat down across from each other at a long beige table. "I can always think of a million things to say as soon as she's gone, but when it's happening I totally freeze up."
"I can go toe-to-toe, bitch-to-bitch any day of the week. I just channel one of my sisters and it all comes rolling out of me."
"Lucky." Kaia laced her fingers together on the tabletop and looked down.
"You said 'when it's happening.' Does that girl harass you like that a lot? Did you know her at Hilltop?"
"Yeah."
"What's the story?"
Kaia sighed and unlaced her fingers, resting her chin in her hand. "You give
one
blowjob at
one
party, and suddenly you're the town bicycle. Everybody wants a ride."
I felt my heart sink into my knees. "Oh, no. What happened?"
"Back at the beginning of ninth grade Derek Mottola had this party…"
"Wait, my Derek? The guy I met last week?"