Authors: Jo Knowles

Read Between the Lines (23 page)

The announcer calls each player’s name and position, and the boys come running out one at a time like superstars. Their sneakers squeak on the gleaming floor. Their pristine basketballs
bounce-bounce-bounce
as they dribble past. They have to hunch down to get through our too-low pompom-covered tunnel. Once through, they dribble up to the basket and do a layup.

Swish.

Each one high-fives the one who followed. Like it is such a big deal to make a basket. Like they are
Such. Big. Deals.

No one else but the cheerleaders applaud. It’s rough, playing at the other team’s school, surrounded by people who want to see you lose.

When the home team comes out, the crowd goes wild. The cowbells shake in a more supportive way. The foghorns blow. The foot stomps are deafening. Our boys and the cheerleaders stand respectfully. Clap politely. But I can see on their faces that they are imagining how our team will take the home team down. It is not an attractive look.

After the teams warm up at opposite ends of the gym, the home-team cheerleaders perform a routine on the floor. One boy goes out with them. He is not a mascot but a real cheerleader. He is wearing the same sweater-vest as the girls, but instead of a skirt, he has shorts. Our boys snicker. Cough out the familiar words they use for anyone not on their “team.”

Homo.

Fag.

Queer.

Ben does it the loudest.

I think of Stephen and wish he was here. If he saw this side of Ben, maybe he wouldn’t be so stupid about him. Maybe he would realize that Ben doesn’t deserve him.

Thinking of Stephen makes my chest hurt. The space he used to occupy there is cold and empty and starving.

He says I’m the one who ruined our friendship by choosing the Girls over him. But I say
he
is the one who ruined our friendship by choosing Ben.

What is it about Ben that makes people so crazy? I will never understand. If Stephen could hear Ben now, hear him say those words with disgust in his throat . . . Well, I guess I’m glad he can’t. No one deserves to be hurt like that.

“Knock it off, boys,” the coach says in a playful way. I can tell he wants to wink at them. Cough those words with them. He makes me want to puke.

I wonder if the cheerboy can hear them. If he knows what they’re saying. I wonder if it feels the same way when I hear the familiar words they use for people like me.

Thunder thighs.

Wide load.

Porker.

Chubber.

Pudge muffin.

I wish the cheerboy would look at me. I would like to silently tell him,
You are brave. You are a hero.
Even though he is not a very good cheerleader.

When they finish their performance, we cheerleaders stand up and clap that way snooty women do, tapping our fingers into our palms to achieve the look of approval but not the sound.

Then we stand and follow Grace out on the floor to perform our own routine.

“
Ready, girls?
”

“
Hit it!
”

My thighs bounce and ripple with every jump. Stomp. Pivot. My too-big breasts flop wildly despite the expensive sports bra I saved up for that promised —
promised
— this would not happen.

I wait for the laughter from the boys on the bench. The strangers from the home team. They will not cough their insults. They will
enunciate
them.

Earthquake!

When we turn to face the home side, I search out the cheerboy. I don’t know why he became my instant hero. Because he stands out like me? He seems like my kindred spirit. Like we should be friends. Like Stephen used to be.

But when I spot him, he is sitting in the front row, in the middle of the line of cheerleaders. They surround him protectively. He is laughing. Pointing.

At me.

My heart skips and then it dies a little. I feel it shrink. The empty space for Stephen widens. It is a chasm.

But the show must go on. The show. Starring the magnificent fat girl with the incredible bouncing boobs.

I plant my feet on the shiny wood floor. Bend my knees, also known as soft stepping-stones, for Megan to use as she climbs up me. The stepladder.

She presses her slender foot onto my cushion thigh — the first rung — then my shoulder, as we slowly create our BIG! FORMATION!

Go, team!

Megan’s crisp white sneakers dig into my already-bruised shoulders. If you inspect the purple mark carefully, you will see the dainty outline of her footprint. But I SMILE! Then Sammy begins the climb, and I am holding the weight of one and a half. The other ladder girls next to me grin the way I do. They aren’t as chubby as me, but they are “big-boned,” as my mother would say. “Strong girls,” as Grace would say. I’m sure they are thinking, like I am, that it would be nice to be the climber and not the climbed on for once.

We chant, “Who’s gonna win? Ir-ving!”

My legs shake under Sammy’s weight, even though she probably weighs less than one hundred pounds and most likely had celery for lunch because, as she always reminds us, it is the perfect food. You burn the amount of calories it has just by chewing it.

Yum.

The first time I brought my own celery sticks out during practice, some of the girls gasped. They were filled with peanut butter and a line of raisins.

“Oh! I used to love ants on a log.” Sammy had said. “I miss peanut butter.”

“Do you want a bite?” I asked.

“Can’t,” she said, patting her flat — almost concave, I swear — tummy. “I’m on a diet.”

Oh.

When we finish our formation, I count silently to ten. That’s how long we have to hold it to truly impress. Sammy is somewhere high above me. Sammy the smallest. The cutest. The loudest.

The boys from our team are all watching Sammy. Probably they are trying to see up her skirt.

Jacob makes another rude gesture with his finger.

Then the girls jump down, and we all jog off the court, elbows bent at ninety-degree angles, hands in pompoms at the base of our backs like they are bustles on a dress.
Shake-shake-shake.
I feel like a show pony. Or no. A circus elephant.

We have to jog right by our boys’ team, who sit in the front row of the bleachers with their long legs sticking out. They make whistles and rude comments as we jog past. I pretend not to hear and focus on the
swish-swish-swish
of my pompoms on my back. All the way to the safety of my spot at the end of the bench to watch the game. To cheer the boys on, even though they are so awful to us. We’re not here for them, though. We’re here for
us.

Go, team!

Or whatever.

Even though our boys have nicer uniforms and our school is bigger and our coach probably makes more money than the other team’s, we lose. I think it was the cowbells and the horns and the constant foot stomping. It is hard to perform under such negative circumstances. It was Jacob who nearly saved the day. Not Ben, the usual hero. Jacob was “on fire” tonight, according to the coach. And I suppose he was pretty good. Sometimes, people transform when they are doing what they love. On the court, Jacob is grace. He weaves through the players, the ball an extension of his body that he releases, but that comes back to him, like they are meant to be together. Jacob
Richarde
may be a dick, but when he is playing basketball, I will admit, he is beautiful. Even the other team cheered for him when he made an impossible shot in the last quarter. But it was Sammy who led us in a cheer just for him. Who seemed to forget the not-beautiful off-the-court Jacob and hugged his sweaty body after the game when the boys walked over to the stands, defeated.

No one is in a good mood as we find our way to the bus through the cold, dark parking lot. I find a different seat and hope I will get lucky and no one will sit with me. Rides home in the dark are for hooking up. And that is not for me.

The bus is dark. I just want to lean my head against the cold glass window despite the dirty handprint smudges I know are there. Out of sight but not really out of my mind. How I would like to be.

But just as the bus begins to heave itself forward, someone slides in next to me and presses tight against my side so that it is hard to breathe. The smell of his blue Trident gum gives him away. He doesn’t have his basketball. Or Sammy.

I scan the dark bus to try to find her, but I can’t see. I want to tell him he has the wrong seat. But he whispers, “Hey, Lacy,” and presses harder against me.

I close my eyes and press the side of my face against the glass. Maybe if I don’t talk to him, he will go away.

Hot fingers squeeze my leg. He has me pressed so tightly against the side of the bus that my arms are trapped at my sides. I tighten the muscles on my thigh. Shake it, to loosen his grasp. But he squeezes harder. I smell his blue Trident gum breath again. His face is so close I can hear the
snap-snap
of him chewing.

“Lacy, you are oddly hot,” he whispers. He pushes his nose into the nape of my neck and sniffs. “Yeah. You could be beautiful if you dropped a few pounds.”

Here is when I am supposed to scream.

Here is when I am supposed to push back.

But I am trapped silent and still, and I don’t know why.

I wiggle one hand free and try to push him away. But he is strong and his fingers slide under my skirt. One finger wedges between my squeezed-together thighs. The nail scrapes my skin like a sharp-toothed worm. It pokes, pokes, and finds my panties.

I want to cry out. I want to scream. I want to kick and flail.

But I am so alone on this dark bus. Where everyone hooks up on the ride home. Even me.

Poke.

I choke and jerk my body to make him stop.

I dig my fingers into his arm, but they don’t claw him because I have bitten the nails to the nub.

Warm tears slip quietly down my cheeks.

“Lacy,” he whispers.

Poke.

I squirm again. Squeeze my legs tighter. Smell blue Trident. Feel like I am the one being chewed up now.

“C’mon, Lacy. You know you want it. I saw you watching me on the court.”

But that is a lie. The Jacob on the court is not this Jacob. And if I know anything, it is that I do not want
it.
I do not want his finger touching me. Hurting me. That is what I know.

And finally. Finally. I find my voice.

“STOP IT!”

The sound is a scream I never knew was inside me.

The bus goes quiet.

He pulls his hand back. Laughs awkwardly. I feel his anger next to me.

Dark silhouetted heads turn our way. Faceless without the light. Still, I can feel their anticipation. Something big just happened. Something they will be texting about later. And whisper-talking about at school.

What are Sammy and Grace thinking?

What is Ben?

What would Claire think if she was here? What would Stephen?

Would
anyone
stand up for me?

Silence. Waiting.

I feel it. I’m sure Jacob can too. It is the make-or-break moment for both of us. I cower in my seat and press myself back against it as hard as I can.

Jacob lifts his middle finger to the crowd and wiggles it.

“Who else wants it?” he asks.

In the dark, his finger looks like a black snake. Dirty. And sickening.

More tears stream down my cheeks. Catch on my jaw. Drip off into nothing. Or maybe onto him.

The person in the seat in front of us leans closer toward us. It’s Sammy.

She looks at the finger. Then at me.

Her mouth drops open. Anger. There is anger. The shadows on her face are sharp. Her features even more pointed.

“What the hell?” she asks.

But I don’t know if she’s talking to me or him.

I am trapped. Trapped again. My voice lost again at the shock of what just happened. At what a person is capable of. And what I am not.

Shame travels through me. Hot. Dark. Like poison.

I sink into the seat and cross my legs. I don’t care about the cottage cheese. It’s too dark to see anyway. I pull my skirt over my scratched and stinging thighs. The fabric, so soft, feels grossly comforting.

Jacob moves away from me. Gets up and slides in next to Sammy.

“Don’t even think about it,” she says.

But he just laughs. A bunch of boys whistle.

Where is Ben?

Where is my brother, who is supposed to stand up for me?

But I know. He’s pretending as usual. That he’s not my brother. That he’s just a dumb jock. That he’s in love with Grace and not . . .

Stephen.

Stephen was right. I should never have listened to the Girls. I should never have become a cheerleader.

Jacob’s head moves closer to Sammy’s. Now he is smelling the nape of
her
neck.

She whispers, “Stop it. Stop it.”

And he slithers away into the dark.

I throw up in my mouth.