A Non-Blonde Cheerleader in Love (6 page)

4

“I can’t believe how nervous I am,” Daniel said as we waited along the gym wall for Coach Holmes to come in and read off the names of the new squad members. He clasped my hand so hard, I swear I heard a couple of bones crack. “I think I’m more nervous now than I was before the tryout.”

Wow. So he really did want it. I pulled my hand away and shook it out.

“Ohh. Sorry,” he said, biting his lip.

“I’m fine,” I told him. “And you made it. I know you did.”

“Yeah?” He looked at me as if I actually had some knowledge of the matter. Like my word meant anything. So I’d seen two teacher types smile at each other. So what? Maybe they were sharing a personal joke. Maybe they’d both just eaten really good burritos after school. Maybe they were having an affair. What the heck did I know?

“Yeah,” I told him firmly. And hoped I was right.

Daniel looked over his shoulder at Joe, who was lounging back against the wall behind him, staring into space. Now that I’d seen him in a tightish T-shirt, I realized that what I originally perceived as heaviness was actually just serious muscle. Joe was thick all around, but solid thick. Not jiggly thick. As he stood there with his hands behind his back, he flexed one bicep, then the other, then the other.

“You nervous, man?” Daniel asked.

The biceps lay still. Joe looked at Daniel out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t do nervous.”

Daniel blinked. “Somehow I believe that.”

The door squealed open and Coach strode in, clipboard in hand. All the air was sucked right out of the room as everyone held their breath. Daniel gave me a quick, shaky kiss, then hit the floor where the rest of the hopefuls had gathered while I stayed by the wall with the squad. Joe casually pushed himself away and took a seat too. Chandra and I exchanged a hopeful glance, though what
she
was hoping for I had no idea. I just wanted Daniel to make it. I knew I probably should have cared that high-quality girls and guys would make the squad, but let’s be honest. I wanted my man on the team. So sue me!

“Okay, everyone. The judges have made their decisions,” Coach said, standing in front of the crowd with her clipboard raised. My heart beat an insane rhythm. Was Daniel’s name somewhere on that clipboard? “It wasn’t easy, but we’ve decided to take four guys this season.”

Daniel and I looked at each other. Four out of eight. A fifty-fifty chance. I looked at each guy in the room, gauging who might have scored higher than Daniel. Charlie Novak? Not possible. He’d messed up the words and cursed in front of the judges. Jonah Trian? Not too sure. His arms had been kind of rubbery, but he was loud and had a lot of energy . . .

Oh, God. I just didn’t know.

“But first,” Coach said, “our new female members are . . . Shira Citron, Wendy Stewart and Ally Stevenson.”

I smiled as the girls shouted and hugged happily. They were all juniors who had tried out with me and Mindy back in the fall. All of them were good then and all of them had improved this time around.

“Our two alternates are Veronica Hayes and Chastity Waldman.”

“Yes,”
Sage said under her breath. Veronica and Chastity were two of her good friends. Two minions of the devil, in other words. They didn’t even have the decency to look happy. I guess alternate wasn’t good enough for them.

“Our four new male members are . . .”

I crossed my fingers behind my back. I tried to cross my toes, but they were too tightly bound into my sneakers. I would’ve crossed my eyes if part of me wasn’t still afraid they would stay that way, as my mother had warned me two hundred thousand times that they would.

Daniel, Daniel, Daniel,
I thought.
Daniel, Daniel, Daniel.

“Joseph Trung, Steven Schwinn—”

“Yay!”
Jaimee cried quietly. She and Steven had been friends since they were in Pampers. And I was happy for her and Steven. I was. But at the same time, my heart felt acidic. Only two spots left.

“Terrell Truluck—”

“Dammit,”
Tara said through her teeth.

I was actually surprised. Terrell had a great tryout, sure, but I had thought that Coach would keep him off the squad just because of the potential discipline problem. He was, at that very moment, doing a seated cabbage patch and making everyone around him either laugh or squirm.

“And finally,“ Coach said.

Come on!
I thought.
Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. Daniel, Daniel, Daniel . . .

“Daniel Healy.”

“Yes!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. After a stunned silence, everyone laughed. Oops. Guess that was a little bit over-the-top. I turned fire-engine red, but couldn’t stop smiling anyway. Who cared? Daniel had made the squad! He was a cheerleader. We were a cheer couple!

Okay. I had to stop now before I seriously started grossing myself out.

“The rest of you, thank you so much for your hard work,” Coach Holmes said. “We hope to see you again next time. Will the new squad please stay for a brief meeting?”

Daniel slapped hands with Terrell as they stood, then turned around and allowed me to basically fling myself at him. I hugged him so hard, I knocked my own breath out of me.

“You did it!” I said. “You’re a cheerleader!”

“Yeah I am!” Daniel shouted. He placed me on the floor and we grinned goofily at each other. “This is gonna be so cool.”

“I know!” Already I was imagining long bus rides cuddled together in the backseat, paint fights during banner-making sessions, coming down from a basket toss and falling into Daniel’s arms. Much more attractive than falling into Chandra’s, I must say. I mean, I liked the girl, but come on. “So very, very cool.”

 
“One plate of chili cheese fries for the bravest guys on the planet,” I announced. The moment I dropped the heaping plateful of greasy food onto the table, Daniel and Steven dove right into the mound-o’-carbs as if it were their last meal. Jaimee leaned back into her vinyl seat like she was in mortal peril should she get any chili on her person.

“Take it easy,” she said, scrunching her nose.

“Don’t worry. Guys have stomachs of steel,” Steven said, sucking on his Coke.

After our meeting with Coach Holmes, the entire squad had adjourned to Dolly’s—a semi-outdoor beachfront diner that was SDH’s primary hangout—and had basically taken over the place. Squad members lounged all over, taking up various booths and tables. In the corner Terrell and Joe shouted and laughed over the ancient pinball machine while Karianna, Lindsey and Sage and her minions, Veronica and Chastity, hovered nearby, cheering the boys on. Colorful Christmas lights were strung all around the place and a fiber-optic tree blinked red, then green, then red again above the cash register. Dolly herself stood behind the counter, Santa hat set at a jaunty angle on her head, watching one of the many Rudolph specials on her tiny TV.

Daniel slid over on the cracked plastic seat so that I could join them. A cool breeze blew through the open wall and I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. Whenever the sun went down, it felt
slightly
more like Christmastime around here. Of course, the crashing surf in the background was a constant reminder that my imaginary Toto and I weren’t in Jersey anymore.

“Hey, you cold?” Daniel asked, slipping out of his varsity jacket. I smiled gratefully as he draped it over my shoulders.

“Thanks,” I said, beaming.

I loved wearing his jacket. Sometimes I was just
such
a girl.

As I pulled it closer to me, I noticed that while the little winged sneaker was still in place on the sleeve—representing Daniel’s spot on the track team—he’d had the wrestling patch removed. Technically, this was Daniel’s football jacket—it had a football and his number on the back—but multisports athletes usually had these patches representing their various talents added to the sleeves.

I, for example, was hoping that come spring, my cheerleading jacket would have a tennis racket sewn onto the sleeve. If I made the team.

“Hey. Maybe you should get a megaphone and put it here,” I teased, touching the spot where the wrestler had been. There were still tiny holes in the leather from where the thread had been yanked out.

Daniel laughed. “Yeah. Maybe,” he said sarcastically.

I blinked. Okay, maybe I had been semi-joking, but I felt a rush of hot irritation at his tone. Did he have to dismiss the idea so completely? And so snarkily?

“What?” I said. “You
are
a cheerleader.”

Daniel reddened slightly and took a long sip from his straw. I glanced at Jaimee. Why did Daniel suddenly look ill?

“Yeah, but it might not be the wisest thing to, you know,
advertise
it,” Steven put in.

“That’s all I’m saying,” Daniel added.

“Way to have squad pride,” I said grumpily, grabbing a fry.

“No! It’s not like that,” Daniel said. “It’s like if you . . . I don’t know . . . what if you tried out for the wrestling team? Would you walk around advertising that you were a girl wrestler?”

“Yeah! I would!” Jaimee and I said in unison.

“I would be proud of myself for breaking down barriers,” I said resolutely.

“Okay, well, I
am
proud of myself,” Daniel said, munching on a fry. “I just . . . don’t feel the need to shove my pride in everyone’s faces.”

My brow creased in consternation. I was definitely missing something here. I mean, I knew he was going to have a hard time with some of the guys thanks to his cheerleader status, but why participate in a sport if you were then going to try to hide the fact that you were on the team? I mean, he couldn’t pretend that he
wasn’t
a cheerleader any more than I could pretend I wasn’t a brunette.

“I don’t under—”

“Yo! Healy! Get your butt over here!” Terrell shouted from the corner. “I just beat your high score!”

“You did not, you loser!” Daniel shouted back. “Excuse me. I gotta go over there,” he told us.

As I slid out of the booth to let him out, I could tell he was relieved to be out of the conversation. Personally, I would have rather gotten to the bottom of that one. But I supposed it could wait for another time.

“Sit down, Annisa. Relax,” Steven said, draping both arms along the back of his seat. “It’s supposed to be a party.”

“Yeah. I know,” I said. “So are you psyched for your first practice?” I asked with a mischievous smile.

“Beyond,” Steven replied. “I can’t wait to start throwing you ladies around.”

“Me neither,” I replied, sliding back into my seat. “It’s gonna be so cool having that extra power on the team.”

“You know it,” Steven said, flexing his arms.

I laughed and was just about to snag another fry when Tara Timothy dropped down next to me.

“So. This sucks,” she said.

So much for the relaxing thing.

“What?” Jaimee asked.

Tara glared at Steven, who was still flexing.

“And that’s my cue,” Steven said, dropping his arms and grabbing one last fry as he jumped up.

“What’s the matter?” I asked Tara. “We have a great new squad, everyone’s having fun. Get on board the happy train already.”

“Yeah. You see a great new squad. I see disaster waiting to happen.”

“You know, you are way too negative to be a cheerleader,” I said.

Phoebe slid into the seat across from Tara and blew out a sigh. “No, she’s right,” she said. “Check this out.” She lifted her chin toward the corner and Tara and I turned around to look.

Joe and Lindsey were standing by the wall near the pinball machine and Lindsey was clearly flirting—touching Joe’s arm, looking up at him with wide eyes, flipping her long blonde hair. His expression was, as usual, impassive, but she just kept right on working it, testing out her best material. Then Karianna came over, hips swaying, and handed Joe a strawberry shake. She slipped right in between him and Lindsey, totally commandeering his attention. And by that I mean he actually looked at her. Lindsey leaned back against the wall in a huff and shot a look of death at Karianna’s back. Meanwhile, over by the pinball machine, Veronica and Kimberly were gazing at Terrell like he was the second coming of Taye Diggs.