The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading (19 page)

“That’s not one of the five Ws, newspaper boy,” I said, and grinned at Jack.

“No, seriously.” Todd pressed his fingertips against his temples. “I’m about to be brilliant.”

Oh
,
God, no.
Todd’s last “brilliant” newspaper idea was my Life at Prairie Stone column. I braced myself for the worst.

“You.” He pointed his blue pencil at Jack. “How would you like to be sports editor?”

Sports editor? Was he kidding?

“Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?” Todd asked. “A new perspective. Sports from the inside out.”

I had to admit it wasn’t such a bad idea. Still. “It’s hard to report on a game when you’re in the middle of it,” I pointed out.

“She’s right, bro,” said Jack.

“A guest column, then, like Bethany does.” Todd stood and stepped around the desk, tucking his pencil behind his ear. “We could call it, As the Ball Bounces. Or wait! The Thinking Man’s Jock.”

Jack looked appalled, although whether it was from the title suggestions or the notion that he’d actually have to write something, I couldn’t tell.

“Just imagine it.” Todd sat on the desk across from Jack. “Recruiters see something like that in your file, along with everything else? You’ll be golden.”

“I can help,” I offered. “And we don’t have to call it the Thinking Man’s Jock.” Really, we should call it anything but that.

“Can it wait until after the game on Friday?” Jack asked.

“Of course.” Todd spread his hands wide, the picture of the easygoing, kindhearted editor.

Ha. I knew better.

“So, Reynolds.” Todd swung on me. “Your column?”

What? Like it had magically written itself while we’d been talking? “Actually—”

“Actually…” Jack stood, then started gathering my notes, pencils, and recorder. “I need Bethany’s help.” He pulled
Pride and Prejudice
from its home in the pocket of his letter jacket. “Too many big words. But I’ll make sure she finishes her column. I promise.”

“Go. Go.” Todd waved us from the room. “Why you can’t be a normal couple and simply disgust everyone with PDA is beyond me.”

By “everyone” he meant himself, of course. But I figured we should leave before hearing his lecture on public displays of affection. We were silent until we reached the hall. Then I let out a long breath.

“Thank you,” I said.

Jack grinned. “Not a problem. It looked like you wanted to escape.”

I sighed. “I’ll do the column tonight.” Assuming I could find the words to write. Suddenly I felt like I’d used them all up by talking—words wasted on Rick, words shouted at cheerleading practice; I didn’t have any left in reserve.

“Was he serious about…?” Jack asked.

I nodded. “He gets crazy ideas, but he generally means all of them. And this one isn’t too terrible.”

Jack gave me a wary look. “And were you serious? About helping?”

I stopped and planted myself right in front of him. “You have to ask?”

“No.” He leaned close, let the backpack slip from his arm. It hit the floor with a clump of books and the whisper of canvas. “But I wanted to.” Then he kissed me.

I came up for air and caught a blur of movement at the other end of the hall by the yearbook office. A flash of teal and lemon, with footwear to match, and the unmistakable flip of magazine-worthy long, blond hair. My eyes focused just as Chantal turned on the corked heel of her patent leather pumps and stomped around the corner. Then Jack reeled me in for another long kiss.

Serious PDA,
I thought.
Todd should see us now.

The second half of Friday’s game had just started, and already I knew. Jack was playing his worst game ever, and it wasn’t going to get any better. Coach Miller called a time out and herded the boys into a circle.

No one on the cheerleading squad—not even Cassidy—saw the point of rushing midcourt for a pyramid, or even the “fun” of tossing Moni in the air. Instead we stood at the sidelines waiting for the game to resume, waiting for the final, pathetic verdict.

“God, what’s wrong with him?” Moni whispered. “Is he sick or something?”

“I don’t know.” I scanned the crowd, then looked at Jack for the billionth time that night. During the first quarter, I’d given up trying to figure out which fan was the mysterious recruiter. It looked like the usual Prairie Stone crowd—some dads in ties, some in John Deere caps, some of them in both.

“Coach Miller might even bench him,” said Moni.

And then, as if Moni had telepathed the suggestion, Coach Miller did just that. He replaced Jack with Ryan Nelson, who had racked up less court time in four years than Jack had in one.

“We’re going to lose,” Moni predicted.

Jack sat on the bench and dropped his head into his hands. He didn’t slump his shoulders, though. They remained a straight, hard line. Somehow, that made me feel even worse.

“Do you want to sit?”

I jerked. The pom-poms slipped in my hands. I turned to see Cassidy at my side. I was being benched, again.
What did I do this time?
It took a minute for me to realize Cassidy was asking, not ordering. Together we looked at Jack. Sit out, in solidarity with him? If that would help, I would.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll cheer.” I’d been in the world of jocks long enough to know sitting out wouldn’t help, and that Jack wouldn’t want me to. Besides, it gave me something else to do, someone else to look at other than Jack. Every time I turned, though, every time I spun, or looked over my shoulder, Jack was still there, unmoving.

By the end of the fourth quarter, the Panthers were barely holding it together. At least we scored well enough that the loss wasn’t spectacularly embarrassing.

“From one sucky thing to the next,” Moni said, with a nod toward her dad and the infamous Monica. “She wants us to do ‘girl stuff ’ this weekend. So I was like, ‘
Cool
—I’ll bring the calculus.’”

In spite of everything, I laughed. “Don’t torture her too much.”

Moni rolled her eyes. “Call me.”

“Like I ever forget.”

I watched the three of them leave, Moni on one side of her dad and the tall, überstylish Monica on the other. No doubt about it, she wore great shoes. And no doubt about it, back in high school, Monica had been a gauntlet girl. Chantal Simmons all grown up and a potential stepmom? It was enough to give a geek girl the heebies.

The crowd around me thinned. With no dance tonight, everyone headed elsewhere. Earlier I’d overheard Cassidy whispering something about a party at Rick Mangers’s. I’d darted a look at Moni, but if she knew—or heard—she wasn’t saying. Jack hadn’t mentioned it either, not that I blamed him.

The line for the pay phone dwindled. Still no Jack.

It wasn’t like we’d made plans for after the game. Not exactly. I thought about calling my dad, but I wanted to do something to help Jack. How, I wasn’t sure. Stuff that cheered Moni up wouldn’t work on a boy. Not unless Jack had a secret thing for Orlando Bloom.

Three guys from the basketball team slunk out of the locker room. A minute later, a few more passed me. Then one more, and another. Not one of them looked my way. Ryan Nelson walked out alone. He veered toward me while still managing to avert his eyes.

“Paulson said to tell you that you’d better call your dad. He won’t be able to drive you home.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s…” Ryan glanced over his shoulder. “Busy.”

Sure he was. “Where?”

He shook his head. “He’s—”

“Please?” I begged.

He looked at me then and nodded toward the locker-room hallway—and the school’s back entrance.

“Thanks,” I said, and jogged down the hall.

“Hey,” Ryan called after me. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

I halted, my shoes squeaking. “Shouldn’t?”

“Just don’t say I didn’t warn you, okay?” He shrugged and turned for the doors.

Outside, lamplight cast a yellow haze on the asphalt. Teachers parked behind the school. Across the lot was the annex building, where students took woodworking, electronics, and auto mechanics. A single basketball net was attached to the building’s side.

The
whoosh
and
clunk
of slam dunks filled the air. I saw the blur of orange, heard the clink of the chain-link hoop. The cold air sneaked through my winter coat, froze my bare legs. My teeth were already chattering.

Jack wore only basketball pants and a Prairie Stone High Athletics sweatshirt—no jacket, no hat, no gloves. He chucked the ball through the metal hoop with relentless precision, never missing a shot. God, he was good—really good. Talent. Hard work. He had it all. What had happened tonight?

“Jack?”

“Go home.” He dribbled the ball and lunged for the hoop, not looking at me once. “Call your dad.”

“I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”

He swore. “What would you like me to say?” At least he stopped moving. He tucked the ball under one arm and approached me. When he got close, I could see the grim expression in his eyes.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” I said.

“Not as sorry as I am.”

My mind searched for something to reassure him. “Maybe it was just a rumor about the recruiter.” A rumor. That was good, and possibly true. “Does anyone know if he was really here?”

“Doesn’t matter if he wasn’t. I
thought
he was.” He started to spin the ball on his index finger, then stopped. “When it really counted, I choked. No one wants a player who can’t handle pressure.”

“You had one bad game. It happens. Everyone, even a recruiter, knows that. They’ll look at your record—”

“What do you know about it? What do you know about
anything
?” He slammed the ball against the pavement and nabbed it on the rebound. “You got money for college?”

“I—”

“Yeah. Like your mom and your dad the professor, aren’t saving up.”

I sighed. My parents had been putting money away for college since I was little—that didn’t mean cost wasn’t a consideration. It wasn’t like I could pick any school I wanted. But, yeah, I could go. I knew it was different for Jack.

“There’ll be other games,” I said. “Other recruiters. What about Prairie Stone State? I bet—”

“Podunk State? No one gives a shit about Division II schools.”

Podunk State. Nice. “Uh, my dad might. They have a decent team, and it’s a good school.”

“Would you go there?”

“I’ll apply.”

“Not the same thing.”

It was true. Prairie Stone State was my backup school, my
extreme
backup school. I didn’t expect to end up there.

“Thing is,” Jack said, “this was it—my one chance.”

“You get more than one—”

“Who says? I’m not like you. Okay? I know I’m not smart. This…” He cupped the ball between both hands and shook it at me. “It’s my only shot, and I blew it.”

He threw the ball, and it smacked against the metal wall of the annex and bounced a few times before winding its way back to us. Jack picked it up and rolled it from hand to hand. “Remember that party last summer?” he asked. “You know, the one where…”

He didn’t have to elaborate. When I thought about it, I used the same phrase.
That party.
I nodded, but then I said, “I don’t understand what that has to do with this—”

“I saw Dina the other day,” he said.

I still didn’t understand, but I waited, quietly, in the cold. Whatever Jack had to say, it was serious.

The basketball flew across the court, and Jack followed. It was as though he and the ball were one, working together to make the basket. The chain links jingled, and his sneakers pounded the asphalt. “I don’t have to think to do that,” he said.

In two steps he crossed to me. He wound a hand around the back of my head and pushed his mouth hard against mine. It was a kiss full of desperation, full of regret. He let go so suddenly that I stumbled backward.

“I don’t have to think to do that, either,” he said. “But Dina. Dina has to think just to walk across the room.” He looked right at me, but I doubted he saw me. “I was supposed to be in the car that night.”

The cold that threatened me before took hold. My whole body shook. Fringe rattled. I let the pom-poms drop to the ground and hugged myself, tight.

“The brakes on the Toyota were acting up,” Jack went on, “and Dina offered me a ride home. Of course, Traci and Chantal came along with the deal.” He shook his head. “Earlier that day, my dad got a delivery of”—his eyes searched the sky—“junk. For free. He was so damn proud of it too. But there it was, all this…shit…spread across our front lawn.”

Soft clouds of breath came out with his words. Tiny snowflakes speckled the air around us. It was strange how a moment could be both beautiful and heartbreaking.

“You know how those girls are, especially when they’re together,” he said, giving me a significant look.
Oh, yeah. I knew
. I waited for him to continue.

“If it was just me,” he said, “I wouldn’t have really cared. But I didn’t want them making fun of my dad, even if I wasn’t there to hear it. So I walked home.”

Pride again,
I thought, and I longed to say something, anything.

“I saw the accident, or what was left of it. Dina’s Lexus in the ravine, the tow truck, a few cop cars, the ambulance pulling away. It made me…” He paused, rolling the basketball between his palms again. “It made me think about things, you know? Like, I could do something with my life, or I could just keep going on, letting it all slip by.”

He dribbled the ball. It thumped against the ground, then spun from his hands and crashed against the wall of the annex again. “And there it went. Tonight?
That
was my second chance.” He looked at me like he’d just noticed I was still there. “You don’t need a guy like that, a guy who’s going to peak in high school.”

“I don’t know—,” I started to say.

“Of course you do. Mangers is right. A girl like you and a guy like me? What a joke.”