The Giving Quilt (20 page)

That was a relief, sort of.

The following afternoon, the auxiliary gym buzzed with excitement and fear. A few spectators lined the walls, a pale shadow of the crowds that would come to watch the performances the next day. A photographer and a reporter from the
Tartan Times
circulated through the room as the candidates warmed up and staked out territory on the gym floor with the best view of the place where the senior cheerleaders would stand. Michaela and Emma found each other in the group but were too nervous to speak.

And then the senior cheerleaders took their places, wished them all good luck, and began to teach the dance.

At first Michaela felt pleasantly surprised, even confident. The dance wasn't too complicated and it was set to one of her favorite songs. By the fourth repetition of the second set of eight-counts, however, she was silently cursing the coach for forbidding them to use video cameras. The senior cheerleaders moved along quickly, and by the time Michaela memorized the new movements, the old ones were beginning to fade. Then inspiration struck. When they were granted a five-minute water break, Michaela wiped the sweat from her forehead and spoke directly into Emma's ear.

“Which part do you know better, the first half or the second?”

“The first.”

“Then concentrate on memorizing every bit of it,” Michaela said. “I'll learn the second half.”

A small smile broke through the exhaustion on Emma's face, and she nodded. When the seniors resumed their places, Michaela allowed the first half of the dance to slip away and focused on the second. She made up names for the moves and repeated them to herself like a mantra: “Arms up high, kick and turn, punch punch, left and down.”

Three hours later the coach asked if they had any questions. Not a soul in the room was without one as far as Michaela could tell, but they were too tired to speak and too busy pretending they had memorized the dance more than an hour ago and were just waiting around for their slower friends. The coach warned them to be on time the following evening, led them in a round of applause to thank the senior cheerleaders, and sent them home. “Get a good night's sleep,” she advised. Everyone nodded, knowing they had little choice but to ignore her advice.

In pairs and in small groups, the candidates raced off to practice. Michaela and Emma threw on their coats and boots and hurried to Michaela's dorm, where they grabbed a few bottles of water from a vending machine and claimed a vacant study room in the basement. They rehearsed their halves of the dance separately to be sure they remembered, then each taught her half to the other. They practiced until they were too weary to stand, then rested and hydrated, then practiced until they loathed that favorite song and vowed that for the rest of their lives they would change the station whenever that song—no, whenever
any
song by that group came on, ever.

It was very early Saturday morning when Emma headed home to her own dorm across campus. Michaela dragged herself to the shower and off to bed.

She slept in the next morning. When the time came, she put on sweatpants and a sweatshirt and packed her tryout clothes in a gym bag. She changed in the locker room along with several other tense candidates, all ignoring one another as if they were strangers and hadn't spent most of the semester preparing for this day together.

Michaela had chosen her outfit carefully, striking an appropriate balance between dressy and athletic. She put on carefully pressed black shorts, a red polo shirt with collar and cuffs in Crusader Tartan, and white athletic shoes, purchased especially for the occasion. Her makeup was light and natural, and a barrette covered with a bow, also in Crusader Tartan, held her hair away from her face. She tried a practice jump in front of the mirror and watched her blond curls bounce and fall lightly about her shoulders. Perfect.

She signed in at the registration desk in the auxiliary gym, stepped on the scale and waited while the coach recorded her weight on a form, and picked up her number, which she fastened to the left front of her shorts with a safety pin. Emma joined her on the mats, where they warmed up and stretched. All around them, other candidates practiced tumbling runs, stunts, and the Hell Dance. Michaela closed her eyes, stretched, and ran through the dance in her mind.

Then it was time to begin.

The senior cheerleaders led them into the main gymnasium. The bleachers on one side of the gym were nearly full, and when the candidates appeared, the crowd burst into applause. The coach and a few other men and women sat at a long table on the gym floor with their backs to the crowd. The senior cheerleaders directed the candidates to the bleachers on the opposite side. Michaela and Emma chose seats together.

The coach rose and picked up a microphone. When the crowd quieted, she welcomed them to the tryouts and introduced the panel of judges. In addition to the coach, the candidates would be evaluated by the associate director of the athletic department, the director of residence life, the assistant director of public relations, and the president of the associated student government.

A quick jolt of dread shot through Michaela. The last four knew nothing about the sport of cheerleading, and she didn't have enough time to slip them the personal narrative that had enlightened her English professor.

She had no time to dwell on it, for the coach called the first three women and the first three men to the floor to perform the Crusader Cheer. Emma was number three. Michaela gave her hand a quick squeeze as she left to take her place on the floor. Her movements could have been sharper, but she remembered the cheer perfectly. When she finished, Michaela applauded wildly and shouted, “Great job, number three!” The judges might register the praise, if only subliminally.

Michaela was number eight, so one more group went before she was called down. She smiled as if she had never been more delighted in her life as she performed the cheer. In her peripheral vision, she noticed that one candidate was a movement behind the rest of the group. It would make them all seem out of sync even if no one else made a single error.

Other groups followed. Several were comprised of all women since fewer men were trying out.

Stunts followed the Crusader Cheer. They had been taught eight partner stunts, but it was only now that the coach announced which two they would need to perform for the tryout: the Chair and the Angel.

A murmur of anxiety went up from the candidates, as well as from those in the audience who knew what the announcement meant. The Chair was not easy, but most candidates could manage it with at least some degree of success. The Angel was less dangerous but more difficult. The female candidate would take a running start of a few steps toward the guy, who would place his hands on her hips and lift her—head up, legs together and toes pointed, arms outstretched—over his head. If the timing was not perfect, she would get only a few feet off the ground before she crashed into him. The Angel was performed either correctly or not at all.

Since there were more women than men, each man would perform the stunts three or more times, growing more fatigued with each turn. Michaela was thankful that she had heeded the coach's warning to arrive early and had received a low number.

As the first stunt pair was called to the floor, the female candidates tried to figure out who they were paired with. The men's numbers began with fifty-one, which meant that Michaela's partner would be number fifty-eight. She found him and sent up a quick prayer of gratitude. Her partner was a sophomore who had played football in high school. He could easily lift her even if he bungled the timing, as long as Michaela did her part correctly. Besides, they were permitted another attempt if they failed the first time, and they would surely be able to correct any minor errors on the second try.

Then Emma let out a low moan and nodded in the direction of number fifty-three, a junior whom Michaela suspected she herself could best in arm wrestling. He meant well, but he had no upper-body strength to speak of, and he was a good three inches shorter than Emma.

“It's okay,” Michaela quickly assured her in a whisper. “The stunt works because of technique, not strength.”

Emma nodded, but she looked faint as her number was called. Michaela watched and hoped. The Chair went fine; Fifty-three took a few staggering steps to keep his balance, but Emma held her position and her smile perfectly. The Angel was a disaster. Fifty-three was late on both attempts and although Emma jumped as high as she could, he couldn't straighten his arms. Michaela's heart went out to her as she smiled bravely and left the floor.

When it was Michaela's turn, Fifty-eight waited for her at the bottom of the bleachers so they could take the mat together. “Thank God it's you,” he murmured, his relief obvious.

“I get that all the time,” she whispered back, smiling.

The tricks went perfectly, as if they had practiced together for years. There was only one slight wobble on the Chair, which her partner immediately corrected. The Angel was so stable that Michaela thought he could hold her up there for an hour. He did hold it longer than was required, just to prove that he could. When they left the floor, he hugged her.

Number Fifty-three had a second chance with a different partner, as all the men did. This time he was paired with a junior from that year's squad who was even smaller than Michaela, and this time he managed to pull off both stunts. Emma applauded along with everyone else and kept her face expressionless, although Michaela knew she was aware that his success the second time around made his earlier failure seem more Emma's fault than his own.

The tumbling runs came next. With each new category the crowd grew more excited and the candidates more determined as they tried to figure out how to compensate for earlier mistakes and tiring muscles. Tumbling was performed alone. The first candidate did a flawless round-off back handspring. The second attempted a back handspring with a spotter but settled for a back walkover. Then it was Emma's turn. She went to the mat, stood for a moment with her arms held in front of her, then sat back in her heels and did a perfect back handspring and then, without pausing, another.

Michaela sprang to her feet with a cry of joy that rang out over the applause. Emma returned to the bleachers, excited and happy. “I had to do something to make up for that Angel,” she said. Michaela agreed that it was a smart decision and silently prayed it would work.

When Michaela's turn came, the candidates fell quiet in an expectant hush. She went to the far corner of the gym, faced the corner diagonally opposite, inhaled deeply, and exhaled.

As she entered the round-off and went into her first back handspring, she heard Emma's shout: “One . . .”

And then her stunt partner joined in. “Two, three . . .”

And then everyone in the audience: “Four, five . . .” Together they counted twenty back handsprings, until Michaela reached the opposite corner and finished with a back tuck. The crowd erupted in cheers and applause.

“You're in,” Emma shouted when she returned to her seat. “No doubt.”

The tumbling runs that had the bad luck to follow hers could not compare, but when the last male candidate finished, Michaela wished there had been more.

It was time for the Hell Dance.

Candidates one through six took the floor, and the music began.

Michaela wondered how the judges could evaluate the dancers when only rarely did two or more of them perform the same moves at the same time. Emma stumbled occasionally, but no more than the others and far less than most, and she was clearly one of the better dancers. As they performed, Michaela went through the dance in her seat, keeping her motions so small as to be unnoticed by the audience. Soon she realized that everyone around her was doing the same thing; some even mouthed the words to the song.

Then it was her turn.

As number eight she was second from the end in line. A position closer to the center would have been better, but she wasn't allowed to choose. The opening bars of the music started, and for the briefest instant Michaela panicked as the entire dance evaporated from her thoughts. Frantic, she turned her head to look at Emma, but as she did she saw the girl on her right standing in a familiar pose. Memory flooded her, and she joined in. She was only two counts late, but it seemed an eternity.

She threw herself into the dance, forcing herself to enjoy it, kicking and leaping higher than she ever had, knowing that the judges were more likely to remember what happened at the end of the dance rather than its first few moments. Her body felt like it was on autopilot, moving to the music as if of its own volition with Michaela's brain a silent passenger along for the ride. Smile, kick, turn and shake. Repeat.

Gradually, through the haze, a thought came to her. She remembered the dance. She remembered every step.

Then the girl beside her spun left when she should have spun right and crashed into Number Ten. As a gasp of dismay went up from the crowd, Nine quickly jumped to her feet and tried to find her place in the dance while Ten sat on the floor clutching her knee and weeping in frustration and rage. Nine faltered and stopped dancing, then pressed her hands to her face and ran from the gym.

Smile, Michaela ordered herself. Arms up high, kick and turn, punch punch, left and down. One more minute and the dance would be through. One more minute. Thirty seconds. The last few bars.

It was over. Michaela held the last pose and plastered a smile on her face until the coach nodded for them to leave the floor. Michaela returned to the bleachers gratefully. She was done for the day.

After the last group completed their turn, the coach made a few announcements. Finalists' names would be posted in the athletic center concourse as soon as they were available, which would be no earlier than eight o'clock that evening. Beside their names, the finalists would find their interview times, and they should be waiting in the chair outside the coach's office at least five minutes early. Candidates would be judged on their original routines beginning tomorrow evening at seven, and then the final selections would be made.