at cheer camp when everyone thought we were busting up. Because this has nothing to do with that girly nonsense.
“I tell you, Adelaide, I know her kind.”
Climbing over the back of the sofa, Beth swings her bare legs, nestling into me, and I’m listening but not listening because I don’t like that hitch in her voice.
“She better enjoy it while she can,” she rumbles, burrowing her head into the pillow I’ve tucked under my arm, burrowing her head into me, like always. “Because in a few years she’ll probably pop out another kid and her hips’ll spread like rising dough and before she knows it, she’ll be coaching field hockey instead.”
Twisting her fingers in my hair, she tunnels into me and the pillow behind me, hiding herself.
“Who will want her then?” she asks.
Then answers.
“None of us.”
9
There is a golden period, a week, two, when Beth seems to have settled herself, when all our days are brimful with cheer, when everything seems, for a moment, like it will be golden-grooved forever.
Homecoming Week is starry and sublime.
For much of the school year, the rest of the student body views us as something like lacquered lollipops, tiara-ed princesses, spirit whores, chiclet-toothed bronze bitches. Aloof goddesses unwilling to mingle with the masses.
But we never care because we know what we are.
And at Homecoming, we are given full rein.
At the pep rally, they see our swagger, our balls, our badassery. They get to see what we can do, how our bodies are not paper dolls and how our tans are armor.
How we defy everything, including the remorseless sugar maple floor planks nailed a half century ago, ten feet below, our bodies tilting, curving, arcing, whipping through the air, fearless.
Homecoming Week, even those who dislike us the most—the painted Goths, the skater rats, the third-sex drama freaks—gaze with embarrassed wonder as we spring into our hanging pyramid on the open quad at lunch, our bodies like great iron spokes on a massive wonder wheel.
And at the game, as we catapult Tacy to the heavens—the woozy screech from the stands as they seem to believe that we have flung her to her death—it inspires shock and awe.
I’m the one, strutted high on Mindy’s and Cori’s shoulders, who kicks off the pep rally, waving a long pole looped with streamers, Tacy running alongside with Custodial Services’ pilfered leaf blower, blowing against the streamers, which unfurl like so many roman candles.
The bonfire is the highest we’ve ever had, our torches whirling, all the circles of light, a foam-toothed Rattlers’ mascot going up in flames, swinging high above the cindery tips and all of us screaming to voicelessness, our faces hot and exploding.
Dropping our torches, we run across the dark field, Coach’s voice calling out, Toe Touch, Lock Arms, Spread Eagle…
And there she is, ringside, watching us, eyes darting and everything about her glowing.
I remember, age twelve, watching this. From up high in the bleachers, watching the high school squad in front of the wild inferno, flames vaulting, their silhouettes doing mad jumps, leaps, death defiance. One girl picking up her fallen baton rolling across sparking grass and knowing now, knowing having held that baton, that it is searing but she smiles and dances and leaps higher than anyone else.
And twelve-year-old Beth beside me, saying:
“Look at that, look at that,” her voice when it was still filled with wonder.
But, after Homecoming, returning from our glory paths, something has shifted.
In Coach’s eyes there is something burning moodily. We all notice, and speculate. We try to chalk it up to post-Homecoming comedown, but we do nothing with it.
But two days that week, Coach cancels practice. We think it must be an adult thing in which we have no interest. Mortgage payments, a broken dishwasher, a flood in the basement.
Still, everyone wonders: What could go wrong in Coach’s lovely life, with her nice home
“I tell you, Adelaide, I know her kind.”
Climbing over the back of the sofa, Beth swings her bare legs, nestling into me, and I’m listening but not listening because I don’t like that hitch in her voice.
“She better enjoy it while she can,” she rumbles, burrowing her head into the pillow I’ve tucked under my arm, burrowing her head into me, like always. “Because in a few years she’ll probably pop out another kid and her hips’ll spread like rising dough and before she knows it, she’ll be coaching field hockey instead.”
Twisting her fingers in my hair, she tunnels into me and the pillow behind me, hiding herself.
“Who will want her then?” she asks.
Then answers.
“None of us.”
9
There is a golden period, a week, two, when Beth seems to have settled herself, when all our days are brimful with cheer, when everything seems, for a moment, like it will be golden-grooved forever.
Homecoming Week is starry and sublime.
For much of the school year, the rest of the student body views us as something like lacquered lollipops, tiara-ed princesses, spirit whores, chiclet-toothed bronze bitches. Aloof goddesses unwilling to mingle with the masses.
But we never care because we know what we are.
And at Homecoming, we are given full rein.
At the pep rally, they see our swagger, our balls, our badassery. They get to see what we can do, how our bodies are not paper dolls and how our tans are armor.
How we defy everything, including the remorseless sugar maple floor planks nailed a half century ago, ten feet below, our bodies tilting, curving, arcing, whipping through the air, fearless.
Homecoming Week, even those who dislike us the most—the painted Goths, the skater rats, the third-sex drama freaks—gaze with embarrassed wonder as we spring into our hanging pyramid on the open quad at lunch, our bodies like great iron spokes on a massive wonder wheel.
And at the game, as we catapult Tacy to the heavens—the woozy screech from the stands as they seem to believe that we have flung her to her death—it inspires shock and awe.
I’m the one, strutted high on Mindy’s and Cori’s shoulders, who kicks off the pep rally, waving a long pole looped with streamers, Tacy running alongside with Custodial Services’ pilfered leaf blower, blowing against the streamers, which unfurl like so many roman candles.
The bonfire is the highest we’ve ever had, our torches whirling, all the circles of light, a foam-toothed Rattlers’ mascot going up in flames, swinging high above the cindery tips and all of us screaming to voicelessness, our faces hot and exploding.
Dropping our torches, we run across the dark field, Coach’s voice calling out, Toe Touch, Lock Arms, Spread Eagle…
And there she is, ringside, watching us, eyes darting and everything about her glowing.
I remember, age twelve, watching this. From up high in the bleachers, watching the high school squad in front of the wild inferno, flames vaulting, their silhouettes doing mad jumps, leaps, death defiance. One girl picking up her fallen baton rolling across sparking grass and knowing now, knowing having held that baton, that it is searing but she smiles and dances and leaps higher than anyone else.
And twelve-year-old Beth beside me, saying:
“Look at that, look at that,” her voice when it was still filled with wonder.
But, after Homecoming, returning from our glory paths, something has shifted.
In Coach’s eyes there is something burning moodily. We all notice, and speculate. We try to chalk it up to post-Homecoming comedown, but we do nothing with it.
But two days that week, Coach cancels practice. We think it must be an adult thing in which we have no interest. Mortgage payments, a broken dishwasher, a flood in the basement.
Still, everyone wonders: What could go wrong in Coach’s lovely life, with her nice home
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