A Non-Blonde Cheerleader in Love (11 page)

“On that death trap? I don’t think so,” my mother said. “Gabe, one of these days you’re really going to give me a heart attack, you know that, right?”

“Come on, Mama,” Gabe cajoled. “I’m totally responsible with it.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” my mom said. “It’s every other psychotic, drunken, doing-their-makeup-in-the-rearview-mirror driver on the road.”

“It’s fine, really,” Gabe said, clucking his tongue. “Why don’t you let me take you out for a ride and I’ll show you?”

“I’ll go!” I said, raising a hand.

“No, you will not,” my father said, jumping in. “
You
are over eighteen and we can’t tell you what to do with your own life, but you are under no circumstances to take your sister out on that thing, do you understand me?” he asked Gabe.

“Uh . . . sure,” Gabe said.

“Do
you
understand me?” my father asked me.

I nodded mutely. Even though it felt like just another one of the world’s double standards to me. It was okay for the boy child to ride the hog, but heaven forbid the girl child goes out on the thing.

“All right, well, I’m going back inside to change,” my mother said, turning around. “A mustache,” she muttered under her breath as she walked back to the house. “My baby grew a mustache.”

At the door she paused, quickly snatched my father’s cheesy Rudolph off the door and went inside.

“Dad, don’t be mad,” Gabe said. “I mean, look! It’s a Harley.”

“Contrary to popular belief, Gabriel, it is not every male’s fantasy to own one of these things,” my father said sternly. “And it’s especially not
my
fantasy to have my kids driving around on them. Now if you say you’re responsible with it, I’m sure you are, but that doesn’t mean that your mother and I aren’t going to worry every second you’re on it.”

Wow. Dad was really serious about this. Gabe and I looked at each other grimly.

“Okay, Dad,” Gabe said finally. “But I swear I’ll be careful.”

“Okay,” my father replied. “Annisa, why don’t you help your brother with his things? Then you can both come inside and help me finish the tree.”

With that my father turned and walked into the house. He never even hugged my brother hello or anything.

“Well. Merry freakin’ Christmas,” Gabe said.

“You know, you become a little bit more of a moron with every new personality you adopt,” I told him. “You’re going to need to quit soon or we’re going to have a
Flowers for Algernon
situation on our hands.”

Gabe narrowed his eyes. “Huh?”

I laughed. “You had to know Dad was going to hate this. He’s Mr. Training Wheels. Mr. Safety Goggles. Mr. What’s the Point of Roller Coasters. And you traded in the car he picked out for you without telling him? What were you thinking?”

“I got it. I got it,” Gabe said moodily.

“Well, at least
I’m
glad to see you,” I said, following him over to the bike.

The Harley
was
pretty sweet. Black and red and shiny all over. Too bad it was loud enough to spur disturbing-the-peace violations. Gabe opened up one of the side storage compartments and lifted out a black backpack. There was a Harley-Davidson patch sewn onto the back. Last time I saw him he’d been toting a silver-and-gray messenger bag. The time before that it was a yellow Billabong bag. Where he got the money for all this stuff, I had no idea. Maybe every time he adopted a new persona he sold all his old crap on eBay to finance all his new crap.

“You are?” he asked.

“Yeah. I need a guy’s opinion on something,” I said. “See, I was in the hallway with Daniel this morning and—”

“Ooh. Have a tiff with cheer boy?” he asked, walking around to the other compartment. Already I didn’t like Biker Gabe. He was a little too sarcastically belligerent for my tastes.

“Ha-ha,” I said. “But listen. His brother and these other guys were picking on him and he wouldn’t say anything, so I jumped in and—”

“No,” my brother said, slamming the compartment lid down. “No, you didn’t.”

“What?” I asked as my heart turned.

“Did you defend him? For being a cheerleader? To other guys?” he demanded. I had filled my brother in on the new squad last week on the phone. My face must have told all because Gabe dropped his head back. “Have I taught you nothing?”

I felt like my life was flashing before my eyes. Every older brother-younger sister chat we’d ever had—every piece of abstract advice he’d ever given me—played itself out in my head. I was pretty sure “defending cheerleader boyfriend’s honor” had never come up.

Gabe walked around his bike, backpack in one hand, laundry bag in the other. Oh, to be a guy and only have to carry two bags home for an entire month.

“Listen,
A
,” he said, loading a Tara Timothy’s worth of disdain into that one vowel. “The guy has already emasculated himself enough. He doesn’t need you making it worse.”

Then he shook his head, as if he was just
so
at a loss, and trudged by me up the walk. So there it was. All guys
were
the same. Even the ones who changed their entire personalities once a month.

One second after Gabe made it through the door, my mother yanked it open again, hung a beautiful fir wreath with a red bow on a silver door hook, then slammed it.

Let the merriment begin!

7

“All right, everyone! Good practice!” Coach Rincon said, slapping his hands together as he pushed himself up off the ground. He had just led us all in stretching, as he had after every practice he attended, and was now off to work out with the Florida State squad. Where he got the energy to be athletic pretty much every moment of the day, I had no idea. “Good luck tonight. I want a full report next time I see you.”

“Thanks, Coach,” Tara said, leading us in applause.

He lifted his hand in a wave before jogging off to chat with Coach Holmes over by the bleachers. Lindsey sighed audibly as we all watched him from behind.

“Think he has a girlfriend?” she asked.

“If he does, she is one lucky girl,” Sage put in.

“Maybe he has a
boy
friend. Ever think of that?” Terrell said grumpily.

“If he does, then he is one lucky guy,” Sage replied in the same dreamy tone.

Everyone laughed as Terrell grumbled. I had to hand it to Sage. Sometimes she was pretty quick. I stress
sometimes
.

I leaned back on my elbows as everyone started to hoist themselves and each other up off the ground. It was a particularly gorgeous day, so we had taken the practice out to the track, where we worked out most of football season. The sky was a bright blue and there was a cool breeze in the air that swished the palm trees lazily and kept the sweat at bay. The fresh air had worked wonders on everyone’s energy and we had, in fact, had one of our first solid practices of the season. The three new girls had even gotten the motions down on “Victory Now,” one of our toughest cheers. Good timing, considering our first game was that night. Thus, the “good luck” from Coach Rincon.

Daniel offered me his hand and hauled me up. “Feel like pizza?” he asked.

“Actually, I feel more like jelly,” I joked, shaking out my legs.

Daniel grinned. “Come on. Let’s go get my car and I’ll buy you a slice before the game.”

Sounded good to me. Sounded pretty darn perfect. Having Daniel on the squad was finally paying off just like I imagined it would.

The crowd was just starting to break up when Coach Holmes stopped us with a bleat of her whistle. Rincon was headed for his car and Coach had rejoined the rest of us. I had hoped she would lose the whistle once pre-tryout practices were over, but she had somehow become attached to it—probably because she had learned it was a good way to wrangle the boys. They seemed to respond to it on instinct. Maybe it was a Pavlovian thing since Daniel, Terrell and Joe all played either football or soccer.

“Take a seat, everyone,” she said. “Tara has something she needs to talk to you about. It’ll only take a few minutes and then you’ll have plenty of time to grab some dinner and get changed before you have to be back here.”

I bit my tongue to keep from groaning as I sat my tired body down again. All I wanted right then was some food and a shower. Not at the same time, of course.

“Well, it’s that time of year again,” Tara said, standing up as she addressed the squad. “Fundraising time.”

“Whoo-hoo!” Jaimee said, earning a few laughs.

“For those of you who are new to the squad, we hold several fundraisers during basketball season to raise money for locker decorations, hallway decorations and competition season in the fall,” Tara continued.

I saw Terrell, Daniel and the other guys exchange a look, clearly wondering what they had gotten themselves into. The football team never had to hold fundraisers—they got money from the district and from ticket sales at their games. The soccer team had sold light blue SDH bandannas in the fall, but hadn’t worked that hard at it. And Steven’s main extracurricular was the student newspaper, which was paid for by the school.

Sometimes being a cheerleader was so unfair. We had to earn our own money to keep up our traditions and pay for our competitions. All the other teams had to do was show up. Good thing we
enjoyed
fundraising, otherwise the natives might revolt.

“Now, our first fundraiser of the season is always a bake sale,” Tara continued.

“A bake sale?” Joe cut in, screwing his face up in consternation. At least he was starting to change expression once in a while. “I don’t do bake sales.”

I glanced at Coach. Saw her jaw clench.

“We like to keep it simple,” Tara said, ignoring Joe completely. “We always make a good profit and it’s perfect with Christmas and Hanukkah coming up. People usually make festive cookies and stuff. And everyone wants sweets around the holidays.”

“She does have a point,” Steven said, looking at the guys. “It’s classic supply and demand.”

“That’s why we do it every year,” Tara said.

“Oh, right,” Joe said slowly. “There were these red and green cookies last year? I must’ve bought a hundred.”

“Whoa. It speaks more than five words at a time,” Chandra said under her breath. I stifled a laugh.

“I made those!” Jaimee said to Joe, beaming.

“Good cookies,” Joe said, nodding his large head.

“Good. So, anyway—”

“Uh, there’s no way I’m doing a bake sale,” Terrell said, raising his hand.

Tara’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t look surprised. I don’t think any of us were. Somehow I couldn’t exactly envision Terrell in an apron, whipping up some brownies. At least not without shackles on his arms and a gun to his head.

“Are you going to give me a problem every time I try to do something?” Tara asked.

“Only when you’re doing something lame,” Terrell said.

“Ooooh,” a few of us intoned. Daniel and the other guys laughed.

“Truluck, do you
want
to do more laps?” Coach Holmes asked, stepping forward.

“Hey. I’m always up for a run,” Terrell said, standing. That, in and of itself, was a dig. He shouldn’t be standing and addressing the team while the captain was standing and addressing the team. Off Coach Holmes’ burning look of disdain, he raised his hands in surrender, but didn’t sit back down. “I’m just sayin’, why don’t we do something cool?