“How did your aunt deal with your eating habits?”
“Aunt Gertrude wasn’t much of a cook. My brother was the lucky one who got to eat at his friends’ houses. Aunt Gertrude and I usually ate frozen dinners at the kitchen table.”
“Poor kid. You must have hated that.”
“Imagine complete silence. Her with a book under her nose, and me pretending to read.”
“What changed?” Elizabeth asked.
“I ran away.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Running away made you turn vegan? My brother ran away last summer and he still eats like a four-year-old.”
Corinne brought Elizabeth a bowl, a cup of milk, and a small box of Froot Loops. I couldn’t help looking at her stomach to see where she packed away all that food. She poured the cereal in the bowl and without looking at me she said, “I know. Don’t say it. When I’m forty, this ‘therapy’ is going to make me fat.”
“It certainly hasn’t happened yet.”
She patted her stomach. “Lots of swimming.” She turned pink for some reason. Then added, “I’m thinking of starting a yoga group soon.”
I would have loved that. But I wasn’t going to stick around that long.
“Tell me, how did you end up quitting meat and dairy?” asked Elizabeth.
I lifted my shoulders. “It’s no secret, I guess. I ran away from Aunt Gertrude when I was almost sixteen. I stayed with a family I knew when we were stationed overseas. They had moved back to a large farm in Texas.”
The bell above the door rang. Corinne grabbed menus and water glasses and Mac started up the grill. But they kept one ear close.
“How was life on the farm?” Elizabeth asked as she tackled the Froot Loops.
“I would have been fine except for one thing.”
“What was that?” Elizabeth asked with her mouth full.
“The pigs, the cows, the chickens. It was a large livestock farm. Not the kind of farm where I got to know Homer the cow and Wilbur the pig.”
“Oh, no.” Elizabeth looked at the hamburger patties Mac had just put on the griddle and swallowed.
Mac waved the spatula in the air. “No details, Trudy. This is still a meat-loving town.”
I raised my hands. “The last thing I would do is preach to others.”
“Good,” he said. “I still have customers who like a rare cowboy steak.”
I turned back to Elizabeth. “Anyway, you get the picture. The same stubbornness I felt about eating vegetables set in. I stopped eating meat within three weeks after my arrival. Unfortunately, my body wasn’t very good at handling my new diet. I was eating no protein and no vegetables. My friend’s family joked that ‘woman could not live on potatoes alone.’ But it was no joking matter. My hair fell out. I grew weak. I was tired all the time.”
Elizabeth’s eyes were wide. “You poor thing.”
“A cousin from California came for a visit and things changed. I had been hosing sewage and blood down the drain—” Mac slapped the spatula down and glared at me. “Oops, sorry. Let’s just say I was working when I fainted in the slaughterhouse. Everyone made a fuss. The cousin made me his personal project. For the next week, all I heard, between mucking out stalls and washing sewage down the drain, was vegetable talk. Beans, legumes, and the best sources of nutrition.
“Finally, I swallowed my pride. I learned to like vegetables, with lots of spices added.”
A familiar voice asked, “You never ate eggs or meat again?”
I looked behind me. Marva and Flo were seated at the booth. Doc and Vance from the garage were in the booth next to them. I had been so busy telling my story that I hadn’t seen them come in.
I felt heat rising up to my cheeks. But Elizabeth put a hand on my elbow and squeezed. “Your story is fascinating. And it’s good for even us meat eaters to hear.”
“It’s not gonna change my mind. I just ordered a hamburger,” said Vance.
Elizabeth swiveled in her chair and stared at him. “But you have to admit, Trudy didn’t tell us what she really saw on that farm. Don’t you ever think about it?”
Doc leaned back and spread his arms across the booth. “I’m a hunter. We don’t waste any part of the animal. And the deer population would get out of control if we didn’t hunt each year.”
“You guys are all full of macho. I run a bait-and-tackle store. We have all sorts of hunting things. But even I want to eat animals who had space to move and healthy food to eat,” said Flo.
I interrupted before tempers flared. “I have nothing at all against meat eaters. Some of my favorite people are meat eaters. It’s a personal choice. Like the way I dress or the car I drive.”
A silence descended. Corinne came around the counter and sat on the seat next to me and swiveled until she faced me. “We don’t get strangers very often, Trudy. And we forget how set in our ways we can be.”
Marva spoke up. “Speak for yourself, Corinne. I see new people at the Family Fare all the time.”
“Stuff it, Marva. I’m trying to apologize to Trudy here, and you’re picking a fight?”
“I’m not picking a fight!”
While the two ladies argued, Elizabeth touched my knee. “What Corinne was trying to tell you is that we’re sorry if the town was less than welcoming when you first came here.”
Flo raised her voice over the argument. “With your odd clothes and the way you were sleeping in your car, we jumped to conclusions.”
Doc shook his head. “I didn’t think she was odd. Her car is amazing.”
“But we never met a vegan,” said Vance.
Marva leaned back and said, “And we didn’t know about your dyslexia.”
Flo put a finger to her lips and glared at Marva. “Shhh!”
“But Richie told us that Trudy told him. It’s not a secret.”
Corinne stood up with her hands on her hips. “That does it! Marva, you have the biggest mouth in—”
I started giggling. Elizabeth joined me. Mac arrived with my meal. “Don’t laugh so hard. You might choke on your Froot Loops, Elizabeth.”
I enjoyed Mac’s latest creation and the discussion turned to whether anyone had ever tried kale and if it was true that McDonald’s added kale to their milkshakes. Since I had banished Kit from the store and my life, my mood had been in the dumps. But now, I felt a new lightness.
The bell above the door rang and Jenny and her mother walked in. Jenny ran to me and gave me an unabashed hug. Her mother, Debbie, waved and ushered her and two young girls to a booth. The tiny brown-haired woman worked hard at two shifts at a hospital in Gaylord, while her husband, Corinne’s son, worked for the county road commission.
“Day off school?” Mac asked.
Debbie nodded. “Teacher-planning day. I just took them to a movie in Gaylord and I promised the girls they could have dessert.”
“Dessert and a movie, what a treat. What was the movie?” asked Corinne.
The girls clapped their hands. “Pom-Pom Princess,” they said in unison.
“They just love cheerleaders. They know the high school cheers by heart and now I’ll be hearing about the movie for weeks,” Debbie said.
Corinne mumbled, “Too bad that Coach won’t let them do just a few cheers with the team.”
Elizabeth slapped down a tip. “That coach is very competitive. I know several other girls who got cut. Cherry Miller refused to try out.”
Marva agreed. “Even Regina Bloodworth isn’t happy with the coach. Her daughter was cut from the team when she gained too much weight to be the top of the pyramid.”
I finished my meal and listened to the girls behind me talk about the movie and how much they wished they could be cheerleaders. High school was difficult enough. But not being included in any activities made it almost unbearable.
I pulled out my phone. I rarely used it and the battery was almost drained. But I had one friend who owed me a big favor for filling in for her on the lighting crew of a theater in Santa Barbara two summers ago. Sometime little girls needed
fairy godmothers to come to their rescue. Or at least red-haired vegans.
Tiffany arrived, tying her apron. “I’ve got you covered for the rest of the night, Corinne.”
I pulled out my rucksack to pay Corinne just as Tiffany reached for a teacup and a pot of hot water.
She skirted around me and greeted Kit, who leaned against the back of a booth by the doorway. “Come have a seat, my lord. Tea?”
I tensed. How the hell long had he been here?
He looked down the moment our eyes locked. “No thank you, Tiffany.”
“No tea?”
Kit put his hands in his pockets as I brushed past him on my way out the door. “I should have told you the truth a while ago. I don’t actually like tea,” he said.
* * *
The Friday-night lights lit up the football field in Harrisburg. Everyone showed up to cheer for their team to make a play-off spot. The second half of the game was getting ready to start and Harrison County High School was down by six points against the team from Boyne City. The smell of barbecue was strong in the cool night air.
And I was under the bleachers with a team of outcast cheerleaders.
I hadn’t hidden under the bleachers since my freshman year in high school when I skipped out on my remedial English class. But this time things were different.
I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face.
“These uniforms fit perfect, Miss Trudy.”
“I thought they would.” My girlfriend worked in the costume department of a theater in Chicago. It only took a couple of days for them to arrive in the mail. She said we had the use of the costumes until November.
The girls jumped up and down and squealed. “This is going to be so much fun!”
“Ssshhh. Don’t let anybody hear you.”
They hushed each other and giggled, making more noise than ever.
When I first told the girls about the costumes, I thought they would want to use them for Halloween. But they insisted that they wanted to be real cheerleaders and wear them at a game.
I mumbled to Corinne, who was beside me, “Are you sure we won’t get in trouble?”
“The principal said as long as we stay on the fan side of the fence it’s fine. I think he was thrilled that the girls were going to add a few cheers to the game. He can’t stand the cheerleading coach.”
“Anyway, who cares if anyone gets mad?” said Debbie, Jenny’s mother. With excitement on her face she looked younger than she had when I first met her.
Actually, getting in trouble wasn’t my biggest fear for them.
Jenny overheard us. “Will we get arrested?”
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Absolutely not.”
“Bummer,” her friend Madeline said.
“What, you want to get arrested?” I asked her.
“Yeah! It would be cool.”
“Well, maybe the sheriff will let you go visit the jail cell sometime. But we aren’t going to do that tonight.”
My little squad was made up of hopefuls who failed to make the cuts during cheerleading tryouts. The girls ranged in age from thirteen to eighteen. Jenny and Madeline and Theresa were from the contained special-education classroom. Emily Bloodworth and friend Leah were told they were too heavy for the pyramids and jumps. Bibi, with her shaved head and her nose piercing, swore when she missed a jump in tryouts, ending her hopes of making the team. Stacy was in a wheelchair. And Gina simply didn’t like the rest of the girls on the team, so she quit after a week. She was in charge of helping Stacy.
“Psst, Corinne,” I said through my hand. “Are you sure their parents know about this?”
“They were so excited they offered to help. I told them to get their video cameras ready and enjoy the game.”
After ponytails were readjusted and shoelaces were tied, I gathered my team together. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yeah!” they yelled. And then they shushed each other.
“Umm . . .” I tried to figure out how to say what I was really afraid of. “You know, some people in the crowd might not cheer.”
“We know,” said Stacy.
“They might . . . even laugh.”
“We know,” said Madeline.
“What else is new?” said Emily.
Bibi raised her knee in a kung-fu move. “I’ll kick them in the balls if they do.”
“Well, you can’t do that, you know.” I bit my lip. In making this dream come true, I was putting the girls at risk. They could easily get mocked and belittled—or worse, incite the rage of some of these fans. Some kids, like the boys at the football game a few weeks ago, might even imitate them. Jenny, with her big eyes and sweet face, was vulnerable to all sorts of ridicule. And I wasn’t sure how the crowd would react to Stacy in the wheelchair. People could be so mean.
Jenny put her arms around me and rested her head right above my heart. “Don’t worry, Trudy. We’re used to it.”
A sharp pain stabbed my chest. I swallowed and hugged her, stealing a kiss on top of her head.
“Let’s go kick some ass,” said Bibi. She guided them to the path behind us that led to the front of the bleachers.
I stood in the shadows by the fence and watched the girls calmly line up in front of the infield fence by the home crowd. Their wavy outlines blurred in and out. I wiped the reflection from the bright lights out of my eyes. Those girls were braver than I had ever been.
At first no one noticed them as they stood with their hands on their hips, waiting for Stacy to give the signal. The official cheerleaders were finishing a cheer further down on the infield.
Stacy started the first line of the chant. “Hey team!”
“Hey team!”
“What’s the score?”
“What’s the score?”
“We don’t care!”
“We don’t care!”
“Let’s play some more!”
They waved their arms up and down, without skill and out of sync. I stepped to the side of the bleachers where I could see the crowd’s reaction. Further down, the real cheerleaders stopped and looked toward the home bleachers in confusion.
Some of the fans in the stands near me took notice. “Hey, look! There’s another set of cheerleaders.”
“Isn’t that Jenny Scott?” someone nearby asked.
The girls repeated the same cheer. The coach shook her head and yelled at the ragtag team. But the crowd was warming up. I stepped toward the fence so I could better see the reaction of the spectators. People in the stands waved and shouted their support.
“Oh, look how cute they are!”
“You tell ’em, girls!”
One set of eyes was not on the girls, however. I felt the blue heat of Kit Darlington’s eyes. I hadn’t expected him to be at the game. An unreadable expression crossed over his face. Was he annoyed to see me? He was surrounded by the familiar faces I had gotten to know in the past few weeks: June, Marva, Flo. They could have each other, for all I cared.
“What should we do next, Miss Trudy?” Jenny ducked around the side of the bleachers.
I cupped my hands over my mouth and shouted the words. Jenny nodded and started the girls on the cheer. I was so proud of her confidence.
“Defense, defense, push them back. Defense, defense, sack the quarterback!”
Gina grabbed Stacy’s wheelchair and spun her in a circle. Stacy waved and laughed and the crowd went wild.
The players on the field were noticing too. A few of the boys on the bench turned around, watching my squad, forgetting the game. One player stood up and raised his helmet in the air and shouted, “Go, Stacy!”
Bibi, looking very uncheerleader-like with her shaved head and nose ring, did an impromptu cartwheel. It wasn’t great, but it made the crowd cheer harder at her effort.
“Show them the tinkerbell jump,” I called out.
Meanwhile, the other cheerleading coach walked over to the side of the fence and scanned the area for someone who might be in charge. I backed in
to the shadow. She moved to the football bench and tried to pull over one of the coaches. The Boyne City team failed to make their first down and now Harrisburg had the ball. The coach put on his headset. He wasn’t interested in the little problem with the cheerleaders. The real cheerleaders tried to crowd out my squad. But the girls held their ground with the help of the wheelchair.
The ragtag team waved their hands, loving the response of the fans. Now the girls were performing my favorite cheer. I had made it up.
“You! Bit off more than you could chew! Because your eyes were too big for your tummy too! But we’re the Huskies and we’re the best. Well, heck yes!”
They repeated it until the crowd caught on and repeated the last three words. I was so excited for them that I found myself cheering right along with the girls. I stood under the bleachers, peeking through the feet of the crowd and raised my arms up, doing all the moves.
The football went back and forth for most of the half. No one scored. With only a minute left, Harrison County High had the ball with a long way to go to the end zone. And then miraculously, the quarterback threw a long pass and it was caught. Touchdown.
The girls went nuts. They jumped up and down. Gina used Stacy’s handles as a prop and jumped higher than everyone. My cheerleaders had electrified not only the crowd, but the players as well.
“Harrison County twenty-seven; Boyne City twenty-seven,” said the announcer over the PA system. “The Huskies get ready to kick with thirty seconds left in the game.”
I was vaguely aware of the team lining up for the kick.
Bibi led the girls in a new cheer. “Someone’s gotta lose and you are it, the kick’s gonna make it, so eat my sh—”
“No!” I said, running for the girls. But I was too late. Jenny yelled it the loudest.
* * *
I leaned against a tree in the public park at the end of Main Street. A large bonfire glowed from the beach. Music blasted from someone’s pickup-truck speakers and the red cups and marshmallows were in abundance. Everyone celebrated the win. Including my errant group of cheerleaders. They danced together, chanting cheers that had no rhyme or reason, and having nothing to do with football but everything to do with victory.
After the field goal and the accompanying revelry, the principal had called both cheerleading teams together. I stood by their side as he and the cheer coach discussed the alternate team.
The Bookshop on Autumn Lane Page 18