How (Not) to Find a Boyfriend

by Allyson Valentine

  “I’m sorry,” says Mom, “but I will never understand how a young woman with your talents could choose to use her hard-earned gymnastics skills cheering on a bunch of testosterone-charged boys rather than competing on the gymnastics team. Do you remember when you were in middle school? You were dying to go to a high school with a gymnastics team.”

  I remember. In middle school there was no gymnastics team. All the cool girls played volleyball. Sure, I competed in meets at the gym where I took lessons, but at school? Unless I chose to celebrate each perfect test score with a standing front somersault, there was no way for anyone at school to know that Nora Fulbright, Girl Genius, was also an athlete.

  Mom doesn’t quit. “We moved so that you could go to Riverbend, where they have an excellent team—”

  “What?” I shriek. “We moved so that Junior Einstein here could get into the right kindergarten!”

  Josh looks from Mom to me. “I liked my kindergarten.”

  Mom tosses up her hands. “Whatever. The point is that you go to a school with a powerhouse gymnastics team. You did great on the JV squad last year, but do you go on and follow your dream? No. Instead it’s become all about shaking those silly pom-poms and waggling your butt in a skimpy outfit—”

  Joshie reaches for my hand. “You look pretty in your shrimpy outfit.”

  Mom gazes at the ceiling, holds out her open hands and beseeches the spirits of dead feminists everywhere: “Where did I go wrong?”

  Her words are like a wrecking ball to my abdomen. “Never mind!” I yell. “I’ll drive myself to the game. If you can stand to watch me shake my silly pom-poms and waggle my butt, you know where I’ll be.”

  I hoist the gear bag over my shoulder and storm out to the car, leaving a trail of dripped water behind me. Mom thinks cheering is stupid. Adam thinks cheerleaders are stupid. Stupidly, I care way too much about what everyone else thinks. Maybe I should have just stuck with gymnastics.

  Krista is the first to see me as I walk into the locker room. “You’re here! I was so worried something had happened and I would have to go out there without you.” She pauses. “You look awful.”

  “Thanks.” I hand her the eye glitter and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My bow is cockeyed from pulling my shirt off and on. My eyes are rimmed pink. Thank god for waterproof mascara.

  Krista studies me in the mirror as she dabs some glitter onto her eyelid and smooths it out. “Your top is all wet.”

  “I had a fight with my mom.”

  She laughs. “What? A water balloon fight?”

  She gets me laughing, too, and the knot in my stomach loosens a tiny bit. I begin to feel like I am actually here, in the locker room the day of our first game, where the pregame buzz is like a triple-shot mocha—totally caffeinated. Vanessa, alone at the far end of the locker room, tries unsuccessfully to nail her side-hurdler jump. Over by some lockers, Jazmine and Becca practice a thigh stand. Gillian climbs onto a bench and channels Taylor Swift, singing into her hairbrush about painful love. The air smells like a test site for the Body Shop.

  “Has anyone seen—?” Chelsey’s usual chirp is more of a squawk as she rounds a corner and spots me. She plants her fists on her hips. “There you are! You’re late! And your uniform is all wet!”

  “She had a water balloon fight with her mom.” Krista drapes an arm around my damp shoulders.

  Chelsey rolls her eyes. “Before our first game? Seriously? You should have worn a raincoat or something.” She heaves a big breath in and out. “Okay, well, at least you’re here. I was getting worried.” Chelsey’s smile transforms her back into Cheerful Chelsey. “Okay. Everyone, get it together. We have about a half hour to run through some warm-ups. Let’s go!”

  There are whoops and cheers as we grab our poms and our megaphones and head out to the field, where the bleachers are filling up. The warm morning promises to turn into a hot day, and the air is thick with the smells of popcorn and freshly mown grass. Up in the stands, the band blasts out a boppy version of Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al.”

  I steal a quick glance into the crowd. Joshie, Mom and Bill must have raced right over after I left because they have grabbed seats right in the front row of the parent section. Mom has washed the war paint off her face. Beside her, Bill claps to the beat of the music. Joshie hangs over the railing, shouting, “Nora! Nora!” I blow him a kiss. I avoid Mom’s gaze. I will show her that I am excellent at what I do, and that I’ll get way more recognition for my gymnastics moves here than I ever would at a meet where only a handful of people would attend.

  We set our megaphones and water bottles beside our pedestals and do some stretches. The band hits their final note and Joshie calls from the stands, “Nora, do some flippy things!” I grab Krista and we move to the edge of the field to warm up with tumbling runs. The growing crowd cheers us on. This is the stuff that makes my body sing. Back when I was eight and Dad left, Mom put me and Phil into summer chess camp. Phil thrived, but Mom moved me into gymnastics camp after I spent the first three days of chess camp crying because playing chess only made me miss Dad. I remember how coordinated I felt mastering a cartwheel. I can still feel the instructor’s hand on the small of my back when she spotted me for a back handspring. Then there was the day I screwed up enough courage to try one on my own. It was a little bit like flying.

  I sneak a glance at Mom. She’s got Joshie by the hand and is heading for the bathrooms. There are definitely parts of gymnastics that I miss. The intense control of keeping it together on the balance beam. The incredible charge of flying around on the uneven bars. The satisfaction of nailing a landing off the horse. But would I be happier on the varsity gymnastics team than I am here?

  Krista and I count to three and push off into standing aerial cartwheels. Chelsey claps. “I wish I could do that!”

  “You could,” Krista says. “With practice. Lots and lots of practice.”

  The band kicks into a frenzied version of “Louie, Louie.” We dance, free-form, shaking our poms. For the record, I do not waggle my butt. People pour into the bleachers, picking up our energy, dancing as they walk. Scanning the bleachers, I spot Ms. Ostweiler. Nearby, in the aisle, there’s a woman my mom’s age in a retro cheer uniform shaking a set of faded pom-poms. I point her out to Krista and we dub her the Ultimate Fan.

  There’s no sign of the Teapot. I’m stunned. I figured she came to every game. And it looks like it’s going to be an Adam-free morning, too. On one hand, hooray! I can relax. On the other hand? I really do want him to come to a game and see me in action. I want to show off for him and have him see that I’m great at what I do. I’m a varsity athlete! Maybe if he came to a game he would see that it actually takes coordination and brains to keep synched up during our cheers. That cheerleaders are more than pleated skirts and hair bows. What we do takes dedication and hard work. Not to mention intelligence.

  The music stops and the crowd grows quiet. Stuart Shangrove, the guy I almost killed the first day of school, booms in a warbly echo over the loudspeaker, “Ladies and gentlemen-men-men! Join me in welcoming our very own Cutthroats-oats-oats!”

  The crowd jumps to its feet as the football players stampede onto the field. Geoff leads the way in his Cutthroat trout costume, scales glittering in the morning sun, sweeping his arms like he’s doing the breaststroke across the football field. Chelsey climbs onto her pedestal and the rest of us climb onto ours. The football players jog around the field as Chelsey leads us in our first cheer. “Cutthroats! Fight song! Are you ready?”

  We clap one pom onto our hip, shoot the other into the air and respond, “Hip, hip!”

  The crowd sings along. Chelsey leads us in a clap, pause, double-clap rhythm. The pedestal gives me an extra couple of feet of height, and as we sing and clap, I make eye contact with the entire crowd. I am not in math class puzzling out a problem. I am not in the kitchen arguing with Mom. I am not obsessing about Adam. I am here. I am so very here.

  And then, whap! I am no
t, because I spot Adam, making his way up the bleachers.

  Everywhere, girls turn and wave as he passes by.

  Keep breathing. Keep singing. Keep the beat. Clap, pause, double-clap.

  The Teapot, in a purple dress and a yellow cowboy hat wrapped with purple streamers, walks up the stairs behind him. They stop to search for a place to sit. Adam, in faded jeans and a pale orange T-shirt, points up into the bleachers. I look to where he’s pointing.

  Tallulah. She stands and waves to Adam and the Teapot, then motions to the seats she has saved for them. She is the only person in the crowd wearing a black cocktail dress. Her hair is wrapped on top of her head like a 1950s diva and she’s got on a pair of cat’s-eye sunglasses. From the side, she looks like a Barbie doll with a slight boob reduction—just enough to keep things from seeming impossible.

  Adam lifts his hand to block the sun. I can’t take my eyes off his arms. Having spent the past month around football players, I’m used to guys who lift chunks of metal for fun and have upper arms I can’t get my fingers around. Adam’s arms are strong in a longer, leaner way. What would it feel like to have them wrapped around me?

  But he’s sitting with Tallulah. And if he were not with her, there are plenty of other girls who want him.

  We’re on the second-to-last verse of the fight song. Adam and the Teapot have squeezed into their seats where he is sandwiched between the Teapot and Tallulah. He looks out at the field, he scans the line of cheerleaders and he stops when he gets to me. He stops, and he smiles. He smiles! I swear I can see his dimple from here. He turns to say something to the Teapot and I study his profile, which is perfect. His hair is a little messy today. A little rumpled. A little dying to have me run my fingers through it. Tickle the back of his neck with my fingertips—

  “Ouch!”

  Chelsey, on the pedestal beside me, jabs me lightning quick in the side and resumes clapping. “You’re off beat!” she barks through a stiff smile.

  The band plays. The crowd sings. I cannot find the beat! I turn to catch it from Chelsey, but I turn a little too far.

  Thankfully, the music hides the sound of five hundred people gasping as I fall off the pedestal and onto my face. The song comes to a close as my skirt flops up in the back, and I flash the entire crowd with my purple Spanx.

  There you have it, Adam. It takes brains and coordination to be a cheerleader, and I have neither.

  For a stunned moment that seems to last several lifetimes I lie there. I just lie there, willing myself to disappear. But I need to get up. I need to get up and smile and get on with it, right? If you fall down, get back up, right? But how?

  “Oh my god, Nora, are you okay?” Krista is right there to offer a hand.

  I force back tears and push myself to sitting, brushing little flecks of rubber track off my legs. I can’t bear to look into the crowd. I can’t bear to see the look of disbelief on Adam’s face, or the look of satisfaction on Tallulah’s.

  Krista is not the only one who races to my side. Chelsey is right there, too. Pink ears. Pinched mouth. Her arms hang rigor-mortis-like at her sides. “I am so embarrassed!” she huffs. “This is not a practice, Nora. This is real life! Even Vanessa got it right. Get it together or get lost!” She stomps over to Becca for consolation.

  Krista shakes her head as she crouches beside me. “You okay?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I should thank you,” she says.

  “For what?”

  She grins. “I’m not nervous anymore. Come on. Let’s cheer.”

  I steel myself and, with Krista’s help, I manage to stand. I’m mortified when the crowd claps like they do when an injured football player is led to the bench.

  Out on the field, the football team lines up. We lead the crowd shouting the word GO until it hits a crescendo as the ball is kicked, and the Cutthroats and the Eagles begin battling it out on the field. Yards are gained and lost. Balls are fumbled and recovered. There are even a couple of touchdowns. And throughout it all, we cheer our hearts out, our chants changing to match the action:

  Block that pass! You gotta block that pass! You gotta . . .

  Hit ’em again! Hit ’em again! Harder, harder. Hit ’em again! Hit ’em again! . . .

  Pluck those birds! Let’s pluck those birds! Let’s . . .

  It is while I am shouting about defeathering the Eagles that I notice something: When I risk making eye contact with the crowd, only Joshie sees me. Mom is fixed on the game. So is Ms. Ostweiler. The Ultimate Fan. I dare to look a few rows up—Adam, the Teapot and Tallulah are all glued to the action on the field.

  We might as well be invisible, because clearly the crowd is not actually here to see us. They’re here to watch a football game. Suddenly, I feel a little bit like an ornament. Nice to have around, but not essential. With gymnastics I’d nail a routine and my points would add to the team total, helping us win a meet. Here, are we even helping the guys win the game? They don’t even look at us. Could it be that Mom has it right, after all? Did I make a totally lame choice giving up gymnastics?

  Then, halftime rolls around and bam! I bust right out of my stressatorium. Seriously—what was I thinking? This is definitely where I should be. Suddenly, all eyes are on us, and our mid-field formation goes off without a hitch. The bases are right where they need to be as I fall into their arms. I ace my tumbling run and the crowd goes crazy. The football guys cheer us on for a change. I am not much of a lip reader, but from here I can see the word wow as it leaves Adam’s lips and is followed by an impressed grin.

  Perhaps I have redeemed myself. Aside from skinned knees and a bruised ego, I think I’m okay. I wish I could say the same for the football team. When the game is over, the mighty Cutthroats have been filleted, losing thirty-six to thirteen. Small clusters of people move past us as the crowd slowly files out of the stands. I turn at the sound of my name from over by the stairs.

  “Nora! Bye-bye, Nora!” Joshie gives me a shoulder-dislocating wave. Bill holds two thumbs up.

  “See you at home, honey!” Mom’s smile is earnest. She shouts to be heard over the din. “You were terrific! You really were!”

  Could there be room on Mom’s feminist agenda for cheerleaders after all?

  I hear shouting and turn to where the football team is slumped on the sidelines. Coach Avery, his face mottled red, yells at them. I thought they saved that kind of thing for the locker room. Jake sees me and looks away, head hung. From what I can tell, he played really well. They all did. But the other team played better.

  By the bleachers, Chelsey is draped in Becca’s arms. “We should have won. It was our first game!” They are both sobbing. Sobbing!

  “We (gasp) worked (sob) so hard.” Chelsey is inconsolable. Someone needs to tell her about waterproof mascara.

  Are cheerleaders supposed to be apoplectic when we lose a game? We never talked about this in practice. I suddenly feel guilty for feeling great. The cheering, the stunting, the crowd—I loved it all, even when we weren’t the center of everyone’s attention. Still, perhaps I should dredge up tears to avoid committing cheerleading treason. I glance around to see what the other Monarchs are doing. Gillian, fully engaged in hair therapy, gives Jazmine an impromptu updo. They are hair involved, but undeniably morose. Most of the Cabbage Whites pack away their megaphones and poms. They are bummed but not devastated. Vanessa, over by the entrance gate, is getting cheer tips from the Ultimate Fan.

  Am I a Monarch or a Cabbage White?

  Krista gets right in my face. She motions with her eyeballs toward the Monarchs. “Jeez, who died? It’s just a freaking football game. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. We could still go on to have a twelve-and-one record.”

  Excellent point.

  “I thought we were cheerleaders,” she goes on. “Shouldn’t we be cheerful?”

  I ponder for a moment. “How about this.” I make sure no one is looking, then jump to attention and make up goofy, flailing arm movements as I cheer to Krista:
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  Hey, hey, dry those tears

  We’ll get tougher

  Have no fears!

  Cutthroats don’t give up and cry

  They swim back home—

  I search for a word and Krista helps me out,

  They swim back home and multiply!

  Krista and I laugh until—

  “Hey! You two!”

  Crap with a touchdown stance! Chelsey is right there. She mops her cheeks with the back of her hand. She’s going to freak about inappropriate behavior, I know it.

  “That was perfect!” she says, sniffing. “Do it again!”

  Seriously?

  Krista joins me as we improvise movements. A couple of the Cabbage Whites line up and we do it again, louder. Chelsey laughs. She adds a verse. I add another one.

  “Hey.” Chelsey points at me like she’s just identified me in a police lineup. “You could be a cheer writer!” She throws an arm around my shoulder. “That was awesome!”

  I grin like an idiot.

  With all the excitement I suddenly realize I’m not even thinking about Adam. Until I think about Adam. A lot of people are still in the bleachers. I allow myself a moment to seek him out, and spot him surrounded by at least a half-dozen girls. One of them hands him a Sharpie and he signs her T-shirt. He signs another girl’s forehead.

  It takes a minute, but I finally find Tallulah, who is with a bunch of drama people over by the band. The Teapot is there, too, gesticulating wildly as she speaks, but Tallulah is not paying attention to the Teapot. Her arms are crossed hard across her chest. Her lips are drawn tight. And behind her sunglasses I can tell that her eyes are locked on to the same thing that is at the center of my attention. The center, it seems, of every girl’s attention.

  Adam.

  Seven

  BY THE END OF THE FIRST full week of school the monotony of my classes makes me want to scream. The work is far too easy, and the lack of motivation on the part of many of my classmates is palpable. Like the guy in math who always shows up fifteen minutes late, with narrow bloodshot eyes, a dopey grin and an unquenchable hunger for M&M’s. But at least he shares. Or the girl in biology who spends the entire class texting, until she gets caught. Then she zones out to music, which leaks from her earbuds, seeps into my head and makes me relive that awful morning when I drove to school with Adam.