No Use For A Name

by Penelope Wright

  When we got to the mall, I parked on the side where we always do, the one closest to the food court. It's also the side where the smokers hang out, which means it smells just like my mom. So I said the same thing I always say. "Oh my god, gross! Tomorrow we have got to park over by Forever 21."

  And Kaia wrinkled her nose and said "Totally," but I know we won't. Baskin Robbins is the first shop on the right once we get inside. We're not there to drool over the flavors, even though I swear if there's a heaven it will taste like Gold Medal Ribbon. We're there to drool over Grady Carrico, the guy who works there.

  Grady's a senior, and there's no way he got that body scooping ice cream. He's built like a quarterback, all muscular but lean. But he's doling out thirty-one flavors, not practicing on the field, so he's definitely not on the team.

  Kaia and I must've eaten five gallons of ice cream each this summer, but neither one of us had gotten up the guts to actually talk to Grady yet. Kaia'd had a crush on him for years, and she was determined to go for the gold today. We waited in line while he scooped some mint chocolate chip for a stressed-out mom and her whiny kid. Grady's straight brown hair fell into his eyes when he reached down, and he blew it out of his face. God, he even made his horrible pink polo shirt look good. Walking through disgusting smoke was worth it with this as my reward. Hell, I'd walk through fire.

  "Hi Grady," Kaia said when we got to the front of the line.

  "Hey. What can I get you today?"

  "Oh, I don't know.” Kaia chewed daintily on her thumbnail and walked back and forth in front of the counter, sort of looking at the ice cream inside, but mostly just checking Grady out from various angles. "It all looks so good."

  "You two get the same flavor every time. Would you like to try anything else? I can give you a little taste of anything you want."

  Kaia pounced on the opening. "I'd love a little taste," she said, shooting him a look that should have melted his entire freezer case.

  Grady grinned at Kaia uncertainly. "Okay. What would you like to try?"

  Oh my god. As hot as he was, you'd think he'd be used to getting hit on, but poor Grady was clueless and I felt sorry for him. I stepped up next to Kaia before she could open her mouth again. "Can I try the Quarterback Crunch?"

  "Sure." Grady ducked his head into a freezer case a few feet away and scraped a little bit of ice cream onto a tiny pink plastic spoon.

  "Dammit," Kaia hissed at me. "Cock blocker."

  "That doesn't even make any sense," I whispered back.

  Grady popped back up and handed me the spoon. I stuck it in my mouth. "Yummy."

  "And how about for you? Did you decide what you wanted?" he asked Kaia.

  "Oh, just give me a chocolate cone," Kaia said petulantly. The chocolate was in the case right in front of Grady, so he didn't have to walk away this time. "You want anything?" she asked me.

  "Nope. I don't have any money."

  "Don't worry about it, I've got it."

  "Are you sure?" Kaia'd paid for my ice cream almost all summer.

  "Sure I'm sure," she said.

  "Could I have a kid's cone of Gold Medal Ribbon?" I asked Grady.

  "A kid's cone?" he asked, smiling. "Are you twelve or under?"

  I laughed. "Hardly. But my cousin's not a billionaire, so since she's being such a good girl and buying me a cone—again—I thought I'd save her some money." I laced my fingers together and held them over my heart. "Please?"

  "Cousins, huh? I thought you guys were twins. Alright, you've convinced me." Grady grabbed a small cone, leaned into the case and scooped my ice cream. He held it out to me and I reached out to take it, but at the last second he moved it just out of my reach. "Now don't go telling people I'm a pushover, got it?" he said teasingly.

  "And don't you go telling people I'm a good girl," Kaia interjected, winking at Grady.

  Grady gave me my ice cream cone, then leaned against the countertop next to the register, bracing himself so that a couple of extra muscles popped out on his already impressive arms. "There's nothing wrong with being good. My pastor says it's not a bad thing to try and fail at being a good person, because Jesus will be there to lift you up. Not trying at all is where you get in trouble."

  Oh no! A Jesus freak. And he was so cute.

  Kaia threw back her head and laughed. "I guess if you want to tell people I'm good I won't stop you. I doubt they'll believe you though."

  "What's your name?" Grady asked her.

  "I'm Kaia. And this is my cousin, Mary."

  I choked a little on my ice cream, and quickly put a napkin over my mouth.

  "Mary, huh?" Grady lifted his eyes to mine.

  "Yes, like the virgin," Kaia answered, as my choking degenerated into a full blown coughing fit. "C'mon Mary. If you're going to drag me to the Christian store to look at the new Bibles again we might as well get it over with. See you later Grady."

  "Come back soon."

  "Oh we will," Kaia promised.

  We exploded out the mall exit and plowed through the hazy cloud of secondhand smoke. Kaia cackled maniacally while I tried to control my coughing. The smoke wasn't helping.

  We got to the parking lot and I was finally able to catch my breath. "What the hell did you just do to me, Kaia?"

  "Dude, I totally misread him. But I hooked you up! You're so in."

  "Mary, Kaia? Mary?"

  "He wants a good Christian girl. I figured as long as you're in the market for a new name, Mary would be perfect." She collapsed into giggles.

  "But he's a Jesus freak! And I don't even believe in God."

  Kaia stopped laughing abruptly and her mouth fell open. "You don't believe in God?"

  "No." I tilted my head. It wasn't, like, something I really thought about much. "Do you?"

  "Of course I do." We reached Kaia's Honda, and she pulled her keys out of her pocket to unlock the door. "So you're an atheist then?"

  "I guess."

  "Weird. Aren't you afraid?"

  "Of what?"

  "I don't know." Kaia shrugged. "Dying? Going to hell?"

  "A dude with a beard throwing a lightning bolt at me?"

  Kaia stuck her tongue out at me. "That's Zeus."

  "Whatever. No. I'm just not the religious type, medieval, mythical, or otherwise." Kaia got in her side of the car and reached over to unlock my door. I dropped into the passenger seat and huffed. "This is just great. Grady's a senior. How am I supposed to run around being Bitchy Barbie with one guy and Moral Mary with another? Jeez, Kaia!" But even though I tried really hard, I couldn't keep a tiny smile from stealing onto my face.

  Kaia grinned back at me. "It's a huge school. You're a smart girl. I'm sure you'll manage."

  "Great, now I'm made of plastic, holier-than-thou, and smart. Maybe next I should tell everyone my name's Poindexter."

  "Ooh! Can I call you Dex?"

  "Shut up."

  THREE

  The last days of summer passed way quicker than I wanted them to. Not that I liked hanging around my house listening to my sisters bitch at each other, but I was actually kind of nervous about starting high school. How would I find my classes? Would I see anyone from Totem Falls, or would I be surrounded by people from Hilltop and Lincoln? The other girls in cheer hadn't seemed too friendly at tryouts. Was everyone going to be like that?

  At least I was required to wear my cheer uniform to school for the first week, so I wouldn't look like a total loser in my sisters' worn out hand-me-downs.

  I got up extra early on the first day of school so I could get ready without anyone seeing me. A high ponytail was part of the uniform, and I didn't want a single one of my dark brown hairs to get loose. I showered and yanked my still-wet hair into a ponytail so tight it made my eyes look slanted.

  I cracked open the bathroom door and tiptoed out into the hallway. When I'd gotten up, Rachel wasn't even home yet, so I kept an eye out for her. She could come stumbling in at any moment. Instead, it was my brother Joey who nearly gave me a heart attack
when he seemed to step right out of the wall.

  "Hey Baby. Good luck today." He sidled past me and slipped into the bathroom.

  "Thanks Joey," I said weakly, just before he clicked the door shut. I hated to admit it, but it hadn't crossed my mind that Joey and I would be competing for the bathroom in the morning since we were the only siblings still in school, and we hadn’t gone to the same school since I was in seventh grade and he was in ninth. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw him. Joey and I both spend so much time avoiding the rest of the family that we don't cross paths all that much. I guess we've found different places to hide.

  I crept into the kitchen and opened the fridge, the rubber seal making a loud sucking sound as I pulled the door open and poked my head inside.

  "Oh good, you're home."

  At the sound of my mom's voice, I stood up so fast that I cracked the back of my head on the freezer compartment. "Ow!" I rubbed my head and scowled, closing the refrigerator door. There wasn't much in there anyway.

  "I ran out of cigarettes, can you go and get some at the store?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, you know, besides the fact that I'm not allowed to buy them legally, Kaia will be here any minute to pick me up for school. I don't have time."

  My mom poked her blonde curly head over the half-wall that separated her "office" from the rest of the kitchen. Crap. I should have known she'd be there.

  "Oh. I thought you were Rachel." She stood up behind her desk. "What the hell are you wearing?"

  Shit. Well, she was bound to find out sooner or later. "It's my cheerleading uniform."

  "Are you trying to be funny?"

  "No, I'm trying to be normal." I turned and opened a cabinet door way harder than I needed to, reached in and pulled out a box of Pop Tarts. I ripped open the flimsy foil wrapper, took out a cold pastry and bit into it.

  She rubbed her hand against her face, pulling a hair out of the corner of her mouth and sneered. "Jesus Christ. Cheerleaders are dancers gone retarded."

  I talked around the chalky wad of Pop Tart that refused to disintegrate in my mouth. "That's funny mom. Except for the Jesus Christ part, I swear I heard that same line in Bring It On." I knew it would pay off to memorize that movie.

  "Cheerleaders are hypocritical sluts. Are you gonna start going to youth group so you can marry Jesus, but still spread your legs for any boy with a letter on his jacket?"

  "I dunno, maybe." I pitched the remainder of my Pop Tart, foil and all, into the garbage can in the corner of the room and grabbed my backpack off the counter. I wouldn't wait for Kaia to get here. I could meet her on the road.

  My mom moved away from her desk, grabbed my arm, and twisted it hard. "Baby, goddamn it I will not let you turn into one of those fucking bitches. You are no better than me, you remember that."

  I wrenched my arm away. That one would probably bruise. "My name's not Baby."

  "Oh yeah? Then what is it? Janet? Miss Jackson if you're nasty?"

  "Stop it! I'm sick of your crappy quotes. Just because you're my mother doesn't mean you can treat me like shit."

  "No, no, of course not. Now that you're a cheerleader I guess I have to kiss the ground you walk on. Can I do anything for you? Make your bed? Buff your bible? Schedule your abortion?"

  Did I hear tires crunching in the driveway? Kaia would never honk the horn this early. Dear god, let that be tires.

  "I'm the same person I was when I went to bed last night," I said, walking towards the front door. "I haven't changed."

  "Then I guess I never knew you at all, Baby."

  I stopped. "My. Name. Is. Not. Baby."

  "Oh, really? What is it? Do you have some slutty new name to go with your peppy new outfit?"

  "I do. Everybody calls me Tawny now. You can too."

  Mom raised her hand up like she was going to smack me, and maybe she would have, but once again Joey materialized out of nowhere and stepped in front of her. When did he get taller than her?

  "Come on Tawny," he said. "Time to go."

  FOUR

  It was Kaia's car in the driveway, thank god, and she didn't say anything when I flipped the passenger seat out of the way and climbed in back, leaving the front seat for Joey. Joey shut the car door, but not hard enough. It popped back open.

  "You have to slam it," I said from the back. I sat in the middle on the hump of the bench seat, my knees hugged up to my chest. Fuck seat belts.

  "Oh, is that why you do that?” Joey said. “I always thought you were pissed off or something."

  "Yeah, well, that's a good guess too," I muttered darkly.

  Joey grabbed the inside door handle and slammed the door with authority. The handle ripped off in his hand and he held it out in front of himself. "Crap. Sorry."

  Kaia sighed. "It was bound to happen sooner or later."

  She started the car and made a wide circle in our driveway so that she wouldn't have to attempt reverse.

  "Kaia, do you remember my brother Joey? He's a senior." It was kind of weird having to introduce my cousin to my brother, since he was her cousin too, but as far as I knew they hadn't seen each other since Kaia and I were in Pull-Ups.

  "Hey. Nice of you to join us this morning," Kaia said. "This gonna be an everyday thing Baby?"

  Joey turned around in his seat and looked at me, but he didn't say anything.

  "Yeah," I said. "I think so. If you don't mind."

  Joey gave me a small, tight smile.

  "No problem. Since Joey's a senior, does that mean we can park in the upper lot?"

  "Yeah, you should be able to," Joey said. "But can you do me a favor?"

  "What's that?"

  "Call me Joe. And my sister's name's not Baby, it's Tawny."

  Kaia was stopped at a red light, and she pivoted slowly in her seat to look at me with incredulous eyes. "Really? You don't say?"

  "Baby's a stupid name anyway. No offense," he said, shooting a look over his shoulder at me. I shrugged, pretty much unable to speak. "It's not as bad as Joey though."

  I did have a voice after all. "What's wrong with Joey?"

  "Uh, everything? How would you like to be named after a Friends character with an I.Q. of forty? You want to be called Tawny, I've got no problem with that. But in exchange, I want to be called Joe."

  "I'm sure Tawny and I can accommodate that, Joe," Kaia said, grinning at me.

  Behind us, someone leaned on their horn. "Oh my god, please don't call me Tawny. Either of you. That was an accident. And you've got a green light," I said, pointing out the front of the windshield.

  Laughing, Kaia turned her eyes back to the road, stomped on the gas, and killed the car.

  * * *

  "Your brother seems okay," Kaia said as Joey loped away across the parking lot toward the school's main entrance.

  "Yeah, my brother's cool I guess. It's the Anderson women you have to watch out for."

  "Tell me about it." Kaia came around to the front of the car and fell in step with me. "The one I know keeps lying about her name. Third time's the charm, eh Tawny?"

  "Oh god, seriously, don't call me that. I only said it to piss my mom off. It was just bad luck that Joey—I mean Joe—overheard me."

  "Your mom got up to help you get ready for school? I bet that was kind of a surprise."

  "Please. She never went to bed. She was probably online all night talking to someone she hasn't seen in person since the third grade."

  We jogged up the outside steps that led to the school's maroon and yellow rear doors, the ones that overlooked the football field. "So what happened?" Kaia tugged open the door and propped it with her elbow so that I could walk in.

  "Thanks." I hitched my backpack higher on my shoulder and turned left down the hall that led toward the gym. Besides wearing the uniform all day the first week, I also had to change into it for sixth period cheer practice every day of the year. I pretty much had to have a uniform at school all the time, so I didn't have to share a locker
with anyone, and our lockers were supposedly near the gym. Definitely a perk.

  I sighed. "What happened is mom hates cheerleaders, and now that she knows I am one, she hates me even more than she did before."

  "You hadn't told her?"

  "God, no."

  "Jeez. My parents took me to Olive Garden when I gave them the news."

  "Must be nice." I kicked my toe a little on the thin, industrial grade carpet but stopped pretty quick. I really didn't want to get these blindingly white shoes dirty on the first day.

  "I'm sorry. That was a stupid thing to say."

  "No it wasn't. Your parents were happy for you. That's cool."

  "It's just that my dad was a gymnast. A really good one, I guess. He barely missed being an alternate for the summer Olympics a few years before I was born. So they're really supportive of anything gymnasticky."

  "I didn't know that about your dad."

  "Yeah, that's who I learned tumbling from. He got some sort of injury when I was really little, so he's totally retired, but, you know, they're happy about the cheerleading."

  "That really is cool, you know? I mean it."

  Kaia smiled. "Thanks."

  I'd printed out my locker assignment. 1009. This was it. Kaia continued to hers, she was in 1015. I opened the door and there was my winter cheer uniform hanging on the hook. Most of my uniforms were sleeveless, and cut so high you could count a few of my ribs between the bottom of my shirt and the top of my skirt. The uniform hanging in the locker was for colder weather, and I guess it had taken longer to make or something. I'd gotten an email that said it would be in my locker today. I fingered the wool material of the skirt and pulled out the long sleeve sweater to examine it closer. It was beautiful, white with maroon sleeves and two gold Vs across the front that would make my waist look smaller than it really was. It was, by far, the nicest thing I'd ever owned. Total score.

  "Smells like they're serving fish today girls. Oh I'm sorry Keeks, I didn't see you standing there. My mistake."

  I popped my head out of my locker and snapped my head sideways to see whose peppy voice could turn so nasty when she spoke my cousin's nickname.