by Vail, Rachel
I pulled the big blue sweatshirt Zoe had given me last week out of the closet and held it in front of myself, in the mirror. “He’s nice. I think he likes you. I saw him looking at you, today.”
“Ew. No. Really? When?”
I smiled. She sounded a little interested. “At lunch.”
“I bring big sandwiches,” she said. “He probably just thinks I’m fat.”
“He does not!” She tries to seem like she doesn’t care, but I know she does. I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and dropped the phone. “Sorry,” I said when I got it back up to my ear. “I was putting on your sweatshirt. Bluie.”
“Big Blue,” she said softly, so I couldn’t really hear her.
“What?”
“Big Blue,” she repeated, loud.
“Oh, yeah. Big Blue. It’s so soft.”
“I know,” she said.
I decided to change the subject again. “Anyway, what were you saying?”
“Nothing,” she mumbled. “Just, you know. Boys don’t like me that way.”
“That’s not true.” She heard Morgan say that about her last week. Morgan has said that a lot. Maybe it is true, maybe not—but Lou might. He seems more mature than the rest of the boys. I couldn’t think what else to say to make Zoe feel better. Everything I was trying seemed to backfire. I decided not to say anything.
“Anyway,” she said, after a while of silence. “You do the math yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Me, too,” she said. “So . . .”
I waited another while and then asked, “Zoe? I, if you, I think he really does like you, Lou. And if, do you, I could, you want me to ask Tommy for you?”
“No,” she said. She said it really almost angrily. I never heard her sound angry before.
“OK,” I said quietly.
“I mean, let me think about it. OK?”
“OK.” I took off my sneakers and my socks. “Are you mad at me?”
“No,” she said.
I curled up on my bed with History and picked at the seam in my wallpaper. It has little rosebuds. Mom had chosen it when I was little because, she said, it was so “me.”
“OK! OK!” Zoe yelled at her sisters. “I gotta go, they need my body. See you tomorrow!”
“OK,” I said, hanging up.
Why can’t I be fun? I asked History. He just looked at me blankly. Who does she want me to be friends with? I stood up and got the permission slip out of my book bag. No matter how many times I reread it, it still said we’d get back at six thirty, just as I’d be pulling off my ballet slippers and yanking my dance pants over my tights for the long ride home alone with my mother.
nine
I have never felt so alone as I felt today.
Just about every girl in the entire school was wearing a soccer shirt. I was sitting up on the wall this morning before school, watching purple jersey after purple jersey come toward me like waves. Purple jerseys with huge black-and-white soccer balls on the fronts. Nobody said anything about it to me; in fact, nobody really looked at me. Worst of all, I chose today to wear my pale-yellow minidress. Zoe and Roxanne were comparing game schedules, Morgan and Olivia sat on the ground below the wall, whispering as usual. All in their purple jerseys.
I didn’t even go to my locker when the bell rang; I went straight to homeroom in hopes of avoiding all the excitement. Nobody seemed to notice.
“Hi, CJ,” Ms. Cress said.
“Hi.” I crossed my arms on my desk and rested my head on top.
She came over and sat on the desk next to mine. “We missed you at soccer yesterday.”
I didn’t answer.
“You’re not playing this year?”
“I have ballet,” I said. “Four times a week.”
“Wow. ’K. We’ll miss you.”
I wanted to cry. “Thanks.”
“Did you bring in your permission slip for apple picking?”
“No,” I mumbled into my arms. “I forgot it.”
“What am I gonna do with you?” She shook me. “Bring it in tomorrow, ’K? I really want to win the cookie. It’s huge, and you know I hate to lose. Especially to Ms. Masters.”
“’K,” I said, still not looking up.
I didn’t lift my head all through homeroom and took the long way to Spanish. When I got there, Morgan and Olivia were already inside, their heads close to each other’s. Morgan used to lean close to me when she talked.
“Hey,” Tommy said.
I turned around and almost bumped into him. I dropped my lunch. An orange rolled out of it down the hall, and while I picked up my sandwich, Tommy ran after my orange. “You’re not on soccer?” he asked, handing it to me.
I shrugged. “Dance.”
“So?”
“So I can’t do both! OK?”
“OK, OK,” he said. “I just wanted to ask you . . .”
Gideon bumped him, going in to Spanish, and coughed “hay-stacking” into his hands.
“Shut up,” Tommy said. He rested the heel of one untied high-top on top of his other foot.
I waited. The bell rang.
I started heading in to class, but Tommy licked his bottom lip and whispered, “Will you sit with me on the bus to apple picking?”
“Sure,” I said.
All through Spanish I was like, What? I couldn’t believe I said yes, but it was like, how could I say no—he finally talked to me and it was to ask me to sit with him. I had to say yes. When I looked at him just before our vocab quiz, he smiled a little, just enough to show his deep dimples. I could barely hold my pen. None of the vocab words sounded the slightest bit familiar. How do you say, “My boyfriend”?
He waited for me in the doorway after Spanish. We started walking together toward Ms. Cress’s room. My arm brushed against his, which felt very warm. “Sorry,” I said. I was shaking.
“That’s OK,” he answered. We kept walking, looking straight ahead. I could feel other kids looking at us. “Hot today, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I agreed, and we kept walking. I checked my bun. It was holding fine. I watched our feet moving together in unison, though his were clomping in his untied high-tops. I tried to think of anything in the world to say to him.
We passed a poster in the hall announcing the Seventh-Grade Unity Trip, and he rolled his eyes. “They think a couple of slogans will make us act nice to one another.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. I didn’t know what else to say. He and Zoe always tease each other, banter back and forth. I kept nodding, trying to think of something witty, something Zoe might say. Which reminded me. I asked, “You know Lou?”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. “Uh, yeah,” he said. Of course he knows Lou.
“Does he like Zoe?” I asked.
Tommy squinted his eyes at me like he was trying to understand. “Like her, like her?”
“Yeah.” I checked my bun again. Still holding.
“Why? Does she like Lou?”
“Just find out,” I whispered. “OK?”
He shrugged and sped up. I felt somebody staring at me so I turned around. Morgan was right behind me, shaking her head.
I walked faster. When I got to math, Zoe was already there. She smiled at me, and even though she was wearing a soccer jersey like everybody else, at least she looked happy to see me. I went right over to her. “I asked Tommy for you,” I whispered.
“What?”
I felt my insides all clench. I blinked a few times. “You don’t have to, I just, to find out, I didn’t say you liked him or anything . . . .”
Zoe looked all pale. She slumped down into her seat.
“What happened?” Olivia asked.
“Nothing,” I insisted. I looked up at the front of the classroom where Tommy and Lou were talking. I guess Zoe look
ed up at the same time, because she clonked her head down onto her desk.
Morgan came over and leaned on my desk. “You think you’re so special, don’t you?” she whispered.
I shook my head. “What?”
“What happened?” Olivia asked again.
“Nothing!” I sank into my seat.
“She’s fixing up Zoe with Lou,” Morgan said. “Do you even like Lou?” she asked Zoe.
Without raising her face off the desk, Zoe shook her head.
The bell rang, and Ms. Cress asked everybody to take their seats.
Morgan leaned close to me but didn’t smile. “Not everybody needs a boyfriend,” she whispered.
“I didn’t say . . .”
“You just think you’re so great to have a boyfriend and be a little ballerina, in your ballerina dress, so much better than the rest of us.”
“I do-do-do-do not.” I could feel myself starting to cry. Zoe wouldn’t pick her head up. Olivia, when I looked at her, bowed her head. I guess she agreed, too. Morgan was whispering, but it felt like the whole room was listening to her and agreeing.
“You go ahead,” Morgan whispered. “Do everything you can to set yourself apart. I hope you’re impressed with yourself, superstar. The rest of us will be perfectly happy to stick together in the shadows.”
ten
Nobody talked much to me the rest of the day. I told Zoe I had to go to the library during lunch because I’d been too tired to do my social studies homework after ballet. She said OK. Maybe she was relieved. In English/social studies, I passed a note to Tommy saying, Never mind about Lou. He shrugged. I told everybody at our lockers, between seventh and eighth, that I’d told Tommy to forget it about Lou and Zoe. They all said things like, “Whatever.”
I walked all the way to band alone and sat there behind my music pretending to play, my flute resting against my quivering lip. By the time the final bell rang, my flute was in pieces in the case in my bag. I was out the front door of school by the time Mom pulled into the circle.
Mom asked me what was wrong, but I didn’t tell her. She turned on the radio. I turned it off. She left it off. I spent the whole afternoon in my room, because Wednesdays I have nothing. She was at Cub Scouts with Paul, anyway. And all my friends had soccer.
When I got to school this morning, I didn’t sit on the wall. I passed Morgan and walked straight to Ms. Cress’s classroom, but I didn’t go in right away. I looked at the board through the glass panel next to the door. Mine was the last name left on the board, the only one who hadn’t brought in her permission slip for apple picking. On top of everything else, it was my fault Ms. Cress would lose the cookie. Cornelia Jane Hurley, right up there on the board for the whole world to see. I hate my name so much.
I managed to get through the day without crying, without talking, without being a show-off or acting special in any way—until eighth period.
The gym was all set up for gymnastics. Rings hung down from the ceiling and so did three ropes. Red and blue mats were pushed together in the corner near the fire exit. A balance beam slanted away from the bleachers where we sat, waiting to be divided into teams by Mr. Brock, the gym teacher, who is supposedly going out with Ms. Cress. It’s the scandal.
I was a Two, Zoe was a Three. Morgan takes chorus instead of band, so she has gym opposite days of us. I was relieved to be away from her. Zoe had eaten lunch with me and said it was no big deal, as long as I told Tommy forget it, it’s history. I kept apologizing. She said don’t worry, but it’s hard to tell if she means it.
I wandered over to the beam with the other Twos. If you annoy Mr. Brock, you go down for push-ups until he blows his whistle. If you do push-ups you develop big biceps. Swans have long, skinny, graceful arms. I always keep my mouth shut and my head down in gym, then race out afterward to my mother’s waiting car. The best part about being in gym class is everybody wears a white T-shirt and blue shorts, including me. I blend in.
Tommy was a Two, too. We stood next to each other, waiting our turn, staring at our sneakers as the first Two crossed the beam. “Hi,” Tommy whispered.
“Hi,” I whispered back. I pressed the tops of my toes against the floor to stretch my arch and tried to think of something witty to say. I’m so bad at that. So we just stood there, me thinking, My boyfriend! Say something! And him thinking . . . I have no idea what.
I said, “Oh,” about to tell him I couldn’t sit with him on the apple-picking trip, when Mr. Brock said, “Tommy? If you’re done flirting, cross the beam.”
Tommy mounted the beam exactly the way Mr. Brock taught us last week, held his hands out and wobbled as he stood up, but then walked quickly across.
“Stop,” barked Mr. Brock.
Tommy stopped, tottered, and fell off down to the mat. I gasped.
“Get up,” Mr. Brock said.
Tommy stood up. He was blushing, and his skinny, tan legs were shaking. He didn’t look back at the rest of us Twos as he placed his hands on the beam and hoisted himself up again.
“I want to see some grace, this time,” Mr. Brock demanded.
Tommy walked slower this time to the end of the beam and jumped off. Roxanne clapped for him, then immediately got down into push-up position.
“Give me fifty,” said Mr. Brock.
Tommy walked over, stood next to me again, and asked, “Are you gonna say the pledge?”
I realized my hand was over my heart, like Mom when she’s nervous. I dropped my hand and looked down at Roxanne. She was blowing a kiss at Mr. Brock’s back, from down on the mat. Roxanne doesn’t care what anybody thinks. She drops her books constantly and holds her belly when she laughs and chews with her mouth open. I think she’s probably smarter than Ken Carpenter or Olivia, but she’s too busy getting in trouble to copy over her work, the way teachers like, so she doesn’t get the same kind of credit as they do. I like her, though, even though probably she thinks I’m boring.
I smiled at her.
“Twinkle Toes,” Mr. Brock said to me. I looked at my sneakers. It’s hard to imagine that Ms. Cress is really going out with him. She’s so cool and he’s so mean. He’s cute, I guess, in a broad-shouldered, scrubbed way—that must be what Ms. Cress likes.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“Since we have a real ballerina here,” Mr. Brock said, “let’s all watch how she does the balance beam.” He blew his whistle. Roxanne stopped pretending to do push-ups. Mr. Brock blew his whistle again. “Everyone, gather ’round.” He crossed his arms across his muscular chest. I looked at the big clock up high on the wall—only eight minutes until the bell and I could change out of this stupid white T-shirt and crappy blue shorts and run out to the circle where Mom is probably already waiting to drive me to dance, since I haven’t managed to quit. Eight minutes. Seven. I wished for Mr. Brock to forget about me and choose somebody else.
“Up you go,” he said to me. He really meant it. I bent my feet against the floor and watched them, one after the other, forming graceful capital C’s. My feet are getting stronger, I told myself—I can bring the sole of my sneaker along with the arch of my foot, which I never used to be able to manage. Too bad Tommy wouldn’t know how cool that is.
Kids jumped off the rings and slid down the ropes. “We’re all waiting,” Mr. Brock told me. Seven minutes until the bell. Everybody in the middle school who takes band is in this gym class, and they were all crunching together on the yellow mats beside the beam.
“Please,” I whispered to Mr. Brock. “I’m sorry.” If my mother knew I was about to climb up on the beam, she’d have an absolute fit. You could do a lot worse than just twist an ankle, falling from up there.
“I want you people to see how the balance beam is done,” announced Mr. Brock. “CJ?”
“I don’t, I d-d-d . . .”
“I don’t, I don’t, I don’t,” he said back.
I pl
aced my hands on the beam like Tommy had and got myself up to a standing position. My feet were beside Mr. Brock’s whistle. He has a bald spot at the top of his blond head I’d never seen before. It made him seem less tough and gorgeous, more like my dad. Imagine he’s Dad, I told myself. Just do whatever he says and it’ll be over, you won’t have to talk.
“Do some ballerina tricks or something,” he suggested, crossing his arms.
I felt myself wobbling. “I don’t, we, there’s no b-b-b-balance beam . . .” I stuttered. Don’t fall, I warned myself.
“I don’t, I don’t, I don’t,” he said.
I gripped myself tighter, in a hug. Whatever you do, don’t fall.
“We’ll all just stand here and wait,” Mr. Brock told me. “I got no place to go until seven o’clock tonight.”
Hate.
Kids below me shuffled their feet and sighed. I couldn’t budge. The bell rang, and a few kids started breaking for the gym door, but Mr. Brock barked, “Not until I say dismissed.”
Everybody looked back up at me.
“Come on, ballerina.”
I was breathing through my mouth, looking up at the ceiling, praying not to cry.
“An arabesque,” I heard Zoe yell.
I couldn’t risk falling off to turn and ask if she’d lost her mind, helping the gym teacher humiliate me, when she’s supposed to be my best friend. Forget it, I thought, I’m taking off this ring. Morgan would never have yelled an arabesque. Probably Zoe was getting back at me about Lou.
“Yeah,” said Mr. Brock. “An arabesque!”
It’ll end, I told myself. Do it and be done, I told myself. You have no choice, I told myself.
My arms ungripped my T-shirt and dropped to my sides, then lifted softly to port de bras. My body tilted slightly forward, adjusting the balance, and I relaxed into dance class mode. Square the chest, and leg up, higher, higher, and, stay. Balance. Ahh. Toes, toes, toes—point hard, extend the line. Don’t move. Chin up, chin up, long neck. Breathe. Position, hold. No thoughts.