by Kieran Scott
“One of the other squads complained about the noise coming from this room,” Coach Martinez said to Becca. “Care to explain?”
“Was it the Black Bears?” Becca asked.
“Not that it matters, but yes,” Coach said.
“Wow, they must have been dogs in another life,” Gia said sarcastically. “They’re two floors down from us. That’s some serious hearing ability.”
“Can it, Kistrakis,” Coach Martinez said. “I think it’s time we had a little talk.”
Becca let her in and as soon as the door was closed, I waved at the others and slipped out into the hall. I raced to the stairwell and flung myself inside, petrified that I was about to hear Coach Martinez screech my name. Once I was safe and sound, however, I caught my breath and started down the stairs. I couldn’t believe the Black Bears had reported the Beavers. But I guess Becca had given up the right to good sportsmanship when she’d tossed that girl in the pool. All was fair in love and cheerleading. I just hoped the Beavers didn’t get in too much trouble.
I paused at my floor and opened the door, but a sizzle of trepidation shot through me. I really wasn’t ready to go back to my room just yet, where everyone hated me. I glanced at my watch and sighed. It was past our curfew. I was already in trouble. Maybe I would go to Daniel’s room and see if he was still up. I had been in such a good mood when I left him and I knew that hanging out with him would return me to cloud nine. Maybe if we hung out long enough, I could sneak back into the room after everyone was dead asleep.
I let the door close and headed downstairs.
15
Daniel and his roomies were, unfortunately, not in their room, so I headed for the lobby instead, thinking I might find them chilling down there. The place was still happening, but in a more hushed way than during the day. The guys weren’t there, but I saw a few girls I recognized from lunch that day walking in through the front door with their parents. A bunch of cheerleaders in matching sweatshirts posed for a picture in front of the waterfall fountain across from the front desk. They threw their arms around each other and grinned. Somewhere nearby a team was chanting and laughing. Just listening to all the cheer made my heart hurt.
Feeling heavy and low, I dropped into one of the vacant chairs and slumped. This was not how this competition was supposed to go. I should have been hanging out with my squad, having a good time, bonding and laughing and chanting and being silly. Instead I was all alone in the lobby, being pathetic.
I heard a familiar voice and looked up to find Steven shaking hands with an older, athletic-looking couple. He pocketed his tape recorder and made a note on a notepad as the pair walked away. Someone was working late.
“Hey! Steven!” I called out, desperate for a little company.
His face lit up when he saw me. It made me feel a little better. I hadn’t been getting that reaction a whole lot today.
“Annisa! What’s going on?” he asked, crossing the room. “Where is everybody?”
“In bed. We have a curfew, remember?”
“So . . . what are you doing here?” he asked.
“Being bad to the bone,” I joked lamely. “Who were those people?”
“I was just interviewing a couple of the judges,” Steven told me, sitting down on the coffee table across from me. He placed his vinyl backpack next to him. “I wanted to get an idea of how this whole competition thing works.”
“And? What do you think?” I asked.
“I think you guys are in for it,” Steven said incredulously. “These people do not mess around. They score on the difficulty, the precision, the enthusiasm, the music. Did you know they score on the music?”
“Yeah. Most squads get theirs professionally mixed,” I said. “Luckily for our budget, Coach’s boyfriend is a DJ.”
“Sweet,” Steven said. “I’ll have to put that in the article. Maybe I can profile him.” He whipped out his notepad and jotted a few things down.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you and your notepad alone,” I said, hoisting myself up.
“No, wait,” Steven said. He flipped the pad closed and put it down. “Hey. Is something wrong? You look a little, I don’t know, not happy.”
“Crack investigative journalism,” I joked, falling back into the chair.
“What’s up?” he asked, clearly concerned.
“Off the record?” I asked.
“Do you even have to ask anymore?” he asked me, lifting his hands, palm up.
I stared him down. “Yuh-huh I have to ask. Skirt? Over head? On front page?”
“Okay, off the record,” he said finally.
“Well, let’s just say I am not having fun here,” I said.
“How is that possible?” Steven asked. “You’re here with the squad. Your old friends are here. I saw Bethany this afternoon. It’s like a playground for Annisa.”
I scoffed. “I wish.”
Steven watched me steadily as if he were waiting for me to say something else. Finally the intensity of the stare started to freak me out and I became very intent on flicking my key card back and forth on the back of my hand.
“Want to go for a walk on the beach?” Steven asked. “Fresh air could help.”
I practically jumped out of my chair. “Let’s go.”
We walked out the back door of the hotel. The pool glowed with the help of underwater lights and the waterfall sounded a lot louder when there weren’t dozens of gabbing girls around. As we approached the beach, we saw a couple walking along the water’s edge, hand in hand, and we both automatically turned in the other direction. I slipped my sandals off and let my bare feet sink into the cool sand.
“So, what’s going on? Off the record,” Steven added quickly.
“Well, let’s see . . . . My new squad wants to give me a dye job and throw in a personality removal for free,” I said, swinging my sandals as I walked. “Meanwhile, my best friend from home thinks I’ve already had one. A personality removal, not a dye job.”
“Harsh,” Steven said.
“I just feel like I’m under the microscope all the time,” I told him. “If I say one thing wrong, everyone jumps all over me.”
“That’s not a good feeling,” Steven said. He pulled his bag around his side and started rummaging through it.
“You’re not taking out your tape recorder, are you?” I asked.
“Please! Me? Record a woman in pain?” He pulled out a bag of peanut M&M’s and handed them to me. “This is what you need.”
I grinned. “You sure you don’t want them?”
“They’re all yours,” he said, smiling.
Never one to turn down chocolate in a time of crisis—or any other time, actually—I tore into the bag and popped a couple of M&M’s into my mouth. Ah. The world looked so much brighter with a mouthful of chocolaty peanut goodness.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t speak without showering him with peanut bits.
“Good, ’cause I have some advice,” he said. “Do you want my advice?”
“Sure,” I managed to say.
“It sounds to me like you’re caught between two worlds—your old one and your new one. And you want to be in both places. You can’t decide where you belong. Am I right?” he asked.
I thought it over. “I guess . . .”
“Well, when it comes down to it, you don’t really have much choice,” he said, pausing in the soft sand. “You live in Florida now. This is your world,” he said, spreading his arms.
I looked around at the beach and the reeds and the sparkling hotel just beyond. It didn’t feel like my world. It felt more like a dream. Something temporary.
“Maybe you just haven’t accepted that yet,” Steven said. “Maybe you have to come to terms with the fact that it’s time to leave your old life behind. You can’t move back, you know. Only forward.”
I looked at him, my brow creasing in thought. He had a point. Unfortunately most of the people I was supposed to be moving forward with cu
rrently hated my guts. “What are you, a teen shrink?” I asked.
“No, but both my parents are,” he said with a grin. “Shrinks, not teens.”
“That explains it,” I said, popping another M&M.
“Well, once you accept the fact that Sand Dune is your home, I think you’ll have no problem figuring out who you’re going to be there,” he said, taking a step closer to me. “For the record, whoever you’ve been since you got here, I really like her.”
“Thanks,” I said, swallowing. “That’s really nice of y—”
I never got to finish my sentence because, I swear on my life, Steven Schwinn leaned forward and planted a big old wet one right on my lips. And I mean big and wet.
What was he doing? That was my first reaction. My second reaction was a series of flashing images through my mind. Steven waiting for me outside the locker room, asking my dad all kinds of personal questions about me. And what had he done with the answers he’d gotten? He’d used them. He had Beatles music on the bus. He had M&M’s in his bag at the ready. And hadn’t he been wearing a whole lot of red ever since I told him it was my favorite color?
I yanked my face away from him and stumbled backward, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth. Steven looked startled. I searched for something to say. At that exact moment, I heard a few male voices up the beach near the path that led back to the hotel. I looked up, my heart pounding, to see Bobby Goow, Christopher Healy, Carlos Verde and, yes, Daniel Healy, all clambering onto the beach. Well, the first three were clambering and laughing and shoving each other around. Daniel was just standing there, staring at me like he had just lost his best friend.
In a rush of realization, I knew he had seen me. He had seen me getting a saliva bath from Steven Schwinn. Oh . . . my . . . God!
“Daniel!”
He turned around and bolted as if the sound of his name was actually a gunshot. I dropped the M&M’s and took off after him, but I had a lot of beach to cover and it was slow going. By the time I reached the pathway, Daniel had already rounded the pool and was heading into the hotel.
“Annisa!” Steven called after me. “Where are you going?”
I ignored him. Steven I could deal with later. Right now I was not going to lose Daniel.
I sprinted around the pool, my bare feet slapping against the concrete. “Daniel!” I shouted.
He slowed down as he reached the back door and I finally caught up with him. He whipped around so quickly, I almost lost my balance. I stopped and held my hand over my heart, totally out of breath. Between the sprint and the desperation I was going to be needing a defibrillator any second.
“I knew it!” he said loudly. “I knew there was something going on between you two!”
“What?” I gasped.
“You and Steven Schwinn!” Daniel said through his teeth. I had never seen him so emotional before. Not even when he had caught Sage cheating on him with Gabe and he had shoved my brother into a garbage bag full of beer cans. “I can’t believe I drove all the way down here for someone who’s cheating on me! First Sage and now you!”
I don’t know if it was shock at the level of his anger, or disgust over being compared to Sage, but I could not find my tongue. It was nowhere in my mouth. It had entirely left my body.
“I’m such an idiot!” Daniel said, pushing his hand into his hair.
“I . . . I wasn’t cheating on you,” I said finally. But between the breathlessness and the confusion, it didn’t sound that convincing. Even to me.
“Are you kidding me?” Daniel said, throwing his arm out toward the beach. “I just saw you! I saw you with my own eyes! He had his tongue halfway down your throat!”
I shuddered at the memory and Daniel took the opportunity to turn on his heel and storm into the lobby. Suddenly I felt my face heat up with irritation. Yet another person refused to see my side of things. What was with everybody? I yanked the door open and followed him.
“Hey! Aren’t you even going to give me a chance to explain?” I shouted at his back.
He tipped his head back, then turned around. “Explain what?”
“What just happened!” I said. “All we did was go for a walk on the beach. It’s not like I expected him to kiss me!”
He scoffed. “A walk on the beach in the dark. What else was going to happen, Annisa?”
I narrowed my eyes at his condescension. “You were out there with Bobby and Carlos and your brother! Planning on kissing any of them?”
He took a deep breath. “Great. You cheated on me and now you’re making jokes?”
I couldn’t take it anymore. He kept throwing the word cheat at me when he was the one talking to Sage in the hallway and letting her touch his hair and maybe calling her and then lying about it. Where did he get off calling me a cheat?
“Forget it,” he said, turning and striding into the lobby.
“Fine! Believe what you want to believe!” I shouted after him, stopping at the edge of the shining lobby floor. “But you can’t cheat on someone you’re not technically going out with!”
The few people left in the lobby all turned to gape at me. A couple of girls sipping coffees at a table shot me a look like I was completely pathetic. Daniel stopped for a split second. I stared at his back, willing him to turn around. Hoping there was some way for us to erase everything and go back to that last good-night kiss we had shared a little over an hour ago. It was almost impossible to believe that earlier tonight I had been floating—that earlier tonight everything had been perfect.
Daniel did turn around, but all he did was shoot me a look that was full of hurt and betrayal. Then he kept walking and never turned back again.
16
“Stop, stop, stop!” Coach Holmes shouted, waving her hands at us.
Everyone groaned and paused mid-dance move as she killed the music. I stood off to the side, conspicuous. I knew I had screwed up the sequence. I had skipped about five moves and gone right into the domino jumps. The fact that the rest of the team was crouched on the floor while I was three feet above it kind of tipped me off.
Get your head in the game, Annisa, I told myself. Of course, considering I had barely slept and I was still really upset over a number of cataclysmic events, the game was not a place my head was willing to be. A pillow was what it really needed.
“Annisa, what is going on with you this morning?” Coach asked.
Over on the other side of the room, the Black Bears stopped practicing long enough to point and snicker. Loved those girls. Really. Loved them.
“Sorry, Coach,” I said, looking at the floor. I could feel at least a dozen angry glares boring into the back of my neck.
“She was probably too busy staying up all night giving pointers to all the other squads,” Sage muttered under her breath, causing Lindsey to snort a laugh.
I could have pulled her hair. Really. She was that irritating.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it today,” Coach said, standing in front of me with her arms crossed over her chest. “We have prelims in an hour. You need to step it up. Now.”
“Got it,” I said.
She eyed me curiously, then lowered her voice. “Everything okay with you, Gobrowski? Did you sleep all right?”
Wow. I must have even looked exhausted.
“Not really,” I admitted.
Coach placed her hand on my back and rubbed it around in a comforting way. “I know these things can be nerve-racking. Why don’t you go get yourself some juice or coffee and try to perk up? We need you at full energy for this thing.”
“Okay, Coach,” I said, mustering a smile. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
At least she didn’t hate me.
“All right, everyone, that’s enough for now,” Coach Holmes called out. “Let’s all take a break. We’ll meet back here at 11:45 for stretching and the power circle.”
A few of my teammates clapped and cheered, but most of them just grabbed their stuff and hustled out of the room. I wasn’t surprised t
hat no one stuck around to give me a pep talk. Barely anyone had spoken to me at breakfast either. Apparently they were all really annoyed when they heard about me helping the Beavers. I was a leper all over again.
I hoisted my bag onto my shoulder and was about to head for the café when Tara stepped in front of me. She did not look like she was in a pep-talky kind of mood either. Fantastic.
“We need to talk,” she said.
Talking was basically the last thing I wanted to do, but I knew I couldn’t avoid her forever. I decided to stand my ground. Maybe Tara would have something constructive to say.
“Okay,” I replied, lifting my chin.
“I don’t know why Coach is going easy on you, but as far as I’m concerned, your performance is your own fault,” she said, her eyes sharp.
Or maybe not.
“I really don’t need this right now,” I said, starting past her.
“You’re the one who missed curfew,” Tara said, calling after me. “If we go down today, it’s on you.”
“Fine!” I said, lifting my arm with my back to her.
Nice captain. I was starting to think she had been voted into the position only because everyone was afraid of her. Clearly she knew nothing about rallying the troops or having compassion. She knew even less about taking responsibility. All she had ever done since I arrived in Sand Dune was pin stuff on me. My eyes filled with tears of exhaustion and frustration.
As I walked out of the ballroom, I glanced at the Beavers, who were going over their final pyramid. Jordan was at the top of the structure, arms in a perfect high V, smile wide, staring straight ahead. They all looked happy and energetic and raring to go. Surprising, considering their night of debauchery. But at least they were still here. At least Coach Martinez hadn’t decided to punish them by sending them home.
And at least they appeared to be having fun. That was a lot more than I could say for my squad.
Backstage before the semifinal performances was a dizzying flurry of activity. Some squads went over their routines, doing the moves small and tight, counting out their eight-counts under their breath. Other squads sat in clumps, holding hands, saying prayers. Still others ran around making last-minute adjustments on their hair and uniforms.