Beth sighs loudly. "What happens," she practically sings, "when a pretty young coach takes a ragtag team of misfits and feebs under her wing? Why, they fly, fly, fly."
Coach looks at her.
"We just needed someone to believe in us," Beth finishes.
"Stop gaming her, Ca.s.sidy," Coach says, staring her down, duel-at-dawn, but her tone still flat, toneless, "or I"m gonna ground-bound you instead."
"Look at her leg," Beth says, "like a wishbone tw.a.n.ging."
"Ca.s.sidy," Coach says, like she"s forgotten the caution she"s supposed to use with Beth, or she"s just stopped caring. "When you start showing me you can do more than flash your t.i.ts and treat your mouth like a sewer, then maybe we"ll have something to talk about."
Don"t, Coach, I think. I think. Don"t. Don"t.
"You heard the coach," Beth says, turning to us with a smile. "Load her up and let her fall."
The music thumping again, Beth counting off, Mindy and Cori line up, Bottom Bases. Spotters Paige and a JV stand behind them and load up the second level, RiRi and me, our bodies springing up to shoulder stands, their palms cradling our calves.
Facing each other, we lift Tacy between us, throwing her above us into a stand, our arms lifted high, hands tight on her wrists. Her arms outstretched, Jesus-style, her left leg knee-bent in front of her, the girls beneath grasping her right foot to hold her in place.
For a second, she is solid.
Seven, eight, Beth counting off until the Deadman and it is time. Time for us to drop her backwards into a stiff-spined horizontal fall. Ready for Paige, the JV, all her spotters to catch her down below. Beth counting off until the Deadman and it is time. Time for us to drop her backwards into a stiff-spined horizontal fall. Ready for Paige, the JV, all her spotters to catch her down below.
We let go.
Her eyes wild, Tacy drops, but her body seems to rubberize, limbs like spaghetti. As her hand grapples for me, I feel myself sliding down with her, Paige and Cori, on the ground, shouting, "Slaus, here, here, here. Hold it!"
But she plunges, our hands empty.
The sickly sound as Tacy, still half in Paige"s sloping arms, hits the mat, face first.
RiRi and I still on high, I think my knees might give, but I hear Coach"s voice, iron smooth, "Hanlon, slow down that dismount," as RiRi and I sink down.
I feel something clamping on me, and Beth is right there, her hand gripping my arm all the way down. Depositing me safely on the mat, feet first.
Coach is on the floor with Tacy, strewn from the spotters" tangled arms, her feet still in their grip even as her head, neck tilted, her chin split wide open, swabs the mat.
"At least she can fall well," RiRi mutters.
Her mouth opening in a strangled sob, Tacy"s teeth blare bright red.
"You come at the king," Beth says, "you best not miss."
RiRi and I take Tacy to Nurse Vance, who slaps on the b.u.t.terfly bandages and tells me to take Tacy to the hospital for st.i.tches, which sends her into a new round of sobs.
"Your modeling career is over," I say.
Walking to her locker, Tacy is purple-lipped and cotton-tufted, crying about the Game and the scouts and how she"s got got to do the two-two-one, she"s the only one light enough, which isn"t even true, and Coach d.a.m.n well better let her cheer, no matter what she looks like. to do the two-two-one, she"s the only one light enough, which isn"t even true, and Coach d.a.m.n well better let her cheer, no matter what she looks like.
Then, a new sob choking in her, she takes a deep breath.
"But it should be Beth anyway," she whispers, dramatically. "Beth"s Top Girl."
For a second, I hear RiRi. What about Addy? What if Addy were Top Girl? What about Addy? What if Addy were Top Girl?
But it never has been me, has it? I never wanted it to. I was never a stunter, I was a spotter, a hoister. That"s what I am.
And Top Girls were different from the rest of us.
I think of Beth last year, after the Nors.e.m.e.n game, all of us drinking with the players up on the ridge, and Brian Brun thrusting her above his head, hands gripping around her ankles, her feet tucked in his palms, then one leg flung behind her, rendering her celebrated Bow "n" Arrow, as she spun and lifted her right leg straight in the air, slipping it behind her glossy head, making one beautiful line of Bethness, all of us gasping.
It"s all we could talk about, dream about, for days, weeks.
"It"s always been Beth," she slurs, grazing her temple with the back of her wrist. "And the squad is what counts. Cheer, I never knew it mattered so much. Not until Coach picked me. She changed my life. Now it"s all I can think about, Addy. I hear the counts in my sleep. Don"t you? I don"t ever want them to end."
I tell her to stop talking.
"Don"t you see, Addy?" she says, words tumbling in her mouth, eyes shiny and crazed. "When we go out there Monday night, we need to show them what we can do. What we are. We need to make them know it. We need to give them more than awesomeness.
"We need to give them greatness."
It hurts to turn the steering wheel. I can still feel Tacy"s grasping fingers, the fear my arm socket might pop. The sound of Beth saying, "Ride that b.i.t.c.h...ride her."
And Beth, the way her hand fastened on me, stopping my fall.
And after, Coach saying, as I walked the limping Tacy across the gym, "Next time, Hanlon, when you let her go, keep those arms to the side. Don"t let her see your hands are there. If she does, she"ll grab for them. Wouldn"t you?"
Wouldn"t you? I want to ask.
I think of injured Emily again, withering up in the stands. And I remember how, last week, she posted on my Facebook wall: "U never call me anymore. None of U." And I decided it was a joke, one of Emily"s endless LOLs.
I couldn"t be bothered.
At the games she sits, just barely separated from the bleacher crowd-in the borderland, the nowhere zone between our bronzed glory and the gray blur of everything, everyone else in this sad world.
At home later: U put a hex on Slaus, I text Beth. I text Beth.
U shoulda given *her* the hamsa, she replies. she replies.
Like at a hypnotist"s cue, my head floods with the image of my bracelet in Will"s apartment. A crimson ring on his carpet.
But I keep hearing Beth"s words in my head:...Coach must"ve told you they asked her about the bracelet. You two thick as thieves.
Why hasn"t Coach told me?
I think I should just call her and ask her about it. But I don"t.
I want her to tell me.
It doesn"t mean anything if I have to ask her.
A blipping text message comes hours later, but it"s from Beth: Guess who"s flying Mon nite? Guess who"s flying Mon nite?
Tacy"s out, Beth"s in. A peculiar mix of terror and relief floods through me-and then the taunting mystery of what kind of conversation transpired between Beth and Coach during those hours after practice to lead to this.
R U happy now? I text back. I text back.
But there"s no reply.
It"s the dark muddle of the night when I feel the phone hissing in my hand.
Come outside.
I flick my blinds with a finger and see a car out front, Coach behind the wheel.
The cold gra.s.s crunching under my feet, I bound across the lawn.
We sit in the car, which is Matt French"s and isn"t as nice as Coach"s car. It smells like cigarettes, though I"ve never seen Matt French smoke.
The cup holder is stained with three, four coffee rings like the center of an old tree.
Something"s wreathing my ankle, maybe the hand loops of a plastic bag, or the curled edges of an old receipt, some stray Matt Frenchness left behind.
Something about how messy the car is makes me feel things, like that time I saw him, after midnight, drooped over a bowl of cereal, and understood it was his dinner, that gritty bowl of Coach"s special holistic blend of organic gravel, soot, and matches, and Matt French hunched over it by himself on the kitchen island, socked feet dangling, headphones on, tuning out all our hysteria and gum chewing.
And now. Poor Matt, in some airport or office tower in Georgia, some conference room someplace where men like Matt French go to do whatever it is they do, which is not interesting to any of us, but maybe it would be if we knew. Though I doubt it.
Except sometimes I think of him, and the soulful clutter in his eyes, which is not like Will"s eyes were because Will"s eyes always seemed about Will. And Matt French"s seem only about Coach.
"He"s still gone?" I ask.
"Gone?" she asks, looking at me quizzically.
"Matt," I say.
She pauses. "Oh," she says, turning her face away for a second. "Yeah."
As if he were an afterthought.
Hands curling around the steering wheel, she says, "There"s something new, Addy."
The bracelet, she"s going to tell me at last.
"The police," she says. "I think they"re hearing things. They asked me what the nature of our relationship was. That"s how they put it."
"Oh," I say.
"I told them again that we were friends. They"re probably just trying to understand his state of mind."
"Oh," I repeat.
"They had a lot of new questions about the last contact I"d had with him. I think they-and the Guard-they want to understand how he might have come to this," she says.
The words don"t feel like hers, exactly. So formal, her mouth moving slowly around them like they don"t fit.
"I"m sure it"s fine, Addy," she says, her fingers clenching tighter. "But it seemed like I should tell you."
"I"m glad you told me," I say. But she hasn"t told me anything. "Is that all?"
As if sensing my disappointment, she pats me on the shoulder.
"Addy, nothing can really happen if we keep tight," she says, resting her fingers there. I don"t remember her ever touching me like that. "Keep strong. Focus. After all, it"s just you and me who know everything."
"Right," I say. And I want to feel the dazey warmth of sharing things with her, but she"s not sharing, not really, and so all I feel is Beth, the way she seems now, crouched, watchful, hovering.
"So we"re good?" she asks.
Part of me wants to tell her everything, all the ways she needs to watch for Beth, knives out. But she"s telling me only what she wants to. So I don"t say any more.
"I gave it to Beth," Coach says, reading my thoughts, like she can. Like they both can. "She"s Top Girl. She"s flying at the final game."
Coach, I want to say, what makes you think you can stop there? You have to give her everything until we figure out what she wants. Until she does.
"First I made her captain. Now I"ve made her Top Girl," she says, eyes on me, searching.
She didn"t make me Top Girl, I can hear Beth saying. I can hear Beth saying. I made me Top Girl. I made myself. I made me Top Girl. I made myself.
She loops her fingers around the gearshift.
"I don"t know what else to do," she says, a slightly stunned look on her face. "Jesus, she"s just a seventeen-year-old kid. Why should I..."
There"s a pause.
"She"ll get bored with it all," she says, as if trying to convince herself. "They always do."
At home that night I spend an hour, forehead nearly pressed to my laptop screen, reading the news.
No Answers Yet: Guardsman Cause of Death Still Under Investigation.