The Geek Girl's Guide to Cheerleading (14 page)

“Don’t you think it’s a little weird?” I said to Moni. “You could become a cheerleader and not even have to leave your house.”

She snorted but continued scrolling through the videos. “This is it!”

“What?”

“A shoulder sit. It’s a two-person stunt; we can do it on our own. How’s that sound?”

“Dangerous?”

“Only if you mean dangerously close to perfect.”

Shoulder sit? A lot harder than it looks. Especially when you’re the base (the sittee in cheerleading-speak) and not the flyer (the sitter).

“Think of it, Bee,” said Moni, and I swear, her eyes got all misty. “We could do this at the next wrestling meet.” Where, oh by the way, Rick Mangers was bound to be.

I huffed about it a little, but I went along. She had a point. Being the school’s cheerleading joke (at worst) or just mediocre (at best) wasn’t sitting well with either of us. We were honor-roll girls; we were used to collecting gold stars for our efforts.

By late Saturday afternoon, my thigh was imprinted with the sole of Moni’s Skecher and my shoulders ached. Even after we recruited Shelby as a spotter, I still dumped Moni on my bed at least ten times.

Then we got it. Moni locked her legs behind my back. She raised her arms in a V, and I stuck my fists on my hips. We held it there for one…two…three seconds.

Shelby let out a congratulatory whoop just as the phone rang.

And Moni and I still held it.

Shelby grabbed the phone. “Hello, Bethany’s room,” she said.

Moni started to shake with laughter.

“Is it Todd?” I asked.

Shelby’s eyes were huge. “No, it’s a
boy
!”

Moni shook harder and tumbled from my shoulders to the bed. Shelby pushed the phone at me. Before I could say hello, Jack’s voice filled my ear.

“It’s not Moni,” he said, “or Todd.”

“I guessed.” I glanced at Moni and mouthed,
It’s Jack
.

“Whatcha doing?” he asked.

“Moni and I were…” Did I admit to Jack Paulson that we were striving to become better cheerleaders? “Hanging out,” I finished.

“Oh, ’cause I was thinking,” he said, “if you wanted, you could maybe come over for dinner. You know, as thanks for lunch last week.”

“You don’t—”

“Nothing fancy,” Jack added, his voice sounding rushed. “Me and my dad, and then a Timberwolves game.”

“More basketball?” Just what I needed.

“Do you mind?”

Actually, I didn’t. “I don’t have to cheer through the whole thing, do I?”

Jack laughed but then fell silent, waiting for me to answer.

I held my hand over the receiver and whispered to Moni, “He wants me to come over for dinner.”

“Are you crazy?” She practically spat the words. “Say yes already!”

Shelby bounced with excitement.

“I could pick you up,” said Jack. “And bring you home.”

“I—I have to talk to my parents,” I said. There was no way around that, even if it did sound middle school. Geek Night was one thing. Dinner at Jack’s? Maybe some kids could get away with going wherever they pleased, but especially after last weekend, my parents would completely freak if I said I’d go without getting permission first.

Shelby turned toward the door. “Mo-o-o-m! Da-a-a-d!” I grabbed her and covered her mouth. I tried to hand her off to Moni, but she squirmed free. The two of us raced for the living room.

“There’s-a-boy-on-Bethany’s-phone.” Shelby stopped to take a breath. “And-he-wants-to—”

My parents looked up. At that same moment I heard Jack laugh and say, “Hang on a sec.”

“What’s going on?” both Mom and Dad asked.

I shot Shelby a glance that said,
If your fingers ever want to touch pom-poms again
…And miraculously, she grew still.

“Uh, hold on,” I said. I strained to decipher the muted noises coming from Jack’s house. From my room, I heard Moni giggling.

“Bethany? This is Dale Paulson.”

“Uh, hi, Mr. Paulson.”

“Please, call me Dale. Can I speak to your mom or dad?”

“Sure.” Since Dad was closest, I handed him the phone. “It’s Mr. Paulson,” I said.

He looked from the phone to Mom, who raised an eyebrow. He spoke to Jack’s dad for a moment. “It’s more than fine.”

Whew, that sounded positive.

“We had the contractors in, and they said they couldn’t have done a better job themselves.”

Oh, the basement. Of course. What else would they talk about? Then my dad looked toward me and blinked. “I wouldn’t expect anything less,” he said, then handed the phone back to me.

“Hey.” It was Jack.

“Hi.”

“So, can you be ready in about twenty minutes?”

My mind catalogued the contents of my closet and dresser drawers. Twenty minutes? There were those cute jeans I got for Christmas. And the chunky knit sweater that matched my black sneakers. I was a little sweaty from practicing with Moni—and from racing Shelby—but nothing a little deodorant, face powder, and lip gloss wouldn’t fix.

“Bethany?” said Jack.

“Oh. Sorry. I was…I was…” Then I gave up and admitted, “I was thinking about what to wear.”

“Will that take more than twenty minutes?”

“Nope.”

Jack laughed. “Gotta love a low-maintenance girl. So we’re on?”

I looked at my mom and dad. “I—I think so.” I held my hand over the receiver again and asked my parents, “Please?”

Shelby echoed, “Please, please?”

“What about Moni?” Mom asked.

“Moni’s going home!” came the cry from my bedroom. Even Mom’s lips twitched at that.

“We don’t really know Jack,” Mom said, then added, “that well.”

I couldn’t exactly plead with them while Jack was on the other end of the phone, Moni was down the hall, and while Shelby was still threatening to spontaneously combust at my side. Besides, I understood their concern. This wasn’t Todd or Brian. This was Jack Paulson, the star of the basketball team, the boy who could have any girl he wanted.

In my mom and dad’s world, life was like a ginormous graph, where everything was neatly plotted out. My trajectory and Jack’s should never intersect. But that was on paper. Chalk one up to variable C—otherwise known as cheerleading.

“Dale says he’ll chaperone,” Dad said. “I think it’s okay.”

“Don’t you usually go to Todd’s on Saturdays?” asked Mom.

Yeah. I did. If I wanted things to get better with Todd, I really
should
go to Geek Night. But, I justified, it had always been an open invitation. No one held it against you when you couldn’t make it. It might not work that way with Todd, though. Not now. Not if he found out about Jack. Was I really the sort of girl who would blow off her friends for some guy?

Todd would call me a sellout (or worse) if I ditched him for Jack. Moni would call me an imbecile (or worse) if I didn’t. I couldn’t win. Then I thought of Jack, with my copy of
Pride and Prejudice
tucked in the pocket of his letter jacket.

“Todd will understand,” I said. Or not, as the case might be. I’d deal with that on Monday. But tonight?

Mom pulled at a snarl in her needlepoint, then nodded.

Tonight I was headed to Jack’s.

When I got back to my room, Moni sat on my bed, scrolling through the display on her cell phone. Shelby had my sophomore yearbook open to the boys’ basketball page.

“Him?” She pointed to Jack. “You’re going out with him?”

“Looks that way,” I said.

“Didn’t he come to our house once?”

I nodded.

“Wow.”

“Uh, wow,” I said, nudging Moni’s foot with mine.

“Huh?” Moni tucked her phone into her pocket, then stood. “Have fun at Jack’s.”

This was so unlike her. Five minutes ago, she nearly went through the roof.

“Moni, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Why would anything be wrong? You’re going out with Jack Paulson. I get to go home and watch my mom and Starbucks Boy rehearse before they take off for a poetry slam.”

Oh, so that was it. “You want me to cancel?”

“Don’t you dare.” Her voice went fierce. “One of us”—she waved a hand at my laptop, where the video cheerleaders were frozen in a shoulder sit—“should get something out of this.”

She left. I heard her chirp good-bye to my parents. A minute later her mom’s car was crunching snow in the driveway. I considered calling Todd. I could try to force him to play nice, ask him to extend a special Geek Night invitation to Moni. That probably wouldn’t work. If Todd and I had hit a rocky patch in our friendship, the space between Todd and Moni was strewn with boulders.

Maybe I could get ahold of Brian. But that might be even worse. He’d buried his nose in
Gamers’ World
magazines at our lunch table all week, refusing to even look at Moni (at least when Moni was looking back). I had less than twenty minutes to get ready for Jack, and something told me the only phone number Moni wanted to see on her cell was Rick’s.

The doorbell rang while I was still pulling the sweater over my head. I peeked out the window. The battered red Toyota sat in our driveway, exhaust billowing, forming a thin cloud over the snow-covered lawn. I raced downstairs in time to see Jack shake Dad’s hand, smile at my mom, and wink at Shelby.

“After the game?” Jack said.

They were discussing curfews. Oh. Great.

Dad nodded. “Sounds fair, but call if it goes into overtime.”

Since when did Dad know about basketball and overtime? Had he been studying too?

“You ready?” asked Jack.

I nodded, possibly a bit too emphatically. I grabbed my coat and struggled into it on the way out the door—the faster we left, the better.

“Sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

I nodded toward the house.

“That?” He gave me his little-boy grin. “You forget. We’re having dinner with my dad.” With that cryptic remark, he led me to the Toyota.

Apparently, Jack could cook.

Outside, the Paulsons’ old Victorian sported two basketball hoops. Inside, a wood stove warmed the house, and the tangy scent of tomato sauce and basil made my stomach growl. Spaghetti swirled in a pot of boiling water. It was the sort they served in the cafeteria at school, the thick kind that stuck to your insides. No spinach-colored angel-hair pasta in this house.

“Do you do all the cooking?” I leaned against the kitchen counter.

“Since eighth grade. My dad”—Jack lowered his voice—“really can’t cook.”

“I heard that!” The response came from the living room. Jack made a face, and I giggled.

“At first all I wanted to do was figure out my mom’s recipe for spaghetti sauce.” He chased the noodles around the pot, the steam from them making his skin glow. “She was one of those people who kept it all up here.” He tapped his head.

“Looks pretty impressive,” I said.

“You think?”

“Yeah, I do,” I added, but I was talking so softly, the steam absorbed my words.

Jack smiled. “The secret ingredient is sugar,” he said. “It cuts the acid from the tomatoes. Here, taste.” He gave the sauce a quick stir, then stepped close to me and held the spoon to my mouth.

“Mmmmm, delicious,” I said. And it was. In more ways than one.

“Are you sure? Usually I put more garlic in it, but since…” Jack’s voice trailed off.

“Since what?” We stood so close that speaking above a whisper seemed weird.

“Since…,” Jack whispered back. He looked up at the ceiling for a second, then grinned back down at me. “Since you were coming over.”

What did that have to do with…? Oh.

Jack still held the spoon. His other hand still cradled the space beneath it, guarding against spills. But he leaned in anyway, and I closed my eyes. Our lips met in a not-so-garlicky kiss.

Just then Jack’s dad shouted from the living room, “How’re things coming along in there? You need any help from me?”

My eyes flew back open.

Jack kept his lips on mine, and my mouth buzzed with his words as he said, “What do you think? Are we doing okay? Or should I call for reinforcements?”

I pushed him away, and we both laughed.

Mr. Paulson set the table while Jack pulled garlic bread from the oven. I was reduced to carrying three glasses of water.
Please
, I thought,
let me make it to the table without tripping.
Mr. Paulson grinned at the two of us as I twirled spaghetti on my fork, conscious of every move. It was the wrong thing to eat when you were under scrutiny.

Jack’s dad excused himself. “Forgot the drinks,” he said.

I pointed to the water glasses, but my protest died when a rattle came from the kitchen. Mr. Paulson returned, tossing a can across the table to Jack.

“There you go, Jackie.”

In a blur of red, white, and blue, Jack popped the tab and took a long swallow—of beer. Then he froze, his eyes meeting mine above the rim of the can.

“Oh, Bethany, honey, I’m sorry,” Mr. Paulson said. “Would you—?”

Would I what?
Like a can of beer?
I tried to hide my shock while I gave my head a quick shake. So yeah, my parents drank once in a while, wine at Christmas, that sort of thing. When they came home from their New Year’s party, they even opened a small bottle of champagne and poured a glass for me. But they didn’t pop cans of Bud at the dinner table. And they never offered one to me.

“I’m fine with water, thank you.” Gah, my voice sounded so prissy.

“You know, Jack’s mom used to like a glass of wine with spaghetti, didn’t she, Jackie?”

Jack unclenched the beer can and set it on the table. “She did.”

“But I guess you’re stuck with us two bachelors,” said Mr. Paulson. “Not a drop of vino in the house.” And then he stared, obviously expecting an answer.

I ducked my head and studied my plate, but the garlic bread wasn’t giving up any clever small talk. At last I said, “Well, it could be worse.” Oh sure, even the garlic bread could have come up with something better than that.

Mr. Paulson laughed, and the tension eased from Jack’s face. His hand flirted with the beer can, back and forth between it and his plate, until at last I nodded. He gave me a grateful look before taking another swallow.