Chapter 14
Janie’s Story
The twenty high school freshman girls sat together in a cavernous basketball gymnasium on the first two rows of bleachers that were normally used to seat several hundred students during school assemblies and basketball games. They were hot, sweaty and looked utterly spent. The youthful exuberance and gossipy chitchat that had been present earlier in the afternoon was now all but dead. An intermittent conversation would break out every so often, but end before much was said. They were seated ten wide, two deep (one row behind and slightly above the other), in the middle of the thirty row, one-hundred-and-fifty person-wide bleacher structure. The various colored sweatpants, mussed hair, and baggy T-shirts masked the fact that all were aspiring to be the most popular and perhaps even the prettiest girls in school.
They had each completed the final of five routines for the Rock Flats High School junior varsity cheerleader tryouts, the first step to becoming a varsity cheerleader, and they were waiting to find out who had made the final cut. Janie sat in the middle of the front row, the most attentive girl there or on any row, and, up to that point in their freshman year, the most gifted and popular of the girls. It was two weeks after school began, the second week of September, and the final routines had ended just ten minutes before. The delay after the last girl performed and the varsity cheerleaders left the gym to deliberate with their faculty advisor had finally taken its toll.
“Can you believe they think they’re so special?” a very cute and petite redhead sitting to Janie’s right said to no one in particular.
Janie nodded her head in agreement, careful not to be heard actually saying a disparaging comment about the ten girls who would soon decide her fate.
More talking began from behind her and from both sides. The girl seated directly behind her said, “You’re a cinch,” another, “No, you are.” Janie knew better. Neither girl thought the other had any talent to be a cheerleader or even on pep squad. She had heard both girls make catty and insulting remarks about each other when the other wasn’t around. She rolled her eyes and smirked to herself, careful to not look to either side in case the backbiting girls might see her expression and guess what she was thinking.
Finally, Janie heard the large steel door to the left of the bleachers that the cheerleaders had walked through ten minutes before open. She looked toward the door, which was directly under the basketball goal and about ten yards behind it. The upper classmen walked through the door in a single-file line, precisely five feet separating each of them and the faculty advisor, Ms. Dowell, just inside the gym holding the door open for their entrance. A couple of the girls had slight smiles on their faces. The others did not. Most kept their eyes down to avoid eye contact with the freshmen. The one in the front, Jackie, a long haired brunette who kept her hair in a tight bun when practicing and cheering but long and flowing at other times, seemed to flash a very friendly grin toward Janie as she stepped directly in front of her. Jackie stopped there and turned toward the girls in the bleachers as the other older girls lined up behind her, about five yards back. They also turned toward the bleachers. The occasional chitchatting among the freshmen died down to total silence.
“It’s been a very long two weeks,” Jackie began, her loud voice almost booming off the walls and ceiling of the large structure. Janie understood how she had become captain of the squad. A cheerleader had to be heard and she had no problem with that particular job requirement. “You all worked very hard. Unfortunately, there are just not enough spots for everyone. Just ten of you will make the final cut. The rest will automatically be on the pep squad, if you accept the honor.”
Janie looked to her sides and stole a glance behind her. She saw two girls three seats to her right who everyone knew wouldn’t make cheerleader. They had been just terrible in the final routines. One was stoic. She grinned and nodded her head when Jackie mentioned the consolation prize. She would be happy no matter what. The other, who had been even worse than the first in the final routine, frowned. She would not be happy with anything short of Jackie’s job.
Janie was just having fun, like her big sister, Sandy, had done when she cheered for their high school her junior and senior years. She had graduated the year before. Janie kept telling herself that the tryouts were fun in and of themselves, that’s what Sandy had told her. Making the squad was just a bonus.
One of the girls behind Jackie stepped up from the back and stood to Jackie’s right. Her name was Susan. She was a junior and would probably be the next captain after Jackie graduated. She had really short blond hair, was pretty though not beautiful, and was a little husky. She was usually at the bottom of the pyramid routines. Then the naming of the freshman cheerleaders began.
A name was announced. The girl named stood, smiled at her fellow classmates, and then walked to the group of cheerleaders behind Jackie and Susan. With each name those left in the bleachers became more and more deflated. After the eighth name most of the girls still seated had tears in their eyes. Sandy didn’t make cheerleader her first year, Janie’s thoughts would reassure her after each name was called. It worked. When the ninth name was read she still didn’t have a tear in her eyes.
“Janie Richter,” Jackie said as the tenth and final name. Relief washed over Janie as she heard her name. She felt the urge to cry but then heard the redhead to her left start bawling loudly. Instead of crying Janie just stood up and walked to the rest of the cheerleaders. They all hugged each other. The younger ones thanked the older ones. Soon the unsuccessful candidates went to the lockers to shower and change. There was a brief orientation for the new cheerleaders and they left shortly thereafter.
After it was over Janie showered, put her street clothes on, and left the girls locker room, which opened up into the gym. She then left the gym and sat down on an oak-tree shaded patch of grass next to the curb of the parking. She had fallen behind in her schoolwork so she decided to study while she waited for her ride. She pulled out her algebra book and reviewed that day’s assignment. As she did, a varsity football player walked out of the boys’ weight room, which was connected to the gym but had a door that emptied out into the parking lot. She didn’t notice who it was at first. The only thing she knew for certain was that only varsity players were allowed to use the weight room at that time of day, just after 4:00, so it had to be a varsity player. She heard from behind her, “Aren’t you Janie?” The voice was much deeper than the still-changing voices of the boys her age.
She looked up and behind her toward the manly voice. It was none other than the starting quarterback and team captain, Eldon McGraw. She knew from what her sister had told her that he wasn’t exactly the All-American type. In fact, he was the quintessential bad boy. She blushed when she saw him and then quickly looked back at her book. “Yeah,” was all she said.
“What’re you reading?” he asked as he stood behind her.
Janie had always been attentive to her books and schoolwork. Her mom and dad were avid readers so it was only natural for her to pick up the habit at an early age. She began reading “chapter books,” as she called them, by five years of age, and had read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy by twelve. Part of her wanted to say something sarcastic like, “It’s called a textbook. Ever seen one?” After just two weeks in high school, she knew that this particular jock was not known for academic excellence. But she refrained. For the first time in her young life, she wanted to be a part of the popular crowd, and popular kids didn’t want to be known as bookworms. Instead, she shut the book closed and said, “Just math.”
Before she had a chance to stand up so she could talk to the upperclassman quarterback on a more equal level, he sat on the lawn to her left. The book was still in her lap. He reached over and grabbed it even though she gripped it tightly, not wanting him to see it was an advanced placement algebra textbook. His strength won out and he pulled it away from her without much effort.
“So,” he said, as he skimmed the cover and even flipped it o
pen to chapter 3. “You’re one of those brainy types.”
She blushed and looked down into her lap. “Not really. Just doing what my parents tell me to do.”
“I’ve never been big into pleasing the parental units.”
She realized that her sloppy clothes and too relaxed appearance –she didn’t bother putting makeup on after her shower—might be misread by the muscle-headed jock. Even though she knew that they had nothing in common, she strangely wanted to impress him. She allowed a smile to turn up the corner of her lips as she recalled her sister telling her once that bad boys were fun, but just for a little while, and to get them out of her system by the time she graduated high school. She looked over at him to make eye contact. She hoped her sea blue eyes and dainty facial features would divert attention away from her slightly disheveled, post-workout look. “Mom said I have to keep up my studies if I want to be a cheerleader.”
He averted his gaze from her eyes to the rest of her. Her face had been very pretty since she was a baby, and now that she was blossoming into a young lady, some boys and men found her simply ravishing, especially when accentuated by those deep blue eyes. Now, her womanhood was just starting to show, so although Eldon was much more physically mature that Janie, he saw a beautiful teenage girl sitting next to him. Better still, a flower yet to be spoiled. “Cheerleader, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“So,” he stammered and stuttered for the first time, sounding a little nervous as he went from casual conversation to pick-up mode, “did you make it?”
“Yep,” she replied as she sheepishly directed her gaze back down to her lap.
“Congratulations. You know that after a few games some of the JV cheerleaders move up to varsity?”
She smiled, realizing what he was trying to do. She was not only book smart, but very observant. The fact that he lingered long enough to engage in conversation with a “fish” told her that he saw something in her that he liked. She knew that boys like Eldon didn’t like girls as friends. He was interested in her in other ways. Romantic ways. Now he was insinuating that he wanted to see her cheering for him at his games. Her complexion took on a deeper red tinge.
“You waiting for your ride?”
“Yeah.”
“I can take you home.”
She knew her mom would be mad, but at the moment she was more concerned that Eldon would not talk to her again if she said no. So she didn’t. They stood up and he offered to carry her book and workout bags to his truck. She let him. That was how their relationship began.
Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness Page 17
