Nena Hyde stepped forward. She introduced herself, although I remembered her from tryouts.
“I know you’re not self-conscious about your behind, right? Girl, no pun intended, but that’s an asset.”
Death by utter mortification.
Nena went on, “Don’t worry, we’ve got your back. Honey, anybody who can waltz into one of our tryouts and work a pair of high heels the way you did has to have the Lady Lion attitude in her. We just have to help you pull it out.”
Shame and sweat dripped from me, but I could still see that she was one of the most flawless individuals I’d ever known. Nena Hyde was the kind of girl black poets wrote about. Gorgeous. High cheekbones, wide mouth, and intense dark eyes. And unlike mine, her afro had a distinct shape and was held away from her face with an animal print scarf.
Another girl, Evelynne something-or-other, snorted. Without looking at me, she sort of flicked her nails, smirked, and said, “She better get it together ’cause I don’t want us to lose ground messing around with somebody with issues.”
Nena glanced at the girl and made a little snort of her own. “Ev, please. She won’t fail.”
She turned and looked right at me. Nena’s eyes were dark, almost hypnotic, and her gaze didn’t waver. “You won’t let me down, will you?”
I swallowed hard. It wasn’t a question. My head bobbed up and down automatically.
Miss Lavender declared practice officially over. She patted me on the shoulder and said, “Remember, Kayla, dancing is about more than doing the moves, it’s about looking fearless—-and fabulous. You were too self-conscious out there today, but you weren’t like that at tryouts. If you’re concerned with how others are seeing you, don’t be. It’ll make you crazy. Your confidence, your power, will come from looking inside and trusting yourself. And I think if you just tweaked your look, you’d feel more comfortable.”
Right then I wanted to thank her for her encouragement.
I wanted to tell her about SPEAK and how I’d given almost the same speech to a number of grade-school girls when I was in middle school. That’s what SPEAK was about. We not only socialized with each other, but we went to grade schools and worked with younger girls to make them feel good about themselves. I wanted to tell Miss Lavender about SPEAK and say a lot of things.
But I didn’t.
Instead, my mouth opened, but my words were sliced away by another voice.
“Kayla IS comfortable with her body. She’s just not used to prancing it around in front of the whole world.”
Rosalie!
What was she doing here? She was standing a few feet away, hands jabbed into her hips. Her expression said, “I dare you!”
Miss Lavender’s eyebrow arched, and for just a brief second I feared she might go all ninja on Rosalie.
I swallowed hard. “That’s my—”
“Best friend,” Rosalie finished my sentence, glaring.
Rosalie Hunter vs. the Lions.
It went like this:
Miss Lavender exchanged looks with Roman and Nena. Nena looked Rosalie up and down, then in a voice so soft that it flowed like liquid, she said, “Well, Best Friend, it’s nice to meet you.”
Miss Lavender pulled a pair of dark sunglasses out of somewhere, put them on, then told me, “You’re a beautiful girl, like all my girls. But you dance like you’re trying to hide your body. Dancing is about being seen, so get used to it.”
So then Rosalie rolled her eyes way back in her head and made a loud snorting sound. She said, “That’s right, Kayla, all the world’s problems can be fixed with a booty shake and a makeover. I hear a new look can cure world hunger and end wars, too. Somebody get me Iraq’s prime minister on the phone. Peace is just a hair extension away!”
By then my throat was so dry and hot I could’ve hiccupped and caused a brush fire.
Roman looked sideways at Rosalie and said, “Nice shirt.”
When Roman said that thing about Rosalie’s shirt, two things happened to me:
I looked at Rosalie. She was wearing a this is what a feminist looks like t-shirt, only it was an old one. We’d gotten them years ago. It didn’t fit anymore. Her curly hair was a mess and her shirt was just too tight and too wrong.
Seeing how out of place she looked, I wondered if I looked like that, too.
I got this greasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I felt so embarrassed. But not for myself. I was embarrassed for Rosalie. She didn’t belong.
And maybe I didn’t, either, but right then, I knew I wanted to.
Miss Lavender had been leaving, but stopped next to Rosalie, looked over at her then turned to me and said, “Kayla, you’re going to have to deal with how people treat you now that you’re one of us. Posers will pretend to be your friend, and people you thought were friends all along might become jealous that you’ve achieved something they could not. Don’t let anyone take this away from you, Kayla. You are now officially a Lady Lion. Learn to love it.”
And with that, she snapped her fingers, glanced at Rosalie through her way-dark shades, and strutted away. Roman, following close beside her, turned and chimed, “Girl, you can’t let haters rule your life.” With that, the pair disappeared in a cloud of parking lot dust and attitude.
Rosalie sputtered and spewed out something like, “Oh, please! Like I’d ever lower myself to be a dancing, prancing Lady Lion.”
I knew at that moment that the awful, slippery feeling in my belly wasn’t just embarrassment. I felt sorry for Rosalie. Pity. Ugh! You’re not supposed to pity your best friend. But I did. She sounded so . . . so . . . desperate.
Several dancers remained, including Nena and Rachel Glad, but nobody was paying Rosalie any attention.
A girl named Tangie, another new squad member, said, “You’ve got nice hair. Don’t worry, girl. We’ll get together and I will hook you up.”
Rosalie huffed, “Hey! Are any of you listening? Don’t you get it? Kayla’s not like you. She has more important things to deal with than the right shade of lip gloss. My best friend doesn’t need a look!”
“Hey, New Girl, tell your bodyguard over there to get a life,” said one dance team member whose name I didn’t know yet.
“And a lip wax,” chimed another.
Then, turning to each other, the two Lady Lions circled around Rosalie, shaking their heads. Rosalie was like a dying zebra on the African plains. Easy pickins for a couple of lions.
Lioness One:
“Girl, where did she get that shirt?”
Lioness Two:
“The shirt is not the problem. The fact that she’s been hanging onto it since kindergarten is the problem!”
Rosalie went rigid. Lionesses One and Two continued to circle.
When Rosalie finally spoke, her lips pulled thin and tight, I felt the air seep out of me. I knew where we were headed, and it wasn’t a pretty place.
“‘My oldest daughter is Nefertiti
The tears from my birth pains
created the Nile
I am a beautiful . . .’”
Groan! Groan! Groan!
She had leapt over any references to her hero, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and gone straight to “Ego Tripping,” a poem by Nikki Giovanni.
One and Two exchanged glances. Rosalie had done this before. Whipping out poetry or literary references to beat down those who would dare oppose her. Egad!
With hand on hip and a fierce look in her eyes, Lioness One, complete with shoulder-rocking head movements, said:
“‘I gazed on the forest and burned
out the Sahara desert
with a packet of goat’s meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am gazelle so swift . . .’”
Lioness Two, pressed her cheek against Lioness One’s and picked up the flow: “‘. . . So swift you can’t catch me . . .’”
One and Two exchanged high fives. Rosalie looked as though she had swallowed that packet of “goat’s meat.”<
br />
One said:
“Lest we forget, this is RPA, a school where everybody is an academic star. Don’t come over here acting high and mighty just because you’ve learned a poem. What you need to do is go home, regroup, and don’t come back until you’re really sure you know what Ms. Giovanni was trying to say!”
Two added:
“And for Lord Jesus’ sake, if you’re going to carry on about feminism, stop giving the movement a black eye with a shirt too small for my teddy bear!” And with that, she turned, reached into her shoulder bag, and removed a crisp, folded t-shirt identical to the new one Rosalie’d just given me.
She unfurled it to show its length and width, then tossed it right into Rosalie’s face. Reflexively, Rosalie caught it. Two said, “Oh, yeah, my aunt is a judge and when she campaigned earlier this year, we ‘Lions’ worked together on her campaign. See we do that sort of thing when we aren’t out shaking our butts, or whatever. We had extras. Wear it in good health, girlfriend!”
And with that, Lionesses One and Two communicated in the international language of eye rolls, a Morse Code of cool. And then they were gone.
“So, Kayla, is this how it’s going to be? Are you going to let those girls bully you into being something that you’re not?”
My head was pounding. Too much sun, too much dancing, too much Rosalie.
“Rosalie,” I hissed. “Enough! Please, you are making a scene.”
“A scene!” she roared. “I couldn’t possibly be making as much of a scene as you were a few minutes ago. Out there wriggling around. I thought you saw yourself as an intellectual,” she said in a singsong, mean way. “I thought you wanted to be a serious journalist and novelist. Oh, yeah. I’m sure Zora Neale Hurston took several breaks when she was writing Their Eyes Were Watching God so she could go and shake her butt with the local bands. What kind of legendary woman do you want to be?”
“Rosalie, there are all types of legends. What about Cher? Marilyn Monroe? Queen Latifah?”
“Queen Latifah has never been seen twisting and carrying on the way you were.”
Now it was my turn to scream in frustration. Sweat ran from my forehead into my eyes and burned. I thought about yoga. I thought about breathing through my belly button. I tried to picture my calm, happy place. I blew out a breath and tried to start over.
“Rosalie,” I said, my tone pleading. The approaching afternoon storm crouched low in the clouds. A downpour was soon to come. Hot and damp, the air hung like body heat. “What if we’ve held a not-quite-right opinion of them? I mean, maybe they’re not—”
“What? Maybe they aren’t shallow? Maybe they aren’t more interested in appearance than what’s inside? You heard them, Kayla. I didn’t put words in their mouths. I’m here to remind you not to turn your back on an organization that feeds your soul. And what are they doing? From the lead go-go dancer on down they’re trying to pressure you into becoming the next Li’l Kim. While you’re getting your lobotomy will you be getting fake boobs?”
What if she is right?
All of a sudden, it started to rain in my happy place and my belly button was gasping for air. I told her I wouldn’t let them change me, but she just barked, “Girl, it’s already happening. Wake up!”
The others were all gone. Sweet, wet grass smells filled my head as I plopped, exhausted, onto the curb and buried my face in my hands. This was a disaster. How was I going to convince the girls to join SPEAK? They would laugh me out of existence. I exhaled. A few feet behind us the sprinklers had come on. I loved the fresh, almost rustic smell of ground water that came out of sprinklers.
I wanted to be angry. I wanted to fight for myself. But I felt drained. Rosalie dropped down beside me. I asked, “Rosalie, why did you come here?”
When she turned to face me, her expression was yet another dark cloud draped across my day. It was like I was watching her turn into a stranger right in front of my eyes. “Pappy, my grandfather is sick. We’re leaving tomorrow for Baltimore.” We were both silent.
She was like one of those rainbows you see when the sunlight hits the water dancing in the sprinklers at just the right angle—misty, wondrous, but hard to make out. I wanted to reach out and grab her, pull her to me, and beg her just be my friend.
I need you to be my rainbow!
“You are my best friend, Kayla. Mine. We are best friends. You can’t choose them over us!” She stood, loose grass sticking to her legs, and stalked away, shrinking against the drooping clouds.
Despite the heat, I shivered. The sun was gone, and when I looked at the dancing water from the sprinklers, there wasn’t a rainbow in sight.
NELLIE BLY OR BIG FLAT LIE?
Kayla struggles with journalistic dreams amid pressure from pushy peers!
Being a reporter seems a ticket out to the world.
—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
I was at the Sunshine Pavilion, the auditorium for RPA. Almost the same seat I’d waited in while they deliberated on who’d make the Lady Lions.
Somehow, this time, I was feeling even sicker inside.
Journalism students had gotten a letter about our orientation. The letter stated we had to bring ideas that represented what we planned to accomplish.
Ugh!
I had only a few minutes before I could decide whether to announce that my big plan was to expose the inequalities of the Lady Lions and prove that they discriminate against itty-bitties such as myself.
A vision of Rosalie, head tossed back, a maniacal laugh spilling from her mouth, blurred my vision. Dr. Sam Morrison, Dean of the Journalism program, was talking, but with Rosalie’s crazy cackle rattling my brain, I could barely hear him.
Focus . . . focus . . . focus!
At first, he asked what we’d been reading for the summer.
Panic!
How long had it been since I’d been on listmania, the online site where I posted my favorite reads. Grandma JoJo said a serious woman, an intellectual, should always know the literary works that most influence her life. Mine were:
* Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
* Emma by Jane Austen
* The Secret Lives of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
* Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
* Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist by Brooke Kroeger
Anyway, I was replaying the list in my head and thinking about how I was more than a little bit of a hypocrite since one of my favorite series of all times, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, was not part of my listmania selections because it didn’t really fit the whole “serious woman” image, when I noticed Dr. Sam’s voice went from nurturer to disciplinarian.
“You have to have commitment,” he was saying. “You have to have a sense of purpose. Between your classwork, external assignments, and responsibility to your other classes, a lot will be asked of you. Young people, you will have to ask yourselves, ‘Am I up to the challenge?’ No one can answer that for you except you.”
Gulp!
After that it was all downhill—for me, anyway.
NEWS ALERT . . . Dr. Sam (he’d told us to call him that instead of Dr. Morrison) wanted us to work on an assignment due the first day of class. “If you have a video camera at home, use it. If you don’t, come to the school and we’ll get you one. Use it. Write a script, a short biographical story, if you will, about what you see as your greatest challenge for the coming year.” He said we didn’t have to turn in the video but we did have to turn in the script.
Great! Just Great!
THIS JUST IN . . . He wanted to know what wonderful, fabulous, well-thought out gems of journalism we had to offer.
Sheena, an appropriately named girl with shiny hair and black-rimmed glasses, a button nose, and alert brown eyes, edged forward in her seat. “Dr. Sam, I just want to say that I am committed to being in this program.”
She smiled.
Dr. Sam smiled.
Maybe the whole friggin’ world smiled!
She went on, still
flashing her beauty-pageant smile. “I am working on an investigative piece of journalism. I want to know how or if the school system tracks homeless children and whether or not kids whose parents have no homes get discriminated against by the schools.”
Another big, BIG smile. Dr. Sam nodded his approval.
More hands went up. “I’m planning to investigate the highly competitive nature of the science fair . . . the football team . . . the solar system . . .” On and on it went, ’til the only one left was . . . me!
They all turned, looked at me.
Sheena, the shiny-haired girl, turned. “Dr. Sam,” she said, pointing as though giving testimony from the jury box. “I believe she has not had a turn.”
Dr. Sam gave another slight nod, this time at me. He was wearing gold-rimmed glasses and his short hair was dusted with gray along the edges.
“Miss . . .”
“Dean.” Not me. Shiny hair was giving my name, speaking when I should’ve been speaking. I attract ventriloquists looking for a dummy act wherever I go!
Shiny had gotten hold of a class list. Since each overachiever had introduced his- or herself, Shiny Sheena used her crack investigative skills to uncover my true identity. I felt a bit like Wonder Woman caught wearing only her hot, red boots.
Dr. Sam gave another little nod, but I got the feeling he wasn’t as pleased with ol’ Shiny as she’d have liked.
“Kayla Dean,” I said, standing. The auditorium seat snapped shut and rattled. Lights overhead buzzed.
“Well, Miss Dean, we are pleased to have you among our distinguished class. Tell me, do you have a specific interest or story that you’re working on right now?”
What choice did I have?
With a huge sigh, I looked right at him and said, “No.”
Seventeen mouths made little O’s as they gazed in horror at The Freak with No Ideas . . . The Monster Without a Clue . . . The Nellie Bly Project: How to Investigate Nothing!
The Kayla Chronicles Page 7
