Pretty Ugly

by Karyn Langhorne Folan

  Angel stood in between the two rows of lockers, wearing her jeans and her sports bra while her T-shirt flew in the air between Renita and Vanessa. Tasha held her little pink phone upward, following the action like the director of a movie. Kym and a few of the other girls cheered their game of monkey-in-the-middle with smiles on their faces.

  “Just give it back,” Angel hollered as her top flew out of reach. She looked as if she was about to cry.

  “It’s not like she even needs it,” Renita said. “She’s so skinny and flat, she almost looks like a boy!”

  “Yeah, you sure you in the right place, Angel?” Kym asked. “This is the girls’ locker room!”

  All four girls cackled loudly. Jamee couldn’t stand it.

  “Leave her alone!” she yelled, stepping into the crowd of girls, making sure Angel was safe behind her. “Give her back her shirt. ”

  For an instant, the back of the locker room went silent. Yet for some reason, Vanessa smiled as if she expected Jamee to get upset.

  “Girl, you need to chill. We were just playin’, that’s all. Why you gotta go makin’ a big deal out of everything?” Vanessa spoke as if Jamee had done something wrong. She then grabbed the T-shirt from Kym. “Here,” she said tossing it to Angel. “You know we were just playin’. Right, Angel?”

  Angel stared at Vanessa. Jamee could see she was intimidated.

  “Yeah,” Angel mumbled. “I guess so. ”

  Jamee could barely hear her voice.

  “See?” Vanessa said, flashing Jamee a smirk. She then whispered something to Tasha and walked away.

  “Are you okay?” Jamee asked. She wondered how Angel would be able to handle tryouts after what just happened.

  Angel nodded and wiped her eyes. “I don’t know why they keep messin’ with me. I didn’t do anything except go to my locker,” she said.

  “C’mon, girl, don’t worry about them right now,” Jamee said, putting her arm around Angel’s shoulder. “You gotta get dressed. Coach Seville will be blowing that whistle in a few minutes. ”

  Angel nodded, gathered up her clothes, and quickly got changed.

  Nearby, Tasha buried her cell phone deep in her locker as if it contained a priceless treasure. Then she rushed off without a word.

  Chapter 5

  “Let’s go, ladies,” barked Coach Seville as Jamee and Angel rushed out of the locker room.

  Jamee knew they were the last ones out. She raced to the bleachers and grabbed a seat. Angel was right beside her. Even before she sat down, Jamee noticed that the gym floor was layered with thick blue mats.

  “As you may have heard, gymnastics is a love of mine,” Coach Seville began, pacing slowly in front of them. “And it is a useful skill in cheerleading. So I’d like to see what each of you knows today. For some of you, this might be tough, but don’t worry. You don’t have to have any tumbling skills to make the squad. But they certainly will help. ”

  Tumbling skills.

  The words made Jamee’s heart race. Since grade school, she had always been agile and fast in gym class, especially with gymnastics. Years of cheerleading had only improved her skills. Where Darcy had a natural talent for schoolwork, Jamee knew her sister couldn’t touch her with athletics. Sometimes Jamee wondered if that was why she liked sports so much. Maybe if Darcy weren’t so clumsy, Jamee would never have become a cheerleader. Jamee wasn’t sure. All she was certain of was that she wanted to prove to Darcy, Coach Seville, and Vanessa that she belonged on Bluford’s squad.

  Jamee’s palms began to sweat as Coach Seville explained four popular cheerleading jumps. Jamee knew all of them, along with their strange names— the toe-touch, tuck, hurdler, and herkie. For a few minutes, Crystal and the other Varsity girls demonstrated the moves perfectly. Jamee could see by the looks on some girls’ faces that the moves were new to them.

  Coach Seville then called up each girl by her number to show what she could do. Tasha was one of the first, and Jamee knew she had set the bar high with the basic moves plus a back handspring.

  “Very nice,” Coach Seville said, nodding. “Good work!”

  Vanessa was next. The older girl did the same basic moves but added a few nice handsprings and a back walkover. Jamee knew she was showing off, especially with the way she smiled as if she was trying to sell something.

  When it was her turn, Jamee nailed the main steps. Then, with Coach Seville watching, she knew she couldn’t let the other two girls show her up. She finished her jumps, dashed forward and cartwheeled across the gym floor, concentrating on keeping her arms and legs as straight as possible. When there was no more room to cartwheel, Jamee stopped, skipped a bit, then flipped head over heels, letting both feet hit the mat at the same time in a perfect roundoff.

  Poom! The mat thundered when she landed. It was just what Jamee wanted.

  “Whoa!” several girls cheered. Jamee made sure to look at Vanessa, who said nothing.

  “Very, very nice,” Coach Seville smiled and wrote quickly in her clipboard.

  Amberlynn went next. She was one of the best tumblers on the Irving Middle School squad. Jamee knew she would do well. She finished her routine with something Jamee had seen her do before: a backflip which she turned into a handstand and actually walked toward Coach Seville’s seat.

  “Wow!” the woman exclaimed when Amberlynn finally stood on her feet. “Very impressive! But I think all this showing off might be going a bit far, ladies. ” Again, she jotted in her clipboard and then called out. “Number thirty-five!”

  Jamee knew it was Angel’s number.

  “Loser,” someone croaked, covering the word with a cough.

  Jamee turned her head to see who had said it. Behind her, there were several girls with guilty grins on their faces, but Vanessa had the widest smile of all. Coach Seville was glaring into the bleachers, too.

  “Ladies,” she said sternly. “You may end up being squadmates. And squadmates owe each other respect. Do I make myself clear?” When no one said anything, she said it again, “Do I make myself clear? ”

  There were some murmured “yeahs,” and the coach stared in silence at the girls in the bleachers for a long minute. Finally she turned to Angel, who stood nervously at the edge of the mat.

  “Go on, girl. Show me what you got. ”

  Angel nodded, took a deep breath and performed a sluggish version of the four jumps the coach had requested. When she finished, she looked confused, as if she wasn’t sure what to do next. Jamee squirmed inside watching her, especially after what had happened in the locker room.

  “Can you do a cartwheel?” Coach Seville asked.

  Angel paused and then stretched her arms and whirled around, but her cartwheel was weak. She had too little speed and nearly fell over in a heap on the floor. Jamee could see she was nervous. Part of her wanted to get up and explain to Coach Seville how Vanessa and the other girls ganged up on Angel, but she didn’t want to snitch.

  As Angel stood up, someone behind Jamee giggled. Other girls whispered. Coach Seville shot another dark look into the bleachers, and the noise stopped.

  “Why don’t you try it again?” she said to Angel gently. It was as if the coach wanted her to do well.

  Again Angel nodded. But when she raised her arms, Jamee noticed two dark circles of sweat in the armpits of her T-shirt, like two targets for Vanessa and her friends. Almost instantly, Jamee heard them giggling, only this time she could tell the girls were doing their best to keep it quiet so Coach Seville wouldn’t call them out. Angel must have noticed, too, because her eyes flicked down to her shirt, and she looked as if she wanted to escape to the bleachers. She rushed into another cartwheel that was almost as bad as the first one.

  Coach Seville scribbled in her clipboard. “Thank you, Angel,” she said.

  “I g-guess I’m not really that good at tumbling, Coach Seville,” she confessed timidly.

  “You’re not the only one,” Coach Seville replied, reviewing the next name on her list.

  Tel
l them the truth, Jamee wanted to say. Tell them what those girls did. Tell them you’re nervous.

  Instead, Angel walked back to the bleachers.

  “She’s done,” Vanessa whispered with an I-told-you-so grin. “Just like I said. ”

  But just before Angel sat down, she stopped and shook her head as if she was talking to herself. Then she turned around and headed back to the mats in front of the bleachers. Her face looked different somehow. Her jaw looked firm, and there was a determined look in her eyes. Did she hear Vanessa? Jamee wondered.

  “Can I try one more time?” she asked. This time her eyes weren’t focused on the floor. She looked right at Coach Seville.

  “Sure,” the coach replied.

  Angel paused, took a couple of short running steps and then did a perfect aerial, a kind of mid-air cartwheel where hands never touch the ground. Jamee’s mouth dropped open. She had never been able to do one, but Angel stuck hers perfectly.

  “Woo hoo!” cheered Crystal. “That’s what I’m talking about. ” Several other Varsity cheerleaders clapped their hands. In the bleachers, most of the girls’ mouths hung open in surprise.

  Even Coach Seville looked stunned. “Can you do that again?” she asked.

  Angel paused again as if she was focusing, and then she did another perfect aerial.

  “Let me get this straight. You can’t do a regular cartwheel, but you can do one with no hands?”

  Angel nodded. “I was nervous,” she explained, glancing once toward Vanessa and her friends but saying nothing.

  Coach Seville laughed. “Well, you certainly are full of surprises,” she replied with a smile. “Now go on and take a seat. Next!”

  Another girl ran to the mats as Angel hurried back to the bleachers and sat down by herself on the last row. Jamee glanced up at Vanessa. Her arms were folded across her chest and her eyebrows were drawn tight together as if she was concentrating.

  When the last girl had finished, Coach Seville thanked everyone. “Tomorrow will be your last day to practice all your skills before the audition,” she announced. “Crystal, Michelle, and Julesa will be available to help with the chant or the routine or your jumps— anything you think you need to work on. Nice work today, ladies. It’s too bad I can’t choose you all!” She then clapped her hands and dismissed everyone.

  In the locker room, Jamee looked for Angel but didn’t see her.

  “She probably isn’t in any hurry to change in front of those girls again,” Amberlynn said softly, nodding toward Vanessa and Tasha. “I’m not going to change, either,” she added as she grabbed her clothes and books from her locker. “My mom has to be at work at four, so I have to watch my little brothers again. Wanna come over and help?”

  Jamee shook her head. “I can’t. I told Dez I’d meet him at the park. Then I gotta study for this math test in Mrs. Guessner’s class. That woman won’t get off my back. ” She quickly told Amberlynn about the bad grade and the retake.

  Amberlynn frowned. “But how are you gonna do that, Jamee? The tryouts are Thursday after school at the same time!”

  Jamee shrugged. “I’ll think of something, I guess,” she muttered, though she still wasn’t sure what.

  Jamee spotted Desmond sitting on a bench on the edge of the park when she arrived. He smiled and got up as soon as he saw her.

  “Hey, Dez,” Jamee said as he opened his arms for a hug.

  “Hey,” he murmured, pulling her close to him.

  Jamee relaxed. They were alone, and it was nice to be hugged. She could feel his heart beating beneath her ear as his arms circled tighter, pressing her closer. For a moment, Jamee forgot about Mrs. Guessner, about cheerleading, about Darcy and the new computer, about Vanessa and what she had said about her reputation.

  But then his hands slid lower, toward her backside.

  Jamee pushed away a bit. “Dez—” she began, but he silenced her with a sudden hungry kiss. His hands sank down her back again.

  Jamee twisted away from him.

  “Cut it out!” she cried.

  “What?” Dez looked puzzled. “What did I do?”

  “You’re all over me!” Jamee turned away.

  “I just gave you a kiss. ” Desmond put on his smooth voice. “I’m just trying to make you feel good, baby. ”

  “Oh, cut it out,” Jamee muttered.

  Dez shook his head. “I just don’t understand you, girl,” he said in his normal voice. “We been together all summer. You never stopped me kissing you before. And from what I heard you never stopped Bobby Wallace neither, and you two were only together for like, what? A month? What, you like him more than you like me?” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

  “What?” Jamee cried, stunned at what she was hearing. “You think I went all the way with Bobby Wallace? Is that what you’re sayin’?”

  Dez looked unsure, as if he realized that he had said more than he meant to. “Well . . . no, you know . . . some people were talkin’ and—”

  “What people?” Jamee demanded.

  “You tell me who’s been sayin’ that!”

  Dez wouldn’t look her in the eye. “Just some people. Don’t matter who. The point is—”

  “The point is what you heard ain’t true! I can’t believe you’d think somethin’ like that ’bout me, Desmond. And no, I didn’t like Bobby more than you, but maybe I should have. I can’t believe this,” Jamee yelled, walking away from him.

  “Jamee—”

  “I don’t want to talk to you right now,” she fumed without turning around.

  “C’mon, J! I didn’t mean it like that,” he called. Then a second later, “You still meetin’ me for pizza after school tomorrow?”

  Jamee didn’t answer. Was this what Vanessa meant when she said Jamee had “quite the reputation?” Who else thought that? Did the whole school believe this story about Jamee and Bobby? And who had started the story in the first place? The questions flooded Jamee’s mind for the rest of the evening.

  “You’re awful quiet, Jamee,” her father said when he came home for a quick meal between jobs. “Is everything okay?”

  “Fine,” Jamee tried to smile. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Dad what she had learned. “Just tired from cheerleading. ”

  He nodded. “You makin’ sure your grades are where they should be?” he asked. “I don’t want to be sitting in that counselor’s office again anytime soon, you hear?”

  “Don’t worry,” Jamee said, trying to hide the guilt she felt twisting in her gut. She made a silent promise to study right after dinner.

  But when the time came, Jamee’s mind kept wandering. She thought about Dez and Bobby Wallace, about Angel and Vanessa, and she couldn’t help wondering just what Dez and Vanessa really heard about her. She wanted to ask Darcy what she knew but was pretty sure that would only make things worse. In the end, Jamee drifted off to sleep without doing any homework at all.

  At Bluford the next day, Jamee was relieved that Mrs. Guessner didn’t say anything to her in algebra class—though she was strangely cold whenever she looked in Jamee’s direction. As soon as the bell rang, Jamee gathered her books and darted out the door.

  Dez appeared by her side only seconds later.

  “Jamee,” he said falling into step beside her. “About yesterday—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Jamee mumbled. Almost by instinct, she looked around to see if anyone was watching them.

  “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I was wrong, okay? I—” he lowered his voice. “I never shoulda believed that stuff ’bout you and Bobby. I just thought, you know, Bobby being the kind of guy he was that, well . . . you two probably had, you know . . . ” he finished awkwardly.

  Jamee was about to tell him off for what he had said and what he had been thinking, but then she spotted Tasha talking with a group of girls nearby.

  “Look, I can’t talk to you about this now. Okay?”

  “You still gonna meet me at Niko’s?” He flashed her his player smile.
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  Jamee thought about it. She could see Tasha watching them out of the corner of her eye. If she and Dez argued now, Tasha would know. Jamee didn’t want Tasha in her business.

  “Okay,” Jamee said, but her heart wasn’t in it. Something had changed. She was seeing Dez in a whole new way.

  Dez leaned over and planted a kiss on her cheek as if all was forgiven.

  “See you at Niko’s, then,” he said, turning back up the hallway toward his class.

  Nearby Tasha watched, flashing a fake smile as if the incident in the locker room never happened.

  “Hey Jamee!” Crystal said when Jamee joined the girls in the gym for the final practice before auditions. “You’ve been looking great out there. I think you’ve got a good shot to make the team tomorrow. I’m about to lead a group who want to go over the step routine. ” She nodded toward a cluster of girls waiting on the edge of the gym. “Wanna join in?”

  Jamee looked around. Amberlynn wasn’t there yet, but Angel was standing with the small group, looking around as if she expected someone to pounce on her at any minute. In another corner, Julesa had a group of girls working on some of the jumps. Coach Seville had a smaller group at the far edge of the gym working on some tumbling moves. Vanessa and her friends were with this group. While Jamee watched, Vanessa attempted an aerial and landed on her behind.

  “Sure. ” Jamee grinned and took a spot beside Angel.

  “Hi, Jamee. ” Angel’s smile lit up her face.

  “You know what, Angel?” Jamee said looking back at her. “You need to do more of that. ”

  “What?”

  “Smile like that,” Jamee said. “I’m serious. ”

  “She’s right,” Crystal said. “And be sure you do it tomorrow during your audition. Good cheerleaders always do their routines with a big smile on their face. Seriously, think about the girls here who you think are good. They’re always smilin’. ”

  Angel nodded thoughtfully. “Okay,” she said. “Thanks. ”