Bring Her On

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  “Cool, if you don’t mind me joining?”

  “No, we’d love to have you,” Katie said.

  I was in. “Sweet.”

  “And . . .” Penny said, “there’s someone I’ve been wanting to introduce you to, so that works perfectly.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “You’re inviting me to your book club to set me up? Do you not remember what I’ve said about setting me up?”

  It was the one thing I’d asked my friends never to do. It had only led to awkwardness, heartache, and, in one instance, a trip to the eye doctor for a scratched cornea.

  “I told you not to tell her that,” Katie said, playfully smacking Penny on the shoulder.

  They stared at each other. “What? I wasn’t going to just let her walk in without warning her first. And if she takes the initiative herself, it’s not a set up.”

  I waved my hands in front of them.

  “Hey, sitting right here. I’ll still do your damn book club, but I refuse to be introduced to anyone.”

  Penny snorted. “How is that even going to work?”

  “I will be a ghost who occasionally makes really good observations.”

  Katie squeezed Penny’s shoulder to stop her from protesting.

  “Babe, just let her be a ghost and if something happens, then it happens. Let it go.”

  Penny sighed in defeat.

  “I just want you to be happy.”

  “Believe me, I know.” I knew they wanted me to be happy. So did Dom and Heath and my parents and Camille and Jason and Tom and my cheerleaders and even their parents. The people in my life were constantly trying to fix me up with someone. Anyone. Their lesbian cousin from Omaha, the lady at the DMV who looked kinda gay. Any warm body. Most of the time, I understood that it was coming from a good place, but honestly, I was exhausted. Sure, I wanted to be with someone. I didn’t want to stay alone for the rest of my life. I wanted companionship. But I wanted it on my terms, in my timing.

  “We just love you so much, you’re our favorite friend,” Penny and Katie got up and piled on top of me as I screamed and tried to wiggle away. We all ended up on the floor, laughing until we couldn’t breathe.

  “This was exactly what I needed,” I said, rolling onto my back and catching my breath.

  Six

  “Is everyone ready to work?” I asked my kids on Saturday morning. I was met with bleary eyes and moans. “You know there are energy drinks in the machine? I wouldn’t advise you to drink them, but . . .” A lot of the squad had brought their own. I couldn’t condone caffeine use, but try dealing with a bunch of grumpy teenagers that hadn’t gotten enough sleep. I had to use whatever tools I had at my disposal.

  “Oh, and I bought you all donuts.” Dom walked in with two huge boxes of donuts resting on each hand, and I would have kissed him if either of us would have enjoyed it. That got the kids excited, which was nice to see. Donuts were passed out, faces were smeared with frosting, and I even saw a few smiles. I pretended to ignore the cups of coffee that Dom had also brought and passed around. Once they were sufficiently sugared up, I called everyone to order.

  “So this morning I want to work on pyramid, and then do a jump clinic after you’re warmed up. Lunch is on me,” more cheers, “and then this afternoon we’ll do two full outs, taping both.”

  The Bulldogs weren’t here yet, not due for another hour, and I was relishing having my gym back again.

  Since we had nearly a full day, I wanted to get them nice and warm, so Dom led the squad through some yoga and then laps around the gym for some cardio. They were just finishing up when the Bulldogs and Echo trooped in. They all had matching practice outfits on, as usual, and it irritated me. I’d love to have outfits for my squad for every practice, but we didn’t have the budget for extras like that, but maybe I could pitch that to some of my booster parents and see if they’d go for it.

  All the girls on Echo’s squad had their hair done in high ponytails and their eye makeup on point.

  I'd been an idiot for underestimating her. Of course she was going to fuck with me. When had she done anything else?

  It brought me back to the first day we’d met.

  I’d been heading into my junior year of cheer and had made varsity on my small-town squad, which wasn’t really that hard to do. We’d finally scraped together the money to head to camp for the first time up north in the woods, and I was stoked to be away from my parents for a whole week, being completely steeped in cheer. I was pretty sure I cared more about my squad than my coach did. She was just a mom they’d roped into supervising us so no one died. Most of her time at camp was spent on her phone, fighting with her husband.

  I’d been in awe of all the other squads and then they walked in, with Echo as captain, and I’d felt like I was falling down, even though I was standing up. Like everything had been swept out from under me at once.

  Sure, I’d had crushes before, but never anything that completely all-consuming and immediate. I usually just fell for my friends, or girls I had known for a while. Never on sight. Never like this.

  “Hey, Kiri,” she said, snapping me back into the present moment. She looked different than she had in high school, sure, but even then, she’d been completely mesmerizing, at least to me.

  “Good morning, Echo,” I said, gritting my teeth.

  “Is it still morning? We’ve been up for hours. We run on weekends at five thirty.” Her lips spread in a grin and she stared into my eyes as she clapped her hands and her squad started setting up without her even having to ask. Maybe she had them all drugged, or blackmailed. It was the only reasonable explanation.

  My squad was fighting over donut crumbs and sleeping on the bleachers in mismatched clothes. Great.

  I waited until the curtain was up and their music was on to lay into my squad in the lowest voice I could manage and still have all of them hear me.

  “Are you doing this to psych them out? Because they definitely think we are a bunch of lazy losers right now.” Maybe that wasn’t a bad idea to let the other team believe. Let them underestimate us. Let her think we were a bunch of slobs. We’d show them up. We could eat donuts and kill it at Nationals.

  I only had two goals for my first time at Nationals, since neither of us was going to win: to have my squad hit, and to have them score higher than HHS. If doing a little acting was going to help and get them to be complacent, good.

  “Never mind, I’m not going to yell at you. Keep it up. Maybe do a lot of loud complaining and whining.” Echo annoyed me enough that it was time I returned the favor.

  “Wait, you want us to complain loudly?” a voice called out.

  I made eye contact with Kevin. “Yes, I want you to complain loudly.”

  He grinned so wide that you would have thought I’d announced that I was cancelling practice and sending everyone to Disney early. One of the perks of going to Nationals was that we got to take one extra day and visit the happiest place on earth.

  They took me seriously and, for the next two hours, there was nothing but whining and moans and groans and fussing. They’d clearly turned it up to eleven. I’d literally told them to do it and even I was annoyed and had to stop myself from telling them to knock it off.

  The pyramid work was going well until I saw one side go down and heard the sickening slam of a flyer hitting the ground. MacKynzie. She was sobbing and cradling her hand to her chest. Dom and I shared a look and he got Camille on the phone. She was the on-call athletic trainer as well.

  “What hurts, Mack?” I said in what I hoped was a soothing voice.

  “My hand, my hand,” she sobbed. I made everyone move back to give her some air as I tried to examine the injured hand. In my head, I begged that it was nothing major, but I didn’t have a lot of hope from seeing how she’d gone down.

  “Everyone do your laps, and crunches, and push-ups right now. I don’t want to hear excuses,” I said to the rest of the squad. Most of them looked pretty scared, which was good. They should be
scared, this was dangerous, which was why you caught the flyers when they fell.

  “Go, now,” I said.

  I finally got Mack to show me her hand, and what I saw made my stomach roll. At least two fingers were definitely, visibly, broken. Shit.

  “It’s going to be fine, Mack, okay? Just breathe, honey.” I pushed her hair back from her face as Dom stayed on the phone. The hospital actually wasn’t far away, so we got her standing and walked her slowly to my car.

  “Dom, stay with everyone else and keep running what we planned on. I’ll be in touch. Make sure you have them condition again for dropping her.” He agreed, and also called Mack’s mom so she could meet us at the hospital. Dom and I had done this routine before and we each went with our strengths.

  Mack’s cries had shifted to whimpers as I drove as fast as safely as I could. I left my car in front and walked her in, where she was descended upon by nurses.

  From then on it was just a rush of x-rays, Mack’s mom showing up, Mack seeing a doctor to tell her that she had two broken fingers and would be out for at least two months. That made her cry harder than she had when the initial injury had happened. My heart broke for her. This was her senior year and it was officially over.

  “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay.” Her mom tried to soothe her, but there was only so much she could do. They gave her pain meds and put a cast on her. I stepped out at that point to call Dom to give him an update. Camille had showed up to do damage control, which I appreciated.

  “I can’t believe you told them to whine, this is a nightmare. I’m ready to quit.” I knew he wasn’t serious, but I understood where he was coming from. We needed to tell them to tone it down a little.

  “Listen, I’m going to be back in a few. Mack’s all doped up and going home with her mom. She’s out, so we’ll have to get a new top girl. I’m thinking Ciana, Becca, or Amy. They’re the only ones who can really handle it. We can try each one of them and see how it goes. We’ll have to move other people around. Shit, this is going to be exhausting.” I rubbed my face and yawned.

  “We’ll handle it. They’ll handle it. This has happened before and we’ve been fine. Tell Mack everyone loves her.” There were shouts of encouragement in the background.

  “Thanks. Tell them all to text her and wish her well, and give them hell for dropping her. I mean, blood coming from your eyeballs rage.”

  “Will do.”

  I hung up and went back to talk to Mack’s mom one more time. She was used to her daughter getting injuries, including at least one concussion from her freshman year when I hadn’t been the coach.

  “She’s a tough girl. She’ll be fine. It’s just that it’s her senior year.” That was the part that killed me. This was Mack’s last chance on the mat in high school and now she was going to miss it. She’d already been accepted to college and planned to try out for the college squad, but it wasn’t the same. There was a sweetness and a purity to high school cheer. Something you could never get back.

  I hugged Mack’s mom and said I would check in with her later tonight and headed back to the gym.

  Everyone wanted to know how Mack was, and bombarded me when I first walked in. I saw contrition in all their eyes, so that was good. I told them as much as I could, and then looked up to see the Bulldogs coming around the barrier.

  “Everything okay with your flyer?” Echo asked, and for a second, I could swear she was asking out of real concern, but the moment was so quick that I blinked and it was gone.

  “She’s tough,” I said. “She’ll be fine.” I didn’t need to share Mack’s medical details with our rivals.

  “Let us know if you need any extra spotters. We have a lot of alternates.” She even made an offer of help a dig at my squad.

  “Great, thanks.” I turned away from her so I wouldn’t scream at her in front of everyone and put my attention on seeing what progress they’d made while I was gone.

  It was nearly time for their hour lunch break and the food I’d ordered was arriving in a few minutes. I wondered what the Heartwood kids were doing for food, but I realized I didn’t care. Echo probably had kale smoothies on ice and protein bars or some shit. My kids were getting sandwiches and chips from a chain store and they’d suck it up and enjoy it. I wasn’t made of money and I was footing the bill with my stipend.

  The jump clinic had gone well and I gave a few more pointers on pointing toes and arm positions and keeping smiles while some of them showed off and then we broke for lunch.

  I was busy setting up and handing out paper plates and making sure no one made a mess when two of Echo’s assistants wandered by with tons of takeout bags. I saw the logo on them and knew that they were probably salads and sushi from the swanky restaurant about ten minutes away from Corsica where a bunch of rich people lived since it was closer to the ocean.

  My squad definitely noticed, but then the nice food disappeared behind the curtain and we were left with our sad sandwiches and crushed chips.

  “Right now, I don’t want to hear any complaining,” I said, pointing to them.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Kevin said, putting his hands up.

  Lunch was a mostly quiet affair, and one or two of my kids used the time to take a quick nap. I hoped they were fueled up because this afternoon was going to be grueling for them.

  First, I sat them in a circle and made them tell me three things they were grateful for. It was a tradition I’d had when I was a cheerleader and it was one of the first things I’d instituted when I’d come on as a coach. Working hard was important, but it was also good to stop and take a breath and sit in gratefulness.

  “I’m grateful for all of you, I’m grateful that Mack wasn’t more seriously hurt, and I’m grateful for my three cats.” They all laughed because I literally always said that I was grateful for my cats. I actually had a social media account for them that all my cheerleaders followed and they were always commenting on the pictures. It was really cute.

  Everyone had some laughs and that lightened the mood from the darkness of Mack’s injury earlier. I had them meditate for a little while, which less than half of them took seriously as fits of giggles broke out periodically.

  “Okay, let’s get back to work. Now that Mack is out, we’re going to have to move things around in the pyramid. Ciana, how would you like to try being top girl?” The blood drained from her face but she gave me a scared smile and nodded her head.

  “Okay.”

  “Great. Becca, can you do Ciana’s part?” Becca was a minor part of the pyramid, so this would be a bump up. I had to arrange a few more things and by the time I was done, I had no idea if this was even going to work.

  “Let’s do the first part up until the toss with Ciana.” Two stunts went up and down on the side as Ciana flew high in the back in a basket toss. Pyramids were designed to dazzle you with so much chaos that your brain couldn’t figure out what was going to happen next because it was always moving, always changing. The more ups and downs and tosses and levels you could add, the better.

  I made them count it out a few times first, basically mocking up the stunt on the ground so the flyers knew what they were supposed to do when. Once I was sure they had it, I made them run through the first section. It was a little wobbly, but no one fell. I made them run it three more times before I added on a second part. Originally, I wanted to be doing full outs today, but plans had changed. I needed to get this pyramid nailed before I could move on to anything else. Tomorrow would be all about putting the new people into the formations that we’d already established.

  We made it through about half the pyramid, and my spotters were extra vigilant, which made things go better. I was proud of them.

  “Okay, let’s call it,” I said. I knew them well enough to know when they’d had it, and when I could squeeze just a little more out.

  “Good job, everyone. I know that it wasn’t the day we’d planned, but I’m really proud of you all for stepping up, especially our flyers for rolling with it
.” I made them all give themselves a round of applause and sent them on their merry way. Dom started clearing up the detritus from a bunch of teenagers being around all day, and I sat down to take a minute for myself. I had the sudden urge to cry. When I saw one of my kids hurting, it was one of the worst feelings in the entire world.

  A few tears dripped down my face. The Bulldogs were still practicing, and I just wanted them to leave. Couldn’t they leave me to cry in the gym in peace?

  “You okay?” a voice I almost didn't recognize said. Somehow she’d traipsed across the gym floor without making a sound. Guess she could be unobtrusive when she wanted to be.

  I refused to look up at her and let her see me cry.

  “I’m fine,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound like it was full of tears.

  “It’s hard, seeing them get hurt.”

  Was she trying to be nice to me? That shocked me so much I looked up.

  “Are you being serious right now?” Her team’s music was still going so one of her assistants must have been running things.

  “Yes?” she said, as if she wasn’t sure herself. “You don’t have to be so hostile just because you lost.”

  It wasn't just about that.

  “Yes, yes, you’re better than me and always will be, blah, blah, blah.” I made my hand into a fake mouth and pretended to make it talk to say the last part.

  “So it’s not just about the competition,” she said, as if my reaction was some sort of confirmation.

  “Can you just go away and leave me alone?” I had to wipe my nose so it wouldn’t drip. I hated that she was seeing me like this. I didn’t want to be even remotely vulnerable in front of Echo.

  “Fine, fine. I was just trying to be nice.” She couldn’t even do that without being sarcastic.

  I bit back a scream and got up and went to find Dom. If I didn’t, I was going to yell at her and make a fool of myself in my own gym. Cam was calling me, so I took it.

  “Hey, how’s it going?”

  “Can you stop breaking your athletes? It’s really starting to get old.” I heard the exhaustion in her voice.