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I could probably still do a split, but tumbling was out of the question. That had never been my strong suit anyway. I was much more comfortable at the top of a stunt.
The kitties slept at my feet as I chewed at my lip and tried not to compulsively check the clock every few minutes. After getting distracted from what I was trying to do in Photoshop for the third time, I groaned and closed the program. I wasn’t going to get anything done, and it was almost time to get ready to head over to the gym. I might as well get there early and see if I needed to do anything for Camille.
I spent some extra time in front of the mirror, making sure my hair was looking right. The undercut on both sides was starting to grow out, so I’d need to clip it in a few days. I used a combo of gel and mousse to give the short dark waves on top of my head some volume and hold. I definitely wouldn’t be mistaken for a former cheerleader now, though that was changing a little. Back in the day I’d had long hair all the way down my back, the better to make a high ponytail with. My scalp still ached from the weight of those ponytails.
I shuddered and turned my head from side to side. Looked good. Not one to wear much makeup, I brushed on some foundation, added a tiny bit of color to my cheeks, a dash of highlighter on my cheekbones, and a swipe of mascara and I was done. Belatedly, I thought that I should have done eyeliner to make my brown eyes pop a little more, but it was too late now.
Usually I dressed pretty casual for practice, but I found myself pulling out a new button-up that I’d gotten and leaving the top two buttons undone. My bra wasn’t showing, but it gave the impression of cleavage.
“What am I doing?” I said to my reflection in the mirror on the back of my bedroom door. I did up another one of the buttons, but the shirt didn’t look right, so I undid it again. Loading my fingers up with my most-cursed rings completed the look.
“You need to calm down,” I said to my reflection one more time before I left the room, grabbed my bag, slipped on my leopard-print sneakers, and headed out the door.
My hands trembled on the steering wheel as I drove to Corsica. It didn’t take as long as I wanted it to. I pulled into the parking lot and turned off my car. It was time.
I headed into the gym and there were a few teens hanging around after school, loitering and laughing together. I still had about an hour before practice, so I headed for Camille’s office and knocked on her door.
“Hey,” I said, sticking my head in. She was on the phone and held one finger up as she finished the call.
“What can I do for you?”
“Actually, I was wondering if there’s anything I can do for you? To get the gym ready and so forth?” I asked.
She gave me a look as if I’d thrown her a life preserver as she was drowning in the ocean. “Oh my god, that would be wonderful. Can you divide up the mats and then we have the curtain thing, but we have to unpack it and put it together. And it’s not going to be soundproof, so just be aware of that.”
Oh, I had thought about that, all right. I planned to conduct my practices in whispers and constantly eavesdrop on what the team on the other side of the curtain was doing. It was only fair, since they were using my space. A tiny portion of my brain considered setting up a secret recording device, but that might be taking this thing too far.
“Sure, I can set up the curtain. Where is it?”
Cam’s phone rang again and she rolled her eyes. “Corner of the gym. Big boxes. Can’t miss it. Come find me if you need help.” She took the call and I was dismissed.
Sure, I wasn’t in Cam shape, but I thought I could handle this shit. I was a lesbian; assembling things was part of my nature, or at least it was supposed to be.
I went back to the gym and found the boxes and started unpacking. Basically it was a set of poles that interlocked, and then you draped fabric over it to make the sections.
When I had difficulty getting the poles even out of the boxes, I realized that I was not going to be able to complete this task by myself. As I struggled to pull one of the metal poles out of the box, a pair of hands held the box so I could pull the pole out. I looked up and dropped the pole with an enormous clang, narrowly missing crushing one or both of my feet.
It was Echo.
“Sorry, you looked like you needed some help.” I picked up the pole and tried to yank it out of the box, which worked about as well as my ability to keep my cool around her. As in, not at all.
“Fuck,” I said under my breath as I set the pole down again. I tried to keep my cursing to a minimum around the squad, especially when their parents were around, but I didn’t know how this was going to go with Echo around. She pushed my swear button. She pushed a lot of my buttons.
“I’m fine,” I said, putting my hands up. “I’m fine.”
I wasn’t fine.
“Okay,” Echo said, looking at me a little warily.
Whatever moment we were having was interrupted by her squad traipsing into the gym, all chatting and making as much noise as possible, as teenagers were wont to do.
“Hey, set your stuff down and come help,” Echo said, her voice carrying across the space like a crack of thunder. They took their time, but they all set their things on the bleachers and shuffled over, some of them looking around warily. As if my team was going to jump out from behind the bleachers and scare them.
As I stood there, not knowing what to say or do, Echo organized her team and had the curtain set up in half the time it took me to try and get one pole out.
By the time they had divided the gym in half, my team had started to arrive, and Camille breezed in to see how it was going.
“Hi, I’m Camille, the AD, we spoke on the phone,” she said to Echo.
