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Coach Sam cast his eyes up to the ceiling and shook his head back and forth. “Let’s stick to a language we’re all fluent in.”
“My doctor isn’t a quack. She’s very competent,” I assured them. “I can definitely hack it and my foot is totally better.”
“It better be better,” Sam said. He frowned at me, and I knew why. He was a gymnast like I was. Unlike my cheerleading squad in high school, the Wonderwomen had always been totally dance-focused. Before, they had rarely, if ever, included running tumbling in their routines and Sam had wanted to change that. I’d been taking dance in various forms since I was three, of course, but gymnastics was why I was here. My sister had explained that I’d made it on the squad because Sam needed me to demonstrate why he was there too, as a coach. I performed his choreography and did the passes as well as I could so that everyone would see that we were both assets to the Wonderwomen.
Of course, my gymnastics abilities weren’t the only reason I was here. Aubin herself was another one. My sister had been the captain and star, at the front and center of every formation. And before her, my mother had been a Woodsmen cheerleader, back when they’d been called “Dames” instead of Wonderwomen. One time at Fan Day, we’d gotten to look at a display of things from the team’s archives. I’d seen a picture of her wearing the iconic orange halter top and pleated white skirt that had been the Dames uniform during her era. She was just as beautiful as Aubin was and in fact, they were so much alike that they could have been the sisters.
In other words, I was a “legacy,” which the Woodsmen organization loved. They were really into the idea of generations being involved, that we were all part of a big football family. It was lucky for me, because I wouldn’t have made it on my own, not being as medium as I was. I probably wouldn’t have even thought to try out except that one day in her third season, Aubin’s car had been in the shop and I’d gone to pick her up outside of the stadium. I’d waited next to the practice field, the same one I was headed to now, and I’d put myself behind the bleachers while the girls had learned a dance. I had followed along and had added some tumbling, but I hadn’t known that anyone was watching.
“Nice work showing off, Sissy,” Aubin had told me in the car. “Coach Sam saw you and he wants you to try out for the Wonderwomen.”
“I’m too young!” I hadn’t been done with high school yet. “I wasn’t trying to show off, I really wasn’t. It was just fun hearing the music and watching you all dancing. You’re so good together, Aubin. You look so beautiful.”
My sister had rolled her eyes and checked her phone, but after that day, Coach Sam had remembered me. I’d seen him again once or twice and he’d reminded me to come back when I was old enough. I had planned to go away for college but in the end, that hadn’t been possible, so I did go audition. I’d made it and now I was on the squad just like my sister and mom had been.
“Go easy until you feel steady. Just marking today,” Sam told me now, and my other coach nodded and said something I didn’t understand. “Enough with the Finnish,” he growled to her. “I’m glad you had a good trip to Europe, but I wish it hadn’t inspired this in you.”
“I spoke to everyone there and they loved it. People appreciate when you use their mother tongue.”
“I bet a thousand Euros that they had not one idea what was coming out of your mouth. When you speak to me in my mother tongue, I can hardly follow it either.”
They were still arguing about languages and currency as Sam waved me out of the office and I went to the bathroom to change for practice. It was my first day out of street clothes and yes, my doctor had said that my injury was fine. I was good to go in terms of bones and ligaments.
Everything else felt a little unsettled, though, because the past few months had been hard. First, Aubin had been very upset about her wedding.
“I’m pretty sure that you didn’t mean to ruin it with your speech,” she’d begun the conversation when we’d finally talked a few weeks after she had Bill had gotten back from their honeymoon. I’d texted and called before to tell her that I was sorry, I was so sorry, but she hadn’t responded for a long time.
When she’d said that about ruining her wedding, I’d had to stop to put my pinkies in the corners of my eyes to block tears, and then I’d had to hurry to catch up to her. As my sister liked to say, crying only messed up your makeup, but it felt so awful to know that she thought I’d destroyed her big day.
“No, I really didn’t mean to mess it up,” I said when we were side by side again. “Did I? Maybe people forgot.”
Her eyebrows had raised. “Sissy, no one is ever going to forget that. I knew I should have previewed it before you went up there.”
I had wanted it to be a surprise. I had wanted to show her that I didn’t need her supervision but she was probably right, because more than anything, I’d wanted her approval. “I’m sorry,” I said again. I couldn’t ever say it enough. “I should have practiced it more. I should have brought notecards with me like when we did oral reports in elementary school. Maybe I could have had a prompter, something like that.”
“I don’t think anything could have saved that disaster.” She checked her pace on her watch and then went faster. Aubin had wanted to go for a run and I’d really wanted to talk to her, so I’d been wheeling myself along on a knee scooter and trying to keep up. But suddenly, she’d stopped and she looked at me carefully. “It wasn’t on purpose, was it? You weren’t trying to make a fool of yourself to make me look bad, were you? The girls were all saying…”
“No, it wasn’t on purpose! I really did want to give a great speech to celebrate you, Aubin. I would never intentionally hurt you.”
But my sister hadn’t looked convinced as she’d resumed exercising.
I hadn’t been participating in our Wonderwomen practices over the summer but I had been attending, and two of the other cheerleaders, Erin and Mia, had also been bridesmaids. I could tell by how they’d been acting towards me, very cold and aloof, that they definitely thought I’d made an idiot of myself at the wedding to wreck things for my sister. Our squad liked to gossip and talk and I also knew that I’d been a big topic, and that instead of Aubin getting the attention that she deserved, it had been on me.
So that had sucked, but the upheaval with Aubin hadn’t been the only problem. My dad had major post-wedding difficulties, too, and I’d also had issues with my boyfriend. He’d been furious with me and how I’d left the ballroom that night.
“Ward, I couldn’t walk,” I’d told him again and again. “He picked me up and—”
“You wanted him too,” Ward had answered. “You let him because you wanted him to.”
“You shouldn’t have pushed me, either,” I’d said, and that had led to endless arguments over whether he’d pushed me or had only been trying to get me to come inside with him, away from the Woodsmen football player. Ward was still certain that I’d snuck out to hook up on that loading dock and we’d fought about that, too.
“I know you’ve been talking to him since then,” he’d said, and I’d let him go through my phone, again, to prove that I hadn’t.
My boyfriend hadn’t been satisfied about the situation and neither was I, but for different reasons. No, I hadn’t been talking to that football player, but there were things that I needed to say to him, things I hadn’t told him when he’d brought me to the hospital.
He’d gotten the keys instead of waiting for the valet to have his truck brought around. “You ok? Buckle up for safety,” Garrett Bowman told me after he’d carried me to the passenger seat and put me into it.
“You don’t need to drive me anywhere,” I’d answered. “I can get a car.”
