Read Between the Lines Read online

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  “They’ll destroy you,” Stephen told me.

  But I didn’t listen.

  “A real friend would be supportive,” I said.

  “A real friend tells the truth,” he replied. “Because I care about you.”

  “You care more about Ben,” I said. “Even though you know he treats me like dirt.”

  I was a real friend telling the truth too.

  But neither of us wanted to hear it.

  Jacob shifts on the seat so his body angles away from me. His last name crawls across his back in fuzzy letters: Richarde. French for Dick.

  Someone snickers behind us.

  “Do it.”

  “Do it, man!”

  A car honks its horn. I turn to see a line of middle fingers sticking out the row of windows behind us. They look like a formation of angry soldiers. I check to see if Ben is part of this stupidity, but he’s just staring miserably out the window. Grace sits next to him, also looking miserable. I’ve tried, but I just don’t understand what it is about Ben that Grace is so in love with. I know he’s my brother, but he treats her like crap. Not to mention the other thing I know about him.

  The brakes on the bus screech at the next traffic light.

  “Hey!” the bus driver yells. “The next finger I see is mine!”

  More snickering.

  “She wishes,” Jacob mutters.

  “I’ll give her my finger,” someone toward the back says suggestively.

  Sammy laughs uncomfortably. “Gross.”

  Jacob’s fingers walk higher up her thigh. “What about you?” he whispers at her, loud enough so I’ll hear, too.

  She looks confused. “What?”

  I turn away. Press myself harder against the cold metal. I do not want to be part of this conversation. I do not want to be in this seat. But Jacob elbows me, as if he wants me to pay attention.

  He presses his middle finger into Sammy’s thigh and makes a swirling motion, then moves the finger as if it’s a person walking up her thigh. It peeks under the hem of her skirt.

  “Stop it.” Sammy pushes his hand back down toward her knee. But the finger person comes back. It hesitates at the hem. Waits. For permission?

  Sammy shoves his hand away again. He whispers something in her ear I can’t hear.

  I study the back of the seat in front of me. There are six different-size pieces of petrified gum stuck to it. Two pinkish-gray. One brownish-red. One light green. One bright purple. One baby blue. I guess the flavors. Strawberry. Cinnamon. Spearmint, obviously. Grape, also obvious. Winter mint.

  Each one is squished flat. You could probably see the person’s fingerprint on them. I wonder if they were all put there by the same person. A kid? A boy? A girl? I wonder what the person was thinking as he or she pushed the gum onto its final resting place. I’m going to guess it was a girl. A mad girl. Or a sad girl. Who likes gum.

  Why can’t she just put it back in the wrapper and throw it away later? Because she doesn’t want to make the effort. Because she doesn’t care. Or maybe she is trying to be the “bad girl.” Maybe she is trying to make a statement. It’s probably not the best one. Right now, the statement is telling me this girl doesn’t have a gum preference and she doesn’t mind staring at her own disgusting petrified chewed-up gum day after day. And she doesn’t care that the rest of us have to look at it. And she isn’t worried about brushing her backpack or sleeve against the gum when she stands up. So that must mean . . .

  She doesn’t care about herself. And maybe no one else does, either.

  Maybe she feels like a chewed-up, spit-out piece of gum herself.

  I feel sorry for this girl I don’t know. If I knew who she was, I would try to be her friend.

  “I said stop it!” Sammy says louder than before.

  Jacob is trying again to reach up Sammy’s skirt. I don’t want to see, but the movement from the corner of my eye distracts me.

  Jacob sighs in an exasperated way.

  I don’t know why she lets him sit next to her.

  Jacob Richarde.

  The Dick.

  I snicker. I can’t help it.

  “Freak,” Jacob whispers at me before he gets up and moves back to the seat behind us.

  Sammy sits quietly and stares at the gum.

  I wonder if she feels chewed up now, too.

  The away team’s school gym is smaller than ours. The bleachers are creaky. Jacob sits down and rocks back and forth, making a rude gesture that is supposed to be him having sex with the air. The rest of the boys crack up as expected, even Ben. The cheerleaders roll their eyes. I just stare. When Jacob notices me, he widens his eyes and rocks toward me, like I’m the one he wants to have sex with. Only, I know he doesn’t, so I look away while all the boys laugh even harder. I don’t check to see if Ben does.

  The coach walks over and tells the boys to suit up in the locker room. I am glad to see them go.

  Across the gym floor, the other team’s fans shake cowbells at us like an angry mob. They stomp their feet to the song playing through speakers on the ceiling.

  “We Will Rock You,” by Queen.

  It’s such a weird way of saying, We are going to win.

  I bet that’s not even what the song is about.

  Grace gathers us into a huddle. “Remember to smile,” she tells us. “And enunciate your words.” She says this last very slowly, stressing each syllable and moving her mouth in an exaggerated way. Like her lips have a life of their own. Then she hands us each a lemon drop. I don’t even know why. Something to do with e-nun-ci-a-tion? I unwrap the clear plastic and put the drop in my mouth. The outside is sweet and sugary but then turns sour. The other girls make faces as they reach their own sour middles. But no one complains. We just keep sucking.

  Even though all I taste is sour, in this moment, being part of this circle with our arms tight around one another’s shoulders, I feel the sweetness of being part of something.

  “Where’s Claire?” one of the girls asks.

  “She went home sick from school,” Grace explains. “So, Megan, you’ll take her position.”

  Sammy makes a sad face. I can tell she misses her.

  I wonder if Claire was really sick, or just sick of us. The way we ignored her this morning, I wouldn’t blame her.

  When it’s time to introduce the teams, we follow Grace in a perfectly formed line with our hands on our hips and our red-and-white pompoms shaking at our sides. Each step is a double swish.

  Swish-swish.

  Swish-swish.

  If anyone goes out of step, the rhythm will break. I concentrate on my swishing and try to ignore the way my thigh fat jiggles to the whisper-beat of the pompoms.

  Jiggle-swish.

  Jiggle-swish.

  When we get to the corner of the gym where our team will make their grand appearance, we form two lines facing each other. We raise our pompoms in the air and join them with the girls across from us to make a red-and-white tunnel ceiling for the boys to run through. My bridge partner is usually Claire, so now I get the skinniest of the skinny girls, Megan. She is chewing gum, which is against the rules. For a brief moment I imagine she is my Gum Girl. I imagine she is more than what Stephen used to say about the cheerleaders and especially the Girls. That they’re empty. She smiles at me and I smile back. We press our pompoms together, sealing the tunnel roof.

  The announcer calls each player’s name and position, and the boys come running out one at a time like superstars. Their sneakers squeak on the gleaming floor. Their pristine basketballs bounce-bounce-bounce as they dribble past. They have to hunch down to get through our too-low pompom-covered tunnel. Once through, they dribble up to the basket and do a layup.

  Swish.

  Each one high-fives the one who followed. Like it is such a big deal to make a basket. Like they are Such. Big. Deals.

  No one else but the cheerleaders applaud. It’s rough, playing at the other team’s school, surrounded b
y people who want to see you lose.

  When the home team comes out, the crowd goes wild. The cowbells shake in a more supportive way. The foghorns blow. The foot stomps are deafening. Our boys and the cheerleaders stand respectfully. Clap politely. But I can see on their faces that they are imagining how our team will take the home team down. It is not an attractive look.

  After the teams warm up at opposite ends of the gym, the home-team cheerleaders perform a routine on the floor. One boy goes out with them. He is not a mascot but a real cheerleader. He is wearing the same sweater-vest as the girls, but instead of a skirt, he has shorts. Our boys snicker. Cough out the familiar words they use for anyone not on their “team.”

  Homo.

  Fag.

  Queer.

  Ben does it the loudest.

  I think of Stephen and wish he was here. If he saw this side of Ben, maybe he wouldn’t be so stupid about him. Maybe he would realize that Ben doesn’t deserve him.

  Thinking of Stephen makes my chest hurt. The space he used to occupy there is cold and empty and starving.

  He says I’m the one who ruined our friendship by choosing the Girls over him. But I say he is the one who ruined our friendship by choosing Ben.

  What is it about Ben that makes people so crazy? I will never understand. If Stephen could hear Ben now, hear him say those words with disgust in his throat . . . Well, I guess I’m glad he can’t. No one deserves to be hurt like that.

  “Knock it off, boys,” the coach says in a playful way. I can tell he wants to wink at them. Cough those words with them. He makes me want to puke.

  I wonder if the cheerboy can hear them. If he knows what they’re saying. I wonder if it feels the same way when I hear the familiar words they use for people like me.

  Thunder thighs.

  Wide load.

  Porker.

  Chubber.

  Pudge muffin.

  I wish the cheerboy would look at me. I would like to silently tell him, You are brave. You are a hero. Even though he is not a very good cheerleader.

  When they finish their performance, we cheerleaders stand up and clap that way snooty women do, tapping our fingers into our palms to achieve the look of approval but not the sound.

  Then we stand and follow Grace out on the floor to perform our own routine.

  “Ready, girls?”

  “Hit it!”

  My thighs bounce and ripple with every jump. Stomp. Pivot. My too-big breasts flop wildly despite the expensive sports bra I saved up for that promised — promised — this would not happen.

  I wait for the laughter from the boys on the bench. The strangers from the home team. They will not cough their insults. They will enunciate them.

  Earthquake!

  When we turn to face the home side, I search out the cheerboy. I don’t know why he became my instant hero. Because he stands out like me? He seems like my kindred spirit. Like we should be friends. Like Stephen used to be.

  But when I spot him, he is sitting in the front row, in the middle of the line of cheerleaders. They surround him protectively. He is laughing. Pointing.

  At me.

  My heart skips and then it dies a little. I feel it shrink. The empty space for Stephen widens. It is a chasm.

  But the show must go on. The show. Starring the magnificent fat girl with the incredible bouncing boobs.

  I plant my feet on the shiny wood floor. Bend my knees, also known as soft stepping-stones, for Megan to use as she climbs up me. The stepladder.

  She presses her slender foot onto my cushion thigh — the first rung — then my shoulder, as we slowly create our BIG! FORMATION!

  Go, team!

  Megan’s crisp white sneakers dig into my already-bruised shoulders. If you inspect the purple mark carefully, you will see the dainty outline of her footprint. But I SMILE! Then Sammy begins the climb, and I am holding the weight of one and a half. The other ladder girls next to me grin the way I do. They aren’t as chubby as me, but they are “big-boned,” as my mother would say. “Strong girls,” as Grace would say. I’m sure they are thinking, like I am, that it would be nice to be the climber and not the climbed on for once.

  We chant, “Who’s gonna win? Ir-ving!”

  My legs shake under Sammy’s weight, even though she probably weighs less than one hundred pounds and most likely had celery for lunch because, as she always reminds us, it is the perfect food. You burn the amount of calories it has just by chewing it.

  Yum.

  The first time I brought my own celery sticks out during practice, some of the girls gasped. They were filled with peanut butter and a line of raisins.

  “Oh! I used to love ants on a log.” Sammy had said. “I miss peanut butter.”

  “Do you want a bite?” I asked.

  “Can’t,” she said, patting her flat — almost concave, I swear — tummy. “I’m on a diet.”

  Oh.

  When we finish our formation, I count silently to ten. That’s how long we have to hold it to truly impress. Sammy is somewhere high above me. Sammy the smallest. The cutest. The loudest.

  The boys from our team are all watching Sammy. Probably they are trying to see up her skirt.

  Jacob makes another rude gesture with his finger.

  Then the girls jump down, and we all jog off the court, elbows bent at ninety-degree angles, hands in pompoms at the base of our backs like they are bustles on a dress. Shake-shake-shake. I feel like a show pony. Or no. A circus elephant.

  We have to jog right by our boys’ team, who sit in the front row of the bleachers with their long legs sticking out. They make whistles and rude comments as we jog past. I pretend not to hear and focus on the swish-swish-swish of my pompoms on my back. All the way to the safety of my spot at the end of the bench to watch the game. To cheer the boys on, even though they are so awful to us. We’re not here for them, though. We’re here for us.

  Go, team!

  Or whatever.

  Even though our boys have nicer uniforms and our school is bigger and our coach probably makes more money than the other team’s, we lose. I think it was the cowbells and the horns and the constant foot stomping. It is hard to perform under such negative circumstances. It was Jacob who nearly saved the day. Not Ben, the usual hero. Jacob was “on fire” tonight, according to the coach. And I suppose he was pretty good. Sometimes, people transform when they are doing what they love. On the court, Jacob is grace. He weaves through the players, the ball an extension of his body that he releases, but that comes back to him, like they are meant to be together. Jacob Richarde may be a dick, but when he is playing basketball, I will admit, he is beautiful. Even the other team cheered for him when he made an impossible shot in the last quarter. But it was Sammy who led us in a cheer just for him. Who seemed to forget the not-beautiful off-the-court Jacob and hugged his sweaty body after the game when the boys walked over to the stands, defeated.

  No one is in a good mood as we find our way to the bus through the cold, dark parking lot. I find a different seat and hope I will get lucky and no one will sit with me. Rides home in the dark are for hooking up. And that is not for me.

  The bus is dark. I just want to lean my head against the cold glass window despite the dirty handprint smudges I know are there. Out of sight but not really out of my mind. How I would like to be.

  But just as the bus begins to heave itself forward, someone slides in next to me and presses tight against my side so that it is hard to breathe. The smell of his blue Trident gum gives him away. He doesn’t have his basketball. Or Sammy.

  I scan the dark bus to try to find her, but I can’t see. I want to tell him he has the wrong seat. But he whispers, “Hey, Lacy,” and presses harder against me.

  I close my eyes and press the side of my face against the glass. Maybe if I don’t talk to him, he will go away.

  Hot fingers squeeze my leg. He has me pressed so tightly against the side of the bus that my arms are trapped at my sides. I tighten the muscles on my thig
h. Shake it, to loosen his grasp. But he squeezes harder. I smell his blue Trident gum breath again. His face is so close I can hear the snap-snap of him chewing.

  “Lacy, you are oddly hot,” he whispers. He pushes his nose into the nape of my neck and sniffs. “Yeah. You could be beautiful if you dropped a few pounds.”

  Here is when I am supposed to scream.

  Here is when I am supposed to push back.

  But I am trapped silent and still, and I don’t know why.

  I wiggle one hand free and try to push him away. But he is strong and his fingers slide under my skirt. One finger wedges between my squeezed-together thighs. The nail scrapes my skin like a sharp-toothed worm. It pokes, pokes, and finds my panties.

  I want to cry out. I want to scream. I want to kick and flail.

  But I am so alone on this dark bus. Where everyone hooks up on the ride home. Even me.

  Poke.

  I choke and jerk my body to make him stop.

  I dig my fingers into his arm, but they don’t claw him because I have bitten the nails to the nub.

  Warm tears slip quietly down my cheeks.

  “Lacy,” he whispers.

  Poke.

  I squirm again. Squeeze my legs tighter. Smell blue Trident. Feel like I am the one being chewed up now.

  “C’mon, Lacy. You know you want it. I saw you watching me on the court.”

  But that is a lie. The Jacob on the court is not this Jacob. And if I know anything, it is that I do not want it. I do not want his finger touching me. Hurting me. That is what I know.

  And finally. Finally. I find my voice.

  “STOP IT!”

  The sound is a scream I never knew was inside me.

  The bus goes quiet.

  He pulls his hand back. Laughs awkwardly. I feel his anger next to me.

  Dark silhouetted heads turn our way. Faceless without the light. Still, I can feel their anticipation. Something big just happened. Something they will be texting about later. And whisper-talking about at school.

  What are Sammy and Grace thinking?

  What is Ben?

  What would Claire think if she was here? What would Stephen?

  Would anyone stand up for me?