Chapter 9: The Retreat - Saturday

The phone rang at 4:30 with my wakeup call; I was waiting for the ring, lifted it up at the first sound, then put it back. Amy hadn't stirred when I got up and didn't stir for the phone. I went in the bathroom, showered and put on clean clothes.

When I came out Amy greeted me with a hug. "Go back to sleep, Amy," I told her. "I have to go be a chaperone." She nodded, curled back up in bed and was asleep almost instantly.

I went out, saw Linda just a few feet away. "I was going to knock on your door and see if you were awake," she told me.

"I'm awake. Is anyone else?"

"I think a few were still awake a little after Marybeth went on shift, but they faded fast tonight. Tonight will be the big night."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, let's say quite a few of the wannabes are going to be going around the corner tonight. During the day, both groups of the new girls will get team sponsors. Nancy has this clever little system, each team member writes down three choices from each corridor, each of the new girls writes down three choices of sponsor. It's pretty remarkable -- she hits like 95% matches.

"The team members have two different jobs. First is to make sure all the girls are up to team standards in dance and overall conditioning, verify a wannabe as someone who could be a team member, and gently sound out what's left if maybe someone goofed and missed a possibility.

"Nancy said you had some concerns about the girls who are scrubbed."

"Yes," I told her forthrightly. "I was scrubbed, I never got another real shot. It bit then, it bites now."

"Nancy thought your idea of working with scrubs was cool, because it would be another way to confuse the issue."

"What are you going to do if..." I'd been too aware that she was speaking carefully out here in the hall.

"That's an individual thing." Linda leaned close, whispered in my ear. "Run like hell."

I nodded; that was about the only sensible thing to do.

Linda remained close, her eyes focused on mine. "Thanks, Laura, for earlier, at orientation; for covering for me. I can't imagine where Nancy got the idea you and I had spent some time together."

I grinned. "I've been pretty busy."

"Yeah, I know I said I didn't think we'd be all that compatible, but one of these days, we should make sure."

She reached down, slid one finger inside my jeans at the snap, tugged me lightly forward and kissed me on the nose. "Marybeth said you were working on a small project."

I smiled at her; aware our breasts were just a fraction of an inch apart. Funny, if it had been one of the girls, I'd have been excited. If it had been Nancy, I'd have been excited. Even Marybeth was interesting. But Linda wasn't.

"Oh, it might be a bigger project than you think," I told her, trying to keep my thoughts on the current subject, and not her mostly unwelcome finger inside the waistband of my jeans.

"Sounds like fun," Linda said with a smile. "Now, speaking of that, I have a project of my own. Thanks, Laura, see you later."

She walked around the corner into her room. I could just make out a head in her bed; it was Susan. I smiled to myself.

I spent the next two hours walking the corridors, a lot of it, thinking.

I realized that I had two real issues with Nancy. She had told me the rules, and it was clear the rules weren't being enforced. That and I wasn't satisfied about the girls who didn't make the team because they weren't going to be participants in the group.

I'd read a science fiction novel about a comet smashing into the earth, a book that Roger had recommended. It had been a little gross for my taste, but I remembered the part about cannibals who ensured the loyalty of new recruits by making them eat what they'd eaten.

Obviously, cannibalism wasn't going to fly, but I was sure that one reason no one had blown the whistle on what was going on was because they'd have ratted themselves out as well as everyone else. Plus, I could pretty well imagine that it would be a hard decision to make. The social downside of doing it would be unimaginable. Odds were as well, that someone would notice a team member on a short fuse and they would work on her.

So, how to ensure the loyalty of those who would be on the cheerleading squad but who weren't busy messing around with each other, the coach and parent sponsors? Nothing obvious came to mind.

Around six, I heard a sound behind me. I turned around and saw the girl I'd overheard Nancy talking to the evening before.

"Hi," she said.

"You're really supposed to be in your room until 7:00 am and the cafe opens for breakfast," I told her. I don't think I came across as very convincingly upset.

"Well, I'm not going to run out and mess around with some boy!" she said, derisively.

"It's the rule," I told her. "It's designed more to make you easier to keep track of than to keep you from messing around."

I saw the sharp glance she gave me. Oops, I thought to myself. This is a smart girl, and she realized I hadn't said anything about messing around with boys.

"I'm not going to make the team, am I?" she asked softly.

That came out of the blue, catching me totally off guard. I didn't have a good answer, either for her or for myself. Time to punt again, I thought.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Fred Jones." She saw my expression, and giggled. "Winifred, like on Angel. I think she's cool."

I nodded as if I knew what she was talking about, before going back to the issue at hand. She was right, but why did she think that? "Making the team is pretty much up to you," I said neutrally, "based on how well you do today."

"I saw you listening to the Coach last night. Your expression -- that said it all."

"Said what?" I asked, curious. I thought I'd covered my expression of disgust well.

"Like you just heard someone shoveling a load of complete BS, that you couldn't stand listening to it and walked away. I asked around about you. This is your first year; your daughter is down at the other end of the hall. Another of the chaperones has a daughter down the hall. I checked more; seems like all those girls down the hall are a lot friendlier with the team members than anyone down at my end."

Inwardly I wondered what the procedure was for someone who figured out what was happening. Danegeld? I would have to find out, but first I wanted to put the best face on it I could.

"Linda Kellogg has a daughter the same age as mine; they are good friends. Linda's sister is a busy, typical yuppie mom who has no time for a daughter or helping out, Linda offered to help her niece, Gail Kellogg, who is on the team. Linda's been helping out almost as long as Coach has. Linda and I talked one day when our daughters were having a party; I mentioned Susan wanted to be in cheer, she told me her daughter wanted to join as well. We talked about it, and voila, there's always a shortage of volunteers. Here I am."

Fred stood there thinking about it, then looked back at me. "But the girls down at the other end of the hall have a better shot."

"Do you know algebra?" I asked.

Fred nodded. "Math is my favorite subject," she said confidently.

"Fred, think about a simple algebra equation. X plus Y equals ten. If you don't know anything about either X or Y, there's literally an infinite number of possibilities for numbers to satisfy the equation."

Fred nodded, a serious and intent expression on her face.

"Suppose you're the coach of a cheerleading squad. You know Y, which is your team and 10, which is the perfect score you want for your team. So you get a group of girls together who want to join the squad. You have some that, for one reason or another, are known to you. The coach knows the girls who are staying are a 5, so she's looking for more 5's to go on the team.

"Think of this end of the hall," I pointed to the hall behind her. "As known quantities." Fred didn't look, which was very lucky because Susan came round the bend and headed down the hall toward her room. Oops again, I thought, there's a reason the girls aren't supposed to be in the hall before seven.

I went on, not letting Susan distract me. "At your end of the hall are the unknowns. The coach and the team are going to look you over this weekend. The thing to do is not be an unknown.

"That said, if you do get known, and you're a seven, you won't make the team either. If you stay unknown..." I looked Fred right in the eye. "Well, when I was your age, I was an X and stayed an X. It's not a pleasant thing, but the coach's job is to do what's best for the team, not what's best for the X's of the world. I never made the team."

Fred looked at me steadily for a second, and then shrugged. "At least your BS makes more sense than what I heard yesterday."

"This is Scottsdale High," I told her. "If I were you, I'd lose the cussing. That's a guaranteed minus a million."

In the distance, from the cheer corridor, I heard another door close. "Now, I'm going to be an ogre and ask you to go back to your room."

"What's your name?"

"Laura Alban Hunt. Please, Fred."

"Thanks." She turned, went down three doors and stuck the key card in and vanished.

I breathed a sigh of relief, even if I couldn't hear any more doors.

A little before seven Nancy showed up. "Trouble free night?"

"No problems. One of the left girls with some questions."

"You were gentle?"

"Anything else makes no sense at all," I told her.

"Exactly. I like you in any number of ways, Laura."

"And I like you. Still, I have a number of questions I'd like to talk to you about. Not here in the hall."

"Sure, Laura. Two things first. I understand you've found a friend."

"Yes. Linda mentioned something about special projects. I'm not familiar with what you have to do for that."

"Well, I'll get with you, probably later next week. Amongst other things, I'll go over that with you. Not to mention, thank you for your help this weekend."

"Sounds like fun."

"In the meantime, I'll take care of all of the notifications and the like."

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

"Also, I've given some thought about what you said about the scrubs. I've talked to Linda and Marybeth."

"Linda mentioned that."

"Yes." She smiled at me. "However, there are others I have to consult, not the least those mindless wretches in the school admin. It's hard to wring even a penny from them."

"I don't want to sound like I'm trying to buy the idea, but I wouldn't mind funding it out of my own pocket."

"You'd be surprised how expensive that might be."

"And you'd be surprised how well I'll be able to afford it."

I said that for two reasons -- one to make the point, and one to see the expression on her face.

She laughed, shook her head. "That comes under the heading of a nice surprise. Just think, the scrubs might get to forgo a few bake sales. That will make the squad just a little jealous."

"Things like that build character," I said with a straight face. "We don't have to mention where the funds are coming from. In fact, I would appreciate it if you might just forget I told you about affordability."

"One thing you learn in this job is the importance of when to keep mum."

"I've noticed."

"One last thing. For chaperones, we have slightly different rules. It looks bad if..." Her voice trailed away.

"I realized that a bit ago. When, by six?"

"You're very intelligent, Laura. It's going to be a real pleasure working with you. At seven, quite a herd of the girls head down for breakfast. For a few minutes after that, there are some stragglers, mostly team members. I go down with the herd, if you were to stay behind and encourage the stragglers not to straggle, say an extra ten or fifteen minutes, I'd appreciate that. In the meantime, for the next few minutes, I'll watch, if you want to go freshen up."

"No problem," I told her. "Thanks."

She smiled and nodded.

"I still need to talk to you later, okay?" I'd been a little surprised Nancy had been so candid in the hallway, but I wasn't going to risk it.

Nancy nodded, then wandered away down the hall, and I looked at my watch. About ten of the hour.

I walked down to my room and went in. I sat down next to Amy, and she rolled over and looked at me.

"Thanks for letting me sleep in."

I smiled. "I was very politely told that if you stay tonight, you have to be back in your room by six."

She nodded. "I know. I was just really tired." She paused. "I didn't get you in trouble, did I?"

I held up my fingers a fraction of an inch apart. "Just a little. All I had to do was promise to be good from here on out."

I looked at her. "Amy, I did something a bit ago without asking you, I want you to know I did it to keep people from bothering you. I promise, you don't owe me anything, you don't have to do anything. I just wanted you to know that I told Nancy that you and I are good friends."

"I'd like to be your friend," she said seriously, "And I think I know now, what you're like. You really mean it. We could just be friends."

"You'd probably have to spend some nights like last night; but I promise you, if you want nothing to happen, nothing's going to happen."

She got up, hugged me. "Thanks, Laura."

"Now, I have a favor to ask."

"Can I ask something first?"

"Sure, Amy."

"Do you want me... like that?" She waved at the bed.

"Yes. But unless that's what you want, I am quite happy just being a regular friend."

"Last night, I didn't want to be with anyone. Then I listened to you, and I really liked you. I liked kissing you; when you said you didn't want to go on... that meant a lot to me. Right now, I don't really know what I want."

"Those are your instincts talking to you," I told her. "Listen to them."

She nodded. "Laura... is there anyone else you like?"

"Well, I promised Carolyn we might be friends, but she had to think about it for a while."

"I remember." Amy nodded.

"But... I don't know about anyone else. That was what I was going to ask you."

She furrowed her brow. "What?"

"There's a girl on the left side, her name is Fred Jones."

"A girl named Fred?" Amy made a face.

"I've never watched the show, but she said like Fred on Angel."

"Oh," Amy said with a laugh. "That's pretty cool."

"Unless you've got someone else in mind, I'd appreciate it if you'd put her name as number one on the left side."

"I was just going to leave them all blank."

"What does that mean?"

"Oh, it means Coach Howland picks for you. It's kind of like extra credit."

"Like I said, I'd appreciate it."

"Sure. Anyone else you'd like?"

I shook my head.

"And is Fred going to be a friend of yours too?" she asked.

I shrugged. "First, she has to make the team. On the left... I get the distinct impression that's going to be really hard."

"Impossible, I've heard."

"Would it bother you if I had another friend?"

"I don't know. Not if I liked her."

"She's pretty smart."

"You are too. So am I," Amy giggled. "Sure, why not?"

The stampede in the hall had died down to nothing. "Run along to your room, freshen up and come down to breakfast. We'll talk again during the day."

She went out of the door, after I'd checked the hall; she was nearly to her room when Gail appeared. Well cool, I thought. One of the people I wanted to see.

"Gail," I motioned to my room. "I want to talk to you."

"I'm late for breakfast."

"Won't take but a second," I assured her.

We went in and I closed the door behind us. "What you did yesterday with Amy was too much, Gail. She told you no."

"She's like that, no, no, no... then yes, oh yes! Do it some more!"

I stepped closer to her, angry. "That is, from where I stand, one step beneath rape."

She recoiled at the last word.

"It was not! She just takes a bit to get her going."

"It's coercion, Gail. She doesn't like being hammered over and over, and finally says yes to ease the pressure. Don't push, Gail."

"Or what, you'll rat me out?"

"I've talked to Marybeth, Linda and Nancy since then. No, I haven't said anything yet. I will if you or someone else pushes past no again. It doesn't matter who it is, either. Pushing is despicable, Gail."

"Whatever," she said, shrugging. Gail seemed to be right on the edge of anger herself.

"And then there's the little thing of doing it in front of Jackie. Do you think Jackie is all that fond of the rest of you?"

"Like who cares? Fuck her!"

"You should. Think about how bad she could fuck you."

For the first time there was alarm in Gail's eyes. At a guess, someone else had had this conversation with Gail before, or a similar conversation. "Now let's both stop swearing, be lady-like and go chow down on something besides each other."

She couldn't help smiling. I reached for the door and waved her through ahead of me.

The morning was a blur. First there was one of those 'Get to know each other' affairs. Each girl from the squad got up and gave her name, and a little about what she did for the team. Then the wannabes and the lefts did the same thing; in a random order, I was sure.

Then Nancy had the parent helpers hand out some funky name badges to everyone, including the parents. Each name badge had the right number of letters for your name, but all of the letters were wrong. Further, the letters were the kind of plastic you can peel off and stick back on. The idea was you had to mingle and trade letters, you were supposed to do it one for one.

Considering some of the stupid things Roger had told me that he'd experienced in the business world, I was pleased with Nancy's idea.

Of course, Laura Alban Hunt was a little longer than average; there was a little prize for finishing first, we'd been told. A booby prize for last. I thought that was a hoot, because that had to be, by definition, a tie.

I was pleased when I saw Fred get the box from Nancy for being first; I managed to miss being last by only a few seconds. Jamie and Susan tied for last, another hoot. I was also totally unimpressed by the cheerleaders who huddled for a second, then quickly formed a circle, with one after another going round. The only saving grace was that was only about 40% efficient, and some of them didn't do that much better than any of the others.

Then there was a session with the team going through some simple routines, then they broke up and worked with the hopefuls; again the groupings seemed random. In fact, I never once saw Susan and Linda close all day, or Susan and Jamie together.

Then it was lunchtime, and the slips were passed around. I had a little time, and I called Jackie over. "Don't suppose you've got your mind made up?"

Jackie laughed. "Trust me, Laura, I leave the names blank. Being with me is the kiss of death, even for a wannabe."

"Fred Jones, on the left," I asked, "Please."

She shook her head. "You're not doing the girl a favor. Besides I thought..."

"Please. I'd appreciate it. And yes to what you were thinking. This is something else."

She clapped her hand over her mouth. "Gosh, it couldn't be that you want to show favoritism for someone!"

I looked around; we were well away from anyone.

"Something like that. It won't be the kiss of death you think. I doubt if you'll see her. Amy will, though."

"Then why me?"

"Name recognition. How many of you actually put down choices?"

"Well, everybody has the wannabe list; generally that's filled. Some of them fill in the left side names too, but not many. Enough, I guess."

"That's what I thought."

Nancy did all of this with a computer, putting the combinations together. While everyone was eating, she was busy typing into a laptop, then a printer chunked out a couple of copies of a list, and I peeked at it. Sure enough, Amy was going to be Fred's sponsor; I was a little surprised to see Susan's name there too. Jackie had Jamie Kellogg and a girl whose name I didn't recognize.

Nancy saw my interest and spoke to me quietly. "We'll give the assignments out right after lunch. Then they have a half hour to 'meet the sponsor' before we get down to group work." I nodded. "We're scheduled for a quarter hour chaperone meeting in the conference room then. Try to get there as soon as you can."

I nodded, but I didn't see anything untoward in her expression, so I went in search of Amy.

"Hi, Laura." Gosh, she had a bright smile!

"Hi, Amy." I waved to where Nancy was getting ready to post the lists. "Thanks. Fred is going to be with you. Do you know my daughter, Susan?"

"No. I think someone pointed her out to me, but I don't remember her."

"She'll be with you too."

She looked at me and shrugged. "Coach is weird sometimes," she muttered.

"Please, just give it your best shot, be fair to both."

"You know what I'm supposed to do, don't you?"

"Not exactly, but I have an idea."

"Well, fair isn't the word for it, not at the end."

"Try, please." I was pleased that it bothered Amy. More and more I was convinced that they had simply gotten off-track. That things had been going along for years and years and the adults had stopped paying attention to the little details.

The crowd gravitated toward the wall with the lists, soon there were knots of girls talking to each other, mostly pretty animated. I made a beeline for the conference room.

"You've been a busy bee today, Laura," Nancy said with a grin as soon as the four of us were sitting down.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Gail went to Linda, she had it right. You weren't going to rat her out."

"I told her I wouldn't."

"Well, that's my fault, because you really are new and we haven't gone over the fine points of things. Mostly, when we have to talk to the girls, we do promise not to talk to anyone else and when we make that promise, we keep it. In that, you did good."

"But, I screwed up anyway." It was clear there was something I didn't know.

"There are some things we don't make promises about. Things that are my responsibility. For instance when someone does something that compromises everyone else. Like pushing Amy, like pushing Amy in front of Jackie."

I was confused. "Gail ratted herself out?"

"That's one of the rules. That's one thing that gets you kicked right out, so fast the girl's head spins. Something like this happens, better I hear it from you first, because if I hear it anyplace else, you're history."

"So, I shouldn't have tried to handle it myself, I shouldn't have told Gail that if she stopped, I wouldn't go to anyone else."

"Right. Best of all worlds, you tell her to stop, then tell me, as close to then as you can make it. Like I said, your heart was in the right place, but Amy and Jackie... that wasn't good."

"Can we let our hair down here?" I asked her. There were quite a few things I needed to get off my chest.

"If you have an issue, best you get it out where we can see it," Nancy agreed, her eyes on me.

"Gail said it, I doubt if it originated with her. Push Amy, she says no, no, no, no, then yes, yes, oh yes! Don't stop." I looked at Linda. "I'll bet Gail didn't mention I told her that behavior is so close to rape as to be just about the same thing."

Linda sighed. "No, she didn't mention that. Or the scoop on Amy. Shit."

"Language," Nancy said and then laughed. "Shit, shit, shit! I will talk to them all, every last one. That's disgusting. That's not what we teach, Laura. I promise, that's not what we teach."

"I talked with Amy and Jackie after Gail left. They weren't going to talk about it. Both of them have a lot of personal things invested in cheer; they don't want to rock the boat. But you know what Jackie said? She says she's under quote 'pressure' to be like the rest. I think we can all guess what kind of pressure that is. She's just a little more determined and self confident than Amy."

Marybeth spoke up. "Hit on her, hit on her, hit on her. I think I'll add a little cussing of my own, Nancy. Oh, poop!"

We all laughed. But then Marybeth pointed her finger at Nancy. "Think about what Laura's telling us, Nancy. We've screwed the pooch, here. Things are going on that we don't know about. That's right there in the Good Book, it heads the list of sins of commission we're never supposed to let happen."

"I will talk to the girls. We'll go over everything from A to Z." Nancy looked at me. "Tell me, that's all you have?"

I shook my head and Nancy rolled her eyes. Marybeth and Linda both laughed. I found a way to stop that, quickly.

"A little before six this morning, one of the left girls came out to talk to me. Me in particular, she was thoughtful enough to find out who was on when. A very thoughtful young woman."

"Fred?" Nancy asked.

"Yes."

"She's a she, right?" Marybeth said with a laugh.

"Fred, like on Angel," I said. I might not know what it meant, but it seemed everyone else did.

"Well, cool." Marybeth laughed.

"The show's too dark," Linda added. "I don't like it, but Jamie watches it."

"Like I said, cool." Marybeth was smiling.

"Please. You want to hear about mistakes? I saw her yesterday evening; her parents were talking to Nancy. I thought she was cute..."

"Oh yes!" Linda muttered.

"Please," I told her, "this is important. I didn't know who she was, so I eavesdropped on the conversation. Nancy got half way through her speech and I knew she was a left. Then Nancy started with this grand line about opportunities and her future after cheer... I'm sorry, Nancy, I nearly threw up. I just turned and walked away, went outside and spent some time thinking."

"Threw up?" Nancy asked, her voice a little tight.

"Nancy, I don't mind you selling the program to anyone at all; even the ones you are sure you don't want. Please don't sell the future beyond the program to someone you have every intention of rejecting. If you are going to do that, I'll be someplace else. I don't mean to offend you, Nancy, or upset you, but it's how I feel."

"I feel a little like that myself," Marybeth said. "I agree with Laura."

"I'll think about it. What else?"

"You think about it good," I told her. "This girl is smart, very smart. She saw me, she realized what I was thinking. She asked around, found out my name, found out my daughter's name. Found out what time I'd be walking the hall. She came out to check her theory: that she didn't have a prayer in hell of making the squad, but the girls at the other end of the hall did."

"And you told her what?" Nancy's voice was low and controlled.

"The truth of course," I answered. I saw her start to say something and I simply shook my head. "Let me finish. I told her that for diverse reasons, some girls who apply for cheer are known quantities. Others are not. The purpose of this weekend, I told her, is to check the knowns to make sure that they really are what they are thought to be, and to check the unknowns to see if they'll fit." I grimaced.

"Right about then, I learned for myself why the younger girls are supposed to be in their rooms until seven: I saw my daughter walking barefoot in her pajamas back to her room. Fortunately Fred didn't see her."

"So you had Amy pick Fred, you had Jackie pick Fred," Nancy said.

"Yes. I would have had Jackie do it, except I rather figured out what she told me later. A left Jackie recommends is DOA. So I went with Amy."

There was silence for a minute, and then Nancy said, "You are done now, right?"

"For now, yes."

"I think this comes under the heading of a breath of fresh air," Marybeth said. "And evidently, just in the nick of time."

"I can't disagree," Nancy agreed. "I don't want to offend you, Laura, but I'd like the three of us to discuss this by ourselves. If you wouldn't mind going out and circulating..."

"Sure, I understand."

I walked out into the main room where the girls were being guided through simple routines. I tried not to be obvious about it, but I spent a lot of time watching Amy, Susan and Fred.

I was pretty sure that Linda knew I'd slept with Susan. I was equally certain Jamie had slept with Linda. Does Nancy know those facts? I was pretty sure she did.

I felt someone touch my arm. It was Marybeth. "Walk with me."

I was surprised when she led me outside toward the lake I'd stood next to the night before. We walked around the perimeter for several hundred yards, neither of us talking.

"By now, you may have guessed something important."

"No, I haven't."

"Who's really in charge here."

A simple statement, then the little wheels on the slot machine in my brain lined up. "You?"

"Me," she agreed. "I don't normally apologize to someone for my personal history, but you're too much like me. If I don't tell you, somehow you'll find out anyway. Why take a chance on a miscommunication?"