The One That I Want(3)
Author: Jennifer Echols

The recording stopped abruptly. The last strains of trombone echoed in the rafters. Two more batons thudded to the floor, and rubber soles squeaked on wood as girls scampered after them. I stood with both batons extended gracefully, my third baton on the floor next to my toe, right where it should be, and grinned my glamour smile. Really, the look was meant for Robert. I had not embarrassed myself as he’d told me I would. The applause was louder now.

Hot with exertion and adrenaline, I scooped up my extra baton and filed into the empty row of bleachers reserved for us. I sat between Delilah and Addison. Another sophomore strode to the middle of the floor and started her individual routine to a classical piano piece, of all things. I should have watched her. Instead, my mind spun with anger at the boys who had booed me. They were sitting directly behind me, six rows up.

Robert and I had been friends since the beginning of ninth grade. Addison and I sat next to each other in the alto sax section, but I couldn’t shadow her all the time. I wanted to be an engineer someday, whereas she did anything she could to stay out of advanced math. That meant we didn’t have every class together like we had in middle school. I’d fallen in with the art/drama/music geek crowd, where purple-streaked hair and Courtney Love T-shirts were the norm rather than the exception. And I’d fallen for Robert.

But he hadn’t fallen for me. Everybody put up with the pudgy, quiet girl with the dry wit, but nobody fell for her. In ninth grade, Robert had hooked up with eighth graders too young to understand he wasn’t as cool as he thought. Now that we were in tenth grade, he trolled for ninth graders. I had been the girl/friend he talked to about his girlfriends.

I should never have fantasized that he would finally fall in love with me when I lost weight. That was my own stupid fault. But he should not have made fun of me the way we’d both (I’ll admit) made fun of the doll-like girls on other schools’ majorette lines at football games last year.

Delilah’s hand slipped into mine and squeezed, returning my thoughts to the competition, and the fact that eight girls had already taken their two-minute turns. Okay, I did not hold girls’ hands. It smacked of sororities or beauty pageants or both. But I was not going to pull away from this panicking girl. I squeezed back.

Now Addison took my other hand. Without looking at her, I let her hold it. She’d never held my hand before, but she must have felt left out. I stared down at my hands, with Delilah’s dark thighs on one side, Addison’s white ones on the other. My own thighs were fifty percent larger than theirs.

I did not want to be here.

My insecurities were drowned out by Delilah’s heavy breathing. “You’re going to pass out,” I whispered. “You need to calm down and breathe normally.”

“Okay,” she said between deep, abnormal breaths that were not helping at all.

I had to get her mind off her performance. I felt bad about talking through someone else’s routine, but this was an emergency. I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Do you know Robert Cruise?”

She perked up immediately. “Cutie-pie!” she exclaimed. “With the hair, right?” She shook her hair out of her eyes in a terrific imitation of Robert. “Plays trumpet? He’s in history with me. You’re really good friends with him.”

“I thought so,” I said, “but he left me a sympathy card in my locker.”

Her eyes got huge. “Like somebody died? Instead of a good luck card?”

She acted so horrified that I backtracked and defended him. “Yeah. It was supposed to be a joke. We send each other Grandparents Day cards on our birthdays and Halloween cards on Christmas and . . .”

I stopped because her brows went down in a scowl, and she was shaking her head sternly at me. “No. This is different. He does not send you a sympathy card on majorette tryout day. No.”

That’s what I’d thought when I saw the card. But I could hear Robert’s excuse in my head, and I repeated it to Delilah. “Trying out for majorette is out of character for me. He never believed I wanted to do it. I guess the card was his last-ditch attempt to talk me out of something I’ll regret later.”

“I don’t care what it was,” she seethed loudly enough that Addison leaned forward to look at us curiously. “That is un-ac-ceptable!” She sounded just like her dad, whom I’d had for eighth-grade algebra. “This tryout is a big deal. It’s taken a huge amount of work. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want to be a majorette.”

“True,” I said, because it sounded true, whether it was or not.

“Friends support each other no matter what,” Delilah said firmly. “Oh God.”

I looked up to see what she’d gasped at. The twirler in front of us was finishing her routine by chasing both her batons across the floor. Now it was Delilah’s turn. Dropping Addison’s hand, I hugged Delilah hard. Over the applause, I shouted, “You’ll do great!” and meant it.

Delilah groaned. Her eyes flitted around like she was making sure she had space to faint on the floor.

I took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Don’t think about all these people. Keep your eyes on me. I’ll send you good thoughts.”

“Okay.” Delilah strutted onto the middle of the floor and grinned through the cheers and cat-calls, but sure enough, she watched me. I smiled at her.

“Traitor,” Addison said in my ear.

“I can cheer for more than one friend,” I said without looking at Addison.

“I mean, you didn’t tell me about your third baton. You told me not to use a third baton. And all because you planned to steal my trick.”

“I did not steal the concept of twirling a third baton from you,” I said reasonably. “And I told you not to use a third baton because you would drop it.” Which was true. But I had snuck my third baton in behind her back. I did not have to approve everything with Addison, but I had hidden this from her, which was not what a good friend would do.

She scooted away from me on the bench, toward the girl on the other side of her, putting as much space between us as she could—one symbolic centimeter.

I tried not to think about it. I watched Delilah. She executed a perfect toss-up with a two-turn, then an illusion, kicking up one leg and twirling the baton beneath her, spinning her body as she went. I cheered for her, and whenever she glanced my way, I let her see in my face how great she was doing. I really liked Delilah—she was one of the few genuinely nice human beings I’d ever met—and I wanted her to do well. Also, focusing on her routine kept my mind off me. And Addison. And Robert.