Dare Me

33



AUGUST CHEERLEADER TRYOUTS

“The one shining thing about high school for me has been cheer.”

Pacing in front of the fifteen soon-to-be JV girls in the epically hot gym, first day of summer cheer camp, that’s me, offering it up. The words, true and real.

“There are people who say it isn’t cool,” I say, “who make fun of it, but I’ve never cared. I know they don’t have what I have.”

Sitting on the long mats, their fluffy faces, eyes cartoon-wide, they gaze up at me as though I were passing along all the wisdom of the world, which I am.

“Cheer has given me a purpose. It has given me a hard body and a strong mind. And I’ve made friends for life.”

RiRi at my side, I walk the length of the mat, back straight, chin high.

“Don’t you want to be able to say that?” I say. “If you do, you have to hang tight and tough with your girls.”

They all nod, soundless.

“If you don’t trust each other,” I say, “this mat becomes your gangplank.”

The hush falls even greater now. I’m swinging my whistle and all you can hear is the faint scratch of it as it brushes against my sweats.

Emily marches up beside me, her wounded leg back in fighting form, her mind swept clean of her Cassandra-like horrors. She is finished with all that. I know. I showed her how.

Lifting her elbow, she rests it on my shoulder, jaw up. She and RiRi, my deputies, my bad lieutenants.

“We’ve got five weeks before the new coach begins,” I say, “but I choose not to waste those weeks. Do you?”

Clicking jaws, flipping ponytails, rocking in their Indian-style poses, their jelly legs waiting to be molded. Rescued from mediocrity. Saved.

“I choose to excel, not compete—do you?

“I choose to make changes, not excuses—do you?

“To be motivated, not manipulated.

“To be useful, not used.”

Beth could come back this fall, couldn’t she? Emily keeps asking. She’s at home, she took her finals, I even saw her in her car.

But I know she never will. She never will and I took something from her and I won’t even look at it. I won’t—

“I choose to live by choice,” I say, “not by chance—do you?”

Their fingers twisting into each other’s linking hands, looking up at me, at RiRi and her magnificent body, and Emily and her beatific grin. All of us.

“Cheer taught me to trust my girls to catch me when I fall,” I say, and it’s Beth’s face I see when I gaze past them, into the empty stands, not Coach’s. It’s Beth’s face, all the darkness and mischief and mayhem and, beneath it, that beating heart.

Turning from the stands, facing my girls, I gather everything in my chest. I hold it there. I have to hold it tight. These things I’ve learned.

“It showed me,” I say, pulling in my breath, “how to be a leader.”


Acknowledgments

With tremendous gratitude and ongoing debt to the inestimable Reagan Arthur and her brilliant team, especially Miriam Parker, Theresa Giacopasi, Peggy Freudenthal, and Sarah Murphy.

Deepest thanks are also owed to the wonderful Kate Harvey and Emma Bravo at Picador UK, and to Angharad Kowal, Maja Nikolic, and Stephen Barr at Writers House. And most of all to Dan Conaway, without whom.

For ongoing and bottomless support and love: Phil and Patti Abbott; Josh, Julie, and Kevin; Jeff, Ruth, and Steve; Darcy Lockman; Christine Wilkinson—and my blood sisters, Alison Quinn and Sara Gran.


About the Author

Megan Abbott is the Edgar Award–winning author of five previous novels. She received her PhD in English and American literature from New York University and has taught literature, writing, and film studies at New York University, the New School, and the State University of New York at Oswego. She lives in New York City.