Yankee Girl (7 page)

“Of course not!” Mama frowned, but didn't take her eyes off the road.

“Jeb says they are. Everybody in my class says they are.”

“Well,” Mama said, “what do you think?”

“Me?” I watched the windshield wipers tick back and forth. “I don't think so. I talked to Valerie Taylor today. She didn't seem all that different to me. Except she barely knew who the Beatles are.”

It seemed so simple when you thought of it that way. Except that I knew it
wasn't
that simple.

“Is that so?” Old Mama had vanished. And this Mama wasn't listening. “Keep an eye peeled for a parking place.”

There weren't any.

“You'd think a doctor would have his own parking lot,” Mama griped. “I'll drop you off while I keep looking.”

Dr. Warren's office looked pretty much like every other doctor's office. Hard plastic chairs, fluorescent lights that hummed and flickered, boring magazines. I knew by now to bring something to read. I flipped open
16 Magazine
to “Will Jane and Paul Get Married?”

I squirmed in my seat, trying to concentrate on the article. I needed a bathroom. Now.

Dr. Warren's crabby nurse walked by with a stack of files.

“Excuse me, but where's the rest room?” I whispered.

“Bathroom's down the hall at the end,” she called as she disappeared behind the reception desk.

Thanks for letting everyone know.

There were three doors at the end of the hall. I opened the closest one and fumbled for the light switch.

I blinked. The light was on, a single dim ceiling bulb.

I was not alone.

Negroes on backless benches or the floor, slumped against the walls, filled the windowless room.

“I was looking for the bathroom,” I said to no one in particular.

What are these people doing back here?

A young man with a moustache and bloodshot eyes snorted and looked away. A motherly looking woman said, “Child, you ought not to be here.”

“Why not? What is this place?”

“We're waitin' to see the doctor,” said the woman in a soft voice.

I had never seen a Negro patient at Dr. Warren's. “It's so dark back here. Why don't you sit out front?”

The woman shook her head. “You ain't from round here, are you? No, we sits back here. When all the white folks is taken care of, then they come for us.”

“You stupid girl, not
that
door.” The crabby nurse swooped in front of me and slammed the door. She pulled a key from her pocket and locked the door with a sharp twist. “Callie,” she hollered over her shoulder. “Who left the coloured waiting room open? It's supposed to stay locked!”

Coloured waiting room? A
locked
waiting room?

Then I got it. Really got it.

There was no way for a Negro girl and a white girl in Mississippi to be friends. No way.

“What are you going to be for Halloween?” I asked Jeb at the bus stop one morning.

“Halloween? That's for little kids.” Jeb shifted a peppermint toothpick from cheek to cheek. “It's football season,” he said, like that was
the
answer.

It figured. Down South, everybody was football crazy. The boys collected football cards and talked about professional players like they lived next door. Everybody had a favourite college or high-school team. And of course, there were the Cheerleaders.

I perched on an empty bike rack and watched them practise on the playground. They practised every morning, but today was different. Today they wore cheerleading uniforms.

Dip, stomp, clap, and twirl. Their red skirts swirled out in perfect circles, matching shorts showing beneath. The girls jumped, their legs crooked sideways, hair flying in the crisp breeze. For a heartbeat, I was one of them, leaping, happy and free in the autumn air.

For the first time, cheerleading didn't seem silly. That sassy, switching skirt could make me a whole different person. A girl with straight hair, flipped at the ends. A girl with lots of friends who would never call her “Yankee Girl”.

The morning sun glinted off Carrie's red hair and shiny braces. Then it hit me. I needed to
become
a Cheerleader. Why hadn't I thought of that before?

I wanted friends. I wanted a jumper with a swirly skirt. I
would
be a Cheerleader. I'd ask Mary Martha about it. At least
she
talked to me. Sometimes.

The first bell clanged. Kids jumped from the swings and jungle gym and lined up. Miss LeFleur stood at the front door, ready to drop the record-player arm on the “King Cotton March”. We filed in to the same record every morning.

“Mark time, march. Left, right, left, right.” Miss LeFleur smiled and pumped her arms as her polished penny loafers kept time. Today she wore a pink sweater and a grey pleated skirt. Miss Gruen wore brown every single day. I bet even her underwear was brown.

“Mary Martha.” I tapped her shoulder. “How did you get to be a cheerleader?”

“My mama made me.” She sighed. “Saranne's mama's in charge and she asked my mama if I wanted to do it. I didn't, but Mama said I had to.”

“Sixth grade, forward,” Miss LeFleur sang out.

Mary Martha and I stomped up the steps and down the hall to 6B.

“All you need is a uniform,” she said. “Mama has the jumper pattern. We all used the same one.”

“That's all?” Becoming a Cheerleader couldn't be
this
easy.

Mary Martha shrugged. “Sure. It's YMCA cheerleaders and anyone who wants to can be one. As long as they belong to the Y.”

“We do. But what about the cheers?”

“What about them?” Mary Martha smiled. “Do they look hard to you?”

“Then why are you guys always practising?”

“Because Saranne makes a big deal out of everything. I'll tell them at recess you want to join. And I'll bring the pattern Monday.”

I was going to be a Cheerleader. Happiness hummed inside me. Soon I'd have friends to share my jokes and secrets and Beatles records with.

Then Mary Martha told the Cheerleaders at recess.

Saranne balled her fists on her hips and glared. “You're not in charge, Mary Martha Goode. You think just anybody can be a cheerleader? Next thing, old Valerie'll want to be a cheerleader.”

The humming feeling sputtered and died.

“Anybody
can
be a cheerleader,” Mary Martha pointed out. “As long as they belong to the Y.”

“I ain't cheering with no nigra.” Debbie pouted as she unwrapped a stick of lime Fruit Stripe. “My mama wouldn't like it.”

Mary Martha blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Valerie doesn't want to be a cheerleader. But Alice does.”

Debbie smacked her gum. Saranne folded her arms across her flat chest and scowled. Carrie yawned. Cheryl picked at her cuticles.

Nobody looked at me.

“So that's that,” said Mary Martha.

I was a Cheerleader.

Not that I noticed any big change on the bus that afternoon. I sat with a third grader, right in front of the Cheerleaders. They sat in their usual backseat, singing “Can't Buy Me Love” to Debbie's transistor.

Still Invisible Alice.

I turned around. “Saranne?”

She looked up from the
Song Hits
magazine she and Debbie shared. “Yeah? Whaddya want, Yankee Girl?”

“When's the next football game?”

“Next Saturday.”

“Where?”

“I'll write you some directions,” said Saranne. “It's kinda complicated.”

That was nice of her. The happy humming cranked back to life.

The bus screeched to a stop at my corner. I started to stand, but couldn't. I was stuck. I peeled myself off the fake leather. Something dangled down the back of my leg.

Gum. Bright-pink bubble gum plastered to my skirt and the seat, with big strands stringing in between.

“Hey, Yankee Girl. You got gum on your skirt,” snickered Debbie. “You oughta look before you sit.” The Cheerleaders burst into nose-snorting laughter.

I stomped off the bus, everyone whooping and pointing at my gummy behind. I wished they'd all drop dead.

By Sunday night I wasn't mad any more. Maybe the Cheerleaders hadn't done it. Maybe they laughed because it was funny. If it had happened to somebody else, I would've thought it was funny, too.

I still wanted to be a Cheerleader.

Mary Martha waited for me on the playground Monday morning.

“I've got the uniform pattern.” She handed me a split-sided manila envelope with a crumpled tissue-paper pattern crammed inside.

“Isn't there supposed to be a picture on the envelope?” I asked.

“Carrie's baby brother peed on the real envelope and it was too nasty to keep,” explained Mary Martha. “Can your mama make it by Friday? We're wearing our uniforms to school on Friday again.”

“Sure.” I wasn't at all sure. How many times had Mama said, “I really don't like to sew”?

Mama frowned at the pattern pieces spread across the kitchen table that afternoon.

“I don't know about this,” she said. “I really don't like to sew. There isn't even a picture to go by. Looks like the bib piece is missing. I need a new pattern. Let's go to the store.”

The fabric-store clerk examined the wrinkled wad of pattern pieces.

“This is pattern number 7602,” she said, peering through her bifocals.

“Fine,” said Mama. “Where is pattern 7602?”

“Discontinued.” The clerk handed the pieces back. “This pattern is at least ten years old.”

Mama and the clerk spread the pieces across the cutting counter and figured how much fabric we needed. While they did that, I checked out the red cloth.

I didn't know there were that many kinds of red! Brick red, tomato red, fire-engine red. The clerk yanked out bolt after bolt of red, red, and more red, unrolling them across the cutting counter. I tried to remember exactly what colour the jumpers were.

“
Pick
one,” said Mama, her voice one step from losing her temper.

“Okay, this one.” I pointed to the fire-engine red. The clerks lashed off a length of material and folded it into a bag before I could change my mind. I hoped it was the right colour.

Mama hadn't told me the whole truth. She didn't dislike sewing; she
hated
sewing.

I stood for hours while she pinned pattern pieces to my clothes.

“Hold still.” Mama jerked a tissue-paper strap. A pin rammed my shoulder.

“Ow!”

“Told you to hold still,” muttered Mama. “This would go faster if you'd stop wiggling and cooperate.” She tugged on the bib piece she'd cut from newspaper. A pin jabbed, I jumped, and the newspaper bib tore in Mama's hand. We started over, pinning and tugging.

“When will it be finished?” I asked.

“Don't pester, Alice.” Mama rubbed her nose where her sewing glasses pinched.

“Is it too much to expect a hot meal at the end of the day?” Daddy griped as we sat down to tuna fish sandwiches and potato chips for the third night in a row. This
would
be the one week he was home for dinner every night.

“It is if you're trying to sew from a pattern with half the pieces and instructions missing,” snapped Mama.

Far into the night I heard the sewing machine race down lengths of red cotton. Well, not exactly race. More like start and stop. Then mumbling, and I knew that the thread had run out or the needle had broken.

By Thursday night, we were down to peanut butter sandwiches, no potato chips, and no Mama. From the guest room, I heard the sewing machine start and stop. Start and stop. Dinner was over, my homework done, and I had rolled my hair on orange-juice cans when Mama opened my bedroom door.

“It's finished.” She leaned against the door frame. Her hair was mussed, there were dark circles under her eyes, but she smiled. “Come see.”

I tore down the hall to the guest room. Draped across the bed was my uniform! The white felt “P” for Parnell stood out, bright and bold against the red bib. I saw myself twirling and jumping, the skirt a perfect circle around me.

I could hardly wait for tomorrow.

Friday. Spirit Day. The first day of My Life as a Cheerleader. I yanked the orange-juice cans out of my hair in front of the bathroom mirror. I looked like Jane Asher. Almost.

I started to get dressed. Then I realized that Mama hadn't made the blouse that went under the uniform jumper. Or the matching shorts.

“Just keep your skirt down,” said Mama. “And you have white blouses.”

But not one with short sleeves. I found a white blouse in my closet and rolled up the long sleeves.

I checked myself in the big mirror in Mama and Daddy's room. Something about the jumper wasn't right. But what?

Mama watched from the open door. “There wasn't enough material to make the skirt as full as the pattern called for. I didn't think it would matter.”

But it did.

I twirled. No swirl. No magic.

The blouse sleeves unrolled. My bangs frizzed. The bib gapped like a kangaroo pouch. The white felt “P” doubled over to look like a “D”.

“I knew that made-up bib pattern wasn't right,” said Mama.

“It's all right, Mama.” But it wasn't.

I wanted to tell Mama that this was the most perfect cheerleading uniform in the world. I knew she wanted to tell me that I looked perfect in it.

But we couldn't. It wasn't the truth. So we just pretended instead.