I sputter for a moment. “But... but how much does it even cost to go to Nationals?” The expense of a big trip like that is almost as unfathomable to me as the cost of college.
“Well, it isn’t cheap. At all,” says Sam. “I mean, a single car wash barely paid for just one of our uniforms. Airfare to California is astronomical. We could maybe charter a bus, but the district would have to give us tons of extra time off.”
Silence settles as I let this news sink in.
Mrs. D clears her throat. “I don’t think you should be too worried, girls. You ladies are all so talented, but... but Texas is a big state.”
I’m almost impressed. I didn’t think Mrs. D had it in her to make a dig like that. But I’m mostly pissed, to be honest.
“We’ve made it before,” says Melissa. “And we came really close last year. We shouldn’t have to limit ourselves just because some stupid gym flaked on us.”
I nod. “This is our year. I can feel it. And it’s Sam’s last year.” I shake my head. “Hell no. Not on my watch. Ya know, no one talks about the budget when the football team has an away game. If those boys ever made it to postseason again, the whole town would be throwing money and panties at them.”
We wait for Mrs. Driskil to say something, but all she gives us is a look of pity. I’m so angry my fingers are trembling. Maybe if Mrs. Driskil wasn’t so used to people treating her like crap, she wouldn’t let the dance team get treated the same way.
Sam stands up and starts walking to the locker room without waiting to be dismissed, and Melissa and I follow her.
“Girls,” calls Mrs. Driskil. “Girls! I think it’s best we not tell the team for the time being. It might not even be an issue! And I just think it would cause unneeded distress. We ought to discuss next steps.”
The three of us just keep walking.
I spend second period as an office aide. Not because I requested the job, but because my mama did. Actually, she’s more of a smother than a mother, but she’smysmother.
As I try to sneak past her into the copying room, the sound of a thick southern twang stops me. “There’s my Callie Honey. Baby, come here. Give your mama some love.”
I double back and stash my backpack under her desk before plopping down onto the little stool she keeps behind her desk for filing. She pulls my face close to her with both hands and gives me a kiss on the cheek, leaving her mark: Revlon Certainly Red 740, the color my mama has worn every day since her mama took her to the drugstore on her thirteenth birthday to buy her first real adult makeup.
“Has your sister emailed you?” she asks. “I tried to get her on the FaceTime chat, but I can’t make sense of the time zones in Germany.”
“Mama, it’s just FaceTime. Not the FaceTime chat. And no, Claudia hasn’t emailed me.” I don’t tell her that I haven’t emailed her either. It’s not that I don’t love my sister, but we’re busy, and if Claudia’s not answering Mom’s phone calls, I’m sure more than time zones are to blame. Claudia is a student at USC but is spending the semester at the opera house in Dresden. I’m happy for her, but I miss having someone in our house who looks like me. When she left for college, I didn’t anticipate what it might feel like to be the only brown person in our otherwise white household.
Mama sighs. “How were the girls looking this morning?” she asks.
I nod. “It wasn’t bad. We’re going to start meeting after school next week to gear up for State.”
She taps a pen to her lips. “Is that going to interfere with your work schedule?”
I prop up my elbows on her desk and rest my chin in my hands. “It’ll be tight, but it’s just for two weeks. And everyone at work is cool about dance stuff.”
She licks the pad of her pointer finger before flipping through attendance sheets. “And what about homework? You won’t be leaving much time for Bryce either.”
“I’ll make it work with homework, and Bryce will see me when he sees me. It’s not like he stresses out about fitting me into his schedule during football season.”
“That’s my girl.” She hands me a stack of late slips to stamp. “I’m gonna get with some of the parents and Principal Armstrong about arranging a fan bus down to State. We got to be sure to decorate y’all’s bus, too, with shoe polish and whatnot.”
My smother would be the ideal candidate for faculty adviser, but seeing as she’s the school secretary and not an actual teacher, her level of involvement is limited to enthused parent. Which is for the best, I guess. Between my stepdad, my sister Kyla, trying to keep tabs on Claudia from halfway across the world, and her job, the woman barely has a moment to shower. I can see her age showing, too, but maybe that’s just ’cause I remember what she looked like when it was just me, my dad, Claudia, and her.
When I think of her then, I remember her black high-waisted jeans and her thick black belt with its shiny silver buckle and her tight, lacy tank tops. She was like the West Texas version of Olivia Newton-John’s Bad Sandy fromGrease. She’d swivel her hips across the kitchen—which always smelled more like her DIY perm than any food we ate—to old Selena songs while my dad made horrible bachelor-type food for us, like hot dogs wrapped in tortillas.
Now the only self-imposed requirements of my mama’s wardrobe is that it “drapes nicely” and covers up any lumps or rolls she’s found herself with over the last few years. The lipstick, though, still remains.
She presses her fingers to my forehead, massaging my furrowed brow away. “You’re gonna need to start using my antiaging cream if you keep wrinkling up your forehead like that. Now tell me what’s got you so worried.”
I look over my shoulder and beyond her where students wait to be seen by the principal, vice principal, or guidance counselor. “Well,” I say quietly, “shit’s sorta hitting the fan. It looks like the dance team lost one of our major sponsors, and now we’re pretty much screwed. We’re gonna have to do a few emergency fund-raisers before State, but there’s definitely not any money for Nationals.”
She tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Oh, goodness. Well, that just won’t do. What’d Mrs. Driskil say?”
I roll my eyes.
