I switched the phone to my other hand. I’d been home for a couple of hours and I’d made some significant progress on the play program, putting together two different designs Will had helped me with. The girls were both upstairs reading and Will had transitioned to working on a game app that he’d been fixated on for the last couple of weeks. I saw Brenda’s name pop up on my phone screen and was grateful for the temporary diversion.
Until she mentioned the crisis.
“Is this a real crisis or the kind of crisis that only feels like a crisis because you’re ready to tear your hair out?” I asked.
“Real,” she answered. “My house is a giant vomitorium.”
I made a face. “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes! Four of five are puking their guts out,” she said. “I’ve got them all on different levels of the house and I’m sprinting up and down the stairs.”
Stomach viruses in large households were like wildfires. They spread quickly and took out everyone in their paths. We’d been there. I lived in fear of them when I heard they were circulating, washing my own hands obsessively and reminding the kids to keep their hands clean.
“And Johnny is at the corn maze all day.”
“What? I thought he hated corn mazes,” I said.
“He does.” She chuckled. “But it’s a work thing. Team-building or something. So who knows when I’ll see him again. If ever.”
A vision of Johnny racing frantically through a maze flashed in my head and I stifled a giggle. “What do you need?” I asked.
“Maddie is at cheer this afternoon,” she said. “Would you possibly be able to grab her and bring her home?”
I contemplated saying no. After all, I could be introducing deadly stomach virus germs into my own household. But my hesitation lasted all of two seconds. It was Brenda, and I couldn’t say no. “Yep, no problem,” I said, wondering if I somehow owned a hazmat suit I’d forgotten about. “What time?”
“She’s done in half an hour.”
“Okay, I’ll be there.”
Brenda breathed a sigh of relief. “I owe you.”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “But do not come out of your house or touch me when I drop her off.”
SIXTEEN
A woman started eyeing me as soon as I walked in the gym.
I’d closed up the computer after I hung up with Brenda, told the kids where I was headed and got to the gym about five minutes early. It was filled with loud music and shouting and teenage girls doing tumbling runs and sporting gigantic fake smiles while they moved. The smiles withered as soon as they finished whatever movement they were practicing.
I took a seat on one of the lower bleacher benches and immediately noticed a woman looking at me. Her long blond hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, the hair pulled so tight it looked like it hurt. She had on too much makeup, a tight red T-shirt with “FLY OR DIE!” emblazoned across the front and black spandex leggings. A whistle hung around her neck. She had the physique of those workout people you see on TV – all muscles and hard angles that don’t look entirely real.
She stared at me with hard, dark eyes, the whistle perched between her lips. I wasn’t sure whether I had done something wrong or whether I wasn’t supposed to be in the gym, but I’d definitely done something to get her attention. When she turned away from me and toward the girls in the middle of the gym, I could see the name “MATHISEN” emblazoned across the back of her shoulder blades.
She blew hard on the whistle and all of the activity in the gym came to a halt. The girls immediately sprinted to the middle, where she’d stationed herself. Their red, sweaty faces watched her every move. She spoke quietly, her head rotating slowly through the group, looking at each and every girl. When she was done speaking, she held her hand in the air and the girls pushed together, raising their hands up to hers. After a couple more seconds, they all screamed, “ROAR!” and then separated once again, talking and chatting amongst themselves as they picked up their water bottles and warm-ups.
I caught Maddie’s eye and waved at her. Brenda told me that she would text her to tell her I was going to come get her, so she didn’t seem all that surprised to see me. She waved back and signaled that she’d be a minute. I nodded and smiled, hopefully conveying we weren’t in a rush.
“Normally, we don’t allow that type of clothing in this gym,” a voice said to my right.
I looked away from Maddie and was surprised to see the woman with the whistle standing next to the bleachers, her hands on her hips, a frown on her face.
I looked down at my wardrobe. Hooded sweatshirt, yoga pants, running shoes. Then I looked at her. “Excuse me?”
She pointed right at my chest. “That. We don’t like to see that in here.”
I looked down again. My red hooded sweatshirt had “MOOSE RIVER DAYS” written across the front of it. I’d gotten it maybe three years earlier, during the annual Moose River street fair.
“But you look like you might not be a regular so I’m willing to let it go,” she said. “For today.”
A regular? Wouldn’t she know most of the parents of her cheer team? “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told her. “I’m just picking up my friend’s daughter.”
She nodded, like she’d expected that. “Like I said. Not a regular, so you aren’t familiar with the rules. Given that Moose River is our rival, I don’t like to see anything with their name on it.”
“Aren’t we in Moose River?” I asked. It was a rhetorical question – I knew without a doubt that the gym in the industrial buildings south of downtown was well within the city limits.
“Of course,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. They have Moose River in their name. We don’t. So anything with Moose River on it gets me agitated. That’s why most of our girls are from the surrounding cities.”
“Um, okay.”
She jutted her hand out. “Greta Mathisen. Head coach of the Cheerlicious Cheetahs.”
“Daisy Savage,” I said, shaking her hand. Her fingers were surprisingly cold. “I’m picking up Maddie Witt.”
She pumped my hand up and down a couple times before she finally let go. “Ah, okay. Well, we’ll definitely let it go today, then. Maddie is one of our best athletes.”
“That’s...good to hear.”
She nodded. “Yeah, you’ll probably have a lot of sad friends there in Moose River in a couple days.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
Coach Mathisen made a sound that sounded a little like a cackle. “Because they’re going to lose. Big time.”
I saw Maddie pulling on her sweats on the other side of the gym and chatting with another girl. I thought about her siblings, stationed at toilets throughout the house. She didn’t look sick at all.
I glanced back at the coach. “Who’s going to lose what?”
She frowned at me like she couldn’t believe I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Are you serious?”
“Not always, but in this case, yes. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The frown stayed on her face. “The Northern Suburbs Cheer-Off?”
I stared blankly at her.
Her eyes rolled. “It’s only the biggest annual cheer competition in the northern Twin Cities suburbs. It’s the big regional tournament.”
“Oh.”
“I take it you don’t have any kids.”
“I have four.” She stared at me incredulously and I added, “But none of them do cheer.”
She shook her head and the look on her face was so sad, I felt a momentary twinge that my kids might actually be missing out on something because they’d never gotten involved in cheer. But then I came back to my senses. We were talking about cheerleading, not the Peace Corps.
“I see,” she said. “A shame. Well, anyway. Your Moose River friends will probably be crying in their oatmeal after we trounce the pants off of them.”
I didn’t think we knew anyone who was part of the Moose River Fusion cheer team, but I wasn’t sure that would matter to her. She was acting like everyone should have been familiar with all of the cheer competitions in the area because they were the most important things on the planet. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t really see the point of cheerleading, and that I’d encouraged my girls to participate in sports and activities rather than stand on the sidelines and cheer for others.