WITH THAT, OUR FIRST PEP rally is underway. For the Y, I lift Grimshaw, and she hits it like she was born to cheer, grabbing her ankle with one hand and extending her leg. She has the moves, all right. Everybody in the gym watches her. She is front and center on every cheer. She does a lot of flashy stunts because she’s naturally acrobatic, basically fearless, and a glutton for attention. I stand on the side, because of my ‘sore elbow’, rubbing it from time to time, in case anyone cares.

Then Junior Davis and the rest of the football team break through the paper decorated with their numbers in gold and purple paint, and the cheerleaders make a corridor for the boys to trot through while about ten percent of the gym claps. The football coach makes a speech about hope and promise and the crisp days of autumn. When everybody’s numbed out by that, here comes the marching band, and the same ten percent of the gym sings first the national anthem and then our alma mater, a song featuring the noble iris—which, come to find out, is our school flower—growing tall by clear waters. Then the cheerleaders bounce to the middle of the gym again and do a cheer for which I have developed a sharp antipathy.

Hey, we’re back

The best is yet to come

CHS! Look out for number one!

Excellence, perfection, teamwork, success

The Colchis Rockets

A step above the rest

Pride and spirit—need we say more?

CHS! We rock the floor

Rockets!

The centerpiece of “Excellence, Perfection, Teamwork, Success” is Grimshaw’s aerial handspring, which Nanci Lee told her not to do because of insurance reasons, and then the cheer ends. They do this dance that Grimshaw has choreographed, the audience gets into it, and for Colchis, it’s pretty good. I stand to the side with my sore elbow and watch, until I feel a presence behind me, and I turn to see. It’s Mike Lyle. We stare at each other for a long time, and, okay, physically I have to admit I do see what she sees in him. His hair is slightly longer than it was the last time I saw him, and it curls a little bit.

“Couldn’t hack it out there, huh?” he says.

“I missed some practices.” Then I remember about my injury. “And I hurt my back,” I add, deciding on the spot that a sore elbow sounds kind of lame.

He laughs. “I bet you did.” I don’t know why everything he says seems like it insinuates something about me. We watch Grimshaw bouncing around and smiling like she’s the happiest cheerleader in the world.

“What’s your father do for work?” I ask without looking at him.

That gets his attention. “Why? Who wants to know?”

“Me.” We stare at each other. “I’m doing research.”