Cheerleaders Don't Cry

9

Marcy Hannon

I woke up Thanksgiving morning to the sounds of commotion in the kitchen - pots clanging, water running, some kind of whirring sound accompanied by my mom's buzzing voice. When I went downstairs, I took in the immediate scene. My mom was a mess, wearing a stained apron with flour splotches dotting its front, her light blond hair tied into a half-hearted bun, and some kind of sticky food smeared on her face without her knowledge. Three pots of something were bubbling over on the stove, and there were two bread pans filled with batter that had yet to be put in the oven. My mom was currently wrestling with the turkey in the sink, trying to fill it with stuffing through the neck.

I quickly turned off the stove and put the bread in the oven, setting the timer for 45 minutes. My mom looked over her shoulder and smiled when she saw me. "Look who's finally up," she remarked. "Late night?"

I glanced at the clock. It was 11:15. I'd gotten back late last night, partly because I'd had to cheer at a basketball game and partly because I'd went home with one of the players after.

"I thought you were working today," I said, changing the subject and dodging her obvious question.

My mom shook her head, and a couple of strands from her bun came loose. "I changed shifts. I'm on-call tomorrow."

"Is there anything I can do?" I asked, glancing around the cluttered kitchen.

She was about to answer when the front door suddenly swung open, and in walked boring boyfriend Gary, wearing blue jeans, a sweater with an butt-ugly duck on it, and holding two grocery bags. His scruffy mustache shifted as he smiled, and held up the grocery bags as if he were brandishing a medal. "I brought the yams and the squash."

My mom looked at me. "I forgot to tell you, I invited Gary over for dinner."

I hated yams. I hated squash. I hated Gary.

Okay, I didn't hate him. I just never wanted to see him, or, you know, be around him - ever. It wasn't that he was a bad guy - he wasn't. He was just painfully boring. He was the actual human interpretation of the color beige. Listening to him talk was like listening to a yawn on repeat.

"Awesome," I said.

Gary set the grocery bags on the counter and awkwardly offered me a clap on the shoulder. "Hey Marcy, how's it kickin'?"

What the -

"I'm gonna go watch the parade," I said quickly, before leaving the room. As I left, I heard Gary and my mom talking in hushed voices.

"Kicking?" my mom asked.

"I don't know, Carrie, I don't know how these teenagers talk. All the slang and lingo, and texting. Texting instead of talking to each other face-to-face."

I watched the parade for about thirty minutes, and then took a shower. As I was toweling off, I caught a glimpse of my back in the mirror, and the word tattooed in the middle of it. Equanimity, the apparent favorite word of Albert Cooper. When I got back to my room, I looked it up on my laptop, and read the definition until the words were burned into my brain. "Mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation." The awful memory of the night of Halloween shot through my brain like a bullet, fast and painful. Me, drunk and crying in a bathtub, smeared makeup and broken hearted. How ironic that only hours later, this was the word that got tattooed on my back.

We gathered for dinner around 4 in the afternoon. The kitchen was still a mess, but the dining room had cleaned up nicely. My mom had draped a clean white tablecloth over it, and gotten the china dishes out of the cabinet to use, something we'd never done for Thanksgiving. When I remarked on it, she'd smiled and blushed and said, "It's a special day."