Free The Lifeboat Clique by Kathy Parks Page B

and any day now she was going to get her own show or be the star of a movie or move to Broadway or whatever. In the meantime, she was teaching gym class, but she reminded us often that it was only temporary before she got “the call,” which could happen any day. In fact, she kept her cell phone on the bench next to the bleachers, and she’d glance at it often, just in case James Cameron thought, Who was that sassy twelve-year-old sparkling like a lost diamond out of a cast of thousands who caught my eye? What’s she doing? I need her.
    The way she looked at us was weird—as though she resented us for being seventh graders and loving things that had nothing to do with overnight success. She squeezed a stress ball when she talked to us, and it made the veins between her knuckles stand out. I thought her prominent knuckle veins might explain Hollywood’s lack of interest,but maybe it all came down to plain bad luck.
    I hated gym and I hated Ms. Hanson. The only form of athletics I liked was swimming. Everything about gym class made me miserable. There was even a knotted rope hanging from the ceiling that I knew inevitably we’d have to climb in that tired old cliché repeated since the first asshole decided to string a knotted rope from a gym ceiling and make some ungainly loser climb it. I’d fall to the floor and break my neck, and they’d put my framed picture in the hallway.
    I also hated the uniform I had to wear. The T-shirt was too tight, and the shorts were too high in the waist. I tried to get my mother to sign something that said I had asthma and couldn’t participate in sports, but she told me she’d had to take gym class and I had to take it, too.
    Everyone was supposed to partner up to learn the handstand. How the handstand would serve me later in life was still a mystery, in the same way that how anything would serve me later in life was still a mystery. Ms. Hanson told everyone to “pair up,” which was the cue for all the best friends to run shrieking toward each other and the leftover girls to look around shyly.
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw a girl with springy red hair coming toward me. I’d noticed her in class. Who could not notice that hair? It went out in all directions andwas parted on the side, and a single barrette had the laughable job of trying to contain it.
    When she walked, the barrette flapped and trembled.
    She had rosy lips, pale skin, and a splash of freckles, which spread out across her cheeks and then abruptly ended. Her eyes were blue, dark and deep. She had a studied, wise way about her.
    â€œHey,” she said when she reached me. “Wanna pair up for this dumb-ass exercise?” Her accent startled me. I hadn’t run into too many Texans out here.
    â€œSure, I guess. But I have to warn you, I’m terrible at handstands. And cartwheels. And doing those stretches where your chin touches your knee.”
    She nodded. The barrette bobbed. “I’m Abigail.”
    â€œI’m Denver.”
    â€œDon’t recollect hearing that name before. I thought you’d be a Jessica. This school is crawling with Jessicas. Of course, back in Texas we had our share. Lotsa Ashleys too. Rancher friend of my dad named his cow Ashley. I don’t see the specialness about it myself.”
    â€œMy mother wanted to name me after a city. It was that or Paris. She said Cancun was in the mix, but I think she was just trying to be funny.”
    â€œWell, parents trying to be funny are a burden we all bear, ain’t it?”
    I liked the way she treated the English language so casually and brutally, like swinging a cat around by the tail. And I liked her easy way of making conversation.
    Ms. Hanson’s stress ball sat on the bench next to her cell phone. Those two objects, banishing anxiety and welcoming fame, were what got her through the day. “Okay,” she announced, “one of you is going to try the