Revenge of the Cheerleaders

  I looked over at Rick. "And she cares about him." Saying it made me feel worse. Adrian cared about him and I'd messed things up for her. Again.

  Rick walked over to us, shoving the phone back into his pocket. "Tanner, I need your car keys."

  "Why?" he asked.

  "I'm going to the airport to talk to her."

  Tanner's head tilted back. "Right now? In the middle of auditions?"

  "It will be too late afterward. The flight leaves at 1:00."

  "How do you know that?" Tanner asked.

  "I called the airlines. There's only one direct flight to Chicago." Rick looked at me then, but without the anger I'd expected. There was only bitter resignation. "I guess you'll win after all. Let me be the first to congratulate you."

  I shook my head. "No. You stay here and finish the audition. I'll drive to Spokane and talk to her."

  Rick snorted. "You already talked to her, and nothing you said made her want to come back. I'm going."

  Tanner glanced back and forth at us. "You can't go to the gate to talk to her without a ticket."

  "So I'll buy one," Rick said.

  I only had a few dollar bills in my wallet, and I didn't own a credit card. Still, I wasn't about to let Rick win on this point. "I'll tell the airport people she's running away from home. They'll have to stop her. Rick can stay here and audition. I'll go."

  "I'm going," Rick said.

  "Fine, then we'll both go," I said.

  Tanner held up his hands. "Neither one of you have a car, and I'm not letting either of you tear up the highway to Spokane in mine. Besides," he said as he pulled his keys from his pocket, "you'd kill each other before you reached the airport. I'll drive."

  "Let's go then," Rick turned, and picked up his equipment. He handed some of it to Tanner to carry.

  I ran over to Molly and Polly to let them know I was leaving. "You can withdraw from the auditions if you want. Or you can just do it without me."

  They both stared at me over their books, wide-eyed. "We're backup singers," Molly said. "How would we do the song without you?"

  "One of you could take my part." I didn't wait for their reaction to that suggestion because Rick was already striding toward the door and I didn't want Tanner and him to leave without me. I grabbed my purse but left everything else with the twins. Then I ran to catch up with the guys.

  I sat next to Tanner in the front seat of his car while Rick leaned over the back seat and complained about Tanner's driving.

  "Man, that light was almost yellow. You could have gone through it."

  I glanced over my shoulder at Rick. "I'm surprised you're still alive."

  Rick grunted. "I'm a good driver."

  "I don't think she meant that," Tanner said tightly. "She meant she was surprised I haven't killed you yet. Keep telling me how to drive and you might not be so lucky"

  Rick sat back in his seat with a thud. "We've got to get there before they board. At this rate it will take forever."

  "We'll get there in time if the roads are clear," Tanner said.

  The roads were clear, and once we got out on the highway, Tanner drove fast enough that even Rick couldn't complain. The rolling Palouse Hills zoomed by.

  Tanner made Rick call their mother and explain the situation. She didn't pick up the call. They knew she wouldn't. The judges had instructed the audience to turn off their cell phones.

  It was just as well, because neither Tanner nor Rick wanted to talk to anyone in their family anyway. They'd had a five-minute conversation beforehand about who should be the one to break it to their grandmother that her grandsons had taken the only car without flats and left everyone stranded at the auditorium.

  But when Rick didn't show up on stage, they would check their cell phones.

  It was a long drive, made longer by the fact that Rick kept tapping his door handle as though this would make the car go faster. Tanner hardly said anything. I could tell he was angry. It showed in the set of his jaw, in his grip on the steering wheel, and in the silence that surrounded him. I wasn't sure who he was angry at, but figured it was me. I didn't bring it up though. That wasn't a conversation I wanted to have in front of Rick. Besides I couldn't stop thinking about Adrian living with my father.

  I watched the snow-covered hills and my mind flashed back to a winter night, one of the last we'd had before my mother left him for good. She was at work and Dad was supposed to drive us to a Christmas program at church. He stopped at a bar instead. There we were, in dresses and tights—Adrian just six years old, and I was eight. He said he'd only be a few minutes and left us in the car. We waited for a while, shivering in the cold, but I knew he'd be in there all night so I took Adrian's hand and we walked home in the snow. It was miles, and Adrian cried all the way because her pretty shoes were getting wet and ruined.

  Dad didn't come home until hours later, but when he did he slapped me across the face for disobeying him. When Adrian shrieked in protest he slapped her too.

  When we were twenty miles away, Mrs. Debrock called Rick's cell phone. He told her why he was heading to Spokane, reiterating all the reasons he'd already given her in his message. He grunted and rolled his eyes at whatever her response was. After he'd slid the phone back into his pocket he said, "Grandmother thinks I'm undependable, impulsive, and unable to see things through to the end."

  Tanner looked straight ahead at the road. "I'm sure she'll cool down by the time we get home, but if not, hey, more of an inheritance for me."

  I turned so I could see into the back seat. "You're being dependable—dependable for Adrian. That's something that's worth seeing through to the end. Your grandmother will realize that one day."

  Rick didn't answer for a moment. He just stared at me like he didn't know how to react to my compliment. Finally, he looked out the window and shrugged. "Maybe," he said.

  After that, we spent a few minutes planning what we would do when we got to the airport. Rick would buy a ticket and go talk to Adrian alone. I agreed to this only because I didn't have the money for a ticket. If he couldn't convince Adrian not to get on the plane, then he'd call me, and I'd tell the airport authorities that she was running away from home. We saved that option for last, because we didn't want to get Adrian in trouble if we didn't have to.

  When we pulled up to the airport parking garage, my stomach was churning. The clock in the car read. 12:10. Her plane would probably start boarding in twenty minutes. How long would it take us to get to the gate? As we got out of the car, Rick carried his boom box with him. "Why are you taking that?" Tanner asked, but Rick didn't answer and there wasn't time to discuss it. We jogged into the airport.

  Tanner and I went and stood in the ticket line, which was a dozen people long. Rick walked to the counter and told the agent he needed to buy a ticket right then because it was an emergency. She cast him an unimpressed stare and told him he'd have to wait his turn.

  He swore about this, and continued to swear all the way to the back of the line. Really, the boy needed to expand his vocabulary.

  "Would you be quiet," I hissed to him, "I'll handle this." I turned to the man who stood in front of us, tapped him on the shoulder, and gave him a damsel-in-distress smile. "Excuse me, sir, but my little sister is trying to fly to Chicago when she shouldn't. We need to buy a ticket so we can go back to the gate and keep her from getting on the plane. Can we cut in front of you?"

  He stepped aside immediately. "Sure thing, honey."

  I repeated this plea all the way up through the line, and one by one the customers let us through until we reached the front of the line. After I'd thanked everyone profusely, I turned to Rick. "See," I whispered. "It pays to be polite."

  "You mean it pays to be a leggy blonde," he whispered back. "They wouldn't have done that for me."

  "Just think of it as a cheerleader in action," I said.

  He shook his head and didn't reply.

  We watched the agents, waiting for one to become available and my stomach resumed its churning.
I took hold of Rick's arm to get his attention. "Tell Adrian I'm sorry we fought, and I should have told her about Tanner earlier, and I just want her to come home."

  He kept his gaze fastened forward, ready to step away from me. "Okay."

  "And tell her Mom will be miserable if she leaves."

  "Okay."

  "Tell her that she'll never be happy at Dad's and—"

  "Chelsea." Rick put one hand on my shoulder to quiet me. His voice turned soothing. I'd never heard it that way before, and it reminded me of Tanner. "I can handle this. I'm going to bring Adrian back, okay?"

  I gulped and nodded. "Okay."

  The agent called Rick to the desk. While I watched him pull out his wallet, it hit me more forcefully what Rick was doing—what he he'd done already. "I can't believe he left the audition for Adrian," I said.

  Tanner's voice was hard. "I can't believe she sabotaged your song for him."

  "Now your grandmother won't help him."

  "Now your school will suspend her."

  "Yeah, it's like some Goth version of Romeo and Juliet, isn't it?"

  He laughed but I could see the tenseness around his eyes. We were still apart, the two of us. The day hadn't changed that, and I wasn't sure why. Everything else had changed so quickly. I'd started out with Rick as my archenemy and now somehow we were on the same team.

  "I guess Rick isn't so bad underneath all that grungy black clothing," I said.

  He glanced at me to see whether I meant it. I must have looked sincere because he smiled cautiously. "Yeah, he has his good points."

  "I probably could try harder to get along with him," I said.

  "Good." Tanner looked at the airline counter not at me. I waited for him to say something else. He didn't.

  "This is where you say, 'And Adrian isn't so bad either.''

  The muscles around his jaw line twitched, and I realized that his anger was directed toward her and not me. He shook his head. "She made both you and Richard miss your auditions."

  "She didn't make us; we chose to leave."

  "She tried to get you suspended so you couldn't compete. How can you just forgive her for something like that?"

  I didn't answer for a moment. I wasn't sure I had forgiven her; I hadn't consciously done it, anyway. I just knew that despite all the ways and all the times Adrian and I had hurt each other over the last couple years none of it had mattered when I thought about losing her. "She's my sister," I said.

  Rick turned around and called to me, "Hey, Chelsea. The agent needs to see your driver's license."

  I stepped up to him, already getting it out of my purse. "Why?"

  "Because I'm buying you a ticket too. I think we have a better chance if we both talk to her." Before I'd thought about it, he took the license from my hand and gave it to the agent. "Don't worry," he said with a glance at my face. "I'm buying refundable tickets. You won't owe me anything."

  While the agent looked at my license Rick added, "Unless we apply the fare to a different trip. Maybe we should fly to L.A. and hit the auditions there."

  We didn't have time to discuss it because the next moment the agent handed us our tickets and we rushed off through the airport corridors toward the security checkpoint.

  Rick, by the way, moved pretty fast for someone who's biggest mode of exercise so far had consisted of skulking around school. Tanner wasn't even out of breath as he ran and I mentally noted what good shape he was in. Lacrosse must do that for you. I struggled to keep up with them.

  When we reached the security checkpoint, I stood there panting and surveyed the line. It looked like at least a twenty-minute wait.

  Rick nudged me and nodded at the people in line. "Time to turn on the blonde. See if you can move us ahead any."

  One by one I explained the situation to the people in front of us. "Please sir, we have to reach my sister before she boards the plane."

  I felt like the teenage version of Tiny Tim, but everyone let us through. We reached the front of the line where you had to show your boarding pass to a screener. I ought to have turned around, given one last, God bless you everyone, to the people behind us, but instead Rick and I hurried through it and ran to the gate.

  The line had already formed to board the plane and Adrian stood in it, staring ahead with vacant eyes. She hadn't done her hair or makeup and she looked young, tired, and afraid. I knew my father was in Chicago, but it felt like he stood on the other side of that door, and once Adrian stepped across it, he would never let her go again.

  She saw us and her eyes flew wide. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at auditions."

  I walked to her, breathless, wanting to hug her but afraid she'd push me away. "We left because you're more important to us," I said. "No matter what happens, your home is here with Mom and me, and it was Tanner—I'm crazy about Tanner, okay? I don't like Rick at all."

  Rick nodded. "And I don't like Chelsea."

  She looked back and forth between the two of us hopefully. "You still hate each other?"

  "Yes," we both proclaimed cheerfully. Then we glanced at each other.

  "Well, I mean, he's okay as your boyfriend," I said.

  "And I guess I don't mind her dating Tanner," Rick said, "but you have to know that you and I . . . well, you and I . . ." He took her hand and pulled her out of the line. "Here, sit down. I want you to listen to this."

  Then right there at the gate, he turned on his boom box and sang to her. The music was to "Dangerously Blonde," but instead of those lyrics, he sang,

  Adrian, let me start

  To tell you the way I feel.

  Though others try to stop us,

  You are my ideal.

  I'm dangerously in love.

  We shouldn't fight,girl,

  It isn't right,girl,

  Letting them tell us what to do.

  Believe in me and I'll worship you.

  I'm dangerously in love.

  There was more of it, all just as cheesy; which goes to show you there is a reason why rebellious-fringe guys don't generally write love songs. But Adrian started crying after the first verse and didn't let up until Rick finished and she'd thrown her arms around him. Everyone at the gate clapped for them and tears I didn't even realize I had ran down my cheeks.

  When she let go of Rick she turned to me and hugged me. "I'm so sorry," she said.

  I said, "I'm sorry too." And then both of us cried harder, but it felt good because finally things were right between us.

  After a minute I said, "Let's go home," and then the three of us walked back toward the security area, Adrian and Rick holding hands.

  When we got to Tanner, Adrian blinked in surprise and said, "You came too?" and then before anyone could say anything she tilted her head as though she should have known beforehand and said, "That's right, you and Chelsea . . . they told me." She leaned in toward him confidingly and added, " I 'm glad that she's crazy about you. You guys make a great couple." Then she and Rick walked on, absorbed in each other, while Tanner watched me with one eyebrow raised.

  He didn't comment right then, although as he followed after Rick and Adrian I could tell that he was considering what she'd just said. I didn't say anything. I mean what does one say after that? Yes, I really am crazy about you. So tell me, are you still interested in me at all?

  Rachel said guys got scared away if you acted needy. What happened when a girl called a guy and accused his brother of framing her, then got mad at him for taking his brother's side, when it had been her sister all along? Rachel never covered that topic, but I figured the results would not be good.

  By the time we reached the parking lot, I needed to say something, anything to anyone, just so I wouldn't blurt out something to Tanner that I'd immediately regret. To Rick I said, "Hey, I really like the new version of your song. Are you going to rewrite the rest of those cheerleading songs? Because that would be so romantic to have the whole album dedicated to Adrian."

  Adrian looked at him brightly.


  "Sure." Rick put his arm around Adrian and pulled her in to a walking hug, but over her head he looked at me and said, "You are so manipulative."

  I blinked back at him innocently. "And it got us to the front of the airport lines, so don't knock it."

  Tanner let out a sigh. "No fighting, you two. From now on you get along, agreed?" He looked at Rick and then me, waiting for an answer.

  "Okay," I said. "No more arguing."

  Rick shrugged and held up one hand in surrender. "Okay."

  Adrian leaned over so she could see past me to Tanner. "Thank you. The way they get sometimes—it drives me in­sane."

  "Tell me about it." Then Tanner exchanged a look with Adrian that said he understood her suffering. It was like they'd bonded over the issue of how hard it was to deal with us.

  I looked at Rick and rolled my eyes. Rick nodded in agreement.

  Chapter 20

  I probably should have driven our car home with Adrian and let Tanner drive his car home with Rick. But I didn't. When Rick suggested that he drive Adrian back in our car, I said, "Okay, just as long as you drive the speed limit and stop when the light is yellow."

  "You're arguing with me," Rick said.

  "No, I'm trying to save our car and your life."

  He let out a grunt. "Fine. I'll stop when the light is yellow."

  I didn't press the point because I wanted time alone with Tanner to talk. And we did. On the way back we talked about everything, everything but us. I wish guys came with maps like they have in malls. The kind that show the insides of the building, point an arrow to the spot, and proclaim, "You are here." It seemed like we'd been through so much that I had no idea where I stood when it came to him.

  When we'd almost reached Pullman, my mom called me. She'd already called Adrian so she knew what had happened, but she still wanted to hear about it from me. I answered her questions, and told her that everything would be okay, because even though Adrian would be in trouble with the school, at least she was happy, wanted to live with us, and no longer hated me.