“You have to know how to do this yourself, Petey.”

Pete's Vagina
65. Practice
by Erin Halfelven

The school day went by quickly, but first, Megan helped me repair my eye makeup. She insisted that I do the actual work while she advised. “You have to know how to do this yourself, Petey.”

I grumbled, but it was nice to be with Megan again, even if we were in the girls’ bathroom learning to be more girly. “You have to do both eyes,” she said, “so that they match.”

“Okay, okay,” I conceded.

“Here,” she said, handing me a little palette of colors from her own purse. “Use the deep brown above the crease; it will really make your blue eyes pop more than that violet.”

“Huh,” I said, doing as I was told. “Are you sure this isn’t too much?”

“Nuh, uh,” she countered. “You’re the football-playing cheerleader, and glam is your game.”

My giggle startled us both. “This is just going to ruin my tomboy cred, you know?” So we giggled together and ended up being late to class—not that anyone cared. The teacher nodded at us and didn’t mark anything down in her books.

I sat in the back row with Megan on my left and Lee on my right. He reached across the aisle, and we tangled fingers for a moment. It felt weird, but being Lee’s girlfriend kind of felt like regaining an anchor I had lost. Everyone needs someone to be important to.

*

Lunch was one of the cafeteria’s better offerings: pork medallions on rice with green beans, cornbread, and a small salad. It was almost like real food. The cafeteria ladies gave the guys three small rounds of meat each, while the girls got only two.

“Hey!” I protested. “I’m a football player too!” So they gave me a third piece, smiling, but they picked out a kind of smaller one. “Okay, then,” I allowed.

“Petey’s so fierce,” commented Joanna in line behind me. “She’s our lioness.”

“Grrr!” I said, and the lunch ladies laughed.

At the lunch table, my usual position at the varsity jocks’ table beside Megan was occupied by Gogo Goff— wasting no time. I sat beside Lee with Joanna on my other side and Jake another seat down. He leaned in to look around Joanna at me. His expression did not convey approval, so I winked at him and stuck out the tip of my tongue.

He scowled, and I laughed at him.

Lee captured my hand under the table and squeezed gently. I squeezed back and short-circuited a giggle into a smile in his direction.

I tried to eat primly, like the other girls, but I couldn’t remember breakfast, and it was hard not to gobble things up and contemplate going back for seconds — which in one set of my memories had been more or less S.O.P.

“Petey’s got her first cheerleader practice this afternoon,” commented Megan.

“Oh, God!”

“It’ll be fun, Petey,” Megan admonished me. “Don’t work up an attitude and make it hard on yourself.”

Joanna wasn’t helping. “Fresh meat,” she mock-growled like a movie drill instructor.

“Yeah, yeah.” I waved my free hand. Lee still had the fingertips of the other under the table.

“We’re going to teach you to do the splits,” Joanna threatened. “Get those thighs nice and limber.”

I laughed in her face. “Coach Wilson already makes us do the splits,” I told her, and the guys all nodded, wincing.

“For the very reason you mentioned,” Jake told Joanna. “Staying limber prevents groin and hamstring injuries.”

Joanna offered him a blond scowl, “Football splits are not the same as cheerleader splits. You gotta be able to do them mid-air.”

“Yikes,” I commented. I was not looking forward to this, and Joanna was doing her best to make it seem horrible. She grinned at me, enjoying herself.

At the far end of the table, Dave Garcia, as backup quarterback, held court over the other juniors on the varsity squad. I heard him tell one of his buddies, “All bets are canceled. Pete is going to be coming to school dressed as a cheerleader on Friday, so that lets one of us off the hook.”

“Not really,” said someone. “Pete’s a senior. Tradition says one senior and one junior on the team have to do drag on Halloween Friday.”

An anxious murmur broke out until Dave seized his leadership position. “I’ll do it,” he volunteered. “I’ve got the best legs, anyway.” Which earned him applause and a shower of cornbread.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” someone interrupted the relieved merriment. “Petey is Gayle. If she does drag, she’d be coming to school dressed as a guy!”

“She kinda does that every day,” someone else mentioned.

“Yeah, so that doesn’t count,” someone else noted.

I don’t think anyone saw me blushing, or knew why. Dave was right, though. After me, he had the best legs on the team.

*

Last period was technically study hall for all jocks, but if you had practice scheduled, no one expected you to show up just to do your homework, unless you were falling behind and under the coach’s orders to bring your grades up.

My grades were good, so I met up with Megan and Joanna outside the gym at 2:35 p.m. Lee had taken my books to put them in my car, and I had kept track of my purse all day, so I still had it with me. A quick stop in the bathroom for all of us to change our tampons, and we headed for the entrance to the girls’ locker rooms.

“A couple more days…,” Megan muttered to me.

“Huh? Oh,” I realized she meant dealing with our periods. It would be good to be done with the hassle…until next month.

The weirdity of the situation reached up and grabbed at my gut, causing me to make a noise. Megan took one hand and squeezed it. “You got this, Petey,” she reassured me.

“Petey Gayle,” said Joanna, gesturing with a fist. “Friendly Pride! Rah! Lions!”

“Rah,” I said a bit weakly.

The cheerleading squad was known as the Pridettes since no one wanted to try to say Lionessessess over a loudspeaker. Half of the locker room was decorated with pink, white, and blue streamers and “Pridettes” in tempera on the wall above the varsity corner, which was in the same position, mirror-fashion, as on the boy’s side.

Coach Debbie met us just as we filed in. “Gayle,” she said to me, “I’ve got you a practice uniform sorted in your locker: number 239.” She handed me a padlock with a wired-on tag where someone had written the three-number combination. “Use any of the tall lockers for your street clothes and purse.” She half-turned away, shouting, “Line up in five minutes, girls! Who’s going to be running laps?”

Already, half of the girls were half-undressed. After the ice cream party, it wasn’t so much of a shock, but I let out a long sigh before trying to find locker 239.

“Petey, Pete, Pete,” said Megan as we started to strip. Her locker was one layer up and two over from mine. She smiled at me, and I smiled back, pulling the soft tunic and shiny underpants of the practice uniform out of my locker.

Time to learn how to be a cheerleader. How hard could it be?

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