Dare Me - By Megan Abbott Page 0,57

turns the speakers up and our game music, bawdy pop with baby-doll vocals cut through with a molasses-throated rap, “Get down, girl, go ’head get down.”

I swing up to Middle Base, above Mindy’s ramming shoulder, her hand foisting up, palm spreading over my bottom.

At that moment, Coach walks back into the gym.

“You got it, Slaussen,” Coach nods, strolling past Beth to the back of the pyramid. Hearing her, such a relief. “You nailed it once, you’ll nail it again.”

Coach inexplicably becoming the good cop in this strange new world.

But RiRi, the other Middle Base, and I feel a joint twinge, our eyes on Tacy’s legs, like little cinnamon sticks that might snap.

When we raise her up, air-puff light, she is shaking like a bobblehead doll, like Emily was. I can feel her try to make herself tight, can feel it radiating through me, but the cartoon terror eyes put a chill in me.

“Ride that bitch,” Beth’s voice booms at us. “Ride it.”

Our arms shaking, we’ve got to lock it in place, but it’s not locking. It’s like trying to make a pair of gummy worms stand straight.

We bring her back down for a second.

“She can’t do it,” Beth pronounces. “Either no two-two-one or we need a new Flyer.”

We are all quiet.

Suddenly, RiRi’s voice rises from behind me. “What about Addy?”

I turn around and look at her, my heart speeding up. She smiles and winks.

“What if Addy were Top Girl?”

Coach looks over at me, eyebrows raised. I feel Beth’s gaze on me too.

“Addy doesn’t like to be on top,” Beth says, poker-faced.

“Hey!” Tacy cries. “I’ve been flying all season.”

Coach nods. “It’s something to think about, long haul,” she says. “But for now we need Addy right where she is, in the middle. She’s our spine.”

I don’t like all the eyes on me. I wish RiRi had never said anything.

It doesn’t matter anyway because, a second later, everyone is just looking at Tacy again.

“She can’t, Coach,” says Beth, as simply as she’s ever said anything.

My hands fresh off Tacy’s kindling hipbone, I feel certain Beth is right.

“Look at her,” Beth scoffs. “She’s not trained up.”

These are fighting words and we all know it. It’s spit in the eye to any coach.

“She just wants my spot, Coach,” Tacy nearly whimpers. “I can do it. Elevator me up again.”

“Slaussen?” Coach looks over at Tacy. “Are you ready?”

“Yes!”

Beth sighs loudly. “What happens,” she practically sings, “when a pretty young coach takes a ragtag team of misfits and feebs under her wing? Why, they fly, fly, fly.”

Coach looks at her.

“We just needed someone to believe in us,” Beth finishes.

“Stop gaming her, Cassidy,” Coach says, staring her down, duel-at-dawn, but her tone still flat, toneless, “or I’m gonna ground-bound you instead.”

“Look at her leg,” Beth says, “like a wishbone twanging.”

“Cassidy,” Coach says, like she’s forgotten the caution she’s supposed to use with Beth, or she’s just stopped caring. “When you start showing me you can do more than flash your tits and treat your mouth like a sewer, then maybe we’ll have something to talk about.”

Don’t, Coach, I think. Don’t.

“You heard the coach,“ Beth says, turning to us with a smile. “Load her up and let her fall.”

The music thumping again, Beth counting off, Mindy and Cori line up, Bottom Bases. Spotters Paige and a JV stand behind them and load up the second level, RiRi and me, our bodies springing up to shoulder stands, their palms cradling our calves.

Facing each other, we lift Tacy between us, throwing her above us into a stand, our arms lifted high, hands tight on her wrists. Her arms outstretched, Jesus-style, her left leg knee-bent in front of her, the girls beneath grasping her right foot to hold her in place.

For a second, she is solid.

Seven, eight, Beth counting off until the Deadman and it is time. Time for us to drop her backwards into a stiff-spined horizontal fall. Ready for Paige, the JV, all her spotters to catch her down below.

We let go.

Her eyes wild, Tacy drops, but her body seems to rubberize, limbs like spaghetti. As her hand grapples for me, I feel myself sliding down with her, Paige and Cori, on the ground, shouting, “Slaus, here, here, here. Hold it!”

But she plunges, our hands empty.

The sickly sound as Tacy, still half in Paige’s sloping arms, hits the mat, face first.

RiRi and I still on high, I think my knees might give, but I hear Coach’s voice, iron smooth, “Hanlon, slow down that dismount,” as RiRi and I sink