Black Dusty-Rose gave her brightest smile as she pivoted around in her red and white cheerleading outfit. With the sun shining and her blonde halo of hair bouncing around in a ponytail, she looked every inch the American teen dream. But no one watching knew of the anguish she was feeling inside.
Dusty had gotten good at keeping her past well hidden. "W!" she exuberantly yelled out the letter with the other girls, using her arms to make the "W" shape. Out in the afternoon sun, the cheerleaders of Woods High practiced hard.
They spun, jumped, and kicked around in a small corner of the football field. A handful of male admirers seated themselves nearby, enjoying the show. The team was renowned throughout the state for its high energy and perfectly choreographed performances. After an hour of practice, the girls disbanded, clapping their sign-off chant in happy unison. They fanned out, each going their own way.
"Dusty, that routine was great," Cora Fitz complimented after the rehearsal.
"Thanks." Dusty smiled modestly, picking up her water bottle from the side of the field and taking a long, refreshing drink.
"I like the new direction you are taking the team. You make a great captain," Cora continued.
"Thanks." Dusty blushed.
"We still need to work on the pyramid, and there are a few girls out of step," Farah Xael said with her arms folded as she sat down on the nearby bleachers.
"Yes, I know." Dusty forced a smile.
"Well, as captain, that's the sort of thing you need to figure out," Farah said as her dark eyes bore into Dusty's blue ones.
"As vice-captain you could always help out more," Cora suggested, raising an angered, perfectly shaped eyebrow at Farah.
"I wouldn't want to step on any toes," Farah replied coolly. She finished her drink and headed away from the field, loosening her ponytail, so that her dark hair cascaded down her back.
"She's still sore about not making captain," Cora apologised to Dusty.
"It's okay. I can handle Farah Xael." Dusty shrugged.
"You never sweat the small stuff, do you?" Cora noted.
"Life's too short." Dusty smiled.
In the locker room, Dusty changed out of her cheerleading outfit into some skinny jeans and a white T-shirt. Cora changed into her Juicy Couture velour tracksuit, carefully tucking away her beloved cheerleading outfit.
"It's a shame we can't wear these home anymore," she noted as she zipped up her duffle bag. "How can a cheerleading outfit attract negative attention?" She sighed in dismay. Wearing her cheerleading outfit
around school had been one of Cora's proudest moments in her eighteen-year lifetime.
"Yeah, it sucks," Dusty agreed, though she wasn't nearly as bothered with the latest rule enforced by the school board. "I guess everyone got jumpy after that sex scandal at North High." Dusty shrugged.
"You're right," Cora agreed. "But just because that girl was wearing a cheerleading outfit, don't mean it had some- thing to do with what happened."
"Try explaining that to the school board. They're just a bunch of crotchety old men blaming short skirts and tight tops for rape. Talk about sexist."
"Mmm," sounded bored by the conversation and was typing furiously into her cell phone. "Apparently Colin Baker broke up with Hayley Tork earlier today."
"Oh?" Dusty feigned interest. The politics of high school dating didn't interest her in the slightest.
"I never thought they'd last," Cora continued, shaking her head. "I mean, he's totally a music geek, and she's in the drama club. Clash."
"Mmm." Dusty zoned out from the conversation.
"Do you need a ride home?" Cora asked as they walked toward the parking lot. Only a few cars remained. Most of the students departed when the final bell rang. Those who stayed after hours were in clubs or sports. Cora paused by her bright blue VW Beetle.
"No, it's okay." Dusty smiled. "My mom is coming to pick me up."
"Are you sure?" Cora didn't sound convinced. "You know, you should really tell your mom to stop picking you up. That way I can take you home. It'd be way more fun, trust me."
"Yeah, I'll talk to her."
"You always say that," Cora groaned.
"No, this time I really will. Honest."
"You better."
"I will, I will."
"Cool, so I'll see you in class tomorrow?" Cora asked.
"You bet."
"Don't we have that new math teacher tomorrow?"
"I think so." Dusty had no idea.
"Well, he or she'd better be cute because I hate math." Cora said, making a mock face of disgust.
"Yeah, math sucks," Dusty agreed.
"Well, see ya tomorrow." Cora climbed into her car and waved at her friend before switching on her stereo and cranking out the latest Taylor Swift song.
Dusty watched her pull out of the parking lot, then fished her iPod out of her backpack, and placed the small ear buds in her ears. With one flick of a button, her head filled with the ambient sounds of her favourite band, Radiohead. She smiled, comforted by the music, and walked away from school, away from the parking lot, and toward home.
Dusty's walk home took almost forty minutes. By the time she arrived home, the sun would be dipping in the sky, cast- ing long shadows along the ground. She strolled the familiar route from the high school to her home, making sure to keep a low profile as she headed down the street. As she entered one of the more upscale residential areas of Woody, Dusty took a cap from her back- pack and pulled it down over her golden ponytail, making sure to force the cap as low as it would go.
Glancing at the houses along the streets brought back painful memories, which Dusty tried to shut out. She'd considered changing her route home to avoid them, but that meant adding an additional half an hour on to an already long walk. She needed that time to do homework and help with dinner.
All stunning, the houses set back on long, immaculate green lawns. Dusty imagined all the dads in those houses, out on a Sunday afternoon, trimming their lawns, their kids bringing them beers, and eager to participate somehow.
As she wistfully thought the journey away, the musical backdrop comforted her thoughts. Still, a lump formed in Dusty's throat. She coughed it down, desperate to suppress it. She knew it wouldn't go down well if she went home an- other time with her eyes reddened from crying.
Her mother had already warned her. "It doesn't do any of us any good, Dusty," she'd told her daughter. "We need to just accept how things are and move on with our lives." But Dusty struggled to move on, so when she walked among the beautiful homes with the white shutters that matched the white picket fences, her pace slowed almost to a standstill.
She admired each and every home, imagining what the family inside was like. What they would be sitting down to eat that night, and whether they all sat down together. In Dusty's mind, each of those perfect homes contained a perfect family. Eventually, Dusty's walk home pulled her away from the dreams of suburbia and into a more declining part of town. The houses grew smaller and dirtier, the cars became cheaper, and finally she rounded a corner, and found the bane of Woody's existence—the trailer park. Everyone at school loathed the trailer park.
Anyone who lived there was labelled trash and thus an instant social pariah. Dusty had seen them, held up against their lockers, accused of being dirty and cheap. When those students weren't being harassed by their more affluent peers, they were usually found smoking outside, in the back of the gym building.
Keeping her head low, her eyes trained to the ground, Dusty's walk became more of a sprint as she darted within the trailer park, hoping no one had followed and seen her. She ran among the lines of trailers, which were set out haphazardly. She ran across the dirt, almost to the back of the park before stopping at a long, grey trailer that appeared newer than its counterparts. She swung the front door open with such anxious speed that it almost came off its hinges. She finally entered, gasping for breath.
"Jesus, honey, where's the fire?" her mother asked from her position by the tiny gas stove where they prepared their meals.
"Sorry, Mom," Dusty answered, breathing hard.
"Seriously, Dusty, one of these days you're going to swing that door clean off, and then where will we be? I certainly can't afford a new one," Dusty's mother told her, placing her hands upon her hips.
Dusty grimaced at the money reference; she was tired of hearing about their precarious financial situation. "How was school?" her mother asked, changing the subject. "Same as ever." Dusty shrugged.
"Still no report card?" her mother asked, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. She had the same blonde hair as her daughter.
"No, Kayla, no report card." Dusty sighed.
"I've told you not to call me that young lady," Kayla Black said.
"It's mom or nothing." Dusty rolled her eyes. She was tired from practice and in no mood to argue. "Can you at least get your brother and tell him dinner is ready?" Kayla asked. "Where is he?" Dusty peered past her mother into the dimly lit trailer. She couldn't hear the usual sound of her brother's Xbox.
"He's outside."
"Outside?" Dusty asked, horrified.
"Yes, outside, playing with some guys he knows from school."
"Seriously? You know the kind of people who live here, right?" Dusty scoffed with disapproval. "If you want Dust to be dealing drugs by the time he goes to high school, then great job, he's heading in the right direction." Dusty clapped her hands in mock applause.
"At least he's trying to make friends," Kayla protested. "And you need to stop thinking of it as us and them. We live here now, Dusty. We are trailer people too. Start embracing it."
"I'd rather stick a needle through my eye," Dusty answered coldly.
"Then do that, then." Kayla sighed. "But please, go get your brother first."
Dusty reluctantly retrieved her brother from where he'd been playing basketball with some of the other local boys around his age.
Dusty drew out the long-line dining table from the wall of the trailer. She thought of those families in their beautiful homes, imagining they were eating refined foods like shrimp linguine as opposed to meatloaf.
"Quick knocking me," Dust yelled, delivering a sharp elbow into Dusty's stomach.
"Oww." Dusty almost choked on her dinner. "I can't help knocking you." She coughed. "There's not enough space at this stupid table."
"Look, I'm going to work in a bit, so I need you two to behave," Kayla warned. She currently worked two jobs. During the day she cleaned houses; at night she worked at a local gas station. Neither job paid well. Her children didn't answer her. "Dust, have you done your homework?" Kayla asked, her voice sincere.
"Yes, Mom." Dust's singsong response implied he was lying.
"Dusty, can you check, please? I don't have time."
"Fine." Dusty shrugged. "Have you done your homework?" Kayla continued her interrogation.
"Yep." Dusty was also lying. Her incomplete math homework sat within her backpack, but she had no intention of doing it. A new teacher the next day meant a free pass on homework, at least for the time being.
A coy glance from the head cheerleader was potent currency among the faculty, as Dusty had found, and she had no reservations about perverting that system as thoroughly as she could.
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