I'd just moved to Texas a month ago and already I felt more at home here than I had in other place that I had laid my head. I felt as if I finally had found a place that I belonged, and I was even making friends already. Of course that was only because I had been lucky enough to find a job at this cute little bookstore on the corner about a mile from my apartment the week I moved here. I was beyond grateful for the job for so many reasons. Mainly because it meant that I wouldn't have to live on my savings for long and I could get back to actually saving my money. I knew what it was to have nothing and I refused to go back to living that life. Aside from the financial benefits to finding this job, it had allowed me to meet people, and I loved that too.
I had moved to Texas to start over, to try new things, and to do things that I normally would not do. Moving across the country was a great start on that goal. The move had been easier to do with no one to leave behind or say goodbye to. My parents had both been drug addicts my whole life and by the time that I was sixteen I was an orphan, but in reality I had been raising myself since I'd been much younger. I had no other family that I knew of and all of my friends from high school, well, who was I kidding. I'd been an outcast. I'd had no friends throughout school because of who I was. I was that girl who had dirty clothes and secondhand everything in a label conscious world. That had suited me just fine though and allowed me to focus on my job and my studies without the usual distractions of boys and parties and the like. I had graduated with a 4.0 GPA and been accepted into three different colleges. By the time I started freshman year I had bought my own car, had my own apartment, and while I might not have had the newest name brand labels, I had nice clothes finally. And pride. I had pride in who I was and who I had become all on my own. I never made my life an excuse, but I made it a reason, and a motivation to be more than my parents had been. Looking back on the last seven years I was proud to say that I had done that.
I had graduated college with a 4.0 GPA and a bachelor's degree in business administration by the time I was twenty three years old and I had taken on a job at the corporate headquarters of a popular warehouse style store in the southeast. It was there I had my first boyfriend, and my first heartbreak. We had dated for two years and I thought it was real love, but he obviously had other thoughts about us. On our two year anniversary he had taken me out to dinner and I truly had thought it was going to be the night he proposed, but no, there was no proposal at all. That was the night he had ended us and told me that he had fallen in love with someone else. The next day at work I put in my resignation and began to look for a change in my world. Within two weeks I was moving into an apartment in Houston and in less than a week I had been hired on at Once Upon a Time as front end office manager. And I was happy.
Today I was filling in at the front desk of the store when a young brunette came bouncing in, overly peppy and happy for it to be nine in the morning. I'd seen her in the shop before, she was one of the girls who would grab a stack of magazines and sip on a Frappuccino from the small café in the back corner of the store. For the life of me, her name wouldn't come into my mind so I just smiled politely as she approached the desk.
"Hi Morgan! I don't know that we have officially met, I'm Alexa, and I'm an intern with the football team here in Houston. I was wondering if I could pin up some flyers in the window and leave a few at the checkouts to promote tryouts for the cheerleading team. They said that they usually do it here so I thought I'd check and be sure it was okay."
"Of course! That's just fine Alexa, and if there's any other way that we can assist you let me know, alright?" I had always been a huge football fan so it was not a big deal really to help promote something for the local team. I watched as Alexa sat a small stack by the register and bounced her way to the café to leave another stack before heading to the window to tape up a few of the flyers before she went on her way. I picked up the flyer and studied it a minute. The Houston Texans was having auditions for the cheerleading team for the upcoming season. I sighed as I sat the flyer back down. I used to long to be one of those girls, back in middle school and high school I would have loved to have been on the team. Of course I never did that, so of course I gave up that dream when I went to college.
"I see you studying that flyer hard Morgan," Brittany, the shift lead salesperson, said coming up next to me. "Do it, go to the try outs and see what happens."
I laughed out loud and tried to get it together when I saw the serious look on her face. "Britt, I couldn't do that. One, I have no experience at all, and two, I'd never make it."
"You do not know that. You're in great shape, you have the looks." She held up her hand to stop my protest. "Yes, you do, even if you don't see it, everyone else does. You're beautiful and you have an amazing smile. It's warm and infectious. Try out. What's it going to hurt?"
I sighed and lifted the flyer again. "It would hurt my pride when I failed."
Brittany took the flyer out of my hand and sat it down on the counter. "Look, didn't you say that you came here to break out of your molded world? To try new things and branch out? This is something new! Try it! You might just surprise yourself. Look, it even says right here, no experience needed, just a desire and a passion to bring spirit and smiles. You can do it. Hell, you do it and I'll try out with you, if the manager will let me off for it," she said with a wink.
Auditions were two weeks away. I sighed. She was right. This was the kind of experience that I had wanted. It was out of my comfort zone and would be something new. "Okay, fine. But you better do it with me."
Brittany nodded with a broad smile. "Definitely!"
I smiled after her as she got back to straightening the books on the shelf where she had been working before she had talked me into this crazy idea. I was from Georgia, I knew nothing about the Texans, I was a Falcon's kinda girl and always would be. Oh well, here was to new things, I thought as I took a long drink from my coffee and turned to help a customer.
Three days had past and talk of auditioning to be a Texan's cheerleader had been all but forgotten. The flyers had all been taken and I was starting to think I was off the hook. Then Brittany came bouncing in, all smiles and bubbly and stuff, like a cheerleader should be, two large yellow envelopes in her hand. I felt more than heard myself groan at the sight.
"Hey Morgan! Have you gone online and registered yet?" When I shook my head no she smiled. "I didn't think you would have, figured you'd chicken out on it, so I went ahead and registered for you. Here is your packet, you just have to fill those papers out and then we need to go shopping for some crazy cute outfits for this try out!" Without breaking her smile she bounded into the back to set her things down and clock in.
I shook my head and laughed to myself. Walking over to a corner seat, I sat and took the papers out of the envelope to glance them over. Brittany was right as bad as I hated to admit it all. I had come here looking for a change and a challenge and this was just that. It would require me to get out of my comfort zone, to put myself on display and open to judgment. Was I ready for that? I didn't know honestly, the thought did kind of scare me, but come what may, I was going to give this my best shot. I took a pen from my hair, they always seemed to get stuck there during a long day, and started to fill in the blank spots on the forms as an odd excitement took hold of me.
Thursday of that week Brittany and I were both off of work so we met up to go and look for something to wear for our auditions. According to our packet we had to wear something that would show off our figures and flatters us while being classy. There were photos to give samples of outfits that would be appropriate so we set out to find the required things. I felt insecure just looking through the racks of boy shorts and stylish sport bras. Who knew that sport bras came in all these designs? I mean they went under clothes so who cared if there was a cut out just above your breasts or if the straps were one shouldered or all lacy crisscrossed in the back?
"Ugh, these are all going to show so much skin," I complained.
"As if you don't have the perfect body to show it? Girl, you're gonna look great, I promise."
Brittany had already chosen three pairs of shorts and twice as many tops to try on and here I was, one pair of shorts in my hands.
As I watched her head to a dressing room I grabbed three tops off the rack and another pair of the short, near cheek showing shorts and followed. Closing and locking my door, I began to undress and my nerves began sizzling. I was beyond nervous. Slipping the navy boy shorts on, I cringed. I felt near naked. I pulled a red, one shouldered top over my head and noticed that it had cuts just above my breasts and a small amount of cleavage was visible. The one single strap was solid until it reached my collar bone, then it split into three smaller straps to cross my back. It was cute, but I was so exposed. I wasn't used to dressing this way and people seeing me. I felt insanely self-conscious.
"Come on out already, I wanna see how you look!"
I eased open the dressing room door and allowed Brittany to see the barely there outfit. Her eyes got wide and her smile wider and I felt like crawling into a cave. Then she squealed and jumped up and down, clapping her hands.
"That's it. You have to get that one. It looks amazing on you! We can get it home and add some sparkle and shine to the top, through here and here," she said, motioning to the one shoulder and around the cut out areas. "It is perfect. Please tell me you know how great you look Morgan."
I wrinkled up my nose and shook my head. "I feel half naked, far too exposed. I mean I guess for the purpose it's okay though. You however look wonderful. I could never wear the all red." We slipped back into the dressing rooms and I tried on the two other tops, one navy that had a lacy, racer style back to it, and one white that was a simple and plain halter style that even tied behind the neck so you had that cute bow look. I didn't really want to try on more so I bought the three tops and the navy shorts along with a red pair. I tried to hide my shock at paying near one hundred and fifty dollars for the five small pieces of fabric. How on earth could they really be worth that much!
We walked out on the sidewalk and Brittany looked at me with a smile. "Come to my place, we can bedazzle and junk, sparkle up these plain old things."
I nodded and followed her as we walked the two blocks to her apartment. It was cute and quirky, loft style, and very Brittany. She had it decorated with bright pillows on the plain sofas and chairs, bright bunches of flowers, and black and white pictures on the exposed brick walls. It was a nice combination.
"Want some tea or water or anything?"
"Tea sounds great thanks," I said. "This place is totally adorable. I love it, the black and white with the pops of the bright teals and reds and yellows. It's beautiful together."
"Well thank you," Brittany said. "Here's your tea. Make yourself at home while I go grab some craft supplies real fast."
I took a seat at the table and pulled my tops from the bag, laying them all out on the table. Brittany was back within five minutes with fabric glue, glue guns, and a huge array of all kinds of sparkly gems. "The goal," she said to me, "is to sparkle enough to catch their eyes but not so much that you look like a drag queen."
I laughed and she started in on her tops and after a minute so did I. This was something else that was all new to me, crafting things into something more than they were before. Thirty minutes into it and one top done, I was having fun and was really enjoying myself. Maybe this was a hobby that I'd have to look into more.
"So, have you seen the guys on the team? I mean, if we make it, at least we have some crazy hot eye candy to cheer on." Brittany smiled brightly.
I laughed. She would be thinking of that. "If I do this it isn't for the eye candy."
She shook her head at me and it only made me laugh harder. "Come on Morgan, just wait til you see all those tight asses in those tight pants. Even you won't be able to not look and appreciate the hotness therein."
She was serious. And it was hilarious to me. I laughed as we finished up our tops and talked about crafting. I learned where to shop for things and even to take classes on different style crafts. I decided that on Monday, which was my next off day, I'd be heading to the local craft shop and taking a scrapbooking class and picking up some easy beginner style craft things. It gave me something to look forward to, and something to take my mind off of this insane idea of trying to be a cheerleader.
