The Hardest Cut by Jamie Bennett (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

and pumped her fists a few times before she joined the group who’d made it through to the second round.

I counted on my fingers as the woman called the numbers.  Now there were fourteen spots left, then eleven, then eight.  Then four.  My heart started to pound very hard in my chest and the women around me looked as anxious and unhappy as I felt.  I was number seventeen.  I closed my eyes and pictured large, Woodsmen-orange digits, a one and a seven, and I tried to project it to the woman looking at the list on her screen.  The woman who controlled my destiny, I told myself.  Say it.  Say, “Seventeen!”

“Number seven—”

I drew in a gulp of air, but her voice had stopped.  Number seven smiled hugely, giggled, and skipped to the front.  My breath stuttered out of my lungs.  Three spots left.

“Twenty-four.”  That was the woman whom I had overheard in the parking lot threatening violence if she didn’t make it, so I was almost glad to see her claim a place.  But it meant that there were only two spots left.  Several women started to cry, knowing that most of us weren’t going to get called.  Our numbers were up.

Please.  Please, please, please, please please please please—

“Seventeen.”

I didn’t move at first, and I didn’t react at all.  “Seventeen?” she repeated questioningly into the mic, and I managed to hold up my hand like I was in math class instead of a cheer team audition.  I didn’t remember walking but suddenly I was there with the chosen group, and the girl with the final number called joined us as well.  The other women hugged me, except Addison.  She only said that now the ass-kicking would begin and she hoped I was ready.  But she didn’t look very hopeful when she said it.

Everyone who wasn’t picked stood there disconsolately, silently wiping their cheeks or sobbing out loud.  I felt terrible for them, and I didn’t celebrate with the other women who had made it.  I had been through things too, so that I understood how it felt to have your heart broken, your dreams ripped down into little, useless pieces.  The judge who had called the numbers said a few more nice things into her microphone and then signaled to Lyle the security guard, who began to escort those women out of the stadium.

In a daze, I followed the winnowed-down group into the auditorium, where Rylah and two of the other judges were waiting.  “Hi there,” she said to us, wearing her big smile.  “Congratulations on making it past prelims!”

The other women cheered for themselves and I clapped, too.

“Have a seat,” she told us, pointing to the plastic chairs we all had perched on earlier as we’d waited for auditions to begin.  Now there were only twenty-two of them lined in a long row.  “There are a few things we need to go over before we bring you back for more.”

First, she let us know that no one was sure of making the team.  “Not any one of you should think that the coast is clear,” she said.  “You’re going to have to work your butts off to prove yourselves.”  She glared around as she announced this, but then went back to smiling.  “The returning squad has the upper hand due to their experience, but there’s no reason to think that you wouldn’t be able to compete with them!  Stay positive,” she advised.  “And that being said, I do have a few specific criticisms for each of you.  Things you’ll need to work on before the second round of auditions when you’ll be dancing next to the real Woodsmen cheerleaders.”

She started reading from a list on her phone of all the things that our group needed to do to improve.  Rylah mentioned topics like better outfits (“more coverage” she told Addison, who was nearly nude), bigger smiles, putting in more effort, or in the case of number eighty-two, showing less effort on her face.

“It’s supposed to be fun,” she reminded eighty-two, who frowned heavily and nodded seriously.

“Fun, fun,” the woman repeated, pounding her fist into her thigh as she said the word.  “Fun, ok, I can do fun.”

I foresaw problems there, and Rylah shrugged and went on.  “Less sweat,” she ordered twenty-one, whom I had spotted as an awesome dancer but who currently looked like she had taken a bath or been caught in a rainstorm.

“I don’t know how to…ok, I’ll make that happen,” the woman said, quickly agreeing when Rylah pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows.

The scary one, the woman who had never been past preliminaries in her five previous auditions, was told to put more personality into her moves.  I wondered what that would bring out in her, and I hoped that it wasn’t a weapon.  Number thirty-three showed too much confidence but number ninety didn’t show enough.  Then…

“Seventeen.  Gaby?”  Rylah looked straight at me.  “Polish up the dancing.”

It felt like an arrow to my heart.  I knew that I wasn’t the best in the room, but I had thought that I’d sold it.  Apparently, I hadn’t, and bad dancing wasn’t something that I could fix overnight, like a bigger smile or more rhinestones on my bra top.  I couldn’t even fix it by Thursday, when we had the next round of auditions.

“One more note for all of you ladies,” Rylah said.  “You’ve just made an important first step that may lead you to becoming Woodsmen cheerleaders!”  She waited a beat, and we obediently clapped.  “But several things can derail this journey.  By that I mean, if you’re rude and have bad attitude, if you don’t work your hardest, if you step out of line in any way…”  She glared down the row of chairs at each of us.  “Any of that, and you’re done.  Out.  Huevos y jamón,” she told us sternly.

I looked to my left and number nine, the woman who had said she was bilingual and had spoken in Spanish when she introduced