a most unusual cheerleader

          After supper at a pizza place I walked around to see the shops, though most were closed at six.  The usual, hardware store, stationery store, hair salon . . . I turned my steps back to the green, then I see the high school is a couple of blocks away.  As I approach I see an open door and I hear cheering, apparently a basketball game.  It looks like anyone can walk in.  I do and I climb up the stands, almost stepping on people, kids and parents, and squeeze in to one of the last available spots, up on the top row.  The Pumas are playing the “Ravens”, from a neighboring town.  It’s a close game but they’re winning.  The gym is in constant pandemonium.  Every time a boy scores, his name is called out in the cheering.  In this small town everybody knows everybody.

            I look around.  The reason I’m here, of course, is to see if that naked girl is here.  I feel like a stalker; I must be three times her age.  You can hardly blame me though.  I turn here and there, trying to find her in the stands.

            Whoa!  I see a couple of bare feet resting flat on the hardwood floor.  She must be sitting in the front row.  Now a flash of a bare shoulder.  Time out, and the cheerleaders jump out onto the floor.  Including her!

            There are eight girls up there, swinging their pom-poms.  The naked girl is second from the right.  They’re pretty well practiced, all moving in sync, the hard clap of saddle shoes hitting the floor all at once in rhythm, though I can detect the thud of bare soles too.  They twirl, their short skirts flying outward like little pinwheels, and she’s spinning and jumping right along with her clothed teammates, even though she has no skirt to twirl.  Her breasts are about the size of oranges and bounce up and down, I suppose the other girls’ breasts are bouncing too, though a lot less, constricted by their bras, and the cute little red and white blouses with the Puma head on them.  The naked girl has no Puma head on her, of course, just her nudity.  Only the red-and-white pom-poms identify her as one of the cheerleaders.  It’s at this point that I realize this girl is gorgeous.  A beautiful face, a little dark-skinned.  Possibly South Asian.  Also she has a perfect body.  No tan lines -- she looks like she’s been naked her whole life.  A stranger to clothes.  I notice something else -- her fingernails and toenails are unpainted and closely cut.  Not like her friends’ -- I can’t see their toenails of course, but their fingernails are fashionably long and brightly painted, red, blue, orange, white.  Also her hair, which is black and straight, shoulder length, is unstyled.  The lack of nail polish, the lack of hair style, makes her look even more naked.  Or maybe the right word is “untouched”.

            Play resumes and the cheerleaders sit down.  A few minutes later they’re up again.  Now halftime.  It’s hot in the gym so most go outside.  I follow.  Miss Naked is chatting in a small group under a big tree.  She leans back against it, bracing one bare foot on the rough bark.  If she’s bothered by the scraping against her bare back she gives no sign. There are three girls with her, two of them fellow cheerleaders, and two boys.  The boys don’t give her nudity a second glance.  Teenage boys not looking at a naked girl’s body??  She seems to be more a talker than a listener.  Popular girl, talkative . . . entirely normal . . . Listening in to the conversation (while pretending to be looking for someone) I find that her name is Sukie.  Probably a nickname.

            To tell the truth I don’t find the basketball game very interesting so I stay outside and find a reason to walk around.  Half an hour later it’s over and I hang out while everyone comes out, pretending I’m looking for someone. Sukie comes out with what I assume are her parents -- the father a burly, dark-skinned man with a mustache, the mother a skinny blond white woman -- and her younger sister.  They hang out, talking to some other parents.  Then what must be her brother comes out, all showered, one of the boys on the team.  The family packs into an SUV and drives off.

            Back in the motel, struggling with the molasses-speed wi-fi, I google the name of this town, and “naked”, and “Sukie”.  No hits.