It was a weekend afternoon before the start of a new school year when my mom called me to the telephone.
“It’s your coach,” my mom said, handing me the phone. There was a look of curiosity in her eyes – excitement, even. I felt it too.
Being on the cheerleading squad was a huge deal. Finally I would be popular. Finally I would be accepted at this new school that was completely backwards from my old school.
I remembered how, when I first found out I’d made the squad, I’d screamed with such unbridled glee that the cheerleading coach had rolled her eyes at me. Ever since then, I’d been trying to win her over, trying to get her attention. At cheerleading camp, I had worked my hardest, practiced every move until I could barely lift my arms to put my hair in a ponytail.
Why was she calling me? Had I finally convinced her that I deserved my place and she needed me for something important? School was starting soon; perhaps she had a special task for me.
“This is Kristen,” I said into the phone.
“Hello Kristen,” said my coach.
She didn’t sound very perky for a cheerleading coach. She had smoker’s voice. “Listen,” she said matter-of-factly, “there’s really no way to say this nicely, but it has to be said… I have to ask you something… There’s… a rumor going around.”
My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach and my ears lit on fire. It was something terrible, I just knew it; her voice was horribly cold.
My parents and sister were in the house, not exactly listening, but they could still hear my side of the conversation. There was no way to hide a conversation in my house, tied to the phone in the middle of the living room.
I tried to act cool. “Okay… What is it?”
There was a brief pause, and then: “Are you pregnant?”
Um, whoa.
I had to work really hard to control my emotions. Tears sprang immediately to my eyes. My heart pounded. I was not pregnant, nor had I ever been. But what could I say to her to make her believe me without giving away the conversation to my entire family? I decided to defend myself even if it meant my family would hear.
“No! I’m not! I don’t even have a boyfriend!” After I said it I realized how completely irrelevant my statement had been.
“Rumors.”
Of course she believed I had been sleeping around.
“Are you sure you’re not pregnant?” my coach asked.
What kind of question was that?
“Yes! I’m sure. I’m NOT.” And then I added, because I knew what she was thinking, “And I never have been, either, ever in my life. I don’t even have a boyfriend!” I reiterated my irrelevant statement, trying to imply, to pretend, that I was the type of girl who couldn’t even fathom sleeping with someone I wasn’t exclusively dating. I wasn’t crying, but my voice had that weird unnecessarily high-pitched quality of someone in a panic.
“Because if you are, Kristen, or if you need time to recover from… anything… then it’s really better if you just tell me now, so we can get another girl on the team to fill your spot before the school year starts. It wouldn’t be fair to the other girls to wait.”
My hands shook. Everything shook. “But I’m not. It’s not like I could hide it! You – you can ask my mom.” My mom would believe me. She would defend me. Even after everything I’d done, all the lies I’d told, she would know. She always knew if I was telling the truth or not.
“No, that’s quite all right… Okay… I believe you.” I knew she was thinking I could hide it if I wanted to, could get pregnant and have an abortion and no one would ever be the wiser, not even my own mother. Girls did it all the time, didn’t they?
“You understand, I had to ask. For the team.”
“Yes, I understand.” And in that moment, I did understand, because I was young and stupid and trusting, and thought that cheerleading team solidarity was more important than my own dignity and right to privacy. It was years before I realized what a horrible thing my coach had done.
I already believed I was a slut; did she really need to confirm it for me?
Of course, there was nothing I could ever say to convince my coach that I wasn’t pregnant. It never came up again, but I think I went through that entire school year, and probably through the rest of my high-school career, with everyone certain that I had been pregnant, and had miscarried or had an abortion.
To this day, when I think of that humiliating phone call, I get a knot in the pit of my stomach. I always think of it when I see something in the media having to do with “slut-shaming.”
I fantasize about finding my old cheerleading coach and telling her, “You know, I really wasn’t pregnant, I swear!”
Sadly, pathetically, the teenager in me still wants to convince her.
That’s how I know how wrong she was.
14 Comments
Someone i went to high school with, who was supposed too be my “friend” was spreading a rumor about me after freshman year in college that I had AIDS. I mean, who does that? I had another friend tell me what was being said. I couldn’t believe it. Still, too this day, I don’t know what I did to deserve that. I’m sorry that you had to go through that. People suck.
OMG. That’s at least as despicable as what happened to me. Awful. I know I have some good high school memories… but honestly many of them are clouded over by these types of moments….
I wish, just once, a girl would grab the coach’s hand, drag her into the bathroom, and make her watch as she peed on a stick to prove, that NO, NOT PREGNANT! That might deter her from ever doing that to another girl again.
I wonder if she did that sort of thing to other girls. She actually ended up quitting coaching the next year because her daughter didn’t make the team, so at least I only had her that one year. =)
I can relate to the shaking you experienced in that moment — that happened to me, as a teenager (usually, talking to my mother) and a few times afterward, when I was actually really angry but I believed that the person I was talking to held all the power and could “ruin me,” and thus I had to pretend that I wasn’t angry and simply submit. These days, I don’t find that happening as often because I think I’ve realized that there are few, if any, people out there who can “ruin me” in the way I feared.
Oh yes I was terribly insecure as a teenager, hyper-focused on trying to impress people, trying to be special, smart, beautiful… I was never happy just to BE (myself). I’ve got a much better handle on these things now. =)
Horrible. Absolutely horrible. I wish you had handed the phone to your mother and your mother had chewed her out. At least that’s my fantasy version of this story.
OMG I wonder what my mom would’ve said. I’m pretty sure she would’ve had a few choice words for that crazy b**ch. 😉
Rumors are evil. My twin sister and I were called the lesbian twins even though we arent lesbians and if we were it certainly wouldnt be with each other!
Oh that is diabolical. Damn from all these comments I am realizing I am SO not alone in experiencing this kind of thing!
What a horrible thing to have happen and what’s so upsetting is no one can tell themselves a story like “well, this couldn’t happen today”. It absolutely could and probably is. Thanks for sharing. I hope it increases awareness that adults can slut-shame, too, so that everyone can be aware and prepared to advocate for and protect kids today.
Yep – these comments are making me realize it happens to lots of people. I think many times young girls are too ashamed to talk about this stuff. (I was!)
Faculty should be above the rumors of teenage girls. Period. There was no reason for her to dignify that rumor unless you did, in fact, show up to cheerleading practice 8 months later unable to touch your own toes. Only then should she be allowed to show concern for the rumor! 🙂 This reminds me of my arch nemesis in school who was new, and coincidentally, really was a ho. She fulfilled her destiny after high school by becoming a stripper at the local peep show. And I lived in a small town. This is not a glorified position. You don’t have to be pretty. You don’t even have to have teeth. Still…maybe at first she was just misunderstood? Idk she was a mean, nasty girl…so it really has nothing to do with this story. But I like to ramble. And I’ve missed your blog…so…bye.
LOL – It sounds like you needed to vent! That would be hard to work into a fashion blog! 😉