“What? That’s too much!”
“Don’t waste time. Fewer reps, heavier weights.” She walks back to the mat. “I’m just trying to help you.”
I pick up the weights, and my arms fall immediately with the burden. Simone’s tapping the clipboard.
Grunting, I get into position.
“Start!” Simone barks.
I squat and stand, sure I look like a weightlifter at the Olympics as my legs wobble. Sweat beads assemble on my forehead, ready to cascade.
“Good! I can tell you can feel it now.” Her pen moves across the clipboard. “It’s going to kill—I promise you. You’re going to love it.”
The front of my shirt is soaked as I switch to lunges. A swirl of hair releases itself from my ponytail. Others join it, frizzy and free.
“I’m impressed,” Simone encourages me. “This is what it’s all about.”
I move on to mat exercises and after the last crunch lie there spread-eagle and panting, my hair a tangled ball around my red face.
Tats sticks her head in and obstructs my view of the ceiling.
“Get up,” she says. “You have a visitor.”
I get to my feet, pulling on her hand because my core is done for the day. I look over at the locker room, expecting some mutual friend of ours, but Tats shifts me to face the weight room, a separate facility that is connected to the gymnasium through an inconspicuous door.
Jeremy is there, raising his hand for a small wave.
If it had been the 1800s, I would’ve fainted right there.
As it’s the twenty-first century, I go like this:
Recovering, I wave back meekly and weakly, my mind scrambling to make sense of this latest development. My hair is showing to a guy. A guy unrelated to me.
To a guy I freakin’ like.
This is so against my religion, I’m actually flummoxed for the first time since learning the word.
I turn to Tats, who’s grinning like she’s proud of her baby’s first step.
“What the hell?” I ask her, smiling lightly in the general direction of Jeremy, who is beaming and kind of acting like he’s waiting for me to walk my frizzy-hair self over to him.
“This is his spare period, and I was like, perfect, an opportunity for Jeremy to see the real Janna!” says Tats. “But what happened to your hair?” she whispers. “And why are you soaking wet? Ugh, is that sweat?”
“Tats, how long has Jeremy been here?” Has he seen my whole Olympian efforts?
“Since the beginning. Why?”
Simone hands me the clipboard and positions herself, taking a deep breath. There’s an assemblage of enormous weights parallel to the mat, ready for her.
I pretend to watch her do sets of squats while grasping huge weights. The girl has Madonna arms.
“This is so not cool,” I say to Tats, unclasping my bangs from a barrette halfheartedly holding them. I flip them over correctly, along the most flattering part in my hairline. “He’s not supposed to see my hair, remember?”
Tats leans over and smooths the back of my hair. “Relax, it’s just one guy. And it’s just your hair. Dead matter according to Mr. McKay.”
“Actually, it’s my arms and legs, too,” I say, looking at my T-shirt and shorts, feeling exposed, wishing Mom’s coverall prayer outfit would suddenly appear. It’s like a hazmat suit, with a skirt instead of pants.
“You’re wearing huge culottes compared to Lauren’s awesome teeny shorts,” Tats reassures me. “And arms are like nothing, especially in your loose top.”
“Why don’t you just call them my state-issued phys ed pantaloons and balloon blouse while you’re at it?” I say, getting irritated at the way she’s periodically grooming me and then glancing Jeremy’s way.
Jeremy’s talking to Ms. Eisen, and whatever he’s saying is making her laugh. I forgot, he’s like some star on the baseball team.
Simone stops. “How many sets was that?” she asks.
“Um, six?” I say.
She repositions and begins again.
“Tats, get him out of here. I don’t feel right about this,” I say. Should I grab Simone’s workout towel, a facecloth, and lay it on my head like a doily at the center of a coffee table? Or beeline to the locker room?
“Jan, just pretend you don’t see him,” Tats says. “He has every right to use the weight room. And tomorrow, put some leave-in conditioner in your hair before class.”
If Jeremy wasn’t looking over right at that point, I would hit her on the head with the clipboard.
Ms. Eisen walks over to us.
“Tats, disappear; Eisen is on her way,” I say, moving my pen across the chart in a series of squiggles. “Get to your partner now.”
“My partner’s away, so Eisen already did my exam,” says Tats. “Hi, Ms. Eisen.”
Ms. Eisen nods at her and then motions for Simone to stop. “I need to talk to Janna here.”
“Me?” I ask.
Ms. Eisen takes the clipboard from me and hands it to Tats. “Tatyana, take over for Janna. Janna, walk with me.”
I succeeded all year in escaping Ms. Eisen’s radar by being the average Jane or, in my case, the average Janna, and doing everything so-so. How is it that with less than two weeks left to go until year-end, she’s walking with me now?
“Janna, I’m going to get a male student, a senior, to help me with our last couple of gym periods. I want to play softball to finish the year off, and Jeremy’s on Fenway’s baseball team. I’m telling you because of your hajeeb.”
When she’d first used “hajeeb” I’d kindly pointed out it was hijab. She told me some words were too hard for her to pronounce, so “hajeeb” it is in gym class. Tats said I should have asked her why she has no problem pronouncing Genevieve’s name.
A good question I dare not ask.
I glance at Jeremy as we pass him. He’s pretending he isn’t aware of us, but I know he didn’t need that much concentration to roll up his left sleeve.
“Well, it’s going to be outside, right?” I say.
“Yes, but we’ll be doing drills inside first—especially tomorrow, with that heat wave forecast.”
“Oh, because if it’s outside, I’ll be in hijab anyway,” I say. “It’s okay, Ms. Eisen.”
“Well, I was telling you, not really asking your permission.” Ms. Eisen begins walking away and then turns back and says, “Don’t you need your hajeeb right now? Five minutes till bell rings, so go get changed now.”
She blows her whistle to gather the other girls.
I jog to the locker room, but before going in, I go Bollywood and pause to look at him again. He’s standing and watching me, in my pantaloons and frizzy hair. With a nice smile on his face, like he likes what he sees.
Right at that moment, I feel like the most beautiful girl in the world.
? ? ?
Soon-Lee scribbles me a note. This is crazy. Want to study today? After school?
I nod. When we walked into math today, Mr. Mason handed out a ten-page package, copied back to back, entitled “A Course Review.” As I flipped through, I noticed that there were at least four topics I didn’t remember learning anything about. A hush fell over everyone as we went through our notes, the textbook, and “A Course Review,” trying to find links to what we were taught this year.