Smile

Noise. That was the first impression Mim got when she walked through the open double doors. Unorganized noises coming from every direction. Most of it was talking, but the size of the gymnasium gave everyone their own personal magnification and the voices were falling all over each other. Pounding music carved out its niche with a bass that made Mim's ears ache. Staccato smacks of basketballs hitting the linoleum set a counterpoint that constantly got out of beat.

It was noisy, and then there was the smell. As Mim walked into the room and towards the bleachers where everyone was sitting the smell got stronger. She hauled herself up several rows and sat by the rail. The smell of peoples' sweat and body paint had combined, like their voices, to absorb any other subtle traces. Everyone was supposed to smell different, Mim thought, but in this situation they'd become one large body. She wondered if she smelled the same.

A covert glance across the bleachers didn't reveal much about the audience. They were all talking and laughing and waving their arms around, sending up whooping cheers now and again. When she forced herself to focus on one person at a time she began to recognize some faces from around the campus. Everyone was engaged.

Libby Crosse was a girl that Mim was acquainted with. They had been in a class together last year. The two didn't talk to each other much but Libby had been friendly. At the beginning of the new school year she waved to Mim one time after recognizing her. She'd told Mim she could hang out with her any time. Libby was sitting towards the center of the bleachers but Mim didn't relocate herself. The other girl was ringed by her friends and deeply absorbed in a conversation with them. If she went over there, Mim knew, they would let her sit down but their conversation would end. She didn't want to put herself in the way like that.

On the court the basketball teams were warming up, shooting in squadrons. It wasn't very smart to Mim. When three basketballs arced towards the same hoop they always rebounded against each other and none of them could get in to score. Sometimes, though, the balls would all go in in a rapid succession. That was a sight.

She hadn't been sitting long and already her backside was getting sore. The bleachers were hard and smooth from lacquering, and they rattled whenever anyone got too rowdy. Every row shuddered and rambled when people walked up and down them. Mim adjusted her legs and leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees. The people around her didn't seem to be experiencing as much discomfort as she was.

A strange mumbling had fallen lightly on top of the noise and Mim realized that someone on the court was talking into a microphone. She couldn't pull their words out of the potluck, however. Occasionally the audience would start screaming in support of what the boy was saying, but Mim couldn't figure out why. A single word was audible among the noise: support.

Mim gave up on trying to follow the speaker. A bright flash glanced off her eyes and she looked down along the bleachers. Someone was taking pictures of people who crushed together in tight bunches. Unconsciously she leaned away from the scene. She was too high up to be caught in the photograph, but she'd always hated getting her picture taken.

It didn't help, then, when she noticed the woman controlling the camcorder across the court, near the doors where Mim had entered. She hadn't been there before that Mim could recall and for some reason it disturbed her. She hunched down a little, wishing she had sat closer to a large group of people. While she wasn't the most spectacular individual, sitting alone had a way of making a person stand out in undesirable ways.

Something always went wrong when Mim had her picture taken. This could be said for most anyone, she supposed, but it really seemed to stick out for her. Her current ID card wasn't as bad as past photos. Nothing could ever top the newscast, though, so that wasn't saying much.

A camera team had come to her high school two years ago with a new headline making the rounds: High school students were being deprived of sleep and as a result were dozing off in classes, hurting their education. They'd crammed into her Spanish classroom that day and circled the desks like sharks. Mim's classmates smiled and giggled with bubbly energy; not exactly what the camera man was looking for. Mim, on the other hand, was resting her chin in her hand and trying not to pay attention to the intruders. She'd closed her eyes for a while, and when she opened them they were gone.

It wasn't until later that Mim saw herself on the TV, practically drooling on her desk. The shot appeared on the screen for about three seconds, probably, but it had lodged itself in Mim's memory for good. To make matters worse her parents had recorded the newscast, saying they wanted the family to see it too. They thought it was funny. Mim never let them take her picture again. If she knew they were holding a camera she stood behind them. It had been quite a problem after Graduation. Her parents still complained sometimes that they had no pictures of her in her maroon cap and gown.

After that Mim had developed an acute awareness of cameras and video recorders wherever she went. She didn't think of it as arrogance to fear being targeted. It had happened once before, it could happen again.

Why had she bothered to come? No one expected her to make an appearance at this thing. She didn't really know anybody to make plans for meeting there, anyway. It had been such a sudden, thoughtless decision, before she could talk herself out of it.

Mim was no stranger to isolation. In fact, she rather liked to have her privacy. What she liked to laugh over, she didn't think many other people here did, so it hadn't really bothered her. But sometimes… sometimes, that odd desire to be around other people, just to be near them, took hold of her and made her do some stupid things. Such as going to pep rallies.

At her high school, pep rallies had had mandatory attendance policies. She never could understand why, but she didn't try very hard. They had been noisy and smelly, too, and her peers had shown a more destructive rowdiness than the people around her now. Toilet paper became restricted at her high school because of some pep rallies that got out of control. The students didn't want to be there and it showed. They were crowded onto those bleachers like cattle in a freight train.

It was different here. The people had actually wanted to come. Even though she'd told herself she would never go to a pep rally again after getting out of high school, she'd gone. It was just an experiment, she reasoned, to see if it was any better. It had to be different, surrounded by people who wanted to be there. She wanted to be there, too, even if she didn't.

She didn't know anything about basketball. The players who were bouncing on the court were all unfamiliar to her. There was a distinct absence of school spirit in her. She'd known, however, that many people would be showing up to the pre-game raffles and challenges between the different year classes. It was an open admission affair. Why shouldn't she go?

It was noisy and smelled sweaty and she looked desperately lonely, Mim thought. She never liked this kind of gathering. Despite these reasons she remained seated, now with her legs up on the row of bleachers below hers and her arms crossed over her knees. As long as she kept changing her position her backside wouldn't get too sore.

There was a tug-of-war competition beginning. The Senior class was pulling against the Freshmen, and all of the audience was in an uproar. Mim looked hard at the two teams on the court and thought she could tell which was which. She glanced around her at the people who sat nearby. They were jumping up and shrieking and laughing. Go, Seniors! Put the Freshmen in their place!

She sat quietly for a time while the teams yanked against each other. Sometimes one began to give, but just before the winner was called they would redouble their efforts and the bleachers would ring with shouts. Moving her legs to fold close against her seat Mim straightened and started to cheer.

It was about as effective as throwing a bucket of water into the ocean. Mim couldn't hear herself in all of the roaring, but she could feel her throat vibrating with the effort. She stopped, glancing around with a furtive eye. Nobody was looking at her. She shouted again, louder, and could just hear the timbre of her voice peaking above the immediate noise.

"Come on, put your backs into it!"

She didn't know why she said that, exactly, but after she did her heart was trilling and her mouth felt cottony. The Seniors were beginning to lose ground again.

"Don't give up now!"

A sound of awe transformed the collective cheers as the rope snapped and sent both teams tumbling back against the far walls. In the immediate aftereffect many people laughed, Mim included on a more subdued level. To see all of those legs fly into the air at once was bizarre. Everyone was checked. No injuries. They called it a draw.

A flash of light turned the court into a dark fog for a moment. Mim blinked her eyes several times, trying to clear them, and her gaze went down the bleachers towards the floor. A woman with a camera was lowering it from her face. She smiled at Mim, then went on her way.

The cheering went on as another challenge was introduced but Mim had stopped paying attention. She sat very small and pinpointed the locations of all the cameras in the gymnasium. None were near her. The camcorder by the doors was focused on the court.

She wanted to feel violated, somehow, but she couldn't. Someone had taken her picture while she was preoccupied. How had she looked to that woman? Lonely? Out of place? Foolish?

When the next college paper was published Mim would find her photo on one of the inside pages. Its caption described a girl who was enthusiastically supporting her fellow classmates, caught up in the spirit of the event.