Most jocks being meatheads...

I paid for our meal and tried not to cringe as the waitress said goodbye to us.

“Don’t mind those old truckers. They’re harmless,” Phyllis assured us. “They hardly know how to act around pretty girls.”

Megan laughed and responded, “If they give us trouble, we’ll sic our boyfriends on them.”

I thought she laughed a little too hard at that. I didn’t dare make a sound for fear of it coming out as giggles. I just smiled, waved at Phyllis, and made my way to the door, getting there just in time for the arrival of two more truckers. Before I could push through, one of them had opened the door from outside and stood there, holding it open for me.

The raisin bread French toast, eggs, sausage, syrup and juice, jostled around inside me, but I resisted getting sick.

Megan came up behind me and gave me a little nudge. “Go,” she whispered. “Smile, and say thank you.”

I tried that, but one of the truckers pointed at the number on my jacket sleeve. “Number seventeen,” he said beaming at me. “Is that Gayle Peterson’s jacket?”

I swallowed hard and gulped. How did they know my real first name? I nodded. What else could I do?

They loomed over me, both dressed for the October level of local cold in flannel shirts, puffy jackets and lined caps. The second trucker, grinning widely, exclaimed, “Pete must be your boyfriend!”

“Shit,” I heard someone mutter. It might have been me, but I think it was Megan, who jumped in quickly before I could throw up on the man’s boots.

“No,” she said. “Pete is my boyfriend. I’m just letting Jill wear the jacket ‘cause she gets cold easier than I do.”

Jill? Oh, crap. I’d almost forgotten that Dr. Verre (my gynecologist! Megan’s aunt!) pretends that my name is Jill Hunter at the hospital!

The guys were still talking to us, one of them saying, “Well, Pete had a heck of a night at the game last night. Put on a show running and dodging, then stomping on that Bulldog’s leg!”

I wanted to protest that I hadn’t stomped on Ginger’s leg, but what could I say?

Megan spoke up. “Pete didn’t do it! The ref would have called a penalty if that had happened!”

“Refs don’t see everything,” the other trucker put in. “But we won the game, and that’s the important thing.” Both of them nodded, making me feel even sicker.

I debated making a break for it, running for the car, but the two men politely stepped aside to let us pass. Not without one last zing, though, as one of them observed, “Are you a relative of Pete’s, Miss Jill? You look a bit like him.”

“Cousins,” Megan supplied with her hands on my shoulders, pushing me past the gauntlet. For some reason, we both started running, Megan laughing like a lunatic. By the time we got to the car, I had the hiccoughs from trying not to giggle.

I was glad I hadn’t locked the car doors as I slid behind the wheel, and Megan climbed in on the other side, gasping and still laughing. “Petey, Petey, Pete!” She chortled, thankfully calling me by my preferred name.

“Hic,” I said painfully, holding my side.

“That was hilarious,” Megan said, sliding across the front bench seat next to me. She snuggled up, which would have been nice, but I was too wound up to appreciate it.

“Hic!?” I protested. “I was terrified! Hic.”

“Of what?” she asked. “They’re two of your biggest fans!”

“Oh, Hel-ic-el! Hic!” I glared at her, then pushed her thigh out of the way so I could dig out my keys. But they weren’t in my pants, and I remembered I had put them in the jacket pocket.

I started the car up, and icy air poured out of the vents. We both reached for the controls to turn off the fan, and this set Megan off on another laughing fit. “Pete! Petey! Pete!” She squealed and pulled my face over to hers for a kiss.

“Oh, Jeez! What if they saw us do that?”

She only laughed harder. “We’re kissing cousins!”

“No, I’m supposed to be my cousin, not yours! Oh! Fu-uck!” I wasn’t confused, but it had started to seem funny. And Megan made it worse by digging in my ribs!

“Petey’s got the hiccoughs,” she squealed.

I made sure my foot was still on the brake and tried to tickle her back. That wasn’t working too well, and I pulled on the emergency brake so I could concentrate on retaliation. We were soon both giggling and squealing and squirming around.

We eventually stopped laughing to lie on the wide seat of Mom’s old Chevelle, gasping for breath. “I’m done if you’re done,” I offered.

“Deal,” she agreed. “Is there any heat in this thing?” She punched at the heater controls and was rewarded with an anemic wheeze of non-freezing air. She fiddled with the controls while I got us out of the parking lot and headed back toward the middle of town.

“Where we going?” she asked when I had already passed Airport Road, which was the turnoff to the trailer park where she lived with her folks and a passel of little brothers and sisters. And Travis, her one older brother, I remembered.

“I’ve got to take my equipment and uniform to the school for laundry,” I said. “We didn’t do that last night.”

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “We had other plans.” She giggled again.

“Don’t start,” I warned her. “My ribs are too sore for more laughing.” I swiped a hand across my chest and winced. But that wasn’t my ribs. I had two itchy sore spots there that I didn’t want to think about. Something occurred to me.

“Megan, how did those guys know my name is really Gayle?” Well, Gaylen, but I already knew it was wrong in the school administration records.

She rolled her eyes. “Petey, you’re listed in the program at football games as Gayle ‘Pete’ Peterson.”

“I am?” I didn’t know. I’d never looked at a program. “Has it been that way all season?”

She nodded. “It was that way last year, too. Football and baseball programs, both.”

“Gack! Everyone knows my real first name?” I stared at her, then turned my head back to the street.

“Everyone who reads a program. It’s why Aunt Louva made up the name Jill for you.”

Well, that was one mystery sort of resolved. Still, no one at school called me Gayle, not the teachers, not even the jocks. And wouldn’t some of them have called me Gay, I mean, if they knew? Most jocks being meatheads who would think that was funny?

I turned left at Pecos, and we made our way to the north edge of town, where the new high school had been built four years before. The old high school was now the middle school, nearer the middle of town. I’d never gone there but had played football for the Caballeros at the K-to-8 school at the east end of town. I’d graduated eighth grade and gone directly to the new high school to become a Lion.

Freshman year, I hadn’t been big enough to play varsity but had gone out for the Frosh. This was my fifth year of playing football for a school team. How many programs were out there with my name listed as Gayle?

Chalk it up to another miracle? Shaking my head, I turned into the lot behind the gym and parked under the big Lions’ mural. Another vehicle was already parked there, and I stopped smiling when I saw it. A man I knew well was getting out of the cab of the big Chevrolet Suburban.

“Who’s that?” Megan asked, pointing.

“Coach Wilson,” I answered. “Some of the guys probably gave him their uniforms to turn in.”

“Will he mind that I’m here with you?” she asked.

I shook my head, but I didn’t start to get out of the car.

“What’s the matter?’ Megan asked.

Sure enough, Coach was lugging a big duffel with clothing in the school colors sticking out the top toward the entrance to the boys’ locker room. He waved at us, and Megan waved back.

“Petey?” Megan asked again. “What’s wrong?”

I still hadn’t moved. “What if he doesn’t recognize me? What if he sees me and thinks I’m a girl?”