Three T-shirts

Paige Lorell has too many t-shirts to count. Most of them are formfitting, and short enough to show off her nicely tanned midriff; but three are not. Three are the nasty, too-long, short sleeves down to your elbows unisex kind. One is white, one is black, and one is blue, but all three are littered with checkmarks. You see Paige Lorell, the five foot six blond, cheerleader, and beauty queen extraordinaire only dates jocks.

She understands sports only vaguely, just enough to know when to cheer, so the sport they play doesn’t really matter.
Her freshman year the football team made it to playoffs, so the white t-shirt reads “Brighton High school Bunnies Varsity football team state play-offs ‘05”; the back of the t-shirt lists the names of all the varsity football players. The white shirt has fifteen checkmarks.

A similar event happened her sophomore year with the baseball team, so the black shirt reads “Brighton high school Bunnies Varsity baseball team state play-offs ‘06”; the back lists all the varsity baseball players. The black shirt has five checkmarks.

The blue t-shirt is from her junior year. This one reads “BHS Bunnies Varsity Basketball team state play-offs ‘07” and has only eight check marks on the back.
Today she goes to her closet, and silver sharpie in hand she draws a neat checkmark next to number 15, Brian McKay of the baseball team on the black t-shirt. She broke up with Brian last night, and their two week relationship has temporarily tired her of baseball players. Because she and Brian are officially over, it’s time for what she has fondly nicknamed her boyfriend shopping routine.

With Brian now forever banished from her mind, she picks up the white and blue t-shirts. She looks between the two thoughtfully for a moment before deciding on number 36, Michael Larson of the football team. She tosses the t-shirts back onto their shelf, then closes her closet door and walks quickly to her drawers. She reaches them, opens the top one and pulls out a large box. The box contains three bundles of index cards: one for football players, one for baseball players, and one for basketball players. Each card contains a small profile of each player on the three teams, including name, picture and phone number. They are alphabetically organized so she finds Michaels’s card and looks at her calendar thoughtfully. “I’ll give him a week” she says to herself. Then she picks up the phone and dials his number.

In exactly a week she’s back in her closet, repeating the routine. After all, this is her junior year and she still has eighty six checkmarks to go. Paige Lorell is a cheerleader, with a mission.