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let me call her, was a huge Dolphins fan. Despite her stern exterior, we sharedanother couple of interests: shopping and shoes.
    And so began our lifelong friendship. I soon found myself hanging out less with friends, opting instead to spend hours in her office.
    I remember watching Gorillas in the Mist one day and thinking, Oh, my God, that’s it! That’s exactly what I want to do! I want to go live with mountain gorillas in Africa! I was picturing myself wearing camouflage gear in the Rwandan forest, befriending a 400-pound silverback, and waving a machete at poachers when I glanced up at my pink Hello Kitty clock.
    Realizing I was late for practice, I jumped off the couch, wrestled my way into a small black leotard and tights, grabbed my pom-poms, and ran through the door. I figured I could fix hair and makeup in the car. But what I really wanted to do was pick up the phone and call this Leakey guy, who obviously had the financial means and seemingly peculiar bad sense to send Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas, and Jane Goodall to live in the wilds, all of whom had little to no background in primate research.
    I wanted to become one of Leakey’s Angels.
    I wondered if Prada would design me a functional yet stylish backpack. I mean, even if the gorillas didn’t know labels, I saw no reason to go out there looking like, well, a bush woman. Designer khakis and fashionable field boots would become all the rage if I had anything to do with it. But even in my dreamlike state, I realized that my newly found ambition to go live in the forest among apes would not excuse my being late to rehearse next week’s halftime routine, which, curiously, had been choreographed to Robert Palmer’s “Simply Irresistible.”
    I arrived at our rehearsal site, Don Shula’s Gym, where I was greeted by my 31 cheerleading colleagues. Funny how the words “colleague” and “cheerleading” don’t exactly roll off the tongue together. I dabbed on some lip gloss and eavesdropped on the week’s latest gossip, which I have to say almost without exception involved a blonde. “Did you hear that Christine is getting kicked off the squad? She was caught out on a date with one of the running backs!” First or second string? I thought. This was a real no-no in the world of professional cheerleading. We all signed contracts clearly stating that fraternizing with the players would be cause for immediate dismissal. Maybe she didn’t know what “fraternizing” meant, I chuckled to myself. Christine was the best cheerleader on the squad, certainly the prettiest. I was sure she’d be given a stern warning, get benched for a game or two, and then all would go back to normal. But just then Christine came out of the locker room with red, swollen eyes, grabbed her belongings without so much as a word or looking at anyone, and exited the gymnasium. Our coach, without wasting a second, clapped her hands to get our attention back into the room and yelled at us to start stretching. The music came on, fear and curiosity filled the room, and everyone just focused on not becoming the target of our coach’s wrath that day. A wrath that had earned her the secret nickname Hitler.
    After practice, a few of the girls and I decided to get something to eat. We had just spent nine hours burning thousands of calories and had passed our weigh-in for the game with flying colors. We had earned a salad with nonfat dressing on the side.
    After we discussed Christine’s fate and the difficulties of the routines, I asked the girls what they saw themselves doing in the future. It seemed a silly question, even to me. I mean, what better way to spend your weekends than cheering on one of the best teams in the NFL? We did have Dan Marino and Don Shula at the time, and two years in a row we had almost gone to the Super Bowl. Besides, in addition to the $25 we were paid for each game, we were entitled to two free