The Cheer Leader (22 page)

“Yeah, let's get off that subject,” Ray says and touches Anna on the shoulder. “Do you want something to eat?” he asks and Anna nods. Run, run, fast as you can! First and ten, do it again.

“The truth hurts!” Jo Spencer yells. “It is just one of those things that will always be that way!”

“Aren't you going to eat your sandwich?” Pat asks.

“Nope, didn't want it to begin with.” She can put her feet up on the couch! She can put her head in Pat's lap! She can pretend that she is all by herself in her room in Blue Springs. Big old Jaspar is at the end of her bed and he is such a good dog. When he is on her bed, nothing can get her. “Stay Jaspar,” she says. “Stay all night.” She can close her eyes with Jaspar there and she can make her breath go in rhythms. She can breathe to Lassie.

Now, she is like that hair on the shower stall wall; way up high, dry and protected. Nothing will ever get her—jamais plus! Now breathe to a good song, a stardust melody,
a memory of love's refrain. “Meet George Jetson, his boy Elroy.” Red is getting in her head. Get out! He is standing there on the pier that first day, swimming out to the tower, that first day. Make him drown. Watch his head go under and stay, little bubbles before the dead man's float. No, sing a song. What is
Dick Van Dyke
? What was the theme of the May dance? Didn't it have something to do with the universe? “The living creature is a world-order in miniature.” She was the Queen. She reigned, rained. Say those words out loud. You can't tell the difference can you. Reign? Rain?

“Come on, I think you better go.” It is a whisper. She is being lifted up from her warm bed. Or is she on the couch in that pine paneled room and her Daddy has come to take her to that warm bed where only good dreams are dreamed? Open your eyes and see, try to see it all. Pat Reeves is carrying her. They are going to cross the threshold. That shouldn't happen. Why, she can walk by herself. Twist around, get down. There, she is just fine. She wants to stay at the party. All she needed was a little catnap and now, she is just fine.

“Hey, Ray!” she yells. “What was the theme for the May dance?”

“Venus and Mars Are All Right Tonight.”

“Just Venus and Mars? Not the whole galaxy?” She didn't vote for that theme. That's a dumb theme. “You know I stuffed Mars, practically all by myself, I stuffed that chicken wire shit full of red paper—RED! paper.”

“Come on,” Pat says and pulls her to the door. Why is
everyone staring? What do they think that they're doing? Froggy! Look at her sitting there in that tacky skirt like she's somebody!

“Fill your eyes full and then fill your pockets!” Jo Spencer screams and points her finger. “Froggy Frog Face! Croaky bullfrog ridden lily white pad!”

Pat Reeves doesn't go up to her room. He leaves her out in the hallway of the dorm all by herself. He says that if she needs a friend to give him a call. To take care, to be cool. She is cool, very cool, poised and sophisticated. Pat says to call if she needs a friend but that they won't be going out anymore.

“That's just hunky-dory!” she screams and goes up the stairs. First landing—“That's just hunky-dory!” she screams and she can't wait to get to the third landing to scream it again. Fourth landing—loud, louder, loudest! Roommate Becky wants to hear all about the party.

“It was loads of fun!” she says and takes off that big skirt, that fluffy kitty looking sweater. She must get into that nightgown fast. It has been lying there all night just waiting for her to get back into it. Becky wants to know how she got along with Pat. How did she get along with Pat? She is too tired to think about it. She feels like she can go to sleep even though it's night. She just needed to pat Pat to make sure he was still there, but she didn't pet Pat. There is a difference. Pat is pat and that is that. And now, Jaspar big dog can come back and stay all night long.

It is noon when Jo Spencer wakes up and she has a headache but it doesn't bother her. No, she doesn't mind
at all—take two aspirin and call yourself tomorrow. There were no dreams last night. The dream could not get to her because she was so tired. What made her so tired? Going to a party and drinking beer? Drinking not only makes you fall in love but it makes the dream go away. What happened at the party? There are traces of tidbits that resemble nightmares so she must not even think about them. They are not important at all. What is important is that she got a good night's sleep without a dream, and now, she can work very hard. There is so much work to do! A French midterm coming up! A theme to write for English II, a theme of her very own, but right now she must write her poem for next week. She must spend a lot of time on it. She may go out into that bright sunlight and get one Tab and a pack of cigarettes before she begins but then she cannot do anything else until the poem is completed. She cannot take a shower or use the bathroom until the work is done and she already has the beginning figured out, a perfect beginning: I don't dig bloodworms, I buy them packaged like ice cream.

All of “the girls” are going out and Jo Spencer has been asked to go with them even though the only girl she knows, really, is Beck. They are going to eat pizza and then they are going to this bar where everybody who is anybody goes. Naturally, this is where Jo Spencer should be! “No thank you,” she says when the pizza comes and everyone digs in. “I have already eaten.”

“Jo!” Beck says. “All you had was a cup of yogurt! You need to eat!”

“No, Beck,” Jo Spencer says. “That yogurt was dessert. I went out to a late lunch today and ate a big salad bar salad, baked potato, steak and cheesecake at Western Sizzlin.” That isn't true but it is a necessary lie to get Beck off of her back. It is clear that Beck will not understand about the rules and how they must be followed to a tee or something horrible will happen.

“I thought you studied all day,” Beck says. “Who did you go with?” Beck was in the library all day so what she doesn't know can't hurt Jo Spencer.

“I did study most of the day,” she says and fills her glass with beer. “Then Pat Reeves stopped by and wanted to take me to lunch.”

“Looks serious,” Beck says. “Y'all ought to see this guy that Jo dates. He's so cute!”

“He's all right,” Jo Spencer says. “But I told him that I thought we shouldn't go out all the time. You know, I don't want to be tied down.”

“And what I want is to be tied down,” this girl that Jo Spencer doesn't really know says and laughs. That girl really should not express herself so freely. No, that girl should learn to be subtle, discreet.

“I can't believe that you did that, Jo,” Beck says. “I thought you really liked him.”

“It's easy to like something if you don't know what else there is to like,” Jo Spencer says and she can tell that everyone at the table mulls this one over. It is an effective thing to say.

“So, you just really want to play the field!” this other girl says and Jo Spencer smiles like a good Jo Jo and
nods. Now, everyone has forgotten that she is not gorging herself on pizza.

The bar is a nice place to sit. There are lots of little tables and the lights are very dim. There is a band playing at one end and they are very good and very loud. It is a nice feeling the way that the vibrations from the loud sound make Jo Spencer feel like the whole place is rocking. “OOH, that Shakespearian Rag! It's so elegant! So intelligent!” It is too loud to talk and that is fun, too, because she can just drink beer and think, sing along with the band and it doesn't even matter that she does not have a good singing voice because she can't hear herself. As a matter of fact, it is too loud to think and that is a nice feeling, too. People try to talk and sometimes she can read their lips. They say, “Isn't the band good?” Yes, yes, all she has to ever do is nod. Isn't the band good? Yes, nod. “Do you want another beer?” Yes, yes, nod.

When the band takes a break and the lights become brighter, it is like coming out of a good dream and wanting to go back to sleep and have it start all over. Beck wants to introduce Jo Spencer to a friend of hers. “I think you'll really like him,” Beck says and nudges her. “Hey, Paul!” Beck waves her hand at this tall boy with dark brown hair. He is cute and his teeth are very nice and straight when he smiles. Beck motions for him to come on over and he has to inch through the crowd at the bar like a worm. He wiggles up and sits down in a chair right across from Jo Spencer. “This is my roommate, Jo,” Beck says. “Jo, this is Paul. We went to high school together.” He smiles at Jo Spencer and Jo Spencer smiles back. She
cannot even feel her lips do that. “Do Y'all need a beer?” Beck asks. Jo has to say something. What was it she had said at that party that got such an effect. Oh, yeah. “I don't need one. But, I'll take one.”

“Same goes for me,” Paul says and smiles. It worked better the first time. First times are always best.

Jo Spencer thinks that Paul is very nice, too nice, but she must be polite, sophisticated. She asks him why he is in North Carolina if he's from Alabama. She asks him what year he is. He is a sophomore. He is not in a fraternity. He wants to be a lawyer. Jo Spencer wants the music to start back up because Paul is a bore. She wants the music to play loud so that she can look across the room at the boy in the faded denim jacket with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. She finds this attractive, the cigarette, the narrow tempting eyes, the bushy blond hair that you would automatically imagine on a beach bum, a sailor. Where has she seen him before? What did Paul just say?

“Huh,” she says in a noncommittal way. She is ready for that beer that Beck is supposed to be bringing. The sailor sees her. He takes a long draw on his cigarette, thumps the ashes to the floor. Is he looking at her? She smiles kind of like she is smiling at him and kind of like she is not. Then she cocks her head like she is so amused by what Paul has just said. What has Paul just said? Who gives a damn? Beck gets back just before the lights go dim and the band starts up. The sailor has taken a seat with several other boys just two tables away. If she makes
eye contact, then she is destined to meet him. Maybe if she goes to the bathroom she can get a better look at him.

“Where are you going?” Beck screams.

“To the bathroom!”

“Here,” Beck hands her a dollar. “Get me another beer on your way back.”

“Me, too,” Paul says and fishes around in his pocket for a dollar. Who is she, the waitress? Oh well, she will have an excuse to be up longer, an excused exposure.

She pushes through a crowd of people standing up and slows down when she nears his table. Push slower. Give him time to see you. He does and he smiles the most perfect smile that she has ever seen. His teeth are straight, white, parallel. “Hi,” he mouths. She nods and then realizes that she is being pushed. The crowd in front of her has moved up a yard. This should never happen so she walks very quickly up to the group. Turn around for a quick peek. Oh no, he saw her look! She must hurry to the bathroom, to the line for the bathroom and that is a good place to be because the light in the hall outside of the bathroom is burned out. It is dark and she can look out into the dim light and see everything and no one can see her.

The bathroom is very small, very nasty. She starts to put toilet paper neatly around the seat like her mother always did at the movie theater or in service stations but there is no toilet paper. Not any that's dry anyway; all of the toilet paper is in the commode, looks like it's clogged, makes her want to gag. Is this what she missed that time
years ago when she would not walk to the latrine? That is a very funny memory and it is funny that she should happen to remember it at this exact time. The mirror is brown looking and warped and she can barely see herself, but she does, and she tells herself that she will remember this moment forever. She will remember being here in this bathroom and she will remember that she remembered about the Girl Scout campout.

That is a big thought about remembering and she must keep thinking about it so that she will not think about sitting on that seat where thousands of butts that belong to people that she doesn't know have sat. “There is no such thing as gravity, the earth sux,” the wall says in scribbly blue ink. Who had written that and why? She cannot imagine. It reminds her of Red. He was the kind that would spell things shortened like that, sux for sucks, probably pix for picks, nite for night and lite for light with a long
i.
It makes her scalp crawl off of her head. He signed a letter with “luv” once and even then, it had made her nauseous. Oh spare me, spare me, she thinks and looks at herself again. “Remember, Jo,” she says and leaves. There is no need to flush a latrine.

It is very crowded at the bar and she must wait to give her order. She cannot look anywhere except at the Budweiser clock that goes around and around, big Clydesdales marching in a circle just like the ponies she rode at the fair one time. Andy had slid off of his pony and almost got kicked in the head. What is Andy doing, right this moment? What is her mother doing? Her Daddy? Are they sitting in that pine paneled room with the T.V.
on? Would her mother be here if their roles were reversed? That's a hard one—too hard to think about.

“Hey, aren't you in my chemistry class?” It is him, the sailor looking person and he is standing right beside her.

“I don't take chemistry,” she says. But I'm having a reaction right now. Where does that thought come from? Déjà vu.

“You look so familiar,” he says. Is this a line? A come on? “Maybe I've just seen you around campus.”

“Probably,” she says. “I'm around sometimes.” He thinks this is very funny. Is the truth funny?

“My name's Jeff Stevens,” he says.

“With a
G
or a
J
?” She is hoping that it will be a
G
because she has never heard of a
G
Geoff except Chaucer. Just a plain
J
Jeff. Well, that's okay. “My name's Jo Spencer.”