The Cheer Leader (8 page)

“No,” I said and without even thinking of the teasing that may be ahead, I continued. “Who is that guy over there?” I realized then that I was setting myself up. “I can't
figure out where I've seen him before.”

“Pardon me, but haven't we met somewhere before?” Lisa was still speaking into her fist. “Wasn't it you whose loins throbbed when my breasts exploded?”

“I can't believe it.” Tricia shielded her eyes and looked over at the tower. He was standing with his back to us, looking out to the other side of the lake where there was a row of homes. “Jo has actually seen a guy. This girl who always asks ‘who' when we see good-looking guys.”

“The space queen has landed,” Lisa said and waved her arms. “Ahoy, stranger!” Luckily his back was still turned.

“I think his name is Red,” Cindy said, at last, a serious answer.

“Red Williams,” Tricia said. “My God, don't you notice anything? He graduated with your brother.”

“Well, that's probably how I've seen him before.”

“That and the fact that he was All State track and has throbbing loins.” Lisa threw her magazine onto my towel. “You better read this and if you have any questions, just ask.”

“Give it to Cindy when you're through,” Tricia said but Cindy was already back beneath her shirt and was too lazy to give any more of a response other than “bull.”

“So you do want the scoop on Red Williams?” Lisa asked and I shrugged. “You have to say yes or no.”

“I guess,” I said. “You won't be happy until you tell it.”

“In a nutshell.” She started with the microphone bit again. “He's a runner; his real name is Claude; used to go
with Snot Queen, Buffy Paige, and rumor has it that the affair ended when Buffy went to visit her aunt in New York to get rid of Little Red.”

“I don't think that's true,” Tricia said.

“Well, still,” Lisa continued, “he has a devious reputation in that sense.”

“What sense?” Cindy mumbled.

“In the sense of making breasts explode, singly, jointly, repeatedly.” By that time, he was back in the water and swimming towards the older group, where Bobby I noticed was still talking to Nancy Carson. I hoped that Lisa would shut up but she was on a roll. “Buffy Paige has got the kind that explode regularly. Look, Jo, there he is.”

“All I asked was who he was,” I said. “I'll never ask again.”

“Come on,” Tricia said, finally getting a serious tone in her voice, “you asked because you think he's cute, right?”

“Right?” Lisa repeated.

“Right,” I said finally to which Lisa clapped her hands, and for the first time all day, shut up.

Then he was gone, up through the trees, a lingering “See ya, Red,” trailing behind him. The rest of the afternoon, I waited for him to come back, saying that I didn't have enough sun though my shoulders and nose were already touchy. Cindy, by then, was completely wrapped in her towel so that no skin was exposed, and Lisa, who, thank God, was on the last story, was unable to use her hips for dramatic effect because they had gone from
snow white to lobster red. Tricia had merely tanned a shade darker, and since several of the college guys were still around, she wanted to stay, too. That night I was somewhat sorry, as I coated layer after layer of Noxema on my nose and shoulders, but not so sorry that I would dare miss going to Moon Lake the next day or any day. I invested in a large supply of sunscreen, deciding that Red Williams was worth it.

There were very few days that we did not go to the lake. We were there when it was overcast or chilly. Some days, we were the only people there except for those at the other end of the lake, for whom good weather was not a factor. The only days that we missed, as a matter of fact, were those when it was raining and then we spent the afternoons riding around in Tricia's car, smoking cigarettes, and talking about who had been at the lake the day before. During this time, I had learned several other things about Red. He worked construction off and on; he lived right on the lake all year in this little cabin that his parents owned. On Saturday mornings, he worked part-time as a mechanic at K-Mart's auto center. Tricia would circle the auto center often, and I would hide on the floorboard, knowing that if he ever saw us he would know how I felt about him. I knew every page number where he appeared in all of Bobby's old annuals, and he had even signed the senior one, on the page with the picture of the track team. “To one helluva guy. Take it easy with Fancy Nancy. Knock 'em dead at Wake Forest. Red” I
must have read that a hundred times, over and over, the long thin irregular letters, the curl on the
d
at the end of Red.

For one whole month, I had watched Red, some days disappointed by the fact that he did not show, other days, disappointed when he talked to Buffy Paige or one of the other older girls. There had even been days when I felt a twinge of jealousy when I saw him at the shady end of the lake talking to Beatrice or one of the others in their tight jeans and tee shirts, their heads wrapped in bandanas. But then, there had been the good days, those days when I was certain that he was watching me, certain that all I had to do was smile or lift my hand and he would acknowledge my presence. Of course, I never did that, I suppose out of fear that he wouldn't respond, that it would turn out that he was not looking at me at all but someone just past me, or Tricia or Lisa. It was during one of his daily jogs between the two worlds when he stopped and introduced himself. I had fallen asleep and was quickly awakened by the shaking of the pier and by Tricia's flirt laugh which was quite recognizable to all but a large percentage of the male population.

“You girls having fun?” he asked and it was funny because his voice was not nearly as deep as I had imagined.

“Just catching some rays,” Lisa said and looked at me. She immediately went into action. “I'm Lisa and this is Tricia, Cindy and Jo.” I opened one eye and nodded, certain that my face was getting redder.

“Yeah, you're Bobby's sister, right?” I was dumbfounded that he actually knew who I was. Tricia and Lisa were staring at each other and I could tell, were trying very hard not to laugh. Cindy remained very calm but kept trying to catch my eye so that, had I given her the chance, she would have either winked or mouthed something like “go for it.” I just nodded and stared over at the row of pine trees. “Bobby's a good friend of mine. Real good guy.”

“Thanks,” I said and it didn't sound like my voice at all. It was that high squeak that I always heard when I taped myself on a tape recorder.

“Going back to Wake Forest?”

“Yeah.” I looked up and his eyes were darker than I had ever imagined. I had to look away.

“He always was the smart one.” Red walked closer and sat right beside where I was lying and dangled his long legs off of the pier. “What's he studying? He was here at the first of the summer and I haven't seen him lately.” Tricia was laughing again and I didn't know why. I started getting uncomfortable, afraid that my suit was riding up my crack or something. “Let's swim,” Cindy said and Tricia and Lisa immediately went along with her, leaving me alone with him.

“He wants to go to med school.” I sat up so that he wouldn't be so close to me, just in case my suit was riding. “He's working in Winston-Salem.”

“Oh yeah, Nancy told me that.” He had talked to Nancy; maybe he had talked to her about Buffy; maybe there was still something going on, maybe there really
had been a Little Red. “Why'd you wrinkle up your nose? Taking up for big brother against the wicked ex-girlfriend?” He caught my nose between his big fingers like he was stealing it, like old men do to little children. “Is that it?”

“No, not really.” I kept getting a picture of Red and Buffy Paige in one of those loin throbbing, breast exploding scenes and it made me even more uncomfortable.

“You're here every day, but I never see you at night.”

“We just come to sun.” Cindy, Tricia and Lisa were way out in the lake by then and I almost wished that they would come back. He was staring at me, the fuzz on the tops of my thighs, my unpadded bathing suit. He laughed and his eyes narrowed into slits like laser beams that went right through my suit.

“Yeah, I've seen you diving. You're pretty good.”

“I like to dive.” I looked away like I was embarrassed and maybe I was but I realized that I had been right; he had been watching me and I had felt it every single day during that slow motioned minute when I spiraled from the tower before I disappeared into the water.

“Let's swim out there.” He jumped in and the water was just up to his waist. “Come on.” He started splashing all around me and I had the oddest feeling. I wanted to go but I didn't. I wanted him to freeze, to stay right there, but I wanted him to leave so that I could think through it all and figure out just what I was supposed to do. Finally, I did the only thing that I could do; I slid in feetfirst.

We swam side by side and every time that I switched
strokes, he was right there beside me, doing the breaststroke, his head up above the water, watching me. “By the way, my name's Red,” he said one of those times.

“But really it's Claude.” It surprised me that I said that. I immediately thought that he may be self-conscious about his name, that maybe I had made him angry. My philosophy of life delivered by Bambi: If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. I shouldn't have said anything at all so I did freestyle with my face in the water and when I turned to get a breath, he was laughing, or maybe it was a distant motor boat, or maybe it was in my head.

There was no one else at the tower and I was both sorry and relieved. Sorry, because if some of the boys from my class had been there, they would have laughed and joked and asked me to dive with them and Red would've seen what a likable person I was. Too, I was afraid to be alone with him. I was relieved only because Red might have thought the boys in my class were silly and then he would have been reminded of the age difference. I couldn't think of one thing to say. How did Tricia and Lisa do it so well?

“Let's sit here a minute and rest.” He sat on the edge of the lower level. I had already started up the ladder but came back down and sat beside him. Tricia, Cindy and Lisa were already back on the pier and from that distance, they looked like small children. I couldn't see their faces but I knew what they were doing. They were watching me, talking about me, and it made me as uncomfortable
as when Red scooped water into his hand and sprinkled my face. Then he did the same thing to my legs and just watched the water bead up from the oil that I had put on and slide down. “You're not shy are you?” he asked and looked at me so hard with those laser eyes that I had to look away and shrug.

“You know I've been watching you all summer.” He laughed and slapped me on the back and then didn't move his hand. I had heard of such moves, had even encountered them with Howard but that time was different.

“I knew,” I said. “I've been watching you, too.” I had to look at him with that honest statement. Soon, I felt just as I had years ago when I told Jeff Johnson all about Columbus in front of the Quick Stop. I wanted to tell Red how I liked to read Millay and Dickinson, how the best feeling in the world was the one that I got when I played old sad songs and thought, how I was intrigued by the fact that every hair has its very own follicle. It seemed that it was happening, that I was falling in love, that I could tell him anything, but I had to be sure, had to see what he was going to say.

“So you're going to be a senior?”

“How did you know?”

“I find out what I want to know.” He moved his hand across my back until it was on my other shoulder. “You don't have a boyfriend, do you?”

“No, do you have a girlfriend?” I wanted to ask about Buffy but decided that would have to wait, too.

“No.” He laughed again and rubbed his hand up and
down my arm. I felt like my whole body had gone numb like when my foot falls asleep. “I have lots of friends that are girls but not a girlfriend.”

“I thought you did.”

“Thought wrong.” He kicked his feet. “I thought you might still like Pat Reeves. Used to see you playing tennis with him all the time.”

“We're just friends,” I said and I wanted to ask him when he had seen me, the exact days, but then I didn't feel like talking about Pat.

“He's a pretty good runner, nice guy. He always talks about you like you're his girlfriend, like he's crazy about you.” Suddenly it dawned on me that maybe Red wasn't interested, maybe he was out there with me only to promote Pat Reeves.

“Well, he's not. He's never been my boyfriend,” I said and I couldn't believe that Pat would have ever made it sound like he was my boyfriend; we just dated. He had never even really kissed me, just slight brushes against my cheek or mouth. And Pat had never mentioned that he knew Red Williams; all Pat talked about was going off to school, to Duke no less, and most of the time when others were around, he acted like I wasn't even present; he pretended that he wasn't crazy about me, though he was.

“So, tell me about you,” Red said and it made me jump to realize that I had been sitting there thinking in front of him.

“What do you want to know?”

“Well, what do you like?”

“I don't know.” I wanted to jump in and swim away.

“Bet you're a cheerleader.”

“Yeah.”

“Smart like Big Bobby.”

I shrugged because that's what people always asked me and teachers seemed to expect it of me. Bobby was very smart, the scholarly type, and I had learned that if I said nothing at all that people would merely assume that I was the same kind of smart.

“Tell me about you,” I said and he did. Talking wasn't a problem for him just like running back and forth. I admired that. His parents were from Blue Springs and he had always lived there. He was an only child and had moved down to Moon Lake right after his graduation. He thought that eventually he would go to school but for the time being, liked things as they were.