The Cheer Leader (15 page)

“She can leave whenever she's ready,” the big woman calls and walks out. I wish that she had not said that and that I could spend the night here.

“See, you're okay!” Red has already inched his big hands under my thick wool blanket and is feeling around my bare thigh. He must have seen my pants and soggy underwear thrown over the chair at the door.

“Tough break,” Scott says and shakes his stringy hair.

“Yeah, what a freak accident. Isn't it?” Wanda nudges Scott with her elbow and then proceeds to put her hand down the back of his jeans. “Me and you haven't even had the time to talk some girl talk, yet.”

“Hey yeah,” Red says. “You girls have a lot in common.” He smiles at me and then back at Wanda. It is a trick. “Wanda loves to read poetry, too.”

“Sure do,” she says. “Who do you read?”

I shrug. I am uncomfortable here in this bed, a hand on my frozen thigh.

“Wanda is in love with Todd McKuen,” Scott says and puts his hand down the back of her jeans.

“Rod, Scott,” she says and glares at him. “How many times have I got to tell you, it's Rod!”

“All right, all right, baby. Cool your jets.” Scott steps closer and pulls Wanda up with him. “It really was a freak accident. I was in the chair lift and only caught the very end. What happened?”

“Jo's not real athletic.” Red's hands are still roaming and he winks at me. “She can cheerlead and ballet but otherwise she's kind of spastic.” He laughs and Scott and Wanda chime in and it sounds like the idiotic chorus. Scott and Wanda laugh themselves right out of the room and Red laughs his other hand right under the blanket so I fake a gag and say, “Feel sick,” kind of like Gary would say. Red moves away because nobody wants to be around someone who is about to throw up and I have to remember that; it is a lesson that I will use again.

I use it again that night at the motel when everyone is getting ready for bed. We are in a room with Scott and Wanda and the other three boys say that they are going to go out and “scout” and that they will stay wherever they end up. It bothers me that we have no transportation and that I have no idea where the hell I am besides on a mountain in a cheap motel called The Ranger's Cove. What bothers me even more is that Scott and Wanda think nothing of taking off all their clothes and sprawling out on the bed to watch T.V. Red says that they are a little spaced, a little out of it, and I agree.

“Jo, you're so inhibited,” Red says when I come out of
the bathroom wearing the flannel gown from Grandma Spencer. He has turned out all the lights and there is just the dull gray of the T.V. Scott and Wanda have passed out with just their feet under the sheet and Red is sitting with the sheet just up to his waist.

“I'm cold that's all.” I cut off the T.V. and climb under the covers.

“You won't be cold for long,” he says and this is where I gag. I gag and gag until he leaves me completely alone, won't even talk and I know that he is mad. It occurs to me that I have felt this way before, here, in this bed, not knowing where in the hell I am except in this bed, under the sheet, an exposed ghost. It is a scary feeling, a lonely feeling and I must do something to make it stop. I must find a new cause.

I don't really remember much about the next day or the ride home. Red still wasn't talking to me which meant that no one else was talking either. They had all said that they were burned out from the night before so I guess that's another reason for the quiet. Whatever it was, I was glad because it gave me plenty of time to think about what I needed to do. I must give up my mission, my cause, in saving Red and turning him into that gallant, successful businessman and husband that I had once pictured so carefully. I must find something new, a new secret thought. I guess I thought the whole way home but I never really came up with anything concrete. All I knew was that I felt a surge of strength, a flicker of hope.

All I know is that when we rounded the corner and I
saw Andy riding his minibike round and round a tree in our front yard, I started crying. I don't know what I thought could have happened in less than thirty-six hours but everything was the same—the trees, the front walk, my bedroom window.

“What's wrong with you?” Red was shaking me and rubbing his bandana all over my face. “Your parents are going to think that I've done something to you.”

I just shook my head back and forth. I didn't know exactly why I was crying, why should he? “What's wrong with her?” I heard Wanda whisper to Scott. Everyone was looking and Gary was driving slower than I had ever guessed that he knew how.

“She's afraid that I'm mad at her,” Red said loudly and hugged me close. I hated him right then. “Isn't that right?”

We were stopped in front of my house so I nodded and jumped out quickly. Red had a firm grip on my arm and twisted it when I tried to get away. “You know I'm not mad at you anymore.”

“Hey, Jo's home.” Andy parked his bike, ran up on the porch and knocked on the window until Mama came outside.

“How was the trip?” she yelled, and waved whatever she was knitting.

“Great! Jo never really got the hang of it, got a little too brave for her first try, had a little accident, but she's okay. We had a great time, didn't we?” Red was staring at me so I nodded.

“Oh yeah, it was a ball.” I ran up to the porch and then
turned and waved at Red. I watched him get into the car and then the car got smaller and smaller and it felt good just like being in the moving chair. I felt like I needed to do something big, join a club and become the president of it, rededicate my life or something equivalent, though I had never been a believer in rededications. If everything that they told you when you dedicated the first time was true, then there would be no cause to redo it. People did not give God credit for having good sense, and Red had never given me the credit that I deserved.

It had been a month since I had seen or talked to Red. He had only called once right after the skiing trip to say that he needed some time to “find himself.” It was very appropriate that he should do that, since finding oneself was as popular as tee shirts bearing the names of rock groups. At first it didn't faze me; I was almost relieved that the lies had stopped, that the old bathroom, bathrobe thoughts had returned. I was constantly seeking a definition of love since I now had some experience on the subject. I spent a great deal of time reading what others thought of love, looking for that definition. It seemed that roses were of some importance: “A rose is a rose is a rose,” “O my luve's like a red, red rose,” “It was no more or less, really, than we had expected: rose after rose after rose,” “O Rose, thou art sick!” Too, I discovered that love can be a very depressing thing. It maketh thou heartsick with grief, it maketh thou feel like shit. That's how I began to feel most of the time but I could not tell anyone; I had to smile like a good Jo Jo because they could not
have taken it. They could never have understood.

My friends said how good it was that I acted normal again, that I seemed so happy like the old Jo. Tricia even had Cindy, Lisa and me to spend the night at her house in my honor. Lisa even baked a cake and wrote in that yellow gel stuff “Welcome Back Jo” as though I had been off somewhere for ages. They were so glad that Red was out of my life, so happy, that I never could have told them the truth, that I missed him, that I did not know what to do without him. I had to find something to do without him, which really wasn't difficult when I tried.

I was made co-chairman for making all of the plans for the May Court dance and though I was accused behind my back by several girls in my class of trying to use this all out, pert, winning way of mine to be elected the May Queen, it did not bother me for I knew that the entire role was a disguise, a way to keep myself from ever being exposed again. The truth is that I was elected May Queen; the truth is that that wasn't enough. It still upset me to even hear R-e-d's name, to think of him. I tried very hard to control it, especially the day that Beatrice let me know in a subtly blatant way that Red had been down at the lake with Buffy, that he had also been with a real shady girl named Martha who had been married for four weeks and then divorced. I told myself that if he was after scum, that he had no business with me. I told myself that one day, when he was all mangled up and dying, that my name would be the only murmur from his pained sorry lips.

Still, it bothered me. It bothered me mostly about Buffy because I could see what Red would see in her, what most guys saw in her, what I, had I been a male would never have seen in her because I would have been much too smart for that. Red was not smart enough, not like Bobby, not like Pat Reeves. And, just the thought of Pat Reeves made me feel better. I kept thinking that maybe Pat hadn't really meant all that he said that night of the Christmas dance, that maybe he had really cared and was just covering up, that maybe he still cared. I had nothing to lose. I wrote him a letter, telling him that Red and I had broken up, that I never should have dated Red in the first place, that it would be nice if we could get together sometime. I must have read that letter a hundred times before ever mailing it, afraid that I would get a note back that said word for word what Pat had said that night outside of the gym. I mailed it on a Monday and Pat called me on Wednesday; he came home that weekend.

He came home almost every weekend in February and March and we did all of the things that we used to do, went to the movies, played Password with my parents, took long walks around the neighborhood. Sometimes, if Tricia, Cindy and Lisa, or any combination of the three, did not have dates, we would ask them along to go for pizza or to the movies and Pat didn't even mind. Not once did Lisa ever call him queer; Cindy liked to talk to him because she wanted to find out about college math courses; Tricia simply liked him because he did have those perfect chiseled features, something that I had never even noticed. He even seemed genuinely pleased
that I had already been named May Queen. Of course they always named the Queen early so that there would be time to get her picture in the annual. Still, Pat seemed impressed and he didn't even make any high school cracks. It seemed he thought that I was an exception to any rule, that I was the first and only Queen ever named. Of course, we never made any commitments; we simply dated and he even told me he might date other people at school. I told him that was fine because I knew that he wouldn't and he didn't. He just kept writing long letters, appearing at my house on Friday nights, seeing me to the door after a date. There were a couple of times when we kissed, really kissed, and I would have to peek only to find those large hazel eyes staring at me, at which the kiss would turn to a friendly hug, a kiss on the forehead or cheek. I knew those times that if I told him I loved him that he would say the words back to me, that a commitment would be made. There were times when I was tempted but then, I couldn't do that.

It had been three months since Red and I broke up and though I tried not to think of it, I was very aware of the time that had passed. I needed to do something. I found an old purple dress that my mother had worn one Halloween and put it on. I teased my hair out, put on red lipstick, black gloves and dug up my mother's old lizard purse which I carried with me to Parker's drugstore. I walked all the way, just swinging my purse and taking my time because it was a beautiful Saturday morning. The booths in the fountain area were overflowing with
shoppers and salespeople but I managed to find one empty stool at the counter and squeezed right in. I ordered a cherry Mountain Dew and sat there sipping even though I knew that everyone was staring at me. I decided that the only way I could drink my drink without budging from that green vinyl stool was to pretend that I was the only person in town who was normal. It worked and when I walked outside and saw the way that the sun made everything look so sharp and clear, I decided I was going to be that way from then on. No acts, I was Joslyn Marie Spencer and I was no either/or.

Cars kept stopping to look at me but it didn't matter, nothing mattered. Why, those people should be ashamed of themselves looking the way that they did; copies, copies, copies. Didn't they know that they were seeing an original person? Get your eyes full and then fill your pockets!

“Jo? What are you doing?” Out of the blue day, Red steps out of K-Mart's auto center. He has gotten a haircut and it looks nice that way, a “nice” cut like Bobby's, like Pat Reeves. He wipes his face on the sleeve of his shirt and starts walking towards me but I pay him no mind. I just keep walking and swinging my lizard purse behind me. “Hey, wait up!” He runs up and grabs my arm the exact same way that he grabbed it that last day we were together, only this time, it is a softer, more tender grab. His eyes are softer; his hair is short; his clothes are neat except for the grease splotches. “What's this? Some kind of initiation?”

“You could say that.” I smile at him and it doesn't even
hurt me. I don't even feel my cheeks puff up like a chipmunk and my lips spread, my teeth shine.

“You look great,” he says. “I've been wanting to call you.”

“So, why didn't you?” I open my purse to get my red lipstick and put some more on. I can apply it without looking.

“I was afraid that you would never speak to me again after the way that I hurt you.” He looks down at the toe of his tennis shoe and scuffs it back and forth like a pitiful little boy who has done wrong. Yes, he is trained well. “I've been so dumb. I wanted to surprise you, to show you the new me.”

All work and short hair makes you dull, I think, and I want to say it aloud to test out the sound of that but I'm not ready for such a display. I choose to say, “I see you got a haircut.”

“Yes, but that's not all,” he says. “Jo, I realize how foolish I've been. I know how you feel about my friends, so many of the things that I do and I see that you're right. You are the only thing that matters to me.” He takes hold of my hands and pulls me out of the road so that cars won't have to keep going around me. “Please, let's start all over.”