“No, no I don’t,” she explains. She doesn’t want him to be upset with her. “I haven’t seen him in a long time. He’s not my boyfriend.” Déjà vu. It is a weird feeling.
“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He gets real quiet, mumbly. “Look, I gotta work tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to,” she says and she doesn’t know why. “You don’t have to do anything. Just like me. I don’t have to do anything except think of the music.”
“Look, I gotta . . .”
“No! Don’t go! Don’t do this to me. You can’t go until you tell me the music. Please, please, please.”
“Listen, you tell me that you never want to see me again and then you start calling me up because you’ve forgotten something. Who do you think I am, some kind of nut? I don’t have to listen to you; I don’t want to listen to you.”
“Yes, you do because it’s your fault,” she screams. “It’s all your fault that everything happened and now you act like nothing happened.”
“Ah shit, I don’t have to listen to you anymore,” he says. “Why don’t you find somebody that will listen to you. Pat Reeves or hell, anybody. You could probably get some dates. Why don’t you?”
“Why don’t I?” she yells. “I can get dates anytime that I please. I just don’t feel like it right now. I have better things to do.”
“Keep doing like you’re doing and nobody will ask you out.”
“Who asked you anyway, merde tête? Merde tête?” She slams down the phone and runs back up the stairs. She doesn’t have to count them. What did he mean by all of that? Was he trying to win her back? Well, Ha! She can get dates! She can do whatever she pleases, anything. Besides, that might not have even been Red. It was someone pretending to be him.
Becky roommate is all aflutter because Jo Spencer has a date. Jo Spencer does not mention the fact that she herself called up this old friend who goes to Duke and said, “Long time, no see, friends til the end.” She thinks it is a better idea to let Becky get lots of mileage out of the fact that her dried up roommate has a date for the first time since before Thanksgiving.
“This is the same guy that you’ve been out with before, right?” Becky asks. Jo Spencer nods nonchalantly. “He asked you out after that but you didn’t want to see him.”
“Correctement,” she says and fluffs out her long auburn hair. “I had a change of heart.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it!” Becky squeals. “It’s time that you start having some fun and stop studying so hard.” Becky does not know about the F on the Geology quiz. Ah well, what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her now can it? “You even took down that picture of that old boyfriend of yours.”
“Did I have a picture of him?” she asks and giggles a coy giggle.
“Oh, you!” Becky says and flops down on her bed. “It was right up there on your shelf.”
“My, my, the things we forget. Why, I must have put it up there without thinking. Funny, now that it’s gone, I can’t remember what he looks like.” She goes to her closet and starts trying to decide what to wear. It occurs to her that the only thing she has worn in months has been the same pair of Levis and a gray sweat shirt that says Blue Springs High. Had she even washed them? No, she couldn’t have because the jeans were so big and loose. If she had washed them, they would have fit to a tee just the way her clothes always fit—to a little tee.
“Here, let me help you decide what to wear.” Becky jumps up and runs over to the closet. Please, do, since you know so much about these things.
“Okay, I’ll let you,” she says.
“Did he say what y’all are going to do?”
“We’re going out,” she says and she tries to remember what Pat had said. What had he said? Something about a party, going out to eat. “I think we’re going to a party.”
“Well, he would have told you if it was formal,” Becky says. “So, you should go casual. It’s better to be underdressed than overdressed.”
“Oh, if it was a formal, I’d have the perfect dress to wear. It’s emerald green with a slit up the side.” She puts her hands on her hips, leans back, sucks in her cheeks like a perfect model. Becky laughs. That is good! Becky thinks she is funny; she can have an effect on people!
“Try these,” Becky says and holds out a pair of black wool pants. Are those her pants? “And this sweater.” Becky pulls out a sweater that she has not seen in ages. It is pale blue, fluffy, fuzzy angora, with little pearl buttons up at the neck. She takes off her nightgown and throws it on the bed. It looks lonely without her in it. She puts on a bra first and then the sweater.
“Perfect!” Becky says. “That is a beautiful sweater! Look at all your clothes, Jo. If I had known, I would have been borrowing from you.” Becky laughs again. Becky would like to borrow her clothes—HER clothes; share and share alike, like friends. She puts on the pants and they do not look as good as the sweater.
“My God!” Becky says. “When did you buy those pants?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, they’re way too big for you.” Becky pulls up the pants and clutches a handful of material to make them stay up. “When did you lose so much weight? I mean I knew that you had lost but these things must be two sizes too big.”
“Maybe they’re my mother’s pants.”
“Don’t you know?” Becky is looking for something else. She finds some navy pants that fit the same way.
“What has happened to all of my clothes?” Jo Spencer asks and Becky looks funny. She is funny, amusing, so entertaining; she has effects.
“How about a skirt?” Becky asks. “If a skirt is too big, you can disguise it by leaving the sweater out.”
“Yes, yes, let’s disguise it!” she says and puts on a black skirt. It is a straight skirt and it is hardly noticeable that it is hanging two inches longer than it is meant to hang.
“Hemlines are coming down anyway,” Becky says when she steps back to get a good look. “You really should try to gain some weight though, Jo. I didn’t realize how skinny you had gotten because you’re always in that big gown.” It has worked. The gown has worked and now she is so small that she can hardly be seen. She can live without others seeing. “Now, what about makeup?”
“I don’t wear makeup,” Jo Spencer says because she doesn’t need makeup. She has never worn makeup.
“Well, you used to,” Becky says. “That picture of you and your brother when you were in high school, you’re wearing makeup.”
“Was I?”
“Yes,” Becky says and begins rummaging through her own drawers. “Here’s mascara, eyeliner, blush, lipstick, try them.”
“I have some lipstick,” she says. “I keep it in my lizard bag. It’s called fire engine red.”
“Oh, Jo, be serious,” Becky laughs again and again. “Have you been drinking this afternoon?” Why does everyone always ask her that, “Have you been drinking, Jo?” She has not had anything to drink since that night a long time ago at Moon Lake when she fell in love. Is that what drinking could do, make her fall in love? Make good things start happening?
“I don’t drink,” she says.
“At all?” Becky asks. “I can’t believe it. You’re the only person I know who doesn’t drink and isn’t real nerdy. I always thought you did drink.”
“Nope,” she says and brushes on nice peachy cheeks. “I have before, though. You know,” she pauses, the mascara tube poised gracefully in her hand, “it doesn’t bother me at all to be around people who do. You know, it doesn’t bother me that you do. Actually, I’ve never even noticed that you did.”
“Come on, Jo, all those nights that I’ve sat here with some of the girls on the hall playing cards and drinking beer?” Becky shakes her head. “You didn’t notice? You were sitting right there watching T.V.”
“I don’t notice a lot of things, Beck,” she says just as seriously as she can. She has never called her “Beck” before and that is quite hilarious. Beck thinks so, too.
/> “You sure could have fooled me,” Beck says. “And look at you. Your first date in months and you’re not even nervous. Hell, I’m always nervous when I go out.”
Beck has told a lie. Why should she ever get nervous? She is most attractive and very smart. She has no reason, no cause, to be nervous. “I have no reason,” she says. “Tell you what, Beck, just to show you how I am, I’ll drink a beer with you right now.”
“You want to?” Becky asks. “Before your date?”
“Sure,” she says, “nothing bothers me.” She turns around and fluffs her hair out so that it will look like one of those girls on the front of Cosmopolitan. It doesn’t work quite that way but still she looks good, she hardly recognizes herself.
“You look terrific, Jo. Wish I had a date tonight.” Becky opens the small refrigerator and pulls out two Miller Lites. “Guess I’ll just go out with the girls.”
“I might want to do that one night,” she says. “Go out with the girls.” That has a nice ring to it. A long time ago, she was “one of the girls” wasn’t she? Sure!
“Great!” Beck says and takes a long swallow. “I’m glad to see you finally coming out of your shell.”
“Like a turtle?” She is very serious but Beck is not so she takes a long swallow of her own beer. So this is how it is—throw back your head and chug it—you can do whatever you please. Ha! Ha! Red thinks you can’t do anything on your own but he is crazy! “Hey, did you used to watch Laugh-In?” she asks and Beck nods. “That part where they say something like, If Barbara Bain married John Wayne, she’d be Barbara Bain Wayne and if she divorced him and married Michael Caine, she’d be Barbara Bain Wayne Caine.”
“Hey, yeah,” Beck says, “I had forgotten all about that. Do another one.”
“If Doris Day married Danny Kaye she’d be Doris Day Kaye and if she divorced him and married Zane Grey, she’d be Doris Day Kaye Grey.”
“And Dr. Shea! She’d be Doris Day Kaye Grey Shea.” Becky finds this terribly funny and gets two more beers out of the refrigerator.
“Who’s Dr. Shea?”
“You know, he used to be on As the World Turns.”
“I haven’t seen that since Lisa and Bob got a divorce,” Jo Spencer says. “My mother used to watch that one.” It is funny to think of her mother right this second. Her mother has changed since those days when she ironed clothes and watched As the World Turns, not drastically, because basically, she looks the same but there are changes, subtle changes and she cannot pinpoint exactly what they are. Jo Spencer can get a picture, though, the T.V. on, black and white, her mother ironing while she and Bobby eat vanilla wafers and Andy? Is she pregnant in the picture? Yes, wearing an old plaid smock and stretchy pregnant pants and the afternoon light comes through the drapes and casts thin white lines on the pine paneling and the dust rides these stripes of light and she and Bobby try to sweep the specks away but they only come back, slowly move around the room until there is no light left and by that time, her mother is cooking dinner and Andy Griffith is on the T.V. Or was it Huckleberry Hound? When did Huckleberry Hound come on? Quick Draw McGraw?
“Yoo hoo! Earth to Jo,” Becky screams and waves her arms. “Lordy, that was ages ago when Lisa and Bob divorced. I can’t believe that you never saw Dr. Shea.”
It is six o’clock and Jo Spencer has a date at seven. She must look at herself in the mirror again. My yes, she looks like perfection! Like a princess, a May Queen.
“Did I ever tell you that I was the May Queen?”
“Why no!” Beck squeals and kneels.
“Yep,” she says and sits back down. She must smooth her skirt very carefully so that it doesn’t wrinkle before her date. “What time did Huckleberry Hound come on in the afternoons?”
“I don’t know. Why’d you think of that?” Beck puts on an album. It is Boz Scaggs and Jo Spencer approves of this. She likes Boz Scaggs. She loves the song “It’s Over"; it makes her feel like she is moving all over even though she is perfectly still. “Why can’t you just get it through your head? It’s over! It’s over!” It is an apropos song to think. Beck is looking at her. What is it that she is supposed to say? Oh yes.
“I think of lots of things.”
“Boy, I’ll say.” Becky is lying flat on her back doing the bicycle exercise. “How can you remember all that stuff when you can’t even remember when you bought all that stuff in your closet?”
“Priorities,” Jo Spencer says. “Do you remember Milton the Monster? I’m Milton, your brand new son!”
“Hey, yeah!” Becky sits up. “That’s the music, too. What about The Jetsons?”
“Meet George Jetson, his boy Elroy, daughter Judy, Jane his wife—du du du du du du.” Jo Spencer must move her hands with the proper dus because she does not have a good singing voice. “The music that I can’t remember is Dick Van Dyke.”
Beck thinks for a minute and then starts doing Lassie. How easy can you get? And that is such a very sad song. She can just see Timmy burying those toys and all of a sudden, woof woof arf arf, and here comes Lassie barrelling down that hill. She and Bobby had watched that one every single time and she had always cried but Bobby hadn’t, or had he? Had Bobby ever cried?
“Lassie,” she says so that Beck will stop with the sad songs. “But who was Lassie’s owner after Timmy?”
“Oh! I know, it was that ranger,” Beck screams.
“But what was his name?” Jo Spencer waits for Beck to answer but Beck can’t remember. She really shouldn’t tell the answer because that’s not the way the game is played but Beck says that she will go crazy if she doesn’t know. Jo Spencer cannot carry that burden, the burden of someone’s insanity. “It was Corey Stuart.”
“That’s right!” Beck says and goes to get another beer. “Last one, wanna split it?”
Jo Spencer must think about this. Should she share with Beck, a person that she knows but has never thoroughly exposed herself to? She is feeling good, just like that night at the lake a long time ago. It could even happen again, she could fall in love again, because this is the right feeling; big thoughts are coming in so fast that she can hardly think of them. “Yeah, okay. Let’s split it.”
While Beck pours half into a plastic cup like the kind that people who go to the football games get and save, Jo Spencer must get up and check the clock and her face once again. Perfect, she still looks perfect and it is just twenty minutes before time for Pat, just twenty minutes before she can test her effects, her charm. She drinks her half fast, faster, fastest and sings along with Boz in spite of the fact that she doesn’t know all of the words.
“I’ll get it,” Beck says when there is a knock on the door. “You just stay cool and calm.” There is no need for Beck to tell her this because she is already very cool and calm.
“Why, hi Pat!” she says in such a friendly voice. “Long time, no see.” She gives him a hug, a coy, flirtatious hug. “It’s so good to see you!”
“Looks like you girls have already started partying,” he says and looks around the room. He has yet to look Jo Spencer directly in the face.
“Oh yes,” Jo says and giggles. “You know how it is when the girls get together.” She punches Beck in the shoulder like all good friends do.
“Are you ready to go?” Pat asks and she gets her coat off the end of the bed. It is the beautiful camel coat that she got just last Christmas before she went on a skiing trip. It seems like she’s had it for years. “Nice to have seen you again, Becky.” He is so polite! So effective!
“See you later, Beck,” she says cooly, calmly. “We’ll finish what we were talking about later, okay?”
“Okay,” Becky laughs and starts doing Hogan’s Heroes. “Y’all have fun.”
“Oh, we will,” Jo yells and slams the door. “I just know that we will.” She loops her arm through Pat’s and they walk side by side all the way down the stairs. It could be happening, she can feel it all over and she wants to talk and talk and talk. She wants to tell Pat about that pubic hair in t
he shower stall but no, she must save that, she must have some secret all her own. “So, where are we going tonight?” she asks as though they go out every night.
“Some friends of mine are having a party.”
“Oh terrific!” she says and hugs his arm. “I’ve been wanting to meet your friends.” She is very relieved that they are not going out to eat. Why, she has already eaten a can of chunky chicken soup because the night is so special and what would he have thought if he had taken her into an elegant restaurant and she had had to tell him that she had already eaten!
“You have?” he asks in a funny way. He takes her hand off of his arm and opens her car door. While he walks around, she has one split second of dark silence in which she decides that this is the night for Jo Spencer to come out of her shell. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you,” he says. Yes, she knows that. She knows that she has made him suffer too long. She wishes that she had another beer. “You look so different,” he says and stares at her.
“It’s the hair,” she croons. “See how long.” She pulls her hair over one shoulder.
“Yeah, and you’ve lost weight.”
“Just a little,” she says. “You know how us girls have to watch our weight. If it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a woman who doesn’t take care of her body.”
“Yeah,” he says and stares straight ahead. “So, how’s school going?”
“Just fine!” She lights a cigarette and holds it poised so delicately in her fingers. If she glances nonchalantly to one side, she can see the fire twice, the real fire and the reflection in the car window.
“What are you taking?” Pat asks and she can tell by his surface questions that her presence is making him nervous. He cannot control his feelings and thoughts about her and he is building up to serious things. She will make it easy for him; answer the questions.
“French II, English II, Poetry Writing, Philosophy of Religion and Geology.”
“Boy, that’s a rough schedule.”
“Not really,” she says very casually and takes a long draw on her cigarette. “You see they all are basically the same course.”
The Cheer Leader Page 15
