The Cheer Leader (26 page)

It is like a vacation. Her mother gets some clothes out of the closet and packs a little bag. It is too late to go home so they are going to spend the night in a motel and have room service and everything! It is a holiday! Her mother tells Becky that they will talk to her tomorrow; her mother thanks Becky. “Save that hand. I'm getting ready to gin,” she tells Becky and they are gone, through the night, driving at night. The room has tacky wallpaper but excellent T.V. reception and she may watch it and she doesn't have to talk at all. She can just watch T.V. while
her mother makes some phone calls, while her Daddy tells her some jokes, while he tells her that these things happen, it is nothing to be ashamed of, things just happen and everything will work out, the sun will come back out, you'll see, you'll see.

The next morning, it is like nothing had even happened. What had happened? There were no dreams during the night and the times that she had awakened, her parents had been in the bed beside her. She has reading to do, a poem to write. What was that professor in his beautiful yellow hat going to think of her, skipping class all those times, when she hadn't really wanted to skip. Her mother says that one more day will not matter; she will talk to the professors if Jo Spencer thinks it's necessary. It is Jo Spencer's decision; she is in control. They have an appointment at ten-thirty.

They are the only three people in the waiting room except for the women in little matching tops that are talking on the phone and typing. It is a small room, very small and elevator music plays incessantly. It is dull music and out of this dull music steps a little Phi Delt looking man who laughs and talks to her parents like he knows them or like his best friend is their best friend and the three of them could laugh all night and all day playing the “do you know” game. She is not there, for awhile, and then the laughing stops, surface laughter, surface friendliness, and he asks her to come down this little hall; her parents will be right there waiting for her. Of course!
A waiting room is designed for that! This brings a smile but the others don't find it amusing.

He doesn't talk a lot to her the way that he did to them. He wants her to talk and just the tone of his voice, just the expression on his face makes her cry the whole time that she is in there. She has cried for an hour and it only seems like five minutes. She can cry more day after tomorrow, he tells her, and then she can talk whenever she's ready. Her parents want to stay in the motel with her until day after tomorrow but that isn't necessary. She has work to do, a dorm room, Becky will be worried; Becky might tell everyone that she is crazy and she's not. She had asked the man if she was crazy and he had said, “No, you are not crazy. No, we will have you feeling better.” Better? No, No, Best! She must feel best!

She must keep her mind occupied—this is some of his advice. Twice a week, two hours a week, that big black leather chair is all hers and she may say what she pleases. She may say that she hates Claude Williams and that he is dead because of this. No, it seems, it seems that he is dead; it seems that people stare at her for no reason. She would like to be very young again, riding the hobby horses with Bobby, picking up the pecans under Grandma Spencer's pecan tree, sitting in the bathroom where no one can see her, where she is safe, finger-painting alone without ever knowing Beatrice, or if she knew Beatrice, answering that note years later. Had she mentioned the note? She had never before mentioned that note. She asked him if he was taping her voice, she couldn't talk if
he was because it would sound funny, it would not be her voice if he taped it. She had told him that she liked to think big thoughts, like about how shitty most people were! And cuss! She can just cuss and cuss in his presence. She can say, “That pecker head! That fuck-up!” and he doesn't even mind. He has secret ways to make her say these things. He has a power almost like God because he is becoming omniscient, with each visit, a little more omniscient. But, he uses tricks, little tricks and she can see them. Ha! Ha! She is too smart for that. If she learns all of the secrets, she won't have to go back anymore. So, if she does know them all, she must pretend that she doesn't so that he will let her come again. She must do like he says and be honest with herself, find out who Jo Spencer really is.

Jo Spencer wants to make good grades, to be smart, so she must study very hard because it is almost time for exams. What is the logical thing to study? Well, the Philosophy exam is her first one so she should study for it first. Anaximander says that “the infinite is first and foremost the source of existing things; that out of which they come.” She likes Anaximander very much, to have thought to seek out questions which have no true concrete answer except that there is no answer. “Out of which existing things arise can have neither beginning or end.” Yes, she likes Anaximander very much. She likes his name. Pronounce it aloud, A-nax-i-man-der. Beck looks at her but Beck doesn't ask her what she is doing. Beck doesn't ask many questions at all since Jo Spencer has started going to the Doctor. It is the
X
that makes
Anaximander such a nice smart name. Yes, she would like to have a name like that for herself. And that is an honest thought, a thought of her own, and it is so very clear, such a clear, precise thought and she can hardly wait to tell the Doctor about it. He will be so proud of her because she is moving forward—thinking of something that she would like to have, something that she would like to be. He had said, “You've been moving in reverse, you've been trying to go back and change things that have already happened, you can't do that, you can't change it or control it, all you can do is put yourself in forward gear. It's like a car. Most of the time, you're in Drive but you must be alert, you must think, be cautious, use your brakes, don't exceed the limit.”

“If I play that, I want to be a Mercedes Roadster,” she had said.

“Be what you want to be,” he had said. “Be yourself.”

“I have to be,” she had told him. “I'm me.”

“And who is that?” he asked. “Who is Jo Spencer? What does she like to do? What does she want to be?” That was a hard question and she had told him so. She wanted to do things that she was good at doing. “What can you do?” Well, she is an excellent swimmer and she knows how to do lots of fancy dives. She is pretty good at tennis. She used to be good at ballet. She would love to be able to draw and sing but she has never been good at either of these. She likes to write poetry. She is very good with dogs. She taught Jaspar all kinds of tricks when he was just a baby, when she was just eleven.

“So, what do you want to be?”

“Happy,” she had said. “More than anything, I want to be happy.”

“Have you ever been happy?”

“Oh yes, a long time ago.”

“When exactly? What can you remember that's happy?”

“Home,” she had said but he wanted her to be specific and that was very difficult to remember but once it started, she could do it. She really could think of happy things. Watching T.V. at night and then saying her prayers and then being able to sleep without dreams. Bobby, Bobby and Andy make her very happy and her parents. Picking up pecans under Grandma Spencer's tree, going over to Cindy's house when they were in the second grade.

“And what made you unhappy?”

That was the hard question. What did make her unhappy? For what reason did she become unhappy? “What can you think of that makes you very sad?” His questions were getting harder and harder.

“The dream. The dream where Red is dead. And Beatrice.” There, she had said it and she had told him about that other nightmare, the one that really happened over and over again. He had asked lots of questions about the nightmares. He had asked if she felt loved. Had Red loved her? Was she looking for someone else to love her? No, Red hadn't loved her, not really, because he had never made anything stop, the things that made her feel so small. But, yes, she did want to be loved but not by the people of the nightmare. She hates these faceless people of the nightmare. She hates them just the way that she
hated Red for doing what he did, for exposing her. Once she wished that Red was dead; she wished that something horrible would happen to make him see what he had done to her, but then something horrible had happened, only not to Red, to Beatrice, and she had wished that, too. She had made that wish that night down at the lake when Beatrice was lying there on the floor of that bathroom. That is why she feels so sad, that is why all the happy went away. She had cried, hadn't she? Really cried? He had told her that that wasn't her fault. “Who do you think you are, God?” he had asked. “Do you think that you have that kind of control, that kind of power?” Had he used the word
guilt
or had she? He had said, “God.” Did she think she was God? And this in itself was quite funny, funny enough for her to smile, not even a good smile like a good Jo Jo, just a plain smile for Jo.

“So what do I do?” she had asked. “How can I fix it all?”

“You can't,” he had said. “It takes time. Things fix themselves.”

That had been just two days ago when they had talked about all that and it had been a very important day because it was the first time that she had really been honest with him, about the real nightmare, about Beatrice. She had felt very good when she left that day but now, it's wearing off, now she's almost out of gas. Still, she has done what he said. She has studied very hard and she has tried to look a little into the future. For instance, she thinks that she would like to think big thoughts like Anaximander, she thinks that she would like to spend the
summer at home in Blue Springs even though it's very difficult. She thinks that she might want to run a kennel one day and raise dobermans. She has even written a poem for him, one that she had already turned in for her class. He had told her to write a poem about Jo Spencer but she can't do that yet; she's not good enough, yet. So, she wrote a poem about Beatrice because that's what makes her very sad and she will read it to him when she goes—less than twenty-four hours and she will be in that big black leather chair, her chair, for an hour and she can say whatever she pleases.

Whoever is before her must have loads of problems because they are running overtime. It makes her feel sad that someone would have that much to talk about. She has worked almost the entire crossword puzzle in the newspaper and is just about through with the crypto-quote when he comes out to get her. That person in front of her always slips out the back door but she doesn't, not Jo Spencer, why should she? Some people have problems with an arm or leg, a back, a heart and she has problems with her head, big deal.

Before she even has time to sit down in her chair and pull the Kleenex box closer, he asks about the poem. He is so damn nosey, gets paid to be nosey. He wants her to stand up and read it to him; he says that this will be good practice for the last day of her class when everyone has to stand up and read a sonnet that they have written themselves and then stand there while people say whether or not it's good or bad, or inbetween.

“Here, you read it,” she says and digs out the crumpled piece of paper from her pocketbook.

“That's not the deal we made,” he says. “You've got to learn to go by the rules and it's my turn to be in charge.”

“I always go by rules,” she says. “My whole life I have gone by the rules, almost. Almost my whole life I have gone by the rules.”

“Your own,” he says and gets a very stern look. “Today we play by mine. Or are you too selfish? Think you're too smart?” That is a terrible thing for him to say, a terrible way for him to act after she has been so nice to him, after she has exposed herself. She can read it; she can do whatever she pleases. She straightens out the paper and clears her throat while he sits there staring like he's somebody. He's getting ready to pounce, to go for the jugular, wants to show her what it's going to be like. She can take it. “This doesn't have a title,” she says, “but it's about Beatrice. It's about not fitting in.”

“You shouldn't tell what it's supposed to be.”

“Well, I thought you might need some help!” Jo Spencer snaps but he just smiles at her and motions for her to begin. He smiles like that to make her mad, does it every time and she is not going to let it get to her. “She sits sideways like a crab, seeing two sides.” It is difficult to read those words but once she has begun, it gets easier; she pretends that he is not here, pretends that she is on her bed, alone in the room. It makes her want to read loud, louder, loudest. “Blue eyes blur like a blinded dog carried in and out to pee.” The picture of Beatrice on that bathroom floor, sick, helpless creature comes to her and
she reads faster and faster to make it go away, shakes her head and reads fast, faster, fastest, to the end, the end where it says, “make it go away.”

He doesn't even smile, doesn't clap. How humiliating. He could at least say that he thought it was good even if he didn't. “You did write about yourself after all,” he says. “I thought you said it was about Beatrice.”

“It is!” she screams. “Do I have blue eyes? Tell me, do I?” Ah Ha! She got him on that one. The nerve!

“What don't you like about yourself?” he asks right out of the blue as though that's significant. As though there is something about herself that is not likable! “Come on think. Everybody has something that they don't like about themselves.”

“So what don't you like?”

“Patients that ask me questions,” he says and laughs. “But if you're so nosey that you must know and if you're so childish that you have to wait until someone has gone first so that you can play follow-the-leader, I'll tell you. I would like to be taller.”

“Is that all? That's all you can find wrong with yourself?”

“For the moment,” he says and looks stern again. “Now, what about you? Are you going to take a turn or does the game skip you and come back to me?”