The Novels of Lisa Alther

by Lisa Alther

  Later, in the dunes, Jed lay on his back with his hands behind his head, waiting for Sally to do something about his erection. He kind of liked this business of just lying back and being taken care of. To his alarm, Sally squatted over him, his prick entering her.

  Everybody in Ingenue knew about Sandy. She majored in other girls’ boyfriends. Sally was damned if Sandy was going to move in on her.

  “I don’t have no rubber,” Jed gasped, putting his hands on her waist and trying to lift her off.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve just finished my period,” she said, moving efficiently.

  Jed shrugged. You couldn’t refuse a lady. But could you call a girl who behaved like this a lady?

  Chapter Eight

  Miss Newland

  Beth Crawley was dressed in an Alpine climber’s outfit—lederhosen embroidered with edelweiss, a felt hat with a feather. A coiled rope hung from her shoulder, and she held a pickaxe. She was singing “Climb Every Mountain.” Emily had to admit she had a pretty good voice. But in fifth grade her nickname had been Creepy Crawley. She’d looked like a praying mantis, tall and gawky and hunched, predatory and pious at the same time. A metamorphosis had occurred in junior high. Now she was gorgeous, and looked like a shoo-in for this year’s Miss Newland. Emily felt alternately sorry for Sally and delighted that she had just dropped the microphone at the most poignant moment of her rendition of “Since I Don’t Have You.” She remembered Sally as a little girl singing into her jump rope handle, and lashing the rope as though it were a microphone cord.

  She thought about Raymond’s letter that had arrived that afternoon: “Dear Emily: Well, so here I am. Do you remember how we used to sit in the Castle Tree and discuss our New York City penthouse? My new place is no penthouse, but it is on the roof—of an old building on the Upper West Side. I sweep the halls and stuff in place of paying rent. It’s one room, with a sink and tiny refrigerator against one wall, which I hide with a folded screen when I’m entertaining the mayor. A small bathroom. The view’s pretty neat—the Hudson River with the New Jersey Palisades on the other side.

  “All day long I do layouts for people’s brochures. I got my first paycheck—sixty-three dollars a week, once everything is deducted. Sounds like a lot, but it’s barely enough to get by on up here.

  “The night I arrived Gus (the guy who got me the job) met me, thank God, because I had no idea what to do next. I probably would have been in that exact same spot two weeks later. He’s a nice fellow, young, single. It was fun to meet him after so many notes and phone calls. He said he wanted to take me to dinner, what kind of food did I like. I said I liked everything. He said, ‘I’ll give you a choice of what’s close by—Indian, Japanese, or Finnish.’ Well, I felt like the original hick. I tried to play it cool and said I was too tired, he’d have to order for me. I ended up eating raw squid or something. It’s amazing how little I’ve seen of the world, Emily. But I’m trying to make up for it. Please write when you can. Love, Raymond. I miss you, but nothing else about Newland.”

  He sounded happy, for maybe the first time in his life. But imagine not even missing your own family. Well, he always was a weirdo. But a weirdo whom she found herself missing at times. Like right now. He’d be whispering sarcastic remarks about each contestant out of the corner of his mouth. With him sitting next to her it would hurt less not to be up on stage herself.

  The girls were coming out in bathing suits and spike heels, as the announcer read their measurements: “…. thirty-four, twenty-two, thirty-four …”

  Why had the JayCees invited Sally to be in this pageant but not her? What about seniority? She couldn’t even blame it on her father for not being a JayCee, as some girls did, because there was Sally.

  “… Miss Emily Prince … thirty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty-six …” She just hadn’t been poured in the right mold. She wrapped her arms tightly across her chest and slouched down.

  “… Miss Sally Prince, thirty-four, twenty-four, thirty-four …” Sally heard this with pride. She’d worked hard to get her waist exactly ten inches smaller than her breasts and hips. She’d been measuring weekly for years. If her waist began to thicken, she’d do one set of exercises. Another set if her bust began to diminish. It seemed like her breasts had begun swelling since she and Jed had been making love. Could everyone out there see that she was no longer a virgin? Would she get all coarse like Betty French and Sandy Ellis?

  She loved being under the spotlight with the entire room admiring her. She smiled for all she was worth, trying to project pep. If only she hadn’t dropped the mike. But maybe no one noticed. Or maybe they thought it was part of the act.

  Jed watched Sally pause and turn from side to side. God, she was gorgeous. The whole town could look at her and want her and speculate, but he was the only one who got to touch what was underneath that bathing suit. Thank the Lord she’d got over her notion that sex was a sin. Now he blew up every rubber like a balloon to be sure there was no leaks. Hank and Bobby, sitting on either side of him, poked him with their elbows, and he grinned. Everybody knew she was his girl, and he felt proud. She lived on Tsali Street, her daddy ran the town, she could have picked any boy in the whole place, and she’d picked him. Of course he’d picked her too. And he could have had any girl—except maybe Sister Sourpussy, whom he spotted hunched over several rows below. But who’d want her now that Old Ugly had gone up at New York City? It sure was nice around the house with him gone. No more arguments at dinner.

  Donny and Leon lay under the hemlocks by the stadium wall, looking down at the spotlit stage through binoculars Leon had found. After the football games, when the floodlights were cut, as the Rebels were cleaning out the popcorn poppers, Leon would climb the stadium wall and creep through the bleachers searching for forgotten blankets and thermoses, fallen change. Rats would be scurrying up and down the concrete steps, carrying popcorn, peanuts, and heels of hot dogs. Leon’s parents had sent him down from New York City, where he’d been getting in trouble with the laws, to live with an aunt. He had all kinds of daring ideas, and Donny thought he was wonderful.

  Donny watched the girls strut across the stage, remembering last winter when he and Tadpole had been at the newsstand in town playing pinball. As they were leaving, they took a Playboy off the rack. Miss March had long blonde hair and huge jugs. Donny was imagining what it would be like to have that silky blonde mane swirling around your face as those white tits lowered themselves onto your chest, when Tadpole whistled and said, “Look at that hair, man. Charlene, now, she’s a hot number. But her hair, man, you could scrub the kitchen floor with it.”

  The owner of the newsstand called from behind the counter with a leer, “White tail turn you boys on?”

  “Naw sir,” they said in unison, replacing the magazine and racing out.

  Sally Prince was swaying onto the stage, and Leon wouldn’t give him his turn. Donny punched him and grabbed the binoculars, saying, “Goddam, Leon, it’s my turn, motherfucker!” They scuffled in the dirt. A flashlight beam swept the bushes. “Hey, who’s that up there?” a deep voice called. They crawled frantically to the wall, as the flashlight came rapidly up the hill. They dragged themselves up and over the wall, then ran like hell down the highway toward Pine Woods. Donny was terrified. He’d never been in no trouble. His grandmaw would kill him. She’d been complaining about him hanging around with Leon. Maybe she was right about Leon being destined for a life of crime.

  Hundreds of cheerleaders from all over the South gathered at the cheerleading clinic on the college campus near Birmingham to stay in the dormitories and learn each other’s cheers. In the mornings the huge football field was packed with girls in uniforms practicing. Several instructors, in outfits like tennis dresses, sauntered around, watching and critiquing.

  “The little blonde in the middle … Yes, you. More pep to your jump, honey! Bounce when you come down!”

  In the afternoon were workshops on poster painting, float construction, pom-pom making. Sally was insep
arable from her notebook, in which she wrote down new cheers and project ideas.

  And in the evenings the clinic head, a short pudgy gym teacher from Mobile, lectured on school spirit: “In order for our teams to play their very best, girls—be the game football, basketball, baseball, or track—our boys need to know that the entire school is behind them one hundred percent all the way! They aren’t just playing for themselves, or for the coach, or for the team—they’re playing for your whole student body. And in fact, they’re playing for your whole town. Their victories reflect credit and glory on the entire community of which they and us are a part of. And it’s up to us, girls, as the chosen representatives of that community, to let our boys out there on that field know that, whatever happens, we’re behind them one hundred percent all the way!”

  Everyone cheered. Sally wrote in her notebook: “Team represents entire community.” She chewed the tip of her pencil. As the youngest member of the Newland squad, she felt she should try hardest. Mo was always telling everyone she was “a real good little worker,” and it made her proud. Sally was hoping Mo might nominate her as her successor as president of Ingenue the following year. She had finally decided she was satisfied with being only second runner-up in the Miss Newland contest. She got to ride on the JayCee float in the Fourth of July parade next summer. And besides, it gave her something to work toward.

  “Now some of you girls are old timers at all this. And you know as well as I do that being a good cheerleader requires exactly the identical qualities as being a good wife does. You have to know your man—only in this case, you have to know a couple of dozen of them!”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Now I’m not joking, girls. When your team comes out of that locker room after a defeat, you have to be there to let them know they’re still winners in your book. Now some boys you have to hug. Others, you should stay away from and let them recover alone. Some like to explain to you what went wrong. Others like to make it into a big joke. And your job, girls, is to know which player to treat which way. And this quality, girls, is what makes the difference between a good cheerleader and a really great cheerleader!”

  Everyone cheered, and Sally wrote, “Great cheerleader = knowing how to treat each player after a defeat.” She nodded her head forcefully. That was really true, too. Now, Jed you had to baby, while he grumbled. Hank would bite your head off if you got near him. She vowed to try harder to be more attentive to the individual needs of each of her players. It was good practice, too, for when she had her a family of her own. This was what her own mother always did—anticipated her husband’s moods and needs. She did it with her children, too, knowing when to hug them and when to stay out of the way. Sally guessed her own mother was just about the perfect woman, taking pleasure in making her family comfortable and happy.

  Jed got up late, lifted weights, worked on the Chevy, practiced with the football team. Some afternoons he and Sally would go water skiing with Bobby and Hank. With beers on the dashboard, they’d haul her around the lake as, time after time, she failed to stand up on the skis. She would toss her head, frown, and purse her lips, as she bobbed in the water, holding the handle between her two skis. He would take off with a roar; and she would be dragged under the water, arms first, her skis tangling and shooting off in all directions, and her bathing suit top billowing out to reveal breasts, and sometimes nipples. As hard as it was to understand how she could fail to stand up, he just had to glance at her pouty little face to roar with laughter and then circle around to try again, chugging his beer. Hank and Bobby would yell over the roar of the motor, “You’re one lucky man, Tatro. Jesus, would I like a piece of her action!”

  Jed, pleased, would try to look annoyed. “Yeah? And how’d you like this beer can up your ass, Osborne?”

  After eighteen or twenty tries, Hank would drive the boat while Jed swooped around on a single ski, enveloped in a fine spray. He would leap across the wake and shoot out to the side, almost even with the boat, where he would raise the handle high over his head to keep from sinking while the boat caught up.

  As Hank steered the hurtling boat between submerged logs and rocks, Sally would squint into the sun at Jed. He could feel her eyes moving all over his brown muscled body as it rippled and glistened in the spray. He would tuck one knee behind the other, and lean over to form a forty-five-degree angle with the lake surface. Sometimes, if there wasn’t much activity on the lake, Bobby and Hank would leave them off at a ski jump and go for a long long drive, while Jed’s white buttocks drove insistently up and down on top of her.

  At night he would pick her up, wearing his Benson Mill cap and T-shirt. Her father would either question him minutely about when they’d be home, or would eye him with distaste and stalk from the room. Jed would just smile. Sally was his now, he could afford to be generous to her grouchy old man.

  She would sit on the bleachers and watch him play third base. He loved to have her there. He’d chatter more to the pitcher: “Pitcherrightintherebabyattaboyhxunbabyhum.” He’d jump higher than he thought he could. He’d throw straighter and faster to first. He’d hit home runs. Her presence gave him powers. He felt larger than life—this must be what it meant to be in love. He would never leave her.

  Afterward they would go to the quarry and make love in the back seat, him streaked with dust, sweat, and grass stains.

  You drove several hours up narrow twisting dirt roads to reach the bowl that contained a small lake, a log dining hall, and several groupings of four-person tents with cots and wooden floors. Camp Tuscarora, where Emily was a junior counselor.

  The director, a hearty woman in a green gym suit and yellow Girl Scout tie, instructed the staff on orientation day as they sat around the tables in the dining hall: “The parents of our campers have entrusted us with their most precious possessions, girls—their daughters. And it’s up to us to see that these little children are kept safe here at Camp Tuscarora. But I don’t need to tell yall that your job involves much more. Parents are sending their daughters here to give them experiences they couldn’t have at home—good Christian fellowship with clean-living, God-fearing young women. Now yall must set a good example, girls. No smoking except in the counselors’ hut. It goes without saying that you don’t drink—at camp or anywhere else.

  “Now, when campers come to yall with their little problems, girls, it’s up to yall to give them love and comfort. This will be good practice for when yall have husbands and children of your very own in a few years. This is a woman’s rightful responsibility in this life, and it’s never too early to learn how to do it right. And of course yall wouldn’t be here tonight if we didn’t feel you’d already exhibited this ability. A good counselor will attune herself to the unspoken needs of her campers.”

  Emily was nervous. Could she be a good counselor? Sometimes she thought she didn’t even like children much. But when she heard herself think like this, she was appalled. What kind of a woman didn’t like children? A monster. She expected to have at least five or six of her own. But sometimes she watched her own mother around the house and garden, and thought that the poor woman didn’t much like any of it, had gotten stuck with it and was trying to make the best of tilings. There didn’t appear to be much pleasure in it for her.

  She was assigned to help the early teens, who were doing primitive camping, digging latrine holes in the forest and lashing limbs between tree trunks for toilet seats, cooking over open fires with black pots and reflector ovens. Their pup tents were pitched in a circle on a soft floor of pine needles. Often they hiked down to the lake for swimming and canoeing, sometimes for a meal in the dining hall with the other campers. Each morning they attended the flag ceremony in the field above the dining hall, and at night they sat around the fire, sang songs, told stories, and acted out skits.

  Emily wrote Raymond in the light from a kerosene lantern. His latest letters to her conveyed the same elation as his first: “When I’m not working, I walk around the city taking pictures. The wharves wher
e the ocean liners dock. The streets off Seventh Avenue crammed with boys pushing racks of suits and dresses. Messengers on Wall Street with attaché cases chained to their wrists. The fancy stores on Fifth Avenue. Mulberry Street and the Italian delicatessens, their windows crammed with sausages and salamis, strings of peppers, bunches of herbs. Chinatown. The weirdos around the fountain in Washington Square. (That’s in Greenwich Village.) The wholesale flower market. Yorkville, the townhouses in the East Sixties. One night I walked by chance out into Times Square. A huge cigarette billboard was blowing smoke rings. Neon signs glittered like a vault of precious gems.

  “I went with Gus to his parents’ in New Jersey for Sunday lunch last week. We came back across the George Washington Bridge, and there was the skyline stretching below us. We drove down the Henry Hudson Parkway past huge brick apartment buildings with all this fancy molding and with thousands of windows reflecting the sunset. I felt a great surge of pride that I was part of this now. Sometimes I stand for half an hour or more on Park Avenue in the Forties and stare at these huge glass and steel skyscrapers. They take my breath away, Emily. This city is like a turbine. It throbs with energy …”

  Emily blew out the lantern and stretched out in her sleeping bag, listening to the frogs and crickets and an occasional mournful owl. Babs, her tentmate, a sophomore Phys. Ed. major from the University of Georgia, taught canoeing. The first time she saw Babs, Emily was standing on the porch of the counselors’ hut on orientation day, looking down to the lake. A tanned girl in a red tank suit was gripping the edge of the diving board and slowly pressing herself into a handstand. After coming down, she jumped into a canoe and glided across the lake, executing complicated maneuvers. She landed at the dock accurately, then hoisted the aluminum canoe out of the water and carried it to the rack. Emily sat by her at dinner that night and studied her burnt nose, coated with greasy white ointment.