Dreamland
Chapter 5
Rogerson didn't get in touch with me the next day, or the day after, or even the day after that. The first two days I sulked, eating multiple Clark bars and lying on my bed studying the ceiling. I'd felt so different in just the short time I'd spent with him, like I'd finally stepped out of not only Cass's shadow but my own as well. It was a letdown to just be the old me again. By day three, however, something else happened to make me forget about him, at least temporarily. It was after school, one day when I didn't have practice, and I was sitting in the living room with the TV on, half watching it while half reading the two chapters I'd been assigned for Social Studies. I was flipping between a movie, an after-?school special about the perils of steroid use, and MTV, when I somehow landed on the Lamont Whipper Show. The topic was “You're Too Fat to Be All That!” and at some point one woman began yelling, every other word bleeped out but just barely. I looked up at the noise, ready to change back to the steroid show, and saw my sister. She was standing off to the side, by the edge of the audience, holding a clipboard up against her chest, a pen tucked behind her ear. The Lamont Whipper Show was famously low-?budget, and you often could see different staff members standing around, watching and conferring it added to the real TV, no-?holds-?barred image. Now the woman onstage, who was short and redheaded, was jabbing a finger in her sister's face, telling her off, and in the background Cass was watching intently, reaching back at one point to brush her hair away from her face. I jumped out of my chair, sending my book flying, and leaned in closer to the TV, just so I could see her. She looked the same, although her hair might have been shorter. Her nails were painted and she was wearing a black turtleneck she'd borrowed from my closet and never returned. It was funny how I'd forgotten about that, until now. “Caitlin?” I heard my mother from behind me: She was coming up the hallway. “Can you turn that down, please? All that yelling”
And then she just stopped, in mid-?sentence, and as I turned around I saw her hand fly to her mouth, her face shocked. “Oh, my God,” she said in a low voice, coming closer and leaning into the TV, where we could still see Cass standing there, now jotting something on her clipboard and nodding as a big guy in headphones said something in her ear. On-?screen, the woman's sister was yelling, “If you'd treated him better he wouldn't have come looking for anything from me!“ This was rebutted by a long series of beeps, punctuated only by the audience making oooohhhhh noises. ”It's her,” my mother said, and on-?screen my sister smiled, laughing at something the guy next to her said, and hugged the clipboard back up to her chest. “Look at her. It's Cassandra.” “I know,” I said. “Look at that,” she said softly, kneeling down in front of the TV, her face just inches from it. Cass brushed her hair out of her face again, twisting one strand around a finger, and my mother's face crumpled. “Oh, my God,” she said, and as I watched she reached out one hand and pressed it against the TV screen, running her own finger across Cass's face. Cass, unaware, half-?smiled. “Mom,” I said, and I was almost sorry now she'd seen it, she looked so pathetic crouched there, reaching out, with one of those hollow-?eyed dollsthe Sunday School Teacher, apple and Bible in handwatching from beside the magazine rack. Just then the sisters disappeared from the screen, as did Cass, replaced by Lamont Whippet's big face. “Coming up next: Judy and Tamara's older sister, who has a secret about one of their husbands to share with themand with us! Stay tuned!” A Doublemint commercial came on but my mother remained crouched there, hand on the screen, as if she could still see Cass in front of her, close enough to touch. “She's okay,” she said softly. I wasn't even sure she was talking to me. “She's alive.” “Of course she is,” I said. “She's fine.”
She let her hand chop then, and sat back on her heels, wiping at her eyes. “I just am so glad ... she's okay. She's okay.” We sat there and watched the rest of the show, catching glimpses of Cass again and again, but never for as long. The third sister confessed to affairs with both husbands, which resulted in a full-?out brawl during which we got to see Adam, who bounded onstage to break things up. My mother seemed horrified by this kind of behavior that went against everything she believed inbut she kept her eyes glued to the set. I had a feeling the Lamont Whipper Show would now become regular viewing in our house. When my father came home, she told him everything. He nodded, looking tired, then went to his study and shut the door. My mother watched him go, then walked to the kitchen and picked up the phone, drawing out the list of numbers they'd called that first day Cass was gone and finding the one for the show. “Yes, I watched your program today,” she said in her best Junior League voice when someone answered, “and ... and what? Oh, yes, it was very good. Entertaining. But I'm trying to reach one of your staff members, and I was wondering ... oh, I understand. Of course. But could you give her a message, please? It's kind of important.” My father came out of his study, took off his reading glasses, and tucked them in his front pocket. I thought about all those Yale bulletins stuck in his study drawer, and how he must feel to know Cass was working at a trash talk show, fining up angry confrontations and shocking confessions. “Her name is Cassandra O'Koren,” my mother said, and now her voice didn't sound so strong. My father turned and watched her as she spoke, and I realized I was holding my breath. All I could see was my mother in front of the TV, one hand reaching out to touch Cass's face, any way the only wayshe could. “And please just tell her, would you, that her family loves and misses her, very much. Thank you.” After my first night with him, I expected Rogerson to show up at another game, or a party, or even just drive past my house slowly enough to draw me to the window or outside. He didn't. First, I was surprised, then sad, then really, really pissed off. Rina said these phases were normal, even documented.
She shared endless Clark bars with me, seeing me through what she called The Cycle of Recovery. I had just cleared Letting Go and Moving On when I saw him again. The cheerleading squad was at the Senior Center for an event called Senior Days, which consisted of different community groups performing and teaching everything from ballroom dancing to lanyard making. We were on hand to do one of our dance routines, as well as fill in the gaps while other groups moved on and off the stage. It was ten in the morning and we'd had a big game the night before. I had a sore back from adjusting to my new position at the midpoint in the pyramid, Rina had a hangover, and Kelly Brandt and Chad had broken upagainabout seven hours earlier. Clearly, we were not at our best. “I think they hate us,” Rina whispered to me as we did our shimmy-?shake number to “My Girl,” with rows and rows of elderly people sitting in folding chairs in front of us. They were watching in a polite, if somewhat bored fashion: Some had their hands over their ears to block out our music. Kelly was sniffling, wiping her eyes during her handspring run, and Melinda Trudale had somehow missed our dance coach's advice to “tone things down a bit” and was doing her normal gyrating and hip-?snapping right up front, much to the horror of a frail woman with an oxygen tank in the front row who was trying to knit some booties. “I don't care,” I said to Rina, and this pretty much summed up everything I'd been feeling in the last week. I'd begun to wonder if I really had dreamed everything that had happened with Rogerson. That whole Friday before seemed unreal now. And it could have been, except for the fallout I was suffering for rejecting Mike Evans. Rina had only been upset with me for about five minutes, but Mike had been alternately glaring or sulking at me all week. Not that I cared that much, being that I was doing much of the same, feeling cheap and lost and unable to forget kissing Rogerson for all that time in his car, even as I tried to. We finished our number and got a pattering of polite applause as we ran off the stage, yelling and high-?kicking. A man with a beard, barefoot and carrying a pillow, took the stage after us. I could see Stewart and Boo in the back of the room. They were teaching an art workshop involving fruit and personal experience in another part of the building. My mother was there too, with the Junior League, assembling snacks and punch in the back kitchen. She'd been so preoccupied catching every airing of the Lamont Whipper Showwhich was on daily at eleven, three, and ten at night on various channelsshe hadn't even noticed anything different about me this last week. She'd only seen Cass on one more show, but still she sat through all the catfights and cussing, waiting for another glimpse. “Hello, everyone,” the man with the beard and pillow said softly into the microphone. “My name is Wade, and I want everyone to take a deep, cleansing breath, because for the next half hour, we're all going to get a little closer to ourselves.”
After Melinda, the knitting woman in the front row had obviously had enough of anyone getting close to themselves. She picked up her bag and her booties, and wheeled her oxygen tank right on out of there.
Wade, at the microphone, didn't seem to notice. “I'm an artist, a writer, a dancer, and a survivor, and I want to show you even the smallest movement can spur happiness and healing.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Rina said in a flat voice, reaching up to adjust her bra strap. “I'm going outside for a cigarette.” “I'm right behind you,” Eliza Drake said, pulling her pack out of her purse.
“You coming?” Rina asked me. “In a minute,” I said. Onstage, Wade had taken his pillow and sat down, folding his legs in the position I recognized from Boo's biweekly garden meditation. The crowd was thinning out, slowly, chairs rattling as people headed back to the snack area, where I could see my mother pouring punch into little blue cups. “Now, the first thing I want everyone to do,” “Wade was saying into the microphone, ”is to take a breath and hold your arms over your head, like this.“ I watched as a few senior citizens followed his lead: Boo and Stewart's arms shot straight up, and they both had their eyes closed. Beyond the huge windows on the other side of the room I could see Rina and Eliza sitting by the fountain outside, smoking, tapping their ash mto the water behind them. I went back to the punch area, where my mother was handing out cups and cookies. ”Hi, honey,“ she said to me. Her face was flushed and she was smiling. My mother liked nothing more than a nice project to lose herself in. She'd been baking cookies and brownies all week for Senior Days, as well as coordinating thirty other Junior Leaguers for everything from decorations to scheduling. ”Do me a favor?“ she asked me. ”Sure,“ I said, as an elderly woman with a walker bumped me out of the way to grab a cookie. ”Go back in the kitchen and bring out another tray of these, would you? We've got some kids helping out back there. They can show you where they are.“ ”Okay.“ ”Wonderful,“ she said, already having moved on to a group of older men who were struggling to open a container of juice. ”Let me get that for you ... here you go! And help yourself to a cookie. We've got chocolate chip, lemon drop, pecan ...“ As I walked through the open kitchen door, I saw the room was empty, save for a guy stacking cookies onto a big platter on the far countertop. The room was very bright, with fluorescent lights and clean, white floors and walls, and I found myself squinting as I crossed over to where he was standing. Outside, in the main room, I could still hear Wade talking; he was saying something about freedom of movement. ”Excuse me,“ I said, and I remember thinking there was something about this person that was familiar, even before he turned around, ”I'm supposed to“ It was Rogerson. He wore jeans and a white T-?shirt, his hair pulled back at his neck, and seeing him in such bright light was startling, and made him suddenly real. He didn't seem surprised to see me at all, just leveling me with a look and smiling slightly. Outside, Wade was directing everyone to breathe and do a personal movement, something spontaneous. ”You just might surprise yourself,“ he said. Rogerson put a cookie on the tray. ”Supposed to what?“ he said, and there was that look again, half mocking me, and I felt woozy under all those lights, like I might fall down. ”Get those,“ I said, pointing to the tray, which he picked up and handed to me. I turned around and started for the door, feeling him watching me as I walked away. ”Remember to breathe,“ Wade was saying from the stage, his voice low and soothing. I turned around and Rogerson was still there. He raised his eyebrows. ”So,“ I said, ”were you, like, not even going to call me?“ He looked surprised. ”I didn't know your last name.“ ”You know where I live,“ I said. ”Yeah,“ he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. He ducked his head and a few dreadlocks slipped and fell over his forehead. Then he looked up and said, ”I was working on that.“ ”Really.“ ”Yep,“ he said, leaning back against the counter. There was something about the way he moved, slowly and deliberately, that drove me crazy. ”Really."
I just shook my head and walked back out to the punch table, where my mother, exasperated, yanked the tray out of my hand, knocking a few pecan cookies to the floor. “Well, it's about time,” she said as she put it on the table, and hands immediately began grabbing. But I was already turning back to the kitchen, walking through to find Rogerson standing just where I'd left him, as if he'd known I'd be back and was waiting for me. “Let it go,” Wade was saying, and I could still see him in my head, fingers touching, as I walked across that bright kitchen. “Open up your mind and find yourself there.” I stood in front of Rogerson and looked into his green eyes. He smiled at me. “I can't believe you,” I said to him. “It's the hair,” he explained. I shook my head. “What are you doing here, anyway?” He slid his hands around my waist, his fingers sliding up to touch my back just where I'd hurt it in pyramid duty the night before. “It's a long story,” he said. “You really want to hear it?” And I didn't at that moment, not really. Onstage behind me Wade was still talking, reminding me to breathe, breathe, open up and be free, and all the other nonsense words, so it was his voice I heard, and none of the others in my own head, as Rogerson leaned in and kissed me and I let go, closing my eyes and breathing all the way.