DARE TO BE GREAT – Step 10: SET YOUR GOALS
Clear your mind, for the moment, of theories, beliefs, insecurities, and probability factors. Now is the time to dream. On a blank piece of paper, write the phrase, "Life Goals" and underline it. Now list, in point form, everything your heart desires. Make sure your wish list includes how you'd like to look, what kind of relationships you'd like to have, what kind of work you'd like to do, what kind of hobbies you'd like to try. Cover the categories we've dealt with before – the physical, mental, emotional, financial, social, and spiritual. Make it as detailed a picture as you can make it – a detailed picture of the person you would be, if only you weren't afraid.
Don't just think in terms of doing – some of your goals might require the courage to stop doing -- to stop putting up with an abusive relationship, for example, or stop saying 'yes' to the door-to-door salesmen. Your goal might be climbing a mountain or making a million dollars, bungee jumping or memorizing the complete works of William Shakespeare. Think big. Anything is possible.
Now put a check mark beside anything that you've already achieved, and rank the rest, as usual, by degree of difficulty. These are your life dreams, dreams that will require change, action, and courage. These are the goals you will work toward using the skills you've learned in the Morris Method of Creative Risk-taking! You're ready, fledglings, now spread your wings and fly! DARE TO BE GREAT!
***
PHYSICAL - touch my toes - earn a brown belt - leg press 150 pounds - become a vegetarian - live to be 100
MENTAL - learn Chinese - write a history text for teens
EMOTIONAL - learn to love my height - be rude to a pushy salesclerk - fall in love, all the way - raise a child or two
FINANCIAL - buy a house - replace the money I took out of savings - invest in original art (woman with chicken?)
SOCIAL - audition for community theatre - join a book club - travel to Asia with just a knapsack
SPIRITUAL - live gently on the planet - meditate - be unafraid to die
***
The shuttle bus was thumping along a dry dirt road in the outer reaches of Algonquin Park; dust was billowing in through the window someone had opened, and it was making the cigarette smoke problem worse instead of better. Twice Everly looked deliberately at the smoker, but the woman seemed oblivious to the discomfort she was causing others. An older man at the open window snicked his tongue in annoyance and slid the panel of glass closed again. The dust settled slowly, tiny particles swirling into the cigarette smoke, illuminated by the sunlight as it drifted aimlessly around the bus. Finally the woman finished puffing. She tossed the stub on the floor, ground it out with a twist of her shoe, and opened her own window for some fresh air, causing a sudden gust of air to blow hairdos askew on the two women in front of her. Those women clapped their hands to their heads and looked at each other in annoyance, but said nothing.
Everly covertly inspected the passengers on board the bus. The blonde smoker was glitzy, probably in her thirties, with pink shorts, big hair and showgirl makeup. The women in front of her were perhaps ten years older, mousy and nondescript. A few seats ahead of them a large and matronly woman in a purple jumpsuit flipped through the Dare To Be Great book, cramming, Everly supposed, so as not to be caught off guard. Across from her a young woman no more than twenty stared out the window. (She had obviously not yet read Dr. Morris's book -- she was wearing a beige sweater and skirt, the penultimate fashion faux pas for the courage seeker.) There were a handful of men -- chinless and bespectacled, bald and stocky, thin and anemic, but they were outnumbered by the women.
Surprisingly few people were talking to their seat mates; there seemed to be a sheepish atmosphere on the bus, an underlying shame at having proven so lacking in self-respect or nerve or assertiveness that one was willing to fork over $1500 for three days of -- what? -- unknown training techniques, possible danger, probable discomfort, and certain embarrassment. But it was easy to guess at the insecurities that had brought them there: dumb blonde, over-the-hill, too fat, too thin, too foreign, too tall -- hurtful labels and confining pigeonholes that had restricted their vision and boxed in their opinions of themselves. Everly looked out the window at the curvy line of trees. She hoped there would be no touchy-feely, unpack-your-emotional-baggage-in-front-of-total-strangers stuff.
Now the bus rumbled and fumed to a stop in front of a massive wooden archway over the road, and a heavy gate barring the way. A sign beside the gate read, 'Welcome' and 'Dare To Be Great!'. The arch overhead, though, was less inviting. It said, 'Hoods in the Woods' in crudely carved letters, and a skull and crossbones was scraped into the timber beside the words. The bus driver jumped out, unbolted the gate, and drove through, not bothering to stop and close the gate behind them.
Most days, this campground was a highly successful wilderness training camp for non-violent juvenile offenders and troubled teens. Here they would work, some for the first time in their lives, to earn their keep: chop wood, cook food, clear another acre of wilderness. At the end of their month-long stay they would go solo in the woods for 24 hours, with only a sleeping bag, a knife, and a box of matches. More than one young man had been put on the path to the straight and narrow here, but there were always a few, like the one who had shimmied up the archway with his knife between his teeth to do the carving, who could not be saved. The wilderness training camp had completed its summer session, arson-free this year to the surprise of the counsellors, and the autumn session would not commence for another two weeks; that left the Labour Day weekend available for Dr. Morris's group.
The bus lurched to a stop in front of a large post-and-beam building, and expired. The driver heaved a sigh of equal volume and stumped off the bus in the direction of the lodge, leaving his passengers to conclude that they had in fact arrived, and should disembark. A thin man at the back of the bus took charge. "We'd better take our stuff with us," he said in a nasal voice. "There's no telling how long this bus will stick around." People organized their belongings and filed off the bus, not wanting to obey him, and wishing they had said something first, but recognizing the logic in his suggestion.
The thin man put his duffel bag down on a bare patch of lawn. "I'll check in at the office," he said, "and see what's going on." The rest of the group muttered, but in an orderly manner, and waited for his return. The blonde lit up a cigarette.
In a few moments, the thin man was back. He was now wearing a badge that said 'Hello, I'm Peter' and a tan baseball cap with a leather brim and a 'Dare To Be Great' logo on the front. Free hat when you sign in," he said happily, and the group hastened past him to the door.
After registering at the office, and claiming her hat, Everly went in search of her cabin. The middle-aged woman in purple, 'Hello I'm Violet', joined her, and they chatted pleasantly as they explored the campground. The lodge in which they had registered contained an office, normally used for administrative work and private counselling sessions with recalcitrant campers, a classroom, a lounge with a central fireplace and a dozen or so sagging armchairs around it, a community kitchen, mess hall, and at the back of the building, a wing of showers and washrooms. The furnishings were shabby and utilitarian, but reasonably clean; camp counsellors had found housekeeping duty to be an effective form of discipline for their young charges. Behind the lodge, a large grassy area opened up, with a fire pit in the middle and a scattering of stumps and logs around it, some for firewood, some for seating. Small cabins lined the perimeter of the compound, and these would be home for the next three days.
Violet found her cabin and went in to unpack, promising to look for Everly at dinner that evening. Everly's cabin was at the far end of the compound. Inside, the accommodations were spare, to say the least; a clean bare mattress on a metal bed frame, a stack of clean bedding, and a small table and chair were the only contents of the room. A row of hooks on the wall served as a closet, and Everly hung a few clothes there, leaving foldables in her suitcase and sliding that underneath the bed. She made the bed and lay down to test the mattress and look through the seminar paperwork.
It was now approaching 5:00 on Friday afternoon. According to the schedule, dinner would be held in the mess hall at 6:00, followed by the opening session, "Getting to Know You... The Real You", in the classroom at 7:00. Dr. Lana B. Morris would be in attendance, and would facilitate introductions, ice-breakers, and ominous-sounding self-exploratory exercises. At 9:30 the group would retire to the lounge for socializing. Everly set her alarm clock for 5:45, and dozed fitfully.
Dinner in the mess hall was a great disappointment. The promotional materials had promised gourmet meals, but the cafeteria had only hamburgers, mushroom soup, tuna sandwiches, and a pale excuse for a salad. Everly picked at a tuna sandwich, grumbling quietly to Violet. 'Hello, I'm Peter' was making noises about getting to the classroom early, but several people, including Everly and Violet, ignored him. They arrived at the classroom just at 7:00.
The room was full, participants ready, but there was no sign of an organizer, no sign of Dr. Lana B. Morris. Ten minutes passed. The group got edgy. People clicked their tongues, rolled their eyes, recrossed their legs and shook their heads disbelievingly at their neighbours. "...poorly organized... lousy meal... demand my money back..."; the hostility was getting tangible when finally thin Peter stood and shook his head. "I guess I better go find out what's going on," he said, and this time people murmured encouragement, and cheered. And then the glitzy blonde stood up.
"Sit down, Peter," she said with authority, and he plopped down into his seat at once. "I'm ready to start the seminar now." A collective pause as people took this in.
"Hello," she said, smiling, "I'm Dr. Lana B. Morris, and you are one sorry bunch of scaredy cats."
***
"I've been watching you," she said, strolling to the front of the classroom with an insolent wiggle. "You're pathetic. You're polite when you're getting pushed around, passive-aggressive when you're angry; you're so Canadian it hurts."
The students bristled. It was one thing to catch them on their best behaviour using trickery and deceit; it was quite another to impugn the national character. If this woman turned out to be American, there would be strongly worded letters sent to the organizers. Or the editor. Or somebody.
"Did that offend you?" Silence. "Did my smoking on the bus offend you? Did the lousy meal offend you? Did the fact that I was fifteen minutes late in starting offend you?" Small nods of the head and gargling noises.
"Then why don't you say so? Are you AFRAID?" Nervous laughter.
She pointed a finger at one of the mousy women in the front row. "Are you afraid?"
"No."
"Then say so."
"Um, I'm not afraid?"
"Say it!"
"I'm not afraid."
"Yell it!"
"I'm not afraid!"
She pointed at the next person, a soft-looking man in his fifties with the 'Hello, I'm Garth' badge.
"I'm not afraid!"
"LOUDER!"
"I'M NOT AFRAID!"
And around the room she went, pointing and shouting until everyone had shouted back, and then in unison and then in whispers and then in funny voices and then singing at the top of their lungs. At last she stopped, and they laughed now, embarrassed and relieved and slightly put out.
Dr. Morris boosted herself onto the teacher's desk at the front of the room. She was still in her hot pink shorts, and her bare legs dangled over the edge of the desk. "I'm going to tell you about a woman I know who used to be afraid." She undid a button on her top, and then another. A man coughed, and a woman in the front row was suddenly taken by an urge to check her fingernails.
"I was born with a large birthmark on my chest, and another on my bottom." She undid another button.
Only two remained, and they were straining to contain her bounty. Several of the men were breathing heavily, and even Everly felt uncomfortably overheated.
"I was horribly embarrassed about these birthmarks, and I was afraid -- afraid people would see them; afraid people would talk about them, afraid people would find me unattractive." She undid one more button and her breasts swayed. The edge of a port wine stain could be seen on one.
"I was afraid to go shopping with my friends, afraid to undress for gym class with my schoolmates, afraid to go on dates with men. I was afraid to live life... because of this." She undid the last button and slipped the top off. She was not wearing a bra. The red blotch stretched from her armpit across one breast and down toward her navel. It was rough and bumpy, painful to look at.
She slid off the desk and unzipped her fly. The soft-looking man at the front began hyperventilating.
"I hid myself, because people might see. Now I show myself, and I am no longer afraid."
She dropped her drawers. She was not completely nude, but her thong concealed little. One plump cheek was covered by a birthmark, the other was flawless. The class was riveted. She completed her turn and faced the group.
"Now I have let you see the real me, and I am no longer afraid of you." She closed her eyes and held her palms out sweetly, and the students burst into applause, overcome by her vulnerability and beauty.
She smiled, and gracefully stepped back into her clothing. "Now it's your turn," she said. "Why are you afraid?"
And the students fell all over themselves, clamouring to reveal their fears, and show support for the doctor, and be accepted by the group. "I was afraid because I was fat." "I was afraid because I could not speak English." "I was afraid because I had a small, uh, thing. Penis." There were hugs and tears, applause, and an instant feeling of intimacy among the group.
And Everly, despite feeling manipulated by the melodramatic Dr. Morris, despite feeling embarrassed by the undressing and uncomfortable about the voyeurism, couldn't help but also feel a kinship with her, a deep understanding of her childhood fears, and an admiration for the way she had overcome them.
"I was afraid because I was tall," she said, to the cheers of onlookers, and she resolved never to be afraid again.
***
Social hour in the lounge was a lively affair; people were still giddy from the emotional soul-baring session (none of them had gone so far as to bare their physiques, although one lady flapped her triceps tragically to demonstrate how unfit she was), and they were behaving as if they had known each other forever. Violet was still snuffling a little, recalling childhood wounds, and Everly offered her a tissue as they waited for their drinks. Dr. Morris came over to the table.
"Did I just see you pull a tissue from your sleeve?' she inquired.
"Uh, yes you did, Dr. Morris."
"How clever. And please call me Lana."
She sat down and ordered a gimlet. Violet blew her nose and smiled shakily, while Everly wondered if clever was a good thing.
"That's an unusual name you have, Everly. Quite lovely." Dr. Morris was watching her closely. Everly smiled her thanks.
"I get a lot of comments on my name, too," offered Violet, "It's so ridiculously old-fashioned."
Lana paid no attention but Everly protested politely and declared that the classics never go out of style.
"And what do you do when you're not taking seminars?" Lana pressed.
Everly told her about teaching history, and turned the conversation to Violet's flower shop -- the perfect career for a woman so named.
Lana smiled pleasantly, but did not take her eyes off Everly. Everly fidgeted with a napkin. There was something too focussed about Lana's questions; she was starting to feel rattled.
"Are you seeing anyone, Everly?"
Dear God, she's a lesbian, thought Everly, and then -- or is it a trick? Perhaps this was the next big seminar stunt: to make a pass at a woman and see how she handles it. Yes, surely that was it. No self-respecting lesbian would be caught dead in pink hot pants. She swallowed.
"Well, um, sort of. You know -- good friends."
"Mmm."
Violet was poking around in her purse for money, and preparing to leave. Everly yawned hugely.
"Gosh I'm tired. Think I'll hit the sack, too. Good night Lana." Lana looked surprised at the abruptness of her departure, but recovered quickly.
"Good night Everly. Good night Violet."
And so, to bed. Although it must be said that Everly did not sleep well that night, dreaming of high heels and violets and tuna fish sandwiches.
***
Eight a.m., roll call: all but one present and accounted for. Absent was the spongy man in his fifties; apparently he had had chest pains in the night and thought it prudent to return home, where he lived in close proximity to a major medical centre. Breakfast was delightful. Now that her point had been made (and a few hundred dollars saved on dinner) Lana was springing for a higher calibre of caterer. This morning's trays carried whole grain pancakes, eggs benedict, scrambled tofu with a spicy vegetarian sausage-substitute, and a rainbow of fresh fruits. The coffee was aromatic and plentiful, and the courage campers drank great quantities of it in preparation for the day's events. At ten to nine they were ready in the classroom, and precisely on the hour, Lana walked in.
She was dressed in white today: stretch jeans, crop top, and a white sweater with gold braid on top. Her hair and makeup were immaculate, and Everly wondered if she had spent the night in town -- certainly she had not been one of the shivering naked bodies in the dank ladies' shower room that morning, cursing the low water pressure and squinting into the pockmarked mirrors as they tidied their faces. Everly had made a special effort to look her best in case of unexpected attention from Lana -- if there were to be any sexual overtures or other public humiliations, she would be as glamorous and gracious as possible when dealing with them. Lana was handing out blank pieces of paper and pencils, and introducing this morning's topic, 'The Inner Critic'.
"Inside each of us," she was saying, "lives the inner critic. Sometimes it is large and self-important, an intellectual snob who tells you that your opinions and actions are superficial and juvenile and of no possible interest to anyone. Sometimes, your inner critic is shadowy and timid, whispering that whatever you say or do will offend your mother, alarm your best friend, shock your boss. And sometimes your inner critic is a fussy nag, a nitpicker looking for errors, a monkey picking for lice.
"They're all bad news, and the only way to free yourself from their influence is to run right over them. To do that, we're going to think fast, talk fast, act fast. Blurt it out! Be yourself! Because this will take some practice..."
A woman, 'Hello, I'm Trudy', put up her hand. "But what about the times when you really shouldn't say what's on your mind? I want to be brave and everything, but I don't want to be tactless and hurt people's feelings."
Lana smiled. "Honey, if you were that kind of person you wouldn't be here. You'd be at the 'Pipe Down and Get a Grip' seminar down the road. You think too much; you need to be thoughtless."
She took her place on top of the desk, and allowed one shoe to dangle on the end of her foot. "Now, I'm going to say a word and I want you to start writing down your reactions to that word. No stopping, no hesitating, no pausing to think of the politically correct thing to say, just scribble as fast as you can and tell me what's on your mind. Ready?" The class shifted in anticipation.
"Bald." Furious scribbling as pencils flew. 'Hello, I'm Sam', whose hair had left him long ago, was writing with particular vigour, and his ears were glowing.
"Stop!" They were reluctant to stop, wanting to finish the sentence, finish the thought, but eventually the scratching trickled away and stopped.
"Sam, stand up and read us your thoughts," said Lana, off the desk now and walking around the classroom, reading over people's shoulders. He stood and stared at his paper, face working.
"Read!"
"Bald. Um, no hair. Red. Shiny. Face getting longer and longer, hair disappearing, getting older, father bald, transplants, bad toupees, greasy creams, this sucks, wear a hat." He stopped and received sympathetic applause from the class.
"Meredith, why don't you read us yours now."
Meredith stood and cleared her throat. "Bald. Telly Savalas, Yul Brynner, Mr. Clean, smooth, shiny, sexy, pink... that's all I wrote." She looked flustered. Sam looked gratified.
"Interesting," said Lana. "Isn't that interesting? Okay, next word: snot."
They dove in and wrote like fury, snickering at this one, and tossing their inhibitions to the wind. The next word was 'mother', then 'fat', then 'God'; and then Lana had them speak instead of write, and blurt out their associations to 'eat' and 'sick' and 'blonde' and 'black' and 'destiny'.
Then there was role-playing, and a break, and then childhood confessions. It was exhausting and exhilarating, and once again there were tears shed.
"You're doing well, my darlings, much better than I had hoped," said Lana, caressing them with her voice, her look, her smile. They were like putty in her hands, now.
"You've come far in your journey, my dear friends, but there's farther still to go. You've opened up, you've dared to trust, you've put away your inhibitions and seen that nothing dreadful happens when you do. You've looked at why you're afraid, and what you're afraid of, and you've done a little public speaking while you're at it, which incidentally is a fate worse than death for a lot of people.
"But that's not enough, my ducklings, that's not enough for me. Before the day is over you will sing, you will dance, you will run naked under the sun; and tomorrow morning... you will walk on fire!" The class erupted in excited babble, but she shooshed them, and calmed them, and settled them down.
"For the next half-hour, I want you to think. Put your head on your desk, or go find an armchair in the lounge. Relax, and think about what you've learned. About yourself, about others; about how different we are, about how much alike we are. I also want you to think of a song you can sing to the class. It can be a nursery rhyme, a lullaby, the national anthem, or Top 40. Or you can make one up. But it must have words, and a melody, and you must be ready to sing it this afternoon.
"Once you've had your think session, and selected your song, you're dismissed for lunch. I'll see you back here at one o'clock." She swept up her papers and left the room.
***
Half an hour later, Everly left the room and wandered outside. She was not hungry, having eaten a large quantity of food for breakfast, and she had not yet chosen a song, so she decided to skip lunch and look for a private place outdoors where she could think. The day was warm and sunny, with a freshness and a sweet smell of evergreen and past campfires in the air. She walked across the compound, past the cabins, and into the woods. She had seen a fitness trail there, with stations for rope climbing and chin-ups and running and such, and she thought she could complete her assignment and get some exercise while she walked the circuit.
Her sandals slipped a little on the cedar chip trail; she wouldn't be jogging, that was for sure. But at the first station, 'Warming up', she did a few minutes of high stepping, swinging her arms vigorously and thinking of marching songs. 'Seventy-six trombones led the big parade...' nope, didn't know the words. 'Oh when the saints, come marching in, oh when the saints come marching in...' well, she knew the words but the song didn't really say anything about who she really was, and that would be important, she felt. She left the warm-up area and continued walking.
The fitness trail was a two-kilometre loop, and already she was well out of sight of the campground. The path was well tended, though, clear of brush and stones, and open enough to make the circuit bright and inviting. At the second station, 'Sit-ups', she took off her sweatshirt and put it on the ground, then lay down on it and began doing crunches.
She returned to her think session. Really, she didn't know what to make of Lana and the risk-taking camp. She was moved, certainly, by some of the stories that had emerged. She felt a huge compassion for the rest of the campers, and an understanding that they were all alike, she and they; each in his own way needing acceptance and fearing rejection. She even felt a certain optimism that this awareness, this consciousness-raising, would last, that she would emerge from the camp stronger than she had entered it, and recognize that need and those fears in others, and be unafraid. But there was something not right. She could not prevent a small drop of cynicism -- her inner critic, perhaps? -- from poisoning her reactions. She could not shake off the ripples of disbelief and self-mockery that ruffled her thoughts as she shouted and clapped and wept with the others. And she suspected that her inner weakness, her insecurities and fears, were not being mastered, but merely masked; put aside for the moment by general agreement.
Certainly the fire walking was an alarming development. She vaguely recalled reading something about it in a magazine once -- about the skin being insulated from the heat of the coals by a layer of ash -- nevertheless, she had no wish to test somebody's theories of thermal conductivity with her own bare feet. She struggled up one more time, then collapsed back on the sweatshirt, looking up at the sky. She had fallen through that sky, beautiful and blue; she had mustered up her courage and jumped out of an airplane, thousands of feet above the ground. Cynical or not, fearful or not, she was willing to try, willing to let go, willing to fall. That had to count for something.
She got up, shook out the shirt and walked briskly along the path, breathing deeply and cursing her shoes. Nursery rhymes: 'Mary had a little lamb', 'Twinkle twinkle little star'. Lullabies: 'Rock a bye baby, in the tree top'... What could she sing that would be easy to perform but still meaningful? She took off her shoes and walked barefoot on the springy cedar chips, imagining they were 1200-degree coals. 'On top of old Smoky'... She had no idea what the real words to that one were, only the meatball rolling off spaghetti came to mind.
She was lost in thought, fire walking and singing songs in her head, and she didn't hear the noises ahead of her at station three, 'Push-ups', so she was greatly surprised when she rounded a curve in the trail and came up behind a couple on the ground, in the act, the man obscured by the woman who straddled him, doing the most enthusiastic push-ups imaginable. She was further surprised to realize that it was the good doctor Morris daring to be great in the great outdoors, and confused to observe that her buttocks, tanned and perfect and bouncing rhythmically to a song of her own, no longer showed any sign at all of a birthmark. Everly stood there, stupefied, trying to comprehend the inexplicable tableau, until she suddenly became conscious of what she was doing, and scrambled backwards out of sight.
She ran back along the trail in her bare feet for a few minutes, stopped to listen for sounds of pursuit or alarm, then put on her shoes and walked, thoughts whirling. Which of her classmates had been seduced by Dr. Lana? And wasn't there something unethical about that? She was a doctor, after all; practically a therapist. On the other hand, it had certainly been a man; at least that question was answered. But what on earth had happened to the birthmark? Everly had seen it with her own eyes not 24 hours ago; now it was gone. Well, of course it was not gone, it was hidden! Dr. Lana B. Morris was putting makeup on her butt! But wouldn't it rub off? And what about the other one, the one on her breast -- even with makeup it had to be obvious, jiggling around right under the guy's nose. It was baffling. And infuriating. Everly reached the campground none the wiser, and went to the mess hall, where she distractedly ate most of a loaf of savoury herb bread, and avoided looking out the windows. Then, at one minute before one o'clock, in a great state of anxiety, she got up and walked to the classroom.
***
Lana made her entrance at one, radiating the energy and oxygenation of a woman who has just enjoyed a superb sneeze. She wasted no time, but had each member of the class stand and sing, and Everly listened closely for clues to the identity of the woodlands lover in the songs chosen by the men. She still had no idea what she would sing herself, but at this point it seemed unimportant. Lana had deceived them all with her talk of self-acceptance and courage; she was obviously still afraid to be seen as she really was, and thus had no credibility whatsoever. Everly could sing the alphabet; it just didn't matter.
Peter was next, singing, "We all live in a yellow submarine" but it wasn't Peter, his pants were khaki. The unknown lover's pants, or what she had seen of them, had been light grey, his shoes had been businesslike, corporate even.
It wasn't Sam, he was wearing jeans, and Everly turned in her seat and checked every pair of pants on every man in the room and every woman too, just to be safe, but it was none of them and she faced the front again, unreasonably agitated.
But why would Lana bother to conceal the mark if the man had seen it already in class? Ergo, he must not be a student. Perhaps he was one of the caterers, or the groundskeeper. A groundskeeper in grey flannel pants. Right. Everly was getting a tension headache thinking about it. What did it matter?
"Everly? Your song?"
Her song. "Oh, I don't know," she said fretfully. And then it popped out, "Liar, liar, pants on fire, hang them on a telephone wire." She glared at Lana.
Lana's eyelashes flickered. "Well," she said smoothly, "an interesting choice. I guess we're all living a lie until we confront our fears, aren't we?" The class hesitated, then applauded uncertainly, and Everly fumed.
Violet was last, and proved to have a pure soprano voice that took them all by surprise. She sang Amazing Grace, and the haunting beauty of it left an echoey, tingly hush in the room. Everly felt the notes swelling over her, tumbling like cool water over her jangled nerves, soothing her spirit. She breathed deeply and the muscles in her face relaxed. So Lana still had a few insecurities; so what? She was only human. And if she and her boyfriend wanted to fool around outdoors, what business was it of Everly's? Really, talk about overreacting! Violet's voice filled the room and flowed into Everly's body and spilled out again, taking every bit of anger with it as it surged and stemmed, and ebbed away into the silence. Enormous applause, and Violet glowed like a bride.
Lana raised her arms and hollered, "Bravo!", which Everly mentally corrected to 'Brava', but in a good-natured way. She was over her little snit; she could carry on with the class.
"You're doing so well," Lana squealed, "I'm so proud of you all!" She pressed a hand to her bosom and her eyes moistened. Then she checked her watch. "But you know it's not going to be as easy in the outside world as it is in here. You're going to have to prepare yourself for the scrutiny of strangers, the questions of family and the approval or disapproval of friends.
"As part of this seminar I always invite an outsider to join the class for the next topic, 'Let's Get Physical'. He will not participate; he is merely an observer, a symbol of all the outside opinions that you must learn to ignore, accept, or overcome.
"Normally I invite the bus driver or one of the caterers to sit in on the session. But this weekend, due to a tiny little legal issue I'm dealing with from my previous seminar, I've asked a lawyer to join us."
Lana walked to the door, and with each step her spike heels seemed to drive deeper into Everly's brain. The blood was pounding in her ears, her skin burned, and her vision narrowed to a pinhole, obscured by black. It was not faint she felt, it was fury. Those pants, those shoes, those knobby knees and fuzzy shins!
"Class, I'd like you to meet Simon McCallum." He shambled in agreeably, but stopped, struck by the scent of danger. He looked around, saw Everly, and his face went white. She stared at him, motionless.
A trace of annoyance flicked across Lana's face, and she pulled Simon by the arm. "Right over here, dear," she murmured, and led him to a seat at the back of the room. Everly rose, excused herself, and walked blindly to the ladies' room, where she made a cold compress out of wet paper towels and held it to her face. She sat there, seething, cooking the paper towels with her body heat, until the door opened and Lana came in.
"So you are the Everly that Simon dated. I tried to find out last night, but..."
"But what? You were too busy putting on your makeup?" Lana looked mystified.
"I know about the butt makeup, Lana; I saw you in the woods."
Lana laughed. "Oh, you mean the birthmark applique? It's a theatrical prop, Everly -- necessary in my business."
Everly's jaw dropped. An applique? A fake birthmark? The woman was completely without scruples. Absolutely evil.
"But you mustn't be upset about that -- I mean, think about it, Everly; who would open up and reveal their flaws to a woman without flaws? You saw how it helped people to let their guard down." She was right about that, but all wrong, regardless. Her ruthlessness was breathtaking.
"And the Simon thing -- well even if it was you, I mean, you left him, didn't you? You didn't want him. He was disappointed, but he's over it, now. So what's the problem?"
"Well I just, I didn't want him getting hurt, I guess..."
"Oh I won't hurt him, Everly, don't you worry. I think he's quite a catch."
Everly looked at her hands. A little fish in a teacup floated in front of her. Quite a catch. She dropped her paper towels in the garbage can, and took a deep breath.
"Well, under the circumstances, I don't think I'll continue with the seminar," she said softly. "I have enjoyed it, though." Nothing if not polite.
"Oh, don't drop out now -- a romp in the forest 'au naturel' is just what you need to release those tensions and feel comfortable with yourself again."
A romp in the forest with Simon and Lana. Big fat likely. "I don't think so, Lana."
"Not even the fire walk, Everly?"
"Not even the fire walk."
Lana nodded. "Well, I think I understand. I hope I've helped you in your quest for courage, and I wish you all the best, Everly, I really do." She squeezed Everly's arm and left the washroom.
Everly waited a minute, then walked carefully to her cabin. She climbed into bed and pulled the covers up. She thought about Simon, and the years she had invested in the relationship. She thought about Lana and the woodlands encounter. She readied herself for tears, but eventually, when they didn't come, she fell asleep.