Paloma walked briskly back over to us, Hanna dragging her feet a little behind her.
“Can we start over?” Paloma asked.
We all nodded.
“This,” Paloma said, gesturing at Hanna, “is Hanna. She is funny and fun and deeply loyal. She often speaks before she thinks, but you can’t help but forgive her over and over because at her core, she is the best of humankind.”
Hanna actually looked a little embarrassed.
Paloma bumped her shoulder into Hanna’s. “She also has oculocutaneous albinism, Type 1. That means her body doesn’t produce melanin, which gives our skin and hair color.”
While this information sunk in, Hanna said, “Is it my turn now?”
Paloma nodded.
“This,” Hanna sighed, gesturing at her friend, “is Paloma. She’s fifty feet tall and only eats purple food. She’s from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She can milk an elephant.”
Shaking her head, Paloma said, “One of those things is true.”
“Ah, but which one?” Hanna said in a spooky voice. Then she mouthed “elephant” and pointed at Paloma.
Sirena and I laughed a little.
“Hey,” Hanna dropped her voice. “Did you know Gilda Radner doesn’t have a counselor?”
“What?” Emily asked. She was a cat with its fur standing on end.
Paloma picked up Hanna’s discarded backpack and handed it to her. “She canceled at the last minute. Got cast on a Second City touring company. They’re scrambling to replace her, but since there’s only five of us—”
“We’re the only girls in the whole camp?” I interrupted, stunned. “There’s like two hundred people here.”
“Yup,” Hanna said. “And since I am really more ghost than girl—”
“Hanna.” Paloma grabbed her wrist. “You do not look like a ghost.”
Hanna smiled. “It’s okay. I’m eternal.” She turned to the rest of us. “Paloma here is my biggest defender.”
Paloma shook her head. “I mostly defend you against you,” she said and slung her own bag over her shoulder.
“Make the first joke, then they laugh with you,” Hanna said, shrugging.
“What are we going to do without a counselor?” Emily asked, shifting from one foot to the other. Sirena wrapped her arm around her shoulders.
Hanna shrugged again. “We’ve got Paloma. After I met her, I told my mom I didn’t need her anymore.”
Emily’s mouth dropped open.
“She’s joking,” Paloma assured her. “I’m just good at keeping a schedule.”
Emily brightened. “Really? You know where we need to be next?”
Paloma smiled at Emily. “Yeah. Dinner’s at six at the Main Lodge. Hanna and I should drop our stuff off at the cabin. We can unpack later. And auditions are tomorrow at nine a.m. Are you all auditioning?”
We nodded and Paloma said, “Good. I thought we could warm up together before we go. And make sure you have some protein at breakfast. It’ll keep you full through the morning.”
“See?” said Hanna, wriggling her eyebrows at us. “Hope you needed a mom here.”
“I’d love one,” Emily said. “I just don’t want to play one.” She grinned as Sirena and I laughed.
Emily and Sirena and I helped Paloma and Hanna with their luggage, and we all turned to follow the path back to Gilda Radner.
A few steps in, Emily’s shoulders relaxed and her face went smooth again. Paloma’s surety about the schedule seemed to have calmed her anxiety. She took a deep breath and asked, “So . . . Hanna . . . albinism . . . that’s why you look like Elsa from Frozen?”
I inhaled sharply, but Hanna laughed.
“Her skin is way pinker than mine, but yeah. I always say I’m more Elsa than Elsa. But I’ve been her for Halloween like fifty times.”
“Me, too!” Emily grinned.
Paloma rolled her eyes. “Hanna keeps trying to make me be her Anna, but that whole Nordic scene doesn’t really jive with my coloring.”
“Ditto,” Sirena chuckled, and she and Paloma high-fived.
“Yeah, so instead, Paloma’s been that uni-brow artist Frida Kahlo for Halloween fifty times,” Hanna teased her.
“Sirena’s always Katherine Johnson,” Emily said.
“The human computer?” I asked. “From NASA?”
Sirena beamed at me. “I love that you know who Katherine Johnson is.”
“Hey! I knew who Katherine Johnson was,” Emily interrupted, hands on her hips.
“We watched Hidden Figures together.” Sirena shook her head at her. “I’m talking—”
“You guys? I have something important to say.” Hanna abruptly stopped walking and her face pulled into a worried look. We all held our breath. She clapped a hand on Emily’s shoulder. “We’re seriously in a rut when it comes to Halloween.”
By now we were all laughing. But a tiny little voice whispered in my head, No one asked, so no one here knows you’re always Hermione Granger for Halloween. I shook my head to silence the voice.
“For the record, Hanna,” Emily piped up, “I don’t think you look like a ghost at all.”
“Now, see, Paloma, you can sheathe your arrows.” Hanna linked one arm through Paloma’s and the other through Emily’s. “My fellow Elsa here thinks I look firmly of this world.”
Dragging suitcases and lugging backpacks, the five of us trooped back to the cabin along the dirt path. I wanted to look up at the mountains, but I kept tripping over tree roots. It was going to take a while to get used to the terrain.
CHAPTER FIVE
By the time we dumped the luggage, walked over to the Main Lodge, and climbed the steps up to the wraparound porch, I was breathing surprisingly hard.
“It’s the altitude,” Sirena said, watching me clutch dramatically at my chest. “Drink lots of water so you don’t get altitude sickness. It’ll get easier to breathe when you acclimate.”
I took a giant slug of water out of my bottle, crossed the porch, pulled open the front screen door, and found myself in a large, open room. A range of mountains was on display through the floor-to-ceiling windows on one wall. On the far end, a hip-high stage ran the width of the room. I took a deep breath—that must be where the final show would be performed. Twelve large tables with folding chairs arranged around them filled the space where I expected an audience to be. The tables go away for the show, I decided. I looked up in search of stage lights and found a couple rows of rigging near the stage, but the rest of the A-frame roof featured ceiling fans and round globes that illuminated the dining area. It was clear this place had been retrofitted for theatre, but it was wonderful nevertheless.
I must have gazed around a little too long for Emily’s patience because she slipped past me with Sirena’s hand in hers and scooted through the crowd to sit with their team. Hanna and Paloma waved at a group of guys who waved back. I hadn’t realized they’d also come with a group.
Paloma glanced over her shoulder at me. “You want to join us?”
There were only enough chairs for two more, so I waved her away. “I’ll find my brother. See you later!”
I scanned the room, looking for Will. He and Jonas were seated at an all-guys table and looked very settled in. My heart lurched a little. How did I go from knowing six people to sitting with no one?
Trust yourself. Trust your scene partner.
One table was still empty, so I slid into a seat. Maybe someone would join me. Since I didn’t have my phone to entertain me, I looked around, trying to make friendly eye contact with passersby to no avail.
Finally, someone tapped my right shoulder. I turned right, but no one was there. When I turned to my left, I jumped—it was Thor/Ben, the blond Scandinavian god/coach.
“Gotcha,” he said.
I hate that middle school trick, but I didn’t want to come off as a jerk, so I pretended to laugh as he flopped in a chair two down from me.
“Hi,” I said. “Did you get sent by the powers that be to talk to the super-a
wkward loner?”
He laughed. “No. I came to make sure you were going to audition tomorrow. You were funny before.”
He thought I was funny before? When? At the car? What had I even said?
“Uh, thanks. Yes. I am totally going to audition. I sent in my sketch last month.”
“Which one was it?” He settled an arm over the chair between us.
“The one about the zombies suing the creators of Walking Dead for defamation of character?”
A slow smile spread across his face. “That was you?”
I turned my body to face him. “You remember it?”
He nodded slowly. “Oh, I remember it. The part where they eat the brains of the IT guy for taking too long to set up the LCD projector?” He reached over and poked my bicep. “That was funny stuff.”
I grinned. “Thanks.”
He poked me again and my stomach flipped over. “Why are you all alone . . . uh . . . I can’t remember your name?”
“Zelda. And you’re Ben.”
He laughed. “Good memory. Zelda . . .” He made a confused face. “Like the video game?”
I nodded, used to this. “And the Fitzgerald.”
He stared at me blankly.
“F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife was named Zelda.”
He shook his head.
“He wrote The Great Gatsby?”
He frowned. “With Leonardo DiCaprio?”
“The movie is with Leonardo DiCaprio. Yes. It’s also a good book. And F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, wrote and danced and was an amazing artist in her own right. But it was the 1920s, so she didn’t get the attention her husband did.” I could feel myself rambling. And lecturing. I tried to rein it in and shrugged. “My mom loves Zelda Fitzgerald.”
He nodded and gazed over my shoulder.
I was losing him.
Balance giving and taking.
“Who’s named Ben?” I blurted.
He quirked his head. “Huh?”
My cheeks reddened. “In your family. Is some relative named Ben? Or are you Ben for Ben Franklin?”
He laughed. “Now him I’ve heard of. No, I’m Ben because my dad liked the name Ben. But maybe I should make something up.” He folded his super-muscular arms across his chest. “I’m Ben for . . . that clock in London. Big Ben. Tall, important, great at telling time.”
Big Ben is actually the name of the bell, not the clock, but after the failed Zelda Fitzgerald history lesson, I decided another one back-to-back wasn’t going to win me any fans. Keeping it positive, I just smiled. “Those are definitely qualities you want for your child.”
He laughed again and met my eye. “Funny girl . . . You’re dangerous.”
Dangerous? Was he flirting with me? He couldn’t be flirting with me. No one flirted with me.
“Too dangerous to eat dinner with?” I asked, shocked at my own forwardness.
One corner of his mouth drew up. “I could risk it. If you promise me one thing.”
I couldn’t tell for sure if my shortness of breath was Ben or altitude-related, but I had my suspicions. “Yes?”
“Promise me—”
He kept talking, but his comment was drowned out by the squawking feedback of the PA system as a round man in his sixties with a deep tan and salt-and-pepper hair took to the microphone.
“Hello, hello, sorry about that. Okay. Got it? Do we have it?”
I looked back to Ben, but he was eyes-forward on the speaker. I really wanted to know what I was supposed to promise him, but he was all business.
“Hello, everybody. Paul DeLuca here. And this other old guy is Paul Paulsen. Welcome to the thirtieth summer of Rocky Mountain Theatre Arts!”
Everyone whooped and clapped. Paul DeLuca basked in the applause as a tall, balding Paul Paulsen climbed on stage to join him. Paul Paulsen clutched a clipboard in one arm and nodded at us, his pinched facial features attempting a smile under bushy eyebrows.
I couldn’t believe I was seeing Paul DeLuca and Paul Paulsen in person. They had started RMTA with Jane Lloyd all those years ago. The only thing better than seeing them would have been seeing Jane.
Paul DeLuca held up a hand to quiet us down. “We’re very excited for your two weeks with us in these beautiful mountains. And to maximize that enjoyment . . . we have a few rules.”
We all chuckled at his joke, and his smile broadened at the acknowledgment.
“One, drink water. Drink more water than you’ve ever drunk before. We have a slogan up here—‘Pee Clear.’ ”
The crowd tittered. I looked over to catch Ben’s eye, but again, he was focused on Paul.
“Altitude sickness is very real and very painful, so stay hydrated. There are big orange water jugs on the front porch. Just refill your water bottle whenever you pass by. P2?”
P2? . . . Oh, I realized, Two Ps. Paul Paulsen.
P2 regarded his clipboard and leaned over the microphone. “Two, curfew is at nine p.m. Later than that, and it gets very dark.”
Paul DeLuca smiled and added, “Much darker than city kids are used to.”
We chuckled again and his chest puffed up. “Rule Three. The Boy Scout camp is across the road. They come through here to access some hiking trails and to see our shows—”
There was a single whoop from someone, and everyone laughed. It was a bigger laugh than Paul DeLuca had gotten. A tiny frown of annoyance flashed across his face, but it was quickly pushed down by a theatrical smile. “In turn, this year, for the first time, we are going to get to use their high ropes equipment for team building and whatnot. So be nice to the Boy Scouts.”
Paul Paulsen leaned back over the mic, his voice tight. “Lastly, we have a very strict physical violence policy. If you get in a physical altercation, you will be sent home. No exceptions.”
“Well,” Paul DeLuca drawled, “unless it’s in a scene.”
Paul Paulsen raised disapproving eyebrows at Paul DeLuca. Noticing them, Paul DeLuca held up a hand and forced a chuckle. “I know, I know. I’m joking.” He grinned at the audience and wagged a thick finger at us. “Keep those fight scenes to a minimum.”
Paul Paulsen’s eyes returned to his clipboard, and he slid a pencil behind his ear and sighed.
“Now, dinner is almost upon us—” Paul DeLuca began.
More cheering from the crowd.
“But before we eat, we are very excited that we have five girls at camp this year. So girls: welcome!”
My eyes sought out the other Gildas. Five was exciting? I thought about all the girls who did improv back home. Plus, Jane Lloyd had started this camp, and she was a girl.
What was up with this place?
I leaned over to Ben. “How many girls have there been in the past?” I whispered.
He shook his head, eyes front.
I gave him a look, but then shrugged. Maybe he didn’t want to be rude to Paul.
Paul Paulsen climbed down the steps away from the stage as Paul DeLuca continued. “Okay. Anyone who wants to audition for the upper-level teams, that starts right here at nine a.m. tomorrow morning. You’ll be in team cabins by tomorrow night. Well, except for the girls. You’ll all stay put in Gilda Radner. And now! Let’s eat!”
Chatter and scraping of chairs echoed through the Lodge as groups stood up to get in line for food. I frowned a little. Everyone would be in a cabin with their teammates except for the girls? We’d miss out on so much. I could already imagine the inside jokes piling up.
On the other hand, with only five girls, what else could they do?
I looked over at Ben, who was watching Paul DeLuca amble out of the room. Then he turned to me and smiled. “The Pauls seem nice, but they’re pretty intense rule followers. Sorry if I seemed rude. Just trying to fly under their radar. Especially P2’s.”
“Paul Paulsen?” I asked.
Ben nodded. “Last year, someone missed curfew twice, and the Pauls sent him home.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“It’s weird,” he said. “
This place is so laid back in a lot of ways. You’ll find you have quite a bit of freedom, schedule-wise. But there are few ways they’re super strict. Curfew’s one.”
“Well, Gilda Radner doesn’t even have a counselor, so—”
“Laura’s not here?”
I shook my head. “She got a last-minute touring gig for Second City.”
His face tensed for a moment and then he smiled. “Good for her. I hadn’t . . . heard that.”
I nodded, watching him. His jealousy was clear. “How long have you been coming here?” I asked. I took in a short breath. “You didn’t meet Jane Lloyd before she died, did you?”
“No, that was before my time.” He ran his tongue over his front teeth. “It’s my first summer coaching,” he said, “but I came as a camper for years before that. I’ve been doing film and television and performing—”
“At UCB. I remember. You told my dad.”
He smiled. “That’s right. I did.” He slid into the empty chair between us and planted a hand on my shoulder, which burst into flame at his touch. “Now. Are you ready for some turkey tetrazzini?”
“That sounds . . .”
“Terrible. It’s terrible. I’ll spare you the suspense.”
I laughed. “But wait—you said I had to promise you something.”
He let his hand drop as he drew his eyebrows together. “I . . . don’t remember.” But then he brightened. “Oh. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure you audition tomorrow. Promise me you’ll audition.” He shook his head. “You wrote ‘Zombies v. Walking Dead.’ I’ll be watching for you.”
My stomach turned in on itself.
Then Will appeared. “Hey, Zelda! I figured you were with the Gilda girls. But here you are.” His eyes flicked to Ben. “Hi,” he said neutrally.
“Hey,” Ben said.
I watched them eye each other for a weird hot minute.
Make active choices.
“So . . .” I said, standing. “Should we get in line?”
“You know,” Ben said, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows again, “I better actually go talk to the other coaches. We’re doing a short show after dinner. If I don’t see you later, I’ll catch you tomorrow at auditions.”
Charlie Brown feelings of disappointment swept in as he swept out. “What’s . . . what’s going on there?” Will asked in a low voice.
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