“Thanks, guys!” Jack beamed. “And, Teddy, you were awesome.”
“Totally,” I chimed in. “We got to watch you from the wings before we went on. So good!”
“Yeah well, now Kaylee gets to wipe the floor with all of us,” Teddy said with his lopsided smile. As if on cue, we suddenly heard Astrid, our favorite counselor, thanking everyone over the sound system for a “fabulous evening.” There was one final number, she announced, and Jack, Teddy, and I simultaneously turned our attention to Kaylee, whose face instantly tightened in a nervous, but determined, expression.
“You ready?” I whispered, squeezing her arm. She nodded, then slowly, almost painfully, unzipped her gray hoodie and handed it to me like a turtle handing over its shell. Earlier that day, I’d had to work hard to convince her not to wear it onstage.
“I’ll look fat without it,” she’d fretted in our cabin, digging her hands into the hoodie’s pockets and stretching it like a tarp in front of her. Even though I’d only known her for two weeks, I’d come to recognize this as her signature move.
“No you won’t,” I’d assured her, then tried my best to channel my friend Jenny Westcott’s fashion sense by assembling an outfit that she’d feel comfortable wearing. As I looked at her now, I knew Jenny would be proud of my work. High-waisted jeans made her look taller and more mature, while a turquoise scoop-neck T-shirt looked lovely with her skin tone. Finally, some silver hoop earrings that we’d found buried in her suitcase would add a little sparkle around her face when the stage lights hit them just right.
“You’re beautiful,” I said, giving her arm one more squeeze. “Now go get ’em.”
Jack and Teddy patted her back as she walked past us toward the stage. We all exchanged a look, anticipating the thrill of her performance.
“I already have chills, and she hasn’t even started singing yet,” whispered Jack. Teddy and I both nodded in agreement as the accompanist began to play Michael John LaChiusa’s gorgeous introduction, and tears immediately sprung to my eyes as Kaylee’s one-of-a-kind voice floated through the auditorium:
“He wanted a girl who hates dusty roads
He wanted a girl who cries porcelain tears . . .”
Kaylee’s voice was pure magic; it seemed to come out of every pore in her body, not just her mouth. As shy as she had been on the first day of camp, she was now in utter command of the auditorium, singing with heartrending emotion about unrequited love. When she finished the song, it took everything in our power not to rush the stage like crazy fans rushing the field at a sporting event. Instead, the three of us grabbed one another’s hands and jumped up and down, shrieking with pride. With each jump, I recalled thinking last year that nothing could beat my first year at Camp Curtain Up. But the formation of the Four Musketeers this year had proven me wrong. How the heck was I going to make it through the good-byes in the morning?
“We just have to stay in touch to remind each other all the time how special it was.”
The show was over, and Kaylee and I were walking toward the big end-of-camp bonfire, discussing how we were going to manage our post-CCU sadness. The air outside was much cooler than inside the auditorium, which meant Kaylee was once again wearing her gray hoodie, happy and safe inside her zippered security blanket. But now, instead of digging her hands into her pockets, she hooked one arm through mine, while her other hand held a flashlight, its beam of light dancing across the uneven path in front of us.
“Deal,” I said, leaning into her shoulder. “Let’s start a ‘Four Musketeers’ group text after we leave tomorrow.”
We found Jack and Teddy already sitting on a log by the bonfire, animatedly chatting about something. This had become a familiar sight over the past two weeks. They just never seemed to run out of things to talk about.
“Aren’t you two sick of each other yet?” I joked as we approached.
“Oh, we are,” Teddy deadpanned. “We just don’t want to hurt each other’s feelings.”
Kaylee and I rolled our eyes.
“You guys,” she said, shoving Teddy’s shoulder, “move over. Make room for us.”
“Oooh,” teased Jack, “give the star a showstopping finale and suddenly she’s the boss of everybody.”
“Oh my God, shut up,” Kaylee said, instantly embarrassed. She still wasn’t used to being referred to as a star.
As the boys scooted over on the log, allowing us to join them, Teddy cleared his throat in that I-have-something-important-to-talk-about way.
“So, Lou,” Teddy said, a somewhat accusatory tone in his voice, “what we were actually talking about before you got here is very serious. I just found out that you and Jack have never heard of the Ghostlight Festival.”
Before I could even respond, Kaylee grabbed my arm, aghast.
“Wait, hold up—you don’t know what Ghostlight is?”
I turned questioningly to Jack, who shook his head and shrugged.
“Looks like we have some explaining to do, Lou.”
“Sorry, guys,” I ventured, cautiously, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kaylee and Teddy exchanged a look like I’d just said I didn’t know the difference between an up-tempo and a ballad.
“Apparently we’ve been living under a rock,” Jack said, prompting Teddy to nod aggressively.
“A big rock,” he confirmed, “a boulder, a mountain . . .”
“All right, all right!” I interrupted. “How ’bout instead of making fun of us for being clueless, you explain what Ghostlight is?”
“Sorry,” Kaylee said, giggling. “It’s just—you know—I assumed you would have heard of it, ’cause, like . . . you guys are the biggest MTNs here.”
“In case you forgot, MTN stands for Musical Theater Nerd,” Teddy added, poking Jack’s foot with a stick. Before Jack could react, Kaylee succeeded in grabbing the focus back with the sheer volume of her voice.
“Okay, so here’s the deal!” she explained, “Ghostlight is this big theater competition that happens over one weekend in the fall, and a bunch of schools from around the Midwest enter with, like, shorter versions of musicals.”
“Which is perfect, since Jack and Lou are both short,” Teddy quipped.
“Oh my God, I bet you couldn’t be serious if someone paid you!” Kaylee shrieked with exasperation, sending some unseen creature scurrying into the brush behind us.
“Careful, Kaylee,” warned Teddy. “Your voice could send all the little squirrels and chipmunks into cardiac arrest.”
“You’re just jealous of her vocal placement,” Jack said.
“We’re all jealous of her vocal placement,” I chimed in, making Kaylee squirm self-consciously.
“Can I continue, please?” Kaylee asked, planting her hands on her hips.
“Yes, please,” I urged, then turned to shush the boys.
“Okay,” she went on. “So kids do these thirty-minute presentations of shows, like Godspell, or Hairspray, or South Pacific—”
“—and what’s awesome,” Teddy interjected, “is that students direct them.”
“Wait—how does that work?” asked Jack, perking up. “Who decides which kid gets to direct?”
“Well, there’s a teacher who supervises,” Teddy explained. “Usually the drama teacher—”
“Or the science teacher who does drama after school, if you go to a school like Rustin Middle instead of Cavendish Prep,” Kaylee interrupted, adopting a strong urban accent as she pronounced the name of her school, then a posh British accent when she pronounced Teddy’s. We all liked to make fun of Teddy for going to a rich-kid school. He didn’t seem to mind, though—he had a good sense of humor about it.
“Whatever,” said Teddy, rolling his eyes. “Some grown-up is there to, like, guide and support while a student—”
“—usually an eighth-grader—”
“—directs it, and then at the festival, each school presents their show, the judges fill out these scorecards, and at the awards ceremony on
the last day—”
“—Teddy’s school wins!” Kaylee announced, catching Teddy off guard.
“What?”
“Please!” Kaylee threw him her most incredulous look.
“When’s the last time Cavendish lost? Ten years ago?”
“No!” Teddy blurted out defensively, then offered more quietly, “Eleven.”
“For real?! Okay, so, like, they haven’t lost in over a decade,” Kaylee continued, leaning in toward me and Jack. “Meanwhile my school? Never even made it into the top ten. So of course Teddy thinks Ghostlight is ‘awesome.’ The rest of the schools basically go to see how they’ll win, not if.”
She dug her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, smiling smugly at Teddy. I glanced at him only to find that he, for once, had no witty comeback. Rather than let him off the hook, Jack and I dug in even more.
“Well, I’d love anything that let me win every time,” Jack said mischievously.
“Yeah, sounds like a real blast, this Ghostlight thing,” I said sarcastically. “Kaylee, why doesn’t your school skip all the hard work and just give Cavendish the trophy now?”
“Exactly,” said Kaylee. “As my dad likes to say, ‘The game is rigged.’”
“All right, all right,” said Teddy, throwing his hands up in surrender, “I see where this is going. But it’s not like I had anything to do with them winning. I only competed in Ghostlight for the first time last year, and I had a really small part.”
There was a brief pause as we all waited for him to continue. Teddy took a breath, then looked at us sheepishly and announced with a sigh, “I was the Fiddler.”
“As in the Fiddler on the Roof?!” I exclaimed. Teddy quickly turned from sheepish to full-blown embarrassed (because despite the show’s title, the actual fiddler wasn’t really a role).
“Look—the kid who directed it thought it would be cool if I stood on a box upstage in profile for the whole presentation,” he sputtered. “Ya know . . . symbolically.”
By the time he said the word symbolically the three of us were doubled over with laughter.
“Whatever!” he protested. “We won!”
It was one of those nights you never want to end. Jokes turned into comedy routines, moments became instant memories, and promises of everlasting friendship were made over and over again. But once the bonfire died down and other campers started shuffling back to their bunks, I began to feel sad, silently acknowledging that it was almost time to leave. It was too soon for tears—I’d have plenty of time for those in the morning—so instead I just stared wistfully into the glowing embers. After a few minutes of quiet, Kaylee stretched her arms above her head and let out a big yawn.
“Yo, I’m beat, you guys,” she said. “I gotta go to sleep.”
“Me too,” I said, rising to my feet. I turned to Teddy and Jack, who remained seated on the log, their faces only partly lit by the fading glow of the fire.
“You wanna walk with us? Kaylee’s got a flashlight.”
The boys exchanged a look, and I don’t know why—but I suddenly had the sense that they were waiting for the other one to respond.
“Um,” Teddy said finally, looking down at his feet, “I’m gonna hang here a little longer, I think.”
I looked at Jack, who glanced first at Teddy, then at me.
“Yeah,” he said, tugging at the bottom of his sweatshirt. “Me too, I think.”
“All right, well, don’t get attacked by a bear,” Kaylee cautioned with a smile, clicking on her flashlight and heading off into the darkness. I hesitated as I realized that this moment marked the unofficial end of camp. Tomorrow would be nothing but one long good-bye.
“Okay, then—night, you guys,” I said, brushing bits of bark off the back of my jeans. “Great job tonight.”
“You too,” they sang out in unison, Teddy extending his arm toward me with a congratulatory thumbs-up.
As I turned to follow Kaylee, her flashlight beam already far ahead of me, I couldn’t help but think that my innocent question—“You wanna walk with us?”—had somehow put Teddy and Jack on the spot. A new, strange thought started to creep into my head, but I was too tired, too sad, too full of emotion about my friends and my time at CCU to give it much attention. I’m probably wrong, anyway, I thought, scampering across the rocky path to catch up with Kaylee, they’re just two friends who aren’t tired yet.
Jack
THE FORECAST FOR OUR LAST day at Camp Curtain Up may have been bright and sunny, but on the girls’ end of camp, it was showers with a chance of Kleenex. I had never been great with good-byes, but I felt heartless by comparison when Teddy and I joined Kaylee and Lou for our final send-off. Lou’s face was red and puffy from what looked like hours of crying, and Kaylee’s pockets were overflowing with soggy, crumpled tissues. To be fair, I shouldn’t have been entirely surprised; Lou had been extremely sentimental on the closing nights of both Guys and Dolls and Into the Woods, but even I had never seen her this distraught.
“Get ahold of yourself, Lululemon,” Teddy joked as he hugged Lou tightly. “It’s the twenty-first century. You can find us anywhere, anytime.”
“He’s right,” said Kaylee, choking back her own sobs. “So give me one more hug and then text me in, like, twenty minutes.”
“Our parents wanna get going, Lou,” I said, suppressing my desire to make a crack about needing Dylan, the lifeguard, to report for duty if her waterworks continued. “Both our dads are stressing out about traffic.”
“Okay,” Lou said, giving both Teddy and Kaylee a final hug, leaving little wet patches on their shoulders. “Bye, you guys!”
We watched Lou’s funeral march to the parking lot, her shoulders still quivering from the sobs. I could almost hear a violin playing in the distance.
“Is she gonna be okay?” Kaylee asked, looking practically pulled together in comparison.
“Almost definitely.” I smiled.
“Okay, I should go, too,” she moaned, reaching out and wrapping her arms around Teddy and me in a kind of double hug.
“Teddy, I’ll see you in the fall,” she said optimistically. “And, Jack . . . I’ll see you on our text thread.”
“Bye, Kaylee!” We waved as she followed in Lou’s footsteps toward the parking lot.
I turned back to Teddy. He raised his shoulders and gave me the same crooked smile I saw on that first day when he offered up his top bunk.
“Well . . . I guess it’s that time, Jack,” he said. “My parents probably want to get going.”
“Yeah, totally,” I said, looking back to my family’s minivan. “That’s awesome your mom and dad came. I thought you were taking the train home.”
“Oh, my mom found out there was good antiquing in Kalamazoo, so they figured they might as well pick me up on the way back.” Teddy rolled his eyes. “Sorry you didn’t get to meet them. My dad’s on a conference call, and my mom is, like, deathly afraid of nature.”
“Some other time,” I said, stuffing my hands in my pockets and looking to the ground.
It was so weird. For the past few days, I’d been looking for any excuse to get a few seconds alone with Teddy. I wasn’t even sure what I’d say to him—I guess I’d been hoping that things would just present themselves “organically,” like in our improv workshop: “Yes, and . . .” We shuffled aimlessly, staring at shoes that had become filthy with dust, mud, and grass stains over the past two weeks. It felt like the night before at the campfire all over again—Lou and Kaylee leaving us alone, only for me and Teddy to find ourselves at a total loss for words.
“Is your drive back home very long?” Teddy asked, finally breaking the silence.
“About four hours. Five if we stop for food.”
“Cool.” He nodded.
“Um, what about you?” I asked.
“Actually, I’m not sure,” he said, furrowing his brow. “Probably a little less.”
“Cool,” I echoed, looking back down at the grass.
He dug his toe int
o the dirt for a second before speaking up.
“Well, I’m glad we—”
“Theodore!” a woman’s voice cut him off.
I turned to see a tall woman walking toward us. She had thick black hair and was wearing a crisp blouse and red pants with a crease down the center sharp enough to slice through a scone. She wore a string of pearls around her neck and matching earrings. Her heels were tall and white, conspicuously out of place on a grassy field. This could only be one person.
“It’s time to go,” Teddy’s mom told him.
“I thought Dad was on a call?” Teddy responded.
“Well, he was, but they’re in London and it was getting late, so he had to wrap it up,” she said airily. “We should head out now if we want to get back to Evanston before it gets dark.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “This is my friend Jack,” he said, gesturing to me.
“How do you do, Jack,” she said with a wave of her hand, in a way that made me not quite sure whether she actually wanted to know how I was doing. Her fingernails were smooth and polished with painted white tips at the end. Her eyes met mine for a quick second and then went immediately back to her son. I took this to mean that I wouldn’t be shaking hands and regaling her with camp stories.
“I’m going back to the car,” she said, pointing a manicured nail toward the parking lot. “If you want to say good-bye to your friend, I’ll have your dad pull the car around.”
“Oh, Mom, wait!” Teddy said, giving a wily grin. “I just remembered—I need to grab my jar of tomato worms. I left them in the cabin, and I’m thinking of building a terrarium for them in the basement.”
“Ugh.” She shuddered. “Please tell me you’re joking, Theodore. Those are not coming in the car with us.”
“Okay.” He shrugged. “Well, I’ll be there in a second, then.”
And with that, she turned and began teetering back to the parking lot, her heels sinking into the grass with every step.
Jack & Louisa: Act 3 Page 2