“Jason’s destroying Celine Dion.”
Not much, apparently.
Maggie spun around. Ben stood on the top porch step, holding jumbo-size bags of chips, popcorn, and pretzels.
“We tried to talk him out of it, but he had an entire playlist of greatest hits prepared.”
“Celine’s had a lot of hits,” Maggie said, taking two bags of Doritos from his load as he joined them at the door.
“Which is why the snack replenishment. We may be here for days.” Grinning, he turned to Aimee. “I’m Ben.”
“I know,” Aimee said automatically.
“This is Aimee,” Maggie chimed in when Aimee’s fair skin turned pink. “She’s from camp too.”
“The Figure Eights.”
Maggie looked at Aimee, surprised at the admission, then at Ben, then back at Aimee.
“I’m a camper,” Aimee said sheepishly.
“I thought you looked familiar. Carla’s your counselor, right?”
“Right.” Aimee looked at her feet, presumably regretting her admission.
“Cool.” He smiled and nodded toward the open door. “After you.”
“Could I be a bigger idiot?” Aimee whispered as they entered the house. “Social outcast of the century. I might as well just sit on the porch and wait to hear all about your good time.”
“‘My Heart Will Go On’ and other dramatic ballads are being performed in the living room,” Ben said, following behind. “Just follow the shrieking, and prepare to cover your ears as you get closer.”
“Are you coming?” Maggie asked hopefully. Walking into the crowded room would be a breeze if they were accompanied by camp’s most popular instructor.
“Grabbing bowls.” He raised his armload of snacks. “Be right there.”
Pausing in the hallway, Maggie watched him disappear into the kitchen.
“Oh, and don’t forget—no Billy Joel.” He stuck his head through the kitchen doorway, grinned, and disappeared again.
“Can I have one of those?” Aimee eyed the bags of Doritos Maggie still held. “At least then maybe it’ll look like I have a purpose.”
“You have a purpose. We have a purpose.” Maggie handed her a bag. “To have fun. Period.”
Even if she were 100 percent convinced that they really were there just to have fun (which she wasn’t, since real fun didn’t usually involve the fear of social interaction), she would’ve been only 5 percent convinced by the time they reached the living room doorway. At least thirty people sat on three overstuffed couches, two armchairs, and the floor, talking and laughing over the center stage entertainment—Jason belting out both the male and female parts of “Beauty and the Beast.” So if their ultimate goal was to only blend in with the crowd, actually being part of the crowd would entail climbing, crawling, and squeezing between people who already knew one another and were having fun. And that would certainly draw attention to themselves, which would definitely be anything but fun.
“This is so weird,” Aimee said, surveying the room. “Who knew they looked different off camp grounds?”
“Don’t be scared.”
Maggie spun around, prepared to defend their temporary party paralysis, and found Ben holding two enormous plastic bowls and looking past them into the living room.
“He never ventures far from the flat-screen.” He raised both bowls overhead and squeezed gently between Maggie and Aimee. “Harder to read the lyrics that way.”
“Where are you going?” Aimee grabbed Maggie’s elbow.
“Our purpose is moving.”
“He’s cute, charming, funny, nice, and everything else,” Aimee said, watching Ben carefully navigate the kids sitting on the floor. “But you said you were done with boys.”
Maggie held up the Doritos. “Our purpose.” She nodded toward the coffee table where Ben was setting down the bowls.
“Oh. Right.”
Armed with snacks, joining the crowd turned out to be easier than she’d thought. Spicy Nacho and Cool Ranch were very popular with the counselors, and Maggie and Aimee were quickly surrounded as they emptied their bags into the bowls. Two tennis instructors—easily identified by the Adidas wristbands they always wore—even bowed down like Maggie and Aimee were some kind of junk food–bestowing royalty. No one actually talked to them, but at least they didn’t talk about them. Plus, the arrival of food had caused a crowd shift on the carpet; once the bags were empty, Maggie and Aimee scurried to the edge of the room and scored a patch of floor with a great view of the entertainment.
“This isn’t so bad.” Maggie giggled as Jason’s voice cracked and he squatted in front of the TV to read the lyrics running along the bottom of the screen.
“I guess.” Aimee leaned toward Maggie. “Do you want to maybe check out the rest of the house? And come back in a little bit?”
“Totally,” Maggie said. She was about to get up from the floor when Jason hit another painfully high note. The crowd howled, and Maggie joined their applause.
“Mags?”
Maggie glanced up to see Aimee standing, arms crossed over her stomach and looking like she’d rather be anywhere else. “Can we just watch him finish? He has to be almost done.”
Aimee frowned, looked around as though worried someone was going to catch her doing something she shouldn’t, and slowly lowered herself back to the floor.
As Jason crooned, Maggie scanned the room and saw Polly holding hands and laughing with Carter, the basketball instructor (easily identified by the way he towered over everyone, even sitting down), three guys holding a loud, heated debate near an enormous fish tank, and an intriguing game of snack popping (a group of guys tossing popcorn, pretzels, and anything else they grabbed from the bowls without looking into each other’s mouths). She was so enjoying the off-stage entertainment, she almost didn’t notice when Jason finished a song, bowed, guzzled a can of Mountain Dew in preparation for his next performance—and was suddenly joined by Ben.
“Dude,” Jason said into the microphone as Ben tried to wrestle it gently from his grasp, “I’m not fin—”
“Everyone, let’s give Mr. Dion a big round of applause, shall we?” Ben encouraged once in full control of the microphone. “If only music execs had discovered him first.”
Maggie laughed and clapped as the room exploded in applause and whistles. Having no choice but to accept his favorable reception, Jason curtsied and blew kisses before reluctantly vacating the stage.
“Sing us a song, piano man!”
“Sing us a song tonight!”
Ben faced the cheering counselors and instructors—all of whom had immediately stopped debating, snack popping, and doing their best to tune out the music when he took the microphone—scratched his chin, and pretended to consider the request.
“It’s a crowd-pleaser, apparently,” Maggie explained to Aimee.
“Great,” Aimee said flatly.
“If you insist,” Ben finally said. He turned toward the TV, picked up the PlayStation controller, and quickly hit a bunch of buttons. When an animated version of himself swaying in time to the song’s beginning chords appeared on the screen, he turned back to the room and smiled.
“He’s adorable,” Aimee said almost reluctantly, shooting Maggie a pointed look, as though the observation was something Maggie should pay attention to.
He was—swearing off boys hadn’t rendered her blind—but Maggie let Aimee’s look slide without responding. Because she didn’t want to notice. She didn’t want to spend one second thinking about his dark wavy hair, his perpetual, contagious smile, or the indisputable fact that jeans, a blue T-shirt, and red flip-flops had never looked better on anyone else. She didn’t want to spend one second thinking about how his good looks were only amplified a million times by his easygoing nature, sincerity, and kindness, which had become very apparent even in the short time she’d known him. She didn’t want to spend one second thinking about the fact that every single person in the room—male and female—clearly loved him an
d wanted to be his best friend. Because she knew if she spent just one second thinking about any of those things, the unbreakable pact she’d made with herself might begin to crack. And then one second would turn into minutes, then hours, then days—and she’d already lost enough time thinking about a boy.
So, instead of thinking about whether she might like him under different circumstances, she thought about how she wished she could simply be more like him. Apparently, he’d performed the song more than once, because he knew the words without having to follow the lyrics on the screen, and that enabled him to work the room of fans effortlessly. He fell to his knees and jumped back up for dramatic emphasis, mingled with the crowd as much as the microphone cord would allow, and even sang in tune. Losing weight and doing well on the school swim team had certainly boosted Maggie’s confidence, but only enough to not feel completely out of place at any given point; she wondered what it would feel like to be the center of attention and not worry—or even care—what people thought of her being there.
“How about that house tour now?” Aimee asked loudly so Maggie could hear over the booming applause as Ben belted his last note.
“You got it.” Maggie clapped and grinned as Ben bowed to his adoring fans. “Let’s just make sure he doesn’t do an encore.”
“Maggie—”
“And now to really get things rolling, how about we try something new?”
Forcing herself to look away from Ben, Maggie turned to Aimee. “Five more minutes?”
“I thought we’d pick up the pace a little, put some fun into the funky that Jason has so masterfully turned these get-togethers into.”
“Mags,” Aimee said, leaning toward Maggie. “This is actually a little weird for me, and I was kind of hoping to talk to you about some stuff—”
“And what better way to do that than with the help of the Queen of Pop herself?”
Aimee frowned as a new song started and the room erupted in a fresh wave of applause.
“Now, Madonna is too big for the efforts of just one man, so I’m going to need a little help.”
“Right, let’s go,” Maggie said, watching Ben as she climbed to her knees. Aimee clearly had something to say, and there was no way Maggie was going to hear it over Madonna.
“So I’d like to invite a lovely Camp Sound Viewer to the stage. She’s fairly new to our crazy family, but has already made quite an impression.”
“Ready?” Maggie climbed to her feet and held out one hand to help Aimee up.
“Miss Maggie?”
Suddenly wishing she’d opted to crawl toward the door rather than stand and walk, Maggie froze.
“Care to vogue?”
Maggie turned her head slowly to see Ben grinning and looking at her expectantly. “Actually,” she began, thankful for the living room’s dim lighting as her face burned, “I was just about to—”
“Sing some warm-up scales?” Ben shook his head. “You don’t need them.”
“C’mon, Maggie!” Polly called from across the room. She clapped and whistled, and the rest of the room quickly joined in.
“You only have one microphone,” she said nonchalantly. “I don’t want to steal your thunder.”
Ben’s grin broadened. “I’m happy to share.”
As the cheers and whistles grew louder, Maggie’s head spun. What was the worst that could happen? So what if she sang out of tune and messed up the words? Wasn’t that the point? On top of which, she’d be singing out of tune and messing up the words with Ben, who could do no wrong in the eyes of his thirty closest friends. Surely his unwavering support would balance out her bad performance. And, on the other hand, if she left the room as intended, she’d be forever known as the scared new girl who’d turned down the chance to share the spotlight with a camp icon.
Heart racing, Maggie looked at Aimee, who still sat on the floor. Aimee’s shrug and half smile wasn’t quite the support Maggie hoped for, but it was enough for her to turn toward Ben and begin carefully stepping around people en route to the TV.
“There’s my girl,” Ben said into the microphone.
Maggie shook her head in (almost) mock embarrassment as she stood next to him.
“The words are on the bottom of the screen, and the yellow arrow tells you if you’re on pitch.” He held the microphone away so only she heard him. “They’ll hardly hear us over themselves, but just remember, you’re among friends.”
As it happened, Ben incorporated spontaneous dance moves into his “Vogue” performance, making Maggie laugh so hard, she could barely read the lyrics through the tears welling in her eyes, and rendering anything resembling actual singing basically impossible. But she tried and, after a while, even forgot to be nervous. The counselors and instructors eventually started singing along, and they all became one big, loud, untalented chorus. When Ben casually slung one arm across her shoulder toward the end of the song, Maggie glanced to where she’d left Aimee to make sure that, as her best friend and witness, she could confirm everything that happened later.
And nearly choked on the lyrics and fell off the imaginary stage when Aimee wasn’t there.
Maggie tried to shrug out of Ben’s arm, but he pulled her back gently. Deciding that Aimee had probably just gone outside for air and silently vowing to find her as soon as the song was over, Maggie smiled at Ben and returned to her thirty new friends.
15.
On her next visit to Arnie’s lake house, Maggie bounded up the porch steps and knocked on the door without hesitation. Gone was her trepidation about revisiting the scene of the Peter Apple-wood Incident. In fact, as she opened the door, the only thing related to that day that occurred to her was the fact that thinking about it no longer made her want to curl into a ball and cry.
“Hey, Mag—”
“How beautiful is today?”
Coming into the living room Arnie looked curiously at her, then past her, as though evaluating the day. “Do you want, like, a number or something?”
“The sun’s out, the sky’s blue, and we have the whole afternoon to hang out.” Maggie put her hands on her hips and turned slightly to face the lake. “What could be better?”
Arnie shrugged. “We could have the whole day to hang out. But that won’t work because I still have to jog one hundred miles, climb seven mountains, and find a cure for cancer.”
Maggie turned back to Arnie and frowned. “Parents still bumming you out?”
“No more than usual,” he said lightly. “Want to come in?”
“I was thinking about staying outside.”
“Outside?”
“Your wireless works in the yard, right? We could take your laptop and notes and hang out in the Adirondack chairs out back. Unless your parents are home, in which case we can totally hide out in your room to work and sneak out later.”
“The parents are in Madrid. Their absence doesn’t get me out of my daily schedule—because the staff now takes random video footage of me doing everything I’m supposed to do, which they e-mail to my parents as proof—but it does enable us to move freely about the property.”
“Random video footage?”
“I couldn’t make it up if I tried.” He held the door open for her. “I’ll grab the stuff and meet you out back.”
The easiest way to get to the backyard was through the kitchen, which Maggie headed for with ease. She paused only briefly outside the door, when a quick image of her and Peter talking while sitting on the island stools flashed through her mind, but then she simply replaced that uncomfortable mental picture with one of singing with Ben. Smiling, she entered the kitchen and strolled toward the French doors as though the most catastrophic thing to have ever occurred there were the mindless consumption of greasy pizza and sugary soda. Once outside, she plopped in an Adirondack chair overlooking the lake, closed her eyes and, for the thousandth time that day, replayed the events of the night before.
She’d stopped to rewind at the same spot she’d stopped to rewind at each of the thousand tim
es before—when she’d left Ben in search of Aimee and found her sulking on the front porch outside, which she chose not to replay since the awkward conversation and silent car ride that had followed negated everything that happened before—when Arnie flopped in the chair next to hers.
“Fresh watermelon?”
“I love watermelon.” Maggie took the Baggie of fruit and popped two cubes in her mouth.
“If only I’d known I would never have wasted time on Soy Crisps and granola.” Arnie flipped open the laptop screen and started typing. “Anyway, I’ve done a few things since last week. Tell me what you think.”
Maggie popped two more watermelon cubes in her mouth and leaned across the chairs’ wide arms. “Are you wearing cologne again?”
Arnie paused.
“It smells nice.”
“Thanks.” He cleared his throat and turned the laptop toward her. “So, I posted my Arnold Bartholomew Gunderson slideshow online, and came up with endearingly funny captions.”
“That was so great last week. The kids and parents were totally hooked.”
Arnie smiled. “I also added all the basic technical stuff Pound Patrollers insisted on—food pyramid, calorie converter, body-mass index calculator, and exercise chart—but made the link smaller than all the others.”
“So kids don’t get scared off as soon as they hit the site.” Maggie nodded. “Good thinking.”
“Then I added some graphics and backgrounds, all simple but fun, and started a list of things we might want to include.”
“Like music playlists? Great songs to work out to? And fun, easy, healthy recipes? Oh, and maybe we can have a contest spanning a few months, and whoever reduces their body-mass index most successfully, or somehow makes the biggest change toward a healthier, happier life, wins a bike? Or a canoe?”
“A canoe?”
“Rowing’s great for the chest, arms, back, quads, abs, and pretty much everything else.”
“Great idea.” Arnie pulled up a spreadsheet and added the contest to the list of ideas.
Maggie Bean Stays Afloat Page 12