by Susan Wiggs
The tall boy found a hickory stick and used it to beat at the underbrush or to lean on as he walked. His gaze darted around watchfully, as though he expected something to jump out at him.
“So I guess your name is Ronnoc,” she said at last.
He scowled and shot a glance over his shoulder at her. “Huh?”
“Says so on the back of your shirt.”
“It’s inside out, genius.”
“It was just a joke.”
“Ha, ha.” He stabbed the hickory stick into the ground.
Their destination was the summit of Saddle Mountain, which wasn’t exactly a mountain, more like a big hill. Once they finally reached the top, they’d find a fire pit with log benches arranged in a circle around it. This was the site of many camp traditions. Nana once said that in the days of the first settlers, travelers would make signal fires at high points like this one in order to communicate long-distance. It was on the tip of Lolly’s tongue to share the bit of trivia with her partner, but she clamped her mouth shut.
She had already made up her mind not to like this kid. Truth be told, she had made up her mind not to like anybody this summer. Her two favorite cousins, Frankie—short for Francine—and Dare, usually came with her, and they always made Lolly feel as if she had actual friends. But this year, they were driving to California with their parents, Aunt Peg and Uncle Clyde. Lolly’s own parents didn’t do that kind of traveling. They only did the kind you could brag about afterward. Her parents pretty much liked anything they could brag about—trips, real estate, antiques, artwork. They even bragged about Lolly, but that was a stretch. Especially now, after sixth grade, the year her marks went down and her weight went up. The year of the divorce.
Now, there’s something to brag about, she thought.
“We’re supposed to learn three things about each other,” said the boy who had no sense of humor, the boy she didn’t want to befriend. “Then when we get to the top, we have to introduce each other to the group.”
“I don’t want to know three things about you,” she said airily.
“Yeah, well. Ditto.”
The getting-to-know-you fireside chat was always tedious, which was a shame, because it didn’t have to be. The little kids were best at it because they didn’t know which things to keep to themselves, and which to share. Lolly was a perfect example of that. A year ago, she’d blurted out, “My parents are getting a divorce” and had dissolved into tears, and her life had been a nightmare ever since. But at least back then, her admission had been genuine. In this age group, she already knew the introductions would be totally boring or phony or both.
“I wish we could skip it,” she said. “It’s going to be a complete drag. The younger kids are more interesting because at least they’ll say anything.”
“What do you mean, anything?”
“Like if their uncle is being investigated by the SEC or their brother has a third nipple.”
“A what?”
Lolly probably shouldn’t have brought it up, but she knew he’d bug her until she explained. “You heard me,” she said.
“A third nipple. That’s total BS. Nobody has that.”
“Huh. Bebe Blackmun once told the whole group that her brother has three.”
“Did you see it?” he challenged.
“Like I would even want to.” She shuddered. “Ew.”
“It’s bullshit.”
She sniffed, determined to appear unimpressed by his swearing. “I bet you have an extra one.” She didn’t know why she said it. She knew the chances of him having three nipples were zip.
“Yeah, right,” he said, stopping on the trail and turning. In one graceful motion, he peeled off his T-shirt right there in the woods, in front of her face, so fast she didn’t have time to react.
“You want to count ’em?” he demanded.
Her face lit with a blush and she marched past him, staring straight ahead. Idiot, she thought. I am such an idiot. What was I thinking?
“Maybe you have three nipples,” he said with mocking laughter in his voice. “Maybe I should count yours.”
“You’re crazy.” She kept marching.
“You’re the one who brought it up.”
“I was just trying to make conversation because you’re totally, one hundred percent boooring.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “That’s me. Boooring.” He sashayed around her, mimicking her walk. He hadn’t put his shirt back on but had tucked it in the back waistband of his cargo shorts. With the First-Blood headband and the shirt hanging down like the back half of a loincloth, he looked like a savage. Very Lord of the Flies.
He was a total show-off. He—
She stumbled over a tree root, and had to grab for a nearby branch to steady herself. He turned, and she could have sworn she’d seen his arm flash out to keep her from falling, but he quickly resumed walking without touching her. She stared at him, not to be rude or nosy but this time out of concern.
“What’s that on your back?” she asked bluntly.
“What?” Mr. Lord of the Flies scowled unpleasantly at her.
“At first I thought you forgot to bathe, but I think you have a really huge bruise.” She pointed to the back of his rib cage.
He stopped and twisted around, his face almost comically contorted. “I don’t have any stinking bruise. Man, you’re kind of creepy. Extra nipples and now phantom bruises.”
“I’m looking right at it.” In spite of her annoyance at him, she felt a small twinge of compassion. The bruise was healing. She could tell by the way the color bloomed in the middle and faded at the edges. But it must’ve really hurt when it happened.
His eyes narrowed and his face turned hard, and for a second, he looked menacing. “It’s nothing,” he stated. “I fell off my bike. Big deal.” He whipped around and kept going, hurrying so that Lolly had to rush to keep up.
“Look, I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
“I’m not mad at you,” he barked at her, and walked even faster.
That was quick, she thought. Her first enemy of the summer. There were sure to be many more to follow. She had a knack for bringing out dislike in people.
Even though Connor said he wasn’t mad at her, he was mad about something. There was fury in his taut muscles, his sharp movements. Big deal, so he hurt himself riding a bike. Usually when you fell off a bike, though, the casualties were elbows and knees, maybe the head. Not the back, unless you went tumbling down a hill and slammed into something really hard. Unless you were lying about what really happened.
She was both intrigued by and disappointed in this boy. Disappointed because she desperately wanted to dislike him and not have to think about him again, all summer long. And intrigued because he was more interesting than he had a right to be. He was kind of edgy, too, with that too-long hair, low-slung pants, high-tops repaired with duct tape. And there was something in his eyes besides the usual stupid boy stuff. Those same ice-cube eyes that had read David Copperfield had probably seen things a girl like Lolly couldn’t even imagine.
They hiked around a hairpin bend in the path, and a loud, steady rush of water greeted them.
“Whoa,” Connor said, tilting back his head to look at the hundred-foot waterfall. It gushed from some unseen source high above, tumbling over rocks, droplets turning to mist on impact. Everywhere the sunlight shone through, rainbows glowed. “That’s awesome,” he said, his cranky mood apparently forgotten.
“Meerskill Falls,” she said, raising her voice over the roar of the falling water. “One of the tallest in the state. Come on, you can get a good view of it from the bridge.”
Meerskill Bridge had been constructed in the 1930s by a government work crew. Dizzyingly tall, the arched concrete structure spanned the gorge, with the falls crashing wildly below. “The locals call this Suicide Bridge because people have killed themselves jumping from it.”
“Yeah, sure.” He seemed drawn to the cascade, which misted the trail on either side, cultivat
ing a carpet of moss and lush ferns.
“I’m serious. That’s why there’s a chain-link fence over the top of the bridge.” She scrambled to keep up with him. “It was supposedly put up, like, fifty years ago, after two teenagers jumped off it.”
“How do you know they jumped?” he asked. The mist clung to his dark hair and his eyelashes, making him look even cuter.
Lolly wondered if the mist made her look cute, too. Probably not. It only fogged her glasses. “I guess they just know,” she said. They reached the bridge deck and passed under the arch formed by the safety fence.
“Maybe they fell by accident. Maybe they were pushed. Maybe they never existed in the first place.”
“Are you always such a skeptic?” she asked.
“Only when somebody’s telling me some bullshit story.”
“It’s not bull. You can ask anybody.” She stuck her nose in the air and marched to the end of the bridge and around the bend without waiting to see if he followed. They hiked along in silence for a while. By now, they were seriously lagging behind the rest of the group but he didn’t seem to care, and Lolly decided that she didn’t, either. Today’s hike wasn’t a race, anyway.
She kept stealing sideways glances at him. Maybe she would experiment with liking this guy, just a little. “Hey, check it out.” She lowered her voice to a whisper as the path skirted a sloping meadow dotted with wildflowers and fringed by birch trees. “Two fawns and a doe.”
“Where?” He craned his neck around the woods.
“Shh. Be really quiet.” She beckoned, leading him off the path. Deer were not exactly rare in these parts, but it was always amazing to see the fawns in their soft-looking spotted coats and their big, shy eyes. The deer were in an open glade, the little ones sticking close to their mother while she browsed on grass and leaves. Lolly and Connor stopped at the edge of the glade and watched.
Lolly motioned for Connor to sit next to her on a fallen log. She took a pair of field glasses from her fanny pack and handed them to him.
“That’s awesome,” he said, peering through the glasses. “I’ve never seen a deer in the wild before.”
She wondered where he was from. It wasn’t like deer were rare or anything. “A fawn eats the equivalent of its body weight every twenty-four hours.”
“How do you know that?”
“Read it in a book. I read sixty books last year.”
“Geez,” he said. “Why?”
“’Cause there wasn’t time to read more,” she said with a superior sniff. “Hard to believe people hunt deer, huh? I think they’re so beautiful.” She took a drink from her canteen. The whole scene before them was like an old-fashioned painting—the new grass tender and green, the bluestars and wild columbine nodding their heads in the breeze, the deer grazing.
“I can see clear down to the lake,” Connor said. “These are good binoculars.”
“My dad gave them to me. A guilt gift.”
He lowered the glasses. “What’s a guilt gift?”
“It’s when your dad can’t make it to your piano recital, and he feels guilty, so he buys you a really expensive gift.”
“Huh. There are worse things than your dad missing a piano recital.” Connor peered through the binoculars again. “Is that an island in the middle of the lake?”
“Yep. It’s called Spruce Island. That’s where they’ll have the fireworks on the Fourth of July. I tried swimming out to it last year but I didn’t make it.”
“What happened?”
“Halfway across, I had to call for help. When they dragged me to shore, I acted like I was almost drowned so they wouldn’t accuse me of doing it to get attention. They called my parents.” This, of course, was what Lolly had wanted all along. Now she wished she hadn’t mentioned the incident, but once she started talking, she couldn’t stop. “My parents got a divorce last year and I figured they’d both have to come and get me.” The admission hurt her throat.
“Did it work?” he asked.
“No way. The idea of doing anything as a family is finished, kaput, out of the question. They sent me to this therapist who said I have to ‘redefine my concept of family and my role.’ So now it’s my job to be well-adjusted. My parents act like a divorce is all fine and not such a big deal in this day and age.” She hugged her knees up to her chest and watched the deer until her eyes blurred. “But to me, it’s huge. It’s like being swept out to sea, but nobody will believe you’re drowning.”
At first, she thought he’d stopped listening, because he didn’t say anything. He stayed quiet, the way Dr. Schneider did during their therapy sessions. Then Connor said, “If you’re drowning for real, and nobody believes you, then you sure as hell better figure out how to swim.”
She snorted. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”
He didn’t look at her, as if somehow he knew she needed to get herself together. He kept peering through the binoculars and whistling between his teeth. Lolly thought she recognized the tune—“Stop Making Sense” by Talking Heads—and for some reason, she felt fragile and vulnerable, the way she had when they’d dragged her from the lake last year. And worse, she was crying now. She didn’t recall the precise moment she had started, and it took all her strength to force herself to quit.
“We should keep going,” she said, feeling like an idiot as she crushed her bandanna to her face. Why had she said all those things to this boy she didn’t even like?
“Okay.” He handed back the field glasses and hiked to the path. If things were awkward before with this kid, her breaking down and crying ensured that being his friend was impossible now.
Desperate to change the subject, she said, “Did you know that every single counselor on the staff is a former camper?”
“Nope.”
She was going to have to do a lot better in the gossip department if she wanted to impress this kid. “Counselors have secret lives,” she said. “Not everybody knows, but they have these wild parties at night. Lots of drinking and making out, stuff like that.”
“Big deal. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Well, how about the fact that the head cook, Gertie Romano, was going to compete in the Miss New York State pageant, but she got pregnant and had to drop out. And Gina Palumbo—she’s in my bunkhouse—told me her dad is an actual mafia boss. And Terry Davis, the caretaker—he’s, like, this huge drunk.”
Connor whipped around to glare at her. His shirt fell to the ground with the abrupt movement. She picked it up. “Hey, you dropped this.” There was a smear of ketchup on the front of it, and a small label sewn in the back that read, Connor Davis.
“Davis,” she said, realization prickling over her like a rash. “Is that your last name?”
“Nosy, aren’t you?” he remarked, grabbing the shirt and yanking it on over his head. “Of course it’s my last name, genius, or I wouldn’t have a tag that says so on my shirt.”
Lolly forgot to breathe. Oh, cripes. Davis. As in Terry Davis. Oh, cripes on a crutch. “So, is he,” she fumbled, “is Mr. Davis, the caretaker, any relation?”
Connor strode away from her. His ears were a bright, furious red. “Yeah, that’s him. My father. The ‘huge drunk.’”
She bolted into action, following him. “Hey, wait,” she said. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t know…didn’t realize…oh, man. I never should have said that. It’s just some gossip I heard.”
“Yeah, you’re a real comedian.”
“I’m not. I’m horrible. I feel horrible.” She had to run to keep up. She was covered in guilt, like slimy sweat. Worse. You didn’t say stuff about people’s parents. She ought to know. Her parents were pretty awful, too, but she’d be offended if anyone other than her said so, and that was a fact.
But how could she have known? What were the chances? Everyone said Terry Davis didn’t have a family, that no one ever came to see him, so the last thing she was expecting was that he had a son. Still, she should have kept her big fat mouth shut.
Ter
ry Davis had a son. Amazing. In all the years the quiet, melancholy man had worked at the camp, she had never known. All she knew about him was that his father and her granddad had been in the Korean War together. Granddad said they’d met while bombing something called the Han River, and that Mr. Davis had been a hero, and for that reason, he would always have a place at Camp Kioga, no matter what. Even if he was, as she’d so stupidly said, a huge drunk. He’d been a fixture around the place, living alone in one of the staff cottages at the edge of the property. Those cottages provided housing for the cooks, caretakers, groundskeepers, drivers and maintenance crews, all the invisible people who worked around the clock to keep the place looking like a pristine wilderness.
Mr. Davis was a loner. He drove an old work Jeep, and often looked tired, prone to having what she’d heard her grandfather call an “off” day.
“I’m really, really sorry,” she said to Connor.
“Don’t feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t. I’m sorry I said that about your dad. There’s a difference.”
Connor jerked his head, tossing a wave of dark hair out of his eyes. “Good to know.”
“He never said he had a kid.” The minute the words were out, she realized her mistake was getting bigger and bigger, every time she opened her mouth. Her jaw was a backhoe, digging deeper with each movement. “I mean, I never—”
“He didn’t want me coming here for the summer, but my mom got married again and her husband didn’t want a kid around,” Connor said. “Said three’s a crowd in a double-wide.”
Lolly thought about the bruise she’d seen. This time, she remembered to keep her mouth shut.
“A double-wide trailer doesn’t have much space for three people, but I guess you wouldn’t know about that,” he added. “You probably live in a mansion somewhere.”
Two mansions, she thought. One for each parent. Which just proved you could be miserable whether you lived in the 800 block of Fifth Avenue or in a Dumpster. “My parents have been sending me away every summer since I was eight,” she told Connor. “Maybe it was to get me out of the way so they could fight. I never heard them fight.” Perhaps if she had, Lolly reflected, the divorce might not have been such a shock.