Daddy drives me to Camp Blessing in the old station wagon because the bus is on the fritz. The camp sits on a branch of Cherry Lake that’s surrounded by pine trees. He signs me in at the lodge, where everyone knows him because he sometimes gives guest sermons. I hope Daddy’s not coming this year because I’ve heard all his sermons at least a dozen times. Plus he always goes into overtime. According to Mama he’s the longest-winded preacher in the county. Probably the state.
“Behave yourself,” he says before climbing back in the car. Since we only live two miles from Camp Blessing it doesn’t seem like a long goodbye is necessary. I drag my heavy suitcase and bedroll toward Miracles, the cabin that I was assigned to. I grab a top bunk against the wall. As I spread out my blankets and pillow a voice floats up from below.
“Hi there.”
I hang my head over the side to find a girl with straight, black hair parted down the middle, sitting Indian-style on the bottom bunk. Her dark eyes are just shy of being crossed.
“Hi,” I answer.
“I’m Wanda. From Illinois.”
She doesn’t blink. I feel a hole forming in the middle of my forehead as she stares into me.
“I’m Grace. I live on the other side of the lake.”
“I used to be a witch,” she says.
I don’t know how to answer that so I don’t say anything.
“But I’m a born-again Christian,” she adds. “I only use my talents for God now.”
“Oh,” I say. Looks like I’ve got me a kook for a bunkmate.
“You’re a witch, too,” she says.
“No, I’m not a witch.” Definitely a kook.
“Yes. You. Are.” She separates her words to give each one single weight. “I can feel your power.”
“Hmmm,” is all I say. I don’t want to be rude because I’m going to be sharing a cabin with her for a week, but I don’t really want to have this conversation either.
“It’s nothing to be afraid of, Grace. As long as you use your powers for good, of course.”
Her big, dark eyes suck me in. My head feels dizzy. I don’t know if it’s from her words or if I’ve been hanging upside down for too long. I shake my head and slide off the top bunk. My shirt catches on the coil frame and turns it inside out over my head. I’m trapped with my arms straight up and my head inside my sleeves, my button breasts keeping eye contact with Wanda.
She climbs out of her bed and unhooks my shirt, pulling it gently back to my waist. As soon as she touches me, a buzzing sensation zips through my entire body. Maybe she really is a witch. And maybe like me, she has a tough time making friends.
“You wanna play tether ball?” I ask, trying to change the subject.
“No, thanks. I like it here.”
“Okay. See ya later.” I run out of the cabin, letting the screen door bang behind me. The next time I see Wanda is when all the campers gather for a welcoming service in the chapel, which is built out of knotty pine and has a clean, wood smell. The air is hot and muggy and my dress sticks to my back. I slide in next to Wanda, who sits completely still with her eyes closed all through the sermon. Not once does her head nod or her body lean, let alone topple over. I wish I could learn that trick.
I pass the time letting my fingers trace the beautiful markings in the smoothly varnished pew until we’re finally excused and sent to get ready for bed. The boys’ cabins sit up the hill in the pine trees just beyond the two bathhouses, one for boys and one for girls. The girls aren’t allowed to go higher than the rest rooms, and the boys are supposed to stay fifty feet from the girls’ area.
The bathroom smells like pine cleaner. I find an empty stall and listen to the mix of high-pitched voices filling the room as I pee. When I go to wash my hands I can hardly edge them under the faucet because so many girls are crowded in front of the mirrors. I wedge myself into the flurry of pajamas and slippers, mouths foaming with toothpaste that dribbles down their chins as they try to talk.
“Ginger, what cabin are you in?” asks a stubby girl with almost no chin.
A tall blonde who looks like she belongs on the cover of Teen Miss flips her long hair over her head and begins brushing it slowly. From under the curtain of yellow silk she says, “Miracles. With a bunch of snotty-nosed kids. But I’m going to complain until they move me.”
She whips her hair back and shakes it out. “They should go by age, not grade.” She glares at one of the counselors standing by the door.
“We can’t change the rules for you, Ginger,” the lady says.
Ginger pulls a pink satin robe around her waist and parades out the door with all the girls wishing they were half as beautiful as she is.
Nine girls are assigned to my cabin, including me. Besides Wanda there’s four girls from the Christian Reformed Church in Cherry Hill. They remind me of bowling pins, the way they cling together. If you bumped into any one of them, I expect they’d all tumble over. Next to my bunk is Carrie, who is redheaded like me but wears her hair in two braids. She’s quiet and usually has her freckled nose stuck in a mystery book that she hides inside her Bible. I wish I’d thought of that. Beneath Carrie is Tina, a chubby girl from Indiana who was immediately shunned after being caught biting her toenails under the covers.
And there’s Ginger. She’s fourteen, but just finished seventh grade. She claims it’s because her daddy is in the army so she had to change schools a lot, not because she’s dumb. Ginger’s the only one of us who fills out her bra. She wears a slip with lace cups to bed instead of pajamas and has a pink sleeping bag with matching pillowcase. A fluffy, white, stuffed cat sits in the middle of her bed that she brushes in the same slow way she brushes the hair that hangs down to the middle of her back. Her hand mirror matches the hairbrush, also pink. A plastic pouch filled with assorted headbands sits on the dresser in which she has claimed all but one drawer, the bottom one.
Our cabin counselor, Edith, looks somewhere between thirty and sixty, depending on the way the light hits her face. After we’re all in bed, she tells us to say our prayers to ourselves rather than out loud like you’re supposed to. I get the feeling Edith is getting a little tired of adolescent girls.
* * *
Swimming lessons are from two until four in the afternoon between Bible classes. We’re instructed to always cover ourselves when walking to and from the lake. No two-piece bathing suits are allowed, which is fine with me because I’m so skinny and still an A cup. Ginger, of course, stretches the rule to the limit. She wears a hot-pink bathing suit that’s cut out on the sides and has little peekaboo rings from her navel to her bustline. Her perky breasts form a perfect V and look as if they’ll leap right out of her suit every time she moves. The back is cut out, too.
I love watching her walk down to the water. She oils herself up in the cabin first so her tan skin shimmers in the sunlight. Ginger uses a bath towel instead of a beach towel, wrapping it around her hips like an exotic miniskirt. Even though the boys are way down at the other dock, they all stop and watch while Ginger walks to the beach for her lesson, which she obviously doesn’t need.
When she reaches the water she stretches and drops her towel in the sand before walking slowly to the end of the dock, posing for several long seconds before doing a perfect dive. She pops up way out in the lake, then swims back to the dock and pulls herself up onto it. With her hair slicked back and droplets beading up on her browned skin she looks like a wet Barbie doll. Across the way there’s a dock full of boys wishing they were Ken.
* * *
On the third day of camp I’m walking behind the girl’s bathrooms when I hear a noise in the woods. I stop dead in my tracks. The boys aren’t supposed to come near here. A branch snaps, then a giggle that I immediately recognize.
“Lola? Is that you?”
She peeks out from behind a tree. She’s wearing a sundress over army boots. I look around to see if anyone is watching. “You’re going to get me in trouble!”
I run into the woods and pull her farther out of view. I’m worr
ied about getting caught, but seeing Lola I can’t keep from grabbing her hands and jumping up and down with her.
“How’d you get here? And what in the world are you doing here?”
“I hitched a ride. I’ve obviously come to rescue you,” she says. “I’ve been spying and this has to be about the most boring summer camp I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“It’s true,” I say, lowering my head. “I’m being punished.”
“For what?”
“For everything. Telling fortunes, feeding a hobo, wishing Billy Wolf was dead, talking to Isaac.”
“Seriously?”
“Shhh! Someone will hear you.” I look behind me to see if anyone has spotted us. “Daddy has been watching me like a hawk lately. I think he believes it’s my fault that Mama’s depressed.”
“Grace, that’s ridiculous. You told me yourself your mother was depressed even before you were born. Isn’t that what your aunt Pearl said?”
“Yeah, I guess. But she got worse after Isaac died. And then even more so after Marilyn was born.”
“You want to know what I think? I think she wishes she was more like you. I think she feels trapped in her life with that stupid church and your dad and your god.”
“Lola, don’t say that!”
“Why? If I’m condemned shouldn’t I be struck down?” She looks up through the canopy of pines. “Yoohoo! Come and get me! I’m right here!”
Tears well up in my eyes. “Lola, please stop. I couldn’t bear it if . . .”
She wipes a tear with her finger and tilts my chin with her hand, but I look away.
“I’m sorry, Grace. I just get so mad.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “We were raised different.”
“Thank God!” she says, which makes us both laugh.
“You better go,” I say.
She hugs me, then pulls away and kisses me on the forehead before sprinting into the woods. Her gauze sundress flutters as she runs, catching light between the trunks until she finally disappears. I start back toward camp, but stop when I hear screaming in the distance. At first I think it might be Lola, until I realize the noise is coming from my cabin. I run down the hill and into Miracles.
“How dare they touch my things!” Ginger shakes her hairbrush at Edith.
“Calm down, Ginger. You were given a list of rules when you enrolled.”
“I didn’t enroll! My grandmother sent me because she thought this place would be good for me. I didn’t want to come and I hate it here!”
When she starts crying Edith reaches out to touch her shoulder. Ginger knocks her hand away.
“You tell them they better give me back my things or they’ll be sorry!”
Edith tries to stop her, but Ginger wriggles out of her grip and runs up the hill toward the bathroom.
* * *
I had a feeling I wouldn’t see her in Bible class the following morning and I was right. The next time I see Ginger is after lunch on Thursday when all the campers and counselors gather on the lawns to meditate on the Scriptures during quiet period. I sit on the wooden dock, watching ripples form on the surface when the fish poke their noses out of the water. Ginger has her back to a tree, a Bible in her lap. There’s a boy sitting on the opposite side of the tree and I can tell they’re back-to-back even though there’s a tree trunk between them. The guy is one of the other cabin counselors. He has his head down pretending to read his Bible, but I know he’s whispering to Ginger. She smiles, pulling blades of grass from the ground and running them over her tanned calves like feathers.
Wanda told me that the lady who runs the camp not only confiscated Ginger’s makeup and nail polish but also let the hem out of all her dresses. Wanda shared this while we were standing in the inspection line early this morning. Thanks to Ginger we now have to pass Edith’s “fingertip test” every morning before breakfast. If your hemline is higher than where your fingers touch your leg, you have to let it out. Ginger threw a fit, but from the looks of it she’s found someone to take her side.
* * *
The next morning word spreads like swimmer’s itch that Ginger is being sent home. They can’t even hold out one more day until camp is over. Ginger was caught in one of the boy’s cabins with Ricky, the guy from the other side of the tree. Wanda says they were “petting” and she’s pretty sure they would have gone all the way if the janitor hadn’t walked in on them. I try to imagine him petting her hair, her face, and her long legs. I’m pretty sure he probably petted her breasts, too. Truthfully, I’d like to pet them just once to see what they feel like.
Right after lunch Ginger’s mama pulls up in a white convertible. Ginger gets in and slams her car door. I bet she’ll have her own convertible one day, probably pink. Something tells me she’s pretty much destined to get whatever she wants in this life. As the car spins out, Ginger turns to face the camp one last time. Through the cloud of dust I see her middle finger sticking straight up in front of her gorgeous face.
* * *
Wanda and I have actually become pretty good friends over the days we’ve shared a bunk. During free time she’d sit under a tree in her bell-bottom jeans and bare feet, strumming an old guitar and singing songs about Jesus and love. She told me all about her “Jesus Freak” friends, which are like hippies for Jesus. She taught me a few guitar chords and I’m getting pretty good. I even made up a song about how the wind feels like God blowing in your ear. Wanda liked it so much she made me play it for her all the time, but I know it was her sneaky way of making me practice. I now have calluses on the ends of all my left fingertips.
We haven’t talked about the witch thing since the first day I arrived, though we both know about the other. I think Wanda has the Knowing, but it’s thinned out, like the watered-down orange juice that Daddy stretches a mile to make it last longer. She offered me a peek one night while I was lying in my bunk above her. She sent her thoughts up to me and I saw how she’s ashamed of her gift. She thinks she’s damaged, that the Knowing is a curse that needs to be controlled. Unfortunately this belief has ended up controlling her. It takes a lot of energy to try to be what you aren’t, but even more not to be what you are.
Wanda hugs me before climbing into the back of her parents’ sedan. She’s wearing a tie-dyed headband around her black hair and a T-shirt that reads “Jesus Is Far Out” on the front. I wish she lived nearer so we could visit each other. We exchange addresses and promise to write, but we both know we never will.
Joy pulls up in our station wagon and rolls down the window just as Wanda’s car disappears from sight. “C’mon, Grace. Get your stuff and get in.”
“Hey, you’re not old enough to drive yet.”
She just stares at me so I run back to the cabin to get my things. I skid to a halt at what I find. Wanda has left her guitar on my bed with a note:
Dear Grace,
Sing your heart out. (Don’t worry, I have a better one at home.)
Peace, Love, and Jesus,
Wanda
I throw my suitcase and sleeping bag into the way back of the station wagon, then gently rest the guitar on the floor behind the front seat before climbing in. Joy drops the shifter into reverse, then looks behind us for stray campers. She steps on the gas and the engine dies.
“Bus still broke?”
“No, Ralph fixed it. Daddy gave me the station wagon so I can go to the store and stuff.”
“Daddy gave you a car?”
“I got a special license exception that they usually only give to farm kids. They call it special circumstances or something. I need to run errands for Daddy now that Mama . . .” She glances toward the back seat. “So where’d you get the guitar?”
Something is different about Joy, but I can’t put my finger on it. When she runs her hands through her fine hair, her bangs fall back over her eyes, which have dark circles underneath them. Joy’s face has gotten older in the week I’ve been gone. Maybe acting like a grown-up makes you look like one.
She restarts
the car then steps on the brakes and turns to face me. “You want to show me your cabin?”
“Nah.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
We ride home in silence, me not wanting to ask about Mama and her not wanting to talk. Joy drives past our house and pulls into Dairy Queen down by the lake. She buys me a hot fudge sundae. With her own money. That’s when I know something’s up.
We sit on a picnic table facing Cherry Lake. The last batch of tourists dot the water with white sails and bikinied skiers behind speedboats. An ongoing battle has always separated the two. Sailors want the powered boats banned because they go too fast and the ruffled wake tips them over. And the speed-boaters think the sailboats get in their way. Personally I side with the sailboats. They’re prettier. Plus the fast boats scare me when they come too close to the beach where people are swimming.
Joy and I both laugh when a skier loses his balance and flips before slamming onto the surface. One of his skis floats toward the middle of the lake, but he’s obviously saved what is most important. He holds his beer out of the water, whooping. It’s our laughing that finally breaks the silence.
“Nobody was home when Mama passed out,” she says. “The doctors aren’t sure if she mixed her pills wrong or took too many. They took her back to the rest home.”
I want to ask her if Mama did it on purpose or if it was an accident, but I don’t think either of us could face the truth, whichever way it happened. Why can’t Mama stop hurting, stop hurting herself and us?
“Can I go see her?”
Joy takes a lick off her cone. “Not for a few weeks at least. Maybe longer.”
Joy won’t look at me. She just keeps licking away at her cone as if she might uncover something worth saying. Finally, she throws the last couple of bites in the trash can next to the picnic table.
“Let’s go home,” she says.
When I tell her I want to stay for a while she doesn’t argue. She wipes her hands on a paper napkin and walks toward the car. I grab my guitar out of the backseat and throw it over my shoulder before she drives away. Wanda left the embroidered leather strap attached that makes it easier to carry. Sitting on top of the picnic table, I pluck and strum until my fingers are too tender to hold the strings down anymore. I take the long way home around the fruit processing plant and over the railroad tracks, letting the past week gently blow away like drifting sand before turning back toward home.
This I Know Page 17