by Lexa Hillyer
It’s dark. No rain falls, but her body is wet, her clothes clinging to her uncomfortably. The trees wink in her peripheral vision; they seem to be chattering in worried tones. Hands gather around her. She’s being lifted.
Joy blinks, her vision clearing. She’s looking into the faces of her three best friends. Tali’s dark skin and even darker eyes blend into the night around them. Zoe’s shirt falls from her shoulder, which seems to glow, a small moon. Luce looks pale and frazzled. More than that, she looks young. Like a scared kid. Both Tali and Zoe hook their arms underneath Joy’s armpits, dragging her forward through the woods, while Luce is saying something urgently, holding up Joy’s backpack, gesticulating with her hands, asking questions.
Where is she? And that’s when it comes back to her: She fainted. However long ago that was. Shit. It had been so hot, she remembers—too hot. But now the air has cooled off, and she realizes she’s shivering. Her legs feel weak.
“What happened?” Luce is demanding. “Joy, tell us!”
“Guys, I’m fine,” Joy manages, finding her voice. “Really. I just . . . I passed out. It’s a hangover.”
Under her breath, Zoe mutters, “I’ve never seen a hangover that bad.”
“Where’s Ryder? Who won the scavenger hunt?” Joy asks, knowing her voice sounds weak, but not caring.
The three girls look at her with exasperation.
“We don’t know,” Tali states flatly. “We got sidetracked reviving you and dragging you off the forest floor.”
“Seriously,” Joy says, her throat scratchy. She knows they’re mad. And maybe they should be. But she’s so tired. She doesn’t want to fight. It’s the last night of camp, and all they want to do is argue and disagree and worry. “Please, stop. You guys can let go of me. I knew I should’ve had a Gatorade.”
“A Gatorade?” Zoe practically shouts. “Joy, we’re taking you to the infirmary. You’re sick.”
“No,” Joy says, trying to drag her feet to a stop. The other girls struggle to keep her on the path. “How come you guys won’t listen to me?” She manages to wrestle free of them and stands back, as the dizziness clears from her head like a wave receding from shore. “Look. See? I can walk on my own now. It’s fine.”
“Why are you being like this?” Luce demands. “You passed out, Joy. And now you’re acting like nothing happened.”
Joy sighs. “Because nothing did happen, I promise. Nothing. I only fainted because I was dehydrated. And I completely forgot to have breakfast and lunch. It happens to everyone. You don’t need to take care of me. It’s the last night of camp. I just want to enjoy it.”
Zoe rubs her forehead. “I don’t know . . .”
“Are you sure, Joy?” Luce says.
Tali throws her hands in the air. “You guys, she’s clearly not okay. Joy, you need to get checked out. You could have mono or the flu or something.”
Joy shakes her head. “I hate the Wellness Cabin! Come on, I promise you I’m fine. See?” She grabs Tali’s hand and places it on her forehead. “Just cold from the rain.”
Tali looks at her skeptically but shakes her head—obviously relenting.
“So who won the scavenger hunt?” she asks, hoping to redirect their attention.
Zoe shrugs—she seems to be avoiding eye contact with all of them. Joy can sense that the tension between her and Tali has not yet been resolved—they are standing as far apart from each other as they can. “I missed the game . . . I was busy at the tournament.” Zoe holds up her gold medal, looking proud, and something else, too. Something Joy can’t quite pinpoint.
Luce sighs. “We stopped counting items when we found you,” she says. “You’re the important thing.”
Tali pulls a ripped piece of fabric out of her pocket and displays it to the rest of them. “At least I got these, though.” The material is mostly white, but with little cartoon drawings of Batman on it. Blake’s boxers. Or half of them, anyway—enough to cover a single butt cheek, probably. “This thing—this crazy plan . . . maybe it’ll really work.”
They emerge together from the woods, and Joy can see the moon now, through the parted clouds. The fields are glittering and wet, but at least the storm has passed. She takes a deep breath. Out of the forest, it doesn’t seem so late out, so bleak. Dinging singsong noises trickle over to them from the Great Lawn, where she can make out the white cream-puff peaks of the big tent. Red, blue, and purple lights bounce off the remaining clouds.
The reunion night carnival has begun.
“Um, guys?” Zoe says, pointing into the crowd of people hovering by the nearest tent. “Did someone call camp pharmaceuticals?”
Joy follows her gaze to see Rob Gurns jogging toward them. Sure enough, he seems to be waving at them, though she can’t imagine what he wants with their crew.
“Hey, Luce,” Rob says as he approaches.
The others gape slightly.
He holds out his closed fist, with a mysterious, lopsided grin on his face. Joy could swear that Luce is blushing as she takes whatever small object he has just handed her. “Hope you don’t mind my bailing the other night—my record really can’t take another hit. Maybe this will make up for it.”
Luce begins to say something, but Rob holds up a hand to silence her.
“Don’t read into it. It’s just—like you said—the having of it, not the meaning of it. Or whatever.” He nods to the other three girls, giving Tali a random salute, then jogs away.
“What was that about?” Tali asks.
Zoe steps closer to Luce. “Did he just hand you a bag of pot or something?”
“The merit badge,” Luce whispers, holding it up so they can see. “He stole it for me.”
Tali folds her arms. “Why?”
Luce shrugs. “Long story. I guess he kind of owed me one.”
Zoe looks at all their faces. “So does this mean we actually have all four of the objects now?”
Everyone looks at Joy, wearing mingled expressions of excitement and hope. She can plainly see the medal around Zoe’s neck, the boxers stuffed partway into Tali’s pocket, and the merit badge still in Luce’s palm.
She stands there, trying to figure out how to steer this, how to say the right thing. “Actually . . . ,” she stalls, shaking her head as heat creeps into her cheeks; she’s glad night’s descending. “I, um, lost the tiara last night,” she explains.
“You lost it?” Tali squawks. “What do you mean you lost it?”
Joy hugs herself. “I just did, okay?” she says quickly.
Zoe studies her face as if she doesn’t quite believe her. “Maybe we can retrace your steps and find it,” she offers.
“Well,” Joy begins. “I, um, I ended up by the lake. Near that little waterfall,” she says. “Past the footbridge. You know, not far from where the path leads up to the Red Cliffs.” She speaks slowly, hesitantly. What happened last night—with Ryder. It was magic. It was surreal. It was something she’s not sure how to describe, even to her friends.
“Doug Ryder and I . . . we . . .” And somehow, she manages to tell it all—well, almost all, leaving out just a few details to savor for herself. Their reactions—squeals, giggles, and exclamations of shock and awe—make her glad she told . . . despite the fact that subjects such as did they use a condom (obviously), and was it everything she expected (impossible to answer), are up at the top of the list of Most Mortifying Things to Talk About Even with Close Friends.
Tali pounds her on the back approvingly, and Joy sways slightly, a hint of her former light-headedness returning.
A look of concern flashes across Luce’s face. “We should really hunt for that tiara, but first, I think we need to get you something to eat.”
“I’m on it,” Zoe says, seeming relieved to have a reason to back away for a moment. She disappears toward the glow of the giant tent, and only minutes later returns with a big stick of cott
on candy, handing it to Joy as though offering a queen her staff.
“The sugar will help you feel less dizzy,” Luce says with an approving nod.
The tuft of swirled pink, larger at the top and tapering in toward the rolled paper stick, reminds Joy oddly of the clouds she watched with Doug Ryder when they lay back against the dusty rocks at the top of Red Cliffs, only two days ago. She takes a bite, and its sweet stickiness fills her mouth: the flavor of happiness, childhood. It dissolves on her tongue, leaving a vague graininess until there’s no mass left, just the taste of color itself, of vivid red . . . her mouth empty, her whole body high on memory.
They were wrong. She doesn’t feel less dizzy. The memories take her over: Upturned board games and wild disputes over who won. Racing through the spray of sprinklers on the Great Lawn. Sharing candy in the Stevens. Like flashcards, they race through her mind. Tali, swiveling backward from her chair in French class to face Joy, who sat behind her for all of sixth grade, instructing her to always smile, no matter what happens. Souris toujours. Luce holding her hand, telling her to be brave when she was too scared to dive into the lake during swim lessons the summer before second grade. Zoe daring her to climb the big maple in her yard. The view from the tree, dappled in leafy shadow. All that cheesy crap from the past floods her head in a millisecond as the pink sugar melts and fades and disappears, leaving a subtle stain on her palms and lips.
Life is like cotton candy, she concludes. But she can’t say it aloud, or they will think she is crazy.
“Guys,” she announces instead. “I just realized something.”
They turn their focus on her and she is once again their center, their gravity. They need her. And for one last time, that’s all she needs.
“That time capsule I wanted to bury?”
They nod, Tali raising an eyebrow, Zoe tilting her head, and Luce crossing her arms tentatively.
“What a dumb idea,” she blurts, surprised by the words.
“What are you talking about?” Luce asks, her face looking just like it did the time Zoe dared her to eat a worm during the summer they were Bunk Foxes.
“It doesn’t matter if kids of the future find our pictures and souvenirs,” Joy explains. “That’s our stuff. Those are our memories. Like . . . whoever comes after us? They’ll make their own memories. They don’t want to find our old crap. You know what I mean?”
“Uh-huh,” Zoe responds. “Now gimme a bite of that.” She grabs the stick of remaining cotton candy from Joy’s hand.
Suddenly they’re all fighting over the cotton candy and laughing. Tali suggests they go for a dive to find the lost tiara, and everyone agrees, so they start running, fully clothed, up the path to the tire swing, the cotton candy long forgotten, its pink fluff rolling in the mud in their wake.
Joy is running with her three best friends in the whole world, and it doesn’t matter that they are heading back into the past and the future all at once, that if they retrieve the tiara they’ll be that much closer to re-creating the photo and, possibly, going home. Nothing matters except now, and now, and now. Branches scratching their arms. Laughter stinging through the air. The lake whispering and waiting with open arms, an unreadable but welcoming pool of darkness.
Joy doesn’t hesitate this time. Not like when she came up here by herself on the first night back in the past. When they reach the summit where the tire swing dangles listlessly, they don’t even bother to stop. Tali, with her long legs, reaches the ledge first, and turns back to look at the others, pausing for only a moment. Zoe arrives next and sticks her hand out to grab Joy’s. Luce takes her other hand, and Tali’s, and then they are linked.
A collective inhale.
A slight breeze ripples across the lake’s hungry surface.
In unison, they leap.
Eight limbs flailing. Four bodies falling. The black iris of the lake staring up at them as they fly toward it, into its center.
The air wraps around Joy, whooshing in her ears, and time really does stop—or at least, it pauses—and she can see everything clearly: the mountains a deep charcoal smudge beneath the night clouds, the water inky and opaque below. The sky screams all around her, inside her. I get it now, she thinks, letting her fear wash through her and soar away on the wind, as she gives in, allowing herself to fall. Because it’s all you can do. Let go. Fall.
Fly.
The impact is sharper and harsher than she expected: a slap against her skin—from her shoulders down the backs of her legs. It stings so much it distracts her from the cold.
Under the water, she flings her eyes open. As she surges toward the shoreline underneath the surface, she sees it: a distant glimmer. It has gotten dark out—it must be after eight o’clock—but the moon is huge and round and yellow, probing the water like a searchlight. The light bounces off the slimy, mossy, underwater rocks, illuminating something tinny and silver . . . the tiara. Unbelievably, it is still here, not too far from the mini waterfall.
Instinct takes over and Joy kicks at the fake silver crown, sending it tumbling deeper. She is running out of breath and needs to break the surface. Just as she begins thrusting herself upward, she sees a pair of golden arms and legs and a trail of long blond hair like pale seaweed flashing past her under the water, heading straight for the tiara. It’s Zoe. Joy has no choice but to continue her journey up to the surface.
Funny how in just an instant your future can change.
Joy bursts into the air, gasping, her mind raging. No no no.
But it has happened. She can already see Zoe emerging nearby, holding the Miss Okahatchee crown in her fist triumphantly.
“Got it!” Zoe cries.
Tali and Luce’s heads pop up not too far away, like curious seals.
“Hallelujah!” That’s Luce, bouncing up and down excitedly.
“We’ve got all the pieces!” Zoe shouts. “This is it!”
“Nice work, Zo!” Tali calls out, her strong arms pulling her forward through the water.
They all gather around, slapping one another high fives in the shallow area where not more than twenty-four hours ago, Joy and Ryder were kissing, touching each other, groping in the starlight.
Joy shakes her head now, willing away the images—and the tingles they bring to her whole body. “And so we do,” she says.
Now they are all solemn and frozen, like they’ve stumbled through the back door of a church in the middle of service.
“Is it time, then?” Luce says quietly, tiny droplets catching the moonlight on her shoulders, making them glow, even while her face is hidden in shadow.
Joy breathes in the smell of the lake for one last time—heady and minerally and full of the magic of the past, a thing she didn’t realize existed, but she’s sure of it now. The past does have a magic to it. You don’t know it while you’re living through it, but it’s there, hovering around you and nudging you gently forward with its own mysterious will. There is no other way to explain the high Joy’s experiencing right now, just from a scent, just from a moment.
She doesn’t want to go, doesn’t want to give in to the forward nudge—especially not with her three oldest and best friends together again, all gathered around looking at her with so much openness.
But they are ready. Which means she must be ready. All they’re waiting for is her command.
“It’s time,” she says.
PART THREE
ALWAYS AND FOREVER
“Life can only be understood backwards;
but it must be lived forwards.”
—Søren Kierkegaard
25
Hair. If there is one thing that keeps Tali obsessed day and night, rain or shine, pre-storm and post-storm, that’s it. Will it behave? Will it lie flat? Will anyone notice its peculiar antigravitational tendencies? Cool girls are supposed to have smooth hair, sleek yet pliant, like their personalities. Which is
exactly why she is shocked to realize it has been a full forty-eight hours since her last attempt to tame her locks. The seventy-dollar anti-curl serum she once thought she could not live without lies on its side with the cap only half-closed, crusting at the edge, when she reaches into her cubby for a hair dryer.
Hair was only one of several topics of debate as the girls rushed back to Bunk Blue Heron from the lake that night in a whirl, passing by the glitter and music of the already-in-full-swing reunion night carnival, the tents glistening with raindrops, but the clouds now fully lifted and gone. Specifically, did it matter that their hair was wet but had been dry in the photo they are about to re-create? Other topics of debate included what the exact outfits they had worn that night consisted of, whether any of this was actually going to work in the first place, and whether they would get caught or stopped somehow before they had the chance to find out.
But here’s the thing: life doesn’t always hand you the answers. Sometimes the best you can do is make a decision and stick to it. Tali’s dad always says that the best business decisions rely on intuition, after all. There isn’t always a right move, just a move that feels right.
Then again, her dad is under investigation for fraud. So who knows if his advice will hold up. Tali, for one, is less than certain.
And thus it is with frantic energy and frayed nerves that the girls dry and style their hair and get dressed. The gentle wailing of Hadley’s horn only adds to the manic feeling in the close quarters, but to Tali the familiarity of the music comes as a relief. . . . In fact, knowing it may be the last time she hears Hadley Gross play the French horn actually fills her with a surge of emotion, and she could practically kiss her—even if what Rebecca said is true, and Hadley was the one who was hooking up with Blake all summer.
As she buttons her jeans and steps into her trusty gladiator sandals, Tali notices Brianna Bradley—who has always made a tradition of skipping the carnival—observing them with arms folded across her chest, clearly wondering when reunion night became such a big deal, her eyes narrowed as if to say Which one of you is getting laid, and what am I missing?