Behind the Song

by K. M. Walton

  ANYONE OTHER THAN ME

  A SHORT STORY INSPIRED BY DAVE MATTHEWS BAND’S “DANCING NANCIES”

  By Tiffany Schmidt

  As a student, and later as a teacher, “Dancing Nancies” was the last thing I listened to before heading out the door to start the first day of school each year. It’s a song I always associate with new beginnings, opportunities for reinvention, reflection, and hope. But at the end of the day, I really wouldn’t rather be anyone other than me, flaws, quirks, and all.

  —Tiffany Schmidt

  The guy in the green Camp Pine Haven polo shirt looked up from his clipboard. “What name do you go by?”

  Mom’s Explorer hadn’t even bumped out of the parking lot, but I was already facing my first lie. Well, not really a lie, more of a decision. The last notes of a Dave Matthews Band song slipped out of the SUV’s open window, Dave’s raspy voice crooning questions about who else he could’ve been. I watched Mom wave, her rings flashing in the sunlight as she disappeared between pine trees and the camp’s carved wooden sign.

  I swallowed and turned toward the guy with the clipboard. It had the camp logo on the back—a cabin surrounded by clusters of pine trees. It looked a lot like the actual cabins and trees that surrounded us.

  “Um.” He extended the marker he’d been holding out this whole time. It was slightly sweaty from his grasp. His eyebrows had climbed up his freckled forehead, an expression that made confusion unfairly adorable. “Name tag?”

  Had he said that more than once? Oh God. I’d been busy memorizing the back of Mom’s car like there’d be a test on her license plate or the five stick-figure decals that represented our family. Six, if you counted the cat sticker my little brother, Franklin, insisted we get for Humphrey.

  I tightened my fingers around the marker. “I’m supposed to get a purple one? That’s my cabin?”

  “Yup!” Relief melted into a smile on his face. And it was one of those smiles. The kind that transformed someone from cute to breathtaking. We’re talking dimples that made me want to reach out and trace them. Not that I would. I’m housebroken, usually not socially inept, and I mastered ‘keep your hands to yourself’ a decade ago. He had gray-green eyes that sparkled like the surface of the lake visible beyond the trees. Top it off with ginger hair, like every Weasley brother I’d grown up crushing on, and I was pretty much uselessly staring.

  “Purple,” I said again, because I was clearly Pavlov and that word had gotten me that smile before.

  “Right, purple,” he said. “And you never did answer me: what do you like to be called?”

  Oh, that. The question that had fuzzed my brain to begin with. The one that had me staring after Mom’s tires like an abandoned puppy who’d changed her mind and would rather be dragged along on Amanda’s college visits than left at sleepaway camp.

  “Susannah? Sue? Suze? Suzie?” he prompted.

  My parents didn’t “do nicknames.” If we wanted you to be called something shorter, that’s what we would’ve picked. The only exceptions were my brother, Franklin, who called me “Suze McSnooze” when I gushed about computer games, and classmates at my homeschool co-op who called me by my last name.

  But in that pause I saw this was my chance—for once—to write my own story.

  “Suzie,” I answered. Then, firmer, “Call me Suzie.”

  “Okay, Suzie.” Dimples McMeltmybrain jotted it on his clipboard. “Nice to meet you. After you’ve made your name tag, you’ll meet your group over there.”

  He pointed to a picnic table overflowing with a giggling crowd of…strangers. My heartbeat accelerated and I had to swallow past a lump in my throat. I looked back over my shoulder, but Mom’s car was long gone. I was stuck in Maine for four weeks with girls I’d never met.

  I hiccupped, and because my classroom was our dining room and I’d spent hours facing a decorative mirror while stumped by Spanish verb conjugations, I knew exactly how pitiful I looked like when my lower lip trembled, my nostrils flared, and my skin blotched.

  The guy lowered his clipboard, revealing his own name tag: Mal, and asked, “First time away from home?”

  “Yeah.” I huffed out a nervous laugh. “I was supposed to come with a friend, but—she canceled.” Ava had been coming to this camp for years. Her family was friends with the owners’ family. But she’d gotten a once-in-a-lifetime internship and understandably bailed. She owed me one and she knew it.

  “No judgment here. I’d be just as freaked out if I went away.”

  I wanted to ask how that was possible, since he worked here. But ending the conversation before I cried seemed more important. “I’m okay. I’ll get my name tag now.”

  “Good,” Mal said. “Go meet some people; you’ll forget about being homesick. You’re going to love it here, Suzie. There’s nothing like being outside in the summer—wait ’til you see all the stars. I’d never go indoors if they didn’t make me.” Tumbling stomach butterflies aside, I knew he was just doing his job. Then he blushed—like he’d said more than he should or gone off-script. And I wondered, just maybe, if whatever camper he checked in next wouldn’t get exactly the same speech.

  While I admired his enthusiasm, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be “outdoorsy,” and my throat clenched nervously as I glanced at the girls I was about to meet. “Thanks.”

  At the picnic table, I traded hellos and smiles, then survived the existential crisis of deciding how I would spell my new name—Suzy with a y? No. So then, s or z to go before my ie? While internally debating, I’d caught Mal’s eye twice. From my end, this was easy. He was the only non-Dad-aged male at camp. But from his? I was one fifteen-year-old among a hundred girls. Why was he watching me? He probably wasn’t. Except…he’d blushed. I hadn’t imagined that.

  Except, except, I was the one who was overwhelmed and wishfully thinking. Living in my head and writing a camp-romance-fantasy involving canoes for two, instead of living in the here and now where I had to extrovert. I wasn’t shy…but I was shy with strangers. I usually hung back and let others approach me, took in a scene before deciding how to insert myself.

  But I wasn’t myself for the next month. I didn’t have to be the girl who almost cried at check-in. I could be Suzie.

  I zie’d my name tag, then dotted my i with an impulsive starburst. I didn’t need to think about whether or not I was a heart-dotter. I was not.

  “Purple posse, circle up.” My counselor, Sheila, had a red stripe in her hair and wooden glasses. She couldn’t be much older than my eighteen-year-old sister, Amanda. When she stood on a picnic bench and raised her hands, I joined the girls clustering around her and followed them down the path.

  Susannah might’ve cursed Ava. Might’ve thought, slightly irrationally, that maybe a true friend would’ve turned down that cushy internship instead of abandoning her bestie at camp. But Suzie wasn’t that petty. She could be anything I wanted. And I decided she wouldn’t be shy or co-dependent. She would choose her own place in the crowd, be brave and assertive.

  I scanned the girls filing into the cabin, claiming their duffle bags, and dragging them over to the bunks. My eyes settled on a girl with gorgeous dark skin and neat braids. She had an edgy confidence, was casually beautiful in a black tank top and cutoff shorts, when the rest of us were obviously dressed to impress. While everyone else was all frantic squeals, she was coolly opening her trunk and pulling out sheets.

  Suzie is not shy. I took a deep breath and walked over. “Do you snore?”

  “Like a drunken bear holding a chainsaw,” she answered with a wry expression.

  I let out a relieved breath—that was easier than I’d hoped. “Good, it’ll be like sharing a room with my sister. Let’s be bunkmates.”

  Her precise red lip stain stretched into a flawless grin and she tapped the name tag she’d stuck on her shorts—why hadn’t I thought to put mine there? It was currently peeling off my boob
and kept sticking to my hair. “I’m Kat. I hope you packed earplugs.”

  “Suzie. I’ll take top bunk.”

  I was tugging sheets over my mattress’s corners when Sheila asked us to circle up on the cabin floor. Once we were squished in—awkwardly close with girls we’d either just met or hadn’t yet—she counted us, mouthing the numbers as she pointed. “Who are we missing?”

  “The one with the crazy long hair,” said the girl seated two spots down.

  “Oh, I know who you mean,” said the girl on my left. She leaned over and faux-whispered. “She looks like a home-schooled weirdo. Probably off panicking because she’s actually going to have to socialize.”

  This set off a round of giggles. Even Sheila wasn’t trying to hide a smile. “Girls, be nice.”

  I uncrossed my legs and pulled them to my chest. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one not laughing—Kat looked bored—because I wasn’t down for spending a month in a cabin full of girls who bonded via bullying.

  It would be easy to stop this. Tell them I actually was homeschooled. Tell them I loved it. Tell them that, just like any students, homeschoolers came in a range from super-shy to super-social. I skewed somewhere toward the middle. Ava didn’t have an introverted bone in her body.

  But then I’d be that girl: the curious specimen of home-schooling who’d killed the first moment of group bonding. I’d spend the next four weeks answering questions and correcting misconceptions. It would become the first thing they’d learn about me, the one fact they’d never forget.

  Instead I offered a weak smile to the long-haired girl who came out of the bathroom and took the last spot in the circle—oblivious to the giggles at her expense. For the first time I was glad Ava wasn’t here. Because she would’ve spoken up, listed the benefits of being homeschooled: the flexibility, the co-op, the lack of wasted time, the way we got to pursue our own interests—how I was coding my own computer game, not stressing over state assessments.

  It was all true—but it was all true for Susannah. And I’d left her back in Mom’s car listening to Dave Matthews sing about “Dancing Nancies”—here was my chance to be anyone other than me, and I was certainly going to take it.

  Sheila clapped her hands. “Let’s go around the circle and tell a little about yourselves. Then we’ll do a camp tour before the get-to-know-you rally.”

  I didn’t pay much attention to the others’ answers. I caught school newspaper, cheerleader, field hockey, ballet, drama—everyone seemed to define themselves by school activities. I was preoccupied with coming up with my response—Suzie’s story. By the time the circle reached me, I’d cobbled it together based on the high school TV shows I watched—subtracting out the werewolves and vampires and murders. If they were going to base their opinion of homeschooling on stereotypes, it was only fair I do the same for public schools.

  It was good Ava wasn’t here, because there’s no way we would’ve kept straight faces as I said, “I’m from north of Boston. I’m going into my junior year at WHS—” a vague set of initials that they could decipher however they wanted. “I do the usual stuff, fight with my sticky locker, avoid riding the bus. Sucky teachers, soccer team, homecoming court, skipping classes to spend time with my boyfriend—he’s on the football team. I mean, my ex-boyfriend—we broke up.” Current would’ve required photos I didn’t have, and “ex” earned me sighs and a side-squeeze from Kat.

  I looked around the circle. The girls were smiling—boldly, shyly, sympathetically—no one blinked at my lies. While I was still absorbing this fact, fighting a triumphant laugh, the girl next to me launched into her own intro, and the smiles switched to her.

  Tour was a blur of cabins of various sizes and functions, canoes, archery range, climbing ropes. My mind was whirring with the lies I’d told and the ones I was still inventing and whispering to Kat and long-haired Lila, who was not only not homeschooled, she was also not at all concerned with others’ opinions. A sweet and free-spirited girl, she carried her flip-flops and walked barefoot.

  We ended at a fire pit where the camp directors, Mr. and Mrs. Alastair, welcomed us and introduced the meet-and-greet games. The first was simple—we formed groups based on our answers to different questions. It should have been brainless, but the first question was “How many kids in your family?” and the first person to reach three was my cabin mate who’d made the anti-homeschooling joke. Rather than join her, I turned and followed Kat to the group for two.

  She grinned. “I’ve got an older sister—you?”

  “Same.”

  “Coolness.” Her smile felt like a shot of acceptance. It wasn’t quite a lie. I did have an older sister. And Franklin wouldn’t care—wouldn’t ever know—that I’d erased him to avoid being stuck with the cabin bully.

  “They’re doing college visits.” I felt better slipping truth in my fictions. “Yale, Princeton, Duke, etc.”

  “Yikes. How does it feel to be the dumb one?” Kat’s tone wasn’t mean, but I tilted my head in confusion. My list would have similar caliber schools, only I didn’t plan to leave Boston. She added, “You know, she’s Ivy League–bound and you mentioned skipping class in your intro?”

  “Oh, right. I—”

  But Mr. Alastair called out another category, which saved me from answering.

  It was easy enough to follow Kat around, so several rounds passed before we diverged. By that point we were laughing, inventing our own inside jokes as I reinvented myself.

  Suzie:

  • Chooses scary movies over action films (Forgive me, 007!)

  • Baseball over football (No one tell my dad!)

  • Gummy bears over chocolate (Oh my Godiva, not true at all!)

  Only about Humphrey did I tell the truth. Because apparently I was willing to erase my brother and my personality, but not my cat.

  It was a little unnerving how easily the lies slipped out.

  Next were camp-wide intros—give yourself an alliterative nickname that tells two things about yourself. I tried to pay attention: Laid-back, lit-mag Lila, but it was hard not to be distracted by Mal escorting a pigtailed late-arriver who clung to his hand and made my heart melt. He left again and I focused on the circle: Shopping, snorkeling Sarah. Kickboxing karaoke Kat.

  Just as I took a deep breath to begin my own intro, Mal approached again. This time with his arms full of ice pops and his eyes on where I’d stood to share my nickname. “Um,” my voice trembled a bit before I pulled my shoulders back and stood taller, “I’m Soccer sushi Suzie.”

  Except, the closest I came to seafood is Swedish Fish. Sushi just sounded more mature, more impressive. And maybe it was impressive, because I saw Mal smile and nod to himself as he walked away.

  After games, Kat was telling me a story about a chemistry lab gone completely wrong and we were laughing with heads thrown back—when I got tingles down my spine. Mal was standing across the fire pit, stacking wood and watching me. I wanted to duck my head, hide the blush that raced up my cheeks, but Suzie, cosmopolitan girl I’d decided I now was, wouldn’t. Instead I winked, and he dropped the log he was carrying.

  As everyone headed back to their cabins, I loitered. Tying my shoe, then pausing to pick up an ice pop wrapper. He glanced around the now empty campfire circle, then approached. “There’s no sushi here.” He pointed to the plastic crinkling between my fingers. “That’s about as gourmet as it gets, but I hope you’ll like camp anyway.”

  “Spy much?” I teased, wowed by the power of a wink and some amped confidence.

  “I might’ve overheard a few things.” He plucked the wrapper from my hand, trading it for a smile. “You should catch up with your cabin. Purple, right?”

  I adopted a hip sway as I walked away, calling back, “You memorize all the campers?”

  He held my gaze. “Nope.”

  • • •

  By day two of camp I’d learned th
e layout and gotten used to showering in flip-flops. I hated the slimy-stepped walk from the bathhouse to our cabin, but there were worse things. Like the rubbery eggs at breakfast and the first freezing seconds of swimming in the lake.

  I’d also gotten used to watching for Mal. I caught glimpses of him running bread to the toaster at breakfast and helping Mr. Alastair carry canoes to the lake, but that wasn’t satisfying. I sighed as he banged into the arts and crafts cabin, where the purple posse were making personality collages—but he grabbed a can of orange spray paint and banged back out.

  “What’s his story?” I asked Kat. This was her sixth summer here, and she was a walking camplopedia.

  “Malcolm Alistair—the owners’ son. Keeping track of him is the camp’s version of Where’s Waldo. Even if he wasn’t such a slice of handsome cake, he’d still have groupies, but with those dimples, it’s ridiculous.” She cut out a picture of test tubes and added it to her collage of science equipment, equations, and musical notes. Kat was a bisexual, chem-whiz, trombone-playing daredevil. The first in the lake and to volunteer on the ropes course. I already wanted to keep her in my life after camp. She stole the bottle of glitter I was dumping over my pictures of clichéd high school crap. It was a joke of a collage that matched the lies I’d created on my first day. Each time I looked down, I had to bite back a laugh.

  “So that’s why he’s the only guy here.”

  “Yup. He’s not supposed to talk to us unless he has to for camp business.”

  “Really?” My voice squeaked.

  “Yeah. He got in huge trouble last year when some girl snuck into the Alistairs’ house. She was waiting in his room in her underwear. Maybe naked.”