by Emma Straub
The weeks passed quickly: The kids canoed, they sang around a campfire, and they each got browner and more freckled in the sun. August’s lower bunkmate, Danny, snored evenly, like a human white noise machine. John and Ruth called once a week and sent letters every day, so August didn’t miss anything at home.
Parents’ day was a week before camp was over. August told John and Ruth they didn’t have to come, but they wanted to, of course, and August couldn’t argue too much.
During the days, August tried things: a friend’s top with flouncy sleeves. A beaded necklace. Everyone painted each other’s fingernails, even the most handsome boys who played basketball shirts versus skins, so comfortable in their own bodies that they didn’t mind if other people looked.
Every night, lying in bed, August asked questions to the air:
What’s the difference between your body and your brain? Nothing? Everything?
What’s the difference between what you are and what you say you are?
What’s the difference between a lie and a secret?
What’s the difference between fear and shame?
What’s the difference between the inside and the outside?
What’s the difference between a meteor and a meteorite? The meteorite hits Earth. It makes contact. Was there a word for a meteor that had to choose when and if it hit?
* * *
—
August wasn’t the only one.
The most popular activity at camp was Cloud Watching, and all you had to do was lie on your back on the big sloping hill and stare up. Sometimes there were lots of clouds to watch and sometimes there weren’t, but it didn’t matter. There would be a counselor there, reading a book, or just lying on their back with closed eyes, and all the kids would surround them like petals on a flower. The counselor who most often offered Cloud Watching was tall and skinny, with a freckled nose and curly brown hair that pointed in all directions at once. Her name was Sarah, and according to some of the kids in August’s bunk, Sarah had been called another name before. A boy’s name. Her dead name, was what the campers who had been there for several summers called it, which made it sound like a ghost story. But that’s what Sarah called it, and they all loved Sarah, and so no one used the dead name, not ever. August always did Cloud Watching when it was with Sarah, and hurried along, to make sure to get the spot closest to her, the tops of their heads almost touching. Some of the boys teased August gently (okay, so there was teasing, sweet teasing), saying that he had a crush on her, and it was true, in a way, but not the way they meant.
The morning that the parents came, everyone was nervous and excited. They knew the summer had changed them—all summers did. That was why the kids at school looked different in September. Being a kid meant being in a constant state of transition, no matter what. It was true when you didn’t want it to be, in addition to when you did.
August thought a lot about what to wear, and finally decided: a swap with Emily, a Clapham High School Tennis sweatshirt of John’s for a long striped dress with short sleeves. It was nautical and made August look tall and slinky, like a dancer in a 1940s movie that took place on a ship. That’s what all of August’s friends said, and when August walked the length of their bunkhouse like it was a runway, they all cheered. Robin was wearing a dress on parents’ day. All the campers waited on the main lawn for their people to arrive. One by one, a kid would jump up and run across the grass and leap into their parents’ arms. Even the kids who claimed not to have suffered a second of homesickness leapt. Everyone had a well of feelings that were hidden from view; August liked that.
August saw John and Ruth when they rounded the corner, holding hands. A thousand kids were running a thousand directions, and August saw Ruth jerk her head to one side and then the other, searching. John cupped his hand around his forehead to block the sun. They were thirty feet away, then twenty, then ten. August walked toward them, and Ruth gasped, and ran straight, her arms wide. August was as tall as she was but it didn’t matter, she would always be big enough to hold her baby. The dress was long and could stretch only so far. August was in her arms and then John piled on top of them, a happy clump. August held on tight. While they were hugging, there could be no questions, only love.
There was some free time, then lunch, when your parents could take you out if you wanted, then there was the camp play. The idea was that by the time the parents left, everyone would be so tired from the day that no one would be sad.
August led Ruth by the hand around the bunk, showing her where everyone slept, showing her the crevice in the wall where all her handwritten letters were stuffed. She crawled up on top with August while John went to the bathroom (“Smells like twelve boys have been peeing on the floor all right!” he said when he got back) and they whispered.
“I like your dress,” she said, and touched the fabric by August’s knee.
“It’s my friend’s,” August said. “I’m just wearing it.”
“Okay,” she said. “It looks nice on you.”
“Thanks,” August said, and touched the wooden walls, where generations of kids had written their names, and the years they’d slept there. Sometimes it was a girls’ bunk and sometimes it was a boys’ bunk. August touched the spot where someone had written Zoe in bubbly letters, two tiny purple dots above the o.
“Who’s Robin?” she asked, her voice quiet. “Is that what everyone is calling you?”
August wasn’t sure they’d notice. “Yeah. It’s a nickname thing.”
“Do you want us to try it too?” She was whispering. “At home?”
“Maybe,” August said. “Maybe not. I’m not sure.”
“What are you guys talking about up there?” John said, his face level with the mattress. He pressed his nose against the tiny bit of August’s knee that was against the wooden slats of the bed like a dog nuzzling for a treat. Everyone else was sitting out on the lawn, waiting for the talent show. Evergreen was singing a Beatles medley, with Sarah playing the guitar. She’d started to teach August, just a few chords here and there. August watched her every move.
“We’ll talk about it later,” Ruth said, looking August in the eyes. “Unless you want to talk about it now?”
“Let’s talk about it at home,” August said.
“I don’t want to miss the show!” John said. He had loved summer camp, in the way that some adults do, where they could break into some made-up song at the drop of a hat.
“Yeah, me neither,” August said. Ruth turned around and went down the ladder, and then both stood there at the bottom, the two of them waiting for August like firefighters with a trampoline.
“Careful,” Ruth said. “It’s harder in a dress.”
“You can do it,” John said. “And we’re right here, in case you fall.” August turned and followed, lowering one foot down, down, down, until it felt something firm.
Chapter 21
Dead Birds
The plan was this: Cecelia would get off the school bus, hop on Astrid’s plush cruiser bike, and then ride over to Elliot’s house, where either he or Wendy would be waiting by the open front door, the sound of screams echoing off the walls of the foyer. She would enter, and they would exit, to return at six o’clock. In between those hours, Cecelia was responsible for keeping Aidan and Zachary alive. For this, she would earn one hundred dollars, more money than she had ever gotten from her parents for doing any kind of chore, and so it seemed like a great deal all around.
Before she moved in with Gammy, Cecelia had probably spent a grand total of three minutes alone with Elliot—if that much. She saw him in the doorway as she rode up the semicircular driveway. He paced back and forth, a six-foot Ping-Pong ball.
“Hi!” Cecelia said. She swung her leg off the back of the bike and glided to a stop.
“Hey, thanks for coming,” Elliot said, and Cecelia wondered if he’d forgotten her name. Elliot and Por
ter seemed so much older than her dad. Maybe it was just that she knew him better, but Cecelia didn’t think so. It was as if for every year between them and their baby brother, Porter and Elliot were one step closer to the previous generation. Her uncle seemed old-fashioned, like he didn’t entirely understand how the internet worked, or know that calling a woman he didn’t know “sweetheart” was bad. Maybe it was because she’d never had a grandfather, and he was the oldest man in her family. “Let me give you a quick tour.” He turned and walked back inside before the kickstand hit the ground. Cecelia could hear war cries emanating from an inner sanctum of the house.
Elliot and Wendy and the boys lived only a few blocks away from the Big House, but unlike Gammy’s house, which showed its age in the creaks of its staircase and the elaborate moldings, the heavy doorknobs that often didn’t work right, the nightly groans, as noisy and irregular as an old man with a head cold, Elliot’s house—she could feel it the second she walked in—didn’t even whisper. It was the Anti–Big House, the inverted version, but with roughly the same square footage. The walls were taupe, the sofa was beige. Astrid’s house wasn’t cluttered, but it was lived in—art hung on every wall, there were books in every room. Elliot’s house was empty, if you didn’t count all the enormous Legos dotting the carpet, which was also shades of tan.
“Nice house,” Cecelia said, just as Zachary crashed into her from behind. It felt like a hotel or the set of a soap opera. The only things on the supersize mantel were fake candles that went on with a switch. Her parents would have laughed. Her parents referred to the houses that Elliot built as McMansions, which was not a compliment.
“Ha ha ha ha ha, your butt!” Zachary said, and ran off again in the opposite direction.
“The kitchen’s in here,” Elliot said, walking and pointing. “Bathroom’s over there. Their room is upstairs, they can show you. It’s an enormous mess—you cannot possibly believe what a mess it is. The door to the backyard is here, I recommend pushing them out of it and then closing the door behind you.” He crossed his arms. “What else. Let them eat anything from the fridge, it’s Wendy’s problem if they don’t want to eat dinner.” He winked. “Don’t tell her I said that. I’ll be back, or Wendy will. There’s cash on the counter, and my number, if you need it.”
Just then, both boys ran at full speed toward the door to the backyard and smacked into the glass.
“We’re birds!” Zachary said.
“Dead birds!” Aidan replied, gleefully.
“We’ve had some problems,” Elliot said. “The windows are too big, the birds don’t understand that it’s just glass.” He frowned. “As far as I know, none of my clients have had this problem, but who knows, maybe they just didn’t say anything. You sure you’ll be okay? Oh, also, I lost my phone somewhere in the house, so if you could keep an eye out for it, that would be great. It’s here somewhere, because I’ve been in prison with them for two hours, and now somehow I can’t find it.” He patted his front and back pockets again, as if the thing might materialize.
“Absolutely. Let’s go outside, guys!” Cecelia said, in her best imitation of a camp counselor voice. She waved to Elliot. “See you later!”
* * *
—
The backyard was wide and flat, with a tall wooden fence on the three sides not facing the house. The twins raced past the swing and to the very back of the yard, where they began to build something out of sticks. Cecelia wandered in their direction but stopped and sat on the tire swing. She lay back and stared at the clouds passing back and forth over her head.
Elliot looked a lot like her dad. Or, he looked the way her dad would look if someone got him on a TV makeover show—tighter clothes, neat, short hair, no beard, real shoes. Their voices even sounded alike: higher than average, with a touch of caramel on the back of the tongue. Her father was a great singer—Smokey Robinson, that sort of thing. Cecelia wondered if Elliot ever sang. She couldn’t imagine it—according to her dad, Elliot had always been uptight, and everyone knew that uptight people couldn’t sing. (She herself was too shy to sing in front of anyone, and understood.) Families were the weirdest thing in the world. Her dad and Elliot and Porter, all living in one house? Eating breakfast and dinner together every day? Sharing a hotel room on family vacations? It was like a video game—stick all these people together and see which one survives. One of the boys cried out, and Cecelia sat up. They seemed perfectly content from a distance, but when she wobbled to her feet and took a few steps closer, she could see that one of the twins—Zachary, if the shoes were on the right person’s feet—was bleeding from his face.
“Shit,” she said, moving faster now, with both boys running in her direction. “Shit shit shit shit shit.”
* * *
—
There were no Band-Aids in the bathroom Elliot had pointed to, nor in the kitchen drawers, which Cecelia opened one at a time, slamming them open and closed while holding the bleeding twin on her hip; he weighed at least thirty pounds, maybe more, and the other twin kept trying to climb onto her other side.
“Let’s look upstairs, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Cecelia said, not remotely sure that it was the truth. She watched as tiny drops of blood fell onto her shirt, onto the carpet in the living room, onto the gleaming hardwood floor. Zachary wailed—the cut was just underneath his eye, a straight line, about an inch long. An inch looked like a mile on a small face. Cecelia humped him higher up onto her hip and held Aidan by the hand, dragging him along.
Elliot’s bedroom was spotless. Cecelia didn’t think that she’d ever seen a real bedroom with no clothing piled up in one place or another. Zachary buried his face in her chest, leaving smears of blood on her shirt. Cecelia set his butt down on the ledge of the sink and opened the medicine cabinet. There were Band-Aids and tubes of Neosporin and tweezers and more bottles of skin cream than she’d ever seen outside of a Sephora. She pulled down a box and quickly unwrapped a Band-Aid. Zachary stopped crying long enough to watch her with suspicion.
“Are you going to take out his eyeball?” Aidan asked, his chin level with her hip bone. He sounded hopeful.
“What?! No, he just needs a Band-Aid,” Cecelia said. Aidan pinched her thigh to express his disappointment. Zachary whimpered while Cecelia held the corner of a towel to his face to stop the bleeding. The towel looked clean, like everything else in the house, and surely they wouldn’t object to a stain from their child’s blood. She let the towel drop to the floor and put the Band-Aid on the cut. He looked like the Shrinky Dinks version of Rocky. “You’ll be okay,” she said. “I promise. Let’s go watch some TV.”
Zachary didn’t need to be told twice. He leapt to the ground and ran down the stairs, not slowed for a second, with his brother two strides ahead of him. Cecelia stooped down to pick up the towel, and after opening and closing a few doors, found the laundry room. She pulled open the door of the washing machine and, just before she let go of the bloody towel, noticed an iPhone sitting in the steel basin. This seemed like the universe evening itself out a little bit: one downside, a child was bleeding, but on the upside, she’d found Elliot’s missing phone. Maybe she wasn’t the world’s worst babysitter after all. She’d been half surprised that he had asked, given her new status as a ne’er-do-well. Maybe losing the phone was a test, and he was checking to see if she was a thief in addition to whatever else.
Downstairs, the sound of Paw Patrol filled the house. Kids knew how to do everything now. Cecelia poked her head into the room next door—an office. Instead of the beiges of the rest of the house, the room was filled with thick dark wood and a heavy desk that was meant to look old but clearly wasn’t.
Cecelia looked for a piece of paper to write a small note on—there was a pad on his desk, clearly made by Wendy, with photos of the smiling twins at the top of every page. Cecelia tore off a sheet and opened Elliot’s desk to look for a pen. In the drawer, just behind some loose pens and pencils and t
he odd penny, there was a glossy black folder. Cecelia reached for it without thinking—it was shiny, with the Beauty Bar logo. Elliot didn’t seem like the Beauty Bar type, though Wendy did. When it had opened its first branch in Brooklyn, Katherine and Cecelia and their friends had gone and tried every sample, regardless of their need for it: lipstick, wrinkle cream, blush, volumizing spray, cuticle ointment. The stores were as glossy and black as the folder, with floors that looked like pools of wet ink. Cecelia opened the folder and looked at the drawing on the first page. It was a drawing of the roundabout, with Susan’s Bookshop and Spiro’s and Shear Beauty and the hardware store all in their spots, steady as Beefeaters outside Buckingham Palace, but in the upper-left corner, next to the pizza place, was Beauty Bar. It dwarfed everything else—the building was taller, wider, darker, like a hurricane that had decided to stay put.
“Ugh,” Cecelia said. She pulled out the top sheet of paper and kept reading. When she was done, Cecelia scribbled a small note, left it and the phone on Elliot’s desk, and then she walked down the stairs and found Aidan and Zachary horizontal on their designated monogrammed beanbags. She squeezed in the narrow place between them, and each boy moved his head a few inches closer to hers.
“So what’s this show about, anyway?” It was after her time, which was sort of nice to realize, that her childhood was far enough away that new cartoons had been invented. Eventually, she’d be old, too, just like Elliot, and Aidan and Zachary would have to explain all the things they automatically understood, just like she took it for granted that gay people could get married, or that Google could answer any question in a split second. She looked forward to there being things that young people would have to laboriously explain, their eyeballs rolling skyward. The boys didn’t answer, too deep in their simultaneous pleasure comas, and so Cecelia just watched with them until they’d seen five and a half episodes and she knew all the pups by name and the theme song and the ancillary characters that cycled through Adventure Bay to ensure that the pups weren’t always just rescuing themselves. When they heard Wendy’s key in the door, Cecelia swam back to the surface, kissed the boys goodbye, and then got back on Gammy’s bike to ride back to the Big House, her pocket fat with cash.