She didn’t know me either, but I didn’t bother pointing it out. I didn’t think she really had problems meeting people. I couldn’t imagine she had actually spent much time alone, but I was happy to play her game. “Of course,” I said. “You can do anything with me you want.”
“Ha ha,” she said. “Keep dreaming. Just come get me when you’re going.” And then she was gone, leaving a delicate hint of perfume behind her, infinitely more pleasant than Lester’s cologne.
“Holy shit, that is one seriously cute chick,” Lester said, glancing around the room like he’d lost something. “Where the hell’s my camera?”
*5*
The trail down to the lake from the employee cabins was even narrower than the trail out to the lodge, and more overgrown. Charlie clung tightly to my arm, pressing herself against me the entire way as we walked, to my pleasure.
“Jesus, Jones,” Charlie said. “You’re going to be my hero this summer. I’d be lost without you already.”
“Charlie, you aren’t going to have to shout my name twice, I promise you that,” I laughed as a low-hanging branch swatted us in the heads and she screamed burying her face into my arm and chest.
“What if there’s spiders in these trees?” she cried.
“Lucky spiders,” I said, thinking of them crawling all over her as we emerged from the trail into the orange blaze of a bonfire on the beach by the lake.
“You better not leave me to walk back by myself,” she ordered.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I promised, pretty much meaning it.
I didn’t plan on leaving her side at all. We no sooner arrived at the bonfire, though, than Winewright appeared in between us. The magician of annoying.
“Welly, well, Jones, what do you have here?” he asked, taking Charlie’s arm and pulling her immediately away from me. Charlie shot a glance back at me, twisting her pretty lips into a mock grimace, her eyes urging me to steal her back.
“Charlie, Winewright,” I said.
I betrayed little joy in my voice.
“Why, hello,” Charlie said, her voice chirping.
“Charlie,” Winewright admonished her, “I’m surprised you made it through the woods with this guy. You need to come meet some new people,” he said, leading her away.
“I hope you’re behaving, Miss Model Student,” I said, walking up to Marianne, Lester still tagging along, fidgeting with his camera.
“Ha ha,” she said. “The kids aren’t here yet so I’m responsibility-free right now.” She had never been the sort to revel in little responsibility, so her excitement intrigued me.
“Wonderful,” I said, lifting her drink from her hand, feeling mischievous and trying to get her goat. “Then it’s okay for you to serve me this.”
“Hey,” she cried, laughing, snatching it back.
“You’re setting a bad example, I’m afraid.”
“You’re a good one to talk, Bukowski,” she snapped. “You’re going to give these kids some demented romantic notion that writers are nothing but drunks and Lotharios.”
“I hope,” I said sincerely. Nice to know my reputation was still intact.
“Have you seen Dalia?” she asked, looking around, probably already trying to keep me from thinking about hitting on her. I had no doubt that I was enveloped in an air of desperation that everyone near me breathed in.
“Dalia’s here?” Lester asked.
“Yeah,” Marianne said. “Have you seen her?
“No,” I said. “Where would I have?”
“She was looking for you earlier.”
Interesting. I just shrugged, though.
“Who’s the pin-up?” she asked.
“You know, I don’t really know,” I said.
“Well, Winewright seems to have taken a liking to her,” Marianne said, nodding toward the boisterous poet talking to Charlie. Winewright, of course, took an interest in all women, especially any that paid the slightest attention to me, so that was not surprising.
“Everyone’s taking a liking to her,” Lester clarified, sounding a little creepy. He had a way of saying things that most people probably would have kept to themselves.
“Dalia was looking for me?” I asked.
“To tell you what an asshole you are,” Marianne offered - laughing finally only after seeing the look of surprise on my face. I had never seen this playful side of her.
“I’m glad she didn’t find me,” I said.
She laughed, before looking more serious for a moment. “I know I didn’t really know you,” she said slowly, “at school, I mean, but I knew who you were. I was really sorry to hear about September 11th – that you were there. We ran a story on it in the magazine. I tried to reach you,” she explained.
I wasn’t sure how to explain why I had ignored her emails, and her phone calls, and her text messages.
“Alright, kids,” Dr. Phillips suddenly said from behind us, saving me from having to say anything at all. “Fun’s over,” he announced, but not loudly and evidently not seriously, as he hoisted a beer.
“Talk like that will land you in the lake, Dr. Phillips,” Marianne threatened, as she playfully tugged at his arm, as if to drag him toward the water. The familiarity surprised me.
“I’m just doing my job,” he pleaded.
“Does your job include drinking with your students?” Dalia asked, suddenly arriving from nowhere behind Dr. Phillips, who tried to return to his stoic poise, re-establish the professor to student dynamic.
“I think of it more as spending time with my favorite gifted, young writers,” Dr. Phillips countered, making light of the situation in an attempt to put an end to the conversation and get it back on more comfortable ground for him.
“Tell that to Mr. Editor here,” Dalia said, reaching over to give me a shove. “Apparently this gifted young writer doesn’t have what he wants.”
“Hello Dalia,” Lester said, and I think I detected a smirk in his voice.
I noticed her shoot him a brief, but absolutely icy glare, so almost imperceptible that she seemed completely to ignore him, her attention instead turned accusingly back toward me, though I was relieved the iciness was gone from her glance once she did.
But the glance was revealing. Dalia and Lester knew each other.
I should have told Dalia, back then, that I didn’t include her story because it was too long. It was gripping and convoluted, a fascinating read. That I had actually read it many times. And that maybe it didn’t make the Broadside because it was laced with bold sex scenes – perhaps not the best fodder for the literary set.
“Dalia,” I sighed, “Your story was superb.”
“Jones is just a bit oblivious,” Phillips said.
“Isn’t it time you left?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t want you to feel threatened,” he said, waving good night and walking away. I thought I picked up on some hostility in his voice.
“Dr. Phillips!” Marianne shouted, running after him.
“Why didn’t you publish it?” Dalia asked, returning her full attention to me.
“It was too long,” I admitted. “I had always meant to tell you and explain.”
“You never talked to me,” she said accusingly, giving me a small shove, but softening it all with a playful, mischievous grin. “You were too popular to pay attention to me.”
“Well, you have all of my attention now.”
“So, was that really it? Too long?” she asked.
“That’s it,” I assured her.
“Did you really like the story?”
“Honestly,” I said. “It was a great story. It was better than should go in the stupid school magazine. I made a note on it, I always meant to give it back to you. But I couldn’t get myself to part with it.”
“Honestly?” she asked, eyeing me.
“Of course,” I insisted, smiling at her.
She stared intently at me, trying to discern my sincerity. That was a harder task than most people surmised. “Because I
knew you wouldn’t publish it,” she admitted.
“What?” I asked, taken off guard.
“I figured, because of the sex scenes.”
“Why’d you submit it then?” I asked.
She grinned at me. “Just to get your attention,” she laughed. “I had a big crush on you, from our fiction class. It didn’t work, though,” she added a bit sardonically.
It worked. It was still working.
“Jones!” Charlie suddenly shrieked from behind me, grabbing me around the waist. “How could you leave me with that freak?” she asked, laughing and smiling as she bounced around Dalia and me.
Winewright arrived right behind her. “Ahh, Dalia,” he said, walking up to us. “Great stories only happen around great people, you know,” he declared, sliding his arms around Charlie from behind.
I wanted to reach out and rescue Charlie from Winewright, but Dalia sidled up next to me, sliding her arm around me suddenly, even as Charlie slipped away from Winewright toward me.
“That’s why you’re totally full of shit,” Dalia told Winewright, which really touched me, because I really disliked the guy. I high-fived Dalia for that, much to Winewright’s annoyance.
“Do you know what’s full of shit?” he snapped. “Jones pretending he’s a fucking writer.”
A little bitterness creeping out.
Winewright was drunk; he must have been down here for a while. Realizing it, I could tell now too how drunk Marianne and Dalia were too. The bastard was getting the ladies juiced up without me.
“Don’t be a prick, Winewright,” Dalia sneered at him, pulling me toward her, away from Charlie, even wrapping her arm loosely around my waist, a gesture for the benefit of both of them.
I did nothing, even though I didn’t appreciate the display in front of Charlie. I liked both of these girls; I wanted to keep my options open. But I didn’t want to miss any chances I had either; it had been a long time for me.
“Come on, Charlie,” Winewright said, leading her away by the shoulders. Only Winewright was oblivious to her dismay. “Obviously these two want to be assholes alone together.”
Charlie shot me a nasty glance back at me as Winewright dragged her away, but all I could do was shrug quickly and look sorry before she was gone.
“I didn’t think they’d ever leave,” Dalia slurred, pulling me off toward the beach, away from the bonfire and into the darkness that spread from the shoreline. I thought I noticed a stain in the shadows on the back of her New York City T-shirt.
I looked back over my shoulder to watch Charlie shuddering in Winewright’s arm, standing with a dozen or so others of the camp crew. I hoped some other decent soul there would come to her rescue.
“Dalia,” I said, “we should go back.” But I don’t think she was listening as she pushed me down onto the sand of the beach, inches from the waterline.
“Careful, my T-shirt,” I hissed, but it was too late, feeling damp already.
All I could picture was Charlie walking away from me, the look of disappointment on her face, even as I traced my fingers along Dalia’s rib cage, both of us breathing in time with the lake water lapping against us.
“So,” she whispered. “You saw the Towers?”
This time, I just nodded, letting the lie breathe, and live, and grow, smiling joyously as the water crept up along my back, and she dug her knees into the moist sand on either side of my waist, crushing the dry pillows of her lips softly against my neck, licking little spots of salty flesh, of sweat caked on me. She lifted her head up to look at me, a wild and drunken grin opening on her face, while I traced my hands along the lacy black hem of her undershirt.
Years of frustration, of loneliness in a faceless city, dissolved and seemed about to dissipate forever with the soft ebb and flow at the edge of the water until Winewright’s booming voice shattered all of the pulse-pounding glory of the moment.
“Jones? Dalia?” he shouted from far too close.
I tried to hold her still, even as she clambered slowly and a bit drunkenly to her feet, and even then I marveled at her, watching her happy grin collapse into annoyance. I pounded my fist into the moist sand beneath me, stomach churning in disappointment as my frustration ebbed from my fingertips back into my body, toward my lungs and heart and brain, much as the dampness of the lake soaked slowly and more deeply into the wrinkles of my shirt. I continued to lay there, the water not cooling me off at all, and I wondered how much longer I could keep this pulsing, burning energy trapped.
*6*
“Hey, drunk boy,” Charlie said into my window, her face a shadow framed by the curtains. It was mostly dark behind her but the sun was just then barely starting to break over the horizon in the faintest hint of orange.
“What?” I asked, struggling awake inside my cabin, face down on my bed. My pillow was saturated with sweat, its damp chill keeping me cool despite the gross, clammy feeling seeping through my hair and Mountain Dew T-shirt.
“Are you ready?” she whispered.
“Ready for what?” I asked.
“Last night,” she explained. “We were hanging out by the fire. I walked you back here when you were too drunk to remember how to get home. I think you may have been afraid of the dark, the woods at night.”
“Funny,” I said with a chuckle, “that doesn’t sound like me. Wanting an escort, yes, but too drunk, no.” I pushed myself up to a half-sitting position, cobwebs painfully crawling backward through my brain. “I hope you took advantage of me.”
“Yeah, right,” she giggled. “Only to make you promise you’d come with me right now,” she said, chastising and teasing me at the same time. “You’re a sucker when you’re drunk. We’ve only got one free morning left all to ourselves before the campers arrive, so you said you’d come with me.”
“Where did I promise to go?” I asked, making out the details of her face finally in the darkness outside my window, finding her smile first. It was enough to make any man go to bed, but to get out of it? That was another story.
After my fling with Dalia on the dark edge of the water, and Winewright’s intrusion, the two of us slipped back into the bonfire crowd and continued to party and drink and hang out like we’d shared nothing more than a whispered conversation, the rest of the crowd kindly ignoring my damp clothes, or perhaps not noticing them at all in their own self-absorbed drunkenness. Such was the beauty of darkness. Charlie seemed to have forgiven me, even though I had left her to Winewright’s undivided, dogged attention. I was relieved our absence had been so relatively inconspicuous, disappointed in another way that it hadn’t been longer. The aggressive come-on had surprised me; I wasn’t ready for it, prepared to take advantage of it more quickly. I was losing my touch.
“We’re going to hike out to some waterfalls a couple of miles from here,” Charlie said, seeing some of my memory returning.
I groaned and collapsed back on the bed.
“I’m coming in,” I heard her whisper and then listened as the door handle gently clicked and she tip-toed in. “Hey, your roommate’s not here,” she said.
“Great, you can be as loud as you want, I guess,” I said, covering my head, surprised to realize I’d been alone.
She threw herself down on the bed next to me, her legs thrown over my thighs and her face looking into mine. “I know it doesn’t sound like fun right now,” she grinned, “but the exercise will do you some good. We’ll catch the end of the sunrise in the woods by the waterfall. We’ll go swimming with the first rays of the sun, all by ourselves. And then we’ll be back here before people start arriving for tomorrow.”
I had to admit she was killing my headache just by lying next to me, increasing my blood flow as she was. It wasn’t fair. “How about you and I just lie right here and watch the sun rise through the window? We can still wear our bathing suits,” I offered. My temperature rose as I began to feel again the unrelenting swelter. Night had barely brought the temperature down into the eighties.
“Ha,” she laughed,
making me appreciate her generosity toward my weak flirtations dressed up as even weaker humor. “If you want to see me in a bathing suit, you’re going to have to get out of this bed and come with me.”
She made a convincing argument. I’d happily do much worse things to get a glimpse of her in a bikini. Or anything, really. I fought back against my hangover and sat up. “I really can’t wait,” I confided.
She giggled, lifting her shirt up for the briefest of seconds to flash me her bikini top. As dark as it was, I didn’t even see much, really, just the round curves of her breasts, the deeper shadow of some cleavage. “There you go, that should be all you need to get up.”
It was more than enough.
“I’m up,” I gulped. “Let’s get going.”
We strolled off into the darkness that continued to exit under the canopy of trees, fighting off the inevitable break of morning, while the first glow of orange strengthened. I followed Charlie as she wound her way through the woods, along a couple of different trails.
“Damn,” I said, “you really seem to know where you’re going.”
“I do,” she said. “I’ve been here already.”
“We just got here yesterday,” I noted.
“I was here once before,” she told me, breathing heavily as we maintained a quick pace down the trail, branches slapping at us as we whipped by. “I met my boyfriend here. We used to walk up to these falls.”
A boyfriend. Of course.
“I feel like a surrogate,” I said.
“A very fortunate surrogate,” she reminded me.
Fair enough.
“When were you here?” I asked.
“Two summers ago.”
“You loved Writing Camp so much you had to come back?” I asked. The existence of the boyfriend threw me for a loop, given how forward she had been so far. But she was here and he wasn’t, so I figured I’d drill her for more information and see what my chances really were.
“I’m not a writer,” she giggled, charming me once again with her propensity to laugh at just about anything I said. A very endearing trait. “Dr. Phillips is my uncle and he brought me here.”
“Yeah, he actually hooked me up, too,” I said.
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