Camp Payback

by J. K. Rock

“If Jackie’s right about some of the boys helping Seth during a free period, you ought to be able to do that, too, Trinity,” said Siobhan when we reached our targets. “You should ask Emily. You know she always fights for girls to be able to do anything the guys can.” She plucked arrows from her archery board as I scanned the ground for mine.

  Trinity dropped her nearly full quiver and had to start over. I helped her scoop up some, surprised to see my normally Zen cabin mate looking so flustered. Hopefully that meant she was going to make a play for Seth.

  “You should go for it, Trinity,” I encouraged her.

  Piper handed me one of my red-tipped arrows. “Let’s all sign up.”

  “I’m in.” Yasmine pulled another arrow from her yellow bull’s eye. What did that make—eight? Not that I was counting.

  “I can’t.” I grabbed the last of my missed shots and stuffed them in my quiver. “I’ve got to get the skit organized, and as much as I want Trinity to have her chance with Seth, I really need the rest of you guys.” They were so not bailing on me.

  “And why should your friends do what you want them to all the time?” Yasmine’s hoops swung as we headed back to Mr. Barry. “Maybe they have their own dreams to explore and stars to follow.”

  “Thanks for the life lesson, Yoda,” I shot back, earning a scathing look from Yasmine and a giggle from somewhere behind me. “But I’d like to think I would help them if they were put in charge of something that was really important to them. I can’t make all those costumes or sets by myself.”

  A lean arm settled around my shoulders, the faint smell of patchouli tickling my nose. Piper.

  “We can do both. Okay? No worries.”

  Easy for her to say. It’s not like Emily put her in charge—set her up to look like an idiot when this turned into a colossal fail. But how could I turn it down? Now that I’d acted, I couldn’t wait to do it again. Besides, Javier had promised to help—a guarantee I’d see him again, whatever our status.

  “Girls!” Emily dashed our way, her hair wild, cheeks a bright pink. “You will never guess who is going to be leading a very special new initiative at camp.”

  “We know!” Trinity exclaimed, then mouthed “Seth” at me. She handed Mr. Barry her quiver and spun in a circle that made her gauzy skirt billow around her calves. “And we absolutely can’t wait. It’s going to be awesome.”

  “Yes!” Emily fist-pumped like a New Jersey D.J. “Knew I could count on my home girls to help with my personal development and growth workshop.”

  “Wait. What?!” Trinity stopped so fast that Piper ran into her back, making them both stumble.

  Emily reached to steady them. “I know. I’ve got to work on that title—something more catchy. How does ‘Don’t Be a Teen Statistic’ sound? More to the point, right?”

  Jackie chuckled. “It says it all.”

  “I liked the first name,” Yasmine said. “And I want to help.”

  “Wait.” I sprinted ahead and turned to face my friends, halting their progress. “So now you’re all going to rebuild the gazebo with Seth and do Emily’s workshop? Hello, what about my skit? I need you. Where are your priorities?”

  “Where are yours?” a cool voice shot back with the same level aim that made her the best in archery.

  I gave Yasmine a dirty look, which she returned with a smug smile. Who did she think she was, Gandhi?

  “I’m trying to create something special for camp and no one cares,” I huffed, falling in with the group as we continued our trek to the mess hall for lunch.

  Yasmine pointed a finger at me. “Are you sure that’s all you’re trying to do?”

  I started to object, then stopped when Javier came to mind. How the heck did she know I wanted an excuse to be around my camp crush? But I also wanted to act again. A passion and talent all my own. This was supposed to be my best summer ever. If I couldn’t have Javier as a boyfriend, I could still make him my leading man.

  Jackie nudged my shoulder with hers. “Fess up, Alex. We all know it’s about Javier.”

  My cheeks warmed, and my neck prickled. “F.Y.I. we are not hanging out anymore.”

  “Then what do you call last night?” Trinity whispered loudly.

  I elbowed my friend-turned-traitor. “Fact finding.” Luckily Emily couldn’t hear us since she’d dashed ahead when Bam-Bam came into view.

  “If you care about Javier, you don’t want him to get kicked out of camp for good,” Siobhan said matter-of-factly. It was the first thing she’d said to me all day. “Maybe Yasmine has a point.”

  Trinity scooped up a flat piece of wood. “This would be great for a sign over the new gazebo. And, Alex?” I pushed on my sunglasses to hide my hurt and nodded. “For what it’s worth, I agree with Siobhan. I know you care about Javier. But maybe the best way to help him is to cool things down for a while.”

  My friends sounded like Mom and Dad…

  Did that mean I should listen? I stuffed down that thought. My so-called friends needed to mind their own business. They were just looking for excuses to bail on skit night.

  “That’s right, girls! Focus on yourselves and don’t become a teen statistic!” Emily exclaimed as she rejoined us.

  “We were just telling Alex she focuses too much on herself,” Yasmine said. I caught a couple of glances exchanged amongst the group. They’d never openly agreed with Yasmine because they were my friends first. Still…did they think I was selfish? Hadn’t I just offered to help Trinity fix her T-shirts? What did a girl have to do to get some credit?

  Then again, I’d been raised in the glare of social media. Was I too used to the spotlight to let someone else take center stage? It was too horrible a thought to believe.

  “This is about the skit, not me.” I leaned down and mopped my forehead with the hem of my shirt. “And I need your help, not your insults, thank you very much.”

  “It’s nice to see your polite side, Alex.” Yasmine arched an eyebrow, her sparkle eye shadow catching the light.

  “Maybe one of these days I’ll see yours,” I shot back, firing off the words before I had a chance to think about them. Sometimes, it just felt good to say what you meant. And damn it, wasn’t I walking on eggshells all the time lately?

  “Girls, let’s not waste our feminine energy fighting with each other. Instead, let’s use it for our enlightenment and empowerment.” Emily put her hands together and stopped to bow. “Namaste.” She gave a half–laugh, half–snort, then jogged to catch up to us. “I’m so using that in my workshop. Genius, right?”

  “Right,” I muttered, stuffing my hands in my jean cut-offs—the ones that made Javier’s eyes stick to my legs like glue. “Could you share some of that genius with me and the skit?”

  Emily waved away my question like she was swatting a mosquito. Speaking of which…I slapped at one when I felt a sharp pinch on my shoulder.

  “About helping you…” Emily gave me an exaggerated pouty face. “Victoria is going to work with you since I’ll be in the computer lab most nights. I need to research material for my workshop. But I know you two will get along great.”

  “Victoria! She’s—she’s—” My engrained Wholesome Home manners kept me from saying what I really felt about my elder. Darn it. The Divas’ counselor was known for being totally useless. Between my friends signing up to help Seth and Emily ditching me for some lame-sounding girl power workshop, I was really and truly on my own.

  ……………….

  The sounds of scraping chairs, chattering campers, and clanging utensils against dinnerware filled the mess hall. The talk around our table was all about Seth and what Trinity should do to get him to notice her. I was glad for her. Really glad she would have a chance to flirt with a boy she’d always liked. But did anyone remember I had a huge skit to organize? Did anyone care that it meant a lot to me?

  Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. My fork clattered on the table. “I can’t believe everyone is ditching me.”

  Trinity lowered her juice a
nd blinked at me. “We would never do that.”

  I sucked in my lower lip and shook my head, more hurt than angry. No way would I look weak in front of Yasmine. Plus, I was trying to be more even-tempered. Less ruled by my emotions. If Javier could do it, so could I.

  “Really?” I wanted to believe my friends would always have my back. But this summer, I’d felt more alone here than I ever had before.

  “But we only have one free period,” Siobhan said logically. She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “It’s either help Seth with the gazebo or work on the skit.”

  Okay. Siobhan was clearly still mad at me. But would the others join me?

  A very attractive, very single old friend versus doing a musical skit. My shoulders slumped. There was no competition, no matter how close we were.

  “Oh! I forgot to tell you the best part.” Emily pushed back her chair and stood. Her fork banged against her glass of milk until all of the campers quieted and looked our way. What was she up to now?

  “I’d like to announce an exciting new dramatic arts activity for the senior campers, available for next week only. It’s led by Victoria and Alex.” She gestured toward me, and I sat up straighter. Everyone looked at me. Well, everyone but Javier. It would have been a perfect moment if he’d glanced my way, too.

  I couldn’t resist a fist-bump to the sky. Not a self-victory cheer or anything, although I could kiss Emily for solving at least one of my problems. I did it to get the crowd hyped for the new skit night. Emily had to talk louder over the excited whispers going around the room.

  “A sign-up for it is posted on the bulletin board. Space is limited so don’t delay. Thank you.” She sat down with a huge, gum-exposing smile and leaned forward. “See? You can sign up like a regular activity. So no conflicts, right?”

  “I was doing the skit anyway.” Jackie shrugged her tanned shoulders and dug in her sherbet cup with her wooden scooper.

  A round of agreement followed, and I suddenly felt sorry for having doubted them. The relief on Trinity’s face meant she’d been planning a way to divide her free time between me and Seth anyway. It meant a lot.

  And my warm fuzzy feeling continued when I finished the salad I’d had for lunch and checked out the nearly full sign-up sheet on my way out of the mess hall.

  “Why is Kayla’s name crossed out?” Weird. What would have changed her mind?

  “Look—there’s Nick’s name under hers.” Piper tapped his scrawling signature. “He’d be a perfect Tony.”

  “Do you think she crossed out her name because of him?” Trinity ran her fingers over Kayla’s name. Was she looking for some kind of karmic vibe? “Remember how the Divas made her stop hanging with him when she moved into their cabin?”

  “Yeah.” Jackie crumbled her third sherbet cup and tossed it in the trash. “But now they’re all over him because he’s an Olympian. Classy.”

  “Poor Kayla. It must be weird.” Siobhan turned and hurried off to collect Rafael’s dinner tray. Even though she’d lost their chess bet, I could tell she looked forward to seeing him by the way she rushed over the minute he stopped eating.

  I scratched at the red bite forming on my shoulder. “I’m casting Javier as Tony, not Nick.”

  Yasmine reattached her loose Camp Angel bracelet. “You can’t do that.”

  I bit my tongue to keep the sigh from exploding out of me. I counted backward from ten. “Why not?”

  “Because he didn’t sign up, and…” She added her name to the bottom of the list. “…there aren’t any more spots.”

  I gasped and checked and double-checked the names. Sure enough, Javier wasn’t on there. How could he? He’d promised. Betrayal soured my stomach. I knew he wanted us to stay apart, but I never thought he’d break his vow to me. When I peered over at the serving counter, I caught Javier’s eye before he turned his back and hurried through the swinging kitchen doors. Ouch.

  “What’d I miss?” Siobhan asked when she rejoined us, her face glowing from more than the exertion of dumping one little tray. I should feel happy for her. Was happy for her. If only my romance could be that easy. Was that why I’d teased her? Was I jealous?

  “Only Javier bailing on me.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “What else is new?”

  We walked out into the noonday heat, the sun disappearing behind rapidly shifting clouds. A bolt of lightning snaked between the trees across the lake. The air pushed hot and heavy against us, a sticky wet feeling filming our skin.

  “Maybe you should stop worrying so much about Javier and Vijay,” said Jackie, her voice steady while the rest of us huffed and puffed on our race back to the cabin. We didn’t want to get caught in another summer rainstorm. “This is your chance to take charge. You always complain that your parents never let you do anything, and here’s the perfect opportunity to create something yourself.”

  Thunder boomed the moment we jostled up the steps and into our cabin. The purple-bottomed clouds let loose as our screen door banged shut, rain ricocheting off our roof like a nature shootout.

  I bolted up my ladder and flopped on my bunk. Jackie had a point. This was a chance for me to show everyone what I could do on my own. Create a world the way I wanted it—not my parents’ version. Only, how could I show Javier—the one I really wanted to impress—if he wasn’t a part of it?

  Something dug in my back, and I yanked out a pink tissue-wrapped package.

  “A Secret Camp Angel strikes again,” Piper called from across the cabin.

  Great. Just what I needed. Another mean-spirited gift. I shoved it under my pillow.

  “Come on, Alex.” Emily climbed a couple of the rungs and tickled my feet. “Get in the spirit and open it. Besides, your last gift was awesome. It’s what inspired me to pitch my workshop idea to Mr. Woodrow.”

  “Fine.” I sat up and crossed my legs Indian-style. The girls gathered around my bunk, all except Siobhan. “But only if Siobhan accepts my apology for teasing her yesterday. I’m really sorry.”

  Siobhan’s glasses rose as her smile pushed her high cheekbones even higher. “I accept. And I don’t like Rafael. Not that way.”

  I bit back a laugh at her transparent denial.

  “Are you opening it or what?” Emily pulled at the present’s magenta curling ribbon. Now that I looked at it, the package was pretty. Maybe the first present was a fluke?

  I tore off the wrapping paper and sucked in a breath when I saw my surprised face reflected back at me. A mirror. I turned the black plastic handle and examined the back. No markings and no note. My mysterious camp devil had struck again.

  “Oh, that’s pretty!” Emily grabbed the mirror, smiled at herself, then picked a piece of lettuce out of her teeth.

  “A mirror? I don’t get it.” Piper tilted her head as if to see it from a new perspective.

  “Maybe Alex needs a closer look at things.” Siobhan lifted her eyes over the spine of her textbook, then lowered them again.

  “Some people can look and still never see,” added Yasmine. I felt the bunk shift as she ducked onto the bed beneath me. My old spot.

  “Give her a break,” Jackie chided. “She’s trying, dude.”

  The other Munchies seemed to murmur in agreement. And as much as I appreciated them getting Yasmine off my back, I still felt frustrated I wasn’t getting the message of the dumb presents. Did I really need a stupid mirror? How would taking a closer look help anything that had happened this summer? As it was, I already lay awake in bed at night trying to think my way through problems that didn’t seem to have solutions. I couldn’t be with Javier. I had to ignore my dreams of acting to fit a mold my parents were determined to cram me into. And as much as I felt resentful about my life, I hated that Javier’s was even harder. He’d never met his dad. His mother had struggled so hard to be with him, and he’d still ended up in crappy foster homes.

  Taking a closer look at things just magnified how much they hurt.

  “Here.” I handed the mirror to Emily. “
I don’t need it.”

  Emily passed it back. “Rule seventeen of the Secret Camp Angel policy—you cannot return a gift given in good faith.”

  “How is this good faith? Someone is trying to be mean.”

  “Maybe they think you’re just really pretty. It could be Javier.” Trinity sat on her bunk and smoothed her skirt, a small smile—the first really happy one I’d seen on her in a long time—appearing. Had she already searched her star charts for signs of a good time to approach Seth?

  I glanced in the mirror, trying to imagine that Javier had picked it out for me, then shook my head. These gifts were coming from someone who was trying to tell me something. Someone who felt like they had me all figured out. This just wasn’t Javier’s style.

  Emily climbed back down the ladder while Jackie and Piper surveyed the clouds out the front window, debating whether or not the storm would pass in time for us to go canoeing. With the focus off me, I brought the mirror up to my face and peered into it until all I could see were my dark irises, the color reminding me of Javier’s eyes. I cared about his happiness most, I realized. More than myself. More than my dreams of acting or my stupid plans for raising a little hell this summer.

  I’d been so determined to get payback on my family that I hadn’t stopped to see who I might be hurting in the process. That included Javier and me, too. Maybe this skit was a way for me to get the right kind of payback. The kind that meant redemption, not revenge—something Javier needed as much as me. Suddenly my confusion with Javier cleared as the rain slowed its rooftop percussion.

  I guess I really did see something in that mirror—and I knew exactly what I had to do.

  Javier

  “Shouldn’t you be on your way to the basketball court?” Helena tugged the dish towel from my hands as we finished up in the kitchen after lunch. “I thought you were supposed to be doing more socializing and less work?”

  “Learning how to kayak with a bunch of rich kids isn’t going to keep me out of trouble.” The only “socializing” I did was going back to my cabin to sleep. I wasn’t here to build lifetime friendships the way Camp Juniper Point’s brochure advertised. “The less I hang out with people, the less chance I’ll get into a fight, right?”