Camp Payback

by J. K. Rock

  Helena scowled as she hung up the dish towels. “Being a hermit won’t improve your social skills, Javier. There are plenty of good kids here.”

  Outside the kitchen, a screeching sound drew our attention. We looked out the pass-through serving window to see Vijay scraping the legs of a metal chair across the floor before dropping into it. He was right on time for his daily dose of so-called punishment. What a joke.

  “Sorry if I don’t see it that way,” I muttered.

  A knock sounded on the kitchen door from the back. The garden entrance. Weird. The only people who used that door were Helena and me.

  Helena shrugged while I pulled it open.

  Alex stood there, the sunlight turning her freckles into spots of gold.

  “Can we talk?” She fidgeted with her Secret Camp Angel bracelet, spinning the lanyard around her thin wrist. She wore a blue-and-pink tie-dyed T-shirt with the names of her cabin mates on it. I’d seen a few kids wear stuff like that this week, so it must have been a craft thing.

  “Come inside before you let the bugs in,” Helena barked at her.

  “Good idea,” Alex agreed, stepping past me into the kitchen. Since when did she quit fighting authority? “Thanks.”

  “Have a seat.” I pointed to a counter with a couple of our prep station stools. “Your ex is out in the mess hall, so he won’t see us back here.”

  “I saw him. That’s why I came this way.”

  Helena went back to putting away pots and scrubbing counters. Last time I looked, Vijay had his headphones on. It was as private as things were going to get for us. I waited for Alex to talk. Since I’d already told her where we stood, I didn’t have a clue why she’d come.

  “Javier, please do the skit night with us.”

  I heard a brief pause in Helena’s scrubbing. Yeah, not super private here.

  “I told you, Alex, it’s better if we don’t hang out anymore.”

  “It’s not hanging out. It’s camp skit night. Twenty other kids and a counselor will be there.” She looked down at her hands, and one pink clip-on lock of hair slid forward from the rest of her silky dark waves. “I understand we can’t be together, but as a friend, I really want you there.”

  Guilt pinched when I heard the sincerity in her voice.

  “I need to stay out of trouble. You know that. And when I’m with you…”

  She frowned and stared at the ceiling as if she might find an answer there.

  “I’m scared I took on too much. Scared of messing up something I really want to do well.” When her eyes met mine, I couldn’t look away. “If you’re there though, I know I can do it.”

  “No pressure.” I wondered if she took classes on how to wear down my defenses, because she sure was good at it.

  “Look. I know you don’t want to be with me.” Her eyes went to Helena for a second, and she lowered her voice. “And I’m not going to…you know…try to get you back. I’m just asking as a friend. And because you promised me you’d help.”

  “Not fair, Alex—”

  “Javi, please.”

  Everything inside me stopped. “What did you just call me?”

  Alex played with the hem of the tie-dyed T-shirt, twisting it around her finger.

  “Javi.” She stopped twisting and shrugged. “I heard your mom call you that.”

  No kidding. Hearing the nickname on Alex’s lips now was like…the voice of my conscience kicking in.

  “Speaking of which,” Helena cleared her throat and set her scrub brush aside, “your mom would want you to be a part of something like this. I know your mother well, Javier Kovalev, and it would mean the world to her if you’d have some fun and be a kid for a change.”

  “Let’s not bring my mom into this.” I kept my voice neutral, but tension wound through me so tight I thought I’d throw something. I tried to remember the bogus anger management classes I’d taken for the sake of my previous foster parents. I focused on my breathing.

  In.

  Out.

  Too bad without the layer of anger, hot tears stung my eyes.

  “Javier, I don’t mean to push you,” Alex said. “You can do what you want. But you shouldn’t work in the kitchen all the time, and you’d make a great Tony. You have a lot to offer, and I’m sad no one but me gets to see it.”

  She hurried toward the door. I swallowed a big lump in my throat and looked to Helena.

  “Can you handle meals this week if I do the play?”

  Alex stopped in her tracks so fast her sneakers squeaked on the floor.

  Helena sniffled and swiped a weathered hand beneath her left eye.

  “Definitely. And I know exactly where to ask when I need help.” She jerked a thumb toward the mess hall where Vijay sat—oblivious and jamming out to some tune on his fancy, over-the-ears headphones. “I’ve got every right in the world to put him to work.”

  “Really?” Alex’s eyes lit up, but I couldn’t tell if it was because Helena was going to put the screws to her ex or because she’d gotten what she’d come here for.

  Either way, it looked like I was going to do the damn play.

  For her. For my mom. For Helena, who’d gotten stuck with me too many times to count over the years.

  “I’ll be there,” I told her flatly, determined to keep the boundaries between us. But the happiness in her eyes was tough to ignore. “Bam-Bam told me I needed to hang out with friends more.”

  “Awesome.” She smiled at me and gave a thumbs-up to Helena. “I’ll see you at seven in the theater building for our preliminary meeting tonight.”

  When she left, the kitchen seemed smaller, emptier.

  “I thought you didn’t like her,” I griped to Helena.

  “I never said I didn’t like Alexandra.” Helena filled a clean pot with water, and I grabbed it before it got too heavy. “As long as you two are just friends, then it’s fine. Besides, she doesn’t seem interested in getting into trouble anymore.”

  “No?”

  “A girl can change. And she seems like she has.” She folded her arms and studied me with narrowed eyes. “And you could, too, you know. I want you to think about taking my brother’s offer to cook in his New York restaurant after camp. He said you can work part-time, and he’ll help you get in culinary school while you finish high school.”

  Right. I wanted to be a real chef someday, but I owed it to Mom to stick around and make her life happy for once.

  I’d play the game for a few more weeks, take the intervention trip with Bam-Bam, and “socialize” more to make sure I could stay at camp for the rest of the summer. After that, Alex Martineau would go back to her Wholesome Home life and I’d go back to my broken one, doing my damnedest to forget all about her.

  Alex

  “We only have four days to practice for the first skit night, so the sooner we start rehearsing, the better,” I warned my team as they sat scattered around the stage in the theater building.

  Half of them were still talking, even though I’d been describing my plans for the last ten minutes. Geez. Did I need a megaphone for this job? Why didn’t Victoria ever do anything helpful to keep everyone on task? My counselor advisor was deep in the pages of a paperback in the last row of the theater.

  I put both pointer fingers in my mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle. Brittany and Hannah quit arguing. Siobhan paused in her efforts to braid Trinity’s hair. Even Eli stopped running around the stage with the Viking helmet he’d found in a box of costumes. He stood still and listened, clutching a wooden sword to his tinfoil breastplate.

  “Thanks.” I gave a tight smile. “I was just saying that I’m going to cast the parts right away so we can get to work learning lines.”

  “Shouldn’t we audition?” The newest Diva, a YouTube singing sensation named Brooke, rolled her eyes like I’d overlooked the world’s most obvious task.

  “I’m dying to be Maria,” Brittany announced. “And I have a great idea to change the Sharks and Jets to vampires and werewolves.”
/>
  Even her friends groaned at that one, although Trinity seemed on board.

  “Cool!” She started discussing how they could do the costumes for a version of West Side Scary.

  They weren’t serious?

  “Dibs on Anybodys!” Jackie called, bounding up to my side, her long basketball shorts doing nothing to hide the most grown-up set of curves at camp.

  “Who is Anybodys?” Devon’s eyes roamed over Jackie.

  “She’s the tomboy,” Jackie explained. “I’m a natural fit.”

  “I have a list!” I shouted, waving the paper to assure them I had a plan. I’d worked really hard on this already, and I shouldn’t have let the chatter get so out of hand. “I assigned roles over dinner so we can get started right away.”

  “Seriously?” Brittany marched forward along the polished hardwood floor, Brooke at her side. “You just gave away all the parts without seeing what we wanted to do?”

  Campers swarmed me. Brittany swiped the paper while twenty other kids circled us. Someone stepped on my foot. I got an elbow in my side.

  “Hey!” I protested, meeting Javier’s eyes through the crowd.

  He and Yasmine were the only ones who hadn’t joined the footrace to steal my casting sheet. Javier leaned against a pile of crates near the box of props I’d dragged out of storage to save time. He yawned. Stretched. Looked totally unconcerned.

  Nearby, Yasmine quirked an eyebrow as she stared at me, then made a big show of checking her watch.

  “Should we come back another time?” she shouted over the outbursts from the other crowd milling around my casting notes. “It doesn’t look like you’re ready for us tonight.”

  It took all my restraint not to snarl. I stamped my foot and whistled again, but no one heard me this time. Brooke seemed to be hyperventilating over not getting a speaking role and ordered another new Diva, Nia, to get her some water. Rafael was laughing and telling all his friends that the only Puerto Rican among us was cast as a Jet, not a Shark. Eli did an impromptu tap dance while singing “Officer Krupke.”

  One shrill voice rose above the rest.

  “She cast herself as Maria?” From the center of the crowd, Brittany glared all around the theater until her eyes found mine. Even her friends backed away from her. Her normally pretty face was contorted in angry lines. “You not only direct this thing, but now you take the prime, juicy, starring role? For yourself? As if being the most famous kid on the Internet wasn’t already enough?”

  I flinched. That wasn’t the kind of attention I’d wanted. Or had asked for.

  “Heeeeeey,” protested Brooke. She shoved the water back at Nia, splashing some on the younger girl’s shorts. “I’ve got over thirty-two million views on my video.”

  Brittany ignored Brooke and stomp-marched closer to me, my notes on the skit crumpled in her hand.

  Hearing Brittany put it that way made me wonder if I’d messed up. I glanced toward Javier, who shook his head and closed his eyes like it was going to be a long night. Yasmine—my personal critic—smirked and looked down at her shoes. It was the first time she’d let someone else lead the charge against me. Unlike me, I guess she knew when to let someone else be the star of the show. Then again, hadn’t I been asked to step up? Hadn’t Emily told me I was the drama expert and I needed to head up the production?

  I was only doing what Ms. Personal Growth and Development had told me to.

  “The play was my idea.” I took a deep breath. “I wanted to do it because I was inspired by acting after doing Mine Forever.”

  “And that gives you the right to do everything yourself?” Brooke chimed in, her purple-tipped black hair shimmering across one shoulder.

  I glanced at Victoria, but she simply turned another page.

  Well, no one said this would be easy.

  “We’ve got four days to rehearse,” I reminded them. “Do you want to argue about everything or move forward so we have a performance on Friday?”

  “You really want an answer to that?” Brittany tossed my production notes back in my face. “Good luck, Miss Know-It-All.”

  My friends rallied around me. Kind of. Jackie slung an arm around my shoulders. Siobhan pushed her glasses higher on her nose and tried to reason with Hannah. Trinity worked to hide her pout, but since she’d already retrieved a few sets of dog ears from the prop box in an effort to make West Side Scary come to life, I could tell she wasn’t happy.

  “That’s fine,” I forged ahead. “We’ve got plenty of help to get this skit off the ground, so—”

  Brooke chose that moment to walk out, followed by Nia and the rest of the girls from Divas’ Den except Kayla and Hannah. A couple of the Warrior guys held the door and then ducked out right behind them.

  “Shit!” I shouted, my temper getting the better of me.

  I crumpled my notes and threw them off the stage.

  “Are we wrapping things up?” Counselor Clueless called from the back of the theater, peering up from her book.

  “I guess so,” I hollered back, feeling like an epic fail. My parents would love to blog about this. Alex the problem child messes up again. “Looks like there isn’t anyone to direct.”

  “I’ll lock up behind you,” Victoria announced, peering around uncertainly.

  “Fine.” I dragged the prop box back to where I’d found it. “I’ll be done in a minute.”

  “Want a hand?” Javier appeared at my side and gave the box an extra shove.

  “No,” I barked. “Guess you’re off the hook now. Happy?”

  Javier straightened, his face expressionless. Carefully neutral.

  “I came here for you,” he reminded me. “It’s not my fault you couldn’t get out of your own way.”

  He headed for the door while I reeled from the underhanded blow.

  “So this is my fault? I poured more gasoline on the drama?” I yelled, anger and betrayal simmering inside me. “Is that it?”

  No way could he tell me I didn’t try, damn it. I’d come here prepared. I’d taken notes. I’d arrived early.

  He paused.

  “I know one thing.” He turned around to look at me. “I’m not the one yelling.”

  He left before I could argue. But even I was tired of myself. Bad enough he’d only come here tonight to honor a promise. At least I had kind of counted him as a friend. Now? I knew Javier wouldn’t ever want anything to do with me again.

  ……………….

  I didn’t cry until I got to the beach that night.

  Somehow I’d walked back to Munchies’ Manor and deflected the conversation from my colossal failure, even though I was in a total haze.

  My cabin mates normally teased me about being a drama queen or dragging too many mirrors to camp or flirting with Javier too much. But they didn’t say much about what had happened in the theater tonight. If they were this quiet about it, then they didn’t even know where to begin.

  I was a lost cause. After asking them to give me some space, I’d curled up on my bunk.

  Now, hours later, I sobbed until I hiccupped. Forehead on my knees, butt in the sand, I didn’t care if a den of bears heard me and came to make a meal out of me. I didn’t care if Gollum heard and called my parents to take me out of camp.

  I’d let Emily down. I’d let my camp mates down. And I’d definitely let myself down. How could I have begged Emily to let us have a full-scale play when I couldn’t even pull off a skit night? Because I’d been selfish, of course, and wanted to show off my newfound acting talents.

  “Alex?” a girl’s voice whispered on the breeze, the sound mingling with the soft noise of water rippling against the shore. “Is that you?”

  Sniffling, I squinted toward the tree line as a girl walked toward me. The shadows hid her, the moon mostly covered by clouds.

  “Who is it?” I called. It didn’t sound like Emily. Our counselor slept hard, so sneaking out of Munchies Manor wasn’t difficult.

  “Hey. Are you all right?” Yasmine came into view. She
wore the long red-and-white-striped T-shirt that she normally wore to bed with khaki shorts and a gray hoodie over it.

  “Actually, everything sucks right now, Yasmine. I don’t need you to rub my nose in it.”

  “I come in peace.” Her flip-flops sunk into the wet sand as she walked next to me. “I found a present for you back at the cabin.”

  “My Secret Camp Enemy strikes again.” I ignored the little pink package she held out and tried to wipe my tears away before she saw. “I’m going to wait and open that another time, okay? I’ve hit my crap news quota.”

  Yasmine kicked off her flip-flops and sat on them. I wish I’d done the same since my butt was already soaked from wet sand. But seriously? What did she want with me?

  “I don’t mean to be rude—”

  “So don’t be.” Yasmine tucked her knees under her chin and looked over at me. She smiled, her gold hoop earrings glinting in the moonlight.

  “Is your mission in life to be mean to me? Are you like working undercover for my parents? Because if you are, you’re doing a killer job. But I came down here to be alone.”

  Her bracelets jangled as she flipped her hair over one shoulder, and I wondered if she slept with that jewelry on. I’d never noticed. But then, I tried to ignore Yasmine as much as possible.

  “Well, at least take the present.” She tried to shove it in my hand, but I had something else crumpled in my palm. “What’s this?”

  When I didn’t say anything, she set the gift on my lap and took the paper. She had to tilt it a few different ways to read the lettering in the dark, but eventually she must have caught a shaft of moonlight.

  “A New Day Alternative Boarding School for Girls?” She unfolded the brochure that had arrived for me this morning. I hadn’t opened my mail until after the skit practice.

  “My new school. Conveniently located three hours from home so I pose a minimum inconvenience to my parents.” They didn’t even want me in the same state with them. My new school was in southern Georgia.

  “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

  “It could be the best school in the world, but it still means my parents can’t stand the sight of me.” I snatched the flyer back and shoved it in the pocket of my hoodie.