The Clover Girls

by Viola Shipman

  Did they miss out on just being kids? Isn’t it important to be well-rounded? To do things they may not be good at, but learning how to fall, fail and bounce back up again? To work together as a group and understand the world is bigger than just yourself?

  Enough questions, V. Stop already.

  It is still dark. I lie down and try to go back to sleep, but I can’t.

  I nudge myself out of bed without making the entire bunk shake, a near impossibility. Every little move I make feels as if an earthquake is occurring, a near-weekly event in California, a near impossibility in Michigan.

  I feel in the dark for my shoes and my Dodgers hoodie. I baby-step toward the door and my foot bumps something. It rattles. I hold my breath and then click on my flashlight.

  Em’s vase and ashes. A glass of wine sits beside them.

  I forgot we all talked with her last night, as if she were still with us here. We toasted her life. I raised a glass to her vase. And kindness.

  You’re still such a little girl in my mind.

  My heart begins to race. I pick up her vase, as if I still need my friend beside me to hold me tight, and I slip outside and down the steps. It is already starting to get light. I look around.

  It’s a ghost town.

  Em is gone. This camp is gone. Is summer camp dying everywhere, too? Are our traditions fading? I glance at my phone. Everyone is a model now. They think Instagram makes them famous.

  All it does is make them like everyone else.

  Are my children individuals or clones?

  My feet crunch over the dirt. It is quiet, so quiet, as if time has stopped. I look up. Behind me, to the west, the sky sparkles. In LA, the sky—despite the clear weather—is often murky, the night sky cloaked and choked. I’ve forgotten how clean the world is in Michigan. I reach out to touch the emerging morning sun to the east with my free hand. That’s how close it feels. I chuckle at my reaction. In Michigan, you are at one with Mother Nature. It’s similar to how I feel when I leave the city and head to the desert of Palm Springs. The skies clear. The stars sparkle. The mountains hold you in their embrace just like the lake does here.

  Embrace.

  I miss being embraced.

  By friends...by my husband.

  David and I have become business partners. Our children and his success are the foundation of our marital LLC rather than our love and companionship.

  I have let this happen. I gave myself over to him and our children and by the time I looked up again, the person I was had been consumed. I had become someone else, someone I no longer recognized.

  I think of what I did to Rachel. Did I allow David to sabotage my career in order to subconsciously make up for what happened? I never thought I was deserving of my career, my husband, my home, my life.

  I did not sleep well last night. Part of it was the tricks the wine played on my tired body, restless mind and grieving heart, but part of it was despite all our troubles—and I hate to admit it even to myself—I missed sleeping next to my husband.

  After all these years of marriage—David’s constant travel, our ups and downs—it is still hard for me to sleep in a bed without him. The warmth of his skin. My head on his chest. The way his breath eases when he falls asleep and ruffles the top of my hair. The way the outline of my body fits perfectly with his. How when we first get out of bed in the morning I notice the imprint of our bodies on the mattress and how it seems to make one complete person.

  I walk toward the lake. I take a seat, the sand cool and damp on my rear, sending a shiver up my spine. I lay down Emily’s vase beside me. I look again at the time on my phone. I know I shouldn’t, but I hit “David” on my cell. It rings and rings, and I think it’s going to voice mail when I hear, “Is everything okay?”

  His voice is husky and panicked, and I already feel bad for calling.

  “Yes,” I say quickly. “I’m so sorry for waking you up.” I stop. “I just needed to hear your voice. I didn’t like how we left things.”

  “What time is it?” he asks.

  “Middle of the night for you. Dawn here,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  I don’t say, “I missed you. I couldn’t sleep.” I’m tired of being the one to say it. I want him to say it.

  Say it!

  “I’ve got a bear of a day tomorrow. Big meetings with the city. A lot of press.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. I hesitate, waiting.

  Say it! Please, David. Tell me you’re sorry. That you love me and miss me.

  “V, I’ve got to get some sleep.”

  My heart, like my head, aches.

  “Have you talked to the kids?” I ask, adding time in hopes that...

  “No,” he says. “They’re fine. They’re nearly adults.” David sighs.

  “Okay,” I say.

  Tell me you love me. Tell me you miss me. Tell me you can’t sleep. Tell me anything. Please.

  He hangs up.

  I stare at my phone as it fades to black, just as the world around me brightens.

  Did I call to hear his voice? Or was it really a test? Why do I test people to prove their love?

  I’ve long known I was codependent, but I’ve always considered that a good quality. Shouldn’t you be intimately intertwined into the fibers of those you love most in this world? Shouldn’t their dreams and desires be yours as well?

  Who am I without him? Who would I be without him? How would David be if our roles were reversed? Am I the worst of all clichés, a woman who gave up everything for her husband? Did I follow my own path, or what I felt society expected from me?

  I shut my eyes to calm myself and when I open them again, the world comes into focus. Moment by moment, Michigan awakens, and she seems as if she has been lit from within.

  Maybe, I think, it’s good to get some clarity. Even if it brings pain.

  It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust as the sun begins to rise over the dunes. The birds begin to chirp, and the lake sparkles. Everything comes alive.

  There is something magical, peaceful about being the first one up, as if the world is yours and yours alone. I see something move in the lake, and I squint. I am not alone, it seems.

  A blue heron is standing statue-still a few feet into the water. The bird is a majestic sight. Though it stands nearly as tall as a child, its plumage is gray, and it tends to fade into the world. I noticed it only because of the tiny ripples it was making. At Birchwood, we once had to write a report and draw a picture about a camp creature, and I chose the blue heron. I search my memory for facts about the bird, and I laugh at the ones I pull from my mental card catalog: the blue heron is a solitary bird, except during nesting season when they make homes in treetops, which become the center of raucous communal living.

  “Ahh, the irony, right, Em?” I say out loud.

  All of a sudden, the heron’s long, drainpipe neck lunges forward. It pulls a small fish from the water crosswise in its bill and then flips it around to swallow it whole, head first. I move my hand over my mouth. The bird takes flight, belly full, its incredibly long wings expanded. It resembles a plane taking flight, and I watch it soar, its image reflected in the still water. The blue heron glides over the water and then settles on a giant rock in the very middle of Birchwood Lake.

  I stand. I forgot. Especially in all the emotions of yesterday.

  Friendship Rock.

  A huge boulder, smooth and as gray-blue as the heron, still sits in the water as it has seemingly forever. Birchwood Lake is very deep, nearly black in the middle, a rarity among inland lakes, and the camp rumor was that it was connected to Lake Michigan by a channel that ran beneath the dunes. Many say the lake is bottomless.

  How did the rock get here? we used to ask the counselors. How big is it? How could it just sit in the middle of the lake if the water is so deep?

  Counsel
ors used to tell us over campfires that the rock was either formed from an ancient lava flow or it’s the top of a mountain peak that used to stand next to Lake Michigan.

  When you touch it, you’re touching a billion years of history, they’d whisper.

  Friendship Rock was the point we’d have to reach to pass our annual swim test. In my first years, I believed it would be easier to reach the moon than Friendship Rock.

  It still seems like reaching the moon, I think, looking at it in the distance.

  We could not continue at camp unless we passed the swim test. One at a time, we would swim to the rock, campers cheering. A counselor would be waiting in a canoe in the middle of the lake just in case any of the campers got tired or ran into trouble; another would be seated atop the rock, waiting with a marker. When we’d reach the rock, we’d sign our names and swim back. Once on shore, we would be mobbed by campers, and another counselor would hang a medal around our wet necks.

  I take a step toward the water, and my heart races. There was never any trouble, until...

  The heron stares at me for the longest time, its body perched on Friendship Rock. It cranes it long neck toward me. And that’s when I see, written underneath its long legs in the burgeoning sunlight, all the campers’ names we wrote so long ago on Friendship Rock. The names—Christi, Melinda, Becky, Sammi—are faded but have survived time and the constant push of the waves.

  I stare at the rock and realize the water level has risen gradually and steadily over time—what climate change?—and that underneath the surface lie even more names, more secrets.

  I turn, grab the vase and pour a handful of my friend’s ashes into my palm. I walk back into the lake and scatter them into the water. It is my time to say goodbye now, alone.

  “Goodbye, my friend,” I whisper. “I love you.”

  A tear hits the water and sends her ashes moving toward the rock. The heron tilts its head at me and then takes off.

  Alone.

  Rachel

  Light has a life all its own during summertime in Michigan.

  It is magical in the Mitten, but along the forty-fifth parallel, it’s downright miraculous.

  Light is important to Michiganders. We soak it up when it’s available, like a thirsty dog taking in water. It’s only available a few precious months a year before winter and the clouds come to call, and Mother Nature closes the curtains and turns off the light switch.

  V’s rustling woke me up early, too. I am standing atop The Lookout, just post-sunrise, the dune overlooking Lake Michigan and Birchwood Lake. Snuggled in the woods behind me is the camp, and to my right at the base of the dunes is Camp Taneycomo, the boys’ camp, still going after all these decades.

  A sad band of smoke puffs its way heavenward from Birchwood. Is V or Liz making breakfast? Meanwhile, Taneycomo is ablaze with light: bunkhouses glow like jack-o’-lanterns, campfires blaze and campers stream around like Day-Glo ants, the reflectors on tennis shoes and shorts beaming in the first rays of summer sunshine.

  But the real light show is over Lake Michigan. In the early morning hours, the sky goes from blue-black to orange, then purple, gold and, finally, blue. The water puts on its own performance as well, the waves tipped in a rainbow of color, before the lake turns aquamarine. When the sun gets high enough in the sky, it resembles a pot of melting gold that God has turned upside down, and a trail of golden lava is streaming toward me.

  Have I lost touch with my light? Have I lost touch with God?

  I speak of religious and conservative values nearly every day, but the two no longer connect in my personal and political lives. I have a successful career. I have a platform. But do I have a purpose?

  When I was acting, my soul was filled with light. I felt as if it was what I was born to do, and every day was a gift. I couldn’t wait to get my day started. Now I dread mornings. I feel as if I’m playacting, and every day is a burden. I have more power, more money, more clients, but I have no home and no friends. I live out of hotel rooms. My best friend is my cell phone. I surround myself with people who only want what is best for themselves.

  I think of my mom and dad. The children of working poor parents, my mom and dad worked hard to achieve a middle-class life in Detroit. Having a steady job with good benefits and a nice little house in a nice little neighborhood was a dream come true for them. Did I turn my back on their values? Or did I simply want more? My dad worked hard. My mom worked hard. I’ve worked hard. But I’ve largely done it on my own, and I value that entrepreneurial spirit. I don’t need a helping hand.

  I turn toward Birchwood Lake. It glows like a little lantern.

  And then I see it. Friendship Rock gleaming in the sun.

  I lurch forward, hands on my knees, and I feel as if I suddenly might throw up.

  It should have been me, I think. It should have been me. Not just back then, Em, but now, too. I’m the one who’s still not worthy to live. I drag down everyone I’m around.

  Without warning, I start running, straight down the dune, without abandon, as I used to as a camper. The dune grass slaps at my jeans, my tennis shoes fill with sand, and yet I keep running, faster and faster down the narrow path, the world rising and falling, until I am standing in front of Birchwood Lake, staring at the rock, confronting my past.

  “It should have been me!” I yell at the rock.

  I shut my eyes and scream.

  After my father died and Em saved me, I fell into a depression. I refused to leave my room, my grades sank, I didn’t audition for school plays. I became a ghost.

  My mother begged me to talk. She had a grief counselor come to the house. I even went to a therapist with her.

  Mom was a lot like me: headstrong, independent, outspoken, confident. With my father gone, there was no buffer. The fun seemed to die along with him.

  I saw her as the enemy. She had always encouraged him to work more hours, get the next promotion, get involved in civic activities to boost his career. Did she push my father too hard? Did she cause his early death?

  It’s what I had done to Emily. My selfishness had nearly cost my best friend her life.

  I began to see my mom and my friends through a different lens: we all hurt each other. Women were not nice to one another.

  I used to keep a diary with a lock on it. After my father died, I started a good and bad list about my friends, writing it all down with my pink Paper Mate pen:

  RIGHTS & WRONGS

  The “wrongs” list was quickly much longer than the “rights”: all of the squabbles The Clover Girls had over boys, clothes, friends. The petty jealousies. The rivalries. We were friends, but under the surface—like in Jaws—the sharks circled.

  I added my mom to the list of “wrongs.”

  Please, Rachel, my mother said one night at the dinner table. Can we talk? I need my daughter back. I need a friend, too.

  I looked at my uneaten plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and corn, my untouched glass of milk and then at the empty chair next to me.

  It should have been you who died! I said to my mother. You!

  Our relationship—like the one I had with Em—was really never the same after that.

  I stare at Friendship Rock.

  They all tried to save me. Why did I try to hurt them?

  The letters and calls from Em and my mom went unreturned, or worse, returned with the venomous red pen that had replaced my pink one.

  All I wanted to do was run away from the past, disappear, like Em, into another world, a pretend world of make-believe where everything before never existed.

  Friendship Rock seems to wink at me in the sun.

  And now Em—in either her great wisdom or her love of irony—has made me return to the world I left to confront my own rights and wrongs.

  “Rach!”

  “What the hell are you doing? Are you okay?”

&nb
sp; I don’t realize I am waist-deep in the lake until I hear V and Liz behind me.

  “It should have been me who died,” I say. “Em was a better person than me. What if I was the one responsible for forcing her to retreat even more, scared to reach out and love someone for fear they might die in front of her? She died alone. Like my father. It isn’t fair! It isn’t fair! I miss them so much!”

  V and Liz race into the water, fully clothed, running and splashing until they reach me.

  “Oh, Rachel!” V says. She grabs me and holds me.

  “You hate me, too,” I say. “Don’t pretend. You hate who I’ve become. You hated who I was. But I became the person I am today because of you both. You turned on me. My best friends sabotaged me. The only good Clover Girl died. The only good one in my family died. It should have been me, long ago. Then none of this would have turned out this way.”

  “Stop it!” V yells. She shakes me, hard. “Rachel, I am so, so sorry for hurting you. I can never take it back. And I have to live with that every day. But you are a good person, Rachel. You’re just lost. We all are.”

  I stare at the rock. “Am I?”

  “You need to find the good in you again.”

  “Em saved your life for a reason,” Liz says.

  “What is it?” I ask, bawling.

  “To be a good friend,” V says. “To be a good person.”

  “To make a difference,” Liz says. “Like she did.”

  “Like she’s still doing,” I blurt.

  I fall into the arms of my friends, still weighed down by guilt after all these years. I stare at Friendship Rock, gleaming in the light, revealing all of the names written on it, all of the people that have touched it, touched my life.

  Maybe I—maybe we all—need a helping hand. Maybe none of us can survive this world alone.

  Maybe, I think, my friend did save my life for a reason.

  Twice.

  Liz

  “Oh, my God! I look like I should be in a Whitesnake video!” I say. “But for AARP.”

  V and Rach double over laughing. With my hand, I wipe off more of the dust covering the mirror on the wall of the Pinewood cabin. I do not look the same as I did decades ago. The old, wavy mirror has a funhouse effect, and it’s not very funny at all. Everything looks bigger, out of proportion, and I fear it’s not the older mirror. It’s the older me.