The window is open, but I don’t see anyone in the tiny little cabin.
“Hello?”
I lean on the ledge, lift my hands to my eyes and peer inside. The old Camp Store now resembles an Apple store lodged in a log cabin: at least fifty cell phones are plugged in and charging, along with a dozen laptops. A teenage boy is wearing headphones and playing a game on his cell.
“Hello!” I call again.
He looks up at me.
“Hi!” I say.
He doesn’t react, just stares. I pantomime removing headphones from my own head, and it finally dawns on him that I might want to talk since I’m standing in front of him.
“Um, yeah?” he says. The boy is lanky and wears a glazed expression on his face. He sports a mess of Justin Bieber hair, which nearly covers his glassy eyes, that sweeps all the way from the back of his head into a perfect feather over pretty much his entire face. I wore my hair like that in a cute bowl cut when I was little and my mother was obsessed with Dorothy Hamill.
“I’d like to buy a Tab, a canister of Planters Cheez Balls and a box of Quisp,” I say, deciding to mess with him.
“What?”
“Those were snacks we used to buy at the Camp Store in the ’80s,” I say. “I was a Birchwood girl, and we’d sneak over here and buy stuff.”
He stares at me, completely confounded, as if I had just plunked a rotary phone in front of him and asked him how to use it.
“Sorry,” I say. “I have a question. My friends and I are camping at Birchwood...”
“Isn’t it like closed or haunted or something?” he asks.
“Closed,” I say. “Not haunted.” I stop. “Is it haunted? Why do you say that?”
“’Cause it’s creepy,” he says. He whisks his hair out of his eyes in a quick motion, and seems to see me for the very first time. “Are you famous?”
“What? Me? No. Why?”
“’Cause you look like that woman my mom likes who used to sing in the olden times, and now she’s, like, really old but still tours and my mom goes to see her every time she comes to Detroit, and I’m like, ‘No, Mom. Stop.’” He takes a big breath and continues. “So, are you her? Or like not? So...”
I stare at him, mortified. He could be talking about anyone, from Rosemary Clooney to Madonna, Cyndi Lauper to Cher. I mean, he probably thinks Taylor Swift is ancient.
“I’m not her,” I say.
“Oh. What’s your question?”
I’d forgotten I had one. I open my mouth when I hear, “Girl!”
Two young boys are pointing at me. I’d forgotten girls aren’t allowed—or they weren’t back in the day—at Taneycomo, but I’m just so flattered to be called a girl after Bieber here suggested I may be Ethel Merman that I’m not at all scared.
“May I help you?”
I turn, and the most handsome man is standing before me. He’s ruggedly attractive, like the boy-next-door-who-grew-up. He’s wearing a Taneycomo T-shirt and beneath it looks to be reasonably fit, in a very Midwestern, outdoorsy, I-like-beer-and-brats-and-football-and-mowing-my-own-yard sort of way.
Not that I’m noticing, mind you.
“I’m so sorry to intrude,” I say. “But I have a question.”
“You came to the right camper,” he says. He turns and points at his back. HEAD HONCHO is scrawled on the back of his tee.
“Cute,” I say, immediately embarrassed by my double entendre. “My girlfriends and I are camping at Birchwood...”
“It’s closed,” he says, his face and voice now very serious.
“I know, I know,” I say. “Long story. I grew up going to summer camp at Birchwood, and one of my friends, Emily, passed away recently and we came back to scatter her ashes, and we’ve ended up just staying on a few days...” I stop. My face turns red. “This sounds like a Lifetime movie, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know what that is, but if it’s on one of those channels north of ESPN, then yes, it does.”
I laugh, my face turning even redder.
He’s clever. I like clever in a man more than anything else. Humor is the hottest feature a man can possess. I married a man who was about as funny as a nun in study hall at a Catholic girls’ school.
“Wait!” he suddenly says. He is staring at me. Really staring. “No way.”
I put my hand to my face, thinking I have old marshmallow stuck to it. I spit through my teeth. I feel for leaves in my hair. I look down.
I’m wearing pants. Yay for me!
“No way what?”
“Liz?” he asks. “Liz Anderson?”
“Yes?” I tilt my head back. “That’s me.”
“It’s Billy. Billy Collins.”
I am free-falling. And time traveling. Like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. I stumble for words.
I don’t know whether to hug him, ignore him, or slug him in the shoulder, all of which I might have done back in the day after he did what he did to me. I try to play it cool. Which is usually not my smartest move.
“Billy?” I ask. “Billy Collins?”
I stop and actually scratch my chin like a total doofus.
“Oh, yeah,” I finally say with total nonchalance. “Now it’s ringing a bell. What have you been up to?”
His face falls.
“Well, I was an attorney, then I bought Taneycomo—and the two other boys’ camps up here—over ten years ago. I hated my career. Now I love it.” He stops. “Most of the time.”
“Wait, you do this full-time now?”
He nods. “We have winter camps as well. It’s really about restoring what we had as kids: being disconnected from the world but connected to what matters most, friends, nature, fun.”
He makes a living out of camp?
I tilt my head. “I see a lot of cell phones. I thought those wouldn’t be allowed.”
“Boys earn points for good service or behavior. They can spend those points to use their phones for up to one hour a week. But that’s it. It’s a new world,” Billy says. “And I felt it was important to acknowledge that without changing the old ways. We can have both. What about you?”
“Real estate agent in Holland. Divorced. Kids and grandkids. Boring story.”
“You?” he says. “Never.” He stops and stares at me. “My gosh. Liz Anderson. How long has it been?”
“A long time,” I say.
“Too long. Man, you look great,” he says. “Still have that great fashion sense.”
It is just me and him again. No one else matters in the world. My heart is in my throat. I feel clammy.
Then why did you pick Rachel? I want to ask him. If I’m so cool?
“Thank you,” I say instead.
He stares at me. I shift my feet. I start to open my mouth to ask him about the past when someone yells, “Mr. Collins!”
“Listen, I have to go,” he says, “but we’re having a Coed Social tonight. Remember those? Want to come? Bring your friends!”
I feel as if I might pass out from the irony.
Not funny, Em, I think.
Before I can say no—much less anything at all—Billy is trotting away. He turns at the last minute. “I’m really sorry to hear about Emily. She was a sweetheart, wasn’t she?”
He jogs away.
I stand in the middle of Taneycomo lost in time. I can see the barn where Rachel stole Billy. I can see the clover where my friends grabbed me. I can feel all of my old insecurities coming back.
When I return, Rach and V are talking quietly, stretched out on blankets in front of the beach, a bottle of wine open between them.
“Guess who I saw? Billy Collins. He owns and runs Taneycomo now. All of the boys’ camps, actually.”
They bolt upright at this news.
“And he invited us to a Coed Social tonight.”
> “What?!” they say in unison.
“I’m not going,” I say. “No one is.”
I begin to march away, and V yells, “Stop!” like she did so many years ago.
“We don’t run away from our problems or our past anymore,” she says. “Em said that so long ago. I think we’re all just starting to listen.”
“Look.” Rach stands. “I won’t go. But you should.”
“No,” I say. “Let’s actually talk.” I pause. “For once.”
She sits back down, and I take a seat on the end of her towel. Rachel fills her glass with wine, takes a sip and then hands it to me. She takes a deep breath.
“I’m so sorry for that night, Liz. And I can never take that away.” She stops. “After I lost my dad, I had a huge hole in my soul. I still do. And I’ve tried to fill it in all the wrong ways. I’ve stolen boyfriends. I’ve been the mean girl. I work with snakes. And I’ve stepped all over women.” She stops again and reaches out her hand. I give her back the glass of wine, and she takes another big sip. “I thought attention and success would fill that void, but it never has. I walked away from the women—all of you and my mom—who were my role models. I was so mad at myself for nearly killing Em. I was so mad at all of you for having a father. I didn’t know what I was doing. I still don’t. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Liz. I didn’t mean to steal Billy. He didn’t even like me. Do you know what he said to me when we were dancing that night?”
I shake my head.
“He said, ‘I was coming for Liz.’”
Tears spring to my eyes.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”
“I don’t know. I think it was a way for me to make myself superior, or better, or more wanted, even though I knew I wasn’t. I wish I could take it all back.”
“Me, too,” I say.
She cocks her head. I hold out my hand, she passes me the glass of wine, and I nearly polish it off in a single gulp.
“I have something to confess.” Now I take a deep breath. “That’s why I helped V sabotage you for the Life magazine photo shoot,” I say, staring at the water, unable to meet her eyes. “I was so jealous of you. I hated that you stole Billy. I just wanted you to know what it was like to feel for once in your life that no one liked you.” I stop. “I was the one who wrote the note about the change in location and left it on your bunk. Not V. Me.”
Rachel shakes her head and stares into the water.
“I’m so sorry, too,” I say.
She looks at me. A big, fat tear rolls down her face and shimmers in the light.
“I’ve spent much of my life thinking women hated me,” Rachel finally says. “I wanted them to hurt, too.”
“And I’ve spent much of my life thinking I wasn’t deserving of a really good guy,” I say. “Someone who loved me for me.”
Rachel reaches out her hand. I hold out the glass.
“Not that, Liz. You.” I scoot over, and we hold each other for the longest time, before V shuffles through the sand on her knees and joins the group hug.
“‘And now I come to you...’” V starts to sing.
“‘With broken arms,’” I sing.
“I think I’m missing something,” Rachel says.
“Not anymore,” V says. “None of us are. Let’s do this Coed Social like we’re The Clover Girls again. I think we all need a night of stupid fun.”
“Another night of stupid fun,” I add with a laugh.
Five hours, two bottles of wine and lots of wardrobe changes later, the three of us are standing in the corner of Camp Taneycomo’s barn-turned-dance hall along with a throng of teen and tween girls who have been bussed in from camps miles away since Birchwood is no longer operating.
It is déjà vu all over again.
The barn doors are open on both ends, allowing a summer breeze to dance alongside the campers and make the construction paper stars draped from the wooden rafters sway, too. Hay bales are stacked in the corners, adult counselors serve punch (and, on occasion, I notice, sneak a hidden flask to their lips), and the room is filled with bad cologne and nervous energy. The only thing that has changed is the music. One rap song after another fills the barn, lyrics I can barely distinguish, not a DJ or turntable in sight.
And, in many ways, nothing has changed since I was a girl: I’m still standing in a corner with all the other girls, waiting for a boy to notice me.
I search the barn. I can’t see Billy anywhere. I thrust my hands into the pockets of a long-sleeved minidress I fashioned from knockoff Lilly Pulitzer fabric I found in a trunk.
“I might be wearing curtains,” I say to V and Rach. “If Carol Burnett could pull it off...”
“Better Carol Burnett than a call girl,” V says. “We look like hookers in our outfits.”
“Shhhh,” I say. “Keep your voice down. There are children present.”
Rachel begins to drunk-laugh.
“Well, we do,” V continues in a stage whisper. “Teen boys are circling us.”
“And look at the girls,” Rach adds in her own dramatic whisper. “They’re staring at us like we’re competition. This is viral video end-of-my-career weird, Liz.”
“Then get this on tape!” V says.
I stop and actually look at the three of us. V is wearing the same giant-shouldered, black-and-white polka-dot dress she wore for Talent Night, a bright red, wide-brim hat perched atop her auburn hair, a red leather belt cinched through a gold buckle around her waist, and red pumps. Rach refused to wear the workout outfit from “Physical,” so I altered the white, lightweight puffy shoulder top I wore up here, took in the high-waisted acid-wash jeans shorts quite a few inches, and threw my statement earrings onto her lobes.
“People should be staring,” I say. “It’s like we jumped out of an episode of Saved by the Bell.”
I grab my cell from my pocket and take a picture. “Smile,” I say.
“Delete that!” V orders.
“Now!” Rach adds.
I look at the picture and begin laughing so hard, I can barely breathe. “You do look like hookers,” I gasp.
They grab my cell, look at the picture, and double over in laughter.
I watch them. I can see that something is changing in all of us. The lying has stopped. The healing has begun. We’re more like...
...who we used to be.
I stare at them and then around the barn. Who would have thought just a month ago that we’d all be reunited at Birchwood and attending a Coed Social at Taneycomo?
How did we get here? Was it luck? Or did Em have this all planned? Did she know it wasn’t over for The Clover Girls? Did she know that friendships don’t ever die even when someone does? Did she want us to know what was truly important in life before it was too late?
And then...
I see Billy Collins, his blond hair slicked back, a little bow tie on, like James Bond come to life, stride over. The entire social comes to a stop around me.
V and Rachel nudge me with their elbows.
“Stop it!” I say.
Billy approaches. He is wearing seersucker shorts and a matching jacket just like he sported decades ago.
Billy angles toward me, and I shut my eyes.
Dreams do come true, I think.
When I open them, Rachel and V have drifted behind me. I turn briefly. Rachel nods and smiles.
Billy reaches out his hand just as Madonna’s “Crazy for You” starts to play.
I take his hand, and we make our way to the dance floor.
“I’m glad you came,” Billy says.
He looks at me, takes me in his arms, and my knees feel like they’re going to buckle.
“How did you... Why did you...” I can’t find words.
“Believe it or not, I’ve been thinking of this day for a long time,” he says. “I need
ed a do-over.”
“It was thirty years ago. You remember all of that?”
“Every detail,” he says. “You know, I was coming to dance with you that night.”
“I know,” I say. “Rachel told me.”
“I dressed up for you that night, just like tonight.” We stop swaying on the floor. “Liz, I’ve thought about you a lot over the years. I wondered what happened. I heard you’d gotten married and had kids like me. I never dreamed I’d see you again. Especially today. Tonight. Like this.” He stops. “It’s like it’s meant to be.”
My heart is beating so rapidly, I know he can feel it in my body, in my hands, over the beat of the music.
“We’re the only ones dancing,” I say, glancing around. “What will everyone say?”
“That we have good taste,” Billy says. “The music these days...”
I laugh.
“I sound like my father,” he says. “Actually everyone will say, ‘Mr. Collins has a girlfriend! Mr. Collins has a girlfriend!’”
“Does Mr. Collins have a girlfriend?” I ask, shocked at my sudden brazenness.
“No. I’ve dated on and off since my divorce, but nothing serious. You?”
“Me, too. Been single for a while. Can I ask what happened?”
We again stop dancing for a moment, as if my question has knocked him off-balance. Finally, Billy begins to move again. “The million-dollar question,” he says. “I used to blame myself. I used to blame her. Now I don’t blame anyone. We changed.” Billy looks at me. “I lost who I was. She did, too. I think I’ve finally found myself at fifty.”
“I’m trying to do that.”
“I’m so sorry to hear about Emily,” Billy says.
“Me, too. But she brought us together again. In a strange way, her death seems to be bringing us all to life again.”
“The famed Clover Girls,” he says.
“We were famous?”
“Infamous,” he says with a laugh. “You all changed the dynamic at Birchwood. That girls of every type could be best friends. I still use you all as examples to my boys.”
“You shouldn’t,” I say, giving him the thirty-second synopsis about our fights and why we lost touch.
“No better place to find yourself than at summer camp, right?” he says when I’m done.
The Clover Girls Page 16