The Clover Girls

by Viola Shipman

  “You might...” Rach says.

  “Might?” Liz says, her voice high. “‘Might win’ means ‘won’t win.’ ‘Can’t win.’ Right?”

  Rachel and I stare at each other.

  “Your silence speaks volumes,” she says. “Let’s get this party started, then. Meet me at the lake in five.”

  Rach nods.

  “Hot dog,” I say.

  Liz glares at me anew.

  “I was being serious,” I say, my heart racing at all of her emotion. “My hot dog is done. Let me just scarf it down, and I’ll meet you there. Okay?”

  Liz waits a beat. “Okay.”

  Five minutes later, we are standing on the edge of the lake. Liz is in front of the ropes.

  “Do you want to drown us, or hang us?” I ask.

  Liz looks from me to Rach, as if she’s seriously considering my question.

  “One each?” she finally says.

  I let go a relieved laugh. My world has been filled too long with too much unresolved anger and tension. It is not a healthy way to live.

  “Political consultants are like roaches,” Rach says. “You can’t kill us.”

  We all laugh, our voices echoing across the lake.

  “I thought you were done with all that?” I ask.

  Rachel shoots Liz one of their twin glances, and the two talk in silence.

  “Trying,” she finally says.

  Liz takes one end of the first long rope and hands the other to me. We kick off our shoes, stretch out the rope and walk into the lake.

  “Get a sturdy rock,” Liz says.

  I pick a big, round, pale lake stone, covered in moss.

  “How appropriate is this?” I ask, lifting it from the water. “Green and White.”

  I sink my end of the rope underwater, as Liz does the same. I secure my end under the rock, and kick some more rocks and sand from the bottom of the lake over part of the rope just to ensure it stays put.

  “Got it?” I yell.

  “Yep!”

  We head to the shore, and repeat the process with the other two ropes. When we finish, Liz looks at her cell.

  “All of our wood must be gathered by four,” she says. “Arrange it in three piles down here on the shore. Make sense?”

  I nod as I put my tennis shoes back on.

  “Thoughts?” Liz asks.

  “I’m too scared to say anything,” I say meekly.

  Liz laughs.

  “You should be,” she says, before taking off running toward the woods.

  Rach takes off sprinting in the other direction.

  “May the best woman win!” I yell.

  “I will!” I hear them both say.

  For a moment, I stand alone on the shore. It’s just me. In so many ways, it really just comes down to each of us, alone, trying to ignite a fire out of thin air, wanting to build a flame high enough that the whole world takes notice.

  I turn back and look at the ropes under the water. My reflection ripples back at me.

  I think of Em, here, alone, during some of her last moments on earth.

  Maybe Liz is right.

  Em’s planning—her quiet spark—is the one we all remember. Her sweetness is her legacy, her goodness our gift.

  Liz emerges from the woods, dragging a huge log, her T-shirt already soaked with sweat.

  She drops the log, bending over to catch her breath. When she stands, she asks, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “For years of crap.” I stop. “For not appreciating you or Em enough. For influencing you to join my plot against Rachel. I’m still trying to get it right.”

  Liz tilts her head, walks over and hugs me so tightly, my breath hitches in my lungs.

  “Thank you,” she says. “Me, too.” She looks at me. “Believe me, it’s harder to be a nice person than a mean one. It’s harder to be alone than with someone.”

  “You’re not alone,” I say.

  “And you’re not nice sometimes,” Liz says.

  I look at her and then laugh.

  “Keep laughing!” she yells, letting go of me and running into the woods again. “I need the head start!”

  Suddenly, she stops and turns.

  “Hey,” she calls. “Remember what we always did if the opposing team won rope burn?”

  I look at her. “What do you mean?”

  “The winning team didn’t celebrate,” she says. “It cheered on the other team until its rope burned, too. It showed that we were still one. Friends.”

  I nod, and Liz takes off running toward the woods.

  I hope I remember that this time, I think. I hope we all do.

  And then I sprint in another direction, flying, my heart racing. The sunlight disappears as I head into the woods. I see a birch tree in the distance, shimmering white. I race up and touch it. It’s dead. It’s dry. It’s perfect. I knock it over with three big shoves, and then tear it from the earth, as if I’m a warrior princess.

  I drag it back to the beach and drop it.

  I just don’t want to be the loser at the end everyone is still cheering on, I think.

  I turn and race toward the woods.

  Rachel

  I am lost—in both life and the woods—and it is simultaneously exhilarating and frustrating.

  While Liz and V have stayed close to the lake, I have gone out on my own—as I always have—in search of something more.

  I have never been good simply being comfortable, in life, love or career. I have always enjoyed risk-taking. I have always gotten off on the adrenaline. I have always liked to push the boundaries. I have always enjoyed taking the path of most resistance.

  I think it’s because I’ve felt rudderless ever since my father died. Lost. Looking for a friend.

  I think of Em, her arms around me in the lake.

  I think of V and Liz helping me this week.

  I think of them hurting me in the past.

  Are we friends? Or are we destined to always be rivals?

  Is there a path forward? Is this it?

  I stop.

  There is no longer a path. I can no longer hear Lake Michigan, or the shouts of Taneycomo campers. I am truly lost. But I am lost for a reason. I know I’ll eventually get out of here. I can turn around and walk until I hear the roar of the lake, or keep going until I hear cars on the highway, or cross into a farmer’s pasture. But I need to find the perfect wood to burn. And it’s here somewhere.

  I stop, turning, looking for a sign.

  Before me, there is a clearing in the woods, and the sunlight shines in a perfect circle. In the middle stands a beech tree.

  Biblically beautiful.

  That’s what my dad used to say when he witnessed something in nature—a magical sunset over the lake, or the sun breaking though clouds engulfing a mountain just enough to illuminate its peak—that was almost too breathtaking for explanation. That’s what he would say if he were standing here right now with me.

  Biblically beautiful, isn’t it, Rach?

  After my dad died, I used to believe in signs like this.

  I used to look for them—and him—everywhere: cardinals in snowy white branches, hummingbirds—beaks buried in a mock orange bush—on a warm day, the squirrel I named “Harold” after my father that used to chatter at me from the oak that stood outside my bedroom window.

  Even though your daddy is gone, he’s still all around you, talking to you, my mom used to tell me. Just pay attention, and you’ll see him.

  But all of the searching and hoping and wishing and looking never brought my father back. No cardinal could tuck me into bed. No hummingbird could make pancakes for me on Saturday morning. No squirrel would be able to teach me to drive a car, give me away at my wedding, watch a Tigers game with me, or hold me so tightly
that I felt safer than I ever would again my whole life.

  And yet...

  If there were anything that reminded me of my father it would be a tree. Sounds so silly to say, but my dad loved trees. He knew everything about them. And he taught me everything about them. My father ran our neighborhood and my school’s Arbor Day campaign. He raised money and planted saplings all around our neighborhood.

  I walk over, into the light, and place my hand on the beech tree. It is gray, strong and silent like my father.

  Ironically, my father also taught me everything about firewood. He was the king of fire: our home had an original woodstove in it my father adored.

  Wood-burning only! my dad used to say. No gas! It’s not real!

  We also had an old grill. Guess what he used to say?

  Charcoal only! No gas! It’s not real!

  And in the corner of our backyard patio sat my dad’s beloved smoker.

  Wood chips! Never pellets!

  He could sit by the fire, the grill or the smoker all day long, a Stroh’s beer in hand, and wax philosophical about the best firewood, the best briquettes, or the wood chips that made his smoked ribs, turkey, chicken and brisket taste the best.

  What was that poem about firewood he used to recite to me all the time?

  I lean my head against the beech tree’s wide trunk. It is cool and solid. I shut my eyes and try to remember. I can picture myself sitting in an old cane rocker next to my father in front of the fireplace, a quilt over my lap, a cup of hot chocolate in my hands.

  Beechwood fires are bright and clear, if the logs are kept a year...

  I can hear my father’s voice, clear as the birds singing around me, and I smile.

  Birch and fir logs burn too fast, blaze up bright and do not last...

  I open my eyes, lift my head and then, for some reason, kiss the trunk of the beech.

  “Thank you,” I whisper. “For reminding me.”

  The tree does not respond. It simply listens to me as my father used to when I’d have a tantrum.

  I trudge forward, away from the light and the beech, and head into the darkness.

  The birch, I think. I must find the birch. I must find the light.

  I pass tree after tree, bird after bird, and I cannot shake thoughts of my parents.

  Do we intentionally turn our backs on how we were raised just because we don’t want to be like our parents? Or does life drive the goodness from our hearts?

  Was it simpler back then? Or have we all just made life too damn difficult?

  I think of Liz, her children and her mother.

  Liz is a good person. Even despite what she did to me, I know that. Her mother was a good woman. Why have Liz’s kids strayed so much from those role models?

  Does it pay to be nice?

  I nearly trip over a branch.

  Why did I stray so much from my role models?

  I stop cold in my tracks. The semicircular stand of pines. The dry creek bed lined with massive ferns.

  This all looks familiar, even after all these decades!

  I race forward.

  There is a huge thicket of brush, a tangle of overgrowth, burgeoning saplings, weeds, dead logs, moss.

  I step through the overgrowth and begin to knock away the broken branches. It feels like I am somehow trying to unearth a chest of buried treasure at the bottom of the ocean. I pant, work, sweat, tossing debris left and right like a dog digging a hole.

  And then I see it!

  My long-forgotten stack of birch still remains somehow—miraculously dry!—surviving the snow, rain and the wind, as if it were waiting for me to return.

  To test me.

  I look at the stack and begin to estimate how much I can haul and how many trips it will take me in the time we have allotted.

  I fill my arms and head toward the road about a quarter mile away that leads back to camp. I know I can make good time that way, and that no one will ever catch me.

  I jump at the loud crack behind me.

  “Liz?” I yell. “Are you following me again? Grow up, you narc.”

  There is a thundering crash.

  I yelp and turn carefully, wondering if Liz—or a bear—is tracking me.

  It is quiet. That’s when I see a beech tree lying in the middle of the woods, not far from where I was just standing. I set the logs down and walk over. White spots cover the bark.

  Beech bark disease. Poor thing.

  As a consultant, and because of my father, I know that beech bark disease has greatly affected the majestic tree. Of the four dominant trees in Michigan’s hardwood forest—along with maple, yellow birch and hemlock—beech is the biggest nut producer in the ecosystem, and its loss affects a wide variety of wildlife, from deer to black bear to birds. As the infected beech die and fall, they create a gap in the canopy, and other trees spring up to take advantage of the space and light to fill the forest floor.

  I crouch and sit on the beech.

  I have already snapped. If I walk away from everything I’ve created, will other opportunities spring up to take advantage of the space? Will light finally fill that darkness in me?

  I touch the beech.

  Weakened trees often fall without warning, even on days with little or no wind. It’s known as “beech snap.”

  I again think of my dad. He’s the one who taught me all of this.

  No, he taught me everything.

  So did my mother.

  So did my friends.

  I’ve just chosen to ignore it.

  I look at the fallen tree. I look at my contraband.

  Beech, birch?

  Good, bad?

  My entire adult life, I’ve jumped from fire to fire, trying to put them out. Now I just want to start one for myself.

  What if I lose? How will I react?

  V and Liz have good ideas, but I know that mine is the best. It has the most potential to earn money, to bring in high-profile donors and leaders, to garner loads of publicity, sustain this camp, but—most importantly—to change lives.

  And I need this Color War victory the most for my faltering confidence. I need this win as a sign. Liz has a career, and V has a family. I will have nothing if I lose, and I cannot go back to the way things were.

  But I cannot move forward if I don’t stop acting like... I shake my head, chuckling at my childishly ironic joke. ...such a beech.

  I suddenly think of the mean girls clique from camp.

  Or would it be Birch?

  Another beech snaps, and I jump.

  Just as quickly, my throat tightens, because I finally realize who and what it is.

  It’s the sign I’ve always sought but never found. Actually, two signs from two beech.

  “Hi, Dad,” I say. “Hi, Em.”

  I look around.

  “Hi, me.”

  And then I stand, nodding my head with conviction at what I must do.

  I leave the birch and head back toward camp.

  I will do it on my own this time. I will do it my dad’s way. Honorable. Fair and square. I will do it Em’s way. I will do it the way Liz wanted me to do it. The way my mother wanted me to do it.

  “May the best woman win,” I say out loud, my walk turning into a jog and finally into a full-out sprint.

  Liz

  Even though there is no fire yet, the air crackles with electricity.

  Billy’s boys have assembled three separate areas in front of the lake. Eight-foot-high poles hold up thick seven-foot lengths of rope that have been soaking in the lake. Water drips from the rope onto the sand below.

  I scan the scene. The whole thing resembles something straight out of an ’80s teenage rom-com. The boy I like has come to see me take on the popular girls. The entire school—in this case, Billy’s campers—are here to chee
r us on. They are holding wooden poles, some taller than the youngest boys, with handmade flags on the end that feature four-leaf clovers. I know what Billy—as the good camp director and man that he is—has tried to do: Green and White are one. There is no I in team. Emphasize that there won’t be an individual winner tonight. We are—and will always be—friends. That transcends triumph.

  And yet...

  I look around. These campers may have very limited access to their cell phones while at camp, but they have obviously talked to their parents about tonight when they were allowed to if their buzzing and pointing is any indication. It seems as if the camp is pretty much equally divided into two teams: Rach and V. The boys seem taken by their beauty and fame. They understand, probably after a few online searches following conversations with their parents, that they are someone.

  Me? There does not seem to be a lot of admiration for a caretaker and real estate agent from Holland, Michigan, who dresses in clothes they only see in old movies.

  In sports, we often like to root for the underdog. We love it when David knocks off Goliath. But in life? We cheer for the winners. We love the famous. We envy the rich. We yearn to be the beautiful.

  Beautiful.

  I shake my head and study the beauty of our surroundings—dusk begins to fall, the sky turns bright pink, fireflies blink over the lake, birds dart over the water, log cabins sit in the distance behind us—and that makes it feel even more as if we’re standing in front of a faux Hollywood backdrop, and the director is about to yell, “Action!”

  I turn, half expecting to see John Hughes behind a camera. Instead, Billy catches my eye and gives me a secret wink.

  I smile.

  He is imbued with Em’s goodness. Who would go to all of this trouble—in the middle of his busiest time of year—for someone he hasn’t talked to in decades? He told me he wanted to do this to show his campers the meaning of camp and the power of the lifelong friendships they make here.

  But are we the best examples of that?

  Billy also left me a note. He nudged it in the screen door of the bunkhouse, as if he were a schoolboy leaving me a crush note in my locker.

  He wrote:

  What you’ve done for your mom, for your family, for your friends is a sign of what a good person you are. But in all of that goodness is a fighter, too. From all you’ve told me, I can see it in your every action: How you started your own business after your divorce. How you fight for your mom. How you fight to do the right thing. You can win this Color War. But don’t do it for anyone other than you. Fight for yourself for once, Liz. Let the world see your talent, your spirit, your light and your drive.