The Clover Girls

by Viola Shipman

  I look over at Billy.

  “You got this,” he mouths, and gives me the thumbs-up.

  I want this, I think. But do I got this?

  If Vegas were placing odds on this race, I’d be the three-hundred-to-one horse. My track record is not great. How many times did I win rope burn? How many times did I win Color War?

  Stop it, Liz, I say to myself. What if I win? Is that what it comes down to, if I’m being honest?

  That I’m actually scared to win?

  It’s easier to lose. It’s safer not to be the center of attention, on the front lines, because then all eyes are on you. I can hate on Rach and V all I want, but they took the risk and were rewarded. No one would have been there to save their butts if they’d failed. But, still, they jumped without a parachute.

  I eye my stack of wood. I can do this. In fact, I’m really good at this. What everyone here doesn’t realize is that for the past couple of decades, I’ve been a sort of rope burn apprentice. I’ve staged fires on beaches for clients to show off a house, to make the setting romantic and memorable, to give them a feel of summer in Michigan so real and so rich that they will jump at the storybook moment, no matter the price tag. I’ve gathered sticks and debris from the beach and started bonfires from wet wood countless times. And that extra effort has helped sell countless homes.

  “Are you ready?” Billy yells, his voice startling me.

  I look back. Where the hell did he get a megaphone?

  He sees my reaction and laughs.

  “Coaches and counselors always have megaphones,” he says.

  The Clover Girls look at each other, our faces intent.

  “Three, two, one...” An air horn blasts.

  Where the hell did he get an air horn?

  Rach and V lunge forward, and I quickly follow.

  We all begin to dig in the sand, directly under the ropes, like happy dogs on the beach. As soon as we have our pits, V and Rach race to their piles and begin to stack sticks and small pieces of wood.

  I begin to empty my pockets. I have accumulated tinder, which is the smallest and easiest material to use to get a fire started. I dig out handfuls of wood shavings I made with an old knife I found in The Lodge, along with strips of cardboard and wads of paper. I make a small mound.

  Rach looks over at me, wide-eyed. I smile and wink.

  Her eyes blaze, and she moves at warp speed.

  I grab my kindling, stacking twigs and small branches in a canopy over my tinder. I crisscross my larger pieces of firewood over that, almost as if I’m building a cabin out of Lincoln Logs. I begin to position my giant pieces of wood, which I’ve stripped, vertically. Some of my logs are a couple of feet high, and I’ve notched them out at the top. I dig one into the sand so it’s standing upright, and then I do the same on the opposite side of my fire pit. Slowly, I edge one big branch down until it’s secured into the notch of the other. I repeat the same process on the other side, until I’ve formed what looks like the skeleton of a teepee.

  I take a deep breath and finally look around. Rach and V already have small fires started, and they are blowing like crazy. V’s fire is barely lit. It flickers and dies, and she blows and blows.

  I grab the matches from my pocket. We are given only three. If they go out, or we don’t get our fire started, we’re doomed. I take a match, position it against a smooth stone I collected from the lake earlier, and strike it. The match explodes, and I hold it to my tinder. The wood chips spark, and then, there is a tiny blaze. I blow, easily at first, and then more forcefully, until I see stars. I grab another match and light another small pile of tinder.

  “Go, Rach!” boys scream.

  “V for Victory!” another group yells.

  I look around. A group of young boys, chubby and red-faced, are cheering for me.

  “Don’t give up!” they say, as if they are telling themselves that because they need to hear it as much as I do.

  I nod at them, and return to blowing on the fire.

  I look over at Billy. He holds up three fingers, indicating we’ve been going three minutes. Rope burn seldom lasts more than eight minutes, so I know time is against me.

  My fire is not as big as Rach’s, which is a healthy blaze now, but I have better construction, and a bigger foundation of flames. I blow and blow, and my kindling catches. I throw more wood chips onto my fire, and my big branches begin to catch fire. Flames are leaping up the firewood, which suddenly burst into flame. I glance at Rach and V’s fires. Only mine is beginning to lick the wet rope. I blow and blow and toss more kindling into the blaze. My face is red-hot, and the world around me looks as if it’s melting. Everyone is screaming and jumping up and down, waving their flags. I keep adding more wood, feeding the fire, feeding my chances.

  I look up. My rope and Rach’s rope are now fully engulfed in flames. Rach is racing around her fire in a circle, manically, like a witch casting a spell, but I just stand still now, watching the world burn. I stare at my rope, then Rach’s, then mine. And then I remember. I race over to the edge of my pile, grab a pile of dry leaves I gathered from underneath the bunkhouses, and toss them into my fire. I keep going back and forth and back and forth. I stop when I hear a loud sizzle. I look instinctively at Rach’s rope, but I turn my eyes at the last moment. My rope splits, the poles easing, and the crowd erupts.

  I won?

  “I won!” I yell. “I won! I won! I won!”

  I race over to the group of boys cheering me on and high-five them. When I turn, Rach and V are staring at me, mouths open, in shock.

  I walk over to their fires and begin to cheer, like we were taught to do here at camp. I cheer until everyone’s rope is burned. I chant and yell, but Rach’s and V’s heads are down. They aren’t even watching. When their ropes finally collapse, they hug me half-heartedly, whispering, “Congrats, Liz. Really.”

  Billy rushes over and throws his arms around me. “I knew you could do it!”

  Without warning, he blows the air horn and lifts the megaphone. “Winner of the 2021 Camp Birchwood Color War is Liz!”

  I lift my arms, and when I turn, looking for V and Rach, I see their silhouettes walking back toward the camp. My heart shatters suddenly, like a vase thrown onto the floor, but then I shudder with a rage that burns as brightly as the fires still flaming behind me.

  I have come out on top for the first time. And, now when it’s my turn to celebrate, they turn away.

  Despite all our talk, they have not changed one bit.

  “I have some champagne,” Billy says. “I kinda knew you’d win.”

  “Really?”

  “I meant what I wrote. You’re a fighter, Liz. You just needed to fight.”

  I stare at him and then lean in and kiss him. Boys razz us in the background.

  “Let me get the boys back to their bunks, and I can meet you back here in a half hour, okay?”

  I nod.

  When everyone clears, it is just me, the lake, and three dying fires. I wait, believing in my heart Rach and V will return, apologize, celebrate with me. They don’t.

  “I won, Em,” I say to my fire. “I won.”

  I take a seat on the beach and watch the fires slowly die. Even after all we’ve been through this week, this scene truly represents our friendship: quick-burning, intense, but always destined to flame out because we cannot put away our pasts. The glue that held us together is gone. There’s nothing left to feed this fire any longer except memories.

  “Hi!”

  I jump.

  Billy returns carrying not one but two bottles of champagne. He stands over my winning fire and pops a cork into it.

  “Congrats!” he cheers. He fills a plastic mug and hands it to me. He fills one for himself and takes a seat.

  “How do you feel?” he asks.

  “Sad,” I say. “They didn’t even s
tay to celebrate.”

  “They’ll get over it,” Billy says.

  “Will they?” I ask. “Will I?”

  I look at him. “No, they won’t. I know them. It’s over.” I will myself not to cry.

  Billy’s face is ruddy in the firelight. “I’m so sorry, Liz.”

  “Friendships are such fragile things, aren’t they?” I say. “We expect so much from our friends, and when they don’t deliver, we’re incredibly disappointed.”

  “We forget our friends are human,” Billy says.

  “They shouldn’t be mean, though,” I say. “What’s the point in a friend if they can’t be there for you when you need them most?”

  “What’s the point in being a friend if you can’t love someone even at their worst?” Billy asks.

  “Stop it,” I say. “I can’t right now.”

  I drink my champagne, much too quickly, and then pour another glass.

  The fire slowly dies, just like Em’s dreams for our reunion, my dreams for this camp, my friendships with Rach and V.

  Everything.

  I chug my champagne, and then have yet another, the bubbles going straight to my head.

  “I feel like one of the fireflies floating over the shoreline,” I say, trying to change the dark mood. “Lit.”

  Billy laughs.

  “Kiss me,” I say.

  Make at least one of my dreams come true before this all comes to an end and I have to return to the real world, I don’t say.

  * * *

  “Hello? Hello?”

  I open my eyes. It is morning.

  Or I’m dead.

  No, my head hurts too much to be dead, so I know I’m just insanely hungover. I sit up. There is a note beside me in bed.

  What a night! Billy

  Oh, my God, Liz! What did you do? Did Billy see me naked? A man hasn’t seen me naked in a decade! The only person that’s seen me naked recently is my trash man. By accident one morning. And, by the look on his face, he wanted to put me into the recycling bin.

  I peek under the blanket.

  Thank God!

  I still have a bra and underwear on. But that doesn’t clarify things.

  Did we...

  The night slowly comes back to me. The fight. The champagne. The kiss.

  I rub my eyes, the light blinding me. I try to sit up but can’t. The logs of the cabin spin around me. I hold my head as if that’s going to stop the motion. That’s when I realize the bunkhouse is quiet. I cock my head and listen. Nothing.

  Where did they go?

  Did they leave?

  I want to sit up, but I have no motor skills at the moment.

  “Hello?”

  I hear a man’s voice outside the bunk.

  “Billy, what did we do?” I yell. “Get in here. And bring me some clothes. If I just had sex for the first time in ages and I can’t remember it, I’m going to be furious.”

  “I’m not Billy,” a voice at the door says.

  I yelp and pull the blanket up to my shoulders.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Raymond Wilcox, Emily’s attorney. It’s been a week since you came to Birchwood.”

  It’s been a week?

  “I said I’d be arriving at an unannounced time, remember?” he asks.

  “Your timing is impeccable,” I say.

  “Okay then,” he says. “I’ll wait outside until you’re ready.”

  I throw on a hoodie and some shorts, down some aspirin and chug a bottle of water, and head outside.

  “I’m Liz,” I say. “Elizabeth Anderson.”

  He extends his hand, albeit a bit warily. “It’s nice to finally meet you in person,” he says. “Emily said such wonderful things about you.”

  His last sentence is drunk with irony.

  I think of last night, the world spinning.

  “Can I ask you something? How many cars were in the parking lot when you arrived?”

  “Three,” he says.

  I’m hungover and still hurt and angry, but his answer makes me want to cry.

  “What’s going on?”

  Rach and V appear, and the sight of them in the flesh makes me incredibly and simultaneously happy and sad.

  I introduce Mr. Wilcox.

  “As you are aware, Emily’s only conditions for you to retain this camp were very simple: spend a week together and reconnect. I take it the three of you have been here all week?”

  We nod.

  “And the three of you had a chance to reconnect?”

  Rachel and V nod. I do not, but Mr. Wilcox doesn’t notice.

  “What an amazing testament to friendship,” he says. “In all my years, I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

  I look at Rach and V. They are smiling.

  “Well, I will be in touch with specifics about turning over the estate to the three of you. I would suggest you contact your own attorneys, and work together as a group on how you would like to handle this now and moving forward. Perhaps you can start an LLC. What was that nickname Emily used for you?”

  “The Clover Girls,” V says.

  “Clover Girls, LLC,” Mr. Wilcox says. “Has a nice ring, doesn’t it? Very northern Michigan. Very summer camp.”

  They nod.

  “Oh,” he says, eyes widening. “There is one last thing before I go. Emily left a gift for you. She wanted me to pass it along in case all of this worked out according to plan.” He opens his briefcase and hands me a small wrapped gift with an envelope attached. “I’ll be in touch and on my way. It was nice meeting you ladies.”

  When he departs, I still my shaking hands as well as possible to open the envelope. Inside is a letter in Em’s handwriting. I begin to read:

  My Dear Clovers:

  If you receive this letter, then I know you’ve stuck it out together thus far. Congratulations! (I hope... LOL)

  Over the years, I’ve tried to stay in touch with all of you no matter how much time has evolved and life has changed. And there’s a reason why. YOU were my family. Family is more than blood. It’s about being there for one another. Knowing you will always be there for one another. I hope you’ve learned what that truly means this time around. We only get so many chances to get it right.

  It’s ironic that I know so much about all of your lives, especially since I’ve kept a lot hidden about mine.

  After my brother, Todd, died, my parents became different people. Their love for life—and me—just seemed to dry up. I know they loved me, but they just couldn’t show it anymore. Maybe they were afraid of being hurt, or losing someone again, but they became shells of their former selves. That’s why they sent me to Camp Birchwood. So that perhaps I could find not only what I was missing in my life but also what they could not fully provide: warmth, love, laughter, friendship.

  I picked up the upstairs phone to listen in on a call my parents were having with Mrs. Nigh before they agreed to send me to camp.

  “She needs to get away from the house,” my father said. “Todd’s death is haunting all of us. She needs to be outside, away from her books. She needs to run and swim and hike...”

  “We will give your daughter what she needs most,” Mrs. Nigh said. “Friends. And hope.”

  And she did.

  You weren’t just my friends. You were my family. You filled the void in my heart that my brother left. You would hold me when I would wake up screaming from a nightmare. You told me I could be anything I wanted. And I did. I became a librarian.

  I know that all of you must think that I was alone for much of my life. And I know you must think how awful it must have been for poor ol’ Em to die alone. But I was never alone. I had my books. I had my memories. I had all of you in my heart.

  Despite our ups and downs, you were my hot air balloon
when I needed one the most: you lifted my spirits when they were down, you carried me out into a new world, and you breathed new life and hope into me. There is a great difference between being alone and being lonely. I was never lonely.

  V, you became the person you were destined to be because of this camp and all of us. You are one of the world’s bright lights. It wasn’t your beauty that made you so famous. It was the soul that shined from within, that lit up those incredible eyes. You invited me to the popular table, you instinctively held my hand when you knew I was down, and you respected who I was. You never expected me to change because you loved who I was already.

  Rach, I didn’t save your life. You saved mine. You probably think I sank further into my books after the accident, but it was actually a wake-up call. I realized I was content with my life and friends. I was happy to be who I was. Sometimes a wake-up call doesn’t mean reinventing and forgetting who you were. It means reinforcing and remembering who you are, and you did that for me. Your confidence made me confident. I dated in college. Can you believe it? I just never met the right guy. And yes, I was always scared that someone I loved might die, and I didn’t know if I could handle that again. But I did put myself out there, and you need to know that.

  And my sweet Liz, you taught me how to put on makeup, wear cool clothes and be unique. Do you know that all the kids who came into the library called me Hat Lady, and when they did I would show them pictures of Debbie Gibson and tell them all about ’80s music and fashion and life before cell phones and Instagram? And they loved it! You reached out to me when I needed it most. You sent me books you knew I’d love. You wrote me letters. Your mom became a surrogate to me.

  Yes, we all hurt each other. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. For the longest time, I regretted spilling the secret of what you did to Rachel, but I knew that I—we—could never move forward if we kept such lies hidden forever. The truth eventually comes out. And it’s only then that we can heal. Even if it takes decades to achieve. Even if it takes a dying friend to show you how to live.