Before Wings

by Beth Goobie

  “Aunt Erin.” Adrien walked slowly toward her aunt, the evening deepening about her, secret worlds watching from the other side of consciousness. “I want to give this back.” The photograph fluttered between her fingers, a moment from the past that held so many meanings. As her aunt caught sight of it, her shoulders slumped and her mouth sucked in. She took it gently, careful not to touch the center and stain what was left of that twenty-year-old laughter.

  “I found it in the office,” Adrien said. “I’m sorry I didn’t give it to you when you asked.”

  “Why didn’t you?” asked her aunt, staring at the past.

  “There was something I didn’t understand then.”

  “And what is that?”

  “You called me here.” Adrien pointed to the photograph. “And so did those girls.”

  Their eyes caught, Aunt Erin’s mouth coming open in a question she couldn’t ask. A surge of strength came through Adrien—she felt strong and solid. At the same time, she was hazy and insubstantial as smoke, The Big One hidden and waiting in the core of her brain.

  “Whatever happens,” Adrien said slowly, “this summer is mine.”

  She took a deep breath, tasting the scent of spruce. Then she turned and stepped through the doorway, out into the late green evening, leaving her aunt alone in the cabin, holding onto something no one else understood.

  part two

  eight

  The first camper arrived at 10:52 AM, carrying a small boombox and dragging a pair of exhausted-looking parents. Aunt Erin moved in quickly, taking out a list marked Campers’ Rules and reminding the parents of rule number eight: no radios or boomboxes of any kind. Then she suggested the family tour the grounds and acquaint themselves with the facilities—refreshments could be purchased at Tuck’n Tack. Adrien sold them one package of Nibs, two Malted Milks, three Sprites and an ugly blue sweatshirt, size small.

  “Haven’t you got any better colors?” demanded the nine-year-old camper, pushing her glasses up her nose and glaring at the T-shirts in the display case. Adrien liked her immediately.

  “The person in charge of T-shirt colors,” she said, pointing, “is that lady over there.”

  “The one who won’t let me keep my boombox?” asked the girl.

  “That’s the one.”

  “You look like her.”

  “Impossible,” said Adrien. “I think those T-shirts are extremely ugly too.”

  The girl’s grin was full of crooked teeth. The next time Adrien looked up, she saw her aunt receiving an earful about colors from a skinny squirt whose arms were crossed authoritatively over her chest. She would have savored the moment, but the grounds were quickly filling with campers and their families, and she was kept busy selling candy, T-shirts, buttons, postcards, calendars and datebooks, even nature-sound cassettes. Tuck’n Tack also handled the rental equipment for the mini-golf course and the volleyball court. She had just handed out the last set of clubs and was tearing open yet another container of Smarties, yelling inside her head for a five-minute break, a cigarette, The Big One, anything to get some relief, when she turned to serve the next person in line, and it was Roberta.

  The girl was there and not there. Adrien could see her face clearly, but she was transparent as she had been in the cabin, a thin film of the past superimposed over the present tense. So were her parents, who stood in line behind her.

  “I’d like a green sweatshirt.” Roberta’s dark hair was pulled into a short ponytail and she wore a neon pink Beatles T-shirt. Released from the photograph, her face seemed so alive, constantly on the verge of laughter, her left cheek dancing in and out of a dimple. Her only makeup was a beauty mark drawn above her upper lip. Adrien was sure it hadn’t been in the photograph. “What size d’you think, Mom?” Roberta asked, looking over her shoulder.

  “Oh, large,” said her mother, smiling the same dimple. “It’ll shrink and god knows, you’ll grow.”

  “And a Big Turk,” Roberta said, turning back. “And a Mountain Dew. What d’you want, Shrimp?”

  “I’m not a shrimp,” insisted a short small voice. Leaning forward, Adrien caught sight of a four-year-old boy busily punching his older sister’s leg.

  “Dad, tell the jerk to stop punching me,” Roberta said.

  “Stop calling him names then,” said her father wearily.

  Another transparent family walked up behind Roberta’s, and a girl with a long red ponytail leaned on the counter. “Got any Jaw Breakers?” she asked.

  This girl was slightly taller than Roberta. Her face was thin, her mouth pouty. She wore heavy green eyeshadow, a familiar striped tube top, and a ring with a large stone. The two girls gave each other sideways glances while Adrien stared.

  “Sherry, could you ask about T-shirts?” asked a plump redhaired woman in a flower-power dress leftover from the sixties. Her makeup left Sherry’s in the dust. “For your cousin Billy’s birthday, remember?”

  Sherry gave her ponytail a scornful flip. “Yeah, Mom, I’m not stupid.”

  “I didn’t say you were stupid,” snapped her mother in exasperation. “And I hope this week at camp teaches you some manners. When will you learn to respect your el—”

  Roberta gave Sherry a sympathetic grin, and the two girls tuned the adults out. “I like your mood stone,” she said. “Mom made me leave mine at home.”

  They shared eye-rolling until a mayfly landed on Sherry’s bare shoulder. “Ugh,” she cried, pulling it off.

  “Those were here last year too,” said Roberta. “They stick to you like glue, but they don’t bite. They only last for a week or so, and then they’re gone. What cabin are you in?”

  “Some dork name. Prairie ... something or other.”

  “Sky,” said Roberta.

  “More like Prairie Yawn,” said Sherry. “This place is for the dead.”

  “We’ll wake it up,” said Roberta. “Hey, get a T-shirt if you can.”

  “They’re so ugly,” complained Sherry. “Boats?!”

  “We’ll decorate them,” grinned Roberta. “Tie-dye in Farts and Crafts.” She blew a mouth fart on her arm.

  “Roberta, would you hurry it up?” said her father.

  “See ya later, eh?” said Sherry.

  “Yeah, see ya,” grinned Roberta.

  The girls vanished and Adrien found herself staring into the eye sockets of a skull on a very tall T-shirt. “Gimme a blue sweatshirt,” said the living face above the skull. “And a Mr. Big.”

  Even though she knew they were gone, Adrien couldn’t help leaning over the counter and scanning for the girls. Crowds of people were coming and going, chattering in small groups. Small children ran past in frantic bursts of energy, and a few teenagers were bunting a ball back and forth over the volleyball net. She felt suddenly cold. This was how the camp must have looked to Roberta and Sherry on their arrival day, twenty years ago—Camp Lakeshore T-shirts everywhere, children zooming around. Not the slightest sign of death.

  “What’re you staring at?” demanded the boy wearing the skull. “The sweatshirts are behind you, duh.” He pulled a mayfly off his neck and held it by the wings. “What are these creepy things?”

  “They’re called mayflies,” said Adrien, handing him a sweatshirt. “They’re like large mosquitoes. They take a huge chunk out of you when they bite. Worse than horseflies.”

  With a yelp, the boy swiped several more off his arms.

  “You owe me twenty-seven dollars and ninety-four cents,” she smiled, keying it into the till. “I hope you enjoy wearing your Camp Lakeshore sweatshirt. Those boats will look lovely on you.”

  She was closing the awning, about to head into the dining hall for lunch, when Paul coasted up on a ten-speed. An intense flush started crawling up her neck and Adrien kicked at the wall, concentrating on the pain in her foot. “Where’s your dirt bike?” she asked loudly. Making noise seemed to help.

  “Come up to the corrals with me?” he asked, ignoring her question. From the look on his face, yesterday ha
dn’t happened; they hadn’t spent hours riding the wind in that long raw closeness.

  “Sure,” she said faintly, closing the padlock. “I just have to take the till into the office.”

  They rode double to the corrals, Adrien leaning back and swearing never to touch him again, but when they arrived she immediately forgot about it. “How did this happen?” she cried, running to a broken section in the fence.

  “I dunno.” Paul removed his baseball cap and ran a hand through his flattened hair. “It was like this when I got here. It took me over an hour to get the horses back in. They were wandering all over the woods. I just fixed this section three days ago.”

  “Would the horses knock it down?” Several rails had been dislodged. The nails had come out clean.

  “No,” he said shortly. “They scratch themselves against the fence but they don’t take runs at it. Those rails weren’t loose, unless I didn’t nail them in properly.”

  The large paddock stretched back into a swampy wooded area. “Did you check over there?” she asked, pointing.

  “I checked all of it,” he said. “This is the only part that gave.”

  “I don’t think it was you, Paul.” She was thinking about the orienteering exercise. How many groups had seen Paul fixing this section?

  “Neither do I,” he said quietly. “But who could it be? And why?”

  He gave her a hand and she stood. When she looked into his face this time, yesterday was there, warm and intense. For a second she wanted to stub her toe, find some way out of what she was feeling. Everything got so hot.

  “Adrien.” No one had ever said her name like that— softly, as if he was touching it. Paul’s face was also flushed. His eyes flicked away, then back, and she realized he felt the same confusion. “I dreamt about you last night.”

  “Did you die?” she asked quickly.

  “I heard you calling my name,” he said, “and I woke up. You saved me.”

  “Good,” she burst out, sudden tears in her eyes. “I saw those girls this morning, while I was working in Tuck’n Tack. They’re here now. They’re at camp and they’re going to die. I don’t want you to die too. Please stop dreaming those dreams.”

  “I can’t stop dreaming,” he said. “I dream all night. I wake up covered in sweat. I’m tired, like I haven’t slept.”

  “Then I’m going to be in all your dreams,” she said fiercely. “And I’m going to stop you from dying.”

  He touched her cheek and she burned a long slow fire. “I feel so many things.” His eyes searched her face as if she was the last living thing. “A minute’s like a year rushing past. Everything’s so vivid. I’ve been dreaming about you for two years, and now you’re here.”

  Tears ran down her face. She didn’t know what he was telling her. “Your birthday—is it this week?”

  “Soon.”

  “Why won’t you tell me the day?”

  “If you don’t know,” he said intensely, “it might not happen.”

  “You really think I can change things?”

  The wind was everywhere, touching the leaves, the grass, her skin. She knew if she could do this, she could do anything, be anyone. Slowly, she reached out and traced the soft flush of his lower lip. It was like touching a dream, except it was real—she could feel the gentle give of his lip, its slight wetness. Paul closed his eyes, his breathing deepening.

  “Adrien,” he said. “Adrien, listen, okay?” Opening his eyes, he caught her hand and held it. “D’you remember yesterday, when my sister Michelle was talking about Leanne? Well, she was right. Leanne did dump me.”

  Adrien stood trapped by this change in conversation. She didn’t want to hear about Leanne, she wanted to step back into her dream of touching his mouth, listening to him breathe deeper and deeper into himself.

  “This is hard,” Paul said hoarsely. “I’ve never told anyone about this, okay?”

  She woke up to the fear in his eyes. A hole opened in her gut, but she nodded. He let go of her hand.

  “I hurt her,” he said quickly. “I didn’t know it’d turn out like that, I swear. It’s just—I get crazy, all this shit coming at me in my head. You don’t know what I’m like in here.” He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Thinking about dying all the time, all the different ways. Thinking about missing the rest of my life. It makes me crazy to have everything now. Everything now,” he said bitterly. “Mostly I hold it in, but Leanne and I were close, friends since grade four. We weren’t really going out, I guess I talked her into it. She didn’t really want to, I knew that.” He stared off, his mouth working. “Afterwards, she wouldn’t talk to me. She never talked to me again. I wrecked something for her, something important—a lot more important than what I got out of it, that’s for sure.” He rubbed at a trembling in his mouth, then chanced a glance at Adrien. “I’m a shit, right?”

  “You’re not a shit,” said Adrien. “And I’m not Leanne.”

  Paul slumped against the fence. “Two years, I’ve been dreaming about you.”

  “It’s been two years since I had my aneurysm,” Adrien said slowly.

  “Must mean something,” he muttered. “How’re you supposed to know? I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m supposed to do, how I’m supposed to be. Is there some purpose to all this? Y’know, like this is the way I’m finally gonna wise up and become a better person. Well if it is, I already learned, okay? I know what an absolute jerk I can be, so until this is all over—whatever that means—every-thing’s on hold. I’m on hold. Life is on hold.”

  “But—” said Adrien. Out in the corrals, horses wickered and nuzzled. Horses had it so easy. They didn’t have to talk about it, they just did it. Words were an impossible dream. “Shit!” she erupted. “I wish I was a horse.”

  Paul followed her gaze out into the paddock, just as one horse began nosing the rump of another.

  “Not that horse,” she said desperately.

  Paul gave a shout of laughter, then pulled his baseball cap back on. “The day after my birthday,” he said, “if I’m still around, I am going into those trees. And if you come after me, we are going to build a lean-to, crawl into it and not come out for a long time.”

  “Why not now?” asked Adrien in a small hopeful voice.

  “I’m still a crazy dying shit,” Paul said simply.

  It was late afternoon, the dining hall a mass of shouting, fidgeting children. As the serving line moved slowly along the counter, the hairnets dumped large helpings of sloppy joes, corn and coleslaw onto pale yellow plates. Slinking in through a side entrance, Adrien joined the closest staff table. Big mistake—they had gotten through the serving line early, and were already halfway through the mess on their plates. She had missed lunch because she had stayed at the corrals to help Paul with the fence. The hairnets had given them a few sandwiches, but now she was absolutely starved. She couldn’t remember being this hungry as a camper. Buttering a slice of bread, she wolfed it down.

  “So, how’s little Wood?”

  Connor sat across the table, mopping up the last of his sloppy joes with a piece of bread. He had spent the afternoon at the docks, putting several cabins through their waterfront orientation. Tuck’n Tack was closed on Sunday afternoons, so after the fence had been fixed, Adrien had worked at the office computer, helping Gwen slot cabins into a master activities schedule. From there, she had watched groups of children sitting on the lawn, waiting to get their medical records checked at the First Aid cabin. Beyond them, Connor had strode up and down the horizon like a bronze god, blond halo gleaming as he explained life jacket fastenings and how to hold onto a tipped canoe.

  “Busy,” Adrien replied.

  “Now, what could keep a little girl like you busy?” he drawled, leaning back and patting his stomach.

  “Fixing the fence up at the corrals. Someone vandalized it.”

  His eyebrows made a careful ascent. Manufactured shock, Adrien thought. He’s not really surprised.

  “Yeah,” she con
tinued. “It must’ve happened last night. Late last night. Y’know, some stupid drunks thought they’d have a good time letting out the horses.”

  “Sounds like the way I’d want to spend a good drunk,” Connor said sarcastically.

  She plunged on. “But of course, they were too drunk to unhitch the gate. Oh no, they had to take the fence apart.”

  “Probably some of the natives,” he said easily. “Paul and his buddies.”

  “I don’t think so!” she hissed. “More like initiation for new recruits, don’t you think?”

  The staff at the table had fallen completely silent. Among the shouts and laughter of several hundred children, it was an odd oasis of quiet. Hand shaking, Adrien reached for the bread basket, but Connor pulled it out of reach.

  “Uh-uh,” he said, smiling coldly. “Tsk-tsk.”

  “I don’t have to play your stupid games,” she said, enunciating clearly. “Midnight fire. Good times. The training manual is trash.”

  The staffer sitting next to Connor froze with her fork in her mouth. Even Connor had gone very still. Then a throat at the other end of the table cleared itself loudly and said, “Con, pass me that bread, would ya?”

  “Sure, Bunter. Catch.” Connor tossed the basket and the other guy caught it neatly, removing the last few pieces of bread.

  “Sure am hungry,” said Bunter, biting into all three at once.

  Adrien noticed an empty seat at another staff table. She stood, about to walk over to it, but Connor caught her wrist. “Catch ya later,” he said softly, tightening his grip, then letting go.

  After supper, everyone filed out of the dining hall to stand in a large circle facing the flagpole. Aunt Erin was a stickler for instilling national pride—twice a day, the entire camp lined up to watch as the flag was raised or lowered. Most of the ceremony took place in complete silence, only the flag speaking into the wind. Already a camper had been selected to help Aunt Erin fold the flag—the nine-year-old squirt who had lost her boombox. Looking ridiculously serious, she stood ramrod straight at the center of the circle. It was obvious she had fallen hopelessly under the camp director’s spell. Adrien could almost hear her fierce little heart beat quicker as Aunt Erin stepped forward and began a short speech.