Don't Ever Change

by M. Beth Bloom

  But right now I’m kissing a Good Guy and a Good Person, kissing him all over his face, and not so softly or slowly either. When Mr. Roush thinks a student has style or passion but not much skill, he’ll write on their paper: Artfully messy! That’s what Frenching Foster has turned into—more of a creative chaos than some smooth move.

  Just as I’m thinking, I hope nobody walks in, immediately someone does.

  It’s a counselor I’ve seen around before who has some old-timey name I can never remember. He doesn’t even say anything, he just cracks the door, sees us, and abruptly leaves, which is how I know he was weirded out.

  “He didn’t see anything,” I say. “I mean, he saw us, but he didn’t see what we were doing really.

  “He’s not going to go tell Steven,” I continue, talking too fast, already feeling short of breath. “What kind of person would do that?

  “It’s not like we were having sex,” I say. I shake my head, gesture confusingly with my hands. “We weren’t naked or spooning on the couch or, like, pressing up against each other.

  “Also, there’s nothing illegal about two counselors kissing when they’re away from their campers, alone in the counselor break room. Only a total jerk would complain to Steven, and there’s no way that guy would do that—he always seems really nice. I mean, that’s how he seems when we’re singing ‘If I Had a Hammer’ at Morning Ceremonies.

  “We’re not going to get fired,” I blurt out, but Foster looks like he’s thinking about Brandon now, which makes me feel crazy and awful.

  “And also,” I say, “a boy died today, so there are other things to be upset about.

  “I can fix all this,” I say, finally moving toward the door to leave, “but first, real quick, what’s that guy’s name?”

  29.

  NOT THE ONLY ONE

  I SPRINT ACROSS camp, past the abandoned swimming pool and the empty archery range, past the bungalow by Steven’s office and the outdoor amphitheater, until I get to the parking lot where the last of the big yellow buses is reversing out to leave down the long, curving exit road. I keel over, panting from the run, wiping sweat from my forehead, and spy a few tiny campers’ faces peering out through the dirty rear window of the bus, their tiny hands flailing at what they think is my bye-bye wave.

  Over on the edge of the parking lot by my car, there’re a few other cars still there, and some counselors standing around talking. Even though I can’t quite make out their faces, one of them looks like Booth, the old-timey-named nice guy I’m looking for.

  “Booth!” I shout. “Booth!”

  Booth turns around and looks at me like I’m insane.

  “Booth! Can I talk to you for a sec?”

  “Sure!” Booth shouts back, standing there, waiting.

  “No, can I talk to you over here?” I shout again, pointing to the ground next to me. Booth hesitates but then reluctantly jogs over.

  “What’s up, Eva?”

  “What’s up with you?”

  “Everything’s . . . cool.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah,” Booth says with an amused smile, “it is.”

  “Okay, cool, because I just wanted to make sure you knew that Foster is really responsible, and I’m less responsible but still, you know, competent.”

  “You’re not the only ones who make out in the break room,” Booth says, his smile turning sort of sleazy, like he’s looking at me differently, like he’s seen me on TV or something.

  “Okay.”

  “You’re just the first one to get Foster into it.”

  “Well, Foster’s not that into it,” I say. “I pretty much forced him.”

  “Oh ho ho,” Booth says, and then there’s that look again, that cable TV look.

  “Just don’t tell anyone.”

  “Trust me,” Booth says—and I don’t, I do not—“I wouldn’t want a frenzy.”

  “What do you mean, a frenzy?”

  “With the other girls. They’re all about Foster.”

  I glance over Booth’s shoulder. Everyone’s scowling at us. Male, female, all of them.

  “Foster?” I say slowly, confused.

  “Every summer,” Booth tells me. “It’s like a contest.”

  “And is he all about any of the other girls?”

  “Who cares?” Booth says, grinning.

  “Well, please don’t tell anyone, okay, Booth? Promise? Pinkie swear, promise?”

  “You sound like one of your campers.”

  “To me that’s a compliment,” I say, and fold my arms.

  “Chill,” Booth says. “I’m not going to tell.”

  “Thanks.”

  “C’mon,” he says, motioning to the cars.

  “Totally,” I say, but don’t move.

  In high school, which I admit was basically five minutes ago, a gaggle of girls who might or might not like me wasn’t too intimidating. I had my own friends and we had our own thing and part of that thing was making fun of everyone, and that felt really solid, really stable. The trick was to exist somewhere between the Bully and the Bullied, and that somewhere was Above It All. There’s TGIF and then there’s TGFI: Too Good For It. But every day was TGFI, four years of TGFI, which is part of the Roush Problem and the Overlooking/Underestimating Foster Problem, and probably most of the other problems too.

  But this isn’t high school, and I am intimidated.

  “Nobody’ll find out about you and Foster,” Booth says. “C’mon, we’re a grreat grroup,” he says, doing this lame goofy voice, which shows I’m not the only one who’s noticed Steven’s a dork.

  “Seriously, Eva,” Booth says, actually serious. “You don’t talk to anyone. You don’t even really talk to Foster.” He raises his eyebrows suggestively.

  “Ignorance is a blister,” my father always jokes, then taps me on the forehead and goes, “Pop!” It’s dumb, but he’s right; I need to know a lot more before I act so superior. And I really wouldn’t mind making another friend at camp—and not just Alyssa, who’d probably pbbth if she heard me call her a friend. So this is definitely a GTFI moment: Good Time For Improvement.

  “I’ll hang out by the cars,” I say stiffly. “Let’s go hang out.”

  “Convincing,” Booth says, unconvinced, and grabs my hand.

  When we walk over, he introduces everyone (Jules, TJ, Kit, Nick, Melly, Amanda, Seth) and then there’s a heavy silence like I interrupted some moment, even though no one was talking when we got there. I don’t know what to do, so I just say, “Did you guys hear about Brandon Gettis?”

  “Yeah,” Melly says, and that’s it.

  No one else says anything. To seem more natural, I start fishing my keys out of my bag but then wonder if that seems rude.

  “You don’t eat the cookies and milk when I pass them out after swim,” Jules says, facing me. “You’re like the only one.”

  “I’m vegan. So . . . that’s why.”

  “Do you eat eggs?” Melly asks.

  “Eggnorance is bliss,” I say.

  “What about eggplant parmesan?”

  “No, because it’s got—”

  “Not even a little chicken?” Seth asks.

  “Why do you think they call it fowl?” I say.

  “That’s really funny,” Jules says, and it sounds like she means it, but she’s not laughing.

  “You should come to Nick’s,” Amanda says.

  “When, now?”

  “For the party,” TJ says. “Counselors only.”

  “You don’t have to say ‘counselors only,’” Nick says. “I think she knows the kids aren’t invited.”

  They all look at me.

  “I know that,” I assure them, with a nod and a smile.

  “It’s this Friday,” Nick tells me.

  “Should I bring anyone?”

  “It’s counselors only,” TJ says again, and everyone laughs.

  “Fun,” I say. “Fun, fun, fun,” I keep saying, until it seems real.

  30.

 
; JUST REGULAR PRESSING

  I LEAVE A desperate message on Michelle’s voice mail insisting she hang out with me later, and then I call Steph and beg her to help convince Michelle. Usually I’m more discreet about manipulations like these, but today I’m too worked up. Courtney overhears and shakes her head. She’s perched on a bar stool in the kitchen, casually flipping through LA Yoga magazine.

  “Are you shaking your head at yoga or at me?” I ask.

  “Guess,” she says, not looking up.

  “Things are getting unusual,” I say.

  “That sounds mild.”

  “My best friends don’t even like me anymore. It’s real, it’s happening.”

  “You don’t seem very devastated.”

  “That’s because I’m overwhelmed.”

  “With camp?” Courtney says.

  “With camp, exactly.”

  “Why, what happened at camp?”

  My sister has an endless reserve of wisdom but not an endless reserve of patience. I learned this for the first time five years ago, when I started coming to Courtney for advice about all my high-stakes eighth-grade crises. Courtney always told me precisely what to do, as well as how and when to do it; Dad called her Court-throat and would leave the room whenever she launched into Life Coach mode. The difference was that Courtney hadn’t taught herself to let go back then; she hadn’t discovered how to self-therapize. She was actually more like I am now—while I was even more immature and helpless, if that’s possible.

  “Here’s what happened at camp,” I say, sighing, prepping myself.

  Our dynamic used to be that I would just unload on Courtney—everything times everything, the conflicts and the contexts and the personalities involved—and then she’d process the situation for a moment, think it over, and lay out a hard-line verdict: Don’t ever call her again, or, Turn in the paper anyway. It was a Give a Man a Fish type of thing; Courtney carefully instructed me how a thirteen-year-old girl should behave, but I never absorbed the lesson because I was too fixated on just getting the answer. And that’s all that I want from her right now: the Right Answer.

  “Foster and I kissed,” I say. “For a while.”

  “Uh-huh, and?”

  “And then we got caught. By another counselor.”

  “So are you in trouble?”

  I shrug.

  “How was the kissing?” she asks.

  “Amazing,” I say. “He had his hands against my back and pushed up and down my spine like a massage.”

  “Reiki,” Courtney says.

  “I think it was just regular pressing.”

  “When he had his hands on your back, did it feel like this life-force energy was flowing between you?”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “And did you feel, like, a glowing radiance when he stopped?”

  “Okay, I guess you’re right, I guess it was Reiki,” I say.

  This gives me an idea for a new story. Two sisters grow up with this secret power: they can heal people with their touch. They can’t cure diseases exactly, it’s not like that, it’s more like they can provide this calm or relief, the feeling of the Right Answer a person’s been searching for. But as the sisters grow older, they become lazier with their power, and eventually, since they don’t work on refining it, they lose it completely. But even after the power’s gone, they keep on touching people, pressing on strangers’ arms and shoulders and spines with their palms, pretending they can heal. I can’t tell if the story should ultimately have them being uncovered as frauds or if it’s more just about the sisters trying to rekindle their lost power, but maybe a cool, sort of heavy way to end it would be during one of their sessions: Do you feel that? No. Well, do you feel this? No, I don’t feel a thing.

  There’s a pen and paper on the counter, but I don’t write it down.

  “I like Foster,” Courtney tells me.

  “I like Foster too.”

  “I like Elliot too, though, and I also like Michelle and Steph. I like Shelby. But I like you the most,” she says, making a sweet face. “Especially when you wear your glasses, which lately is basically never.”

  “So you like everyone?” I ask.

  “I do,” my sister says. “That’s the whole point. Liking people is easy, Eva.”

  “Easy for you,” I say.

  31.

  JOBS

  MICHELLE AND STEPH don’t show up till eight, which gives me the whole afternoon to redecorate my room into an elaborate flashback museum, with everything the three of us used to love arranged in an imposing pile on the carpet. Their eyes widen when they walk in.

  “This is . . . a lot of stuff,” Michelle says, clearly weirded out.

  “What’s this all doing here?” Steph asks, confused.

  Looking at it through their eyes, I see it totally differently now, like I’ve set up a yard sale full of our memories. And nobody’s buying any of it. Michelle toes a stack of Teen Vogue magazines with the tip of her shoe. Steph grimaces when she notices the hideous sweater we all puffy-painted sophomore year.

  “Never mind,” I say nervously, and force a laugh. “Forget all that, just sit down.”

  “Michelle lost her job,” Steph blurts out.

  “Steph!” Michelle says.

  “You lost your job?” I ask. “Like you were laid off?”

  “It’s not a factory, Eva,” Michelle says. “They weren’t making, like, cutbacks or something.”

  “She got fired,” Steph whispers.

  “From the jewelry thing,” I say.

  “Don’t say jewelry thing,” Michelle says. “I was a personal assistant.”

  “I’m in trouble at work too,” I say.

  “Oh, please, Eva, tell us about that,” Steph says sarcastically, and then Michelle says, “Yeah, Eva, please?” in a genuinely mocking way.

  I guess I understand the hostility, but not this ganging-upness, because that’s never how it’s been between us, even when it’s been bad. Before this sour summer I can barely recall a specific time when the two of them came to a decision without me; sometimes I’d walk out of the bathroom at school, having only been gone a couple minutes, and find them sitting in silence like two strangers, picking dirt out of their fingernails, scrolling through text messages. How long have I been in the bathroom this time? What changed?

  “My job,” I say, searching for the right words, “is kind of harder than I thought it’d be. It’s, like”—just then I notice the family DustBuster over in the corner of my room, above which my mother’s stuck a neon Post-it scrawled with the words, REMEMBER ME!?!??—“sucking up a lot more of my time than I thought it would.”

  Michelle and Steph exchange eye rolls.

  “Typical,” Michelle says, annoyed. “Eva the Hypocrite.”

  “That’s offensive,” I tell her. “I may be a hypocrite, but I’m not typical.”

  “Whatever,” Steph says. “Ever notice how you’re the one who’s most clingy and anxious about things changing—”

  “And you lean on us super hard when you feel like it—” Michelle cuts in.

  “And make us do all these pinkie swears that we’re not going to lose touch—”

  “But you couldn’t be nice through one dumb dinner with two totally nice people, and then it was just one dumb party—and you don’t even like Kerry, you actually really don’t—”

  “Not to mention,” Steph says, getting even more worked up, “you wouldn’t have come anyway! You know you wouldn’t have, Eva. And even if randomly you did, you would’ve been so crappy to everyone, like you were to Bart and Miranda. Like you were to us because we like Bart and Miranda.”

  “We tried not to be mad.”

  “Because being mad at you never works, because you always win, because you’re so smart—which is really not as good a look on you as you’d like to think.”

  “But we were mad,” Michelle says.

  “But no one can be mad at Eva, because she punishes you for it,” Steph says, glaring.

 
; “Because one day later it’s like, poof”—Michelle mimics an imaginary smoke bomb exploding in her hands—“‘if you’re gonna have a problem with me, forget you guys.’”

  “No, no, no,” I say, reeling from the outpouring, “that’s not what happened. I was just trying to . . . get ahead of the problem.”

  “What problem?” Steph asks.

  “The problem of missing you both too much, and freaking out about it. Of basically dying inside because I know soon we won’t be together anymore.”

  They both go quiet, caught off guard by this.

  In general I’ve never been a big apologizer, and I wonder if that’s also part of the problem. But the real truth is I don’t mind apologizing; it’s super easy if you really mean it, which I really do. “I’m really sorry, guys. Seriously. Seriously.”

  “We do love you,” Steph says, looking sadder for it, and then Michelle says, almost tearfully, “We accept you, even when you are judgmental . . . and close-minded . . . and a little mean.”

  “Don’t accept me! Force me to change!”

  “Can’t,” Michelle says.

  “Don’t know how,” Steph admits.

  “Six months from now I’ll be like a completely different person, you’ll be, like, ‘Who’s this Eva?’”

  “That’s not what we’re asking for,” Steph says.

  Michelle just shrugs.

  How can I be this person who likes the way she is, has self-confidence—or at least some semblance of what appears to be self-confidence—if I still have to spend so much time trying to change? Why am I always having to search deeper for self-improvement and self-love or self-worth or whatever Courtney would call it? I don’t know and I don’t know, so all I can do is keep saying I’m sorry and I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry, sawry, sari, sari—a bright and colorful sheath to wrap yourself in—sorry!