“They do?”
“All of them,” Corey says.
I lean my back against the stall and glance up at the ceiling, where someone’s written SKUMMY SKIES in a faded Sharpie scrawl. It looks twenty years old. Has everyone always been this cynical, this disillusioned with being young and sent off to summer camp to play stupid games in the stupid sun? The teenage exhaustion feels endless—not because it goes on and on forever but because it runs in a loop. Every kid starts where the last one left off.
“Fine,” I say, “but if all the CITs jumped off a bridge, would you do that too?”
“Seriously?” Alyssa asks. “Jumping off a bridge?”
“Alyssa, people use clichés because they’re universal. They make a point.”
“Hell yeah, I’d jump,” she says proudly. “I don’t want to be alone. That’s lame.”
“Also,” Corey says, “if everyone’s jumping, there’s probably a good reason. We’re not all just sheep. Maybe there’s something really cool down there and when you jump, you find it.”
I can’t argue with that.
“Take your time,” I say, and leave them alone so they can have some privacy.
35.
THOSE WHO CAN’T DO, GET TAUGHT
WHEN I WALK into the house, the last person I want to see is my father, but he’s the first person I see because life is exactly like that.
“Evie,” he says, his big palms shaking my shoulders, “be nice to those who made you.”
“I’m nice,” I say.
“We just want to help.”
“Have you seen this toaster, Dad?”
“Honey, I haven’t seen the kitchen in twenty-two years. And yet I’m always fed.”
“I get it, I get it,” I say.
“You don’t have to apologize to your mom, but—”
“I said I was sorry,” I tell him. “One of the many things I said was ‘sorry.’”
“Well.” My father hangs his head. “Needles to say”—he pauses, gives my shoulders a pinch—“your words sting.”
Needles to say, you’re a prick. That’s how he usually phrases it when he’s talking to his racquetball buddies.
Then my phone beeps, and it’s a text from Lindsay: Got a gift card 2 Target 2day!!! Before I can text back, my phone beeps again: DORM STORM!!!!
Cool, I text.
Beep, beep. So kewl.
I have a toaster, I text.
Beep, beep. Toe stir! Beep, beep. Grrrled Cheez 4 Life!
And even though I don’t eat cheese, that still settles it: this’ll be our first shared appliance. It’s kind of exciting.
Later, my mother starts getting dinner together—grilled chicken breasts for everyone else and, like a saint, St. Mom, barbecue tofu just for me. The smell of soy and spices, wafting pleasantly up to the second floor, makes me feel hungry and sad. Penitence and piggishness swish around until my middle’s gurgling, so loud Courtney hears it from the hall. She peeks her head in my room.
“There’s that fault line rupturing.”
“Why’s everyone so clever in this family?” I ask. “Say something that isn’t cute, say something heavy. Like, weighty.”
“Forgive Mom her toaster-passes,” Courtney says in a deep voice.
“I’m not trying to fight with her.”
My sister stares at me, waiting for me to read her mind.
“I should be trying not to fight with her, I get it. But you fight with Dad and I fight with Mom. We can’t get it out of our systems because it is our system, it’s how we work.”
Courtney frowns. She’s sad to hear this, which is a sign I’m right. “It’s not just that they won’t be there anymore to enjoy, Eva. It’s also that they won’t be there to unload on.”
“Fine with me.”
“We’re probably never going to live here again.”
“I know that,” I say, but knowing it doesn’t mean I’ve thought about it. I look around my room. There’s the desk I don’t really sit at because I like to feel the heat of the laptop warming my thighs, and also because it’s called a “laptop” and there’s something to appreciate about the literalness of the name. It doesn’t feel normal to miss a desk, since I’ll have one at Emerson. Being a writer, I’ll have one forever, I guess.
“Mom’s like that desk,” I start to say.
“I’m gonna stop you there,” Courtney says, then grabs my hand and hurries me downstairs and into the kitchen.
“Teach us how to cook something,” Courtney tells our mother, first pulling a skillet off its hook, then reaching into the dishwasher for a rubber spatula, flexing it back and forth.
“Girls,” my mother says. “Don’t make a mess before dinner.”
“Really,” Courtney says. “We need the skills. To usher us into the next phase of our lives.”
“We want to learn, Mom.”
“But something easy,” Courtney clarifies.
“Rice-on-your-owni,” I offer.
“Pasta prima donna,” Courtney suggests.
“Now we’re cookin’ with sass,” my father shouts from the other room.
“Okay, rice, pasta, we can do that, we can do that,” my mother says, already browsing through cabinets and drawers. “This is going to be easy,” she says, happy again, pleased to be needed, buzzing around the kitchen, talking and teaching, while we learn a few things.
36.
GOOD COUNSELOR, BAD COUNSELOR
MY GROUP STARTS the morning with Jan, the archery coach, who teaches the girls how to hold the bow and aim like Katniss, and not surprisingly they love it. They chant “Curl Powder!” every time they fire an arrow, whether or not it lands anywhere near the target. It feels like as good a time as any to sneak off and find Foster.
I’ve just crept away through some trees when someone taps my back: Alyssa.
“Bull’s-eye,” she says.
“Target’s back there,” I say, turning her around.
“I want to come with.”
“You don’t know where I’m going,” I say. “Maybe I’m going to Steven’s office to pick up some field trip slips.”
“And maybe you’re not,” she says, seeing right through me.
“Alyssa, try not to know me so well, okay?”
“You’re going to find Foster.”
“What did I just say?”
“I want to see Corey,” Alyssa says. Her eyeliner is especially flawless today. She’s wearing lip gloss and a light bronze powder too.
“I’m starting to feel like your pimp,” I say, then cover my mouth. “Oh God, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“So Foster’s your boyfriend?”
“I thought you knew everything. What do you think?”
Alyssa considers it for a second. “I think he’s not.”
“Well, is Corey your boyfriend?”
“Hell yeah,” she says, and fist-pumps the air.
“I never had a boyfriend when I was in junior high.”
“And you don’t have a boyfriend now.”
“Actually, I do. His name’s Elliot, he’s in a band, and they’re on tour this summer. They played Brooklyn last night.”
Alyssa nods, a little impressed. It feels so satisfying that for a second I consider letting her tag along with me just to drive home what a cool counselor I am, how I can have Foster and Elliot—and maybe Corey too, if I tried. But then Seth walks by and waves, and it reminds me that I need to try and care more about impressing other counselors than impressing campers—even the supercool thirteen-year-old ones.
“Please go back,” I say, clasping my hands together in a begging gesture. “The group really needs you there.”
“That’s, like, ironic,” Alyssa says, “coming from you.”
“What a mean thing to say.”
“I just want to go with you.”
“I’ll let you do anything else you want,” I tell her, immediately regretting it. The Sunny Skies Handbook would definitely classify making open-ended promises as bad, b
ad, bad.
“Can you take me to the party Friday?”
“What party?” I say, acting clueless.
“You know what party.”
“I don’t know, maybe . . . okay, fine,” I lie.
“Yessssss!” she shrieks, jumping up and down.
“Now go, go, go.” I give her a little push.
“Wait,” Alyssa says. She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a thick, folded stack of pages and hands it to me. “I told them to each put their names in the top corner like in school.”
“How’d you get these?” I ask, astonished.
“I told the girls it was for the zine thingy.”
“And they just . . . gave them to you?”
“Duh.”
“Holy shit.”
“She means, ‘Holy cow,’” Foster says suddenly, from behind me.
“Oh fug,” I say with a smile.
“Hi, Alyssa,” Foster says.
“Bye, Foster,” Alyssa says, and skips away.
Then Foster and I are alone together, strolling out along the sports fields. A stray soccer ball rolls our way, and Foster kicks it back. A counselor jogs by wearing an orange puffy vest, smelling like the bottoms of canoes, and nods at us. “Foster, Eva,” he says.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” I say.
Somehow Foster looks distinctly better than he did yesterday, which was already better than he looked the day we kissed. Is this how it’s going to be? Steadily rising cuteness, going up and up and up, like some graph problem from Mr. Laskin’s trig class? I recall some deluded routine I used to rehearse, alone, facing my bathroom mirror: “I’m sorry, I just can’t start dating someone right before I leave for college. I’d love to, really, but I can’t.”
“Where should we go?”
I shrug. I look at his wet, slicked hair, his damp basketball shorts, and get an idea: “Pool bathroom?”
Foster shoots me an admonishing look.
“I caught Corey and Alyssa making out in there,” I say, and then, briefly forgetting who I’m talking to, laugh out loud.
“It’s not funny,” Foster tells me, his demeanor changing.
“Isn’t it, though?”
“Do you want to get fired or something?”
“Not necessarily,” I say.
“And we’re cussing around eighth graders now?”
“It’s Alyssa, she’s down.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“She’s like my co-counselor.”
“She’s your CIT,” he says.
“Foster, you know how they say rules are made to be broken?”
“Don’t do that, Eva. Don’t be . . . flippant.”
I try not to let that hurt, just keep things light, so I lean in close, raising his clipboard to shield us, and sweetly sing “Boom Chicka Boom,” like it’s a love song. Like it’s our song.
“Did you hear what I just said?” Foster waits for me to stop singing and then, when I do, he shakes his head and walks off toward the cafeteria.
Usually I’m the one taking everything too seriously, because I like the idea of being thought of as a Serious Person. But this time it feels good to not to be the uptight one, walking away annoyed and let down because the other person doesn’t get the gravity of being super intense all the time. So maybe, in the smallest way, this is a step forward, a sign of progress. I’ve got my eyes on the Big Picture, while Foster’s still caught up worrying about the Little Picture. It’s basically Life Camp versus Summer Camp. I guess we’re on different wavelengths.
And that’s the thing about wavelengths—they’re not waves. You can’t ride them alone; you have to ride them together.
37.
READING THINGS
I’M DYING SO bad to read what the girls wrote I’m barely able to make it through the day without peeking. When I get home, I dash upstairs and toss my cell phone across the room and lay the pages out in front of me on the bed.
There’s a soft knock on the door—one of those respectful parental knocks.
My mother wants to know if I want a “going-away” dinner, like a bon voyage thing. But who would come? Not Shelby, she hasn’t called in a while. Not Michelle and Steph, they’re not so in love with me lately. Foster, probably.
Zack, maybe. Because yesterday, on a weird impulse, I texted him hi and he texted back, im gonna call u.
Then, later that afternoon, he actually does. I’m too unprepared to answer, so I let it go to voice mail, then immediately check it. It’s him inviting me to the movies, and more importantly, he sounds genuinely happy to be inviting me, about the prospect of seeing me. Throughout the whole message he maintains this genuinely happy-seeming attitude.
But near the end, after leaving his phone number—silly, because I obviously already have it—and asking when’s a good time to call back, his voice changes. The vibe gets vaguely serious.
“Eva,” he says, “you’ve been such a good friend to Shelby, and such a good friend to me, too. I know the two of you are close, but I hope that doesn’t make it awkward for us to hang out.”
Then there’s a pause, and in a lower, smoother tone, he says, “I always liked you.”
There’s Reading into Things and then there’s just Reading Things, straightforwardly interpreting signals that are right there in front of you. I don’t have to study Zack’s voice to understand the subtext of it—I just have to listen to the words he’s literally saying out loud. It’s all there. I’m not inventing anything.
The summary of his message is this: first Zack’s genuinely happy, then he’s vaguely serious, then he’s something else: he’s hitting on me. He even mentioned that if I need a ride, he can pick me up—maybe on his motorcycle, maybe not, he didn’t specify. Either way, he’s clearly moving on from Shelby—the best-looking, most together girl of all my high school friends, the one who’s had sex a million times—to, quite possibly, me. Me: who isn’t going to fall in love with him, who isn’t going to try and date him because I’m not really dating before I leave for college, and even if I was, if I wanted to, it’d be with Foster. Or, I guess maybe Elliot.
Is it too crazy to imagine that Zack might be into me? And that, because I’m not some candidate for a long-term relationship, he might want to have sex with me?
I don’t have to want it to happen to still be turned on by the idea.
There’s hoping for the best, and then there’s just hoping.
38.
SCRUTIN’ EYES
I STAY UP all night scribbling notes in the margins of the girls’ pages. I use two different pens, a green and a purple, because those feel like nonthreatening, nonjudgmental colors. When I like something, I circle it; when I love something, I underline it three times. And when I don’t like something, or even hate it, I draw a question mark next to the sentence and write the word WHY.
I wake up in full-on workshopping mode. I organize follow-up questions, design writing exercises, and even sketch out a suggested list of related reading materials, as well as drafting a mock table of contents, where I number each piece in a potential order. For a second I wonder if I’m going a little overboard, but it’s only for a second, and then it passes and I’m excited again.
“I’m inspirational!” I scream as I pass by the open bathroom door where Courtney’s brushing her hair.
“Ahh,” she sighs. “So the mental’s become the mentor.”
“Don’t be jealous,” I say, squeezing her face, kissing her on the cheek. “I still have so much to learn from you.”
“Bedankt,” Courtney says. “Dank u.” She hands me a book, thick as the Lonely Planet, of English-to-Dutch translations.
“Dunk you!” I say, smacking her on the butt with the book.
But at camp that morning the girls are foggy with quinoa from the gluten-free muffins Jessica’s mom baked. They move so leadenly I literally have to lead them by the hand to the Craft Shack for arts and crafts, where they numbly twist pipe cleaners into key chains, glassy-eyed, lik
e they’ve been watching TV for weeks straight. They’ve got glaring farmer’s tans and burnt red noses like little drunks and streaks of white on their shoulders where the sunscreen didn’t get fully rubbed in. My girls didn’t land on camp; camp landed on them. To stir them out of their funk, I tear up our printed-out schedule for the day and dramatically fling the confetti into the trash. No one notices.
Later in the afternoon we stumble through a very sluggish session of Red Rover, followed by a game of handball that dissolves into formlessness about four minutes in. Alexis waddles off by herself, pulling at the jean shorts that keep sliding up her crotch.
“Curl Powder,” I say, still trying to rally everybody.
“Can we go to the pool?” Zoe asks.
“It’s not our swim time yet.”
“Can’t we just go anyway?” Jenna whines.
“Girls, come on,” I say.
“Can we sing a song?” Rebecca asks. “And not like a camp song, a radio song?”
“Who listens to the radio?” Alyssa says.
“I mean a song from a video.”
“What video?” Billie asks.
“Yeah,” Maggie says, “we should sing a song.”
“But I have your writing here,” I interject, a bit exasperated, shaking a manila folder I took from my father’s desk.
The group shuts up.
“I read everything you wrote and even took some notes to help guide your second drafts,” I say, opening the folder, showing them pages.
“What does ‘drafts’ mean?” Jessica says.
“It means when we write them again,” Billie tells her.
“Why do we have to write them again?” Jenna asks.
“Because she doesn’t like them,” Lila says, and then Renee says, “Because they aren’t any good.”
“Of course they’re good,” I say. “It’s just that every writer revises.”
“What’s ‘revises’?’” Alexis says.
“Same thing as drafts, dummy,” Billie says.
“So every writer writes their stories over and over?” Maggie asks.
“All of them,” I say. “Zoe!” I point and snap in Zoe’s direction. “Quick, what’s your favorite book in the world?”
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