by V. L. Locey
Who would have thought that a math whiz like me would make such a huge mistake in calculating the odds of Garrison honoring his vows to me?
One
“Are you sure you have everything, O’Malley? Did you leave your laptop in the car like you did last summer?”
I placed the last box of my belongings on my dusty desk and turned to look at my father. He was intently looking at the bags and boxes we had carried into the senior advisor’s cabin, his teeth working on his lower lip as he ruminated.
“I’m sure I have everything. Do you want to sit down and relax before heading back home?” I asked. He looked a little waxy to me. Then again, he always looked pale to me anymore. Ever since his heart attack eight months ago, in my eyes, my father always looked ready to collapse again. I still had nightmares about it. Thank God it happened at the Rook house because I lost my shit when Dad fell over the dinner table then slid to the floor, groaning in pain while clawing at his chest. Mr. and Mrs. Rook had flown into action. I had run around in a panic screaming and clutching my pearls. It had not been my finest moment.
“No, I think I’ll head back now and try to avoid the traffic around Columbia.” Dad walked to the window and threw it wide open. “My gosh, just smell that mountain air.” He thumped his chest with both hands and inhaled the rich damp aroma of Lake Amalie, South Carolina, the official campgrounds of the G.R.A.M.S. or Girls Rule at Math and Science summer program, of which I was the senior advisor.
From July 1 to July 31, we host girls from the ages of eight to eighteen who are math and/or science junkies. G.R.A.M.S. is a wonderful program that empowers girls and rejoices in their love of subjects that many say girls don’t or can’t understand or enjoy. I was fortunate to be picked out of over thirty candidates by my undergraduate math advisor at the end of my freshman year at U of F. This was my fourth summer here. I now have my bachelors in mathematics education, and I’m hoping to use my experience here to give me an edge and help me land a job as a middle school math teacher back home in Willow Glen this fall. There is one opening due to retirement and the competition is going to be beyond tough.
It was funny how my desire to teach blossomed as soon as I sat down with a group of kids that first summer here. It took some major breaking of my balls to switch my major and make up the courses I missed that first year I had taken mathematics as my major instead of education.
People ask me all the time why I chose a career that would pay me a miserable rate, give me ulcers, and probably turn my yellow hair gray before I hit thirty.
I always have a flashback to tutoring Garrison in high school, and even though thinking of it still feels like a knife in the liver, it always gives me a heartfelt feeling.
“Because there is nothing like seeing the gleam in a student’s eye when he or she gets it,” I respond then try to ignore the phone calls reminding me that my student loan grace period expires in November. Did I mention how badly I wanted that job at Willow Glen Middle School? I walked over to stand beside my dad. He was just as tall as ever, although I now stood even with him at six feet. His strawberry-blond hair may have more silver now and his face a little more lived but he was still a handsome man. I took a deep breath, puffing out my chest then exhaling slowly, just as he had.
“I think I smell skunk.” I commented. Dad gave me a nudge in the side and a smile. I turned sideways to look at him. “Thanks for hauling me and all my crap up here.”
“My pleasure,” Dad replied as he continued to stare out at the woods surrounding the camp. “Someday I think I’d like to retire to a place like this. What do you think, O’Malley? Can you see me playing mountain man after I step down from Ramsey Travel?”
“As long as you don’t end up a grizzly snack like DiCaprio in The Revenant.” I leaned my shoulder against the roughly hewn window frame. “When do you see the cardiologist again?”
“I don’t think there are grizzlies in South Carolina, son.” He chuckled and tried to start a conversation about some bear show he had watched last week. I gave him a look and cleared my throat. He rolled his blue eyes. “Sometime next month,” he said then looked directly at me. “And no, I don’t need you to drive close to three hours to come with me. I’m fully capable of making the ten minute drive to the medical center by myself.”
“Okay, okay.” I threw my hands into the air. Pushing him would only make him more determined to do it himself.
“I think I’ll stop in the library and see if Joan wants to go to lunch,” Dad said and as soon as he said that about Mrs. Rook, I knew what was coming next. “Maybe you should think about reaching out to him, O’Malley. You’re a grown man now and—”
“Dad, let’s not go there again. Garrison made his choices. They just didn’t include me.” I spun from him and padded over to my desk. “I think I’ll change things up a bit. Maybe move the desk over by the window. This way I can see the lake when I look up from the mountains of paperwork I have to do daily.”
“O’Malley, your mother would not have wanted you to harbor such a grudge.”
Ouch. Okay, that was a low blow. I sucked in a shaky breath and made myself look in his direction.
“Dad, that’s unfair and you know it.” My sight flickered to the towering pines that hugged Lake Amalie. Within a week, the laughter of over fifty girls would ring off the trees and clear blue water. “Mom would understand how much he hurt me and she wouldn’t push me to forgive him.”
“You have your mother’s Russian pride that’s for sure.” Dad sighed wearily as I heard him approaching. I continued to look out the window at the small clumps of bugs dancing in a fat sunbeam. “She always said that one just had to watch you plant your feet and kick up your chin to know you were her boy.”
“And you always said it’s my long nose that pegs me as her son.”
“That as well as your hair and baby blue eyes,” he said in a bittersweet tone. That was true. I had my mother’s eyes and hair. Some also say I possess her flare and fire. I could only hope so. “I’m still not used to the new style.”
For my college graduation gift to me, I had finally gotten the haircut I had been dreaming of – longer on the top and clipped down to the wood on the sides. I reached up to touch the short bristles above my ears and wondered if I would have to tone it down to work in middle school. I glanced over at my father when he placed a hand on my shoulder. His sadness over this situation always made me feel terrible – and so damn guilty.
“Sorry to have brought it up again, O’Malley. I’ll leave you to work out things as you see fit.” He squeezed my shoulder. I gave him a trembling smile and we awkwardly picked up the conversation again.
He left about thirty minutes later. I stood on the porch of my cabin, waving until Dad’s taillights disappeared from view. Long after the dust from his tires had settled, I stood there under the rustic porch roof staring at the motes and gnats in the shifting beams of the sun. It had been four years since that night with Garrison in the treehouse. Just thinking of how things had gone after we had made those promises to each other hurt like hot lava on bare skin.
For some reason, Dad always seemed to be the one to dig it up. There were days I regretted telling him about Garrison and me, but I had been so excited during the weeks that had followed those heated vows. The groping sex stuff had stayed locked in my heart, but all those emotions? They came flowing out to my father. Maybe I should have tamped it all down. Then he wouldn’t always be picking at the scab that refused to turn into a scar. How was I to know that things would run as they had? I had been eighteen and Garrison had been my all and everything for so long that when he gave me back a tiny bit of the love and desire I had for him I simply had to tell someone.
I rested my shoulder on one of the long pine poles that ran floor to roof. The trees were moving side to side. The wind wuthering through cedar, pine, and oak. Four years and so much had changed, me perhaps most of all. When it had finally sunk in that I was not going to hear from Garrison again, it sliced me
wide open. We won’t get into the long days spent pleading and begging him to talk to me. After two solid months of him ignoring my texts and calls, I laid down and died a little death. I had still been an emotional zombie when I arrived at college that fall. I had envisioned endless lonely nights in my dorm. That was not at all what happened. My life changed dramatically from day one on campus.
The geeky little math queer with a funny first name stepped into a world filled with men. Gay men. Hot, young, horny gay men who found the geeky little math queer with the funny first name all kinds of appealing. I jumped into bed with one man after another, each quick fuck helping to make me feel just a little more alive. And if they heaped praise on me, told me I was sexy or smart or would make a great boyfriend while we were fucking, all the better. Each time I hooked up with someone “Fuck you, Garrison!” roared to life inside my head.
It took me until my junior year to stop using sex and empty compliments to make me feel better about me. I turned away from the casual sex and began looking for something more while I studied my ass off. I was still looking for that something more but at least I had my degree. I also had some self-respect now. I knew how much I was worth, how lucky some man would be to get me, and how damn fine I was. I’d started eating healthier and taking better care of myself. I took more time with my clothing, and I got my hair cut in a way that flattered me. I also got some contacts but they annoyed me terribly so I returned to glasses. Walking had become a large part of my “stop fucking everything that moves” regime. I sighed and eyed the winding trail around the lake.
Maybe I should change into some walking shorts and hit the hiking trail. I’d have the camp to myself for another day or so until the counselors under me showed up. Yeah, a walk sounded good. Maybe if I went around the lake a few dozen times the need to scream “FUCK YOU, GARRISON ROOK!” to the world might subside. Although after all this time, I suspected that urge might never go away completely.
Two
Two days after my arrival, the four junior counselors were in camp. Three I knew from my previous years here. Alexander Lopez was new to the ranks. After a day for them to settle in, we all gathered at the dining hall – the main meeting place in the camp – and stared at mounds of papers. As the kitchen staff hustled around cleaning and setting up the cooking area for the arrival of campers tomorrow, we began sorting the approved applications into groups. The four groups of ten would each have a counselor looking over them and guiding them through the four week itinerary. I oversaw the counselors and had my own group of math lovers aged eight to ten to keep tabs on as well. It was going to be one hectic summer but I looked forward to it.
“I’d just like to know whose idea it was to change from the nice green t-shirts to this putrid purple,” Denise asked as we sipped iced tea and shuffled papers. She plucked at the sleeve of her t-shirt.
Denise had been here as long as I had. She was a science counselor and one of the top ten Black Women in Science award winners upon graduation. We also had Suzy Webster, an Asian-American math whiz college junior and Brent Smith, a huge gangly blond fellow who played basketball at the University of Wyoming. He was one year shy of getting his degree in biology. Brent wanted to go on to be a conservationist. And then there was the new man, Alex Lopez, who seemed to be having trouble keeping his sight on his list of campers and not on me. I’ll admit to being more than a little interested in the long looks the dark-haired and even darker-eyed math counselor kept giving me. Alex was one good-looking man and smart as hell. I opened my mouth to answer Denise.
“That would be me,” the owner of the camp announced as she entered the dining hall. I snapped my mouth shut. Professor Elaine Belshaw sailed up to our table in a pair of hot pink running shorts, sandals that showed off her rainbow-colored toenails and her own I’m a G.R.A.M.S. Girl! t-shirt. I hurried to stand up to offer my seat to the reed-thin, gray-haired dynamo. Professor Belshaw waved me off and sat on the edge of the opposing table, her sharp green eyes moving over the small group of counselors. “I like purple. It’s vibrant and bold. So, how are we doing here?”
Denise pulled her foot out of her mouth and began chattering nervously about the incoming campers. Professor Belshaw nodded and read over some applications, handing them out to the counselors she obviously was picking this year. Who was I to question? I had never won a Fields Medal or an Abel Medal as Professor Belshaw had in her youth. Her studies and theorems on Reimann Surfaces set the bar for others who have followed. Now that she was retired she was free to set up math camps, wear purple t-shirts with pink shorts, and paint her toenails different colors. I think the term “eccentric” covers our beloved camp owner well.
“We’re hoping to get this done today then head to our cabins to get them opened up and aired out.” I explained. Professor Belshaw smiled at me as her eyes darted over paper after paper.
“Good, good. Got to chase the spiders out,” she replied then shoved several applications into my face. Thank goodness I had my glasses on or my retinas would have been sporting paper cuts. “I want you to take the twelve to fourteen year olds this summer, O’Malley. Since you’re hoping to get a middle school job working with students in this age range this group will benefit you.”
“Oh, okay, thank you, Professor,” I said as I took the papers from her hand. I usually had the younger campers but she was right, this would be a much better fit for me.
“You’re more than welcome. I’m off to find a titmouse.” With that, she threw a hand into the air, palm out, and then marched out of the dining hall. We all sat there looking at each other.
“Is she always so colorful?” Alex asked after the dust settled.
“Oh yeah,” the three who knew her replied in unison then we all had a good chuckle. We sat around for a bit longer, talking and setting up opening day activities, which would be light since the kids would be arriving all day long. When we were gathering our forms and empty paper cups, Alex stepped up beside me.
“You think you could show me what all I need to do to get the cabin set up for the kids?”
The vibes were there and they were strong. I nodded and gave him a soft smile.
“Sure, I’d be happy to.”
We cleaned up and then stepped out into the beautiful summer day. The humidity was low and the sun was bright. Birds sang, the trees danced in the wind, and I had one hot man at my side sending out all the right signals.
“So, tell me about Alex Lopez.” I opened with as we meandered down the well-manicured trail to the campers’ cabins. Ours were located on the other side of the mess hall. As we slowly walked, Alex filled me in on his background. He was heading into his senior year studying education at San Diego State University. He liked indie music, role-playing games, tennis, and had a fondness for blond guys with glasses. We stopped outside the cabin for eight to ten year olds.
“You are gay, right? I mean, I thought I saw something in your eyes when we would look at each other.” Alex’s dark eyes stayed locked with mine. I nodded then reached out to run a finger over the back of his hand. It was a subtle gesture but one that said plenty. His beautiful face broke into a smile that rivaled the sun right over our heads.
“You saw something.” I assured him. A strong gust blew in from the lake, bringing with it cool air and the scent of mineral rich water. “I have a fondness for tall, dark, and handsome.”
“Cool,” Alex replied, his smile now similar to a fire that’s been banked low for the night – hot and capable of flaring up at any second.
“Yeah, very cool,” I responded then motioned him toward the cabin with a wave of my papers. The inside of the small log cabin was stuffy. As we opened the windows, I informed him of what needed to be done before the campers arrived. Sweeping the floors, pulling down the cobwebs in the corners, and checking all the mattresses on the bunk beds for signs of rodents, things of that nature, all fell to the counselors. After the campers arrived, they were expected to attend to keeping the cabin clean and tidy.
“Anything else you want to know?” I asked after throwing a sticky window upward with a bit too much zeal. It slammed into the casing and I winced.
“Would you have dinner with me tonight?”
I turned from the trembling window. Alex was a couple of feet behind me. His hands crammed into his front pockets, and his amazing brown eyes filled with all kinds of heat. His lashes were thick ebony veils that framed his eyes wonderfully.
“We’ll all be eating at the mess hall.” I pointed out as the wind off the water stirred up the loose dust in the cabin.
“Oh, well, yeah sure I should have known that.” God he was even cuter with a light blush resting on his cheeks. I could see myself easily falling for this man. He was just my type. He was exactly like my Garrison had been at one time. No, not your Garrison anymore, O’Malley, so stop with that shit. “So maybe we can go for a walk after dinner? The lake looks pretty romantic.” I cocked an eyebrow. “I mean if you’re into romance, which you in no way need to be to walk around the lake with me and – you know what? I’m going to stop talking now and go find a broom.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“A walk after dinner sounds good.” I had to let him off the hook the poor thing. “I’ll leave you to the sweeping and mattress inspection. See you at dinner.”
“Looking forward to it.” Alex called as I headed to the door. I glanced back at him over my shoulder.
“Yeah, me too.” I told him then walked through the open door. My step felt a little lighter as I made my way to my cabin, my thoughts firmly on Alex and the way he filled out his jeans, which was quite nice. He looked to be somewhat athletic. I’d have to ask him more about his tennis game during our after-dinner stroll. I flopped down on my front porch, grateful beyond words for the old wicker chair that I had forced into the trunk of my dad’s car. I sat back, kicked my feet up to the railing and placed the papers containing the names of my ten campers on my chest. With a hand on them to keep them in place, I let my sight wander over the lake and the trees trying to tickle the clouds floating past. Life was settling into a nice place for O’Malley Ramsey.