“And you had your own kids’ section at the back of the catering hall, right?” Philip asked. “With that big, dumb thing of flowers in the middle that all the women fight over at the end for who gets to take it home?”
“No. Only the adults got flowers. We got yellow helium balloons in the middle.”
Which made it hard to see each other across the table, a shame since we all looked our best. The girls wore floor-length frilly dresses with multiple rows of tight elastic gathers at the waist and the biggest, puffiest sleeves we could find. The boys were decked out in sports jackets over brightly colored shirts adorned with big clip-on bow ties, the perfect complement to their bell-bottomed plaid pants. Everyone loved crushed velvet.
A lot of the girls wore their first high heels. I opted for heels that were just sort of medium and I was still much taller than any of the boys, obvious when we got up to dance. My parents had hired The Herb Zane Orchestra, a band fond of Glenn Miller tunes and Alley Cat.
“Right knee, right knee, left knee, left...”
Every Jewish kid in Springfield danced exactly alike because we’d all attended the same Bar Mitzvah dance class, taught by a gym teacher from another town. We learned three dances: the Box Step, the Cha-Cha, and a jerky rock ‘n roll move called the Horse.
“What else am I missing out on?” Philip wanted to know. I was sorry I’d started this conversation.
“There’s the money you get,” I reminded him. “All the checks. Like two thousand dollars.”
“But the party costs your parents close to three thousand, right? So really, you’re losing money on the deal.”
This was true. My parents made a point of letting me know that, especially when I asked if I could buy a stereo for my bedroom like all of the other kids’ parents let them do, a really good one with a semi-automatic belt-drive turntable and maybe a couple of cool new albums to play on it, like Elton John or John Denver. Anything but those same old Burl Ives records my parents were always buying at Two Guys. But they said, “No, you can keep ten dollars. The rest of the money goes into your college fund.”
“I might get to buy a stereo,” I said, then felt bad because I figured Philip’s parents were even poorer than mine and this camp Bar Mitzvah was an excuse to save money.
“I already have a stereo,” he told me, “and about a hundred albums. But I’m kind of bored with all of them. I’ll buy some new ones when we go home.”
This camp Bar Mitzvah thing was starting to look good.
“But doesn’t it bother you to have to meet with Saul all summer and practice?”
“We don’t really study,” Philip said. “Mostly, we sit around and he tells me stories.”
“About what?”
“About his life, growing up on the banks of the Mississippi River.”
“Saul Rattner? The camp owner? I thought he was from Teaneck.”
“He might be a little mixed up,” Philip suggested. “I think he might think he’s Mark Twain or something. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t go to rabbinical school like he told my parents. I’m not even sure he can really read Hebrew. Doesn’t matter. I’m ready. I know the whole thing. Wanna hear it?”
For weeks Philip had been asking me to listen to him practice his Torah portion. Anywhere and everywhere, the subject came up.
“Can you listen to me now?” Philip would ask.
“Um, now?” I’d reply. “In the middle of flag-raising? While you’re in your underwear? Can’t you ask Saul to listen?”
And Philip would pout, “I want to know what you think.”
What I was thinking was that he was six months younger than I was and that girls are supposed to have boyfriends who are older and a couple of inches taller with the potential to make at least twice as much money as we ever would. These were the rules, they didn’t describe Philip and I wasn’t ready to break them.
“C’mon,” he practically begged. “There’s no one in the bunk. We could go back there.”
“The bunk?”
“We’d have it all to ourselves. We’d be all alone.”
All alone? What if he had something else on his mind? And what if he didn’t and I really did have to listen to him sing? What if he was awful and I had to plaster a smile on my face and nod and say, “Gee, you’re so good”?
“Why don’t you surprise me on the big day?” I suggested.
And he did. If I had listened to Philip even once beforehand, I’d have known what an amazing voice he had. Perfect, beautiful and melodic. Something I’d never possess. I wondered why he hadn’t auditioned for a lead in The Sound of Music instead of just pulling the curtain.
I wasn’t the only one who was impressed. Everyone thought Philip was great. Saul was extremely pleased, too, and in an eloquent speech detailing Philip’s new duties and what is expected of an honest and humble man, Saul managed to drop in that he was responsible for Philip’s training. Then Saul shocked the crowd when he presented Philip with an expensive gift, a magnificent set of fins and snorkel gear, which, throughout the course of his lifetime, Philip would neither use nor ever give away.
It looked like the whole thing was wrapping up and then near-tragedy struck. “Maddy,” Saul called out, “won’t you please send your girls up here to dance the traditional Hora around this young man?” In an instant, the day was no longer about Philip Selig and his induction into manhood; it was about me becoming a public spectacle. Why was I being made to suffer like this? What kind of God would take a gawky thirteen-year-old and make her dance in front of people and Kenny and not be allowed to use any of her two thousand dollars to buy a stereo? And how was it that I was so good at softball and yet so bad at putting one foot in front of the other?
My bunkmates rose and headed toward Philip, but I thought about turning and running off in another direction, to the boys’ dining hall where I could hide in the closet under the steps with the rats until it was all over. I thought about it, but I didn’t do it. That was the old me who wasn’t going to end up with a boyfriend. The new me didn’t run. The new me climbed a mountain and would once again rise to the occasion, stride toward Philip—and dance very badly.
“I can’t dance,” Betty whimpered. Music to my ears if not rhythm to my feet. Surely Betty would look worse than I and all eyes would be fixed on her.
“You dance really well in your sleep,” Hallie told her.
“What? I don’t dance in my sleep. Why didn’t you wake me?”
Autumn Evening had told us, and we believed, that if you wake a sleepwalker they can instantly have a heart attack and die. We let Betty do whatever she wanted in her sleep.
“Just do what I do,” Dana advised her. “It’ll be over before you know it.”
As usual, Dana was right. There was barely enough room for the five of us to circle around Philip. Bumping into each other and trampling over feet, we all looked equally ridiculous. Not that Philip noticed; he was beaming. As the circle broke up and I turned back toward the benches, Philip pulled me aside and asked, “How’d I do?”
“Kinda perfect,” I told him, prompting him to spontaneously kiss me on the cheek, which was, when I thought about it later, not horrible.
“Mindy, these are my parents,” Philip said, thrusting into my face two short strangers from whom he was cloned.
“Hello,” they said.
“Um, hi,” I said back.
I was disarmed by the way Mr. and Mrs. Selig looked at me, a look I would become more familiar with in college. A look that said, “You’re not much to look at, but you’ll be good to my son. Welcome, my future daughter-in-law.” A look, that on this day, I did not yet understand.
“Can we get a picture of you two together?” Mr. Selig asked. “Philip’s first girlfriend.”
But I was not Philip’s girlfriend. I was this terrible, awful person using their son because I really wanted to be dating Kenny, who I was hoping was watching so he’d think I was this great person he was missing out on, even though I was really this te
rrible, awful girl using Philip.
Philip put his arm around me and his father snapped the photo. Or tried to. He couldn’t get the thing to work.
I picked Kenny out from the crowd and called to him. “Hey, we could use a little of your expertise!”
“We don’t need him,” Philip said. “We can do this ourselves.”
But Kenny arrived on the scene and showed Mr. Selig what to press as I put my arm around Philip and flashed a great big railroad tracks and rubber bands smile.
“Cheese!”
Next, Philip’s parents entered the set-up along with Saul, and Kenny captured my act of fraud on film. After the photo op, there was a buffet lunch featuring a choice of falafel or tuna fish sandwiches.
“Thanks for letting them pose with us,” Philip whispered. “I know it can be really embarrassing to be seen with my parents.” I tried convincing myself it wasn’t so bad I was doing this. After all, this was the closest Philip would get to having a girlfriend, so he was getting something out of it. And if it made him look better then it made me look better and then Kenny might be jealous and then we’d all benefit.
“Saul invited us to dinner at his house tonight,” Philip said. “What do you think he’ll serve? I’m betting on a big bowl of leftover tuna-falafel casserole.”
“Unless there’s a train wreck with something better on board,” I added before biting into my sandwich.
My mouth was still full when Philip’s mother asked me if I wanted to join them the next day for Sunday brunch at Flo’s. I nodded okay and kept chewing. But about half an hour later, Kenny came over to me and asked if I wanted to go canoeing with him the next morning. “I have something really important I need to ask you,” he said.
It could only be about one thing. Obviously, Kenny liked me after all. Maybe he’d liked me all along and dated Autumn Evening first just to work up his nerve. But now, seeing me with Philip and his parents, he finally realized there was no time to spare. He had to make his move. He’d been away for ten days, enough time for Autumn Evening to recover and forget about him and not be mad at me for taking her place. Now he could ask me out.
I couldn’t go to breakfast with Philip’s family. I had to go canoeing with Kenny. But today was Philip’s day. Philip’s one perfect day and I didn’t want to ruin it. I’d wait until Sunday morning to cancel.
“Why can’t you go?” Philip wanted to know as his parents sat waiting in their Dodge Dart.
I had an excuse all planned, but it wasn’t coming out.
“Well, it’s just that...”
“Is it my parents?” he asked.
“No, of course not,” I insisted.
“So then what?” he asked.
“Just... something else.”
“Kenny?” he questioned, now more angry than hurt.
“Well...”
“Okay, fine.”
But really, it wasn’t. I knew it was the wrong thing to do, but when a girl like me has a chance to spend a day—and maybe a lifetime—with a boy like Kenny, there really is no other choice to make. It’s like chicken or chateaubriand.
“... The boys we call our own
Will wear glasses and braces and smell of b.o....”
13
LONG BEFORE FREDDY KRUEGER, FRIDAY THE 13TH AND THE ONSLAUGHT of low budget slasher flicks, there was the original story of murder and mayhem, the legend of the Cropsy Maniac. Story goes that Cropsy was just your average Joe until he was tragically disfigured in a fire, a fire started by kids at camp. Sporting a hook for a hand and hate in his heart, Cropsy was bent on revenge, waiting at night in the dark of the woods, waiting for campers to cross his path, waiting for a chance to capture and kill them. And, coincidentally, whatever camp you were at when you heard this tale, well my friend, that was the one where Cropsy lay waiting.
Unless you went to Camp Kin-A-Hurra. We didn’t believe in the Cropsy Maniac because we didn’t need made-up stories about a homicidal madman because we had the real thing. This was not the stuff of urban legend; it was the stuff of rural reality. Just two summers earlier, in August of 1972, a sixteen-year-old girl from the town of Hinckley had been hired on to help out at the stables. When she disappeared at the end of her first day, everyone assumed she didn’t like the job and had decided not to come back. In truth, she never left.
Horseback riding was never particularly popular at Kin-AHurra. For campers, it meant wearing heavy corduroy pants and helmets in the rain, and for the saggy-backed, ancient horses Saul rented for the summer, it meant having to move. Consequently, the two groups of mammals tended to leave each other alone. But a few days after the girl’s disappearance, the horses were extremely active, running around erratically, whinnying, spooked.
Sixty-year-old Amanda Bernhardt, a retired rodeo performer who ran the stables, discovered the reason when she spotted the 16–year-old girl’s hand sticking up from the mud by the water’s edge. At first, all of the male foreign counselors were under suspicion—because they were male and because they were foreign—but the killer turned out to be a local man, the girl’s jealous ex-boyfriend.
I knew this was a true story because Autumn Evening had photos of the police and FBI taping off the area. To her disappointment, they wouldn’t let her get closer, to question the hovering soul of the lifeless body. Today was the second anniversary of the murder and this was the romantic spot on the lake Kenny had chosen for our rendez-vous.
“Nothing ever happens at this stupid camp,” Kenny complained as he stared at the sky while I slapped at mosquitoes landing on my feet and arms, since I’d forgotten to spray on Off. “Have you ever been more bored in your life?”
I thought back on the summer so far: the bunk burning down, the prowlers breaking in, Mindy Plotke falling from the mountain and the miniature golf excursion that ended in carbon monoxide poisoning.
“You’re right,” I said. “Nothing much happens here. But at least Nixon got to end the war before he had to leave office.”
Kenny looked at me. “Nixon?”
I needed to sound like an informed Republican. This was my chance to show off for him. I needed to summon up my full knowledge of current events.
“I heard Henry Kissinger is Jewish.”
“Are you a Republican or something?” he asked.
“Aren’t you?”
“Me?” Kenny shouted. “I hate the Republicans. My parents are Republicans. I am not a Republican.”
“Then how come you were crying when Nixon resigned?”
“I wasn’t crying,” he shouted defensively. “I was just mad. And it had nothing to do with Nixon. The back of my camera opened up and the film fell out. All of my Allagash pictures? Gone.”
Kenny reddened again at the memory.
“Couldn’t other people make copies of theirs and mail them to you?” I asked. “They wouldn’t be exactly the same, but-”
“I want my own!” he yelled.
“Well, maybe you could go again next year and take some more.”
“I don’t think I’m coming back,” Kenny muttered, pushing off the shore and paddling a short ways back into the lake.
I panicked. “Where would you go?”
I couldn’t lose track of him. I needed to know where he’d be.
“Maybe I’ll go to some other camp.”
I knew this was ridiculous. The names scrawled on the walls and painted high on the rafters made it clear that this almost never happened. All of the North American-born campers returned year after year to Kin-A-Hurra with only a couple of exceptions, when their parents insisted they have other experiences. This usually meant a summer picking fruit on a kibbutz in Israel or six weeks on a bus traveling cross-country with a temple group. Summer school if you really screwed up; Hawaii if you were good. No one from Kin-A-Hurra ever signed on for Outward Bound. It would have been redundant.
“Didn’t you think Saul’s house was really nice?” I asked. I needed to change the subject. “You’re so lucky you got to see it.”
“Oh. Yeah. So I guess you don’t remember.”
“I’ve been in it before. It’s like a house. I don’t know. Like the one my family has in the Poconos.”
“I thought you lived in Westchester County.”
“We have a vacation house in the Poconos. For skiing.”
Skiing. Now there was a sport I had no interest in. So much clothing. So much equipment. So much snow.
“I’d love to learn to ski,” I said.
“That’s nice. Look, here’s the thing I need to ask you about.”
I gave him my full attention. “Uh-huh.”
“Autumn Evening and I broke up before the Allagash, so I’m not going with anybody now.”
This was it. Kenny was going to ask me out. Even if he didn’t come back to camp, he’d be mine for the rest of this summer. My fairy godmother was tapping me on the head. I could feel the magic wand.
“So,” he said slowly, “think I should ask Hallie to the Banquet Social? She’s not exactly my first choice or my second choice or my third, but there’s nobody good-”
I didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying because when you’re a balloon that’s deflating, wanting to fly about willy-nilly, smacking into walls and making obscene noises before crashing to the ground, lifeless and dead, it takes everything in you to sit still in a boat.
“Has she ever said anything about me?” he asked.
She’d said he was a jerk a bunch of times. Every time she told me I should like Philip.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I mumbled.
Kenny thought about it a moment. “Hhmm, might make me look desperate.”
“That’s not what-”
“You and Phil are pretty lucky,” he said. “You’re a good match. You’re both—different.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, even though I knew what he meant.
Not a Happy Camper Page 16