“What difference does that make?” he asks, feeling terribly foolish. He drops the daisies on the ground.
“Oh, Adam, please don’t make this bigger than it is. You caught us being silly and insensitive, and we are sorry,” Lucy says. “I am sorry.”
Adam turns on his heel to leave.
“Just hold up one second, Adam,” Martha says. “I understand you’re pissed off, and you have a right to be. But so does Lucy. We all know the woman’s basically incapable of lying, so imagine what it must have taken for her to get you to come.”
“So now I’m responsible for my girlfriend’s deception? I don’t think so.” Adam looks disgusted and storms off.
Lucy starts after him and hesitates, uncertain of what to do.
“Just give him a little time,” Cooper says. “He needs to cool off some.”
“It’ll be okay,” Martha says.
“This is not going to be okay. Nothing about this is okay.”
“Don’t forget Adam’s part in this. Sending him to Man Camp wasn’t a reward for good behavior. He’s been a totally self-absorbed jerk and he’s been ignoring your needs,” Martha reminds her. “All you were trying to do was get things back on track. And as for Man Camp, it’s been anything but a mistake. When has Adam ever stood up to you like that?” Martha puts an arm around Lucy, but Lucy shakes it off and runs after Adam.
When she gets around the barn, she sees she’s too late. Adam’s already in one of the trucks, speeding down the drive.
The taillights disappear over the hill and then reappear far in the distance across the pasture where the drive intersects with the street to town. Then they’re gone.
CHAPTER 13
“What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.”
Susan Sontag
ADAM’S EYES BLINK OPEN with Pavarotti’s first shrill crow. Although the sun is barely up it seems impossibly bright and his head throbs from the base of his neck to his eyebrows. He concentrates on a blur outside the truck’s window, focusing until he’s able to make out the eave of the farmhouse. He must be in the driveway. The last thing he remembers is drinking whiskey at a local bar with a tough old guy who’d been a frogman in the Second World War.
What’s he going to say to Lucy? At some point during the night, when his anger faded, Adam realized that what upset him most about the overheard conversation was the truth in it. Sometime in the last year he’d lost confidence and become terrified of Lucy’s expectations. Adam covers his head with his arms and manages to fall back asleep, even though the rooster won’t shut up.
Hours later, a tentative rap on the driver’s-side window awakens him. He opens his eyes and sees Lucy standing outside with two mugs of coffee, struggling to open the door.
He pulls the handle and she climbs in.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.” He scoots over so that his back is against the passenger-side door and he can face her.
“I heard you drive in late last night but figured you needed some time alone or you would have come up.” Her eyes are puffy and tired, and she looks unsure of what to say next. “You okay?”
“I’ve felt better,” Adam admits, rubbing his head. He knows he must look like hell, probably smells even worse.
Lucy hands him one of the mugs of coffee. “Look, Adam, I feel terrible about what happened. I don’t know what to say other than I’m very sorry I hurt you. There’s no excuse for what I did.”
“Don’t,” Adam shushes her.
They sit quietly and sip their coffee. The spring greenery is lush from the previous night’s rain and a mourning dove flutters along the stone wall, piping out its lonesome song in a bid to impress a potential mate.
“Please say something,” she says. “You forgive me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, Luce,” he says. “I mean, do I wish you could have made your point some other way? Sure. But I understand that I didn’t leave you with a lot of options.”
Lucy exhales, shuts her eyes, and reaches for Adam’s hand.
The dove catches the female’s attention and bobs its head and fans its tail.
“I hope you can forgive me, too,” he adds in a soft voice. “I know I’ve been a jerk. Somehow I got so absorbed in all that was going wrong with my life that I neglected the one thing that was going right.”
Lucy squeezes his hand and Adam squeezes right back, and the two doves hop off the wall to continue their courtship out of sight.
Inside the farmhouse, the campers are gathered in the kitchen, where Beatrice holds court over one final breakfast feast: scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage, and pancakes.
“No one should ever have to decide between eggs and pancakes when it comes to breakfast,” she says, nibbling on a crisp strip of bacon.
“We’re going to miss your cooking, that’s for sure,” Bryce says, and the rest of the campers nod, one by one loading their plates and disappearing into the dining room.
Out of the corner of her eye, Martha spies a line of tiny ants marching up and over the kitchen island, alongside the platters of food. She frowns.
Noticing them at the same time, Bryce steps away from the counter with his breakfast.
Martha moistens a paper towel and prepares to obliterate the colony in a swipe, when Lucy walks in with Adam and says, “Stop. Don’t even think about doing that!”
“Be serious, Lucy,” Martha says. “They’re ants!”
“Yes they are, and what you should be doing is studying them,” Lucy says, motioning for Martha to come close. “Be careful where you step.” Adam and Cooper lean in, too, and all four of their faces are lined up at counter level, inches from the ants. “Maybe give them a little of your pancake.”
“There will be no feeding ants in my house, thank you very much,” Beatrice says.
“You should try to learn something from them. Ants happen to be the world’s most successful insect,” Lucy tells them. “They’ve survived for over one hundred million years and there’re probably a million billion of them on the planet at any time. They weigh more than all the birds, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals put together.”
“That’s just gross, Luce,” Martha says. “Now, do you want to tell us what the big lesson is here, or are we supposed to wonder for the rest of our lives?”
“There’s no big lesson.” Lucy sighs. “More like something small to meditate on. Ants show us what can be accomplished with cooperation and hard work.”
“That’s our biologist,” Cooper says.
Adam puts an arm around Lucy. “My biologist,” he says.
While the girls are helping Beatrice clean the breakfast mess, Martha suddenly realizes how late it is. “All hands on deck,” she shouts.
“Wrong metaphor,” Lucy says. “Try something a little farmier.”
“Let’s git along, little dogies!” she calls up to the campers, who are in their rooms packing their bags.
“Better,” says Cooper.
The campers make their way downstairs and stream through the kitchen and out to the truck. Lucy follows the pack, wanting to give Martha and Cooper some privacy before they are jammed into the truck along with the rest of the group for the two-hour drive back to the airport.
“When am I going to see you next?” Cooper asks, wrapping his arms around Martha’s waist. “Want to bring another group of men down or could I talk you into some one-on-one time?”
Martha smiles at the thought of Cooper all to herself. “There’s nothing I’d love more than a little solo time with you.”
A delicate cough alerts them to Beatrice’s presence in the kitchen, and Martha quickly reconsiders. “What are the chances of you getting to New York anytime soon?”
“So happens I might be coming up with Kurt in two weeks to meet with his investors. Can I stay with you?”
Martha blushes slightly, delighted by the question. “Of course you can.”
Cooper give
s her a squeeze and steps back. “Well, I guess it’s about time I get this show on the road,” he says, clapping his hands together and setting off to organize the campers.
Beatrice approaches Martha with outstretched arms. “It’s been such a delight to have you here,” she says, giving her guest a warm hug good-bye. “I hope it won’t be too long before you visit us again.”
“Thanks,” Martha says awkwardly. She can’t tell whether Beatrice is appeasing Cooper, trying to catch her off guard, or actually has had a change of heart. Could it be that she’s just really happy to see me go? Martha wonders, making her way out onto the porch, where she joins Lucy, who is watching the campers.
“Do you think they’re eager to get home or sad to leave?” Lucy asks.
“Probably a mix of both,” Martha replies. “That’s how it is for me, anyway. Part of me can’t wait to be back in the city with all that’s familiar: FirstDate, auditions, dial-up sushi, Hannibal. But the other part of me has really grown to appreciate what’s timeless and reassuring about cows.” She lights a cigarette and inhales thoughtfully. “And as you know, there’s nothing like the love of a good man.”
They watch the men toss their bags into the truck with ease. Walter kicks the tires; Simon takes in the scenery one last time; Jesse nuzzles Tap and Tor; Bryce swabs down the backseat with disinfectant wipes.
“I don’t think your pal Bryce is going to miss a thing about farm life,” Lucy says.
“Probably not, but I guarantee you the rest of them will. I think they got a lot out of coming here. Jesse, for instance, is about to take the first untranquilized flight of his life.”
“Impressive.”
“You and Adam doing okay?” Martha asks.
“We’re good. We talked things out and not only did he own up to his shortcomings, he forgave me mine,” Lucy says, glancing at Adam and Cooper, who are engaged in a private conversation. She hopes they are making amends. “When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers. I wanted Adam to be a stronger man. Now I have to learn how to deal with his strength.”
Martha nods and takes another drag on her cigarette. “I wonder what Eva will have to say about all this.”
Lucy laughs. “Do we have to tell her about getting lost in the caves?”
“Hell no! Only the good stuff.”
When the truck is fully loaded, Lucy and Martha crowd into the front, where they sit between Cooper and Adam. They wave good-bye to Beatrice and Kurt, who stand on the front porch with Tor and Tap on either side, looking like a country postcard. Then the truck lurches forward, rattles over the cattle grate, and rounds the bend, where they drive alongside a stretch of newly put-up fence, blond instead of gray. They pass the calf pasture, the Cow Palace, and a roadside ditch full of purple joepye weed. Lucy rests her head on Adam’s shoulder and Martha watches Tuckington Farm recede into the distance, wondering about the possibility of living a life so unlike the one she’s known. Cooper puts his arm around her and she knows that somehow she’ll figure out a compromise.
They all will.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my wonderful Random House editors: Lee Boudreaux, Laura Ford, and Daniel Menaker; and to the stellar marketing/ publicity team: Kate Blum, Avideh Bashirrad, and Jennifer Jones; to Margot Meyers and Heather Schroder at ICM Talent Agency; to the Benedict family, who graciously let me stay on their dairy farm; to my talented writer friends Martha McPhee and Sara Powers, who inspired and encouraged me; and to the following people who helped me in a myriad of ways: Chris Brewster, Malabar Brewster, Paul Brodeur, Lea Carpenter, Milane Christiansen, Julie Costanzo, Jodi Delnickas, Carole Desanti, Karla Eoff, Carole Fiorino, Rachel Hazen, Breton Hornblower, Maura Kelly, Megan Kline, Sylvie Rabineau, Linda Reisman, Kim Roberson, the Ryan family (especially Timmy and Nick), Robbin Schiff, Samantha Schnee, Elizabeth Sheinkman, Jane Simmons, Maggie Simmons, Garth Wingfield, and Janet Wygal. And a special thanks to Eilene Zimmerman, who read every version of each chapter more than once.
Above all, thanks to Timothy Ryan, without whose love and support I could never have written this book.
ADRIENNE BRODEUR is the founding editor of Zoetrope: All-Story. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter. Visit her web-site at www.gotomancamp.com.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2006 Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Adrienne Brodeur
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Brodeur, Adrienne.
Man camp: a novel / Adrienne Brodeur.
p. cm.
1. Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. 2. Man-woman relationships—Fiction. 3. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 4. West Virginia—Fiction. 5. Family farms—Fiction. 6. Land tenure—Fiction. 7. Friendship—Fiction. 8. Farm life— Fiction. 9. Sex role—Fiction. 10. Camps—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.R6346M36 2005
813’.6—dc22 2004051470
www.ballantinebooks.com
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-41597-4
v3.0
Man Camp Page 19