Summer at Meadow Wood

by Amy Rebecca Tan

  The sun was hot and bright, and I cursed myself for not bringing a baseball cap to shield my eyes from the glare. My hands were still tinted blue from the day before, and the knot in my neck started to vibrate the moment I looked at the blueberry bushes at the back of the field.

  Earl stood up slowly, a crack sounding from his knees like a small balloon popping. He had a faded blue bandanna tied around his forehead, which I had never seen on him before.

  I headed back to begin my forty minutes of blueberry pain when Earl called out, “Not back there. Different job this time.”

  I stopped and turned to face him. “Great. What fun do I get to have today?”

  He pointed at the ground. “That fun. Weeding.”

  I looked more closely at the rows of green sprouting out of the ground. I saw big leaves of dark green and small leaves of dark green. I saw some leaves that were a slightly lighter green.

  I looked up at Earl and realized he was watching me try to figure out what was what in all that green. And I think he was trying not to laugh in my face. But if anyone should have been laughing, it was me—I was the one who had to look at him in that ridiculous bandanna.

  He cleared his throat, squatted back down, and pulled gently on a large leaf that curled and twisted in on itself like a seashell. “This is curly-leaf kale. This is the plant I’m growing in these two long rows. Steven likes to cook it into omelets and pasta dishes, and even roast it into chips.”

  He dropped that big leaf and pinched a smaller leaf, thin and flat and narrow. “This is a weed.” And he moved his fingers closer to the root and ripped the whole thing out of the ground in one motion. He dropped it in a burlap bag tied to his belt.

  “That’s it. That’s weeding. And we need to do both these rows.”

  “And by ‘we’ you mean ‘me,’ right?”

  “You and Bella, when she gets here. And me, of course.”

  “Well, I hope you gave her advance notice that she’d be weeding today so she could plan her outfit for it.” I couldn’t help saying it.

  Earl bit his lip to stop a smile from sprouting and said, “How ’bout you and me just get started? I’ll be pulling the lettuce weeds right here next to you. I’ve got gloves if you prefer to wear gloves. And it’s hot today, so if you need a break, take a break. Here’s a bag to put your weeds in.”

  I took the bag from him and watched him move to his row. He crouched down and started to pull. “Oh, and you can snack as much as you want. Food doesn’t come any fresher than this.” To make his point, Earl ripped off a piece of lettuce and shoved it in his mouth. “Clean energy, from the sun right to your gut.”

  I knew Jordana didn’t have snacks at water-ski and Carly wouldn’t get any food at volleyball, but chomping on free fresh vegetables could not make up for missing out on more relaxing activities with my friends.

  After this week, I was done. I would not miss elective sign-up again. I would not get stuck with farm again. Not for the rest of the summer. I was so sure of it I said it out loud.

  “You do know I’m done with farmwork after this week, right?”

  “So. Am. I!” Bella stomped up behind us. She was wearing the same denim shorts overalls as yesterday, but with both suspenders snapped in place this time, over a red-checked blouse that reminded me of the tablecloths at the Italian restaurant I had gone to with Jamie and her mom and aunt last year.

  “I got a farmer’s tan in just one day! Look!” Bella pulled up the bottom of her overall shorts to show us the difference in color between her exposed and hidden skin.

  “That’s a sign of good hard work,” Earl said. “Congratulations.”

  “Congratulations?” Bella repeated, scowling.

  She sounded so upset I actually felt bad for her. “You can even that out by the lakefront easily,” I told her. “Two days in a bathing suit and it’ll be gone.”

  Bella looked back at her leg and poked the darker skin tone, then rubbed it as if she could just slide the tan onto the whiter part of her leg.

  “You think?” she asked.

  There was a pretty big difference in color, but I told her, “Sure. Probably.”

  Bella addressed Earl. “I need an activity not in the sun.” Then added, “Please.”

  “No problem.” Earl set her up in a thin strip of shade next to the cabin, rinsing out seed containers and stacking them in groups of ten. Watching her work with the hose water away from the sun’s heat made me feel like I had been outsmarted by Bella, which did not help my mood.

  Earl was busy with his own work, pulling and dropping weeds, his bag puffing out at his hip as he inched down his row like an overgrown snail. I was starting to get a headache from the sun and not enough water at lunch earlier.

  “You can buy all this stuff, you know,” I reminded him. “At the supermarket.”

  “Where do you think the supermarket gets it?”

  “They get it from professional farmers,” I answered quickly. “With gigantic farms and lots of workers.”

  “Soon as you sell it, you’re professional.” Earl kept his head down as he spoke, focused on the work in front of him.

  “So you’re saying you’re a professional farmer now, too, and not just a camp owner?”

  “Appears so.” He let out one quick laugh and added, “Since I sell what you’re helping to pick, you’re kind of like a professional farmer, too.”

  There were a lot of things I didn’t know—what was happening with my parents, how good a camp sister I was going to be, how Jamie was managing at home without me—but one thing I knew for sure was that I was not a farmer, professional or otherwise.

  I was a thirteen-year-old girl going into eighth grade who was supposed to be enjoying the summer with friends on the beautiful lakefront campus of Meadow Wood. But instead, I was covered in sweat, fighting a headache while yanking weeds behind a cabin with Bella, the tanning queen of Aster bunk.

  “It’s easy to shop at stores,” Earl started, “but it’s just as easy to grow it in your own backyard.”

  “It’s not just as easy,” I shot back at him, more aggressively than I meant to. The heat was really getting to me.

  “Okay, true,” he relented, backing off a bit, “but it’s better.”

  “Please explain to me how this is better than walking into an air-conditioned store and picking out clean vegetables organized on shelves without having to bend over?”

  Earl stopped weeding and let his knees drop to the ground. He stared at the lettuce plant before him, then reached down and raked his hand through the loose dark dirt resting on top of the row. “There’s a calm here,” he said, still looking down. “A quiet. Plants take their time, each small moment, better than anything else I know.” He rubbed his hands together, dirt falling like pixie dust, catching the light so it shimmered as it fell. “There’s a certain peace in that.”

  The air got really still and the afternoon heat settled itself right across my shoulders.

  There was no way I could know what a certain peace felt like to a sixty-something-year-old man like Earl, but I definitely knew what a certain peace was to a thirteen-year-old girl on summer break.

  Peace was sleeping in until chirping birds and revving lawn mowers woke you, and then staying in bed for another hour anyway just because you could.

  Peace was spooning peanut butter out of the jar with Jamie while binge-watching old TV shows, which is what I would be doing if my mom hadn’t sent me to camp.

  Peace was floating on rafts at the pool and checking out the lifeguards.

  Peace was lounging on the back porch in the dark, shining flashlight beams into the night sky as Jamie and I whispered our deepest wishes and fears to each other.

  Peace was definitely not weeding.

  When I looked over at Earl, my mouth open, ready to explain all this to him, I saw him curved back over his row, looking, touching, picking and pulling, lost in his work. It was like he forgot Bella and I were even there. And he did look relaxed, extremely re
laxed, like some meditative trance had taken over.

  So I crouched down and got to it. I tried to copy him and find the peace he was talking about.

  I really did.

  But twenty minutes later, after my thighs had slow-burned past pain to complete numbness, and my fingers had lost their ability to grasp, and sweat had coated my arms to a glossy sheen, I knew that Earl was seriously disturbed if this brought him any kind of peace.

  And I had a tremendous urge to pull that faded blue bandanna off his peaceful forehead and pound it into the ground like a weed that needed to be taught a lesson.

  But thinking that and doing it were two very different things.

  Day 6—Thursday

  After a dinner of spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad, we raced to canteen and elbowed our place in line. Canteen was a small wooden building strategically surrounded by the soccer field, the waterfront, and trampled lawn. It had a large piece of wood in front that flipped open from the inside to make a window for ordering. It also had an oversize padlock on the rickety door in back that only Brenda and Earl had the key to.

  The crowning achievement for all Meadow Wood campers was to sneak out in the middle of the night and break into canteen to pillage the soda, ice cream pops, and candy bars that filled the fridge and freezer inside. It was usually senior campers who tried. And so far, no one had ever succeeded. We all knew the warped plywood door wasn’t that hard to budge, but the creaks and squeaks that rang out at the slightest touch were so loud it always made the invaders scurry away like terrified mice.

  I had tried once, back in Clover, to break into canteen with Jordana and Carly, but we didn’t even make it to the building. We were halfway across the lawn when we heard Earl’s golf cart revving nearby. The three of us beelined for the rocks at the waterfront and dove behind them to hide. I accidentally slammed my knee into a smaller rock when I landed and had a bruise bigger than my fist for three weeks afterward. My bruise looked like a side view of a man’s head, so Carly and I named it Bruno Bruiser and took a picture of it with the disposable camera she always brought to camp. I still had the photo. I showed it to Jamie once, but she didn’t get it. Maybe some things were only funny at camp.

  We lived for our weekly canteen visits. Junior campers had canteen on Tuesdays, intermediate campers went on Wednesdays, and us seniors had it every Thursday night. Canteen offered more than just snacks—you could restock on soap, shampoo, hair bands, stamps, envelopes, and other supplies you might run out of before the end of camp. But the real attraction was the junk food. The meals in the dining hall were good, but summer just wasn’t summer without Popsicles that turned your tongue blue and bright orange soda that was so sugary it made your teeth hurt.

  It was all Asters at the front of the line, of course, and the few who strolled over late just butted in to join their friends. Those girls were fifteen years old, already in high school, but some of them still acted like the cliquey girls I couldn’t stand at my middle school back home.

  “They just cut,” I told Carly, nodding at two Asters who’d just arrived.

  Carly shrugged. “I’d let you in line if you were late. That’s what friends do.”

  “Oh.” I realized she was right. “I’d let you cut, too.”

  Carly grabbed my hand and started swinging it while she lifted herself on her tippy-toes. “What’s taking so long? All I want in life right now is sugar!”

  “I see Brenda coming,” I reassured her. “It’ll open in a sec.”

  Jordana was in line in front of us, waving like crazy to get Simone’s and Bella’s attention. They eventually turned and waved at her, but then turned back to their Aster bunkmates and pretended not to hear Jordana’s request for “frontsies.”

  And then the cheering began.

  Marigolds started the “Go Bananas” cheer, clapping as they called out the letters B-A-N-A-N-A-S over and over. All the Aster girls joined in, adding foot stomping to the clapping. The cheer got louder with each round while Brenda fumbled with the padlock and ushered two counselors in with her to help her flip open the window and distribute the food and supplies.

  Chieko appeared beside me, one hand holding her Eleanor Roosevelt book, the other palming her forehead like she was auditioning for a headache commercial.

  “This was not in the brochure. I swear to God.” Chieko shook her head at me. “There was no mention at all of this coordinated screeching.”

  “You mean cheering,” I corrected her.

  “How about we cheer for some peace and quiet?” she called out into the storm of noise around her.

  The crowd behind us increased their volume even more to spell out, “B-A-N-A-N-A-S! GO, GO BANANAS!”

  “You’d think our lives were at stake here and not just some Snickers and root beer.” She tucked her book into her back pocket.

  “I told you,” I said. “Camp is pretty much just two straight months of people cheering and clapping at each other.”

  “Who even made these cheers up?” Chieko asked. “‘Go Bananas’? Where do we want them to go? And why are we picking on bananas? We need the potassium.”

  “Chieko, I think you made a serious mistake by signing up as a camp counselor,” I told her.

  “I know. I’m in my own personal hell. But that’s kind of why I did it.”

  “You wanted to spend your summer in hell?” I was confused.

  Chieko shook her head, pulled out her book again, and whipped it open to a page she had dog-eared. “See? Right here. This is what I’m spending my summer doing.”

  She shoved the book in front of my face, and I read the underlined sentence out loud. “‘You must do the thing you think you cannot do.’”

  “Yup.” Chieko nodded once in agreement.

  “Says who?” I asked.

  “Says Eleanor Roosevelt.” She flipped the book closed to show me the cover.

  “Did Eleanor Roosevelt know you’d be surrounded by constant screaming for weeks on end?”

  The volume had reached a level that was even beginning to hurt my ears. “G-O-B-A-N, B-A-N-A-N-A-S, GO BANANAS, GO, GO BANANAS!”

  “Good God.” Chieko squinted her eyes closed and pushed her hands even tighter over her ears. “I should have packed more Tylenol.”

  “Get some from clinic,” I told her.

  “I can’t go there. They even cheer at clinic. It’s insane. And inane. It’s insane and inane.”

  “What’s ‘inane’ mean?” I asked.

  “It means this.” And she motioned at all the screaming, clapping, stomping girls around her. “It means foolish, stupid, vapid, idiotic, absurd, and any other synonym you can think of.”

  “I bet you aced your verbal SAT.” I patted her on the shoulder.

  “And I will pass my vocabulary skills on to you, young one. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.” Then Chieko clutched her stomach and fell over herself laughing while repeating “big bucks,” which made it pretty clear that the counselors at Meadow Wood got paid next to nothing.

  The line moved quickly once it started, and in less than two minutes it was my turn to order.

  “A root beer and a Kit Kat Big Kat bar, please.” The root beer was for Carly, since she won the Jordana bet, but she already told me we could split it.

  As the counselor turned to grab my items, Brenda stepped into her place and said, “Hi, Vic. Can we talk?”

  I stalled a moment, hoping my snack would arrive so I could rip into it while Brenda talked to me, but the counselor was slow and Brenda was quick.

  “Come to the back.” And she turned toward the door, a look on her face I hadn’t seen before. I had no choice but to walk around and meet her, my stomach grumbling for candy.

  She stepped out of the canteen, looked down at me from her lofty height, and said, “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but there’s no money in your canteen account.”

  My mouth opened but no sound came out.

  “There was money, when camp started, but your mom called today a
nd pulled it out. She said you didn’t need it.”

  I felt my lips come together to form the beginning of What? but then they just froze again.

  “I’m sorry, Vic. You can get canteen today, on me, but after that you’ll have to sit it out unless your parents send in the money.”

  I felt my head nod in understanding, even though I didn’t understand it at all.

  The sound of wrappers being ripped and Popsicles being sucked filled the air. Soda can tabs popped open, followed by the sounds of greedy gulping, loud burping, and laughter. I wasn’t a part of any of it.

  My mind whirled.

  I’ll tell him, I promise, once the kids are gone.

  We’d been gone for six days.

  Did that mean she told him? Did my dad know about Darrin? Did my dad leave? Did he storm off in anger, taking credit cards and closing accounts to punish my mom? Was my mom on her own? Was that what she wanted—to be on her own, with Darrin?

  The grass under my feet rolled and spun, and I had to lean against the canteen wall to steady myself. My heart started pounding so hard and heavy in my chest I thought Brenda would hear it. Sweat started to bead up over every inch of my body, even though I felt nothing but a cold, clammy dampness drenching me.

  Brenda took my hand and gave it a squeeze, then slid something into it as she said more words I didn’t hear. I shoved whatever it was into my back pocket as she turned and went back into canteen, leaving me dazed and alone.

  I stayed there a minute, breathing in and out, waiting for my heart to stop beating in my ears. Once I had my balance back, I walked away. I left the canteen and my friends and Chieko and walked, quickly, to the main office, which was just one small room off Brenda and Earl’s cabin. I heard Carly’s voice shout, “Vic?” but I didn’t answer and she didn’t come after me.

  The door was unlocked and the office was empty, so I marched right in like I owned the place. I picked up the phone and dialed home with a rock in my throat so big I almost couldn’t breathe.

  She answered on the first ring.