Authors: Bekah Bancroft
The days seemed to rush by. The camp offered tons of stuff for the girls to do, and Lissa helped out in everything as best she could.
Victoria and Kylee became best friends and Lissa found herself growing close to them, too. On wilderness hikes the two girls would hang back and stay near Lissa, talking. They covered several important topics like movies, clothes, and boys. Lissa laughed, remembering her conversations with her friends when they were that age.
They began to include Lissa in more and more of these discussion. One of the things on both girls’ minds was their transition to high school in the fall. On the way back from a long nature walk one morning, Lissa tried to reassure them.
“Yeah, the homework picks up, and the testing is important. But if you did okay in junior high, you should do fine in high school.”
“It’s just now, all the grades really mean something,” Kylee fretted. “Colleges look at your high school record. Nothing before that really matters!”
“Yeah,” Victoria chimed in. “And don’t forget we have to take the SAT, too.”
“Omigosh that’s right! And our class ranking counts toward admission to college, too!”
“It’s no use freaking out about it, you guys. You haven’t even started high school yet. Relax and enjoy the summer. Come on, it’s time for lunch.”
~~~
Lissa sat down at the adults’ table with her soup and sandwich. She noticed Kylee’s sister Alexis sat down with Kylee and Victoria, and began talking excitedly. All three girls kept glancing at her from across the room.
That’s weird,
she thought.
Raven came out of the line with her tray, and sat on the opposite end of the adults’ table. Lissa ignored her. A short while later, Josh came out with his tray. He sat down across from Lissa. Raven shot them both a look.
“Hey, how’s it going? Everything starting to click?”
Lissa smiled.
“Yeah, everything’s going great. The girls are having so much fun.”
He kept up a casual banter through the rest of the meal. Lissa couldn’t decide if he was flirting with her or not. He never once looked at the other girls at the table, even as it filled up with counselors, the nurse, and everyone else. All he did was talk with her.
She noticed Raven kept shooting them looks, so Lissa kept talking and smiling at Josh, just to tweak her a little.
~~~
Lissa didn’t see the girls again until after supper, when everybody had some free time. She walked back to the Adventurers cabin early. When she walked into the common room, Victoria and the two sisters were sharing a table.
“There she is!”
“Omigosh, Miss Lissa, you should hear this. Tell her, Alexis!”
Alexis blushed and looked down at the table.
“Tell me what?”
Lissa walked over and grabbed a chair to sit down at their table.
“Well, you should hear what Miss Raven has been saying about you. It’s some pretty nasty stuff.”
Lissa stood up again, and pushed the chair back under the table.
“That’s okay. I really don’t want to hear it. Let this be a life lesson to you girls. Don’t ever let somebody else get you down. And Alexis, you can go back to your cabin and tell the girls there that I don’t have anything bad to say about Miss Raven. That’s the way to handle things, not get into a contest about who can say the most hurtful words about someone behind their back.”
With that, she retired to her room. But as soon as she shut the door, she let the emotions wash over her.
What kind of person would say cruel things about her to a bunch of middle school girls? Who does that? It felt worse than someone saying something to her face, trying to hurt her feelings directly. It felt more like a betrayal.
She sat on the bed, and tried to read her book, but she couldn’t concentrate on it. Finally she gave up, and decided to go for a walk. Maybe being out in the night air would help calm her down.
As she walked out, she waved at Victoria and the sisters.
“Remember, lights out at ten. Alexis, be sure and leave with plenty of time to get back to your cabin.”
~~~
Most of the sidewalks around the campgrounds were lit up at night. They had five-foot-high posts with a light bulb aimed down so you could see where you were walking. The pathways connected the buildings together, but one led toward the back of the main grounds, past the pool and to an amphitheater nestled among the trees at the base of a hill. The girls were going to put on a talent show the last night of camp, and they would use the amphitheater for it.
She took the back path and walked out toward the amphitheater, hoping to be alone and let the night air soothe her bruised feelings. Lissa tried to think about anything besides Raven and how mean she was.
Finally she neared the amphitheater and she stopped, listening. She thought she heard music in the distance.
That’s odd this time of night,
she thought.
She walked to the edge of the darkened amphitheater and looked down. As soon as she reached the top seat, the full sound of a piano being played on the stage below reached her ears.
The amphitheater was built as a classic one, like the Greeks and Romans used way before electronics and microphones and speaker systems were around. The sound carried perfectly from the stage at the bottom up to the seats that surrounded it in a big half-circle. Outside the seats, the sound didn’t carry as far. That was why Lissa couldn’t really hear the piano well until she stepped to the edge of the top seat.
But what had been hard to hear while she approached the amphitheater became loud and clear now. She walked down the steps to get closer to the stage and see who was playing in the dim light. When she got close enough, she saw it was Josh. He stopped playing abruptly when he saw her.
“Hey, there.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Don’t stop. I just wanted to see who it was.”
He chuckled and stood up from the baby grand as she walked up onto the stage with him.
“I like to come out here and play a little after the end of a long day. Helps me relax, you know?”
“You’re really good. Keep playing, don’t let me hold you back.”
He chuckled again, a little nervously this time.
“Well, I’m not used to an audience. Hey, do you play? Maybe we can perform a duet. The staff usually makes a couple of performances for the talent show the last night at camp.”
“I play a little. It’s been years since I took piano lessons, though.”
They sat down on the bench together at the piano. She liked sitting close to him. She could feel the warmth of his body next to her.
“What should we play? I don’t have any sheet music out here. It’ll have to be by heart.”
“By heart, huh? How about ‘Heart and Soul?’ I’ll play the A part.”
He laughed since she had chosen the easy half of the duet. It was about one step up from “Chopsticks” in terms of difficulty. But he started playing the song and she chimed in with one hand on the high notes.
In the dim light and out of practice, she missed a few keys now and then, sounding occasional sour notes. He laughed each time.
“I suck at piano! Now I remember why I stopped taking lessons.”
“You’re doing fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“I am not doing fine. I’m really bad at this.”
He stopped playing and looked at her for a moment. Their faces were very close.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Lissa Jordan.”
She looked up into his incredibly cute face, feeling the warmth from his body. In the dim light, sitting at the baby grand piano on the amphitheater stage, the moment just felt perfect somehow.
He bent down and kissed her.
She wrapped her arms around him, his muscular chest pressing close to hers. It felt so good when he pulled her in tight, his strong arms comforting her, making her feel safe.
She savored the taste of his lips and the warm sensations of intimacy he brought up in her heart. She breathed in deep, filling her lungs with his scent.
Then somebody on the top step of the amphitheater began clapping in a slow, deliberate, sarcastic clap.
They broke apart, the special moment disappearing in an instant.
Josh and Lissa watched in the dim light as somebody walked down the steps. When she got close enough, they could see it was Raven.
“Congratulations, Josh. You just hooked up with the camp slut.”
Lissa gasped, and stood up.
Josh said, “Come on, Raven. That’s not right.”
Lissa ran off the stage and up the sidesteps, then ran back to her cabin, determined not to cry in front of Raven.
Alone in her room, she let it all out, and wiped away the tears. The accusation was so unfair. She wasn’t a slut by any measure. The moment just happened, and they kissed.
And it seemed doubly unfair since Lissa caught Raven sitting in Josh’s lap the first time she met them.
Lissa got a hold of herself. She dried her eyes, then splashed some water on her face and dried them again. She poked her head out a few minutes later and called for lights out. Then she shut her door and got under the covers and tried to go to sleep.
The next day she didn’t see Josh at breakfast. She ate a bowl of cereal and a cup of yogurt quickly, ignoring Raven sitting on the other end of the table. Raven laughed once while she ate, sharing something with the other staffers sitting near her, but Lissa refused to look over there. She was determined not to let Raven get to her.
Today was her day to teach CPR at the pool. Every girl learned it at the camp, along with some other basic medical tips. Lissa pulled out the teaching mannequins from storage and waited for her class to show up.
She wore her lifeguard swimsuit, a simple one-piece red outfit. She had slathered on the sunscreen and wore a baseball cap. She had covered her nose with a white zinc cream, too, since it burned so easy.
The girls in the class walked up and milled around the edge of the pool until she called everyone to attention and read through the list of names on her roll sheet.
She discussed the CPR techniques before demonstrating on a mannequin.
“You don’t need to worry so much about breathing into their mouths like they used to in the old days. Chest compression is the most important thing about restarting the heart.”
She showed them how to do it, then paired them up with mannequins to take turns practicing.
About that time Raven walked up, wearing a black bikini. Lissa noted Raven was perfectly tan, and of course the bikini fit her like a glove. She wasn’t wearing any nose cream. She shot Lissa a disdainful look, then headed over to the other side of the pool. Soon, several other campers came in wearing bathing suits, and Lissa realized they were part of a swim class Raven was teaching.
Lissa turned her back on Raven and tried to ignore her the rest of the morning.
~~~
At lunch, Josh came in late. He looked like he wanted to sit near Lissa, but several other staffers were already sitting around her and eating. Reluctantly, he took a seat near the middle of the adults’ table and quickly downed his food.
Lissa glanced over once, and he noticed Raven was pointedly not looking at him. He wasn’t looking at anybody, either. He just quickly finished his food before taking his tray to the dishwasher’s window.
Lissa thought about running after him when he walked out of the cafeteria. She felt like last night was cut short, and things were left hanging. She wanted to talk to him about it. She thought maybe he was starting to feel the same way toward her that she was beginning to feel toward him, but she wasn’t sure. She wanted to find out, and the only way to do that was talk to him some more.
But Raven was staring at her now, as if daring her to get up and chase after him. Lissa looked away, and continued eating her food.
I’m not going to give her the satisfaction,
she thought to herself.
~~~
The rest of the day went by without any further signs of Josh or Raven, and Lissa immersed herself in work.
Suppertime came, and again Josh was late. He showed up at the last moment, right before the serving line shut down. But Lissa had missed him. She had walked out the door a couple minutes before he got there.
For free time in the evening, Lissa determined that she would make progress on her book, and walked back to the cabin intending to start reading right away.
Several girls were in the Adventurers Cabin common room, including Victoria, Kylee, and Alexis. They were playing a board game together. Lissa decided to stop and talk with them for a little bit before heading back to her room.
“Miss Lissa, you really should hear what Miss Raven is saying about you now! She says she caught you making out with Mister Josh last night, and that you were all over him. Is it true? Did y’all make out?”
Alexis’ eyes were wide while sharing the gossip. Lissa could tell the younger girl was really wondering if it were true.
Her sister Kylee smiled.
“Wow, Josh is hot! I hope it’s true, Miss. I would jump all over him and smother him with kisses!”
Alexis gasped, and hit her sister’s shoulder.
“Kylee!”
“Well, I would! He’s hot! So how ’bout it, Miss Lissa? Did you and Mister Josh make out?”
Lissa smiled back at them. The other girls in the common room had picked up on the conversation and were listening now, too.
How should I handle this?
she thought to herself.
She paused for a moment, thinking. Finally, she decided to turn it back around on Raven.
“You can go back and tell Miss Raven,” Lissa said sweetly, “that she needn’t bother herself about things that are none of her concern.”
As she walked out of the room, she heard Kylee say, “Yup. She kissed him.”
~~~
About nine o’clock, she heard a knock on her door. She put down her book and opened it to find Victoria crying. She was holding her hands below her waist and sobbing like crazy.
“Victoria? What’s the matter? What is it?”
“Oh, Miss Lissa! I just started for the first time, and I’m wearing white shorts!”
“Come in, come in. It’s okay. Is this really your first time?”
“Yes! And I don’t have anything. I didn’t bring anything. I don’t have any pads or tampons or anything, Miss Lissa!”
“It’s okay. I’ve got some pads. You can use my bathroom. I’ll go grab another pair of shorts for you.”
She led Victoria by the arm into her private bathroom and showed her where the pads were. She shut the door, and went out into the bunkroom. She found Victoria’s bunk, pulled out her suitcase from under the bed, and retrieved a fresh set of the girl’s underwear and shorts.
Lissa went back to her private bathroom, knocked on the door, and opened it just enough to pass through the fresh clothes.
A few minutes later, Victoria walked out wearing the new clothes. She had placed the underwear and white shorts in a trash liner. Lissa gave her a hug as Victoria wiped back some more tears.
“So you’re kinda late, huh? I started when I was twelve.”
Victoria nodded, and rubbed her eyes.
“My sister started late, too. I just didn’t expect it to happen during summer camp!”
“It’s okay. Don’t feel bad.”
She gave the girl another hug, and Victoria seemed to be feeling better.
The door to the room opened.
“Miss Lissa where’s . . .”
Alexis stopped suddenly at the sight of Lissa and Victoria hugging. They broke apart, and Lissa smiled.
“Here she is. She’s all better now.”
Victoria nodded, sniffled a little, and walked out of the room. An hour later, Lissa called lights out.