Camp (19 page)

Uncle Ed had been right about the intrusion of the home world into the camp world, as his “no-phone-calls letter” stated. Parents didn’t belong in this place, where all the rules were broken.

Charlie hopped up on my bed and pulled his stick legs to his chest. “No shoes on the bed. You know the rules,” my mother said as she stood by my cubby, studying the arrangement of soap, shampoo, and toothpaste. I was glad I had stripped the caked-on residue from the tube earlier that morning.

“It’s fine, Mom,” I murmured, anxious to avoid a scene. I sat next to my brother and stroked his back. “The rules are different here. His shoes don’t bother me.”

“Then it’s good we didn’t buy that more expensive blanket.” Did she notice mine was the only bed not dressed in Hudson Bay?

“Sonia, please, Sonia. You don’t have to worry about Amy’s things here.” My father fidgeted with the nail from which my laundry bag and robe dangled. “How ’bout introducing us to your friends, honey.” It wasn’t a request but a directive, my father’s effort to stem the tension between my mother and me.

I tried for a deep breath, but the air locked in my chest. I didn’t want to hear what my mother would say when she learned I wasn’t popular. And what would my father think when he found I’d been lying? I pushed out Donnie’s name, had to say it twice before she heard me over chatter and the ripping open of candy wrappers. I introduced her to my parents. I could see my mother sizing her up. Donnie: pudgy thighs, untucked shirt. A low ranking on the Sonia Becker scale. “And your other friends?” she asked.

Before I could answer, Charlie opened the grocery bag and pulled out a nectarine. It plopped on the floor. I jumped to pick it up as my mother started in. “Behave now, Charlie. Don’t touch anything else.”

Should I put the fruit back in the bag or toss it in the garbage? I stood there, not knowing which would make my mother less angry. I turned the nectarine in my hand. The soft spot where it had hit the floor made me think of a baby’s head. My father had told me about that space, where the skull isn’t fused, the first time I held Charlie, when my parents brought him home from the hospital. I remembered glancing at my mother, at her tired eyes. I was only six, but I’d noticed how sad she looked.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” I said in my camp cabin now as I tried to protect my brother. “It’s only a nectarine.”

“You have no idea how much fruit costs.”

“Sonia, please, Sonia. It’s one nectarine.”

As if my mother hadn’t heard, she went on about the money she’d spent for the best fruit she could find—more than any parents spent on junk food, she repeated several times. And while I stood there fingering the bruised nectarine, Charlie toppled the grocery bag.

Jessica chose that moment to walk by on her way to the bathroom. “Fruit?” she said. “You got fruit? Just wait till Rory hears. Boy, she’ll be sorry she missed this.”

Donnie helped me gather the peaches, plums, and nectarines that rolled under our beds like balls in an arcade machine. And though she clucked with comfort when everyone stared at my tumbling fruit, I feared Donnie regretted she had ever decided to be my friend.

I met Erin’s parents when the bell rang for morning activity period. Mrs. Hollander, her soft middle hidden by an oversized shirt, hugged me as if I were her child. “It’s so nice to meet Erin’s best friend,” she said. “I don’t know what she’d have done without you this summer.” I pictured Mrs. Hollander baking cookies, letting Erin eat dough off the mixing spoon.

“Hey, Charlie. This is for you.” Erin took a cookie from her pocket and placed it in Charlie's hand as we headed for the campcraft area. Charlie wriggled from my father, who talked with Erin’s dad as if they’d known each other for years, and squeezed between Erin and me. Right behind us, Erin’s mother told mine how happy she was that Erin and I were friends.

“See, isn’t this great? I told you it’d be great,” Erin said. “And your mom’s really pretty, by the way.”

“Thanks.” I knew the response, though I didn’t know why I had to thank everyone who noticed my mother’s looks.

“So didya get everything you wanted?”

“You wouldn’t believe what I got,” I whispered so my mother wouldn’t hear.

Erin pulled out another cookie. “For you.”

I couldn’t take the offering with Mom looking on. “No thanks. My mother doesn’t let me eat sweets.” I continued to keep my voice low while I spoke over Charlie’s head.

“Sorry, I didn’t know. So what’d they bring you?”

“You ready for this? Fruit.”

“And what else?”

“Fruit. That’s all. Nectarines, peaches, and plums.”

“Holy moly! Does Rory know?”

“Not yet. She hasn’t been around since cleanup. But she’ll hear soon enough.” I tightened my hold on Charlie and peeked behind us in case Rory crept up, in case my mother was listening in.

“Not to worry,” Erin said. “I’ve got plenty of stuff for both of us. If anyone asks, just say your parents left your real treats in the car.”

At campcraft we gathered twigs, then fanned the flame in a stone ring. Mothers stood back and sighed with boredom, while fathers moved in close and grinned as if their daughters had just discovered fire. Charlie, who had sandwiched himself between our father and Erin’s, flapped for my attention. “It’s okay, buddy,” I said when I pulled away from girls mixing pancake batter. “We’re getting ready to cook on a campfire. See? And once we make breakfast, you’ll get to eat with me. How’s that?”

Charlie smiled—a shadow of a smile, really. He looked so sad that I wanted to grab him and run. Run all the way home like Hansel and Gretel.

“Come on, you two,” Erin called. “Charlie can help. As we say in my house: The next best thing to a private chef is an extra pair of hands. Right, Mom?”

Erin’s mother chuckled as I reworked my daydream. I wouldn’t save my brother by running to our house. We would run to Erin’s, where Mrs. Hollander would let us eat half the chocolate chips before we mixed any into the cookie dough.

Nancy stopped by before the pancakes were done. She flashed her signature smile at the gathering of parents off to the side of the campcraft area, then squatted beside Charlie. “I’m glad you came to visit,” she said, her touch on his back as gentle as her voice. She greeted everyone, reminding fathers they could change into bathing suits in the rec hall bathrooms; mothers would use the nature hut. “And I’ll see you all at the lake in a half hour,” she said. “Enjoy this lovely day.”

It
was
a lovely day, I realized only after Nancy said it was. The sky uncluttered with clouds. The sun just right, warming the air to perfect picnic temperature. Yet I didn’t look forward to lunch on the lawn. I wanted to stretch our time at campcraft, away from my mother.

Erin swiped her father’s camera and snapped a photo of Charlie and me. Then she helped me explain to him why he had to go with Dad when campcraft ended. I liked how she told Charlie we wanted him to swim with us, and he had to get his suit on before he could go to the lake. “The lake,” Charlie whispered. “Swim with Amy.” He took my father’s hand and headed for the rec hall. No fuss. No scene. If only I could avoid Rory, then maybe visiting day wouldn’t be so bad.

Erin walked back to the cabin arm in arm with her mother, chatting as if they were friends. I escorted mine, the silence heavy between us. I thought about the way my mother had barely said “hi” to Donnie and Erin, about the bag of fruit, about Mom and Uncle Ed.

She spoke as we neared senior camp. “It’s nice here. Peaceful.”

A safe subject. I eked out a simple “Yes.”

“You’re very quiet.”

“Not much to say, I guess,” I answered, as the path from campcraft merged with the main path to our cabins. Campers barged in from the athletic areas, arts and crafts, drama, gymnastics. Girls hustled to change for swim, mothers at their sides. I turned at the laughter behind us: Rory and Robin in leotards that cinched their waists and hugged their chests.

“Hi, Aunt Sonia,” Robin cried. “Nice skirt.” I was certain my mother didn’t catch the sarcasm.

I kept walking while she slowed to say hello.

“Don’t run off,” Rory called. “Introduce me to your mother.”

“Looks like you’ve already met,” I said, glancing back as I tried to keep an even gait.

“Don’t be rude, Amy,” my mother told me. “Wait for Robin and your friend.”

“Your pretty mother has pretty good manners,” Rory said.

Robin giggled as Rory kept on. “So please introduce us. Then we gotta go. Time to get ready for swim. Your brother’s going in the lake with you, isn’t he?”

Seniors and their mothers scurried by as Rory, Robin, and my mother closed in on me, trapping me in the woods with no sign of home and only the witch’s house ahead.
Nibble, nibble like a mouse. Who is nibbling at my house?
I had to save Charlie. I had to save myself. Shutting my eyes for an instant, I struggled for air. “Mom, this is Rory. Rory, my mother.” The words scratched my throat.

“Pleased to meet you,” Rory said, as if being a lady came naturally. Then, “You know, Mrs. Becker, something about you reminds me of our counselor, Patsy, who’s very pretty too, I might add.”

My mother smiled. “Thank you. You’re a very sweet girl.”

“Well, see you in the cabin, Mrs. Becker. You too, Amy,” Rory called as she and Robin ran ahead.

My mother faced me and narrowed her lips. “Now that’s the kind of girl to be friends with. She and Robin seem pretty close. I’d like to meet her parents.”

“They didn’t come.”

“What a shame. They’re probably fine people.”

I was tempted to tell my mother that Rory should win an Academy Award. But instead, I chose silence.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” my mother said as we neared senior camp. “I raised you to have good manners, not to be rude to your friends.”

“Rory’s not my friend.”

“Well, she should be. She’s got a lot more on the ball than that Erin.”

“You don’t know them.” My words came clearly, louder than they should have.

“I know enough to say you don’t know how to pick the right friends, Amy.”

“I know more than you think I do.”

“And what does
that
mean?”

Uncle Ed and my mother. Every time I closed my eyes, the memory came back. “Never mind,” I answered as we entered Bunk 9.

Patsy faced the wall when she changed into her bathing suit. The presence of mothers must have made her modest. Usually Patsy stood bare-chested by her bed a bit longer than necessary, showing off her body—a lesson on what we should aspire to, I figured. This time, though, it was Rory who showed off. She stood facing us, pulling up her suit in slow motion.

Most of the mothers chose not to put suits on. Let the fathers swim with their daughters, they probably decided. Fathers, who wouldn’t care how they’d look coming out of the lake. Fathers, who wouldn’t have to worry about flattening their hair with bathing caps.

What I worried about as I put on my tank suit was what Rory was planning for Charlie. Clearly, she had played up to my mother for a reason. My mother, who sat at the foot of my bed, her legs crossed as if she were ready to take dictation. I changed facing my robe and laundry bag, avoiding my mother’s glance. Rory was gone before I turned around.