Rocky sailed his two empty water bottles toward the steel garbage drum at the entrance to the shed. The light plastic drifted off the mark, much like his conversation with Max. All he wanted to do was change his oil. Somehow they were on trucks and cycles and epic battles. The gash on his head throbbed and continued to bleed and all he could think about was how it would look to Gia if he saw her tomorrow.
He headed toward his car with Leo at his side. “I have to get back home and get to work. Thanks for your help.”
“Whoa, wait a minute.” Max scrambled for something on the ground. “Here. At least take some fresh towels. Are you sure you don’t want to go up to the house and take a look? Or I have some duct tape here. And bungee cords. I could strap those towels to your head to leave your hands free for driving.”
“Knock it off.”
“OK. Whatever. Let me know about the race.”
“C’mon, Max, have you been comparing notes with my mother? Do this, do that, find a wife.” He transferred into the driver’s seat and contemplated the best place for his chair now that the seat was back. “Here’s an idea. If you want to ride a bike so bad, ask my mom. The two of you can train for the MS 150 together and spend the time talking about how to reorganize my life.”
Max rested his hands on his hips. Then he laughed. “Dude. Chill. It was just a thought. And I love your mom, but you’ve got to stop putting images in my head. Seriously.”
Rocky cracked up a little himself at the unexpected visual, even though it hurt his head to smile. “OK, I know. Sorry, but all I’m trying to do is get through my presentation tomorrow.” He started the car and adjusted the vents so the air would blow right in his face as soon as it cooled.
“Like I said, buddy, use your natural epic-ness to your advantage.”
“I’m outta here. And you really have to stop talking like that. It’s weird.” He put the car in gear. “I’ll see you Sunday morning.”
He circled the tree and headed out.
Epic battles. Epic warriors.
He paused at the end of the drive and turned onto the main road. He had only one concern of epic anything when it came to Gia.
Epic fail.
3
Gia pulled the lighter out of her pocket and glanced over both shoulders before she flicked the dial. The corner of the ivory envelope curled and turned black amidst the orange flame. She knelt at the edge of the pit and dropped the blackening letter into the pile of ash. In a pop of burning color it was gone.
End of problem.
“What’s up?” Rebekah stood on the cabin porch with her hands on her hips. “I thought Mr. Olivares was the only person allowed to start a campfire for us in this dry weather.”
“I’m not starting a campfire at ten AM.” There was a second of alarm. If they were both outside... “Where are the girls?”
“They’re still inside changing for the lake.” Rebekah plopped down on the top step. “We can’t lose one if I’m sitting here blocking the door. And it’s not like we can’t hear them. The whole county can hear them.” She sniffed the air. “I smell smoke.”
Gia slipped the lighter into the lower pocket on her cargo shorts. “Who are you, Smokey the Bear? I told you there’s no fire.”
“Oh, Gia. I may be a ditz-bot on occasion, and I know I get on your nerves sometimes, but I am not without a working brain. That’s the fourth envelope I’ve seen you destroy in a week.” She patted the step beside her. “So why don’t you sit a spell and tell your little rookie sis about it. ‘Cause it’s just you and me in this wooded oven all summer and you may have to trust me.”
Gia looked around. The boys of Mighty Oak Cabin 2B, who resided in their own rustic structure on the other side of the common fire ring, had already headed for the lake. If she wanted to share something with Rebekah—which she did not—she had to be sure no one ever overheard any conversation about her tumultuous last semester of college.
She’d told no one about the handsome and seemingly harmless professor whose romantic cat-and-mouse pursuit of her was charming at first, especially in light of their forbidden faculty/student situation. Her near graduation and his adjunct status blurred those lines in her mind. It ended quickly but, when she tried to break free, his stalking behavior and emotional blackmail forced her to withdraw from the very educational community she’d worked so hard to claw her way back in to. Their sick relationship culminated on the evening of a department awards dinner in late April. Her last clear memory of that night was of him following her to her car.
She shivered beneath the burn of the mid-morning sun and struggled to concentrate as the same spotty images scrolled again through her mind. Were they dreams or were they memories? She’d seen herself in his car in the same dress she’d worn to dinner. But did that happen? Or was she watching it in a dream from far outside herself? She woke in her car, but why had she been asleep? She thought her head might explode from the confusion. For her sanity she had to push it away, but didn’t she need to know? Why didn’t it all gel in her mind, why did she dream about it like it happened but really didn’t, and where were the missing hours?
It was maddening.
What happened that night?
“C’mon. Sit,” Rebekah repeated. “Tell me about it.”
Gia gripped the rail. “Nothing to tell.”
“That look on your face says otherwise. You’ve either got some story going on in that head of yours, or you’re about to toss your cookies again.”
“I feel fine. Great, actually. I think that bug is finally gone.”
“Then the story must be a doozy.”
Gia leaned in, her voice a little more than a whisper. “Look, it’s nothing, OK? I dated a man before I left school. Didn’t know he was such a weirdo. He’s slow to take the hint. I’m ignoring him until he goes away.”
“What kind of weirdo? Like a stalking weirdo? Like he might show up here?”
Gia hadn’t seriously considered that. “No. He’s more of a mental tormenter. He likes to play mind games. I suspect these letters are more of an emotional threat.”
Rebekah left the step and pulled Gia away from the cabin. “Wait. What does that mean you
suspect
? Haven’t you read those letters?”
“Keep it down. I told you there’s nothing to tell. He’s not coming here.”
“But if you haven’t read the letters you don’t really know what he’s up to. And since you’ve been burning things out here like an over-excited pyromaniac, we don’t have any evidence of intent if he does show up here. We can alert camp security to be on the lookout, but it would help if we had one of those letters or a picture. Do you have a picture?”
“No, I don’t have a picture. You’re way over-thinking this.” Her heart skipped a beat as her own panic rocketed and possible scenarios multiplied in her mind. “We need to stop this and get back inside. Stop worrying about my sophomoric mistake. That guy is merely a psycho lunatic mental abuser who not only flirts with the dark side of his personality, but lives there most of the time behind a sweet unassuming smile.”
Maybe that was too much. All right, waaaayyyy too much.
Rebekah’s eyes grew wide at the same rate her mouth opened. “That would be poetic if it wasn’t so inherently scary.”
Gia tried to usher her back toward the cabin. “Everything’s fine, rookie. If I get another letter, I’ll look at it. If it’s anything, I’ll tell someone. Camp safety is my top priority. And I’m a psych major, remember? I know this guy.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Don’t worry, and don’t say a word.” She pounded on the door. “Let’s go, girls! Don’t forget the sunscreen.”
Rebekah gave her the I-hear-you-but-I-don’t-really-believe-you look and opened the cabin door. “By the way,” she whispered, “isn’t it against the rules for camp staff to have a lighter?”
“It’s also against the rules for camp staff to use their phones at any time they are on active duty. Yet last night I spotted a glow from under your covers.”
Rebekah hitched up her chin and slipped on through the door.
Gia grabbed her own towel and sunscreen and plucked the clipboard off its hook. “Fall in, girls.”
Ten chatterboxes spilled out of the cabin in a coconut-scented cloud and stood in loose formation. Some tried, in vain, to stifle their excitement. Others stood like mummies with extra towels secured around their swimsuit-clad bodies. Gia took note of who was uncomfortable. She would quietly work with those girls at the lake in hopes of creating a positive experience. She remembered well their insecurity, and had come to expect a certain number of body and self-image issues in every group.
But despite the need for angst-inducing swimwear, camp water activities remained the most popular. When a low rumble of thunder crept from the westward sky and popped their bubble of anticipation, they erupted into an overly dramatic and inconsolable collective wail.
“Now we have to wait an hour for The Blob,” Sophie whined.
“It’s not an hour,” Caroline corrected her. “It’s like fifteen minutes from the time the thunder starts.”
“Yes,” someone else chimed in, “but that fifteen minutes starts with every new clap of thunder.”
“We’re never gonna get on The Blob today,” someone else lamented, and the whole group dissolved into a noisy discussion about the unfairness of the situation and the woes of weather safety.
Gia understood their frustration. Storms were few and far between in east Texas during the summer, but it was not unusual to hear distant thunder claps on an otherwise clear day that never culminated into a real weather event.
“Don’t worry yet,” she said. “Let’s move out.”
“That’s the spirit,” Rebekah added. “Maybe they didn’t hear that down at the lake.”
No one really believed that, but it was a good effort on the rookie’s part.
Rebekah scrambled to reach her as they hit the narrow path. “They sure love The Blob.”
Gia smiled. “Oh, yeah. There’s nothing here better than The Blob.”
And there wasn’t. It was only the best thing ever. A magical forty foot inflated pillow that rested on top of the water in brilliant hues of blue, red, and yellow. Giggling campers would scurry up the ladder to the platform and jump onto The Blob, launching the person at the other end into the water with amazing height and distance. Enthusiastic campers couldn’t swim fast enough to get back for another turn. For added excitement, veteran male counselors who knew all the tricks of a successful launch often took turns to see who could keep a kid airborne the longest.
“I’m heading up front,” Rebekah called out. She darted from the path and jogged past the girls. Along the way, she left the trail and circled two tall pines as she sometimes walked backward and sideways to scan the woods around them.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Gia muttered. She caught up with the skittish rookie and snatched her by the sleeve right out of the group. “Look here,
Miss Law and Order
, I know what you’re doing and you need to stop. I have no stalker.”
“All right, I know. But our conversation made me feel all wonky. It could happen, you know. If that crazy guy knows where to mail letters, he knows how to get here.”
“You see why I didn’t want to talk about it? You are literally going to drive me nuts by the end of the summer. Now, get back up at the front and make sure they don’t go left at the dining hall and end up in the camp kitchen. No one needs to see how the spaghetti comes together.”
Gia fell in at the back of the pack while Rebekah ran toward the front.
At the hint of more noise from the sky, Caroline stopped abruptly and turned to crash into her. “Is that what I think it is?”
“No, baby.” She turned her around and pushed her forward. “That’s the angels bowling.”
“No, wait,” she whined and twirled right back into Gia’s chest. “What happens if they don’t let us swim?”
“Don’t worry. If we miss our scheduled time today, we’ll get another time slot. Maybe later today when it’s safe.”
Caroline stood still long enough for a sweet smile of relief to blossom and sweep across her face. “That’s good, Gia. ‘Cause you know, there’s nothing better than The Blob.”
****
As rattling experiences went, Rocky decided this one was not as rattling as he’d expected. Yes, he had to worry about his talk. And the absurd bandage on his head. And getting back off the stage by way of the same ramp that ate his lunch last week. But overall, it was going well. He wrapped up his presentation and so far he hadn’t fallen off the platform or sustained another cut or scrape.
He also hadn’t seen Gia, and that was more disappointing than he wanted to admit.
The camp director took the microphone from him and offered more thanks and applause as a group of counselors gathered to perform a series of improvisational skits. Auxiliary camp staff—including him—were called to judge as each group drew a topic out of a giant stew pot from the kitchen.
He made his way down the ramp and to the judge’s table. A sauna-like mist of humidity settled over everyone like a soggy blanket. Wafts of garlic and basil from the kitchen mingled with “wet kid” smells from the crowd and hovered in the thick air. The rain shower that had blown through earlier in the day did little to ease the stifling heat. Still, he was content at Camp Towering Pines. Content among the children, content with the goofy camaraderie between his new staff acquaintances, and content with the idea that maybe this leap outside his comfort zone had been exactly what he needed.
He downed another liter of water from his jug and conferred with his fellow adjudicators as each group launched their informative acts about everything from bullying and self-confidence to personal camp hygiene and bathroom cleanliness. A blast from an air horn started and stopped each skit while judges reserved the right to toss props onto the stage that actors had to pick up and incorporate into their scenes. The crowd came unglued when Rocky pulled a rubber chicken and a toilet brush from the wooden box and chunked them at the participants’ feet. He laughed until the first aid tape on the side of his forehead began to peel away.
As that skit ended, he scanned the crowd behind him in search of Gia. She wasn’t there. Instead, when he turned back around, she was in the middle of the stage. She caught his gaze and returned his surely spastic smile with a warm and easy one. The subtle arch of her brow, accompanied with the curious tilt of her head, made him think she was wondering how he ended up at the American Idol-like judgment table. He wondered that himself as he managed a slight wave. There was no use trying to look self-assured or uninterested. She simply disarmed him to the point of goofiness.