Her Kind of Hero

by Janice Carter

“How did the previous owners use this place?”

  “I think it was a very large summer home for someone originally, but I heard that the couple who willed it to the town set it up as a lodge.”

  “People came here for a vacation?”

  Clearly not her kind of getaway place, Matt thought. “It’s smaller than most vacation lodges but yes. The offices down here were also used as bedrooms, I believe. Plus, there was one sleeping cabin and the outdoor washroom buildings.”

  “So, people didn’t have their own bathrooms.”

  “It was an affordable place for families. Everyone needs an escape from the big city in the summer,” he said, seeing her flush as she picked up on his implied gibe. “The tables across from the library are for quiet time or rainy-day activities. People have donated a number of board games and jigsaw puzzles.”

  She gave it a cursory glance before saying, “The offices. Are they for all the staff?”

  “Basically. Kristen, Sandro and I share the largest one. Then there’s one that the rest of the staff can use. It’s got a couple of desks, two computers and a landline. Maria uses it as her office, but anyone can check email on the second computer.”

  “Though people probably use their cell phones. What’s the reception like here?”

  “It’s good. We’re not far from the town, but we don’t have Wi-Fi. Besides those two rooms, we also have one we call the sick room.”

  “Do you have medical personnel on staff?”

  “Unfortunately, the budget doesn’t extend that far. We do have a board member who’s also a nurse practitioner and she’s available for a few hours when the camp is running through the summer.”

  “What kind of liability insurance do you have?”

  This was the lawyer speaking now, Matt thought. “We’re covered—don’t worry.”

  She raised a skeptical eyebrow that he ignored.

  “Okay, well, let’s put your backpack in my office and then we’ll check out the cabins and the grounds. You can change your shoes, too,” he added, hiding a quick smile.

  By the time they’d made it to the new sleeping cabin, Matt guessed that Dana might bow out of her offer to help. If so, he’d go with his plan B and have the new worker at KidsFirst take over for Dana on the weekend. But he didn’t feel like letting her off the hook just yet.

  Her smile when she took in the freshly painted girls’ cabin with its new windows and screens was refreshing, but it disappeared when he showed her the broom-closet-sized room that would be hers.

  “Not much storage space,” she commented, staring bleakly at the two-drawer chest between the two cots.

  Matt laughed, “You’ll only be here on weekends, Dana. And as I told you, this weekend is a short one. Just Saturday night, so you’ll be supervising on your own. Plus, there’ll be fewer girls.”

  “I was thinking of the two people who’d be in here all summer,” she snapped.

  He wanted to tell her that wasn’t her concern but had to admit she had a point. He surveyed the room. Maybe there’d be just enough space for one of those DIY wardrobe kits. “Well...I’ll get Maria to check into that.”

  As irritating as her observations were, Matt knew he and the team hadn’t worked out much in the way of staffing for the summer. Then the cabins, each with a full complement of twenty kids, would need two night supervisors. The problem was, now that the town was reviewing the lease agreement, things were up in the air. It was a stressful situation, but Matt knew he needed to be patient.

  “Shall we walk down to the lake, or would you rather do that after you’ve made up the beds?”

  Dana glanced at the stack of clean linens on one of the new bunk beds. “A walk would be nice.”

  Matt figured he could do that job himself if necessary. He paused outside the cabin, inhaling deeply.

  “The air is different out here, isn’t it?” Dana said as she came up beside him.

  He took another deep breath. “It is.” He waited a moment, then said, “I’ll show you the other cabins.”

  He led the way to two other wood-frame buildings. “These were built a few years after the couple who owned the place bought it, so they’re at the top of our list of necessary repairs.” He thought he saw a slight shiver as she eyed them. “They’re not too bad inside. The newer cabin we were just in was for the girls, and that one there is for the boys. The washroom cabin behind them is divided into girls’ and boys’ sides. All the necessary conveniences but just—”

  “Outside.”

  “Well, it is a camp,” he pointed out.

  “Shall we get to the lake?”

  “Fine. Let’s get to the lake.” And get the day over with. He strode ahead, circled behind the lodge, trotted down the slope and stopped at the graveled edge of Maple Lake. The still, glistening water helped calm him. You can end this right now, he told himself. It was a dumb idea. Accept that and get on with things.

  He waited for her to catch her breath when she caught up to him. “I was going to say that you don’t owe me anything,” he began, “because, to be honest, this whole idea of your helping out here was impulsive. I never really expected you to take me up on it and there’s no shame in simply telling me you’d rather not do this. We can call it a day right now and I’ll drive you back to the city. Okay?”

  A band of red rose up from the base of her throat into her face. She turned away, but not before he saw her swallow hard, tightening her jaw and blinking. Matt bent down to pick up a couple of smooth pebbles and skimmed one across the water. He figured he ought to have told her all that earlier, on the way to the camp. But then he’d still had some hope that she’d rise to his challenge.

  “That day,” she finally said, her voice settling into a steady coolness, “I was on my way to Oak Park to see our old house. The one I lived in until my mother died.”

  Matt dropped the second stone.

  “I’d just transferred to a new school and...and things weren’t going well. It was the third school in a year and my father... Well...he was running out of patience. There’d been an incident that morning. Some girls were spreading stories about me. I’d planned to confront them and tell them how mean they were. But one of them started to laugh and I cried instead.”

  The naked emotion in her face made him look away. He suddenly thought of Rosie and the trouble she’d had at school years ago, when she’d been newly diagnosed.

  “So I left school at lunchtime and wandered around the neighborhood for a bit. I couldn’t go home because I knew our housekeeper would ask a lot of questions that I didn’t feel like answering. Then I had the idea of going out to Oak Park to visit the place where I had been happy...” Her voice drifted off.

  If she’d been a friend, Matt would have hugged her. But he knew that she needed to tell her story and that he wanted to hear it.

  “Anyway, I didn’t know any of those kids on the platform. But when I was going through the turnstile, I accidentally stepped on a girl’s foot. I tried to apologize, but she kept yelling that I was disrespectful.”

  “Showing off for her friends,” Matt put in.

  “I guess.” Dana looked his way. “I thought if I just ignored her, she’d figure out I was no threat and leave me alone. But when I got down to the platform, she gave me a hard push.”

  “She couldn’t afford to lose face with her buddies.”

  “I can see you know teenagers.”

  “Well, I was one myself once.”

  “But not like those kids.”

  Matt stared out across the lake. Maybe not quite like them.

  “Anyway, you know the rest of that story. But the whole way home, I was thinking about what happened and especially about what might have happened,” she went on.

  You and me both.

  “I decided I was never going to let myself be bullied again, even if it meant I was doomed
to be a complete loner at school. And I was for the rest of my high school years. I made myself toughen up. I finally did just what my father had been wanting me to do.”

  Now he really wanted to hug her, but instead he said, “I didn’t mean to sound angry back there. I’m a bit sensitive when it comes to Camp Hope. It was my dream for a long time and now that I’ve finally managed to make it happen...well...hearing anything that seems like skepticism makes me overreact sometimes.” He paused, watching her take this in, then added, “But seriously, I’m letting you off the hook.”

  “No. What I’m trying to say is that I know sometimes I can be... That...sometimes I come across as...”

  “Dana,” he said, reaching out for her hand, “be kind to yourself. You had an awful experience—a life-threatening one. You no longer have to prove anything to anyone, least of all me. It’s all right. I’m happy to have met you and... Well...I can take you home.”

  She shook her head, slipping her hand out of his. “No, Matt. I need to do this. I will rise to the challenge. You’ll see.”

  His held her gaze, unable to think of a single thing to say. But he felt a lightness flare briefly inside. “Then I guess we should get back to the cabins...and those bunk beds.”

  DANA SANK BENEATH the billowy foam in her bath, leaned against the end of the tub and let out a long sigh. But her fatigue wasn’t physical. Hiking and running had been part of her life since high school. Her father had encouraged a full regimen of athletics, part of his “get tough” campaign. And after that day on the subway, Dana had accepted the challenge with determination.

  No, her exhaustion was a result of her inner turmoil, rather than making up twenty-two beds. She wondered who’d be in charge of the boys’ cabin. Matt? She felt an unexpected pleasure at the thought of him mere yards away.

  The whole time she was working, she was thinking of him and the way he didn’t interrupt her or dole out meaningless phrases of sympathy. He simply let her talk, and although that day had played like a horrifying video in her head for years, she’d never actually talked about it to anyone. It was fitting that the first person to hear her pathetic story was Matt. His hand wrapped around hers had given her the courage to go on. The strength and reassurance of that grasp stayed with her the rest of the day at Camp Hope.

  After she’d made up the beds, he’d helped her sweep, then mop the floors in both cabins. She’d thought he might open up while they were working and tell her something of that day from his perspective, or even about his life afterward. But the talk had been mainly outlining the agenda for the next day’s meeting at the camp. Something was obviously on his mind during the ride back to the city, and he’d fallen into a long silence.

  She sat up and rinsed off the puffs of foam on her arms and chest. She’d noticed that Sandro hadn’t been happy about her volunteering, though she couldn’t be certain if his upset had been directed at her or Matt. Not that she cared. Many people made assumptions about her abilities or character merely based on appearance. She understood how and why those opinions were formed. After that day, she’d learned to dismiss those people the way they dismissed her. She didn’t need them in her life anyway.

  Matt was different, though she couldn’t explain why. When he was showing her around the camp, she saw that his pride blinded him to the negative aspects she couldn’t help pointing out. Her attempt to help had been interpreted as nit-picking. But for twenty years he’d been her hero and though he obviously drew the same conclusions about her that Sandro had, she needed to prove him wrong.

  Rising up, Dana released the tub stopper and reached for the thick white towel draped over the stool next to the vanity. How hard could it be to spend a couple of days with some kids?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AS THE LAST board member left the meeting room at KidsFirst, Matt turned to Kristen, who raised an eyebrow.

  “They have a point,” she said. “What plan do we have if Willow Springs doesn’t renew our lease?”

  He didn’t want to consider that possibility, which was why he hadn’t come up with a worst-case-scenario response for the board. Keeping his tone neutral, he said, “Margot MacDougal and Bob Hutchings have some great ideas for our new fund-raising campaign in the fall and we’ve got enough in the budget to cover this summer at least. And why wouldn’t they renew? They’ve never used the property the whole time they’ve owned it. How can they lose? It’s a cash cow for them.”

  Kristen snorted. “More like a cash chicken. Remember the trouble we had last year? With Happy-Go-Lucky Campground?”

  Something else Matt didn’t want to think about. He walked around the conference table, collecting empty water glasses, some agendas that were left behind and a board member’s eyeglasses. “Whose are these?” He held them up, evading Kristen’s question.

  “Bob’s, I think.”

  “Okay. I’ll leave them on my desk for when he comes back for them.” He tucked them into his shirt pocket.

  “Which will be soon, I imagine. And you haven’t answered my question. What will we do if they don’t renew the lease? Our donors expect us to open and operate Camp Hope for the whole summer.”

  Matt set the tray of glasses on the table. “That’s not going to happen. Sandro has a work friend whose father-in-law is on the council. He told Sandro’s friend that the town liked having the camp. It makes them look good to be supporting a cause that helps city kids, and in spite of the complaints from that campground, we’ve been easy tenants. It’s a win-win.”

  “For now. But things can change, Matt. You of all people should know that.” She paused, waiting for a response. Then she sighed, “See you at the camp meeting tomorrow.” And she left the room.

  * * *

  MATT WATCHED HER LEAVE. Her remark stung; it was a reminder of a night more than a year ago when he and Kristen had gone for drinks, celebrating the city’s grant increase. They’d talked about events that precipitated life changes. He hadn’t told her about that day on the subway—he’d never told anyone that—but had confided that a major incident in his teens, along with a connection to a gang member, had led to his enlisting in the army and cleaning up his life.

  Something had been bugging Kristen tonight, and Matt suspected it had to do with the news that Dana would be volunteering.

  The ten-member board of KidsFirst Place was a requirement of the city, the drop-in’s main funding source. Its task was primarily to work with Matt and the staff to ensure public funds were spent according to the city’s guidelines and that the community was served according to the drop-in’s mandate. It consisted of a handful of community residents along with a few social welfare professionals, as well as Sandro and Kristen, representing the staff. They met monthly, and in spite of the range of their backgrounds, they got along.

  After the financial report and the discussion on the recent funding cuts from the city, which had cast a pall on the meeting, Matt had outlined the plans for the next three weekends at Camp Hope. He and the staff had chosen twenty kids for the first session—ten boys and ten girls—ages nine and ten. Their selection had been based on need as well as compatibility. It would be a short weekend, Saturday morning to Sunday after lunch.

  That was when he’d mentioned Dana, referring to her as a volunteer who’d read about the center in the paper, had some free time from work and wanted to help out for a couple of weeks.

  It was then that he’d intercepted a glance between Kristen and Sandro that told him they’d been talking about this recent development. Matt’s delivery had faltered for a second. The three of them had always been tight, working well as a team, and friends outside work, too. He hoped his decision wouldn’t jeopardize that.

  But why should it? Perhaps he ought to have run the idea past them, but it had been as impulsive as...well, his action that day on the Green Line. Besides, he was the director and founder of KidsFirst. Surely, he could make some decisions on his
own.

  On the drive back to his apartment Matt recalled the moment at Camp Hope when Dana told him the full story about that day, and he saw the impact it had made on her. How the bullying had made her a very different person than she might have been. And there was his own transformation. It had been a fateful day for both of them.

  Holding her hand as she’d spoken had felt natural, as if they’d been friends for a long time. He respected her for finishing what was clearly a difficult story and especially, for her insistence on helping out at the camp even after he’d offered her an out. If only he could dismiss the small worry that his faith in that determination might be completely misguided.

  * * *

  MATT COULDN’T PUT off starting the meeting any longer. The chitchat was dying down and everyone was sitting with copies of his handout. The plates of cookies and donuts had been passed around twice and the coffee and teapots emptied, but still no sign of Dana. The meeting was supposed to start at ten, and it was now ten fifteen.

  He stood up. “Okay. You all have copies of the weekend agenda, but I’ll go through it to clarify some points. Feel free to interrupt with any questions.”

  The interruption that did come was the door flying open and a breathless Dana, her face flushed and a take-out coffee cup in hand, bursting into the room. All eight pairs of eyes turned on her, which inflamed her face even more.

  “Sorry,” she said, aiming for the sole empty chair at the table. “Traffic.”

  “Um, this is Dana Sothern, who’ll be volunteering at the camp for the next two weekends. Dana, I’ll start the introductions at my end. You’ve met Sandro already and Kristen, next to him.” Matt noted the curt nod that Sandro gave and the slight head tilt from Kristen—both minus a smile. Something else to deal with today, he thought, as he went on to June, the cook, and Gayle, her assistant. Then along to the other end of the table, Rob, the swimming instructor; Andy, the boys’ counselor and alternate program director with Sandro; and finally Jean, the camp’s part-time nurse. He explained that Dana and Kristen would take turns supervising the girls during the day. Kristen shot him an unhappy look, and he saw Dana react to it with a frown.