by Sarah Dreher
"I know.”
"Will you do what they want?"
Shelby smiled wryly. "I always do what they want." She hesitated to go on, but it felt safe in the darkness. "I'm not a very strong person."
"I think you are," Fran said. A bird rustled the forest floor. "But you are kind of a sad person under it, aren't you?”
A flash of something like soft electricity flowed through her. She forced a laugh. "I hope not. I'd hate to be a drag."
Fran rolled toward her on her side and leaned on her elbow. Her face was soft in the moonlight. "I don't mean like that. A kind of..." She was silent for a moment, searching for words. "Something like loneliness."
Shelby felt the sharp sting of unexpected tears behind her eyes. Fear rushed in behind them. A dozen wisecracking, off-putting responses danced into her mind. She forced them down.
"Shelby?"
"I was just thinking," she said. "You're probably right, but I don't know where it comes from."
Mist was forming into droplets at the tips of the hemlock needles. It fell like slow rain onto the tent roof.
She looked at Fran. "I really don't know. That's the truth."
"Yeah," Fran said softly. She reached over and touched Shelby's hair. "I know how that is."
She felt a lone, warm tear escape from the corner of her eye and slip down her cheek. She felt Fran touch it and lift it away. She closed her eyes.
Fran's sleeping bag rustled as she lay back down. She reached out and took Shelby's hand.
It was almost too much to bear. She wanted a friendship with this woman. Not the kind of friendship she had with other friends, not the half-honest, half-hidden kind. She felt comfortable with Fran, at ease in a way she'd never known before.
It was as if, for the first time in her life, she'd met someone who truly spoke her language. It was a touch of hearts as fragile as a glass Christmas ornament. A superficial, dishonest word could shatter it. The thought of opening herself terrified her. But she knew, somehow, if she couldn't do it with this woman, she'd never be able to do it.
"Fran," she said softly.
"Yes?"
"Do you ever find yourself—not lying, exactly, but changing the way you say things because of who you're with?"
"Constantly."
"Have you ever known anyone you didn't have to do that with? You know, someone you could really tell all the things in your heart?"
"No. Not completely."
Shelby hesitated, then forced herself to say it. "I'd like... to try to be that kind of friend with you. I don't know if I can, but I want-to try."
Fran was silent for a long time. "Thank you," she said at last, and squeezed Shelby's hand. "Go to sleep, Shelby."
Chapter Seven
She woke the next morning to the aroma of coffee and frying bacon. She'd never awakened to smells before. It was a gentle way to come back to earth, she thought as she lay in her sleeping bag and watched hazy shadows of hemlock branches play across the side of the tent. The light through the canvas was a soft tan. There was a breeze, lifting and dropping the tent walls with a soft flapping sound, as though the tent itself were breathing. The stillness was warm and dusty. She tilted her head back and looked through the mesh window at the sky beyond the pine boughs. It was a high, hard blue.
Shelby closed her eyes again and let herself sink into gently rocking, drowsing softness. Drifting led her back to the other camp. Much too young to be so far from home. Nine years old, her first trip away and for two months, with her parents refusing to visit so she'd learn to be independent. She remembered hanging around the office day after day, waiting for a letter. Her mother's were short, hurriedly written, and superficial. Her father never wrote at all. For a while, empty and aching with loneliness, she'd convinced herself her mother would come to see her if she believed hard enough. She decided it would be the third Sunday in July, and wrote and told her mother she'd expect her that day. Then she sat back and marked off the days on her calendar and waited for her parents to come.
They didn't, of course. She'd huddled on the main lodge steps the whole day, watching other parents arrive, bringing presents and picnics, happy to see their kids, holding their daughters' hands as they strolled across the wide lawn to the lake. The girls showed off, swimming and diving from the high board. The parents applauded their own and each other's daughters. By dinner time they all knew each other. When they ate barbecued chicken and potato salad together down by the camp fire circle, it was like a family picnic.
She forced herself to smile through dinner, so no one would suspect and ask questions. But no one asked questions. No one ever asked her questions.
When they were finally on Free Time, she went deep into the woods. In the distance she could hear the high, childish voices singing around the counsel fire. "There's a long, long trail..." "If there were witchcraft…" The camp song. The sky turned cobalt blue. The stars came out. Sparks from the fire drifted into the night like lightning bugs.
She wanted to cry. She'd come out here to cry, where they wouldn't see her and lecture her and laugh behind her back. But she felt all hard and broken inside, like glass, and she couldn't find her tears.
When the moon rose, the parents left. Shelby watched them go, heard the car doors slam, saw the dust rise in their headlights.
That was a long time ago, she reminded herself. She thought instead about last night. The dying fire and the clink of stainless steel forks on aluminum plates. The light fading and winking out. A bird, startled by its own imagination, squawked and fluttered. They rebuilt the fire and made up a ceremony to honor the Forest Gods, sang silly songs and told stupid jokes and talked and sometimes just sat with the silence and the crackling fire. And when they went to bed, she'd fallen asleep without feeling alone.
Back in the woods a bird sang, a liquid, fluting sound. Hermit thrush, she recalled. Or was it a wood thrush?
Fran was moving around outside, poking at the fire, handling pots and pans.
"Wood or hermit?" she called.
"Hermit." Fran poked her head through the tent flap. "Good morning."
"It is, isn't it?" She pushed at the covers. Nothing happened. The sleeping bag had swallowed her like a cocoon. She struggled with it. "Hey."
Fran came into the tent and crouched beside her. "I closed it in the night," she said, working the zipper. "It turned chilly. You didn't even wake up."
She remembered something else about falling asleep last night. They'd talked about... important things. Fran had been... "I didn't wake up?" she said quickly, suddenly shy and not sure why. "I must have been knocked out."
"You were." Fran sat on her own sleeping bag. "I never saw anyone fall asleep so fast outside of the Army."
"It's a first for me." She stretched. "I usually spend at least forty-five minutes worrying and obsessing. I'll bet you don't."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because you seem to know what you want and where you're going."
Fran got up and reached down to give her a hand. "Shelby," she said with a laugh, "you're a lousy judge of character."
"Not so lousy." She found her toothbrush and comb and came out into the clear morning. "Do I need to wash my hair?"
"Not in my opinion," Fran said, looking her over. She brushed at an unruly strand above Shelby's ear. "There's a little loss of control here, but we won't take off points for it."
"Do they take off points for out-of-control hair in the Army?" Shelby folded her tee shirt into a pot holder and lifted the coffee pot from the cooking grate.
"No, they just hang you. Don't pour that yet. It's not done."
Shelby sniffed the coffee. "You've got to be kidding. It smells strong enough to patch a tire."
"Don't be rude. This is cowboy coffee, boiled not percolated." Fran picked up some eggshells she'd put aside, crumpled them, and tossed them into the pot.
"You're trying to kill us."
"The eggshells settle the grounds." She swirled the coffee, flipped the pot's
lid and eyed the contents. "At least that's what they claim. I don't know who 'they' are and I never could tell the difference with or without." She poured coffee into a tin cup and handed it to Shelby. "Watch out for that, it's hot. The alternative method," she said as she poured one for herself, “is a burning stick thrust into the coffee. That I can recognize by taste. It gives the coffee that fine, hickory-smoked flavor. Has also been known to dispel vampires." Fran took a swallow of coffee and shuddered.
Shelby tasted hers. It was coffee all right, she had to grant it that. And clearly had wakening powers. "How long does this stuff stay in your system?"
"I believe the half-life is twenty years." She took Shelby's coffee from her. "Let this cool a little. Get washed up and think about what you want to do today."
Shelby saluted. "Yes, Sir."
Fran stared at her, and shook her head. "If you don't stop looking so damned rumpled and cute," she grumbled, "I won't be responsible for my actions."
“Is that a threat?”
Fran looked at her, a surprised expression on her face as if she hadn't planned on saying that out loud. Then she recovered. "A serious one," she said with an evil laugh. She took a step toward her, fingers outstretched. "I have a compulsion to tickle."
Shelby turned and ran down the path to the restrooms.
"I don't want to go home," she said. Night was coming down in layers of purple and gray. "I want to stay here forever."
"We can't do that." Fran dropped their plates and mugs and steel silverware into the wash basin and added hot water from the bucket over the fire.
"Why not?"
"You ate all the marshmallows.”
“We'll get more.”
"You'll lose your job," Fran said. "I'll lose my job. We'll run out of money. Then what'll we do for marshmallows?"
"Knock over gas stations."
"It might look like paradise now," Fran said. "But wait until July. I'll bet that beach will be jammed with housewives in bad moods, pregnant women, and screaming children with sand in their bathing suits."
They reached for the cold water simultaneously, bumping heads. "Sorry," Shelby said. She noticed a smudge of ash on Fran's cheek and wiped it off with the back of her hand.
Fran turned away quickly.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"Of course not." She held up the dish soap. "Want this? Or should we go down to the beach and wash our pots in sand?"
"Soap'll do," Shelby said, taking it. They'd be leaving soon. Fran had insisted they strike the tent and put it and their clothes and sleeping bags in the car before evening dew could form on them. All that was left of their camp—the dirty dishes, the dying fire, the washstand Fran had taught her to build by lashing branches to tree trunks... She felt her throat tighten. In two hours they'd be home. She had to call Ray, and Lisa, and her mother... Well, maybe not her mother. Maybe this time she'd just forget about it. Maybe...
An ember popped in the fire. She looked around. Fran was drying the dishes and stowing them in a duffel bag. The campsite was nearly bare. It looked empty. Worse than a deserted house, at least a house was a house whether it was empty or not, but an empty campsite was just empty.
Fran caught her expression in the twilight. She put her towel down. "We'll come back, Shelby."
"I know." This was absurd. She wanted to cry. A headache was starting. "Come here," Fran said, taking her hand and leading her to the log by the fire they used for a seat. "Sit down." She slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Talk to me.”
Shelby stared into the dying fire. "I just don't want to go back to it. My life." She gave an embarrassed cough. "This is silly."
"No, it isn’t."
"I mean, it's my life, right? If I don't like it, I should figure out what I don't like and change it, right?"
"I guess so," Fran said.
She rested her elbows on her knees and folded her hands and rested her forehead on her interlaced fingers. "I really think I'm too young for it."
Fran moved a strand of Shelby's hair. "For what?"
"My job, marriage..."
"Well, hell," Fran said softly. "we're all too young for jobs and marriage. Probably always will be. But how else are we going to get marshmallows?"
Shelby sighed. "I know I'm being a baby."
"You're not. Shelby, if marrying Ray isn't what you really want..."
"I do want it. This is probably just nerves, don't you think?"
"I don't know what to think," Fran said. "But if someone pushed you onto a speeding train and it was going in the wrong direction, you would pull the emergency cord, wouldn't you?"
"I hope so.”
"Shelby..."
She gave herself a little shake. "I'm sorry. Here we are in this beautiful place, and I’m having a great time, and I keep turning gloomy. I don't know what my problem is."
"Maybe you don't get enough time to think back home."
"Every time I tty to think, my brain turns to murk." She laughed. "People tell me I think too much."
"They tell me I feel too much."
Shelby glanced at her. "I hope feeling works better for you than thinking does for me. All I get is confusion and paralysis."
"Me, too.”
She found a twig and tossed it into the fire. It smoldered for a moment, then burst into flame. "Fran."
"Yep."
"This has been really special."
Fran rested her arms on her knees and gazed into the coals. "For me, too."
It was nearly dark. They ought to be leaving. Shelby tossed another stick on the fire. "Where'd you go to college?"
“Mills.”
"Women's college. So did I. Mt. Holyoke. Did you like it?"
"Very much," Fran said. "Did you?"
"Yes. For one thing, we studied. We weren't thinking about boys all the time. And with none of them on campus... well, it seemed more like family."
"So did Mills. I wish I could have stayed the whole four years."
"Do you miss college?"
"Desperately, at times. Do you?"
Shelby ran her hands over her face. "I think so. It wasn't perfect, but what is? It was beautiful. There was a feeling of time and history about it. Peaceful. Except for a few of the other students, they were kind of strange. But mostly it was good."
"What was strange about them?"
"Well, not really strange, I guess. I had one friend, I thought we were really good friends, and then one day she just started avoiding me. I never knew why. I asked her once, but she said she was busy, that's all. I don't think it was the truth."
"Ah," said Fran. "Did it bother you?"
"Yeah, I was really confused."
"Does it still?"
"I wish I knew what happened."
Fran was silent.
"I must have done something."
"Maybe not," Fran said. "Maybe it was something she couldn't tell you."
"But why not? I was her best friend. She was my best friend."
"Sometimes there are things you can't tell anyone, not even your best friend. Sometimes there are things you can't even tell yourself."
"I guess," Shelby admitted. "But it hurt."
"I know." She tossed a stick on the coals. "Life gets hard sometimes."
"Yeah."
"Which," Fran said, resting her hand on Shelby's knee, "is why there is camping."
* * *
Jean caught her coming through the door of the lounge Monday morning. "So how was it?"
"Great." She shook the cold rain from her umbrella. "I loved it."
"You didn't disgrace yourself?"
"She gave me a sleeping bag."
"Is that like a merit badge?"
"I guess so." She hung up her coat. "It was so calm. You can't imagine."
Jean hung her coat beside Shelby's. "What'd you do?"
"Talked, mostly. And hiked. And ate."
"Lisa called after you called her. To let us know you'd survived."
"She's something else, isn
't she?" Shelby dug her comb out of her pocketbook and tried to do something with her damp hair. "I really think she believed I was going to die."
"She kept referring to camping as an 'unnatural act.’"
"Sounds like Libby." She gave up and dropped the comb back into her pocketbook. "Except at the moment Libby doesn't seem to care what I do, she's so wrapped up in that party. When I told her, I just got one of those 'that's nice, dear' responses."
Jean handed her a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “That's great. Maybe you should take advantage of her good mood.”
"Yeah." She perched on the back of a battered Naugahyde chair and sipped her coffee. "But you know Libby. Her moods come and go like fog. Honestly, how many 'plans' do you have to make for an engagement party? When the country club's handling the whole thing?"
"A mind-boggling number," Jean said. “Things you'd never even think of.”
She didn't want to talk about the party, or the wedding, or any of it. By the time it actually happened, she wouldn't remember how to talk about anything else. "What did you do this weekend?"
Jean took her turn at the mirror. "Blind date. A friend of Connie's Charlie." She shrugged. "It was OK. We're going out again."
“You don't sound very enthusiastic.”
"It was fine, really," Jean said. "I'm just worn out. Maybe it's too soon after Barry to jump in again." Her eyes caught Shelby's in the mirror. "How am I doing?"
"How are you doing what?"
"With the talking?"
She was caught off guard. "All right. Fine. I guess. I don't know. I thought it was natural. I mean, I thought you were just more comfortable."
Jean turned to her sharply. "How the hell can I be comfortable when I know everyone's watching me and grading me? Would you be comfortable?"
"No," Shelby said.
"So forget about comfortable, OK? I just need to know if I'm acceptable yet." She threw her comb into her purse. "Though I guess I should assume I'm getting there, since Queen Constance has judged me adequate to go out with Prince Charles' friend."
Shelby was shocked at the anger in Jean's voice. She held out a hand toward her. “Jean…"
Jean brushed her away. "Don't reach out to me. It's too humiliating."
