The Best American Short Stories 2018

by Roxane Gay

  There in the afternoon sunlight of the kitchen table, El dared not move. She hated the feeling that life was a race—would it be possible to remain here like this, forever? She found a pack of cigarettes behind the toaster and took one out, a race to the finish.

  Anyone there, called Bob, slamming open the front door to the apartment. He carried a bag of sweet rolls in his arm. I’m home. I’m home.

  She rose from the table, allowing herself to swoon against the wall. Don’t I get no sugar, he asked, and she felt oddly moved by his stingy smile.

  He buried his face in her neck. I’m a changed man, he whispered. Do you believe?

  But El wasn’t listening. She was wondering, instead, if her mother had finally noticed that the dishes were gone. She kept seeing the old face, disappointed and yearning at the same time. Not at all the right punishment for the crime.

  Ann Glaviano

  Come On, Silver

  from Tin House

  June 15

  Dear Future Husband,

  Please do not call me Josephine. I’m writing to you because that’s what we’re supposed to do right now in quiet hour. Captain Bev says I ought to tell you that I am waiting for you. My mother says it’s rude to keep someone waiting. She also says that I am an impatient girl. She promised that this camp had horses but I have not seen the horses yet.

  Cordially, Fin

  June 16

  Dear Future Husband,

  I hope this letter finds you well. It is my second day here and already I am in trouble. Captain Bev says I ought to apologize for my handwriting, and for my impertinence. I am very sorry if I offended you. I look forward to meeting you one day, whoever and wherever you are. Today we were awoken at dawn and made to run east, toward the sun. I am fast for my cabin but not the fastest in the camp. I asked my bunkmate, Pita, about the horses and she laughed in my face. Pita seems like a real wisenheimer. Now I will share my hopes and dreams for us. I hope and dream you are handsome, with wavy hair and shining dark eyes and two distinct eyebrows. I hope and dream that you will not have a moustache, and that we will live in a mansion with horses in the stable. I do not know what exactly I am waiting for. No one will tell me.

  Sincerely, Fin

  June 17

  Dear Future Husband,

  The Beaver says my letters to you are a dereliction so now I am writing in my notebook, which is not a diary. I hide this small notebook in my trunk, at the bottom of a box of sanitary napkins. I don’t see what’s so derelict about what I wrote. I did exactly what the Beaver told us to. Today I wrote you a fake letter to get her off my back. The Beaver is what the campers call Captain Bev. Get it? Caroline, my cabinmate, is playing her flute despite the fact that this is supposed to be quiet hour. She isn’t bad but she plays the same dumb Christmas song over and over again. That’s why it’s called practicing, she said to me, as if I were a literal idiot. She said, Bet you didn’t know this song is about a hooker. I said, I know. I didn’t know, but it was a necessary lie.

  Everything here is a competition. Tampons versus sanitary napkins. Bras versus undershirts. On the first night, the Beav divided everyone into two teams: the Cubs versus the Colts. (I am, fortunately, a Colt.) Also, older girls versus younger girls, even though everyone at this camp achieved menarche in the past year. No one talks about the menstruation requirement. I only know because I found the brochure on Mother’s desk. The older girls are called Evening Primroses. The younger girls are called Morning Glories. (The camp is called Camp Moonflower. I am a Morning Glory.) The camp motto is Dignae et provisae iucundae, which we are made to chant three times at the beginning of each meal.

  Through our daily tasks we earn points for our team, and at the end of the week, one team will be named Queens of the Moonflower. The Beav says in a menacing voice that anyone who leaves the cabin at night unattended will get a zero for her team. This is meant to be a threat, but a zero is nothing. If you add zero to a number, the number doesn’t change. I seem to be the only one to have figured this out.

  Fin

  June 18

  Dear Future Husband,

  This morning I met the horses. Jo, the white western mare, is my soulmate. We have basically the same name. The elitists are in love with Lady Diamond, who is sensitive and dark and English. I know about the elitists because my father said that summer camps were full of them. I put my hand on Jo’s side and felt her muscles twitching hot under velvet. She smelled of maple syrup and pencil shavings. For a moment the trees and dirt and wooden fence of the pen and the horse noises and girl noises went blank and I was my breath and the horse breathing with me. The horse possibility. The horse my friend. The horse my wings. We did not get to ride the horses today.

  Pita’s not an elitist. She’s a big-mouth pain in the ass. That’s what her name literally means. Pain In The Ass. Caroline told me it’s her nickname at school and even the teachers call her that. Pita says she is in love with Andrew the horse counselor, who looks like a Ken doll in a baseball cap, with a deep tan. Andrew is from the same town as Pita, so Pita won’t stop talking about him, even though he’s a senior in high school and they’ve never once seen each other before today. When Pita talks about Andrew, she squinches her eyes and stretches her lips tight across her teeth, because she is making a conscious effort to form apples with her cheeks. The Beaver taught us to do this yesterday in our Anatomy and Etiquette class.

  The sun pressed down on me as we stood in the pen, Andrew lecturing us about horse safety and horse responsibilities. We’d run far this morning. I almost reached the woods on the other side of the field before the Beaver called us back. Then we’d spent an hour mixing mud for the earth oven before breakfast (shriveled sausages and dry scrambled eggs). Sweat popped out on my cheeks and shoulders and Caroline announced in front of all the elitists that I was going to faint. Andrew dug in his bag and offered me a bottle of warm water, which I drank. It did make me feel better. But Pita wouldn’t leave me alone about it for literally hours. What if Andrew had put his lips on that bottle? What if I had put my lips where his lips had been? Did it smell like his cologne? What about his backwash? It’s quiet hour and she was supposed to be up on the top bunk writing a letter to her Future Husband, but instead she knelt in the middle of the cabin floor, thrusting her canteen into her mouth, drooling and moaning, Oh Andrew. Everyone else laughed, confused. Then our counselor came in to announce that Caroline had been selected for the Sisterhood and Pita finally, finally, finally shut up.

  Fin

  June 18, again

  Dear Future Husband,

  Another competition, this time at the lake. I do not refer to the canoe race (the Cubs won). I refer instead to the battle of the bathing suits. Pita laughs at my one-piece Speedo, which I selected for its bright yellow straps and its ability to somewhat restrain my disproportionately large and unwieldy breasts. I am convinced that my breasts are the reason I am an incompetent swimmer, but I will not, for obvious reasons, articulate this to the swim counselor, who repeatedly explains the forward crawl to me as though I am both stupid and hard of hearing. Pita is built like a stick bug, and this afternoon she strutted across the dock in a flimsy bikini, swatting the sunbathing campers and counselors with a wooden oar. Andrew finally snatched the oar from her and threw it into the lake. The Beaver was mad, but Caroline (also wearing a one-piece) and I applauded. The way Pita tells it, of course, Andrew was declaring his love to her by throwing the oar into the lake.

  We just had our first mail call. I received a letter from my mother. She hopes I’m learning what it means to be a woman. Today I learned how to arrange flowers in a crescent shape while forming apples with my cheeks. Pita asked me who my letter was from, and I told her it was from my best friend. She looked disappointed.

  If I were home right now, I would be sitting in the living room with my grandmother, watching game shows and waiting for the summer to end. This basic swimming stroke was pioneered in Australia during a rescue approach. I used to learn things from
the game shows but they’ve run out of answers. My grandmother paid for me to come to this camp after convincing my parents that I needed to be around girls my own age. She’d caught me playing with Barbies. (Last year when I gave up my diary I also relinquished most of my Barbies, but I secretly retain a few for emergencies.) On this particular day, Ken and Skipper were naked, and Ken had tied Skipper up with a broken necklace that my grandmother had given me from her junk drawer. I read a book once about a girl who was raped and then she became best friends with a horse. The horse was the only creature she could trust. I don’t understand rape, but I do understand loneliness.

  Yesterday before supper, Caroline went to her first Sisterhood meeting. She had to wear her camp whites. To require an all-white uniform at a camp that caters to menstruating girls is, I am sure, a form of sadism. The Beav says that one of the members of the Sisterhood will be chosen at the end of camp to represent Woman, and her steadfastness will be tested in front of everyone. My cabinmates and I have spent the afternoon wondering what this test of steadfastness could possibly be. Pita suggested that it will constitute a public examination of the chosen Woman’s laundry for the purity of her camp whites. I told her she was confusing steadfastness with colorfastness. After the Sisterhood meeting Caroline sat down with us in the mess hall looking swollen, like she’d been crying, but she wouldn’t tell us anything. She said it was a secret. The secret of the Sisterhood, Pita stage-whispered to me, is that there is no secret. Then we all clapped our hands and began our evening chant.

  Fin

  June 19

  Dear Future Husband,

  Caroline is sitting on her bunk bed playing the Christmas prostitute song. Pita says that at the end of camp, she is going to lead our cabin in a procession to the lake and hurl the flute into the water. We all (besides Caroline) agree that this is the first good idea Pita has ever had. The hurling will be either a milestone or a ceremony. Captain Beaver is big on Milestones and Ceremonies.

  My personal milestone while I’m at camp will be to ride Jo at a gallop. In riding class we’re only supposed to walk, but the elitists with experience are trotting already. Andrew should tell them to stop, but he doesn’t. I try to encourage Jo to trot but she walks like she’s waddling through molasses no matter what. I have less than a week left to reach my goal. You can’t ride a horse by reading a book.

  Today Andrew told me that Jo was so fat she probably couldn’t even tell I was riding her. She probably didn’t even know I existed. Struck dumb with fury, I was able only to glower at his carefully suntanned Ken-doll face. He slapped my thigh, hard. “Horsefly,” he explained. He gave me a slow smile. “You wanna ride a different horse?” What different horse, I said sullenly. All the other horses were taken. He said if I really wanted to learn how to ride, he would give me a private lesson after taps. Then Pain In The Ass butted in to ask what we were talking about. “None of your damn beeswax,” I said, and turned back to Andrew to remind him that we had the Black Night Ceremony after taps. He smirked and touched the brim of his baseball cap in a gesture I have only ever seen in The Lone Ranger, which I was forced to watch over many long afternoons at my grandmother’s house. I stared at him over my shoulder as Jo bore me away to plod in a ponderous circle.

  Fin

  June 19, again

  Dear Future Husband,

  It’s been raining hard since mail call. I heard the counselors whispering at dinner about canceling the Black Night Ceremony. They think the weather will make it too scary. Pita says they’re playing it up to set the mood, because the whole point of the ceremony is to scare us. Same with the porno movies, she says. (Our last activity before dinner was an hour-long Sexuality presentation in the gym. I pretended to be bored. Caroline pretended to be disturbed. Pita laughed and laughed.)

  Fin

  June 19, again

  Dear Future Husband,

  We’re back in the cabin. They decided not to make us sleep in the Temple (the lodge) after all. We had to put on our camp whites for the ceremony, and before we went into the lodge the female counselors told us stories about menstruating girls who were inhabited by demons. The demons could make the polish on our nails turn rotten. The smell of blood could bring snakes slithering into our cabins. We were forbidden from touching pickles and instructed to form an unbroken circle. The lodge was decorated with moose heads and stuffed ducks and mounted antlers, and candles lining the walls for maximum shadow effects. The male counselors danced and hollered outside with burlap sacks over their heads. They weren’t very well disguised. Andrew still had on his cowboy boots. Inside we sat on the floor in a clump. We weren’t supposed to talk, but Pita whispered dirty words from the porno movies to needle us. After a crack of thunder Caroline started chanting Dignae et provisae iucundae, and we all joined in. Finally the Beav came in and turned on the lights, and that was the end of the Black Night Ceremony.

  Our counselor didn’t come back to the cabin with us. She rarely spends time with us, so we hate her. Although I was not impressed by the ghost stories and pickle warnings at the ceremony, I confess that the thunder is loud, and the rain, and the wind pushing through the trees. I worry for the horses. Our cabin roof is leaking in two places. Caroline announced she’s homesick and began to cry. Now everyone in the cabin is wailing.

  Caroline asked her bunkmate to sleep in her bed, prompting all the top-bunk girls to climb down into the bottom bunks. Guess who got stuck with Pain In The Ass? I suggested that we sleep head to feet, but she said no, and she wrapped her spindly arms and legs around me. “Get off me, Pita,” I said. “My name is Emily,” she whispered in my ear, “and this is how we always sleep at slumber parties.” I pushed her away so hard that she rolled onto the floor. Then I stood up and, as a distraction, loudly announced I would go in search of our counselor. Caroline reminded me, however, that I’ll get a zero for the Colts if I leave the cabin. Pita (also a Colt) climbed back into her own bed and dangled her head over mine and threatened to spit on me if I tried to leave. She said I’d never find our counselor anyway, because she escapes nightly to the woods with the other counselors to participate in a vomiting ritual.

  I have to tell you a secret. After I told Andrew that I couldn’t meet him after taps tonight, I made plans to meet with him for a private lesson tomorrow.

  Fin

  June 20

  Dear Future Husband (Andrew?),

  This morning, like every morning, we rose at dawn and ran toward the sun. This morning, unlike every morning, I ran all the way to the woods and back, and I was fastest. Half awake and half dreaming of a gallop. The girls behind me a stampede of hooves. Hi-yo, Silver! Away! When I got back to the starting line, the Beav slapped me across the face and hung a medal around my neck. “Welcome to the Sisterhood, Josephine,” she said. I was so startled that I bit my own tongue. Caroline plucked a buttercup from behind our cabin and smeared its pollen on my forehead as if she were a priest anointing a new baby, after which I upchucked last night’s dinner (lasagna) into the weeds.

  Instead of having a Sisterhood meeting today for the new members, the staff held a camp-wide emergency trunk inspection, and a girl in another Morning Glory cabin was sent home. She’d been caught faking her period. “But I bet her laundry was extra-steadfast,” Pita said sullenly. She has been in a particularly sour mood all day. Caroline says she’s just jealous that she hasn’t gotten picked for the Sisterhood. Pita says she heard that the trunk inspection was really meant to make sure we weren’t hiding any contraband. “Like candy bars?” Caroline asked pointedly. Contrary to her malnourished appearance, Pita is an actual pig for candy bars. She brings back armfuls from the canteen. “No,” snapped Pita, “like a giant vibrating dildo.” It’s hard to tell sometimes if Pita is joking. Our counselor, both lazy and careless, didn’t look in my sanitary-napkin box, so my notebook remains undiscovered.

  The horse pen turned to mud after the hard rain last night. At the beginning of our class Andrew already looked like the Swamp Thing from the
knees down. I squinted at him so that he went blurry and I could pretend he really was the Swamp Thing, and for one raw moment I missed my grandmother, her paisley sofa and her too-loud infinite TV. Summer used to be simple. I used to want simple things, like small marshmallows from the jar in my grandmother’s kitchen. I would squish them into tiny pancakes between my thumb and forefinger and eat them one by one. I stopped squinting at Andrew and tried to tell him with my eyes to come talk to me. But he ignored me, and with each passing minute I felt my dream of horsewomanship slipping away. In the fifty-fifth and final minute of class, Jo waded nonchalantly back to the gate, carrying me powerless on her back. As we passed Andrew he reached up and touched my arm. “After taps,” he said, in the same casual voice he uses to tell the elitists Nice Work Today! I looked down at the muddy streak his hand had left on my skin. Speak in a low, soft, soothing voice. Be accommodating. Use your yes words. I tried for apple cheeks. I had been practicing all morning. “Yeah,” I said, apple-cheeked, to my own bare arm.

  Fin

  June 20, again

  Dear Future Husband,

  My cabinmates are away at the canteen. I stayed behind, claiming I had cramps and I wanted to take a hot shower. This is partially true. I don’t have cramps, and no normal person wants to shower in our bathroom facility, inaccurately named the Pink Palace, which is infested with daddy longlegs and flying palmetto bugs. However, I understand that I am expected to be clean and pleasantly scented when I meet Andrew tonight for my private lesson. In lieu of my usual two-in-one Pert Plus—what Pita refers to as my dandruff lotion—I have borrowed from Caroline, by virtue of my Sisterhood status, miniature bottles of vitamin-enhanced shampoo and conditioner that smell like exotic fruit. In my efforts to be perceived as a warm, thoughtful, and generous hostess, I have also secured, in Pita’s absence, two king-sized candy bars from her elaborate under-mattress stash. These will serve as our midlesson snack.