Bookishly Ever After

by Isabel Bandeira

  Damn, they were attracting a crowd. “Nothing, really. I was just being dramatic.” I shook my head and reached into my duffle to pull out a wool sweater and fleece hoodie.

  “I’m glad you’re not fighting with Dev anymore. He’s cool, even though he was an ass for splashing you on the dock.” I almost choked at angelic little Lily saying “ass.” “We’re pretty lucky to have the best counselors in this place.”

  I popped my head through the neck hole of my sweater and pat my static-y hair back to semi-flat. “Now I know you guys want something.”

  Bethany One shook her head. “Nah. We talked to the other girl cabins. Their counselors treat them like kids, yell at them, and Mary’s cabin had to cover for their counselor because she snuck out last night to go make out with her boyfriend.”

  “We like you because you talk to us like we’re adults,” Eliana added. She finished dressing and looked like she’d been eaten by a marshmallow.

  “I think you might be a little overdressed,” I pointed out to her in my most adult voice.

  She shook her head and pointed at the little backpack she had slung over everything. “Layers, baby. All of this stuff squishes to, like, sock size. I’d rather keep stripping down than freeze my tuchus off in the middle of the woods.” She raised an eyebrow at some of the looks she got. “Laugh all you want now, but you all’ll be begging to borrow a layer after an hour out there.”

  Genevieve poked Eliana in the side and the jacket material engulfed about half of her hand. “You can’t possibly think Tanner will think this is cute.”

  “Cute isn’t about what you wear, it’s about who you are.” Eliana flipped her hair over her shoulder with an attitude that made me grin. Em would love her.

  I checked the clock on the far wall. My poor phone languished practically signal-less along with all of the others in the cabin.

  “Enough about cuteness. We’ve got about two minutes to finish getting changed.”

  Redhead blinked at me from where she was fixing her ponytail in front of a small mirror someone had hung from one of the top bunks. “You know, if you put on a little bit of lipgloss, it might get Dev’s attention. And then it’ll be like in the Music Camp movie.” She clutched her hands to her chest and made a swoony face.

  And…I was back to regretting that I was such an “approachable” counselor. “Um, that’s okay…” I wracked my brain for her name.

  “Diana.” Bethany Two mouthed at me and I smiled at her thankfully.

  “…Diana. But believe me, there’s no dramatic high school romance here. Life isn’t like movies or books,” Unfortunately, I silently added, patting Cradled on the Waves before standing up. “Okay, we’re going to be late if we don’t get going right now.”

  42

  “Tonight, we’re going on a trust walk.” Mrs. Forrester stood with one of the other teachers on one of the docks, holding a bag full of brightly colored fabric strips. “There will be a lot of group projects next year. You need to learn how to trust your classmates.” A groan could be heard from some of the campers and I suppressed a grin. I remembered this exercise. “I need you to pair up in teams of two and your counselors will hand out a blindfold to each team.” She gestured for Dev and me to come forward and gave us each a handful of those fabric strips. “We’ll be watching to make sure no one cheats.”

  We finished handing out the blindfolds to our campers and I turned to give the extras to Mrs. Forrester. She took all of them except for one. “You two also need a blindfold.”

  I exchanged a glance with Dev, whose frown mirrored mine. “Aren’t we supposed to make sure the kids don’t walk each other into trees or something?”

  “There aren’t that many people in this group. Mr. Hamm and I can take care of that part. And you’ll get a chance to try this, too. It’s a fun experience.”

  Fun? I mouthed at Dev, who made a face when Mrs. Forrester’s back was to us.

  “Besides,” Forrester continued, nudging us into line behind the already blindfolded and laughing campers, “it’s not like the two of you should worry. You don’t seem to have trust issues.” She moved on to the front of the line, pausing along the way to check blindfolds.

  “I doubt they’re making the other counselors do this,” I said, twisting the blindfold.

  “Probably because we’re special.” Dev took the blindfold from me and balanced it in his hand. He bounced on his heels while looking into dark forest path ahead of us. “Ladies first?”

  “Thanks,” I said, dryly. I turned around and he slipped the blindfold over my eyes. His fingers gently moved through my hair to keep it from getting tied into the fabric and I hoped he didn’t hear the catch in my breath. The heat from his body left as he stepped away and, for a second, a little bit of panic rose up in me. My hands reflexively went up to the edge of the blindfold. “Frak. I don’t think I like this.”

  And then the heat returned, one hand grabbing mine and bringing it down to my waist and an arm wrapped around me so that another hand was on my opposite shoulder. “It’s okay. I got you.”

  “I swear to God, Dev, if you walk me into a tree, I’ll guide you straight into the lake on your turn.”

  “If I make it a small tree, will you make it a stream instead?” He laughed close to my ear and I turned in the direction of his heat and his voice to give him a piece of my mind.

  But Mrs. Forrester’s voice kept me from answering. “Okay, campers and counselors,” at “counselors,” I could hear the giggles of a few of the girls from my cabin. “No cheating with the blindfolds. The purpose of this game is to learn to trust your fellow classmates. Blindfoldees, follow the lead you’re given. Guides, remember—your turn is next. We’re going halfway around the lake for the first group and then we’re switching and finishing up right back here with the second group.”

  “Around the lake?” I asked softly in the general Dev direction. “That’s a lot of walking.” I did not like the thought of not having control for that long.

  Dev leaned so close that his breath tickled my ear. My heartbeat picked up just a notch. “Don’t you trust me?”

  I had to pause and gave myself a second—now I understood what Maeve must have felt when Aedan brought her through the Otherland entrance. Goosebumps prickled at my skin even though I wasn’t cold at all.. I choked out my next words. “Says the guy who walked the entire clarinet section into the color guard during Carmina Burana practice.”

  “Okay, campers, let’s go!”

  Dev’s fingers tightened a and he started moving us forward. “That was a joke.”

  “I’m so glad I’m not a marcher.” I stumbled as the path changed to soft sugar sand and Dev quickly righted me.

  “With smooth moves like that, I’m glad you’re not a marcher, too.”

  “Shut up.” And he did. For a few minutes, I was surrounded by darkness. I could hear the campers ahead, but, except for the occasional yell from one of the boys, they were hushed as well, all soft whispers. My skin tingled from the pressure of Dev’s touch as he guided me around obstacles in our path.

  “See, not so bad.”

  “Says you.”

  “C’mon. This has to beat hanging out in the corner of the mess hall with your knitting or a book.”

  I almost stopped to give him an incredulous look, then realized that he wouldn’t be able to see it, anyway. “Um, no.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “The knitting?” I asked, and he used our conjoined hands to jab me in the side. “It’s a pair of Celtic knot cabled arm warmers—” he jabbed again and I laughed. “Okay, but you’re going to think that the book is boring and girly.”

  “I promise not to laugh. It has to be good if you’re so into it.”

  “Oh, it totally is. It’s about this girl whose parents send her up to Canada to help out her uncle for the summer. She plays violin at this ceilidh,” I was careful to pronounce it kay-lee, like in the author’s guide at the front of the book, “—um, like a celtic singing-a
nd-story-and-sometimesdancing show that they put on for the tourists all summer long. And she doesn’t want to be there because it’s not cool like NYC. But then she meets this guy…”

  “Big surprise.”

  I elbowed him, “Who is this awesome fiddler but wants to be a potato farmer…”

  “Because that’s really glamorous.”

  “And she gets offered a seat in an August music intensive back home. Right now she’s torn between staying on the Island for the rest of the summer or going to the intensive.” Dev gave my arm a squeeze and I moved to the right under his guidance.

  He didn’t miss a beat. “Why is she torn?”

  “Because she thinks she’s falling for the guy.”

  “Who wants to be a potato farmer.”

  I laughed. “Yeah. You know, not everyone can be a Bollywood star.”

  “Tree root.” Dev’s arms tightened around me and, before I could really trip, he half-lifted me over something that had caught on the toe of my Keds. He then continued like nothing had happened. “And I didn’t star. I was a background dancer. Which, by the way, still beats potato farmer.”

  I tried to make a dismissive gesture with my free hand. “Whatever. You can keep telling yourself that.” I took a deep breath and the earthy-pine scented air steadied me. “You know what I love the most about this book?”

  “What?”

  “The author isn’t a musician, but she gets it. That magical feeling you have when you’re playing and everything falls together and you’re nothing but the music.”

  He squeezed my shoulder and hand, but this time it wasn’t to get me around an obstacle. “That really is an awesome feeling. I love that someone else gets it.”

  We walked silently for a minute, the campers fading away and it was just me and Dev walking through this pine-scented darkness. Just as I was about to say something, Mrs. Forrester’s voice broke through and shattered the spell. “Good job, guides. Blindfoldees, you can take off your blindfolds now.”

  I reached up to slip off the blindfold. With the few lanterns surrounding the clearing, it was dark enough for my eyes to adjust almost immediately, focusing first on Dev and then shifting quickly to the moonlight reflections of the pines in the lake behind him.

  “No trees, as promised,” he said, and I blinked back to his face.

  “That must have been really hard for you,” I shot back teasingly. Dev let go of my arm and hand and suddenly, the night’s chill washed over me.

  “Before we switch and finish the rest of the trip around the lake, we have a mini science experiment for all of you.” The campers groaned and Forrester waited until they quieted down before continuing. “Tonight, we’re going to learn about triboluminescence.”

  “Cool,” Dev said under his breath.

  I tilted my head at him and mouthed “Geek” before turning back to face Mrs. Forrester. That was a new addition from the trust walk when we were sixth graders.

  “Triboluminescence is what causes things to spark when you crush them, releasing extra electrons. You’ll cover that in your science classes next year, but for now, we’re going to watch triboluminescence in action.”

  Mr. Hamm started walking through us, handing out candies as he spoke. “All sugar-based candies triboluminesce when you bite into them, but the wintergreen flavoring makes for a very visible spark because it’s fluorescent.” He shook his head at one of the boys who was about to pop the candy in his mouth. “Don’t eat these until we tell you to, because you’ll need to watch your partner if you want to see chemistry in action.” He gave me and Dev each a little white mint and moved on until everyone had a piece of candy.

  “Everyone have their mints?” At the nods from all of us, Forrester said, “We’re turning off the lanterns. I need you to face your partners and wait for my signal to bite down on the candy. This is going to be the only time that eating with your mouth open is acceptable, by the way.”

  I turned slowly to face Dev and the words “chemistry in action” ran through my head again at the way his moonlit profile made me feel like I had a chemical reaction going on in my heart and lungs. His eyes locked with mine before his attention slipped to a spot closer to my ear. He reached out, his hand almost brushing my cheek, and I froze, like Maeve on Midwinter night. He pulled a pine needle out of my hair and twirled the needle between his fingers before letting it flutter to the ground. Dev seemed as breathless as me.

  He has a girlfriend, the little voice in my head reminded me.

  The last lantern clicked off, turning the clearing into a giant shadow. Some of the girls giggled and I heard a friendly scuffle behind me.

  “Okay,” Mr. Hamm said, his voice effectively silencing the group. “On the count of three, bite into your mints. One,” I took the mint between my fingers and watched as Dev did the same with his. “Two.” I brought the mint up to my lips, seriously regretting turning down the lipgloss advice as Dev’s gaze dropped to my lips. “Three.” I watched as blue light sparked from Dev’s mouth and the cold around us disappeared as I watched his lips move. His hand accidentally brushed mine in the dark.

  Sparks flew. Oh, hell, sparks flew.

  43

  There was nothing like sneaking out after breakfast and moving around a camp parking lot trying to get a signal on my cell phone to kill the magic left over from the trust walk. I squinted at the number of bars on my phone and sat on a stump at the edge of the lot.

  “You’re breaking up again.” Em’s voice was static-y but her annoyance was clear.

  I stood and watched the bars jump up. “Sorry. Camp Sundew hasn’t moved into the twenty-first century. Better?”

  “Much. So, you were saying?” She switched to speakerphone on her end and the sound of her closet squeaking open came through the line.

  “You were right. Kris was…” I searched for the right words, “not as wonderful as I thought he would be. It was like he only liked me because I matched some sort of checklist for him after Grace’s makeover.”

  “I told you. Fictional romance. Too bad you didn’t figure it out when half the junior class told you he was a jerk.”

  I couldn’t help but correct her. As much as I didn’t want to think about the whole conversation and kiss, I still couldn’t think of Kris as bad as Em and the others described. “He’s not a jerk. He’s just really, really focused on what he wants.”

  A dismissive sound came over the phone. At least, I thought it was a dismissive sound and not Em choking on something.

  “And doesn’t care about what anyone else wants unless it matches up with his plans.”

  “It was awful, especially when Dev had to save me.” I played with the hem of my polo. Today, I had stylishly accessorized it with a red bandana belt. “Between that and the trust walk thing, I don’t think I can do this co-counseling thing anymore. Last night was torture.”

  “It sounded pretty awesome to me. Dev swooped in and got you out of a bad situation. Then, you guys held hands and wandered through the woods in the moonlight.”

  The force of my eye roll had to be heard over the phone. Leave it to Em to turn a trust exercise into something it wasn’t. “Blindfolded.”

  “Whatever turns you on.”

  “You’re not taking this seriously. It’s a lot easier to think of Dev as just a friend when I’m not with him practically twenty-four hours a day and when I don’t have to watch him make sparks in the dark.” I tugged at my bun, feeling a few of the looser pieces slip out. Hello, disheveled Phoebe.

  I could hear her giggles over the line. “You know, it would be a little easier to take you seriously if you didn’t say stuff like that. It’s just too easy to tease you. At least you’re not here, feeling the wrath of Osoba.”

  “I’ll take Osoba over suffocating under the weight of pretending this totally unrequited crush doesn’t exist. It’s so romantic in books, but in real life it totally sucks.”

  “I knew it!” A high-pitched squeal erupted behind me and ice washed through me a
s I turned slowly to find Diana and Eliana standing on the edge of the closest parking space. “You do like him!” Diana grabbed my free hand and swung it happily.

  I could barely keep my phone to my ear. “What the hell is going on?” Em asked with her special blend of pissy annoyance.

  “This is awesome,” Eliana said, giving a little twirl. “Like Romeo and Juliet. But not.”

  I tried to stare the two of them into silence. “Two of the girls from my cabin just found me.”

  A groan came from the other side of the phone line. “That’s not good, is it?”

  I shook my head out of habit. “Not particularly. Not if I don’t want Dev to find out.”

  “Oh, we won’t tell him,” Diana looked up at me angelically, big eyes and all.

  Apparently, my death glare was broken. “I gotta go. I’ll call you when I can.” I eyed the two campers and hoped they wouldn’t rush off before I could talk to them. “Text me about the interpreter audition? I want to know how it went.” She’d been preparing for days for the audition and it killed me that I wasn’t there to cheer her on this time.

  “Spoiler alert: I got it. I’ll tell you all about ficus and corsets and people who were in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society later, when you don’t have to deal with little monsters.”

  “That’s awesome,” I said, cringing at how distracted I sounded.

  “Yes, it is. But that’s nineteenth-century, and you have some twenty-first century eavesdroppers. Go. Good luck with that mess.”

  “Thanks,” I said, clicked off my phone, and pocketed it before regarding the two campers. “Please just pretend you never heard this. Please?”

  Eliana reached up and tugged a few more strands out of my bun so they brushed my cheek. “That’s a lot better. Dev looked like he liked it when your hair was down yesterday.”

  “Huh?”

  Diana answered that one. “At the walk. He played with your hair.”

  I blinked at both of them, running through my memories of the night. “No, he pulled a pine needle out of it.”