“Are you listening to me?” Chloe asked.
“I’d better go.”
“My friend, my friend …”
I hung up, feeling weird. Chloe seemed a long way away.
Chloe’s moniker for me came from an Anne Sexton poem that Sky, our patchouli lit teacher, was obsessed with. Chloe could never remember the next line, but I knew it by heart: My friend, my friend, I was born doing reference work in sin, and born confessing it. The poem was about a cross Anne Sexton’s friend had given her to wear—and she’d worn it, but it hadn’t helped. I could see Sky now, leaning on her desk, lowering her silver reading glasses to show us her moist eyes as she repeated the kicker. Need is not quite belief.
Anne Sexton had been through some things and committed suicide. I guessed Dylan had been through some things, too—but he was still here and still wearing his cross. I wondered if he’d ever taken it off.
10
Bad-Weird and Jesus-Freaky
The mess hall was alive with noise and clatter, with tables set out in ascending rows from Mallee to Bronzewing to Honeyeater. The counselors’ table was on a small platform under a mural of the Last Supper. It was so obviously painted by kids: the disciples all had bug eyes and wonky smiles, and for some reason, Jesus had a ponytail.
I headed straight for the food line. Dinner was lasagna, dry as a nun’s knickers and probably just as tasty. While I struggled to identify the vegetarian option, I could feel eyes on me. It was Olive, the girl I’d saved from the psycho-tweenies. She stood behind the counter in an apron, beaming. “Special domestic duties,” I thought. “Huh.”
Olive said, “Take the lasagna. Trust me. You don’t want the lentil casserole.”
I held my tray out and watched her put a supersized serving onto it. She followed it up with a big slice of cheesecake. She leaned in. “Anything you need, come see me.” I looked down at my loaded tray. It couldn’t hurt to have a friend in the kitchen.
At the Honeyeaters’ table I tried to ignore the tragic palette of older teens. The order went: Richard, Ethan, and the twins (Lisa and Laura or Laura and Lisa; they were indistinguishable) on one side, Fleur, Bird, Sarita, and me on the other. There were empty chairs at the head and foot, presumably for Craig and Dylan. Last I’d seen of Dylan, he was still parked on the rec room stage watching the centipede of legs rush for the mess hall. I didn’t know where Craig was. I had Utopia open on the table in front of me like a shield. I ate quickly and eavesdropped on the insane ramblings of zealots.
“What’s a shroud?” Ethan wanted to know.
Richard spoke with authority. “You know, like the Shroud of Turin.”
“Huh?”
“A miracle.” Richard was clearly a Man of Knowledge. “Did you hear about that grilled cheese sandwich that looked like the Virgin Mary and sold on eBay for thousands of dollars?”
“What?”
“Believe it,” Richard said. “The lady who sold it said it never went moldy and it gave her good luck. She had it for years.”
Ethan asked, “Do you think it works, Roslyn’s shroud? What do you think she does with it?”
“Late at night, she lies on the sofa and presses it against her face.”
Ethan said, “She probably just keeps it to ward off Satan. That’s what I’d do. She must be really panicking without it.”
“She’ll just have to pray harder,” Richard concluded.
I could feel Sarita’s eyes boring through the boards. I lowered my tome. “Do you have to watch me eat?”
“Sorry.” She smiled and pushed her plate across. “Do you want this?”
I considered the slice of cloudy cheesecake. “Okay.” I ate a forkful of the sugary mess. Then another, and another. I ate without tasting. At one point I looked up and saw that Richard and Ethan were both staring at me like I was an outrage.
Richard smirked. “Comfort eating?”
Ethan snickered. I decided I hated them. They were like Roslyn’s children—bad-weird and Jesus-freaky. Sarita put her hand on mine and pressed it lightly, then took it away. “How is it that you came to be here?” she asked in her funny, lilting voice.
“I got sent down for bad behavior.”
Sarita waited.
“My dad’s girlfriend, Norma,” I told her. “She’s on her stepmother learner’s permit. She thinks she knows what’s good for me.”
“They don’t often take new people. Most of us have been coming here since we were Mallees.” Sarita paused. “What kind of bad behavior?”
I waved my fork around. “You know, sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll.”
She let out a nervous laugh. I looked at her. “You do know?”
“Of course!” Her face had gone beet red.
“Sure you do,” I muttered, letting my fork clang down. “Look at you. You’re so fresh, you’ve still got the tag on.”
Sarita flinched, and I felt a little mean.
“So you know everyone here, then?” I asked.
Sarita nodded. She looked across at the twins. “They’re new.”
We both watched Craig lope past. He sat down with the counselors.
“What’s his story?” I asked Sarita. “He’s a Honey-eater, isn’t he? Why isn’t he sitting with us?”
Sarita looked cagey. “Youth Leader privilege.” She lowered her voice. “He gets his own cabin, too.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Interesting. Tell me more.”
Sarita opened her mouth. It was like someone had taken the cork out. She didn’t talk about Craig specifically, she talked camp—the positives (good to be away from family life, great to have like-minded people to play and pray with); the negatives (some people—and she didn’t want to name names—thought they were a bit too good for us); and a whole lot of guff in the middle: (best games, worst dinners). Regarding the counselors, Neville was a known softie. “He believes in hug therapy.” She pointed to the meathead counselor. “But Anton—he believes in punishing the body with extreme sports.”
“So they’re like good cop/bad cop,” I surmised. “What about Roslyn?”
Sarita smiled. “Roslyn has the Holy Spirit running through her like a river.”
“Ah, yes. I was admiring her jumpsuit earlier.”
Sarita looked at me and nodded. Sarcasm was lost on her.
“Why are there so few Honeyeaters?”
Sarita looked blank.
“You think it’s something to do with the fact that most sixteen-year-olds are out in the world, fulfilling the real requirements of their legal age?”
Sarita shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ll draw you a picture.”
Sarita’s eyes went wide and she blushed again and gave me a sissy slap. I laughed. I wasn’t used to shocking people. Chloe was shockproof.
I watched Craig cruise the desserts. He arrived at our table, squeezed into the seat near Fleur, and attempted to spoon-feed her his cheesecake. She shook her head and patted her nonexistent stomach. “Give it to the new girl.”
Craig’s smile was leery. “You’re Riley, right? Weird name.”
“Not really. My mother wanted me to have fun, the life of Riley …”
“And are you … having fun?”
His voice dropped. Our eyes locked. I felt like a contract was being drawn up—a silent contract that said something was going to happen between us. A hush seemed to fall over the Honeyeaters’ table. Sarita looked from Craig to me to Fleur. Fleur had been cutting her pineapple ring with a knife and fork. Now she looked at me with gunfight eyes. I pictured her spitting into a spittoon. “Hombre—are you ready to DIE? I’m gonna string you up like a Chinatown chicken. ”
In real life she leaned into Craig. “I learned those songs you sent me. When are we going to practice?” She fluffed his hair. His eyes stayed on me. I slammed my book shut and got ready to leave. Fleur was thin and pretty, but she had ice queen written all over her. Chloe says access beats beauty every time.
“Where are you going?” Cr
aig wanted to know.
“Who cares?” Fleur said.
“She’s going to have a cigarette,” Sarita whispered.
As I walked away I tried to picture what they saw: my crazy curves, my straw bag swinging, my hat in my hand sweeping the air. I bet they’d never seen a big girl so confident. Boom-boom-BOOM. My mules clacked on the cork floor like castanets. Arriba!
11
Lucky Smoke
I walked across the plain looking for a place to smoke. There was Fraser’s house, but I’d eaten too much to walk that far, and I didn’t want to run into Bird, whose special duties no doubt included tattling on wayward campers. Then, just past the shower block I found the spot—a bench behind an old incinerator. The site afforded a clear view of the plain, but was far away enough to hide the evidence should the enemy approach. I sat down and lit up. I had a few seconds of grand defiance, but then that good feeling started to slide. Even though I was hidden, I felt conspicuous. What was I doing? Sucking smoke into my lungs and blowing it back out again? The heat had died down a little. The sky had gone orange.
Dylan came windmilling down the gravel path. He was fast. He looked deranged. He parked next to me and pulled a smoke from behind his ear. He was wearing fingerless leather biker gloves. They were so anti they made me smile.
“Match me,” he said.
“What?”
“Match me; light my fire.”
“Oh, okay.” I lit his cigarette. He didn’t thank me; he simply puffed away and stared at the streaky sky. The campers started to pile out of the mess hall. They bolted and skipped and chased and dawdled across the plain. Dylan and I sat side by side. As soon as I stubbed my cigarette out, Dylan offered me his pack. I noticed that he had a lucky smoke turned upside down. I liked that. I didn’t suppose the Wheelchair Boy would be much on luck, but there it was, third from the end. I took the one next to it. Then I remembered that his last name was Luck. I wondered how he felt about that. I was wondering about his “accident,” too. I almost asked: what happened to you? But something stopped me. He probably had to answer that question all the time. I wouldn’t ask it. I’d never ask it. If he jumped sixteen floors he must have had a good reason.
I studied him again and this time I didn’t care if he knew. If I could stare him into conversation, well, that had to be better than all this sit-and-no-talk business. His chair looked banged up. It had a series of scratches along the side, like days marked off in fishbone lines of five, hundreds of them. And then there were the DIY Playboy mud flaps—so trucker fucker. I decided that Dylan was an ally with a highly developed sense of irony. The YL vest over his Kreator T-shirt made a nice contradiction. His bag was graffed up with band names I didn’t recognize—lightning bolts and heavy-metal umlauts.
“Are you a metal-head?” I asked him.
Nothing. Dylan’s muteness was starting to make me feel irrelevant, so I went all out, interviewing him. I threw random questions in the air and watched them disappear with the cigarette smoke.
“What really happens when you play Led Zeppelin backward?”
“What’s your porn star name?”
“Do you have any piercings?”
“What do you like in a girl?”
“Beavis or Butthead?”
“Elvis or Marilyn?”
“Jesus or George Bush?”
“Where’s the weirdest place you ever had sex?”
“How many Christians does it take to change a light-bulb?”
Then I noticed the white cord running down to his bag. He had earplugs in. Oh.
“Hey!” I yanked the cord out of his ear. “I was talking to you.”
He put his earplugs away and looked down at his feet. Maybe he was shy. Definitely he was weird. Either way he still wasn’t talking. I watched him dig in his pocket and take out a vial. He shook out two white pills, put one on his tongue, and swallowed.
I was so used to his brick wall pose that when he finally looked at me I went mute. Dylan’s eyes were heavy lidded, grave, and gray. He silently offered me the other pill.
“What’ll it do?”
Dylan raised his eyebrows, daring me.
“Okay.” I said, taking the pill.
Craig bounded up to us then, his lips quirked into a half smile. “Bonding over carcinogens? Why am I not surprised? We should put up a sign: Smoke Here.” He worked his Youth Leader schtick. “Just make sure you extinguish the butts. This is tinderbox country.”
Dylan made a noise that was somewhere between a scoff and a snort.
Craig repositioned himself so that he was standing in front of us with his arms folded. “We’re setting up for night cricket.” He nodded to Dylan. “Wanna umpire?”
Nothing.
“What about you?” Craig was looking at me like he knew all my secrets.
“No thanks.”
Craig looked momentarily put out. Then he palmed his faux-hawk, issued a “Laters,” and strode over to where some Mallees were teasing a frog with a flashlight.
Dylan and I watched him go. We turned to each other.
“Laters.”
We said it at the same time with the same wince, then we smiled and looked away. I watched Craig parade across the plain, gathering players. He was showing a lot of leg in his tight white shorts. Maybe I was gazing, because Dylan spoke up, and when he did his voice was a shock to the silence. He said, “If you want to get on that, ask him about the time he saved Sarita’s life.”
“What makes you think I want to ‘get on that’?”
“All girls go for Craig. Your whole frothy gothy flower-wielding shit doesn’t fool me.”
I looked at him. I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not. And now it seemed I was mistaken in recognizing any kinship between us. I wanted to talk to him more, but he started twitching in his chair, lifting and lowering his butt, patting and prodding his legs. I decided he was trying to unnerve me. And I decided that I wouldn’t let him.
Fleur was walking toward the shower block. Dylan suddenly shoved his hands down on his wheels and shouted, “Fleur—wait up!” She must have heard him, but she just about-faced and walked faster, away from him. Dylan went off-road. It was a tragi-comic sight to see this sad-eyed Wheelchair Boy getting bogged down in the woodchip, but by then the pill he’d given me had started to take effect. My eyelids were drooping like sails. I staggered back to the cabin and fell in a heap on the bed.
Sarita was wearing full cricket whites. Clearly borrowed. She was swimming in them. “Aren’t you playing?” she asked.
I didn’t even have the energy to laugh. I closed my eyes. One day down, two to go. Could I do it? Maybe if I stayed like this—drugged up, in absentia. As I drifted off to the sound of night cricket and real crickets I styled the Vanity Fair Spirit Ranch photo spread in my mind. Craig and Fleur were the Ken and Barbie, Sarita was the Quiet One, Bird was the Wild Card, the twins were the Empty Vessels Waiting to Be Filled, Richard was the Professor. Ethan was the Collaborator. I was the Drama, and Dylan—
—Dylan was the Darkness.
On the Second Day
12
Drama Queens
I woke up to the sound of the PA squealing. There was a loud clunk and then Roslyn’s voice came through, bigger than life.
“Attention, campers. This is your thought for the morning: Lord, let me live adventurously today, flinging my whole self into all I do. ”
The PA squealed and clunked again, and she was gone. I sat up, feeling confused. Sarita was perched on the end of my bed, smiling at me.
“Oh, God.” I blinked. “Where am I? What’s going on?”
“You missed a good one,” she said. “Night cricket went until nine and then we had campfire singing. Craig played guitar—he’s really good—and Fleur sang harmony. She sings through her nose.”
She looked down, her mouth turned inward. “They went off somewhere. And look—her bed hasn’t been slept in.”
I ignored the lick of jealousy and rolled my eyes. “So
much for ‘no coupling up.’ Are they boyfriend-girlfriend, then?”
“I think so,” Sarita said. “But it’s bad.”
“What do you mean—because of Jesus?” I joked.
Sarita nodded. “That. And also because last summer Fleur and Dylan were …” She laced her hands together and pressed hard. “But then he had the … accident … She hasn’t even talked to him yet. He looks so different.”
“Different how?” I asked, even though I knew.
“He used to be athletic and competitive. He and Craig were like the two sides of the same coin.”
“You mean they were nothing like each other?”
“No, I mean they were exactly like each other.”
“That would be a double-headed coin, then.”
One corner of Sarita’s mouth tilted up. “Yes.”
I thought about Dylan flying after Fleur. About Craig’s sulk when Dylan refused to umpire. “What happened to him?”
“I heard it was a suicide attempt. Richard said it was a surfing accident.”
“Has anyone actually asked Dylan how it happened?”
Sarita bit her lip and shook her head.
I asked, “You know him, don’t you?”
“Yes, but …” Sarita couldn’t answer. “He’s broken. I overheard Neville talking to Roslyn about him. He said he’d asked Dylan if he wanted a carer, but Dylan said no, he could look after himself.”
Everything Beautiful Page 4
