by J. K. Rock
“Exactly.” Hannah kissed my cheek, then yelled at a bunch of staring boys. “I love Kayla, and I don’t care who knows it!”
“Can we watch?” one of them asked, stepping closer.
“As if!” we shouted until the group stumbled away.
I stood and looked down at my bunkmates. Friends for real now. If I weren’t feeling so crappy about Nick, this would be awesome.
“I’m going to go check on Nick. Be right back.”
“Laters,” Brittany called, then squealed when Rachel tossed a handful of grass at her.
I wandered over to the Warriors.
“Hey, so do any of you guys know where Nick went?”
Jake peered down at me, his shoulders so wide they made his head look small. “Don’t know. When we woke up this morning, his gear was gone and so was he.”
I tried a yoga breath, but the scent of boy BO was too powerful for a full inhale. So Nick was gone, as in permanently. My pulse skidded at the thought. He wasn’t returning. Ever.
I looked over at Eli, who tickled a snoozing Buster with a grass blade, making the big guy slap at his own face, then arm, then neck while he dozed.
“So he didn’t tell you guys about his plans?”
Eli pointed the grass blade at me. “He talked to you more than he talked to us this summer. We were going to ask if you knew anything once we were done with Brooke’s video.” He peered over at Brooke as she sent the harried-looking makeup artist’s powder brush flying. “If it ever ends.”
My heart sank. “Nope. He didn’t tell me anything either.” I trudged back to my group.
“So what’d you find out?” called Brittany, a dirt smudge in her blonde hair making her look like she was on a zombie video shoot. I wondered how she’d feel about that given her vampire obsession.
“He’s gone.”
Rachel whistled. “That sucks. He promised me a b-ball game of one-on-one the day after tomorrow.”
A whistle blew, and hopeful that things were finally starting, everyone quieted.
“We’re going to do some shots of you playing volleyball so if everyone would come this way.” Gollum gestured toward a makeshift court they’d set up for the shoot.
“First the girls,” hollered the director. He stood beside Brooke, his face redder than I could blame the sun for.
“No!” Brooke called. “Boys first. And without shirts. Let’s see some abs!”
Most of the boys grinned and ripped off their tees or tanks. But a few, heavier ones stood around looking self-conscious.
“Some of the boys can wear shirts,” Hannah shouted, and I was proud of the smile she gave one of the guys from the Wander Inn. It was definitely someone she wouldn’t have let herself notice before. Julian, who had no reason not to take off his tank, wore his along with a defiant expression…and a thumbs-up to his girl.
Brooke swatted away the woman fussing over her fifth hairstyle and marched our way. She pointed a finger at Hannah.
“Look. You may think you’re back to queen bee, but on this shoot, I’m king. Got it?”
Hannah opened her mouth, but Gollum stepped up beside Brooke.
“Camp Juniper Point is known for building relationships. You ladies need to show the world what we stand for, and I believe the lyrics I wrote—ah—I mean, Miss White wrote will underscore that.”
A gasp rippled through our group when Brooke turned bright red.
“Did Mr. Woodrow write your song?” Eli’s guffaw set off a round of laughter. “That’ll be a hit.”
“With the over-fifty people,” Jake put in, making some clutch their stomachs and double over, shrieking.
“I-I—” Gollum seemed at war with himself, his indecision all we needed to know about why he’d been so protective of Brooke’s video. It was his song. Amazing.
“—will not say another word,” Brooke ground out through clenched teeth. “Now everyone in their places.”
Hannah stepped forward. “Maybe we don’t want to be put in our places anymore.”
Nia joined her. “Yeah. Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t know her place.”
“You’re not our boss.” Brittany pulled out her ponytail. “And I never wear my hair this high. I look like a freaking pom-pom.”
“Brooke looks like a poodle,” said one of the boys, pointing at the teased, crimped hair that stuck out of the top of Brooke’s over-sized bow. I had to admit. It was hideous. A cry for help from a stylist who looked like she wanted to pull out her own hair.
When my friends laughed, Brooke stepped back as if slapped. Her high-heeled boot sunk into a hole, and she fell hard on her butt. She blinked away tears as the crowd’s hysteria escalated, and for some reason, instead of joining in, I raced to her.
Stupid me. Just when I’d finally found myself on the inside, I dashed right back out again. Maybe being an outsider was part of my DNA. Whatever it was, I couldn’t stand seeing her alone, crying, feeling every bit as horrible as I used to feel.
I offered her a hand and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s get you fixed up,” I said, shooting a death glare at the rest of the Divas until they quieted and watched, open-mouthed, as I led her away.
At the hair and makeup area, the stylist had disappeared.
“Where’s what’s-her-name?” Brooke called to one of the lighting guys.
“Jen? She quit. Said you weren’t worth the aggravation.”
Fresh tears sprang to Brooke’s eyes. “No! She can’t do that. I have a contract.”
“I think she said you could, uh—” A crew member tapped his chin. “Well, forget what she said you could do with the contract. The thing is she isn’t coming back.”
Brooke sank into a canvas chair with a star on the back and dropped her head in her hands. “What am I going to do?” she moaned.
“Look up at the sky and don’t blink for starters,” I said.
“What?” She lifted her tear-stained face and blinked at me in surprise.
I waved an eye pencil at her. “You heard me.” Everyone might be bailing, even Nick, but I’d learned enough this summer to realize that I had to follow my own lead, not anyone else’s. Everyone else may have decided it was cool to make fun of Brooke since she’d been truly horrible this summer, but I had to face myself in the mirror and the reflection I wanted to see wasn’t a bully. Uh-uh. Not me.
“Why are you helping me?”
I swooshed lilac eye shadow on her upper lids, then dabbed a smoke gray in the creases. “I’m not.” After applying some nude lip gloss and smoothing out her hair, I stepped back and admired the effect. “I’m helping myself.”
Someone grabbed me from behind and swung me around in the kind of helicopter ride I’d seen dads do with their kids. For a heart-stopping moment I thought it was Nick and then caught a glimpse of blond hair. Cam.
“Brooke looks awesome.” He clapped his hands and boomed. “Let’s do this! For Kayla!”
“No!” I shouted, my voice just as loud, or louder, over the crowd of campers closing in to see what I’d done to Brooke in the makeup chair. My friends’ faces were interested. Curious. “We’re going to do it for Camp Juniper Point pride. Because this is camp and we lift each other up here. Right?”
Hannah’s eyebrows rose. She exchanged glances with Julian, who gave a silent thumbs-up.
“Damn straight,” Brittany shouted, lifting a fist in the air and striking a cheer pose. “For the home team!”
Gollum watched from the sidelines of the crowd and didn’t even bother to correct the language infraction. He nodded his approval as he fanned his sweating face with a hat.
I could only look on in amazement as someone from the camera crew cranked up the music and we got down to the business of making a video.
Together.
Later that night, I laid in bed and stared up at the shadows that scraped along the slanted room of our cabin. While the rest of the group dozed, Brooke still in the full makeup she’d refused to remove before bed, I couldn’t get to sleep.<
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Today had been full of revelations. I was glad that I’d found my voice and did what I thought was right this summer, not what others expected. That personal victory should be enough to soothe the sting of losing Nick for good—not that getting him back had ever been a real option. He’d always blame me for coercing him into leaving camp. But no matter how much I told myself that, it hurt that Nick was gone. That we hadn’t even left on friendly terms.
I brushed back tears and forced my mind onto something better, a replay of the phone conversations I’d had with each parent after dinner. Calling my dad had been hard.
I’d launched in straight after our hellos, knowing I’d lose my nerve otherwise. “I’ve decided where I want to live.”
“That’s great, honey. You won’t regret coming to live with me.” Dad had sounded happy, but it bugged me that he’d assumed he knew what I’d choose.
“I’m not, actually.” Swallowing hard, I peered out of Gollum’s window to where our camp director plucked a tune on his ukulele, giving me the privacy I’d asked for.
“Sorry, sweetheart, we must have a bad connection. Come again?”
“I’m not going to move in with you, Dad.” I’d rushed that part out, but I’d practiced it in my head and I knew I sounded firm on that point. “I love you, but I’d rather take things slow—maybe start spending time together on vacations?”
“Well, that’s not what I expected…but yeah. It’s a start that’s long overdue.” He’d sounded sad and disappointed. “I’m sorry, Kayla.”
I’d nearly swallowed my tongue.
“Kayla?” Dad had said finally. “You still there?
“Yes.” I’d been shaky inside by then.
“I should have been there when you were growing up, honey. I wish I had some kind of excuse that made sense, but I don’t. I always figured I’d stink as a father and that if you got to know me, you wouldn’t like me.”
The shockers kept coming. It seemed sad that my dad sucked at communicating as much as me, but at the same time, it felt really cool to take the lead on changing that a little.
“Kayla?” he’d asked, making me realize I’d been silent for too long.
Guess I wasn’t going to be a communications guru overnight.
“Yeah. Uh…still here. It’s just that I kind of understand that. I felt that way too once.”
“Will you forgive me?”
I’d had no idea what to say to that. The stuff he’d told me was all so new I hadn’t figured out where to put it all yet. “Like we said. It’s a start.”
“So you’re going to Milan with your mom, huh? What are you going to do there? Model?”
“Yeah. Right.” I’d shook my head but had to smile. My dad and I had never been close, but not once in all the years that I’d been pudgy had he ever made me feel like he thought I was too big. “But I did figure out what I want to do. Study makeup and hair at Milan’s Fashion Academy.”
“And if your mom isn’t around much?” he quizzed me.
“Then I have myself. And that’s fine.”
It’d been my father’s turn to be surprised. Or at least, that’s how I’d took it when he was silent for a moment.
“Yes it is, honey. And you’ll do fine.”
After that, I’d made a call to my mother as well, and I finally had a clear vision of my future without someone standing in the way of it. I’d go to Milan, study with the best, and learn to do something that made me happy for a change. There was nothing wrong with that and no reason to worry. If I didn’t listen to myself, the only person I risked disappointing was me.
Chapter Fifteen
“Where’s Nick?” Kennedi asked me on the last day of CIT training as she cut out a felt frog for a collage. “Is it true he’s going to be on the front of a cereal box?”
I was on my own in the arts and crafts building with the Mermaids while Amanda attended a meeting with the other first-year counselors in the recreation room nearby. The door was open between the two rooms so that, if I had any trouble, I could holler and have lots of certified counselors by my side.
Three other groups of kids were scattered around the room to put the finishing touches on the scenery for Walk Down Memory Lane, an end-of-summer celebration that was more interactive than anything we’d done in the past.
“I haven’t heard anything about a cereal box, so I can’t say for sure.” I helped Soraya glue a construction paper butterfly to a real log that was part of their display for Walk Down Memory Lane.
Each cabin had to create a summer memory vignette to share on the last night of camp. The Mermaids had recreated a spot at Crystal Falls that I knew all too well. They’d already moved some of the pieces into the dining hall where we’d have our interactive memory lane, but today, the kids worked on smaller decorative touches.
“But really,” Kennedi asked, shoving a strand of hair back into her studded headband. “Like, where is he?” She lowered her voice. “I know he’s your boyfriend. You don’t have to pretend.”
I didn’t know whether to roll my eyes at her boldness or if I should give her a high-five for speaking her mind. I wished I’d been more like Kennedi at her age.
“He’s not my boyfriend.” I lowered my voice, too. “But I wish he was.”
She giggled and covered her mouth with one hand, a wrist full of friendship bracelets covering half her forearm.
“I want Daan to be my boyfriend, but he says we’re way too young.” She eyed her frog critically and then picked up a black magic marker and started covering it with dots. “Next year though, he won’t be able to say that.”
Look out, Daan!
While the girls were all busy finishing their craft projects, I wandered over to where Alex worked with another cabin, the Selkies, on a recreation of the beach area. They’d already made a sandbox with toys that were at the dining hall, and today they were making a cardboard cut-out where kids could stick their heads through holes and look like they had the bodies of surfer girls or surfer guys. They were excited about their picture booth since all the kids were going to have access to their electronics tonight so they could take photos of the event.
“Hey, hot stuff.” Alex snapped her gum and set down her paintbrush. “I can’t believe you’re going to Milan without me.”
I’d told my friends about my plan, knowing I’d need their support while I was away. I couldn’t believe it was the last year of camp, but at least I could talk to everyone online.
“You know I’d take you in my suitcase if I could.” I would still love to have a friend with me, even if I’d been giving myself nightly talks about how I’d be fine on my own.
“Yeah, I know.” Alex draped an arm around me and squeezed me in a quick hug. “But you’re going to be so fabulous I’d only get in the way. I want pictures of your first makeup job over there.”
I knew that was going to be a while, even if I was lucky enough to intern at a magazine, but I loved that she said it.
“Only if I can have a photo of you on stage in the Big Apple.” Alex was going to finish high school at a performing arts school where she could take classes around auditions.
“Duh!” She let go of me and flicked her finger in a pile of glitter so I got a little silver coating on my arm. “I’m sending that photo to everyone in my address book.”
“Good plan.” I couldn’t help but be inspired. Alex was such a go-getter.
Wandering over to the front windows that looked out onto the lacrosse field, I saw Nia outside. With Brooke.
Not wanting to be nosy but seized by the need to make sure things were cool between those two, I signaled to Alex that I was stepping out front for a second. The kids were all working well together so I didn’t feel guilty.
“Hey, Kayla!” Nia called as soon as I stepped out into the sunlight. She charged over to me and flung an arm around my waist. “Guess what?”
I looked from her to Brooke, wondering if she was responsible for the smile on Nia’s face.
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��I can’t imagine.” Really, I had no flipping clue. Brooke had seemed grateful I’d helped her on her video shoot a few days ago, but she’d been super-quiet ever since. She definitely hadn’t been any nicer. She just kept to herself.
Even now, Brooke texted on a phone and didn’t look my way.
A phone?
“It’s okay she has it,” Nia told me, pulling me toward her former idol—now friend? “Her Uncle Larry—I mean, Mr. Woodrow—said she could have it to talk to her agent.”
“Gollum is her uncle?” I nearly fell over. “Seriously?”
Yet I remembered something being kind of “off” between them that first time I’d seen them together. Their interaction had been so odd.
“Don’t tell!” Nia frowned. “Her mom said she didn’t want anyone to think Brooke got special privileges.”
“Er…right.” I tried not to roll my eyes. “I’m sure no one would ever think that.”
“But guess what Brooke said?” Nia leaned up against a tree near Brooke, who finally looked up and gave me a half-smile.
“What?” I couldn’t help but stare at the worried frown on Brooke’s face. Between the purple ends of her hair growing out and her nail polish all chipped, she looked like she hadn’t given much care to her appearance. For some girls, that wouldn’t be a big deal. For Brooke, who used to spray tan before hitting the beach and then hide under the shade of a towel that Nia held, it was a huge deal.
“She’s going to let me be in her video!” Nia squealed. “Do you believe it? Will you do my hair and makeup? Brooke said you’re the best.”
Hadn’t Brooke told her that we’d already shot the video almost a week ago?
“Gollum had the idea,” Brooke blurted, setting down her phone.
“I already let the secret slip,” Nia admitted.
Brooke sighed but didn’t look quite as mean or as impatient as I’d seen her with Nia in the past. “Okay then, Uncle Larry said I should do some stills of Nia. The production people will splice them in.”
“That’s really cool.” I still couldn’t believe Gollum was related to Brooke. No wonder he beamed when she walked by. He wasn’t enamored so much as…proud.
