Camp Rolling Hills

by Stacy Davidowitz

  “Uh, I never said she needs one, but, like, it would be so much better if she did.”

  Slimey pushed herself out from her bottom bunk. She knew Melman was fighting against boyfriends in general, but if joining her campaign meant getting Jenny off Jamie’s back about Bobby, so be it. “I agree with Melman. I think you’re having her go after a boyfriend for the wrong reasons.”

  “Why is it wrong to, like, want to be loved?” Jamie challenged Slimey, snuggling closer to Jenny.

  “That’s not at all . . .” Melman tugged at her hair. “What we’re saying is . . .”

  “Don’t just want a boyfriend so you can talk about them together,” Slimey explained.

  “We’d double-date, too,” Jenny added. “God, I’m the one with the boyfriend, people. I know what being in a relationship means. I’m not just guessing.”

  Slimey was guessing, but she’d bet all her lanyards that Jenny was wrong. “Still, it’s more than that,” she continued. “You should want a boyfriend you have stuff in common with, who you can, like, really talk to. About deep stuff.”

  “I don’t have deep stuff,” Jamie panicked. “Jenny, I don’t have deep stuff!”

  “Omigod, calm down. You have deep stuff,” Jenny assured her.

  “I think you’re on to something, Slimes,” Missi chimed in. “It would be amazing to have a boyfriend who also plays the flute.”

  Slimey thanked her with a smile.

  “Or who’s also a vampire,” Sophie inserted.

  Slimey cocked her head.

  “We could harmonize!”

  “And drink blood together!”

  “You’re not a vampire, Sophie,” Jenny reminded her, “and also, ew, that’s gross.”

  Jenny pulled Jamie to her lap and moved Jamie’s mop of hair over to one shoulder. “So, what do you think, Jamie?” Jenny purred into her ear.

  “About what?”

  “A boyfriend!!!”

  Jamie surveyed the room with her big, desperate eyes, and it took less than a second before everyone’s opinions were unleashed.

  “You can survive without a guy,” said Melman.

  “You do know what Alexandria Millmont said about lovers when she was turned under the moon . . . ,” said Sophie.

  “If you get a boyfriend, I’ll get a boyfriend,” said Missi.

  “You’re not ready, Jamie. You haven’t met the right person,” said Slimey.

  “The four of us can be a quad, Jamie!” Jenny yelled over her cabinmates. “Don’t let them cloud your judgment. LET ME FIND YOU A BOYFRIEND!”

  “Yeah, I get it, boyfriends are totally awesome.” Sara whipped her beaded curtain aside, two marshmallows wedged into her mouth. “That is, until they tell you they’re coming back to camp to be with you and then break your heart and stomp on it with their lies and perfect hair and strong calf muscles from running track!” She choked, spat the marshmallows out into the trash bin next to her, and started to sob.

  “Are you OK?” Jenny asked, frozen with shock.

  “I’m just choking on sugar!”

  Slimey gently led Sara to the closest bunk, sat down next to her, and rubbed her back. “Hey, it’s OK.” She could tell things had just gotten a little weird, because their college-bound counselor was crying. But she knew from experience that anyone could break down, not just campers.

  Jenny rushed to join them. “Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked. “Say all the good stuff you had together? Will that make you feel better?”

  Sara nodded. Jenny smiled boastfully and looked at Jamie. “Listen up, Jamie. You’re about to hear everything you’re missing —all the perfection and popularity that comes with having a boyfriend.”

  Slimey looked back at Melman, and they both eyed the soccer ball on the floor and smirked. Too bad it was out of reach. Melman tapped her heart twice, and Slimey did the same before turning back to Sara. As Slimey listened to her counselor, amazing memories with Melman and the amazing memories she’d made today with Bobby floated through her mind like an end-of-camp slide show. I could have a best friend and a crush, she told herself. Why not? She pushed the J-squad drama aside and felt her whole body beam as she decided to make this summer nothing short of the best summer of her life.

  Slimey held on to the edge of the pool to catch her breath, winded from a crazy-competitive game of Marco Polo with the Anita Hill girls. Now, with no one to chase after or swim away from, it was hard to keep her eyes off Bobby, who was struggling with the annual swim test. Next to Totle, who treaded water like Michael Phelps, Bobby looked like he was drowning.

  Ever since their first coed Evening Activity together, she’d been itching to spend more time with Bobby, but they hadn’t really had a second chance to connect. She’d even gone to softball for Electives, hoping he’d be there, too—but Totle said he was in the infirmary with a stomachache, which everyone knew was code for homesickness, especially when you were new.

  “You got it, buddy! Ten more seconds!” Rick cheered, fist-pumping from beside the lifeguard chair.

  Slimey noticed that Bobby’s hair looked darker when it was wet, and it brought out a glint in his eye. It was a glint of panic, but, still, it was striking.

  As Slimey practiced her underwater handstands, she reminded herself why Bobby was not on par with his cabinmates in the swimming department—he hadn’t grown up here, and there probably weren’t too many swim lessons at baseball camp. He’d learn soon enough. Slimey felt a tickle on the bottom of her foot. Melman! she thought. She flopped out of her handstand and popped up from the water, ready for a splash war. But it wasn’t Melman. It was Bobby. Her heart nearly leapt out of her chest.

  “I know it looked like I was drowning over there, but believe it or not, I passed.”

  Slimey giggled. “Well, congrats!”

  “Thanks. I’m ready to start my Olympics training. I heard they’re making doggie paddling an event.”

  She giggled some more. It was nice that Bobby could laugh at himself. “Actually, that’s totally an event during the Rolling Hills Olympics. Not the real Olympics. In the Apache. It’s the event after the Regatta before the Backwards-Alphabet Recitation.”

  He laughed. “Are you speaking gibberish right now to mess with me?”

  Go easy. Bobby doesn’t know camp-speak. “You’ll get it. Happens at the end of the summer.”

  “If I make it that far. If things get sorted at home, I might not need to stay.”

  Bobby’s words hit her like a punch to the heart. She wanted Bobby to be happy and for everything to work out with his family, but she didn’t want him to leave. She felt a pang of guilt for being so selfish. “I thought you wanted to get away for the summer.”

  “Maybe, yeah, for a little while. But if things get better at home, then it could be nice to be there.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel any better, last summer Jamie’s parents got divorced, and the year before that Missi’s parents split up, and neither of them ever wanted to go home.”

  “Well, my parents are just on bad terms—they’re not . . . I mean, they’re not getting a divorce or anything. What about your parents? Are they together?”

  The lump from the other day snuck back, and she swallowed it away. “My dad’s—Yeah. They’re—It’s like . . .” Suddenly, she was lifted above the water by an unseen force. The next thing she knew, she was sitting on Melman’s shoulders, gripping her head for support. She was glad for the interruption. It felt really natural to talk to Bobby about home stuff, but she was afraid if she opened up too much, he’d pity her, or, worse, all her feelings would explode uncontrollably, like a Mentos-infused Pepsi.

  “Sorry, Smelly,” Melman said. “Gotta steal this girl away. In case you two haven’t noticed, everyone’s out of the water.”

  Slimey smiled to herself as she noticed the empty pool. When she and Bobby were together, it was like they were the only two people in the world. She crashed into the water, adjusted her green Speedo, and tightened her ponytail. She cau
ght Bobby staring, and it made her blush. Melman looked back and forth between them, arching her eyebrows.

  “What?” Slimey asked.

  “Oh, nothing . . . ,” Melman said, smirking.

  Slimey knew exactly what Melman meant. Bobby probably did, too. Still, the two of them treaded water in awkward silence, pretending to be completely oblivious.

  They heard a whistle blow three times.

  “Well, I guess that’s my cue to get out,” he said. “I don’t want the lifeguard to retract her decision to pass me.”

  “Yeah, you’d look pretty weird in floaties,” Slimey teased.

  “Is that what they make you wear if you fail the swim test?”

  Slimey smiled and shook her head. Somehow, his total naïveté about all things camp made her like him even more. She swam to the ladder and followed Melman out.

  “So . . . are you gonna play Marco Polo with us tomorrow?” Melman asked Slimey, squeezing the water from her hair.

  “Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Slimey said, grabbing her pink towel.

  Melman shrugged. “ ’Cause it’s girls only, and, I dunno, I just want to make sure you still want to hang out with us at swim.”

  Slimey squinted with confusion and followed Melman’s gaze to Bobby as he pulled himself out of the water. Oh. As her heart pulled in two directions, she was reminded why she hadn’t told Melman about her crush in the first place. She wanted to reassure Melman, but she also didn’t want to make any promises she couldn’t keep. “Oh. Um. Yeah, I’ll hang out with everyone.”

  “Whatever, that’s cool,” Melman said, looking down at her flip-flops and then at their cabinmates leaving the pool area. “We should go, though . . .”

  Slimey nodded. “See you later, Bobby,” she called over her shoulder, then raced after Melman and the other Anita Hill girls.

  “See ya!” he shouted back.

  Slimey noticed that he looked cuter than ever in his navy swim shorts, with his thick hair plastered to his face. He still had that glint in his eye, but something told her it was for a whole other reason.

  Bobby lay awake on his bunk, gazing at the moonlit cobwebs hanging from the corners of the San Juan Hill Cabin ceiling. He’d almost dozed off listening to the hum of crickets and the steady flushing of the cabin’s broken toilet, but that became impossible with the eruption of Play Dough’s Darth Vader snores. He was relieved when Dover shoved a sock into Play Dough’s mouth, but he coughed it out seconds later, and the snores had been unbearable ever since. Bobby tried to drown it out by listening to the Beatles through his headphones, but he only got through thirteen full songs and two minutes and three seconds of “Michelle” before the battery died.

  He took a deep breath, and the smell of fart shot up his nostrils and into his throat. He gagged into his pillow. He wasn’t sure who’d dealt it, but he suspected Dover, since he’d eaten three sloppy joes at dinner. The gas passed, and in its place, Bobby inhaled San Juan’s normal stench of body odor and unlaundered socks. He checked his sports watch: 12:18 AM. Only two minutes had passed since the last time he’d checked.

  Bobby had always had trouble falling asleep. The first time was after he’d played the murdered turkey in his first-grade production of We Give Thanks. Then it was other stuff that made him restless, like scary movies and nerves about saying something stupid in class. Now, if he wasn’t being kept up by the cabin’s jarring sounds and smells, he was worrying about what was going on at home while he was stuck here, barely adjusting to this weird place, too far away to help.

  Bobby winced as his left foot fell asleep, the pins and needles spreading up his leg like an army of ants. He kicked it awake, and a random tennis ball flew from his blanket, over Steinberg. He shot up from his pillow with heart-pounding panic and cringed with every echoing bounce. “Sorry,” he whispered to the center of San Juan, scanning the cabin for stirring bodies. He expected a pillow to be thrown at his head by Dover or at least an annoyed grumble from Totle.

  “Don’t make me eat the starfish,” Bobby heard from below.

  “What?” He leaned over the side of the bunk-bed, his head hovering upside down over a spazzing Wiener.

  “Crackers and cheese, please, mouse-mouse,” Wiener mumbled, his eyes sealed shut.

  “Wiener, are you up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Me too. I can’t fall asleep again. Wanna play cards or . . . ?”

  “Yummy, Mommy.”

  “Wiener?”

  Wiener smacked his lips together, exhaled a whistle from his nose, and lay still.

  Bobby hauled himself up, collapsed back onto the thin mattress, and let out a sigh of frustration. Last night he’d counted 6,986 sheep before giving up. Listening to his iPod at night made him miss his dad (plus, the battery was the worst), and even though warm milk usually did the trick at home, there was no microwave here. He could still go with Play Dough’s suggestion: leave a cup of milk in the sun and then save it for later, since it was hot in the cabin, anyway, but Rick said that would make him throw up.

  Bobby heard a few faint strums of guitar coming from the San Juan Hill Cabin porch. He closed his eyes and tried to think of Rick’s plucking as some kind of soothing lullaby. He gave it thirty seconds before a sudden charley horse in his left calf sent him shooting up in pain. He held his leg and let out a silent yelp. That’s it. I’m done, he decided. He climbed down from his bunk and went past his sleeping cabinmates, right out the creaking front door.

  Rick looked up from his playing. “Oh, hey, buddy. How’s it going?”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Was I keeping you up?”

  “No . . . it happens at home, too. It’s a thing I have,” he admitted, even though he’d promised himself he wouldn’t mention Bizarro to anyone. Get it together, Bobby.

  “Cool, cool.”

  How is it cool to have trouble falling asleep? Bobby wondered. His heart raced faster, and he found himself getting angry. Cool and anxious are opposites by definition. I literally have to “play it cool” to hide my anxiety.

  Rick pulled the guitar strap over his head and put the instrument aside. “You try reading or writing a letter or something?”

  “Well, you said lights out,” Bobby said.

  “Touché.”

  “And the flashlight I borrowed from Dover doesn’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “He gave the batteries to Steinberg for some explosive science thing.”

  “Uh, that doesn’t sound so safe . . .” Rick leaned toward the door, concerned.

  “Can I just sit outside with you for a minute until I get tired?”

  “You think I’m so boring, I’ll put you to sleep?” he asked, smiling and bringing his hands to his knees.

  “Oh, no, that’s not what I meant. It’s just, that’s what my mom and dad—”

  “It’s cool,” Rick laughed. “But if the Caperooski comes by, you gotta jet inside, OK?”

  Bobby nodded. Rick grabbed his guitar, and Bobby took a seat next to him on the sports-equipment crate. He listened to Rick strum a few more chords, then felt the urge to make conversation. Rick was relatively normal, and it wasn’t often that Bobby had him all to himself.

  “Practicing for something?”

  “Eh, just playin’ around. You into music?”

  “Yeah. I have three thousand songs on my iPod. Well, it’s my dad’s old one, but he gave it to me.”

  “Cool. What’s your favorite band?”

  “I don’t know. The Beatles, I guess. Eric Clapton.”

  “I dig it—Clapton’s the man. You a Phish fan?”

  “My mom makes good tuna.”

  “You did not just say that.”

  I did not just say that, Bobby thought. Play it cool.

  Rick slapped his guitar. “OK, baby steps. You know, if you’re really into music, I bet with some practice you could be good at this.”

  “Like, good-good?”

  “Yeah, like good-good.”
/>
  “My dad used to play. He hasn’t had time to teach me, since he works all the time, and I practice my pitch a lot.”

  “So, you sing?”

  “No, like baseball pitch.”

  “Ah.”

  “But I guess I can sing a little. I’m in my school chorus.” Bobby decided not to tell Rick he’d had a panic attack right before their winter concert when the male soloist was absent and Mrs. Levine was looking for anyone who could do falsetto. Unfortunately, Bobby could do falsetto. That’s when he’d found the janitor’s closet.

  “Nice. I bet your dad would be psyched if you came home able to rock out on the guitar.”

  Bobby agreed. He and his dad used to hang out more. They’d make his dad’s French toast specialty: fresh challah bread from the kosher bakery drenched in real eggs and butter and cinnamon, with powdered sugar sprinkled on top. But it had been a while since they’d done anything together. Maybe if he learned some guitar, they could play together at home. Or, if his parents went back on nonspeaking terms, guitar could be a good way to drown out their silence.

  Rick handed Bobby his guitar. “I’m gonna teach you a chord.”

  Bobby held it the way he’d seen Rick hold it, and the way he’d seen his dad hold one in old pictures. He hoped he was doing it right.

  “Ready?”

  “I guess, sure.”

  “All right, here we go. You put this finger here on the top string, then this one a little farther down between the second and third fret. These here, on the neck, are called frets.” Rick pointed to the metal strips that ran across the width of the neck part. “And then, the ring finger goes down here on the bottom string.”

  Bobby put his fingers in place.

  “Good?”

  Bobby nodded.

  “OK, now strum.”

  Bobby ran his thumb along the strings. I actually sound pretty good!

  “And that, my friend, is a G chord.”

  Bobby strummed a few more times. “You think maybe you can teach me more?”

  “Absolutely. How ’bout during Rest Hours or something?”

  “Yeah, that’s a good time.” Rest Hour was the time Bobby thought about his dad the most, anyway, since there was nothing to do but write home or watch Steinberg experiment with electricity.