The next day held nominations for soccer captain and a dive meet in the afternoon. That evening, the senior camp was going to a town nearby to go roller skating. In the morning, Lucy took out a canoe and stopped in the thick patch of water lilies by the side of the lake. Before she had the canoe dragged from the lake edge, the breakfast bell rang and she ran toward the mess hall, tripped, and fell over a tree root by the flagpole. Bethany and Flip saw her, laughed, and kept walking.
From the lodge, James came down to help. He pulled her up from the ground. Lucy tried to walk to the infirmary without him. He put his arm over her shoulder and secured her around the waist.
“I’m fine,” she said, trying to shake him off.
“No, you’re not,” he said.
The day’s activities went on without her as James drove Lucy to the clinic in town.
“Let’s take my truck,” he said, “that way you can stretch your leg out.”
Bandaged and with crutches, Lucy was quiet. James turned onto a paved road labeled Route 105. She didn’t ask where they were going. Twenty minutes later, they reached a dusty roadside restaurant called The Place. James parked and helped her out of the truck and inside, where the room was empty except for one young waitress and a gray-haired cook they could see in the back.
James guided Lucy to a booth, where she slid in backward so she could keep her foot up.
“You know what I love?” he asked.
“What?”
“A good grilled cheese. Toasted cheese sandwiches we call them back at home. Always make you feel better.”
“I don’t feel bad now, so why would I want to feel better?” Lucy smiled. Her mother would say Lucy was “in difficult mode,” and she said this to James, who agreed.
“Okay, then. We can order something else.”
“Grilled cheese is fine.” Lucy pressed her fingers to the grimy plastic menu cover, listening to the stick of her skin when she pulled them off.
They ate and talked for an hour and then played pinball at the back. The shiny silver balls raced over spaceships; flashing bells and noise echoed out into the dank back room. Lucy felt James watching her score points on a multiball round, hoping he was looking at her and not the cartoon heroine’s breasts bulging from the rocket’s side. When they ran out of quarters, they leaned against the machine, wondered who named The Place, and took turns suggesting alternatives.
“The Dive?” Lucy offered.
“Sandwiches and More.” James raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you think that sounds a bit naughty?”
“How about Fat, Sugar, and Coffee?” Lucy smiled. James nodded.
“Fat Millie’s?” James asked, and when Lucy made a face he explained, “She’s the cook.”
“You’ve been here before?”
James shook his head. “No, it said her name on her apron when she served us, remember?”
Late that afternoon, while the campers and counselors were still away, James came to check on Lucy in the cabin. He saw the decorated bunks of the other girls and then commented on how bare hers was—no pictures, just a journal.
“And socks,” she said defensively.
“And socks. How understated.” James surveyed the rest of the cabin and then said, “So this is where you live.” She didn’t respond.
“Lucy,” James said flatly.
“Yes?”
“It wasn’t a question,” James said. He looked at her once more before standing up and walking to the door.
The next week was the production of Guys and Dolls. The director hadn’t counted on Lucy’s version of Sarah having a limp, but he worked it into the story. After the bow, the actors went backstage. Pam and Gabrielle came back first to hug Lucy. Billy, who played Sky Masterson, hugged her, too.
“Hey, you’re a good kisser,” he joked, because he’d tried to make it a real kiss rather than a stage one.
“You wish you knew,” she said. There was the rush of performing, then the sudden slink of air from her chest when she looked at the garish rouge on her cheeks, the ill-fitting brocade Salvation Army jacket she wore, desperate to win Sky over to sainthood.
With ten days left of camp, Bethany called the girls into the bathroom. “I’m going to do it with Flip,” she announced. Heidi seemed more excited about it than Bethany and kept telling her what it was like.
Bethany turned to Lucy the next day in the pottery shed. “You know, Lucy, it could have been you,” she said as she worked her clay into a vase.
Lucy dipped her hands in the muddy water bucket and wet the beginnings of a clay bowl that sat on the wheel in front of her. She wondered what had become of the floppy clay ashtrays she’d sculpted and given to her mother, even though Ginny had never smoked.
“Me with Flip?” Lucy asked.
“Yeah,” Bethany said. “If you really wanted, it still could be.”
Lucy didn’t know what to say. “Look, Bethany, if you don’t want to be with Flip, you don’t have to be.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Bethany whipped around and stared at her. “I was just giving you one last shot, trying to be nice, since I got captain and all.”
“It’s okay,” Lucy said, and then slowly, “You deserve it.”
That night all the girls except Beatrice ignored Lucy, and they ate hamburgers by the lake as the final party began. The Friday Social was an all-camp event, with music and food, and candles floating on the surface of the lake. Pam had each of the girls write a wish on a piece of paper, roll the wish up, and stick it into a piece of birch. The tiny candle and wish boats bobbed in the dusk, sailing off on the lake’s surface. Lucy hadn’t known what to write. The other girls gave knowing glances, wrote hastily, and grew tearful watching the wood and paper drift. Lucy gripped her miniature pencil and paper but pocketed them without sending what Pam called her “innermost desires” into nature.
When the dancing started, Billy came over and asked Beatrice to dance. He smiled at Lucy, and she was thankful as he took Beatrice’s hand. Lucy walked to the main lodge and played the piano alone inside the cavernous dark of the empty room.
“That was lovely,” James said when she’d finished playing. He was sitting on the edge of the stage looking out at her.
Years later, as Lucy unpacked boxes from storage with her mother, she found the T-shirt James had given her, his name still written inside. Lucy had moved to England to study, and the boxes had arrived by ship. There was no correspondence in with the shirt, just the clear, steady letters of black ink on the inside neckline. Lucy imagined she could happen upon James in one of the coffeehouses she frequented in London, how they would greet each other, the smell of his English Cusson’s soap coming to her in a wave.
Ginny sat next to Lucy, cross-legged on the concrete of the ship’s storage warehouse. She said nothing as she watched her daughter fold the shirt. With one hand, she brushed Lucy’s hair from her eyes, and with the other hand, she touched the shirt, taking the fabric between her thumb and fingers. She looked at Lucy.
“It’s very soft,” she said.
James and Lucy climbed up the back of the main lodge via the drainage pipe and broken trellis. James got there first and pulled her up the way you’re supposed to pull someone up from a man-overboard drill, hands linked around the forearms. From the roof, they could see the expanse of water, and the rest of camp, the voices muted by the strains of the brass band that played in the gazebo. They lay back onto the upward slope of the shingled eve.
“It’s almost over,” James said. In the inked sky the night larks flew low and landed by their bare feet. Lucy thought of winter, of the softness of the underside of the foot when summer goes. James turned to face her, their knees touching.
“Want a smoke?” he asked, already having drawn a cigarette from his pack.
“Sure,” she said, and it came out softer than she’d intended.
“I’ll light it.” James passed her the cigarette, and she inhaled. In the air around them, the tiny lights of fireflies switched on and off i
n thirty-second intervals.
“What the hell are those things?” asked James, pointing to the flicks of light.
“Fireflies, Jamie,” she said and laughed. He let her nickname him even though she’d heard him scold others for calling him that.
“What, we don’t have them in England, you know. They’re beautiful.”
The fireflies came closer, slowly. As James and Lucy took drags from their cigarettes, the coral glow of the tips attracted the bugs.
“Look,” she said, “they’re calling to us.”
“Yes,” James said as he sat up with his knees to his chest, “the poor sods think we’re mating material.”
He turned to face her. They were still for a moment, and she thought about touching his hair. He stretched his legs out around hers and draped her own over his.
“I feel as though I ought to ask you something terribly important,” James suggested.
“Well, go for it,” Lucy said and wondered what it could be, what the question could be, if maybe she’d know the answer right as he spoke. James leaned in, talking in a confidential voice, and let his hand lightly touch the side of her face.
“Would you rather be a city street or a country road?” he asked, and before Lucy could be disappointed, they both began laughing until James started to cough, which made her laugh more.
Just as they were steadying themselves, James looked out at the glimmer of lights again and kissed her. He leaned in close and put his hand flat on her collarbone, his eyes half-closed. In a fluid motion he pulled her to his chest, and Lucy let herself lean into the warmth of his shirt, his strong arms, wide hands.
“I’m already missing you,” he whispered.
When they climbed down from the roof, James went first, lifted Lucy by the hips from the trellis, and set her down in front of him. They held each other, rooted to the spot, against the pine needles underfoot, the fading heat of the end of summer.
starting from seed
And She Was
The car in front of them has a 100% JESUS decal on its back window.
“What about ninety-eight percent?” Jenna asks.
“I’ll take skim,” Alice says, which is particularly funny to the girls because Alice is well into her second round of anorexia-bulimia-etc (her phrasing, not Jenna’s), so they both laugh at her nonfat version of the Lord. Doctors at the hospital where Alice goes twice a week for weigh-ins refer to Alice’s relapse as her “second bout” of anorexia, as if she’d caught a germ from a dirty bathroom doorknob or someone’s unwashed hand and come down with a cold.
“Achoo,” Alice would fake sneeze. “I have a bout of anorexia-bulimia-etc.” She pronounces etc as if it is a full word, not e-t-c, and is beautiful and funny enough to get away with it. All the girls on their hockey team watched how Alice laced her skates and tried to imitate the crisscross pattern she’d woven, securing the skate tongue so it didn’t rub against her foot.
For some reason Jenna still doesn’t understand, Alice has chosen her to be her friend this summer before they start their last year of high school. True, they’d been randomly paired for matchup, covering someone on the opposing team, and Jenna had blushed when the coach linked her name and Alice’s. Their parents had sent them to a summer hockey camp composed of girls who either were natural players who needed to stay fit during the off-season or whose parents didn’t want them working at the local Subway, but didn’t want them sitting at home in the leafy months with the neighborhood boys, either.
Alice would have been in the first category, despite the note from her physician. She’d been a state-ranked player, a forward with a fast wrist flip, the girl who wound up on everyone’s shoulders in postgame cheers. Jenna’s parents had signed her up for a three-week session without consulting her, saving her (their words, not hers) from a summer of sifting flour for fresh bread at the local bakery. Jenna had gone out with her mother the day before hockey camp started to be outfitted.
“Aren’t these a bit bulky?” Her mother touched the shoulder pads and frowned to the salesperson. Jenna stood in the air-conditioning looking out to the street, where two kids sat licking fallen ice-cream streams from their wrists and hands. The body armor weighted her, making her feel as if she’d somehow been given strength.
“They’re for protection, Mom, not fashion,” she said. Jenna looked at her mother through the bars of the helmet, pretending her brain was in its own tiny prison. “So I don’t get a concussion.”
“Oh, right.” Her mother nodded and studied a tennis outfit—white pleated skirt and fitted top. Jenna knew her mother was wishing she had signed her up for doubles camp or at least some sport that would make her look more prim, less like a girl in a beer ad.
“Anyway, this fits,” Jenna said and walked to the cash register in full hockey pads, pants, and helmet. The camp would give her a shirt upon registration.
That’s where she met Alice, who was checking names off a clipboarded list, handing out team insignia tops, and constantly licking her dry lips. She had her blond hair pulled back from her face, but broken bits, wisps, fanned out above her forehead, hovering like a hair halo.
“Isn’t she adorable?” Jenna’s mother had said of Alice, as if they were in the Guggenheim and Alice were a sculpture or a well-positioned painting. Her mother nodded and gave Jenna a slight push, so she stepped over to where Alice sucked on her pen top.
“You must be Jenna,” she said. A nod. “Well, hi, Jenna.” Alice looked at her, and they smiled at each other—maybe already understanding each other, or understanding being daughters of someone or just needing some comfort—whichever way, Jenna felt that Alice got her. Alice had seen Jenna’s mother peck at her, seen that the girl’s skates were new, signaling that Jenna didn’t really belong at hockey camp. Jenna had already noticed the red marks on Alice’s knuckles and figured they were from gagging.
Alice’s teeth were mottled, white and gray with clots of yellow. Picked apart, Alice was already in a state of ruin—her hair, her hands, her teeth, not to mention her flower-stalk body. But when she backed up, looking at the composite, the whole Alice was amazing. “Everyone,” Alice said and made a sweeping gesture with her hands to the cluster of girls that stood near the rink, “this is Jenna. She’s a starting forward, too, and she’s my friend.”
Just like that, Alice had handed off her clipboard and led Jenna to the locker room, where they’d tried to guess combinations by putting their ears to the knobs and listening for tiny clicks, which supposedly made a click at the correct number. Alice leaned into one of the metal slatted doors and giggled as if the locker had told her something outrageous.
Then they hoisted themselves up onto the wide window ledge and watched the rest of the girls register. Alice hummed, and when Jenna asked what the tune was, she said, “That Talking Heads song. You know it?” Jenna shook her head, and Alice went on, “It’s called ‘And She Was’—it’s cool, kind of odd, but I like it.”
Jenna told Alice about how she used songs to transport her back to certain times, and Alice agreed.
“Sometimes,” Jenna said softly, as if what she was about to say was an admission, “it’s like I try to make a song fit—you know, search for one until I have a tune that sort of sums up where I am, or where I have been.” She looked out at the leafy green, at the sway of full-limbed trees. “Now ‘And She Was’ can be the song of this summer, or of this.” She meant hockey camp but realized maybe Alice would think she was referring to them.
Alice tucked her bony knees under her T-shirt. She seemed collapsible, foldable like a stepladder. “I’m glad to give you that song, then,” she said. “You know, like a reminder of when we met.”
Jenna watched Alice fidget with her earrings and wished she’d known her before she was so thin—not to have seen her demise but to have a vision of who she’d been before she started attacking herself.
“That girl looks like my mom,” Alice said. She pointed to a dark-haired pouter who stood in line with her skates drap
ed over her shoulder like a beach towel. “My mother always had her hair like that.”
“I’ve never seen mine with long hair.” Jenna sighed. Somehow it was sad that her mother had lopped off her ringlets, that she’d tamed her hair into submission, keeping it short and sprayed flat. When she’d asked about it, her mother had said, without flicking her eyes away from the highway in front of her, “Show me a nonfamous woman over forty-five with shoulder-length hair who doesn’t look like a tramp.” Jenna thought it sounded like a dare but didn’t offer up a name. Instead, she thought of her mother’s friends, their cropped heads of hair, the terse phone calls, the occasional raw laughs that escaped their taut mouths, sad reminders of the girls they’d been. Then she thought of her mother pleased, when the dahlias bloomed in rows, when she’d taught Jenna how to make jam, their bodies working like machinery, sterilizing, canning, stacking the jars of strawberry-rhubarb preserves.
“I’ve never even seen my mother at all, so.” Alice let out a burp at the same time she revealed this. She looked at Jenna’s face. “Oh, my God—that was so after-school special. Sorry.” She scraped the gum line of her front teeth with a fingernail. It’s no big deal or anything. But we have these pictures in an album—you know, the kind with the sticky pages. Except the pages aren’t sticky anymore. My mother’s in a long purple dress.” Alice gestured to her collarbone to show the dress’s style. “It kind of flares out here, and she’s so beautiful. Really chiseled, with silver earrings. Very sixties, I guess.”
“She sounds pretty,” Jenna said and thought about her family albums. They were mostly navy blue and embossed with gold dates or initials; her mother kept them rowed up on the built-ins in the study. They sat there, too high to get down and look at easily, but on display enough so that everyone who came in remarked how many there were, how many photographs and memories must be contained in their pages, how many years had passed since the first gold-embossed spine had been marked.
The Girls' Almanac Page 10
