by Holly Bourne
Mum took my hand and led me past the kitchen. “Your room is through here.”
She pushed open a door to reveal a box room covered with flouncy flowered wallpaper. “It’s pretty small, but I promise this is luxury stuff for camp.”
I stepped into my home for the next six weeks. It was simple. A single bed, a tiny cupboard, a night-table. That was it. And there, there was my photo. Of me and Mum. Framed on the bedside table that wobbled on unsteady legs as you walked towards it. It was exactly the same photo I’d been sketching on the aeroplane.
My fingers tingled.
Why was this in the guest bedroom and not her bedroom? Did Mum only come in and look at it when she was in the mood for remembering she had a daughter? When Bumface Kevin was out with his bumchin?
I blinked a lot, feeling my throat constrict.
Kevin wheeled my suitcase in behind us. “How d’ya like your room?”
“It’s lovely,” I said dismissively. I needed to bring up the photo. I needed to ask why it was here, and not out with the others. But I was too scared to. I didn’t want her to lie to me. And I didn’t want to tell her off either – because she’d never been able to handle it. So I found myself saying…
“Why wasn’t I invited to your wedding?” At Kevin. Staring accusingly at his bumchin.
He stepped back, like I was a bear. “Woah, Amber. Where did that come from?”
Mum crossed her arms, and looked at him desperately.
“Amber, come on, stop being silly.”
I threw my rucksack down on the bed, where it landed with a thump.
“I just saw the photo outside, that’s all. And I was wondering…”
… For two years.
They shot each other a look, and it was so deep, it basically broke me. I could see the bond instantly – they were having a communication about how to handle this, how to handle me – using only their eyes. That’s how close they were.
How close she should have been to me.
“We eloped, darling,” Mum said.
“Yeah,” Bumface Kevin butted in. “And we didn’t have much time. We needed to get your mum a visa quickly, and—”
I interrupted him. “I wasn’t talking to you, KEVIN!”
Even though I had asked him the question. It was easier to be mad at him than Mum.
He scratched his stubble – which grew AROUND the bumchin – and shot my mum another look. “Well, I’m answering anyway.”
“Of course you are.” I was so mad, so sad. I couldn’t hold it back, even though I wanted to. Even though I was already sabotaging everything. I felt torn – half of me wanted it all to be perfect, but the other half was just desperate for answers. It was like my ribs were expanding to make room for the emotions that had been suddenly unearthed – emotions I didn’t know how to let out without wrecking things with Mum. She wasn’t looking at me, she was looking at Kevin. The faces of Mum and me on that bullshit photo stared out, watching the scene, frozen in time.
He put his hands up in a gesture I’m sure his counselling training taught him, and used a calm, soothing voice. “Hey, you only just arrived. I’ve got dinner planned. Let’s talk about this later. Give you a chance to settle in?”
“I’m full from all that raw food in San Fran,” I lied – thinking, I need to get out, I need to get out. Before I make things worse… Before I ruin the summer. I’d rather fling myself onto a lakeside campfire where I knew no one, than sit down for dinner with Mum and Kevin when I was feeling like this. “Plus, I don’t want to miss all the staff getting to know each other.”
“At least let us eat first.”
I stretched my arms up, my fingers grazing the ceiling of the low cabin as I did.
“No.”
“Amber!” Mum pleaded – finally looking at me.
“I’ll see you later.”
And ignoring their protests, I dodged my way out of the cabin into the unknown woods.
Hoping Mum might follow to check I was okay.
She didn’t though.
SITUATIONS THAT ARE DESTINED TO FAIL:
My personality
+
A gang of Americans
Five
I didn’t really know where I was going, who I was meeting. I just needed to put physical space between me and that framed photo in the wrong place.
Kevin had said the other employees were having a welcome campfire at the lake so I doubled back in the direction we’d driven. I doubted they’d be overjoyed with the bosses’ sort-of daughter turning up, but screw them. I was this close to punching someone, or crying, or both. Anyway, if I made it clear I hated Kevin and his bumchinny ways they would warm to me. And I’d try and talk like the Queen so they’d think I was quaint.
She keeps your photo in the guest bedroom.
She keeps your photo in the guest bedroom.
My flip-flops filled up with dust and dirt from the forest floor. Whatever insects make that night-time buzzing noise in hot countries were ramped up and cricketing away. The steady buzz in the air calmed me, as long as I stayed in denial about all the new people I was about to meet. I saw a flickering light through the dark clumps of trees, mingled with the sound of laughter and made my way towards it. I stopped in the safety of the pines and looked out. A circle of about twenty people, all a tiny bit older than me, sat haphazardly around a pretty-decent fire. All of them looked “bonded” already as they chatted and shared beer and shoved sticks onto the burning fire between them. My heart got all pumpy, my arms stiff with nerves.
I stepped out and gulped my arrival.
The group stopped mid-laugh to look at me.
“Hullo there,” I said, my voice more British than it’d ever been. “I’m, erm, Amber. Kevin said you guys would be here?” I waved, not able to make their faces out properly in the dark.
There was a brief silence then a girl stepped forward.
“Amber, hey! Wow, I love your accent! I’m Melody.” She shook my hand, and, as the campfire light hit her, I saw she was a Californian goddess. All tumbling blonde hair, and glowy skin, and teeth like cosmetic dentistry adverts, and legs so far up she’d have to apply deodorant to her knee pits.
“Hi, Melody.” I shook her hand, not knowing if I was doing it right as I’d never formally shaken hands with anyone before.
More people stood up, shook my hand, introducing themselves with names which I instantly forgot. They all told me they looooved my accent. A few faces stood out. There was this one guy who looked like Jacob from the Twilight films, all olivey reddy skin. He looked Native American but I wasn’t sure if that was the right term for it these days. One girl seemed extra excited I was there, Whinnie. She wore thick black glasses on her wide face and a Winnie the Pooh fleece. She pulled me into the circle and they all looked at me, like I should say something.
“So,” I said, trying not to freak out about all the new faces staring at me. “You guys all get here yesterday?”
A few nodded. Whinnie said, “Yeah, but for most of us this is our second year here. We all—”
Melody interrupted her. “So, do you, like, live in London?” she asked me.
“Umm. Just outside London, yes,” I replied.
Melody looked genuinely impressed. “Wow, have you been to, like, Buckingham Palace?”
“Er, no,” I admitted.
Her face fell.
“Why not?”
I shrugged, aware of the circle focused on my every word. This one guy caught my eye and rolled his. He was so tanned I could only really see the whites of his eyes and his perfect tablety teeth shining out. I gave a small smile back. “Well, erm, English people aren’t that excited about the Royal Family compared to other countries. Plus, Buckingham Palace is like, just there, you know? I could go whenever I wanted to, so I’ve never bothered. Like, have you guys all been to Disneyland?”
Lots shook their heads. “You see, I have been to Disneyland. The Florida one.” …On that horrific family holiday where Mum vommed over
the side of the log flume. “But not Buckingham Palace, even though Disneyland’s much further. I guess…”
Melody interrupted my babbling. “So, do you know Kate Middleton?” she demanded. “Did you, like, go to school with her?”
The eye-rolling guy caught mine again and shook his head, hanging it with mock shame. I tried not to laugh. “Umm, no. Not exactly. England’s still pretty big. We don’t all go to the same school.”
Melody’s gorgeous face fell. The excitement of meeting me was waning fast. “But, hang on,” I said. “Prince Andrew came to our college and opened our new Art block. I met him.”
Melody’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, Prince Harry?! He is SO hot.”
“Umm… No not Prince H…” I trailed off and admitted defeat. “Yes. Prince Harry. That’s the one. I met him.”
“You’ve both got red hair,” she announced.
“Oh yes, I guess we do…?”
The super-tanned guy was seriously cracking up now. I kept glancing at him, and his teeth. Wondering what his face looked like in proper light. Someone plugged some portable speakers into their phone and turned some music on. Melody untangled her long limbs and announced she was getting a beer. The circle dispersed and I sighed. I’d made it through the induction, and even in my state, not been mean to anyone. It was a miracle. Whinnie scooted up closer to me and the Native American guy appeared with a huge crate of beer.
“I thought you Americans couldn’t drink until you’re twenty-one?” I said as he handed me a bottle. He grinned back at me and swigged from his.
“We have our ways. Just don’t tell the boss, right?”
In answer, I ripped my bottle top off with my teeth like Joel, one of our metal friends at college, had taught me to do. “You’re kidding, right?” I said. “The more I can do to piss off Bumface Kevin, the better.”
He laughed. “Wow, you’re right. I never noticed before but he does have a really big dip on his chin.”
I downed half the Bud Light, savouring the sweet taste. “It’s the source of all his evil powers,” I said simply.
He laughed again. “I’m Russ. I bet you’re struggling to remember all the new names, huh?”
“Russ,” I repeated. “I’m Amber. I’m Kevin’s stepdaughter, I guess. So, where you from in America?”
“You won’t have heard of it.” His eyes scrunched when he grinned.
I took another mouthful of my beer. “Try me.”
“Taos.” Then he laughed while I looked baffled.
“Is that in New York or something?”
“No. Taos is in a state called New Mexico.”
“Mexico?”
Another patient laugh. “And I saw you rolling your eyes at Kyle when Melody asked you stupid questions. You’re worse than her!”
I smiled. “Who’s Kyle?”
“The super tanned guy who looks like he should be in an infomercial.”
Ahh, the laughing guy with the teeth…
“Anyway, we have a state called New Mexico. And Taos is a small town right in the mountains. I live on a reservation there.”
I’d finished my beer and risked another stupid question.
“A nature reservation?”
“No, Melody-the-second. A reservation for…my people, I guess.”
So he was like Jacob from Twilight…and before I could say it—
“… Like Jacob from Twilight,” he said, reluctantly. “Before you say it.”
I put my hands up. “I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Oh, you were.”
Whinnie was kind of hopping on one foot behind him, and interrupted.
“Ignore him,” she said. “He has an issue with Jacob from Twilight.” She turned to Russ. “Dude, get over it, nobody even watches them any more.” She turned back to me. “He was whining all of last summer,” she explained.
“Hey,” Russ said. “I’m an ethnic minority – we’re allowed to whinge.”
Whinnie pointed to her expansive butt. “And I’m Puerto Rican so I’m minority enough to tell you a) I get it, and b) tell it to my genetic ass.”
I laughed nervously with them, not sure if I was allowed to join in. But liking them – thinking they were funny. Also highly aware that everyone was friends already.
Whinnie and Russ started chatting about their unis, or “colleges” as they called them, and I took another beer. Whinnie went to college in a place called Albuquerque which was the best word I’d ever heard. Apparently it was only a few hours away from Russ’s reservation and they swapped favourite diner recommendations.
I was proud of how un-scared I felt. Yes, okay, so I’d now had two beers. But maybe Americans weren’t so bad. I couldn’t blame an entire country for taking my mum away.
I drank another beer and took everything in. Melody dancing in the sand with some jock in charge of water sports. Russ and Whinnie arguing over red chilli versus green chilli. The blackness of the lake…
And then another beer.
And then…
Two more beers later, and I was struggling not to let my inner sarcastic British bitch out. Melody was quizzing me about England again, and my eyeballs needed leashes to restrain them from rolling.
“So,” Melody said, untangling the water sport guy’s arm from her waist. “In England, you guys call it a pavement, right? Whereas we call it a sidewalk.”
“Yes.” I sounded so world-weary. “And let’s not get started on the tomato thing, shall we?”
Water sport guy’s eyes lit up. “Hang on? Did you just call it a to-MAR-to? That’s SO English.”
They all laughed and I actually closed my eyes to stop them rolling. I wished Russ and Whinnie were still here, but they were involved in some treacherous game of volleyball I’d turned down as I’m inherently allergic to “sport”.
“Wait wait wait wait…” Melody interrupted. “So, like, what do you call the trash?”
I withheld another sigh.
“We call it rubbish.”
She giggled with several others, repeating “rubbish” and tittering.
“… Shall we save some time here? English people call yards, gardens? And we call jelly, jam. And we call potato chips, crisps. And we call french fries, chips, and…and…” I tried desperately to get them all out the way “… And, well, Americans use ‘fanny’ to describe your butt, and we use the word ‘fanny’ to talk about OUR BIG ENGLISH VAGINAS, OKAY?”
I sat back on the log and hiccuped.
Melody and Watersports instantly stopped asking questions. I turned to look over at the volleyball game. The tanned guy, Kyle, walked over to the fire, chucking the volleyball over his head effortlessly. He’d been close enough to hear my vaginal outburst.
“Well, well, well,” he said, when he arrived. He had the most American of American accents the world has ever known. “Who’d have thought the boss’s daughter would have such a dirty mouth?”
I blushed, which I hated, because Lottie says I blush ginger instead of red.
“Stepdaughter,” I corrected him. I closed my eyes to stop my head spinning in the abyss of a thousand (or five) Budweiser Lights. “And you are the most American person I’ve ever met in my entire life.”
It wasn’t a reasonable thing to say…
But it was what I was thinking.
He laughed and looked down at himself. I opened my eyes a tiny bit and looked at the half of him glowing in the flickering fire. He was VERY American, to be fair. If someone had told me to sketch an American guy, I would’ve drawn Kyle. He was uber tall, just the right side of broad, and his arm muscles were all ripply in his T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. He even wore a backwards cap for Christ’s sake. And baggy jean shorts. His skin glowed with the kind of easy tan achieved only by living in a naturally hot climate. And his face was the archetypal American face – all strong macho jawline, slightly fat head, smiling eyes.
“Who me?” he asked.
I pointed, my finger wobbling in the air. “Yes, you. Well, you’re
all ridiculously American here. But I think you’re by far the biggest culprit.”
He gestured to the empty log next to me with a gentlemanly flourish of his hands.
I nodded, and scooted up to make room. “You see, even that’s American,” I complained. “An English guy would’ve just grunted and sat on the log.”
“I’m Kyle,” he said, ignoring me. He offered out his hand.
“I know, Russ told me,” I replied. “And that is the most American name I’ve heard today.” But I shook his hand because he was the sort of good-looking that you take any opportunity to touch. “I’m Amber. I’m sorry if I’m being mean. I think I’m a bit wankered.”
Kyle screwed his face up. “What’s wankered?”
“Oh, bollocks.” I waved my hand in the air as I tried to explain it. “It means, like, pissed. Hang on, you wouldn’t get that word either. It means ‘drunk’. Do you guys say drunk?” I gestured more and almost poked his eye. “Bollocks, I’m sorry. Did I get you?”
Kyle caught my dangerous hand, and held it a bit longer than necessary which might’ve been an American thing. I dunno. He laughed. “Well, Amber, I’m afraid that you are the most English person I’ve ever met. So touché! I guess we’re equal.”
I snorted. Always attractive, that. “Me? English?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Think back on the sentence you just said.”
I did… I’d used the words: wankered, pissed and bollocks. In fact, I’d used bollocks twice.
“… And look at your English skin, and English hair, and cool English fashion, and your English freckles.” I touched my hair self-consciously, not sure how I felt about all the things he’d noticed about my appearance. Cool English fashion? I was only wearing my kimono, gladiator sandals and denim shorts. It was hardly a statement. “You may be the only English person here, but you’re really flying the flag for back home. Trust me.”
I looked back at him. “Fair enough.” We both laughed.
People had started dancing next to the water, and Melody dragged off Watersports, leaving me and Kyle alone on our log. I caught Kyle looking at Melody’s legs as she strode past us, and felt that pang you feel when another girl looks better than you – even though I know thinking like that’s totally toxic.
