as i am
by
AnnaLisa Grant
As I Am copyrighted 2014 by AnnaLisa Grant
All Rights Reserved
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AnnaLisaGrant.com
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@annalisagrant
Cover art by Cover to Cover Designs
Cover photo by K Keeton Designs
Editing by Red Road Editing
Formatting by Sharon Kay of Amber Leaf Publishing
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Table of Contents
Contents:
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Dedication
For my WDWCP family. We took each other just as we were and made the spring of ’94 one we won’t ever forget.
“You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car. But because they sing a song only you can hear.” – Oscar Wilde
Chapter 1
If she honks that horn at me one more time, I swear I’m going to smother her in her sleep tonight! This is supposed to be the best day of my summer and she’s driving me crazy. My sister Addison – Addy – and I are leaving for Lake Hollis today. This is our second year as camp counselors and this year we have seniority. Addy found out about the upstate New York camp from a flyer she saw during a college trip right before our senior year in high school. After Dad looked into it and gave us the green light, we applied and spent six weeks last summer helping to mold young middle-schoolers’ minds.
Sure, it sounds like a lot to give up most of your summer before your freshman year in college, but besides being an incredible opportunity, the camp is gorgeous. It's made for the upper crust, but they do give scholarships to families who can’t afford the $2,500 fee.
We all have our reasons for giving up two summers during the prime of our lives. Addy looks at it as a way to earn an easy $3,000 to spend on her posh wardrobe, work on her tan, and lead on unsuspecting college boys. I look at it as an easy way to avoid my stepmother … and make an easy $3,000.
I’ve been saving as much as I possibly can for the past three years so that I can afford to meet up with Mom, wherever she is, when I graduate. I miss her a lot and just really need some time with her. She and Dad divorced four years ago when Addy and I were sixteen, but she’s been gone for seven. Mom is a photographer and had an amazing opportunity to shoot for National Geographic. She travels all over the world living out her dream. She promised she’d be home at least every six months, but she never has. In the last seven years, I’ve seen my mother five times: once for Christmas, once for my fourteenth birthday, and three times when she had a two-plus-hour layover at JFK. She even signed the divorce papers while she was in Malta and had them FedExed to Dad’s lawyer.
I miss Mom a lot, but at least I get postcards and emails from her every once in a blue moon. Addy, not so much. Not that Mom didn’t try. Addy hardly responded to her, so Mom took that as her cue to back off. Mom and I have always been more alike. Addy is just like Dad, which is to say she’s also just like our stepmother. Christine is a nutritionist and a fitness instructor. She’s nice, but Dad marrying a fitness instructor who is fifteen years younger than him is so cliché.
Christine knows how to relate to Addison, who is naturally a size four and has never worked out a day in her life. Christine doesn’t know what to do with me. It seems like no matter what I do or how hard I try I am a size twelve or fourteen. I’m curvy and have an ass and boobs. Add the fact that I have dark brown hair and Addy has golden blonde locks and it’s the perfect recipe for why people don’t believe we’re twins. Most of the time we let it go, but with some we tell them about how our dad couldn’t have kids so he and our mom used a donor and did in vitro. I apparently look like Donor #428 and Addy gets to look like the rest of our blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Norwegian family. Yep, somewhere in that blonde-haired, blue-eyed donor’s genetic history was a recessive gene staging a coup at the exact time of my conception and development. Lucky me.
It’s never mattered to Addy and me though. More than just sisters, we’ve always been great friends and always will be.
“Oh, Kinley! You’re not wearing that, are you?” Christine asks as she sprints into my room in her usual workout wear. “It’s just not, well, it’s just not the most figure-flattering thing on you. Here, let me fix it.” Christine pulls my shirt from being tucked into my shorts and unrolls the cut-off shorts I’m wearing. “See, now isn’t that better? It’s still not the best, but much better than before.”
“Yeah, sure … thanks, Christine,” I tell her.
“Kinley, you know I’m just trying to help. I’m not being critical,” she says, noticing my lack of enthusiasm for her “help.”
“No, but I can count on you to be judgmental,” I say under my breath as I walk into my bathroom. This is a prime example of how Christine is trying to mold me into her or Addy and another reason why I’m dying to get out of here. I’m not a size four. I’ll never be a size four, and I’m not sure that Christine will ever accept that.
“Kin! Let’s go! It’s a two-hour drive and I want to get there before everyone else so we can get the choice room in the Lodge!” Addy screams at me from the bottom of the stairs.
The Lodge is where second-year counselors stay. Until they build another cabin, college counselors can only work two summers so that more people have a chance to experience the camp. Mr. and Mrs. Fellows, who run the camp, say that they don’t think it would be fair for the college counselor spots to be taken up every year by the same people. I wish we could come back every year until graduation. Where else am I going to make this kind of money for hanging out with middle schoolers in a lakeside cabin retreat?
“I’m coming!” I scream back. I grab my rolling bag and bounce it down the stairs behind me while Christine asks if she can help braid my hair really quick before we leave. “Sorry! Gotta go!” I tell her.
I don’t have a problem with Christine, necessarily. She’s not malicious and has never interfered with Dad’s parenting. And, really, we’ve always gotten along great. It’s that when I’m around her, I never feel like I’m physically good enough … like she wishes I looked more like Addy.
“I can’t believe I’m sending you two out there again.” Dad puts his arms over each of our shoulders and pulls us to him.
“We’ll miss you, Dad,” Addy says.
“Yeah, and we’ll be home in plenty of time for our annual Atlantic City trip! The four of us will lie on the beach and soak up the rays before you ship us off again,” I say.
Dad shakes his head and fights getting choked up. “You’ve both grown up so well. I’m really proud of who you are.”
“Okay, Philip, you have to let them go now or they’re going to be late and miss out on the pick for the best bedroom.” Christine winks at us as she pulls Dad away. And that is a prime example of how I know, despite all the other stuff, she really does care.
Dad hugs and kisses us goodbye
and does the requisite questioning to make sure we have money for gas and food and that we didn’t forget to pack underwear, sunscreen, and modest bathing suits, which is really directed at Addy since I’ve never worn anything that bares my midriff in my whole life.
Addy closes the car door and turns the key in the ignition. “Don’t forget condoms, too, girls!” she says in her best Dad voice.
“How are you and I related?” I roll my eyes and laugh.
“Please! I brought some for you, too! Cal is coming back this summer and I just know he’s going to be totally into you. You should be prepared!”
“I’m going to start telling people I’m adopted. Then it’ll make more sense when you act the way you do, and I act like a respectable member of society,” I tell her with a sarcastic smile.
Addy is not shy about her sexuality. She’s all about experimenting and sowing her wild oats, but she doesn’t give it up to just anyone. You wouldn’t know it to watch her, but she is quite selective. She still believes the guy should chase after her, but she doesn’t want to risk him being too slow, so when he’s taking too long she sends me over to help him see the light. I’m the funny, non-threatening, everyone-likes-her sister. Addy says I’m the “introductory sister.” Kind of like a buffer so the guys can hear from me how sweet and genuine she is and that they don’t have to be intimidated by her looks. It’s a pathetic job, but she’s my sister and I love her. She’s always been there for me and would do anything for her.
“I’m serious, Kinley!”
“Please, Cal and I are just friends. He is not interested in me,” I protest. Cal is a super-hot running back for Notre Dame. At 6’2” with brown hair and dreamy brown eyes, he’s more Addy’s type. Not that I have a type.
“Why wouldn’t he be interested in you?” Addy asks as if she’s offended at my observance of reality.
“Because … I’m not you,” I tell her quietly. “You’re Victoria’s Secret and I’m … not.”
I work really hard at not being down on myself. I actually really like who I am most of the time. I’m smart and creative and funny. I have lots of friends. I even have a couple of guy friends. When it comes to guys, though, I just have a hard time believing that I’m anyone’s type, mainly because I’ve never been anyone’s type. I have permanent residence in every guy I’ve ever known’s friend zone.
“Why aren’t you going after him?” I ask.
“Because I have it on good authority that he’s going to be totally into you this summer and I would never hone in on a guy you liked or who liked you,” she tells me. That didn’t stop her from going after Brian Parker our junior year. I’ll never forget the night I walked in on the two of them going at it in the bonus room. That moment tops the list of Things I Wish I Could Unsee. But, to give Addy some credit, when she asked me if I was into him, I told her I thought he was cute but nothing more than that. I didn’t tell her that every time I saw him I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I knew Brian was never going to be interested in me, so what would the point have been in keeping Addy from him.
“Cal and I have emailed off and on all year. He’s never given me any indication that he’s interested in being more than friends.”
“You’re so oblivious, Kin. Just trust me!” Addy smiles really big, like she’s got something up her sleeve.
“What did you do?” I narrow my eyes at her suspiciously.
“I didn’t do anything!” she protests. “Just promise me that you’ll be open to him. Cal’s a good guy. He’s totally hot and any girl would die to have him!”
“I haven’t even heard from Cal since before finals …” I begin.
“Promise me!” she barks.
“Fine. I promise to be open. But, if I find out you had something to do with this, I’m going to kill you.” I toggle around on the satellite radio looking for a new station and hoping it will segue us out of this uncomfortable conversation.
“I didn’t have anything to do with anything. But if I did … you’ll be thanking me by the end of the summer!” Addy gives that mischievous grin again and I feel like I’m about to walk into an even more uncomfortable setup.
I choose to move on because Addy and I have had this conversation a dozen times and moving on is what we do best. She finds a guy who she thinks will be interested in me because I have “such a pretty face” only to discover that he was just being agreeable to get closer to her. It’s never broken my heart since any guy who would do that is a total douchebag. Addy kicks them to the curb before they can even begin to make a move on her. She’s protective of me that way. Her match-making skills suck, but I know she just wants me to be happy.
“You’re not going to spend all summer behind that camera again, are you?” Addy asks after a few minutes of me changing stations. “Isn’t it enough that you have to do it for the school paper? It’s like that thing is an extension of your body. It’s like a third eye!”
“Of course, it’s a part of me, Addy. I’m building my portfolio and the scenery of Lake Hollis is a great location. Between the kids and the forest, I get some great shots. Besides, the parents loved it last year when I emailed them the perfect pictures of their kids. I even got a couple of family sessions out of it, which was some awesome extra money.” Addison is a fashion design major so she understands the concept of putting a portfolio together. What she doesn’t understand is that as a photographer hoping to build some business before I travel the world, I have to constantly be working on said portfolio. I love what I do. It’s the one thing I’m most passionate about in life.
I was going to major in journalism. My relentless need for information seemed to make me a good fit. And when I fell in love with photography, I thought it was perfect fit. The editor of the school paper has been super impressed with the shots I’ve gotten, some of them actually uncovering a few scandals on campus. A zoom lens comes in handy when you’re trying to see which teacher is luring young college girls to his office for “after-hours tutoring.”
“Well, I suppose if you need me to be your test subject again, I could help.” She smiles coyly and bats her eyes.
“I wouldn’t use anyone else,” I smile back at her.
We laugh and sing at the top of our lungs the rest of the drive up to the lake. I love living in the city, how alive it is during the day and how it becomes a different creature at night. Sometimes it’s nice to get away though. Just a few hours’ drive and it’s like we’ve entered another world. Before last summer, I didn’t have any nature scenes to feature. The concrete jungle doesn’t quite count. I’m hoping to really improve on that this summer. I also really enjoy the quiet of shooting up here. I mean, in between the screaming kids who are afraid of going canoeing on the lake and the ones who have never seen an insect before, it’s pretty serene.
We finally arrive at the main gate house to the Camp at Lake Hollis, which is about three quarters of a mile from the actual camp. The adult counselors have been here for a few days already and one of them, Jim, has been given the job of shuttling the college students down to the cabins.
“You two are early this year. Come to stake claim to the best rooms in The Lodge?” he questions as he loads our bags in the back of the twelve-passenger van.
“Yep! There are only bunk beds in the other cabin and I am not sleeping on a bunk bed this year. Last year MaryAnn Hodge slept on the top bunk and tossed and turned all night. I was awake half the night, scared that the whole thing was going to come crashing down on me. This year I’m getting a bed in one of the two-person rooms,” Addison says with conviction. I agree. It will be nice to have just two people in a room, and even better for it to be just Addy and me. We’ve shared a room forever and she’s the only person I feel like I can change in front of with total freedom.
It only takes a few minutes of rolling up dust on the dirt road before we’re pulling up to the Lodge. The Lodge was built about ten years ago when the camp grew so much that the Fellows had to hire twice as many college studen
t counselors to keep up with the increase in campers.
The Lodge is gorgeous! It has six bedrooms, four bathrooms, a common area, and a little kitchen, not that any of us are doing any cooking. The Fellows make sure that they don’t serve stereotypically disgusting camp food. It’s made for the masses, but it’s all really good.
At about three thousand square feet, The Lodge is just slightly bigger than the cabin for the adult, lead counselors on the other side of the camp, closer to the student cabins. It sleeps sixteen: two rooms with two bunk beds and four rooms with two single beds. Eight boys and eight girls. Mr. and Mrs. Fellows have a smaller, private cabin, just two bedrooms, also on the other side of the camp near the lead counselor. They thought it would be good to flank the students with counselor cabins to help keep the nighttime shenanigans to a minimum.
The first-year counselors’ cabin didn’t have a name until last year when we tossed out ideas over one of the last campfires of the summer. One of the second-year counselors joked that the first-year cabin was the gateway to the awesomeness of The Lodge. It seemed fitting, and Gateway Cabin was created.
“What the?” Addy cries.
“Oh, did I forget to tell you that some folks beat you here?” Jim laughs. Sitting on the front porch of The Lodge are Matthew and Pete. They roomed together last year and clearly had the same idea as we did.
“When did you guys get here?” I call, stumbling out of the van.
“About an hour ago,” Matthew says. “The early bird gets the worm!”
“Well, you better not have taken the corner room with the perfect view of clearing!” Addy demands with a smile. “We called dibs on it last year!”
“Oh, no, you were very clear on that last summer and I had no desire to put my life at stake. It’s yours!” Pete tells her.
We exchange hugs and the guys help us bring our bags upstairs. The light wood throughout the cabin is shiny from varnish and the whole house smells fresh and clean, just like I remember. All the counselors stay a few days after the kids go home at the end of the summer to do things like strip beds and wash and fold sheets, clean bathrooms, sort lost and found items, but the Fellows bring in a cleaning company to give all of the cabins a good scrub-down before everyone arrives so they look and feel fresh.
As I Am Page 1
