12 Before 13

by Lisa Greenwald

  “Yes, Mother.” I try as hard as I can, but it’s impossible for me not to roll my eyes.

  “Can we do some camp activities together?” she asks. “Boating, maybe? Or can you show us the art shack?”

  “Fine, sure. Let’s go.”

  I grab Kaylan’s hand and say, “This is actually a good thing. Hopefully we’ll pass Golfy and I’ll be able to point him out or maybe even introduce you.”

  “Ooh, Golfyyyy,” she says, and cracks up.

  “Shh.” I laugh.

  We keep walking down the main path through camp, and Kaylan launches into this long explanation about the day she and the lunch table girls went to this famous pie place out east with M.W.’s family.

  “Are you listening, Ari?” She taps my head with her finger. “Hello! You’re on another planet.”

  “Sorry, my mind was wandering.” I smile. “Go on. Something about pies?”

  “Yeah, so, they’re obsessed,” Kaylan explains. “It’s called Briermere Farms and they drive for hours to get there. And they make a whole day of it. And M.W. finds it so boring, so she invited us all to come.”

  “How’d you all fit in the car?” I ask.

  “Her dad has his own taxi service, did you know that?” Kaylan asks me. “So he has one of those big Sprinter vans, and we all went.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I guess I don’t know so much about M.W.”

  “She was your friend first,” Kaylan reminds me, laughing a little.

  I crack up. “I know, but we weren’t, like, one-on-one friends, just like group friends. Ya know?”

  Kaylan nods. “Anyway, the raspberry cream was amazing, and we had the best time, just, like, singing random songs in the van, like karaoke style, and it was all really funny. We kept cracking up, like, the whole day.”

  “It sounds fun,” I say. “Oh! There’s Golfy,” I whisper as we walk past the soccer field.

  “What? Where?” Kaylan looks around. “I can’t get a good look.”

  I lean over to whisper in her ear, “The one with the red T-shirt and the baseball cap.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Gemma asks, walking a few steps backward and getting in between us.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  Gemma rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right. Kaylan’ll tell me.”

  “Um,” Kaylan starts. “I was filling Ari in on the new stuff at the pool—she’s so excited to see the new waterslide.”

  “Okay, yeah, whatever. It’s not that good.” Gemma skips back up to join my parents, who are just aimlessly wandering around camp. I was supposed to be showing them around, but they walked in front of us, so I’m not really sure what’s happening.

  “Just glance over there, but don’t make it obvious that you’re looking,” I whisper to Kaylan. “And quick because my parents just stopped walking.”

  Kaylan nods and gently glances over to the soccer field and then back at me.

  “Okay, so want to see the pottery studio?” I ask my parents because I can’t think of anything else to say and I’m not sure it’s the right time to introduce Golfy to everyone.

  “Sounds delightful,” my mom replies.

  “Yo! Arianna Nodberg!”

  I roll my lips together and eye-bulge at Kaylan, who eye-bulges at me, because we both know who just yelled that. And also because he’s coming right over to us.

  “So nice that everyone knows your name here,” my dad adds.

  “Hey,” Golfy says, semi out of breath when he catches up to all of us. “Arianna, this is your fam?”

  I nod. “Yes, my lovely family. Mom, Dad, Little Sis. And this is my best friend, Kaylan.”

  “Hi, Best Friend Kaylan,” Golfy says, twisting his cap around so the brim is in the back. “Also hi, Mom, Dad, and Little Sis. I’m Jonah. But everyone here calls me Golfy.”

  “Hello,” my dad says, in the most awkward dad tone I’ve ever heard.

  “Nice to meet you, uh, Golfy, you said?” My mom smiles her classic side-tilt smile; it’s what she does when she’s trying to figure someone out.

  “Yup! You guys enjoying visiting day?”

  Everyone nods.

  “Loving it,” Kaylan adds.

  “Totally,” Golfy says, his hands on his hips, like he’s trying to think of something else to say. “Well, I better get back to my game, so have fun and I’ll see ya around.”

  He runs back over to the soccer field, and we all stand there, watching him.

  “Well, he was friendly!” my mom says with her eyebrows raised. I can tell she’s waiting for me to give some more information about Golfy, but I can’t give her that satisfaction. Also, I don’t really have any more information.

  “Yup,” I reply. “Come on. Pottery studio. Move along, move along.”

  Kaylan nudges my shoulder. “Your cheeks are redder than Golfy’s T-shirt right now. Just FYI.”

  “Shh,” I reply. “They’re totally normal cheek color. I’m just tan, remember? Be cool, Kaylan.”

  “I’m cool,” she says defensively.

  “But isn’t he the cutest?” I whisper.

  “He’s up there on the cute scale, for sure,” she replies.

  SIX

  A FEW NIGHTS LATER, I’M lying in bed thinking about visiting day when I realize I never even discussed my bat mitzvah with my parents. I’ll be home soon so I guess it wasn’t essential for us to talk about it on visiting day, but still. The pink tablecloths and the super adult-y food—none of it is a big deal, but I need to step in before it all gets out of hand.

  “Pssssst, Arianna, are you up?” I hear a whisper from the bed below me.

  “Yes, I’m up.” I hang my head over the side of the bunk bed and look at Zoe.

  “Come down, I want to talk to you.”

  I throw my legs over the wooden railing and hop down as quietly as possible so I don’t wake anyone up. I climb into her bed and flip up my hoodie hood and tuck my feet under Zoe’s paisley comforter.

  “What’s up?” I whisper.

  “Alice was supposed to be here for this declaration, but she fell asleep. Like she always does.” She pauses, rolling her eyes. “Golfy definitely likes you.”

  “For real? How do you know?” I ask. “We didn’t even start the mission.”

  “Well, we kind of did. Alice and me. You just didn’t know it because we didn’t want you to get upset if it didn’t work out. And anyway, it was a short mission. . . .”

  “Okay. Tell!” I whisper-yell.

  “Okay, so he was talking to some people outside the dining hall before evening program, and I totally heard them, but I pretended that I didn’t.”

  “What did he say?” I ask.

  “Okay, I’m lying.” Zoe bites her lip, laughing a little. “I need to start again. Soooo . . . we just asked him if he liked anyone. And he shrugged. And then we were like, do you like Arianna? and he smiled a little, and then nodded and said, yeah.”

  “Whoa.”

  “I know.” She shakes me a little bit and whispers, “Are you freaking out right now?”

  “Um, I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I just feel, like, ridiculously excited!”

  “I think any other girl would be completely freaking out, but okay.” Zoe stretches out her legs. “And camp is almost over. We gotta get on this.”

  “Totally,” I reply. “I’m into it.”

  “How is this your first summer at camp?” she asks. “You just decided to randomly come when you were twelve not knowing anyone here? It’s so weird. I mean, it’s good. But also weird.”

  “I mean, there was always tons to do at home.” I shrug. “Kaylan and I love the pool, and we just hang out twenty-four/seven. But then some people from camp came to make a presentation at my temple, and it sounded awesome, so I figured it was worth a shot? And I am sooooooooo glad I came. Obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Shh,” Sari loud-whispers from her bed. “Girls! Arianna! You shouldn’t be out of bed right now.”

  “Sorry
!” I loud-whisper back.

  “We’ll talk more tomorrow,” Zoe adds. “But I just had to tell you . . . about the love of your life, Golfy Malkin.”

  “Girls, shh,” Sari says again. “Go to bed. I don’t want to hear you whining that you’re tired tomorrow.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m going back to bed. Lailah tov.”

  “Lailah tov,” Zoe replies. “Nighty night.”

  I lie awake for what feels like hours thinking about Golfy, and the fact that he likes me. I just wish we had figured this out earlier in the summer. I wonder why certain things take so long to figure out, to develop and come together. I guess you can’t really force situations like this; they just have to happen in their own time.

  And anyway, there’s always next summer.

  “Arianna,” Sari whispers, standing next to my bed. “Now that you’ve woken me up—this got delivered to the wrong bunk. Sorry. And go to sleep. For real.” She hands me a letter.

  “Okay. Thanks. And sorry,” I whisper back. “Good night.”

  Dear Ari,

  I just got home from visiting day, and I miss you already. It was so great to see you and meet your friends and see Golfy. It made me kinda jealous, too, though. I wish I had a place like that, that was my own, where I could be different than I am at school. You see that you’re different, right? I mean, you’re the same but you’re just more in that direction of free-spirit Ari who’s just relaxed and calm?

  Anyway, I think I’m going to finally tell Jason once and for all that we’re better off as friends. It can check off the “tell a boy how we really feel” thing even though it’s not a good thing to tell. Did we need it to be a good thing?

  Write back and tell me right away.

  Are you going to tell Golfy how you feel before camp ends?

  I love you! XOXO Kaylan

  I consider Kaylan’s question as I try to fall asleep, but then I push it away. The thing is, I don’t want to think about camp ending. I just want to enjoy every second that I’m here.

  I want to stretch it. Make it last, as my Bubbie always says.

  SEVEN

  AT REST HOUR THE NEXT day, I write back to Kaylan.

  Dear Kaylan,

  I’m so glad you got to meet everyone on visiting day! You got to experience the magic of Camp Silver for a day. Isn’t it the best? It literally feels like the happiest place in the whole world to me. Better than Disney World.

  And guess what? Golfy likes me! Zoe and Alice found out. I am soooo excited. I’ll keep you posted.

  Did I tell you they have this crazy dessert here? It’s like pudding, but it’s called mung, and even if you turn the whole bowl upside down, the mung stays in the bowl. It doesn’t fall out! How insane is that? I don’t even know how it works. It’s delicious, too.

  And guess what? The other day it rained all day so we got to stay in the bunk and just hang out. And then we put on bathing suits and brought out our shampoo and body wash and we showered outside! It was the best. So, so funny. All the girls here shave their legs. I’m so glad we started shaving before the summer. It would have been weird otherwise. Did June’s mom let her start shaving yet? She’s not super hairy, but still . . .

  BTW—haven’t gotten the big P again. But I’m prepared.

  Anyway, I miss you! Can’t wait to show you all of my doodles.

  LOVE YOU FOREVER, Ari

  After rest hour, I’m in my Mindfulness elective, and I’m completely doing it wrong. I mean, I guess the whole point of Mindfulness is to be able to feel your feelings a little more and accept that you can’t control them. Just feel them and let them move along.

  I don’t really know. I’m still learning.

  “We want to let our thoughts have their space in our mind, and then allow them to flutter away, like a little bird,” the counselor in charge says to the group. “We need to think about how we relate to our thoughts and then acknowledge when they become distracting to us.”

  This counselor’s real name is Barack, so naturally his camp nickname is Pres. He reminds us all the time that he had his name before Barack Obama was president, though. “And we’re focusing on our breathing,” he reminds us. “Breathe in. Breathe out.”

  I try this, but my mind still wanders. It wanders to Golfy, and to my bat mitzvah, and to Kaylan and the list, and then the pink tablecloths, and then to wondering what the lunch table girls will think about Israeli dancing at the party.

  “Spend a moment thinking about how the floor feels underneath you,” Pres says. “Does your body feel heavy against the floor? Really feel the weight of your presence in this space.”

  I’m able to do every instruction he gives us, and for a moment my mind is on that thing, but then it wanders away again like a toddler at the playground.

  We all have so many thoughts going through our minds at the same time; it seems impossible to focus on one thing for more than a few seconds.

  “Now think about how it smells in here,” Pres instructs. “Really breathe in, take in the aroma of this space, and then release your breath.”

  I look around the room—none of my friends are in this elective, and at first I was annoyed that I was separated from them and that I got put into an elective I didn’t even really want to do.

  But right now it feels calm and peaceful to sort of be on my own. And mindfulness is actually more interesting than I thought it would be.

  “Now close your eyes for a moment,” Pres tells us. “Feel the weight of your eyelids. Open them. Close them.” He pauses. “When we are at camp, so much is happening around us at all times. We love this place. We want to take it all in. We want to make sure we take the time to be mindful here, to notice our beautiful surroundings, to really feel as if we are part of this place.”

  As he talks, I think about Kaylan’s most recent letter and something dawns on me.

  Everyone (especially Kaylan) thinks of me as chill, relaxed, free-spirit Ari. And I am, or at least I appear to be. I mean, nothing ever feels like that big of a deal to me—that’s true. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think about stuff. My mind isn’t really super chill—it’s always wandering off in a million directions. Not necessarily bad directions, but it is moving all over the place.

  Maybe if I keep working on this, my mind can be chill, too.

  EIGHT

  “CAMP IS REALLY OVER TOMORROW?” Golfy asks me. We’re sitting on the basketball courts after our evening program, and there’s chatter all around us. The air smells sticky and wet like freshly mowed grass after a rainstorm. I look up, and I see there are a million stars in the sky—way more than I’d ever see in Brookside. The crickets are making their metally hissing sound and it sounds louder than it usually does. I think they’re sad, too, that camp is ending tomorrow. “How is that even possible?”

  “I have no clue, but it is,” I reply. “Maybe next summer I can stay for the whole eight weeks, although Kaylan would probably kill me, and I’m not sure I could leave her for that long.”

  Golfy nods. “Yeah.”

  I keep looking around for my friends, and I’ll spot them for a second but then they’ll disappear, lost in the crowd.

  I roll my lips together, wishing I had lip balm in my pocket. “You always stay the whole summer?”

  “Always, since I was seven,” Golfy replies. “Hey, do you want to go see a really cool place?” He hops up. “You’re gonna love it.”

  “Uh. Sure.” I look at him for a second, starting to laugh. “I love really cool places.” I don’t even really know what I’m saying. When Golfy’s around, everything just feels silly and funny and easygoing.

  I scan the crowd to find Zoe or Alice or Hana, but I don’t see any of them. I sort of overheard them talking about making a memory box for me, but I pretended I didn’t hear because I know they want it to be a surprise.

  He puts his hands in his pockets. “Okay, so I’m actually going to show you two things because I just remembered another thing I want to show you. Okay?”

&
nbsp; “Um, sure,” I say, walking along with him. “So no one calls you Golfy at home, right?”

  He laughs. “No, of course not. At home, I’m just Jonah.”

  “Just Jonah sounds like the name of a one-man show that’s off-off-off-off-Broadway,” I tell him, and he cracks up.

  “It totally does!”

  He stops walking. “Okay, so here’s the first stop, which is actually what I just remembered I had to show you.”

  We’re standing outside of a bunk at the top of the hill, where the oldest campers live. They’re shaped like tents and they’re really old and only like six kids can fit in them.

  I look at Golfy and wait for him to tell me what I’m supposed to be looking for.

  “See that name?” he says.

  “Um, there are a million names here,” I remind him. Graffiti is something that’s not really allowed at camp but still happens anyway.

  “Nathan Malkin, 1980,” Golfy says. “Did you know my dad went here, too?”

  I shrug. “Yeah, I kind of heard that, I think.”

  “I always think it’s cool to find his name around camp, like he was actually a kid once, and a counselor here, and it just feels so funny but cool at the same time, ya know?”

  “Yeah, definitely.”

  For a second, I imagine my parents as kids and teenagers, and I wonder what they were like. I wonder how they would have felt if their parents decided on a tablecloth color without consulting them first. I wonder how people thought of them: Were they anxious Kaylan types? Or were they more go-with-the-flow?

  Actually, why am I even considering this? My mom was totally an anxious Kaylan type. She still is. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why it feels so easy to be friends with Kaylan.

  “Okay, ready for the next stop? It’s not too far. I’ll have you back at the basketball courts in like four minutes. And then we all have to go to the lake for the final friendship circle.” He pauses and looks at me. “Are you ready for everyone to cry?”

  “Um, is anyone ever ready for that?”

  “Good point.”