When you’re dying, everything finally becomes as crystal clear as the lake on a sunny day. The simplest of things—the things that we take for granted each and every day—are the most important: our health, our family and our friends.
If any of you choose to leave or walk away, then the camp and its endowment will be turned over to the State of Michigan for future generations to enjoy.
Those are my only rules. Have fun! It’s so easy, but it will be so hard.
As I mentioned, you’ll find some basic necessities here that I’ve already purchased: pillows, blankets, kayaks, a canoe, firewood, some food and coffee, all the things we had at camp (okay, coffee has replaced our love of Jolt soda! Remember?).
Really, the only things you need are already right beside you: each other.
And although I’m not with you physically, I am there with you in spirit. And, should you agree to this, I will be with you FOUR-ever!
Speaking of which: I’ve enclosed the four-leaf clover I found our very first day together. Yes, I’ve kept it forever. It’s dried and fragile, just like our friendship. But it’s a symbol of what was and what could still be.
Do you remember what Mrs. Nigh told us about it? The clover represents faith, hope and love. The four-leaf clover is imbued with luck.
You’ll need it. You’ll need all of those things.
But Mrs. Nigh also told us that the four-leaf clover represented paradise.
“That’s why I planted the clover,” she said. “So paradise will always be with you, even when you grow up and leave this camp.”
Well, we left. And it was never the same.
Now you’re back. You can choose to leave forever, or you can choose to recreate the happy memories from our camp days and remember what it was that made us friends, made us whole, made each of us unique.
Paradise surrounds you. So do your best friends.
What you decide to do with that is now up to you.
I love you all more than anything!
Em
PART THREE
Talent Night
Summer 1987
“That’s boring to the max!” Rachel yells.
“No duh! Do something for once! Don’t be lame!” V says. “It’s Talent Night.”
“My talent is fashion design,” Liz protests. “I just want to show the girls what I can do. That I can make something cool out of anything.” Her voice rises with emotion. “Em, what should I do?”
Liz looks at Em, who lifts her head from the book she is reading. Her body is halfway off the bunk, her legs helicoptering in the air. She stops and twirls her hair, taking the question very seriously.
“I think you should do what makes you happiest,” she says, her voice calm like a soft rain. “If you try to do something you don’t want to do, your heart won’t be in it. People can see through that.”
“Not even!” Rachel says. “You have to do something that gets everyone’s attention. You have to stand out.” She looks at Em. “Don’t listen to her. She never wants to stand out.”
Em shakes her head. “No, Rachel. I just don’t need to be the center of attention like you and V all the time. You’ll see one day.” She ducks her head back into her book.
“You can pretend you’re in another world all you want, Em,” Rach says, “but I know talent.” She stops. “Oh! My! Gawd! I just had the gnarliest idea! Didn’t you used to twirl, Liz?”
“When I was a kid,” Liz says.
“That’s what you should do, right, V?”
“Totally!” V agrees. “Not just twirl. But a fire baton routine! Can you imagine?”
“We’ll totally help you!” Rachel says. “Right, V?”
“Right!”
The two grab hands and run out of the bunkhouse, giggling.
Em looks down at Liz.
“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t do it. Those two may be your friends, but they always think of themselves first, especially if it’s a competition. They don’t want anyone else to win besides them. They may act like rivals, but some girls are always bonded by the things they have in common. Rach and V are beautiful, popular and born leaders. They don’t think anyone can beat them. Ever.” Em puts down her book and hops off the bunk. She grabs Liz’s hand. “They’re not doing this to help you, Liz. They’re doing this to help them. They may be my BFFs, but they can be selfish. You may not win, but people will respect you, Liz.”
Liz shakes her head. She already has made her decision.
The night of the talent contest, Liz walks out onto the tiny stage in The Lodge. It is pitch black. The music for “Burning Down the House” by Talking Heads comes on, and then all of a sudden, a spotlight shines on Liz. The campers explode in applause. Liz is performing a fire baton routine. It is going perfectly. The baton nearly touches the rafters. Liz even does a cartwheel and catches every toss. The sequined twirler outfit she’d fashioned for herself—in green paillettes!—sparkles in the light. Rach looks at V, both of them silently cursing themselves for encouraging her. Everyone is mesmerized. Until...
Whoosh!
Liz’s hair briefly goes up in flames. Everyone screams, and Liz nearly knocks herself unconscious trying to put out her hair with her own baton. Even though her hair is no longer aflame and only the ends are singed, a camp counselor still turns a fire extinguisher on her, and another tosses a bucket of water over her.
The Lodge explodes in laughter.
Liz is devastated. She rushes offstage, where her friends are waiting. They hold her as she cries.
A counselor walks over. “It’s time for your performance, girls,” she says.
They let go of Liz.
“You’re performing together?” Liz sniffles. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Wanted it to be a secret!” they say as one. “Wish us luck!”
They perform a dance routine to “Walk Like an Egyptian” by The Bangles, and win Talent Night.
Devastated, Liz hides in the costume room, her secret space, where all of the clothes she made and was going to showcase for Talent Night hang lifeless. She hears voices whispering outside. She cracks the door. Rachel and V are just offstage, feet away.
“Burnin’ down her hair!” Rachel sings.
“Shhhh!” V says in a stage whisper.
“I actually feel sorry for her,” Rachel says. “She tries so hard.”
“Desperation is not a good look,” V says.
“Like her clothes.”
“I actually think she’s talented,” V says. “But you can’t teach confidence.”
“Right?”
Liz stands at the door. Her heart is beating out of her chest. Her head is spinning. She wants to move, confront them, yell at them, but her feet and mouth are paralyzed, as if in quicksand.
She is wounded so deeply by her friends, but it would hurt even more, she knows, to lose them.
Or worse, have them turn against her forever.
Liz closes the door.
Summer 2021
Veronica
Why are darkness and quiet so unnerving to adults? We spend nine months in a womb and cry like the dickens when we encounter light for the first time. As kids, we loved to camp outdoors, even in our backyards, with only a flashlight. We yearned to head to summer camp in the middle of nowhere, or crawl under our covers to snuff out the reality of the world.
And then we become addicted to light, be it fluorescent office lights or headlights of passing cars through our neighborhood. Today, we are addicted to technology’s light: cell phones, laptops, TVs. A constant glow surrounds us that makes us feel so safe, protected, connected. Only when we remove that glow do we realize we’re alone.
I take a sip of water from my bottle and close my eyes.
My career was spent in the light. In fact, I was an expert in light. I learned how light was a
ngled, reflected, diffused. I understood where shadows fell. I knew how to cast it in my eyes. I knew how to spread my limbs apart so that light would flow around my body. When that light was removed, I had to learn to live in the shadows.
Although my life is still bright—my children are miracles—I feel like I’ve lost my balance between dark and light.
I felt basked in light early in my marriage, and now it feels as though twilight is drawing close. The dark, the unknown, is unnerving.
“Let there be light!”
I jump. Liz has started a fire.
The irony is unbearable. She used Rachel’s birch despite the fact Rachel has gone AWOL since we read Em’s letter together and stopped to scatter some of her ashes over her beloved field of lucky clover. We all seemed ready to say goodbye to Em and each other, forever, but now it just feels too hard to leave here again without some semblance of closure with one another, as Em wanted.
Without some semblance of light, just like Candles on the Lake.
“You could be on Survivor,” I say.
“For one night only,” Liz says. “I need my hairspray.”
“Me, too,” I say. “And my lip gloss.”
I smile at her in the glow. Her hair has not changed. It’s a marvel unto itself. It not only still requires its own zip code, but it is still Madonna circa “Lucky Star” video days. She is even wearing a giant bow on her head. She bends down to stoke the fire.
Whoosh!
Liz screams, and I smell the horrid stench of something burning.
I look up. Liz’s hair explodes, ever so briefly, into flame. It resembles burning tumbleweed.
“Do something!” Liz yells.
I stand, and Liz is running around the campfire, smashing her hair with her hands, as if a thousand bees were upon her. I rush over to assist, tossing the remains of my water bottle onto her head. Her hair sizzles, and she stops moving.
She looks up at me, water cascading down her face. “How’s my hair?”
I move closer and take a look. “Some singed ends, but I think it’s all intact.”
I look at Liz, trying to act upbeat as she always did, even when something was hurting her. Memories of her past Talent Night disaster flame through my mind. That summer, campers called Liz “Carrie,” because the memory of that night on stage was so unbelievably monstrous and horrific. She never performed in another Talent Night. She spent the rest of her camp years offstage, designing other girls’ costumes and doing their hair for their performances.
I now wonder how much that Talent Night nightmare impacted her psyche and confidence.
No, V, be honest: you’ve always wondered how much your impact had on her psyche and confidence.
Was she afraid everything would end up in flames?
“Since Em wanted us to bury the hatchet, I have a question that’s haunted me for a very long time.” Liz looks at me, and I hold my breath. “Why didn’t you ever take me up on my offer to help style you when you were a model? I mean, I helped you before.”
My heart stops. I think of what she did for me so long ago. Not just lying to Rachel but styling me for the photo shoot that launched my career and changed my life.
Why didn’t I? She deserved some form of payback, didn’t she, V?
“I thought you weren’t serious,” I say. “You were in college. You were just starting out. And then you got married soon after that.”
“Did I ever act like I was joking?” she asks. “You know that was my passion.”
Liz touches her hair, nervously, and comes over to take a seat beside me on vintage lawn chairs—the webbed kind, in green, of course—that Em left in the shed next to the kayak and canoe.
“Did you ever think I was talented?” Liz asks. “Be honest.”
“Oh, Liz,” I say. “Of course.” I hesitate, dreading the question I’m about to ask. “Where is all of this coming from?”
“Because I kinda always thought I was a joke,” Liz says, her voice barely audible. She looks at me. “I heard what you and Rachel said about me after my Talent Night debacle. Do you even remember that?”
I shut my eyes. I think back in time so long ago. Images and words flash, just like bulbs from my modeling days. My face flushes, and I can feel it turn as red as my hair.
“I do,” I say. “I’m sorry. We were just kids.”
She looks at me. “C’mon, V. That’s no excuse. You and Rachel may have acted like rivals, but you could be the mean girls. Everything came so easily to you two.”
“But it didn’t always for me. I think that’s why I acted the way I did.”
I tell Liz the story I told my daughter of being picked on in school. “It felt good to be popular for once. It felt good to be the leader,” I say. “It felt great to be the girl everyone thought was beautiful. It was nice that everything—for once in my life—came easily. Maybe I got off on that power.”
“But it didn’t come easily for me,” Liz says, mirroring my own words. “Why did we hurt each other so much? Why did we lie to Rachel? I mean, I lied for you. That launched your career. And when you made it big you didn’t even have time to give your supposed best friend in the world one opportunity. One.”
“I had managers and handlers, Liz. I didn’t have as much power as you think I did.”
“I had nothing!” Liz yells suddenly. “You had everything!” She stops and there are tears in her eyes. “I just needed someone to see me. It was not easy leaving here—leaving your light—and being invisible.”
I reach out my hand.
“You don’t know how much I needed you,” she continues. Liz takes my hand and grips it tightly. “Everyone was going someplace, and my dreams died after camp. And you didn’t do a damn thing to help my confidence. Do you know how much a simple call asking how I was would have meant? Or that asking me to design a dress for you for some stupid premiere you no longer remember would have changed my whole life? You had designers clamoring to make clothes for you. You had men clamoring to be with you. You traveled the world. You could have tossed a scrap to the girl who sold her dignity and a friend to make that all happen.”
I feel cold, despite the fire, and begin to shiver. Tears fill my eyes.
“I’m so sorry—”
“Stop saying that!” Liz spits, dropping my hand. “It’s not enough.”
We watch the fire crackle for the longest time. I don’t know what to say because she’s right. In my heart, I know it because it is shattering into tiny pieces.
“I tried to design in college. Everyone told me I was silly. Then when I was newly married, my husband told me it was silly,” Liz continues. “He asked me to choose, my career or his? Mike wanted a family. Mike wanted dinner on the table at six. It didn’t seem realistic. I was so jealous of you and Rachel. I mean, the world just opened up for you. In the blink of an eye, you both were stars. You were seeing the world. I was back in the little town where I grew up, and instead of the world opening up, the walls closed in on me. I saw the faces of my little camp friends everywhere, and I thought, ‘Why isn’t that me?’”
“It could have been you,” I protest.
“Could it?” she asks. Her voice drops and turns cold, and, as if on cue, the fire dims.
“Maybe it’s your turn now,” I say. I look at the fire. “It’s not all so perfect anymore, Liz. My marriage is rocky. My dreams have dwindled. That’s not even true. I don’t even dream anymore. Em’s letter rocked me to the core. My husband didn’t even think I should come.”
Liz stands, grabs a big stick and stirs the fire again, this time from a distance. She looks at me and gives me a sweet, but faint, smile. “But at least you had a dream come true. As far as mine goes, I’m gettin’ up there in years. I think my time to become a designer has passed. I have an online shop. And I have a successful career as a real estate agent. I may not be able to make all my
own dreams come true, but I can make everyone else’s. And that makes me happy.”
“Does it?”
We are silent for way too long. The fire crackles, and I’m thankful for any type of noise.
“Do you think Rachel will come back?” she finally asks, not answering my question.
“No,” I say. “Why would she? I think she sees us as co-conspirators every time she looks at us. Em was the concrete. We were the sledgehammer.”
“I think Em’s dreams are over, too,” Liz says. “Her whole plan is over before it even began. I guess that’s life. Being an adult. We’re not kids anymore.”
I think of Em and her final weeks here. I can feel Em’s spirit. She loved this place with all her heart and soul. Like a great book, this camp was filled with characters, life and storylines. It pulsed with narrative highs and lows. It was a saga of childhood, and the coming-of-age story of four strong women.
I think of her being alone, not just here but during her illness. How much inner strength did that take? Could I be alone at this stage of my life, much less face it if I were sick? She may have been the quietest of The Clover Girls, but her actions continue to speak volumes.
“It’s getting late,” Liz says. “I’m glad we stayed a little while longer. Not only for Em, but for us. I’m glad we had a chance to talk. Finally. I didn’t mean to unleash. It’s just...”
I nod. “Me, too,” I tell her. “And I promise not to say I’m sorry again.”
Liz chuckles.
“You ready to head out to our hotels?” I ask. “We can follow each other until we hit M-22.”
“Okay,” Liz says. “But could we wait until the fire starts to die. I can’t leave just yet for some reason. It doesn’t feel right. It’s as if something is telling me to stay.”
“Sure thing,” I say.
There is silence for a moment. I shut my eyes and listen to the logs crackle, and the bellows of the frogs rise and fall like a symphony.
The Clover Girls Page 8
