“Why aren’t you gone by now?” I ask. “On your way to your hotels?”
Liz looks at V.
“It’s getting dark,” Liz says. “We don’t know the roads well. We didn’t want to take any chances.”
I give Liz a wary look. I saw you crying, I say to her telepathically, a way of communicating we’ve long had in common. We always said we could read each other’s minds.
“I decided to stay for Em,” she says. “She deserves it.” She looks at me and cocks her head at where the raccoon has just been. “You held the Pringles back from us,” she says.
I know this is Liz’s way of saying, Truce.
For now.
“Come stay in Pinewood,” V says.
I don’t move. I look at Liz.
She shrugs.
I gather my belongings, throw stuff back into my backpack, and scurry out of the bunkhouse faster than the raccoon.
“Your old bunk awaits,” V says, gesturing once we’re inside Pinewood. “We’ve already checked for bugs and critters. We’re safe for now.”
I jump into the top bunk, above V. Liz gets into her top bunk next to me, above where Em always slept.
I feel like I should get up and wash my face and brush my teeth, wash all this nastiness away, but—for a night—I will be an exhausted camper who just collapses into her bunk. I turn onto my side and pull up the covers. Everything is green. It feels like home.
I shift my eyes and see Liz glaring at me from her bunk. It’s a face-off.
This exact scene causes more memories to flood my mind. I turn away. I can’t face the truth either. And I’ve never apologized to Liz for what I did.
V flicks off her flashlight, and darkness engulfs Pinewood.
I think of that cute Taneycomo camper Billy Collins with his mop of blond hair, and his legs covered in those too-high tube socks. Billy didn’t want to dance with me because he liked Liz. He always did. And I never pursued him again because I didn’t want to hurt Liz. She meant more to me than any boy.
She still does.
But she never knew all that because I never told her all that.
Secrets.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into my musty pillow.
Liz
Billy Collins is looking at me, searching not just my eyes but my soul.
We are in a tiny boat off Capri. Billy puts his hand in my hair and unties my bow. I watch it fly away and catch on a rocky cliff.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
I nod.
He dips me, and our boat captain yells, “Watch your heads!”
With one swift, deft push, we are inside the Blue Grotto, pulled along chains attached to the cave walls.
I sit up from the bottom of the boat, where we’ve been lying flat, and feel as if I’ve entered another world. The cavern is dark, but the sea glows electric blue, as blue as Billy’s eyes.
“This is the effect of sunlight passing through the underwater cave,” the captain says. “It’s magical. It’s rare.”
Like our love, I think.
I look into the water. It’s a color that defies explanation. Billy leans toward me. I put my hands onto his back, feeling the muscles through his tank top. Billy takes my hand, and we stand in the tiny boat. Billy steps onto the blue water, and I start to scream, but he doesn’t sink. I step onto the water, and it is solid.
“Would you like to dance?” Billy asks.
“Finally,” I say. “After all these years.”
The captain begins to sing “O Sole Mio,” and it echoes throughout the cave.
The sunlight is beaming into the cave. I don’t shut my eyes because I want to dive into the blue of his eyes, sink into the depths of the Blue Grotto and stay there forever.
Billy shuts his eyes.
“No. Keep them open.”
My eyes open, and light is streaming into them. I rub my eyes to stop them from watering.
Where am I?
I sit up on my elbows, the sun beaming through the wavy old glass panels of Pinewood Bunk. The light through the windows makes the world look warped, as if I’m in a time machine, or one of those old TV shows where someone is placing a magic spell.
I hear V yell, “Play it again!”, and the music pumps even louder.
The Bangles. “Manic Monday.” 1986.
I am in a time warp. And I was just in the middle of a dream.
The Bangles sing again, V and Rach singing backup, and my mind wanders to that Talent Night so long ago. Those buried feelings of hurt rise again like lava in the pit of my stomach, and it burns.
And then I remember where I am again. Caught between two worlds: 2021 and the 1980s.
I’ve been stuck between two worlds for a very long time: the girl who had so many dreams, and the woman who had to push them aside to be a grown-up.
I’m also now—and have always been—caught between two friends who are more alike than they would ever care to admit. Despite V’s sabotage, despite their rivalry, she and Rachel have much more in common than I ever had with them—looks, personality, leadership, popularity, lives that ordinary folk like me aspired to live—and I still feel that jealousy that I tried so hard to bury. They also had more opportunity than I could ever imagine. When your world is small, your chances are, too.
The lava bubbles.
I sit up, and the bunk creaks like a scrub pine in the winter wind.
That’s not the bunk, it’s my back.
I grab my lower back and massage it. It throbs.
How did I ever sleep on this? It’s literally an egg carton on top of box springs.
I toss my legs over the edge of the top bunk. My eyes grow wide.
And how did I ever jump off this? It looks two stories high.
For a moment, I think about doing it, but then I think better: I think of my knees. I think about breaking a hip. I think about all the things you think about now as a middle-aged women.
I smell coffee, and that motivates me.
I edge my body to the end of the bed, turn all the way around and feel with my feet for the wooden posts at the end of the bunks. Slowly, I crawl down the makeshift ladder.
I slip my still-stockinged feet into my shoes and head out the door. I follow my nose. It leads me to The Lodge.
“Oh, my God. It’s freezing.”
Even though it’s the height of summer, mornings are brisk in northern Michigan, probably a good ten to fifteen degrees colder than my mornings in Holland.
“Morning, Rip Van Winkle.”
V turns the music off.
She is hunched over the stove in the camp kitchen. She has multiple pans going. Rachel is behind her, stirring.
“This is like Top Chef,” I say.
“Em thought of everything: arranged access to the kitchen and really stocked us up,” V says. “Pancake mix, syrup, coffee. Rach got up early and went back to the little country store to pick up some eggs, milk and creamer.”
Rachel walks over and hands me a cup of coffee. It’s in a speckled mug with Camp Birchwood spelled out in logs on the front.
“Thank you,” I say. “You didn’t leave.”
She looks at me and shakes her head. “Not yet.”
A partial answer.
“Em loved her camp breakfasts, didn’t she?” Rachel continues. “The whole shebang: said it reminded her of weekends at her grandfather’s cabin.”
I lift my mug to toast her and take a big drink. The coffee is strong, very strong, and quite tasty.
“Where did you get this mug?”
“The Lodge is still stocked,” Rach says. “It’s almost as if the Nighs’ kids just closed the camp and left it as it was, ghosts and all.”
“That’s so sad,” V says.
“I bet Cy and Guy would be thrilled to know what Em has d
one,” V continues.
“But it’s not a camp,” I say. “It’s just...us.”
“But we’re keeping the memories alive, at least for now,” V says. “Right?”
“Right,” I say.
But we’re keeping the memories alive, at least for now.
I take another slug of coffee to warm and wake my body, but V’s words chill me.
Does it matter?
I think of all the traditions my mother kept alive. She put up seven Christmas trees in a tiny house, she gifted me with charms for my bracelet, she taught me how to make a perfect pie crust and strawberry preserves, she taught me how to sew. But my kids want none of that. They can buy new ornaments online, clothes at any outlet, have their food and groceries delivered to their doorstep. Our society has advanced in so many ways and declined in so many others.
My grandkids don’t really interact with the world anymore. They play alone, they don’t have hobbies, they don’t seem interested in anything beyond their cells, laptops, TVs or games, anything that sits right in front of their own noses.
I don’t even talk to my children or grandchildren anymore. I’ve almost forgotten what their voices sound like. All we do is text.
I look around the overgrown grounds. Have summer camps become dinosaurs, too?
My mom sent me to Camp Birchwood for the simplest of reasons: to have childhood summers like she used to have, floating on the lake, catching fireflies, roasting marshmallows, telling ghost stories around a campfire, sharing secrets with friends. She didn’t like me slumped in a beanbag chair eating Doritos and watching soaps all day.
More than anything, she wanted to open my world up to new people, things, opportunities.
I shut my eyes and see my mom as a young woman. Time passes so quickly.
Especially when you’re lost.
I shake my head to erase that thought, and guilt overwhelms me.
“I need to check in with my mom,” I say.
“Pancakes first,” V says. “I didn’t get up at the crack of dawn and do all this to have no one eat.” She stops. “I already get that at home.” V looks at me, those eyes flashing. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve made pancakes?” She stops again. “Been allowed to make pancakes? I can’t even remember. All I make now is oatmeal, acai bowls, green smoothies, kale salads and berry parfaits with no parfait.”
I laugh.
“Maybe that’s why I closet-eat,” V says, smacking her stomach under her Dodgers sweatshirt. “Little Debbies. Still my favorite.”
“You are not fat, V,” Rach says, flipping two pancakes out of the skillet and onto a red speckleware plate. She slices two pats of butter, smears them across the hot cakes and then drowns them in real Michigan maple syrup. She hands the plate to me. “Stop doing that to yourself.”
“I am heavy,” V says. “I’m not saying I need to look the way I used to look in my twenties to be happy. I just need to understand why I binge-eat bad food.”
I look at Rach. Rach looks at V. We both look away.
“Oh, no,” V says. “None of that secret code stuff you used to do.”
“What secret code?” I ask.
“That twin thing you two had, where you could talk to each other just by looking at each other.”
I look at Rach. She looks at me.
“I forgot about that,” Rach says.
“Me, too,” I say.
“Jinx!” we say at the same time, laughing.
“See!” V says. “You two always had that bond.”
We did? Maybe we had more in common than I think.
Then why did she hurt me so badly? And why did I hurt her? And why did I think I was always the outsider looking in? Why didn’t we just talk?
I eat and think about when this all started. It was—what?—our second Talent Night, when everyone was pushing Rachel to sing Madonna, and I could tell she wanted to do something more serious. When someone would press her, she would look at me, as if she were desperately seeking advice—and I would just stare back...not at her, but into her soul. Without saying a word, we realized we could communicate almost via ESP. She told me once she had that secret, silent bond with her father. Rach ended up doing a very funny scene from Plaza Suite by Neil Simon, one that changed everyone’s perspective on her talent, and she was the first girl to ever win Camp Birchwood’s Talent Night without singing. And the first girl to win two years in a row.
Maybe that’s why we’re so volatile, I think. We’re like family.
I look at her. But why did you want me to humiliate myself on Talent Night? And why did you steal the only boy at camp I’ve ever liked?
“Okay, weirdos,” V says, breaking our trance. “As I was saying, I just want to get a grip on why I eat to deal with my emotions.”
“You’re bored or unhappy,” Rach says, in the only way she can. She looks at V, and her face drops. “Sorry. It’s hard for me to turn down the volume. But it’s true: you used to be one of the most recognizable faces in America. Now you’re a mom and a wife. I’m sure you feel a bit invisible.”
“Hey,” I start, trying to cut off Rach before she goes too far.
“No, it’s okay,” V says. “I haven’t had a real adult conversation with a friend in decades.”
She continues. “You’re right. My husband is über-successful. My kids are thriving. And I’ve been instrumental in all of that. But soon, I’ll be an empty-nester. What is it that I want to do for the rest of my life that will make me happy? Not them. Me.”
V’s honesty chills me. I polish off my pancakes and hug my mug of coffee.
Rach flips two more pancakes onto a plate. She looks at V. “But, if I’m reading all of this right, the biggest question of all is, is your family happy, or is it all just pretend?”
“Okay, okay,” I say. “Enough.”
Rach turns and looks at me. We stare at each other for the longest time. I nod my okay for her to finish.
“I’m asking because it’s what I’m asking myself right now,” Rach says, wiping her hands on her hoodie. “What is happy? When was I happy? How did I lose it? And how do I get there again without losing everything I’ve worked to become?”
Rach’s voice cracks, the only time I’ve actually witnessed her all-too-familiar brave facade show vulnerability.
“Why do we have such incredible friends when we’re young, and then we lose touch with them?” Rach says. “We rarely recreate those same bonds. Is that natural, or learned behavior? Do we grow up and get too busy, or are we just scared of sharing our true selves as adults? What happens to friendships? And, as a result, what happens to us?”
“All of that,” I say. “And we just don’t want to get hurt anymore. It’s easier being alone than being broken.”
Only then do we realize that V is crying, softly, like she would do when she’d crack a knee getting out of a canoe or whack her head getting into a bunk.
“I’m okay,” she says. “I’m just going for a little walk before I pack up and head home. You check on your mom.”
“Go on,” Rachel says. “Both of you. I’ll clean up.” She looks at us. “I need to start cleaning up my act.”
V heads toward the woods, and I head toward my car.
No reception.
I continue walking, up the dirt road, until I get a single bar of reception. I call Manor Court.
“Your mom is the same,” Sue, a nurse stationed near my mom’s room, says. “You deserve a few days away. Enjoy.”
I hang up and call my office.
“Everything is fine,” Annie assures me. “Have fun with your friends. Drink some wine. It’s beautiful out...go hike, go for a swim, get physical. Ooh, the other line is ringing. I gotta go. Enjoy!”
How? I think. I’m used to doing anything but relaxing. I’m used to taking care of everyone else.
I sigh and look up. The sun is filtering through the pines, white birch and sugar maples, my three favorite trees. The wind whispers through the needles of the pines, and it reminds me of my mom reading to me at night, her voice as soft as the sheets. The broad leaves of the sugar maples, the stereotypically perfect leaf to me, are a grand green, and the sunlight literally x-rays through them, bathing the woods in an otherworldly glow. And the birch contrasted against the arcing green leaves, the deep shadows of the dense woods and the glorious, humidity-free blue of the sky, a blue that can only be found in Michigan during the summer, makes me feel like I’m in a Glen Arbor gallery and all the watercolors have sprung to life.
As if pulled by their beauty, I wander into the woods. I shed my sweatshirt and tie it around my waist. That’s the thing about Michigan: it can go from fifty-five to seventy in the blink of an eye in the summer, and the reverse in fall. I inhale the musty scent of the woods. I remember running through these woods. Em and I would find massive, twisted grapevines to swing on, and we’d climb onto them as if they were rope swings and leap off hillsides and dunes, screaming in both glee and horror the higher we’d fly.
I used to take chances, I think. I used to live in the moment.
I think of my mother, bedridden, unable to even stand and walk. What chances does she wish she would have taken? What chances did Em wish she’d taken when she still had time?
I see a grapevine, thick and gnarled, hanging over a dry creek bed. My heart races. I grab it on the fly, screaming, my hands already sliding down it, and I jump off just as I cross the creek bed.
“I did it!”
It feels good to move, I think. Good to be in the moment for once.
It feels good to get physical.
I stop, nearly tripping over my own feet.
That’s it!
I suddenly take off running, leaping over downed tree limbs, mossy branches and stones. Out of breath, I race back into The Lodge. The smell of pancakes and coffee remains, but V and Rachel are gone. I look around, really for the first time.
Large, two-story windows line the huge space, and I run from window to window, opening the curtains. Dust motes dance in the sunlight, just like we used to do. The Lodge served as Birchwood’s great hall: it was commons, kitchen and dining room; game room and gathering place; auditorium and theater. Sunlight fills the massive, wood-beamed building, which has the feel of a grand—if dilapidated—lodge where Hemingway may have tossed back a few whiskeys after a day fishing. The banners of each of the bunkhouses still hang from the rafters, and the long tables, stacked with chairs, fill the dining room, the kitchen hidden behind a swinging door that now hangs sadly from a missing hinge. At the far end sits the small stage, and old wooden seats are lined up as if Talent Night is about to start.
The Clover Girls Page 10
