Suddenly Last Summer #20
Morgan, Melissa J.
PENGUIN group (2012)
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Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Title Page
chapter ONE
chapter TWO
chapter THREE
chapter FOUR
chapter FIVE
chapter SIX
chapter SEVEN
chapter EIGHT
chapter NINE
chapter TEN
chapter ELEVEN
EPILOGUE
GROSSET & DUNLAP
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chapter ONE
Hey, Tori—
Okay, we both know that for a while you’ve been trying to convince me of the Wonders of Camp. And I know, I haven’t exactly been into it. Because honestly, I would rather be home getting ready for my next competition than sleeping in a wooden shack with a million bugs and no modern plumbing. (I know, I know—you have plumbing.)
But then I got invited to participate in an exhibition at this water sports camp. And it seemed really awesome.
It’s called Camp Ohana and it’s totally amazing. It’s on a beautiful private beach with perfect surfing conditions. After the demonstration, they took us to Turtle Beach, which is this amazing beach where endangered sea turtles come up onto the sand to bask in the sun. With the sunset colors in the sky, I can’t tell you how amazing it was.
So: I know you’re totally into your bug camp and whatever, but . . . you should think about going to Camp Ohana next year! Then at least we’ll both be in Hawaii and I can go visit you and maybe you can come stay with me for a week after camp is over.
I know, I know—you’re not as into water sports as I am, but Tor, they teach you anything and everything you’d wanna know. And it’s so beautiful there. The beaches in Hawaii are some of the most gorgeous beaches in the world. And think of what it’ll do for your tan—not to mention the insta-highlights you’ll get just from being out in that sun. I really, really think you would love it! And I know, you really love your friends at Camp Itchy Bunk or whatever, but we’re teenagers now—maybe it’s time to try something new?
Think about it, okay, Tor?
Love ya,
Cassie
“YIIIIIIIIIIIKES!”
Tori flinched at Jenna’s scream as she quickly yanked the wax strip away from her friend’s eyebrow.
“Nice,” Tori announced with a smile, holding up the wax strip for everyone to see. “It’s just like my dad said. Kylie Duchamp is the hottest brow specialist in Hollywood, and this kit will make us look like we all had personal sessions with her!”
Jenna wasn’t listening—she was too busy wiping tears from her eye. “Holy crap,” she murmured. “Who knew that ripping your eyebrow hair out by the root would really feel like ripping your hair out by the root?”
Natalie smiled, looking up from the box she’d been reading. “We have to suffer for beauty, Jenna,” she said, moving Jenna’s hand to get a better look at her eyebrow. “And I hate to tell you this, but you’re not even half done.”
Alex, who’d been watching the whole show from her bunk with a nervous expression, stood up. “All right, I’m out,” she announced, shaking her head. “Much as I want to be beautiful, I just don’t think I can do that.”
Tori shrugged, carefully placing another strip below Jenna’s eyebrow. “Suit yourself.” Without warning, not wanting Jenna to flinch, she grabbed the new strip and ripped it off.
“AAAAUUGH!”
Tori smiled, noting the new shape of Jenna’s brow. “Perfect.” She glanced over at Alex. “Hey, Al, if you’re not going to want your brows done, why don’t you make yourself useful and put on a CD from my dad’s care package?”
Alex walked over to the box Tori received that day and pushed aside the notes and chichi toiletries. “Which one?”
“Any of them.” Tori shrugged. “Oh, you know what? Actually, one of the CDs he sent is from a band where one of the members went to Camp Lakeview when he was a kid. Can you believe that? It just came up in conversation one day.”
Alex looked over the CDs. “Wow,” she said. “That’s such a crazy coincidence. We should definitely give them a shot, then! What are they called?”
Tori struggled to remember for a second, then it came to her. “Judy Renaissance.”
Alex pulled out the CD, unwrapped it, and stuck it in Tori’s CD player. She pressed play, and a loud, frantic beat filled the bunk, followed by dueling guitars, and finally layered over with lyrics about staying out all night. Tori liked the song right away—it was bouncy enough to make her want to dance.
“Nice,” Alyssa said with a smile, and Tori nodded.
Alex paused by the care package again. “Hey, what’s this?” she asked, picking up a computer printout.
“That’s my school schedule for next year,” Tori replied, placing the third strip on Jenna’s other eyebrow.
“Oh my god, can you believe we’ll be back in school in three weeks?” Priya asked.
“AAAAUGHH!” screamed Jenna.
“My thought exactly,” Priya agreed.
“Can you believe we’re going into ninth grade?” Brynn asked, shaking her head. “I can’t believe we’re almost high schoolers.”
Val shook her head. “We’re getting old, huh?”
Everyone laughed. Jenna screamed one last time as Tori pulled the last wax strip off. Then everyone gathered around to check out Jenna’s new pair of eyebrows—which really did look pretty amazing.
“Oh my god, your whole face looks different!” Gaby cried. “It’s like you had plastic surgery or something.”
Jenna frowned. “Um, where’s a mirror?”
Chelsea quickly ran into the bathroom and came back with a little handheld mirror. “Here,” she said, handing it to Jenna. “They really do look awesome. Me next!”
Jenna examined her brows in the mirror, turning left and right to see them from different angles. A slow smile spread
over her face. “Wow,” she murmured. “My eyes look huge. Okay, maybe that was almost worth the pain.”
Tori laughed. “You look great, Jenna,” she said, pulling a section of Jenna’s layered brown hair out of her eyes and grabbing a bobby pin to pin it to the crown of her head. “Look at that! You look so much older and more polished.”
Jenna tilted her head in the mirror, still smiling. “Wait till David sees,” she said softly.
“How are you and David with the long-distance thing?” Nat piped up, looking curious. “I mean, it can be tough sometimes, but you two always seem pretty in sync.”
Jenna nodded. “You know, we just talk a lot on the phone and try to see each other as much as we can.” She stood up, biting her lip. “I miss him when he’s not around. But we always know we’ll get the whole summer together at camp.”
Nat nodded slowly, considering this. Tori watched her friend with curiosity. Nat had just reunited with her boyfriend of last summer, Logan—someone she’d broken up with last year because the distance thing was too hard. Was she already wondering whether they should break up again this year?
Tori’s mind wandered as Chelsea sat down in front of her. She used the stencil from the kit to draw Chelsea’s perfect brow shape with a white eyeliner pencil. Next summer. It seemed a world away, but she knew it wasn’t. There were only two weeks left of camp, then school would start up, then time would fly, and before they knew it, it would be June again. Tori tried to picture a summer without Camp Lakeview—like, if she took her cousin Cassie up on her offer to check out Camp Ohana. Tori had to admit that it sounded pretty sweet. But the thought of not seeing her camp friends again formed a little knot of worry in the pit of Tori’s stomach.
But maybe that’s a good thing, Tori told herself, placing the wax strip on Chelsea’s brow. Maybe that’s growing Up.
“YIIIIIKES!” cried Chelsea, grabbing at her brow as Tori yanked the strip off. “Do you have to do it that fast?”
“Would you rather I drew it out so you could feel every little hair pulling out?” Tori asked.
Chelsea sighed. “Ow. Whatever. Let’s just get this over with so I can be gorgeous.”
Tori tried to hide her smile. Chelsea had grown on her during her three summers of camp. All the girls had, especially Nat, who was Tori’s best friend now. Most of them had been coming to Camp Lakeview for four years, and they’d grown up a lot in that time. They’d gone from flirting and crushing on boys to having relationships that spanned years, and they’d gone from sniping and keeping secrets from one another to being the closest friends Tori had ever had.
But they were getting older. Each year, fewer kids their age came back to Camp Lakeview. And watching the younger kids joke around and pull all the same stunts they had pulled in previous summers, Tori had to wonder sometimes if they were too old for Camp Lakeview—were they just coming back because they couldn’t let go?
After Tori finished Chelsea’s brows, the dinner bell rang.
“Awwww!” cried Priya. “I wanted my brows done!”
“Me too!” cried Val.
“Me three!” agreed Candace.
“We can do it later tonight or tomorrow,” Tori offered, packing up the kit. “We’ll get through everybody, don’t worry.”
Placing all the pieces back in the pink satin box they’d come in, Tori walked the box over to her cubby and stuck it back in the care package. Her fingers lingered over the package for a second, and when nobody was looking, she grabbed Cassie’s letter and shoved it in her pocket.
It couldn’t hurt to just bring it Up to Nat, she figured.
“Hey.” As they walked to the dining hall, Tori grabbed Nat’s arm and gently pulled her to the side.
“Hey,” Nat replied, looking surprised and distracted. “What’s up? When are you going to do my eyebrows?”
Tori grinned. “Your eyebrows are already done, Nat.”
Nat shook her head. “Hello? It’s been almost two months since they were touched up.” She fingered the spot between her brows with a frown. “I probably look like Albert Einstein already,” she murmured.
Tori laughed. “Fine, I’ll touch them up tomorrow,” she offered. “Look, I wanted—” She paused, looking over at the other girls. They were walking ahead, totally engrossed in their own conversation. Tori lowered her voice, anyway. “There’s something I wanted to run by you,” she said. “An idea, maybe for next summer.”
Nat looked surprised. “You want to be CITs?”
Tori shook her head. “Actually, I was thinking about life beyond Camp Lakeview.”
Nat frowned. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Feeling weirdly nervous, Tori pulled the letter from her cousin Cassie out of the pocket of her Bermuda shorts. “I mean, Hawaii,” she replied. “I mean, surfing and turtles and cute boys . . .”
Nat’s frown grew. “What?”
Tori paused and sighed. “Look at this,” she insisted, pressing Cassie’s letter into Nat’s hand. “My cousin Cassie visited a surf camp this summer, and it sounds amazing. I think we should give it a shot next summer. I mean, we can do some more research, but—”
“You would leave Camp Lakeview?” Nat asked incredulously, looking up from Cassie’s letter.
Tori was quiet for a few seconds, surprised. She wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that not coming back next year was the right thing to do, either, but there was a weird accusatory tone to Nat’s question that she didn’t like. “I might,” she said. “Is that okay with you?”
Nat’s eyes scanned the letter. “I don’t even surf, Tori.”
Tori was beginning to feel frustrated. “You don’t have to—they take beginners,” she pointed out. “Nat, have you ever been to Hawaii? It’s incredible, and that alone is enough to make this camp sound amazing to me. When you add in the surfing, the cute boys—really, how could you say no?”
Nat frowned, still staring at the letter. “I just don’t know, Tori,” she said. “I mean, yeah, it sounds kind of fun. But Camp Lakeview is a tradition. These girls are my best friends. I don’t think—” She sighed. “I don’t think I would want to miss out on next summer.”
Tori frowned. “Nat, we’re all getting older,” she said bluntly. “I love everyone, too, but you heard us in there—we’re going to be freshmen next year. Everything’s changing. Things change. Sooner or later we’re going to outgrow Camp Lakeview.” She took Cassie’s letter back, tucking it into her pocket. “And I know where I want to be when that happens.”
Nat looked at Tori, surprised. “I can’t believe you’re so whatever about this.”
Tori frowned back, feeling a crease form between her eyebrows. “I’m not whatever. I’m just telling you how it is.”
Nat sighed. “Fine, then. I’ll think about it.”
Without waiting for Tori’s response, Nat turned around and started running to catch up with the other girls.
“So then I was, like, I dunno,” Priya was saying later at dinner, telling a story about a boy she was talking to at free swim, “you’re clearly nuts, but are you, like, too nuts to take to the social?”
Tori laughed along with the other girls. She still wasn’t sure what to make of her tense conversation with Nat, but Priya was pretty funny.
“Priya,” Gaby said, “he brought a swim cap to camp. A swim cap. A swim cap is a deal breaker!”
Priya shrugged sheepishly. “He had the prettiest eyes, though,” she said, pausing to take a sip of bug juice. “And I thought maybe he just has really high-maintenance hair?”
Everyone laughed again, and Tori joined in, but a little part of her brain was still preoccupied with what Nat had said.
I can’t believe you’re so whatever about this.
What was she trying to say? That she cared more about their Camp Lakeview friends than Tori did?
It’s Not like I’d just take off without saying good-bye, Tori thought. I’d stay in touch with everyone. She tried to imagine how she would feel next summer, knowin
g that everyone else had come back to camp and she had gone somewhere else. Would she feel weird, knowing that they were doing all the old traditions without her? Maybe. But maybe the new traditions she learned at Camp Ohana would make up for it.
Plus, boys. Cute surfer boys. Nat doesn’t know what they’re like, living in New York, Tori thought. But I, on the other hand . . . Tori could definitely appreciate the appeal of a cute, toned surfer.
“Tori?” Tori suddenly shook back to life and realized that Chelsea was trying to get her attention.
“Yeah?” Tori asked.
“As I was saying, are you bringing a date to the social?”
Tori frowned. “No,” she said. She wasn’t seeing anyone at camp. Besides, she always had more fun being free to dance with whomever she wanted.
Chelsea turned to Nat. “How about you, Nat?”
Nat glanced up. Actually, she had kind of a faraway look, too—like she was hashing something out in her mind. Maybe trying to think of a way to apologize to me, Tori thought cheerfully. I’m sure she didn’t mean to make me look like the bad guy back there. “What?” Nat asked.
Chelsea sighed. “What is with everybody spacing out tonight?” she asked. “I said, are you taking Logan to the social?”
Nat nodded quickly. “Of course.”
“Oh.” Chelsea shrugged, taking a sip of bug juice. “I was just wondering, since you guys aren’t officially boyfriend and girlfriend and all.”
A flash of irritation passed over Nat’s eyes, but Tori was pretty sure she was the only one who caught it. Nat and Logan were supposed to be taking it slow— “testing the waters” was the term Tori thought they had used. Lately, though, Nat sure had been spending a lot of time with Logan.
“That doesn’t matter,” Nat said shortly. “We still really like each other. Of course he’ll be my date.”
Chelsea nodded. “I just wondered, since you’re probably breaking up at the end of the summer, after last year.”
Nat’s eyes were blazing—like Chelsea had just suggested she cut off her own arm and eat it for dessert.
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