Suddenly Last Summer #20

by Melissa J Morgan

  “Sorry, Gaby,” Sloan called finally. “That was good. Start up where you left off?”

  Gaby smiled a big, theatrical smile. She lifted the microphone to her lips. “And then I came back for my second summer at Camp Lakeview, thinking I was already perfect. I mean, I had great friends, great grades, boys loved me, and I was really popular back home. But just because you’re popular doesn’t mean you don’t have a lot to learn. When I got back to camp, I realized—”

  “Hold on, Gaby,” Brynn called out from the audience. “Um, I think we want to keep these pretty short so we can get a lot in. Maybe cut the part about how great you were back home?”

  Gaby made a face. “But it’s important to the story. Isn’t it more important to tell a good story?”

  “I don’t think it’s that important, Gabs,” Alex called. She realized what she was saying and sighed. “I mean, yes, I think it’s important to tell a good story. But I don’t think that piece was that important to your story. You know?”

  Gaby scowled. “How would you know? It’s my story. I haven’t even finished it yet.”

  Sloan held up her hand. “All right, truce,” she said, looking from Alex to Gaby. “Gaby, why don’t you keep going, and if it needs to be cut, we’ll figure it out at the end. We have to make this work, guys. We don’t have time to argue.”

  Brynn and Alex glanced at each other and nodded reluctantly, and Gaby shrugged and brought the mike to her lips again.

  “Anyway, when I got to camp, I realized that I still had a lot to learn. I . . .”

  Jenna zoned out as she walked over and took a seat beside her friends. It was siesta time, so almost everyone was there. She noticed that Tori and Nat were sitting in the same row with Val between them, but Nat was chatting casually with Val, and Tori was obsessively reading over her notes and making changes. The two of them never made eye contact. Jenna rolled her eyes. What was Up with those two? They were usually best friends, but now they were acting like worst enemies. She just hoped they wouldn’t take down the whole protest with their fighting.

  Turning away from Nat and Tori, Jenna looked at her own empty lap. Truthfully, she hadn’t prepared for this rehearsal at all. Would they be able to tell?

  “. . . and as I sat there, back in my bunk, surrounded by my campmates who loved me enough to forgive me for lying to them, I realized that it was wrong to lie to people. It’s wrong to make up stories to make people want to be your friend. The most important thing is to be yourself and be a nice person. And I have been honest and nice ever since.” Gaby finished her anecdote and smiled hugely at the assembled audience. Then she took a bow.

  “Nice job, Gaby,” Sloan called. “We made some notes, but we can go over them together. Overall that was great.”

  Gaby smiled like she wasn’t surprised. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” Sloan looked back at the audience, and her eyes landed on Jenna. Jenna looked down at her hands, trying to look like she was puzzling something out.

  “Jenna, you haven’t been able to come by till now. Do you have something you want to perform? We can go over it and give you notes.”

  Jenna felt her heart squeeze, but she didn’t want to show her friends she was nervous and unprepared. “Sure,” she said. “Um, it’s a little rough.”

  “No problem,” Sloan replied with a smile.

  Jenna forced herself to smile back. As she walked up to the microphone, she spotted David ducking through the auditorium doors. Jenna had told him about their protest saga, and he, Logan, and Adam had offered to swing by and help plan whenever they had a free minute. Great, Jenna thought with a frown. He’s just in time to catch my inspired performance.

  She picked up the mike and thumped her finger on it, creating a big thunk sound. “This thing on?” she asked.

  “Yeeesss,” chorused her bunkmates.

  “Okay.” Jenna paused, trying not to get distracted by David, who was smiling at her and giving her the thumbs-up as he slid into a seat in the third row. “Um. Camp Lakeview. Riiiight.” She paused again. “Well, when I first came to Camp Lakeview, I was feeling a lot of pressure, because my whole family had gone here, you know, including my twin brother, Adam.” She glanced at her friends in the audience. Brynn looked unsure, but Sloan smiled encouragingly. “I felt like I had a lot to prove, so I kind of acted out a lot and pulled a lot of pranks and stuff.” Sloan nodded and made a gesture with her hands implying that Jenna should expand on that. “Um, all kinds of pranks—like, leaving rubber snakes in beds, stealing all of another bunk’s toilet paper, crazy stuff.” Sloan nodded again and gave Jenna a look that said, And? “But after a while I made some really good friends and realized I didn’t have to prank it up just to stand out from my family. So that’s how Camp Lakeview made me a better person. The end.”

  Jenna smiled. Not bad for No preparation at all. She glanced at David, who gave her a sort of halfhearted thumbs-up. What’s that about? Then she turned to her bunkmates, who were looking at each other with concerned expressions.

  “That was great, Jenna,” Sloan said with a stiff smile, but Jenna could see confusion in her eyes. “I think what it’s missing, though, is the emotional connection. We want to really convince people that Camp Lakeview is Needed—that it has a huge impact on kids’ lives. So maybe you could get more, like, emotional.”

  Jenna stiffened. “So you want me to fake tears?”

  “Not tears, exactly,” Brynn said, spreading her hands in the air. “But maybe you could talk more about how you felt when this stuff happened, how good it felt to have friends, that sort of thing.”

  “Um,” Jenna muttered, feeling really annoyed and not sure why. “Okay. I guess I’ll try it again.” She paused and then looked into the audience. David smiled again, nodding encouragingly.

  “When I first came to Camp Lakeview,” Jenna announced, projecting in a loud, theatrical voice, “I was a sad girl. I felt all kinds of pressure to live up to my brothers and sisters, who had come to camp before me. I cried all the time, and when I wasn’t crying, I was pranking. Pulling pranks was the only thing that relieved the emptiness inside me.” She paused and looked down at Brynn. “Like that?”

  Brynn looked unsure—like she wasn’t sure whether to be encouraging or mad. Jenna could tell that Brynn realized she wasn’t being totally serious. But everyone was so keyed up about this presentation, she wasn’t sure what to do.

  “Um, kind of,” said Sloan, glancing back at Brynn like, I’ll handle this. “Maybe you could be a little less dramatic? More like, ‘I felt really down and depressed,’ and less, ‘there was all this emptiness inside me.’ You know?”

  Jenna sighed. “Okay. Let me try it again.” She paused, made a big show of shaking herself out, took a deep breath, and spoke into the microphone again. “When I first came to Camp Lakeview,” she said, “I was down and depressed. I thought I could never live up to the example my brothers and sisters had set. To make myself feel better—because I was really sad—I pulled pranks.” She paused, letting her voice crack a little on the word “pranks.” Then she looked down, like she was collecting herself, and wiped a fake tear from her eye. “But now—” she continued, letting her voice crack again. “Now—” She dissolved into fake sobs. “Oh, now I’ll never be sad and depressed again! Because I’ve discovered the power of good friends and Camp Lakeview.” She held the mike for a few more seconds, sobbing fakely. Then she punched her fist in the air, pretending to totally recover. “Save our camp!” she yelled.

  Jenna looked out into the audience with a smile. She was sure everyone would appreciate her injecting some lightness into this super-serious rehearsal. But instead, everyone was staring at her in openmouthed silence. Even David looked uncomfortable—and he always laughed at her jokes.

  Brynn shook her head. “So,” she said finally. “This is funny to you?”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Brynn,” she coaxed. “Lighten up a little, will you? It’s like you all think we’re at a funeral. �
��Whatever will we do without Camp Lakeview?’” She shoved the mike back into its holder. “These little sob stories, it’s like we’re auditioning for America’s Next Top Model or something. Who has the saddest backstory? Don’t you think it’s a little cheesy?”

  “Jenna,” Sloan broke in, “we’re trying to change people’s minds in a very short amount of time, okay? So we’re going for emotional. You do think camp has changed your life, don’t you?”

  Jenna shrugged. “Of course it has,” she muttered, catching David’s eye.

  “Then why don’t you want to save it?” demanded Brynn. Her sharp tone told Jenna that she was still angry.

  Jenna wasn’t sure how to react. She really hadn’t meant to make anyone mad. “Who says I don’t want to save it?” she asked.

  “You showed up here totally unprepared, and instead of seriously trying to make it work, you made a big joke.” Jenna was surprised to hear Alex’s voice piping up out of the crowd. “If you want to help save camp, why didn’t you work on writing out something? Why haven’t you made any suggestions for the protest?”

  Jenna felt her mouth drop open. She couldn’t believe this. Her friends were totally turning on her. “Look,” she said. “Maybe I’m the only person around here who’s facing reality! Maybe I didn’t want to spend hours writing out some cheesy script for myself because I realize that this stupid protest probably won’t even work!”

  A gasp went through the crowd. “I can’t believe you would even say that!” cried Val.

  “You guys,” Jenna pleaded. “It’s not like I said I hoped that would happen. I’m just being realistic here! What are the chances, seriously, that this will work?”

  “I think our chances are great!” Candace cried at the same time David stood up and caught Jenna’s eye.

  “Hey, Jenna,” he said loudly. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

  Jenna looked at her boyfriend in surprise. David was never that forceful or serious. They were totally comfortable around each other and, on the rare occasions they didn’t agree, were able to joke about it. So it surprised Jenna to see David looking truly upset.

  “Sure,” she said softly, and followed him offstage and to a quiet corner in the back of the auditorium. Behind her, her bunkmates moved on to the next true confession, and Alyssa nervously took the stage.

  David turned to face her, still not quite meeting her eye. He glanced over to the side of the auditorium and sighed. “What’s up with you?” he asked finally.

  “Not much,” she said lightly, still hoping to make him smile. “What’s up with you?”

  He sighed again. “What’s up with me is I’m worried about my girlfriend. She’s acting like she really doesn’t care about camp at all and making a lot of people upset.”

  Jenna scowled. She couldn’t help it. She knew David wasn’t trying to antagonize her, but still—why was everyone ganging up on her? Just because she wasn’t ready to slit her wrists at the thought of Camp Lakeview closing? Wasn’t her way of dealing with it the healthy way? Moving on, facing reality, all that?

  “Well,” she replied, an edge to her voice, “what’s going on with me is that everyone’s ganging up on me, even my boyfriend!”

  She paused. David looked a little guilty.

  “Seriously, Dave,” she continued, “do you think I’m heartless or something? I’m not. I’m a realist. And I think this plan is doomed—there, I said it.”

  David sighed. He looked like he’d been slapped across the face. “Even if you think that,” he said finally, “why would you say it?”

  Jenna was dumbfounded. “Because it’s the truth?”

  David shook his head, like he was trying to clear it. “The truth hurts,” he replied softly. “Seriously, Jenna—don’t you want the camp to stay open?”

  Jenna paused. She tried to imagine coming back to camp next year, and she felt a little twinge in her chest, like it was making her nervous to even imagine it. “I’d like a lot of things,” she replied. “Like, I’d like to win the lottery, I’d like my boyfriend to stop giving me grief—but I know those things probably aren’t going to happen.” She paused. “I’m trying to prepare everyone, David.”

  David was staring at the floor. He looked up at her, green eyes peering under his long eyelashes. “You’re bringing everyone down,” he said quietly.

  Jenna sighed. “I can’t help that.”

  David shifted, ready to leave the conversation. “And you’re hurting a lot of feelings,” he added, his voice going a little hoarse.

  Jenna felt a squeezing in her heart. Suddenly she saw how upset David looked. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  But he was already walking away. He turned and said over his shoulder, “Do you really not care if camp closes and we don’t get to see each other next summer?” he asked.

  Jenna opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He thinks I don’t care, she realized. He thinks because I’m Not worried the camp will close that I’m Not worried about losing him. Jenna started to run after him, but just then, a loud voice cracked the low murmur of voices coming from the stage.

  “Hello, hello,” Lainie greeted them, strutting into the auditorium and raising her hands over her head, as if to say, Aren’t you happy I’m here? “Sorry to make it over here kind of late, girls. I’ve been meaning to come by all day, but my bunk has been kur-azy, you understand.” She paused. “Or maybe you don’t, not being CITs. Anyway—let’s get this party started! How can I help?”

  “Hi, Lainie,” Sloan said warmly, standing up from her seat in the audience and waving her notebook. “We’re just glad you could make it. The more voices heard, the better!”

  Lainie snapped her gum. “Tell me about it,” she agreed. “Well, why don’t you start by letting me hear some of your voices? Let’s take it from the top. Show me what you’ve got so far!”

  Sloan turned to Brynn, both girls looking caught off guard. Jenna had been at rehearsal long enough to realize that the protest wasn’t anywhere near ready yet. Still, Brynn shrugged and flipped a few pages back in her notebook.

  “Okay,” she said. “We talked about starting with a song—come up onstage, everyone!”

  The assembled campers—it was about two-thirds of their bunk, plus David and Adam, who had come in while Jenna and David were arguing—slowly, unsurely made their way to the stage. Brynn was holding her notebook open to some original lyrics she had written.

  “Okay, guys,” she whispered to them as they formed a cluster onstage. “This is to the tune of ‘America the Beautiful.’ Just follow my lead.”

  She started singing:

  “O beautiful for endless fields

  For chats that last all Night

  For swimming in an aZure lake

  And bird hikes at first light!”

  Brynn’s voice was loud and high, but nobody else quite knew the words, so a low murmur was the best they could do. Jenna looked at her friends uncertainly. When the song finally—mercifully, it seemed to Jenna—ended, Brynn flipped a page in her notebook.

  “Okay,” she said. “Now Alyssa, Val, you guys bring up the paintings and talk about artwork.”

  Brynn gestured to the rest of the campers to step down off the stage. Alyssa and Val looked at each other like two deer in the headlights.

  “Um,” Alyssa said. “Okay . . .”

  They ran down the steps to the stage and grabbed a few paintings from the first row, then ran back up. Alyssa turned to the audience with a strange, frozen smile.

  “My name is Alyssa,” she said very slowly, “and I’ve been taking art at Camp Lakeview for three years now.”

  Alyssa went on to talk about the importance of creativity in young people’s lives, blah blah blah, showing details from this painting and that painting and trying to explain how Camp Lakeview nurtured that creativity. She was really nervous, Jenna could tell, and would sometimes lose her train of thought with an “ummmm . . .” or a “yeah, so, anyway . . .”

  Finally Val jump
ed in and wrapped up. “So as you can see from these paintings,” she explained, “there are many different ways of seeing, and Camp Lakeview helps us all find our special way.”

  She nodded forcefully and then gestured back to the still freaked-out Alyssa. They each carried a few paintings down the stairs and off the stage.

  “Okay,” said Sloan, consulting Brynn’s notebook. “Next up are some personal stories. Gaby, why don’t you—”

  “Way ahead of you,” Gaby replied smoothly, slipping in front of the microphone. “Good morning,” she said too close to the mike, amplifying her voice to a ridiculous degree. “My name is Gaby Parsons, and I am a better person than I was three years ago because of Camp Lakeview.”

  As Gaby continued, Jenna, sitting in the front row now, turned and watched Lainie watch them. She was shocked to see Lainie facing down into her hand, her shoulders shaking—was she crying? Was that even possible? Wow, Jenna thought, shaking her head. I guess our little protest is a lot more powerful than we thought. But then Lainie shifted and lifted her face, and a loud bark of laughter rang out over the auditorium, loud enough to drown out Gaby’s too-loud soliloquy.

  “HA! Omigod . . . HA HA HA HA HA HA ohhhhh . . .”

  Gaby stopped, startled, and shot a death glare at Lainie. Everyone else turned around slowly, looking puzzled and a little upset. Lainie was still laughing, but her fit seemed to be dying down.

  “Oh, man,” she said, wiping mascara from her eyes. “Man. That was . . . priceless.”

  Brynn let the silence grow for a second before she spoke. “What’s so funny, Lainie?” she demanded finally, hardness in her voice.

  Lainie shook her head. “Do you even have to ask?” she replied. “Did any of you see that? Were you watching? Do you know what that was?”

  Sloan kept her voice even as she replied, “It was a protest.”

  “No.” Lainie shook her head and laughed again as she got back to her feet. “It was a train wreck.”

  Sloan, Brynn, and all of the assembled campers of 6B, plus Adam and David, all exchanged glances. Jenna could see that everyone was upset, and she felt pretty upset herself, which surprised her. This wasn’t her protest—it wasn’t planned the way she would have planned it, and it was way too emotional for her taste. But still, it infuriated her that Lainie made fun of it.