He corrected her. “Tenskwatawa. It was a summer camp where I worked in high school.”
“You had a job in high school?”
A young woman jogged past them, tight spandex shorts embracing her round, pert buttocks. Neil’s eyes narrowed and, as if by instinct, followed the woman as she jogged away from them. The corners of his mouth twitched into a brief salacious smile. “Why’s it so surprising that I’d have a job in high school?”
“Why would you? It’s not like you needed to work for money.”
Neil smiled. Like Sheila, he’d grown up with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. His father had been highly respected cardiovascular surgeon and his mother a high-priced corporate lawyer. Unable to shower their only son with attention because of their busy schedules, they showed their love in more material ways.
“I didn’t . . . My friends and I didn’t do it for the money,” he said. “It was something to keep us occupied during the summers. It got us away from our parents.”
“But a summer camp in the woods? Couldn’t you go to your parents’ beach house?”
“We wanted something different. Something fun.”
Sheila furrowed her brow in disgust. “Fun? You call that fun? What did you do all summer?”
“We were counsellors. They’d ship in a bunch of little brats each week, and we’d do things with them. Hiking, canoeing, arts and crafts.”
“Again, you call that fun?”
He smiled, knowing that he couldn’t tell her everything that he and his friends did during those summers. She wouldn’t approve of the pranks and practical jokes they’d pulled. He was certain she didn’t want to hear about some of the more wanton activities that happened between the boy and girl counselors when the younger kids weren’t around.
After her questions, he’d finally removed the invitation from the refrigerator and thrown it away.
“Neil! You still there?”
Steve’s voice calling through the phone snapped him back to the present. Neil shook his head and smiled. He’d completely blanked out for a moment, missing whatever it was that Steve had said.
“What? What’d you say?”
“Were you even listening to me?”
Neil let out a soft laugh. “Sorry, I was just thinking about the past.”
“Stop thinking about it, and tell me if you’re coming.”
“I don’t know, Steve. I’ve got this big case coming up . . .”
“Don’t give me that bullshit! Courts aren’t in session on the weekends.” Neil noted a momentary change in Steve’s voice. Not disappointment, as Neil would have expected, but more like indignation and belligerence.
Making excuses, Neil said, “I’ve got a shitload of prep to do before the trial.”
“Neil, you’ve got to be there! We all want to see you.”
Neil leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. “What the hell are we going to do for three days?”
“Drink, hike, shoot some hoops. Hell, maybe Jeremy can get his hands on some weed and we can get high. It doesn’t really matter. It’s the five of us, back together again.”
Opening his eyes, Neil gazed across at the potted fern in the far corner. The branches reached toward the office ceiling. For a moment, Neil became lost among the leaves, feeling like he was back in the Pine Barrens that surrounded Camp Tenskwatawa. Memories washed over him, and he found himself standing on the sandy shore of Lake Friendship and hiking through the tall pine and cedar trees. He was young again, young and mischievous. And his friends were there as well. There was Jeremy Kirscher, the foul-mouthed brawn of the group. Rob Ellington, the sweet talker, who could talk his way out of any situation. Patrick Sizemore, the young Casanova for whom the girls always swooned. And then there was Steve, Neil’s childhood best friend.
Smiling, Neil said, “Okay, Steve. I’m in. I’ll be there.”
“Awesome! Neil, this’ll be a weekend to remember!”
Chapter Five
As the silver Mercedes cleared the Holland Tunnel, Neil squinted into the setting sun, a fiery crimson sky in the horizon. Weaving through traffic, the “Welcome to Jersey City” sign became a blur as he sped down I-78. The cool April wind whipped at his hair, and all the tension in his shoulders melted away as mile upon mile of New Jersey interstate vanished behind him.
Two weeks had passed since he’d agreed to join his old friends on their reunion, and Neil would be the first to admit that he’d forgotten about it almost as soon as he’d hung up the phone with Steve O’Reilly. With a high-profile trial looming in the next few weeks, he’d been pressed for time as he developed his strategy, reviewed case notes, and prepared his opening argument.
Neil’s legal aides had been busy with research and “dirt digging,” and he was feeling confident that he could discredit all the witnesses that the prosecutor was planning to introduce. He knew that the evidence against his client was mostly circumstantial without witnesses. If there was one thing he was good at, it was sowing doubt into circumstantial evidence. He’d have the jury eating out of his hand.
As the weekend approached, Neil was feeling unusually weary. A quick break was what he needed. The case would be an easy win, he was certain of that. A short respite would sharpen his mind for the upcoming jury selection, scheduled to start the Wednesday after he’d return.
On his way out of the city, Neil stopped to buy a sleeping bag, hiking boots, and liquor, putting him on the road later than he’d anticipated. Now free of the confines of the city, he could make up for lost time. As the asphalt passed beneath his tires, Neil put on a CD he’d found among the old Polaroids. As the first chords of “Follow You Down” erupted from the speakers, he turned up the volume, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat. The Gin Blossoms’ song had been an anthem of sorts for him and his friends. The words had struck a chord with them, forming, what Neil now considered, a naive and juvenile idea of what friendship was.
He and his friends had had a foolish notion that nothing could ever separate them, that they’d meet at some bar every week until the day they died. They used to say that they’d follow each other down to the pits of hell, which had been where they all figured they’d end up anyway. With the music resounding, Neil pressed the Mercedes to twenty miles over the speed limit and laughed aloud.
It’s going to be a helluva weekend, he thought.
He’d been on the road for two hours, the sun having long since disappeared beneath the horizon. As he turned off the dark interstate, the headlights of the Mercedes cut a swath through the darkness. As he passed through Mansfield, he caught sight of the Wawa convenience store on the corner. It was the same one that he remembered passing every summer on his way to Camp Tenskwatawa.
Another half mile further down the road, he passed a small shopping center on the right—another landmark from his childhood. The K-Mart had since closed, and a Dollar Store was there now, along with a Chinese restaurant and an auto parts store. An unfamiliar sense of nostalgia washed over him, leaving him with a mixed feeling of delight and uneasiness. Being nostalgic wasn’t something Neil Brewster did or particularly enjoyed.
Unconsciously, his foot lessened its pressure on the accelerator, and he looked from left to right, trying to identify what had changed over the past eighteen years. So much was different, yet so much was still the same. After Mansfield came Springfield, and then Vincentown, both small towns that one could speed through and barely notice. Most of the towns along this stretch of road in New Jersey were the same way, sparsely populated and, to Neil, uninteresting. For a city boy from New York, this wasn’t just rural, it was desolate.
As the Mercedes sped into a traffic circle, Neil caught sight of a dilapidated building on the far side. The windows were boarded up and the sign had fallen from the roof. He felt a faint pang in his heart, remembering the small donut shop that had once occupied the ramshackle st
ructure. Route 70 Donuts, it was called, with a giant donut on the roof beckoning him every time he’d passed it. He recalled the neon sign in the window reading “Hot Donuts.” It was always lit when they were baking donuts. Smiling, he remembered how he could pull a hot donut straight off the conveyor belt.
The distance between street lights increased, and eventually they disappeared altogether. Both sides of the road closed in with enormous walls of dense foliage and tall pine trees stretching up into the night sky. With dense darkness consuming the road, the Mercedes’s headlights were swallowed by the gloom, forcing Neil to back off the accelerator even more.
As he rounded a bend in the road, a pair of pinpoint glimmers ahead caught Neil’s eye, forcing his foot to jump from the accelerator to the brake. The tires squealed and the acrid smell of their protest against the sudden deceleration penetrated his nose. He stared into the eyes of a white-tail deer; its grayish-brown coat glistening in the beams of the headlights. Man and animal stared into each other’s eyes for a few moments. Then, with a huff and a loud grunt, the deer ambled off toward the road’s edge, disappearing from sight. Neil heard its hooves crushing the underbrush.
Sitting in his car, surrounded by darkness, Neil felt the cool forest breeze blow through his hair, and he caught the distinctive aroma of pine needles. For close to a decade, he’d confined himself to a forest of steel and glass, never venturing out from beyond its walls. The only animals he dealt with anymore were human, and more times than not, they were the worst kind. Suddenly bursting into laughter, he lifted his foot from the brake and accelerated into the dark.
After another seven miles dimly illuminated only by his headlights, a modest cabin that he thought he’d never see again emerged from a clearing, lights burning bright in the downstairs windows. He eased the Mercedes into the narrow driveway. A porch surrounded three sides of the rustic structure, the railings were made from long, round timbers. The front door was flanked on each side by a pair of double windows, and above it was the single window for the second floor. The roof pitched on a steep slope, which, as he recalled, gave the rooms on the second floor a sloped ceiling.
Situated about a mile from the camp’s main entrance, the caretaker’s cabin hadn’t changed much. It looked more weatherworn than Neil remembered, but it had remained mostly the same. A white Ford Focus was parked to the right of the cabin. Someone was home. No telling who lived there now. Reaching to put the car into reverse, his hand froze as the cabin’s front door opened. She stepped out on the porch, staring at his car, peering as if trying to figure out who was behind the wheel. The overhead porch light shone down on her, allowing Neil to see her features clearly. He took a long deep breath, staring in awe at how little she’d changed. After eighteen years, there she was staring into his headlights. He couldn’t believe it was her.
Summer, 1995
Neil leaned against the outer wall of the recreation hall, arms folded and a frown on his face. He wasn’t completely sold yet on whether this had been a good idea. Spending the summer babysitting a bunch of bratty kids didn’t sound like his idea of fun, but the picture that Patrick had painted of horny girls in tight shorts and minimal adult supervision had been enough to pique his interest.
The sixteen-year-old boy’s eyes roamed across the crowd of teenagers, looking at them with an air of contempt. His gaze ran the length of the hall, from the vast stone fireplace on the far wall to the three rows of picnic tables running its length. Everything—from the balcony railing above them to the stairs and stair rails—had been made from heavily varnished pine timbers, giving the hall a distinctive bucolic atmosphere.
The rustic banquet was a camp tradition, kicking off the new camp season. The evening was a chance for counselors—new and returning—to meet, or in some cases, get reacquainted before the young campers arrived the next week. He scanned the young faces, particularly those of the girls, making mental notes of which ones to try and score with over the summer.
Jeremy Kirscher jabbed an elbow into Neil’s side and nodded across the room. Shifting his gaze, he caught sight of his friend, Patrick Sizemore, leaning in close to one of the new girl counselors. His friend’s wavy brown hair was brushed to the right, falling over his eye. Patrick had a baby face with which girls were always infatuated.
“Always the fuckin’ Casanova,” said Jeremy.
Neil gave his friend a half-smile. “Don’t forget to stop cursing when the kids get here.”
“What? You my fuckin’ mom now?”
Neil laughed. Jeremy had always had a foul mouth, which had gotten him in trouble more than a few times in school. He used his litany of curse words as if they were everyday verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and even nouns. “Just saying. I don’t want you kicked out on the first day.”
“Yeah, Brewster, whatever. Where’s O’Reilly?”
Neil gestured toward the door along the far wall. “I saw him slip out with a hot blonde about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Which hot blonde?”
“The short one with the big fun bags.”
“Damn. Wanted to lay my head on her pillows myself.”
Neil laughed. “You snooze, you lose.”
His gaze turned back to the crowd in time to see a heavyset man, wearing tan cargo shorts and a pale blue Camp Tenskwatawa t-shirt, walk past with a swift step, he’d greeted them when they arrived. The camp caretaker, Charlie Wilcox. A hammer hanging from a low-slung tool belt jangled loudly as he went by.
“Must be heading to the buffet,” Neil said, smirking. “Go, Chucky. Go.”
Returning his eyes to the crowd, Neil caught sight of Rob Ellington mingling among the throng of teenagers. Rob, back straight and hands deep in his pockets, looked more like a high school senior than a sophomore. He’d often reminded Neil of Eddie Haskell from Leave It to Beaver. “Yes, sir” and “no, sir” were phrases that Rob had down to a science, and he could make it sound so innocent that no one ever believed him capable of doing wrong.
“I’m telling ya, he’s banging his stepmother,” Jeremy whispered.
Recalling the last time he’d been at Rob’s house, Neil laughed at the thought of the thin strings that Mrs. Ellington called a bikini. “Wouldn’t you? You’ve seen the stuff she wears—or doesn’t wear—when we’re at Rob’s house.”
“She flashed me once, did I tell you that?”
Neil glanced at his friend. “No.”
“Popped them right out of her blouse.” He provided a crude demonstration with his hands. “Like it was perfectly normal. Then claimed it was an accident. If I lived in that house, I’d end up going blind.”
Neil snickered, then he turned his attention back to the festivities.
“Who’s that?” said Jeremy, gesturing to the opposite side of the hall. “He doesn’t look old enough to be a counselor.”
Neil’s eyes followed his friend’s gaze, catching sight of a petite figure darting through the crowd. A blur of short auburn hair and a lavender t-shirt weaved around chatting teenagers. He followed the figure as it skirted up to the refreshments table and grabbed a Coke.
Neil smiled. “You’re such an ass. That’s Samantha Wilcox, Chucky’s kid.”
“That’s a girl?”
Neil watched as she made her way back across the hall, soda can in hand. “Yeah, ass wipe. Chucky introduced her earlier, don’t you remember? She’s fourteen, lives in that cabin of his. Said we’d see her roaming around.”
Jeremy shrugged his shoulders and grunted. Neil’s eyes lingered on the young girl. With her bob haircut, he could see why Jeremy had mistaken Samantha for a boy. She was far from being Neil’s type. Underdeveloped and too young. But there was something about her that made his gaze loiter for a moment longer.
As he drew his eyes back to party, Neil watched a tall, lanky teenager move through the crowd whose head, egg-shaped with big round eyes, gave him the look of permanent surprise.
Attired in beige shorts, pale blue Camp Tenskwatawa t-shirt, and a bright red baseball cap, Neil thought the kid looked like the poster boy for a camp counselor.
Jeremy leaned his broad shoulders toward him and whispered, “I’m dying for a joint.”
The scrawny teenage boy he’d been watching drifted toward them, smiling and looking a little too enthusiastic for Neil’s tastes.
“Hi, I’m Chris Bateman.” His high-pitched voice cracked when he spoke and had a faint whine which Neil instantly despised. The boy extended his hand toward Neil. “It’s my second year. Are you new?”
With the boy’s arrival, Neil noticed a pungent, sour odor, just overwhelming enough to force him to restrain his gag reflex. Glancing at Jeremy, he saw, from his friend’s scrunched up nose, that the boy’s body odor hadn’t gone unnoticed. Grasping the boy’s hand, Neil was almost repulsed by the sweaty palm pressed against his. The boy’s weak grasp shook a little too vigorously for Neil’s tastes. He gave a nod and a half-hearted smile. “I’m Neil.” Gesturing to his right, he added, “That’s Jeremy.”
Neil’s friend nodded to Chris, and then turned his attention back to the crowd. The boy seemed oblivious to the fact that neither Neil nor Jeremy were interested in socializing.
“Welcome to Camp Tenskwatawa! Where are you from?”
“Princeton.” Neil’s answer was short and to the point, and he hoped that it would be enough to make the boy go away. But it wasn’t.
Chris turned to Jeremy. “And how about you?”
“He’s from Princeton too,” Neil said before his friend could reply. Jeremy, too often, tended to say the first thing that came to mind without thinking. Knowing that Jeremy had little patience for someone like Chris Bateman, he thought the less his friend spoke the better.
The lanky boy smiled. “If you’ve got questions about anything related to the camp—and I mean anything—just ask.” With that, Bateman moved away, heading toward a small cluster of nearby teenagers.
Follow You Down Page 3
