“This is more of a lifestyle piece, I think,” Betsy said. “Apparently someone on their staff found out about us and they want to do a profile of the camp as part of their summer vacation destination special.” Betsy paused, bit her lip, and then smiled hopefully. “I suppose we are fairly unique.” Anders’s and my mom’s silence was clearly making Betsy nervous. “You do know The Happy Morning Show, don’t you?” she asked. “I used to watch it all the time.”
My mom frowned. “I don’t watch TV in the mornings,” she said. “It’s so obnoxious. Even in the hospital I had to make them turn it off in my room.” I believed this. My mom is such a culture-phobe. I remember once when she asked me in front of a bunch of my friends, “Who is Justin Timberland?” Totally embarrassing.
“We don’t even have it in the house,” Anders grumbled. “And I had to make quite an effort to avoid TV in the hospital myself. I was trying to keep in the spirit of 1890 as best I could.”
“I can’t believe I’m telling you then.” Betsy giggled. “But it’s one of the highest-rated shows on television and they’re here. I hate to intrude by bringing the present into our midst, but it’s only one day, and it will be such great publicity. It’s a chance for us to get the word out about what we’re doing.”
“You want the camp to be on TV?” Anders said. If Betsy had said she was planning to sell Nora into slavery, he could not have sounded more shocked.
Betsy giggled, nervous still, and smiled again. “Well, the whole thing has gone so fast! We just found out two days ago they were coming. They have some kind of humor angle—something about vacations turned upside down. They wanted to make sure that all the teenagers were going to be on hand, I remember that much.”
“The teenagers?” my mother said.
“Oh, yes,” Betsy said. “They asked very specifically for the names of all our teens—of Matt and Caleb and Nora and, well, you too, Gen. They asked specifically about you. Even Erik, Katie, and Ka,” Betsy added.
For a second, I had a sense of foreboding. Maybe I knew what was going to happen, or guessed it in the part of my brain that is always working on worst-case scenarios, but doesn’t necessarily get listened to by the part of my brain that keeps everything else under control.
“Of course we’re hoping none of you will mention Gen’s phone, or any of that unpleasantness.”
“Of course,” my mom said. Anders nodded.
“And one other little thing,” Betsy added, leaning in specifically to my mom. “They seem to be asking a lot of questions about animals—they wanted to film someone slaughtering a chicken and show something cooked with chicken. It seems to be a bit of an obsession with them. Chicken this, chicken that. So I’m wondering, if you don’t mind—well—” Betsy cleared her throat.
“What?” said my mom.
“Well,” Betsy said. “If you could just not mention your views on Pumpkin. It would make it smoother for everyone. I don’t want it to look like the experience—well—isn’t entirely authentic. We want to really come off as genuine.”
“You want us to lie?” Gavin said.
“No, no, of course not!” Betsy gasped in horror. Then she whispered an aside to my mother. “I mostly don’t want it to seem as if we put any pressure on you to kill the bird. We didn’t pressure you, did we?”
My mom raised her eyebrows.
“Okay, then,” Betsy concluded. “Let’s say we just don’t bring it up.”
I could see my mom put a vise grip on Gavin’s shoulder. “Of course,” she said. “We’d be happy to.”
Gavin shook off her hand, and muttered to me, “I’ll tell them I killed Pumpkin with my bare hands. I’ll tell them I bit his head off with my own teeth. Would that make her happy?” Still squinting under the bright lights, he and I followed my mom and dad to our bench.
But before I sat down, I couldn’t resist running over to Ka, who was sitting with her family. “The Happy Morning Show?” I said.
She pointed. “Look.” And it was crazy: a woman in a miniskirt and thigh-high boots was applying powder to Ron’s face with a brush just a little smaller than a feather duster.
Caleb leaned back from his seat in front of the Meyer-Hincheys. This was the first time I’d seen him since Nora told me he was her secret boyfriend. “This is so not 1890,” he said, and it was like nothing had changed—he was still smiling and looking right at me, except now I understood what that look meant. It meant nothing.
He must have known that Nora told me about them. I wondered—did she tell him I had acted like it was no big deal? Or did she say, “She looked sick. And I don’t think she slept at all the rest of the night.” I felt my face burning just thinking about this, and I had to look down.
“Listen to this,” he said. “The segment they’re taping for is ‘vacations turned upside down.’ “
“I know,” I said. “It’s supposed to be funny. Instead of relaxing, people will pay to work.”
“Gen?” he said, like there was something I wasn’t getting. “Did you hear that they were asking specifically about the teenagers?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“This means nothing to you?”
I have to admit, I was hardly listening to him. I couldn’t stand to look up into his face. Even looking down, I could see his rolled-up cuffs on his shirt, his big hands, the tanned and strong muscles of his forearms.
I felt his hand on my shoulder. He used his forefinger and thumb of his other hand to lift my chin up and I had to stare into his almond-shaped eyes—full of mischief as always. Was I just part of his mischief? Did he enjoy making me like him—was that some kind of sick I’m-bored-at-Camp-Frontier trick? Suddenly I was angry. “Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”
It was so horrible to feel him touching me, because it felt so right and so good and I had to keep from hurling myself at him and punching him in the face. I had never really believed I would feel this way about anyone—this mad and glad—and now that I was feeling it, I didn’t like it. I liked his hand on my arm, but I knew he could keep it there only so long before I put my hand on his arm too. What would he do then? Explain gently that he didn’t like me? That he and Nora were finally admitting to their secret relationship? Ugh. I didn’t think I could stand it.
But then he started in on what had to be that speech anyway. “Gen,” he said. “It’s better if you know now. I just want to make sure it doesn’t take you by surprise. That might be really hard.”
No surprise could be worse than what he was about to say. “I—,” I started. All that mattered was I interrupt him. “I already know all about it.”
“You already know?” he said. “Really? And you didn’t tell me?” He dropped his hand. I hoped at once that he’d put it right back, and also that he would leave me alone. I hoped both those things at the same time, which is totally insane, but there you have it. I didn’t feel like I was making sense anymore, just trying not to do something incredibly dumb. I had to walk away from him even as, inexplicably, he was saying, “Aren’t you going to give me the details of how you heard?” What did he want, I thought, an outline describing how much it hurt to learn that he and Nora had been a secret couple all summer while I’d been thinking he liked me?
I wished, looking back, that I had understood what he really meant. But I just walked to my family’s bench and sat down.
Ron started the meeting, and except for the makeup and the lights, it felt almost normal. The TV people stood behind their cameras and so close to the lights, it hurt to look at them, and that made it feel almost like they weren’t there. After a while I stopped paying attention to where they were or what they were doing.
“First things first,” Ron began. “Betsy and I wanted to celebrate Anders, Disa, Doug, and Cheryl’s homecoming. They are all recovering nicely, and I think it’s a testament to the strength of what we’re doing here that they have returned to camp.” There was applause.
In his makeup, Ron looked like the kids in the school play who come out f
rom backstage at the end of the production so they can go for ice cream with their parents, the boys still in eyeliner and the girls with huge lips and pancake makeup on their foreheads.
“I think we should also note their heroism. Anders and Disa could have left the mill to burn but selflessly they did everything they could to keep the fire from spreading. Wildfires were serious business on the frontier in 1890 and they are serious business now. The fire service loses men and equipment fighting blazes every year. By clearing a ring around the mill, Anders and Disa were able to keep the fire at bay long enough for us to get the hose. Thank you for your good show.” Anders and Disa bowed their heads. There was more applause.
“But of course by now we all know the story of what happened, how both Anders and Disa collapsed and might have been seriously harmed if not for the intervention of their closest neighbors, Cheryl and Doug, who without a doubt saved Anders’s and Disa’s lives by pulling them to safety—at great personal risk to themselves.”
Again, there was applause, and now it was time for my mom and dad to modestly hang their heads. “One thing that the frontier teaches us is self-reliance,” Ron went on. “We do things here that we—none of us—came out here thinking we could do. We live without modern conveniences. We adjust our diet and what we expect of our children.
“But something else happens to us out on the frontier. We come to rely more on each other,” Ron continued. “We see a fire and we know that if the people who are stuck inside the burning building are going to get out of it, we will need to help them. Even children know this.
“Before the fire, I think our camp had hit a low point. We had lost our way. Instead of giving ourselves over to the experience of the frontier, we were fighting it. It’s an interesting contrast, isn’t it, that we were so afraid of the experience of the frontier that we were willing to do anything to get away from it, but when it comes to something that should truly strike fear into our hearts, such as running into a burning building—our fear is gone, and we find the strength to become heroes?”
I elbowed Gavin. When a grown-up says “We find the strength to become heroes,” there’s always going to be a part of me that wants to say, “Um… gag me?”
Across the aisle, Nora was sitting on her hands and rocking slightly. I couldn’t see her face because the sides of her bonnet were blocking it, but I remember what she’d said the other night, about how it feels to think that you are growing up in a bubble and you don’t know anything about the real world. Would Caleb send her e-mails over the winter? Would she find a way to break into the locked-up electricity shack so they could IM? Would he visit her here? In the snow?
“In another order of business,” Ron went on, “I want to introduce you to Rebecca Cheney, who is here with The Happy Morning Show, producing a segment about our camp. Do you all know The Happy Morning Show?” Everyone nodded their heads. “Yes,” Ron said. “Rebecca told me you all would know it.”
A woman I hadn’t seen yet stepped out from behind the lights. She was wearing a pencil skirt, high-heeled shoes, and a white starched shirt open at the collar. Her hair was blow-dried into almost impossibly casual perfection—it swooped over her ears, hugged her neck, then flared out again at her shoulders. When she smiled at us, the two-bazillion-watt stadium lights shining down on us were nothing compared to her inner glow. Her smile made you feel not that she must have been a cheerleader in high school, but like you yourself were a cheerleader in high school. Even if, like me, you haven’t even started high school. Then she stopped smiling and it was like the lights dimmed and the air cleared, and I was left thinking, “What just happened to me?”
“They’re giving us some really wonderful publicity,” Ron went on. His tone was hesitant, more hopeful than credulous. “They’re showing off all the hard work you do, and the amazing transformation that takes place while you are here. The crew arrived yesterday. We hope that you will welcome them, answer Rebecca’s questions, but also that you will ignore them and go about your business.” He grimaced at this point, glancing back at the stadium lights. “Well,” he added, “as much as you can.”
Rebecca waved at us, smiled again, and I noticed her dimples. I touched my own face, wondering idly if there was surgery or exercises that could make dimples grow on my cheeks too. “I’m so glad to be here,” she said. Her voice was deep and serious, but you had the feeling that if she needed to, she could sing you to sleep, there was so much sweetness lurking behind it.
Then my dad was suddenly standing and I forgot about Rebecca. “Yes, Doug?” Ron said.
“Before we start in on the show, I wanted to say that my family has been having discussions and there is something we want to say to the group,” he began.
“Okay,” said Ron.
Betsy fluttered her hands at shoulder height—nervous again. “Just remember, cameras are rolling,” she said.
My dad nodded. “What we want to say, first of all, is thanks to Ron and Betsy for helping our family out over the last few days. Ron has been back and forth to the hospital. They both have been checking on the kids, making sure they have enough to eat.”
Everyone was looking at my dad, except me. I was watching Rebecca Cheney where she stood behind the lights. I could see the cameras on either side of her too, their lenses closing and opening and moving at her slightest signal. She directed them with her hands—using different motions to show when she wanted a close-up, a pan, a shot of the group that pulled out wide.
“I have to admit—,” my dad went on. I glanced at my mom. She was staring at my dad as if she was concentrating really hard. I don’t think she was even aware that I was watching her. “—this whole experience has been exhausting,” he said. “I’ve been pushed past my limit mentally, physically—” He looked down at my mom. “Emotionally.” She lifted her hand up and he grasped it. “I have to tell you all that on the night of the fire, I was ready to leave. Some members of our family were at that point before we even arrived.” He laid a hand on my shoulder. “And as you all know, we’ve had our ups and downs.” He chuckled. That was the old dad. “I guess mostly you’ve seen the downs.” There was an appreciative laugh. “I won’t go into detail. But I want to let you all know that we sat down as a family and reevaluated our commitment to this place. We don’t want to be here if we’re only going through the motions. Not anymore.”
My mom nodded her head. “That’s right,” she agreed.
“But before I tell you what we’ve decided to do, I just want to say that as much as I may have felt alone out here, after the fire I realized I was not. And to me, that is a good thing. Thank you.”
I think it was Anders Puchinski who started to clap. Or maybe it was Caleb’s mom, Susan, who didn’t look any less haggard than she had in previous weeks. But pretty soon they—we—were all clapping, while Ron and Betsy were beaming up front. Ron had eyes only for my dad, like he was his prize pupil. I caught Ka’s attention and she grimaced at the Goody Two-Shoes–ness of the moment. Betsy, on the other hand, lived for Goody Two-Shoes moments and she was smiling with customary exuberance.
Rebecca Cheney alone was not clapping or smiling. She was standing perfectly still, the warmth in her expression gone. Her sharp eyes were moving from the cameras to my dad’s face, to Ron’s, to Betsy’s, and then strangely, they kept coming back to me.
My mom’s back had become straighter. Gavin was sitting stock-still. I was waiting too—what would happen when my dad announced our decision? Would there be cheers? Boos?
I wasn’t going to find out. Because before my dad could speak, before the applause had fully died, Rebecca Cheney made her move. Looking at her watch and then raising her eyebrows as if she wasn’t thrilled with how late it was, she said to Ron, “If we’re going to have enough time, I think I’d better get started.”
“Oh, of course,” said Ron, looking flustered. “Doug, hold that thought—”
While Dad looked confused, Rebecca signaled her crew to direct the cameras at her. She ope
ned her mouth into an O shape, rubbed her forefinger and thumb in the corners of her lips to remove any collected lipstick, raised a microphone to her chin, nodded at the camera, and began.
“I’m standing right now at a much-talked-about vacation destination—one that several weeks ago no one had heard of. Those of you who have been getting the e-mail forwards, who have joined social network groups, who have participated in our online search will know what I am talking about. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that the only people in the country who have no idea how famous this place is are the people here—cut off as they are out here in the middle of Wyoming, a satellite dish or an Internet connection not to be found.”
I couldn’t help but smirk, wondering what Rebecca would say if she knew half the children had been listening to music on their iPods two weeks before.
“Yes, you may have guessed by now, but I’ll give you a few clues,” Rebecca went on. “I’m standing, well, not exactly up to my knees in mud”—the ground was bone dry—”but in a barnyard for sure. I’ve seen cows being milked, butter being churned… all the while seeking the answer to the question of the hour, which is, ‘Where is Gen?’ “
For a second, I didn’t remember that Gen was my name. I know this sounds dumb, but it’s true. I looked around like maybe I’d see what ever Rebecca meant by the word “Gen,” and she could be done.
But then, on a level below consciousness, I started to panic. I could feel the cameras fixing on me. Gen, I remember thinking. This might have something to do with me.
Meanwhile, Rebecca was still talking. “Our favorite blogger who has milked and weeded her way into the hearts of thousands has, in the last two weeks—even as her blog has gone viral—completely disappeared. Her fans are going crazy, and some are starting to wonder about the nature of the camp.” I watched in stunned silence as Rebecca made a big deal out of checking an index card she was holding in her hand. “Maybe—some fans have speculated—the jokes were actually more serious than Gen could have known. We’ve been warned to be on the lookout for…” She was reading now. “Physical therapists turned identity thieves, aspiring cult leaders, grizzly-bear wrestlers, foreign spies, unemployable morticians, government workers from Area 51.” Putting the list away, she laughed. “This is good stuff.” She walked across the grass at a clip, careful not to let her heels sink into the ground. She smiled at me like I’d just won the lottery. “But here we are, and here, without further ado, is Gen. Gen?” she said.
Little Blog on the Prairie Page 18
