“It really wasn’t insane,” Zoe says, now laughing, too. “It sounds like it, but it wasn’t.”
“Is it weird that it doesn’t sound that insane to me?” I push up my cheeks. “Just normal parking on the street kind of stuff.” I turn to Zoe. “Sorry our driveway was full.”
“That’s okay,” she replies. “Sorry we were late.”
She looks at me, eyebrows raised. “So Golfy is here. . . .”
“OMG. This is happening,” Kaylan says.
Zoe nods. “In all of the years I’ve known him, I have never seen him like this. He’s, like, in looove with her.”
“Guys, stop. He’s right over there.” I roll my eyes. “Can we please go see when my dad is starting the grill? At this rate, people will be sleeping over.”
While my dad and I are discussing what meats to grill first, I see the lunch table girls walk in.
Of course they all come together and then all sit at the little table by the swing set, plopping their bags on the grass.
Kaylan goes right over to them.
“Go back and have fun with your friends,” my dad instructs. “It was your idea to have this barbecue, right? Might as well enjoy it.”
“You can enjoy it, too,” I offer. “It won’t cost extra.”
I wait for him to laugh, but he doesn’t. Maybe now isn’t the time for money jokes.
I walk back over to Zoe, Golfy, and Hana.
“So sad AlKal couldn’t come,” Hana says. “I brought a picture of her so we can feel like she’s here. And we will FaceTime her later.”
“Fab.” I sit down on Zoe’s lap since there aren’t any extra chairs.
“Those are your school friends?” She looks over to where they’re sitting.
“Well, I’m not sure friends is the right word.” I lift my eyebrows. “We sit together at lunch. And I was good friends with part of the group last year, but it feels like they all really bonded when I was away. And now—who knows.”
Hana slow-nods. “Totally get it.”
“Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver”—Golfy pauses in his singing and we all yell out Silver! like we do at camp—“and the other’s gold.”
Everyone turns to look at us like we’re crazy, but I don’t mind. We crack up and start singing other camp songs. For a few minutes, I completely forget anyone else is even here. It’s like Hana, Zoe, Golfy, and I (plus the photo of Alice) are the only people in the world.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the lunch table girls walking over to us.
“We came to meet your camp friends,” Cami says, grabbing a cookie from the platter on the way over. “Hiii, everyone. I’m Cami.”
I go around and introduce everyone, and then, much to my surprise, the lunch table girls sit on the grass around us.
“Guys, anyone want to play Two Truths and a Lie?” I ask. It was the first thing that popped into my head, and it seems like the kind of game the lunch table girls and the Camp Silver crew would really enjoy. Maybe it’s a way to bring everyone together, lighten the mood, merge my two worlds.
A little ding goes off in my head—passion alert? Is bringing people together a passion? Maybe.
“Oh yes! I love that game,” Kira says.
“Okay, let’s all sit in a circle over here.” We walk over to the little corner of the yard that’s empty for the moment, and I side-eye Gemma that she shouldn’t come over here and bug me. She rolls her eyes, but I think she gets what I’m saying.
“I’ll start,” Golfy says once we’re all seated, stretching his legs out in front of him on the grass. “I once threw up on someone at a baseball game, I once needed my grandfather to bring me a new pair of pants when I was stuck in a bathroom at a basketball game and had a stomach incident, and I once peed myself on the New York City subway.”
Everyone cracks up, and I glare at him. “Okay, first of all—ew. That was disgusting.” I shake my head. Disgusting and adorable all at the same time. “I’m gonna say the basketball game thing was the lie?” I tilt my head, still questioning my choice.
“Nope! Throw up at a baseball game. But good guess!” He stands up and takes a bow. “Okay, now Ari goes.”
I fold my hands together and try to think of something good. “Okay, soooo I once fell asleep at a drum performance, I once rode a camel, and I can touch my tongue to the tip of my nose!”
June stands up and does a little shimmy while she says her answer, “You never fell asleep at a drum performance!”
“Ding-ding-ding! You got it, June!” I smile and stand up to hug her. I’ve never felt this cuddly with June in my life, but the fact that she figured that out about me really means something—I feel like she knows me.
We keep playing, and I sit there as the lunch table girls and the Camp Silver crew really bond.
We FaceTime Alice in to play, and she says to Cami, “You’ve never eaten one of those mega-spicy chips. Totally believe that you’ve gone backstage for every Broadway show you’ve seen and that you knew how to do a cartwheel when you were two!”
“OMG, I feel like you totally get me, Alice!” Cami squeals, making kissy faces through the phone. “And you’re not even here!”
We keep playing until Cami tells us that her mom’s on her way to pick them all up. “This has been so much fun, but we have to go—everyone is sleeping over tonight.”
“Yeah, thanks for coming.” I smile, ignoring the sting of the everyone. I mean, we all just had so much fun together. There’s no sting. I won’t allow myself to feel a sting.
“Best barbecue ever,” Kira and June say at the same time.
“Seriously, loved it,” M.W. adds. “Smooches to all of you. Yay, Camp Silver!”
We all crack up and wave as the lunch table girls walk out of the backyard.
“I’m going to get more soda,” Zoe announces. “Anyone want any?”
We all shake our heads.
“Um, love connection,” I lean in to whisper to Kaylan when I notice her mom and Zoe’s dad across the backyard. And then I get an instant pang of maybe I shouldn’t have said that. “Is this weird for you?”
She raises her left cheek like she’s considering it. “Kinda but also not really.” She shrugs. “Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I put my arm around her. “But they haven’t stopped talking all night!”
When Zoe gets back with her soda she says, “They are, like, seriously hitting it off!” She high-fives me and then Kaylan. “Right?”
“Totally,” we say at the same time.
The rest of the crowd stays for another hour and then slowly trickles out. We all pick at what’s left of the mac and cheese.
“This really came out amazing,” Zoe tells us. “It’s like professional mac and cheese.”
“It is,” Golfy confirms. “No doubt about it.”
“Fosh,” Hana adds, and we all crack up.
“We are culinary geniuses,” I add. “Right, Kaylan?”
“Oh, totally!”
“Are you going to JJH or, uh, HHJ or . . . ,” Zoe asks, confused.
“You told her about the JHH!” Kaylan squeals.
“It’s not a secret,” I remind her. “But, anyway, we both JHHed this one already . . .”
Finally Robert Irwin Krieger decides it’s time to go, which makes sense since he and Zoe are the last ones here, except for Golfy and his parents.
“This is the weirdest day ever,” I whisper to Zoe. “I never would have predicted that my parents and Golfy’s parents would be sitting at my backyard table, eating ice cream cake together.”
“That was a nice touch,” she says.
“We always have ice cream cake at our barbecues. It’s, like, a thing. I don’t know why.”
“It’s good.”
“How are you feeling about your dad and Kaylan’s mom?”
“Um, it’s strange, but he seems really happy. I’ve never seen him sit and talk
with people for so long before.”
“Really?” I look over at them again.
“Yeah, he usually gets bored after a little while.”
I laugh. “Interesting.”
“So what about you and Golfy?” she asks me, as we observe him chatting with some of my neighbors.
“He’s the greatest, cutest, best boy in the world,” I declare like it’s a fact and there’s no way anyone can debate it.
She rolls her eyes. “Whatever you say.”
“What does that even mean, Zoe Krieger? Tell me now.”
“He’s funny, but he’s Golfy. I’ve told you this before.” She raises her eyebrows. “He’s a good boy, though. Definitely.”
Finally, after a hundred hugs, everyone leaves, and Kaylan and I are in the backyard helping to clean up. There’s a gloomy sadness when I realize I don’t know when I’ll see the camp crew next. It’s always better to have a plan in place; it helps take away the slimy missing-someone feeling.
I glance over at my parents scrubbing the grill and spraying the table, and they’re actually smiling. The barbecue took their mind off things. It was like a break from the trouble, just for a few hours.
“JHH time,” Kaylan yelps, tying the garbage bag. “For Zoe’s dad and my mom. And the mac and cheese again, since we didn’t JHH that one together.”
“For real. I agree.”
Jump in the air. High-five. Hug.
“We’re crushing this,” Kaylan says. “Like, even more than last summer.”
“I think so, too,” I say.
And after tonight, I feel even more sure about one of my passions—bringing people together. That concept of leadership really makes sense to me. And cheering people up—that’s part of it, too.
For sure.
THIRTY
ON MONDAY MORNING, I WAKE up to arguing.
That has to be the absolute worst way to wake up.
“We need to start telling people,” my mom says, loud enough for me to overhear from their bedroom to mine. “It’s really getting close. Invitations are printed. We need to make new ones and send them out. I mean, this is nuts, Marc.”
“I’m doing the best I can, okay?” He stops talking and then I hear their bedroom door close forcefully. Great—now I have to get up and put an ear against the wall to hear this. Although I’m not sure I really want to hear this.
After that it’s muffled until I do get out of bed and put my ear against the inner wall of my closet.
“I know you are doing all you can do, and I am grateful. But we need to think big picture here. About our future,” my mom says. “You’re always very much wait-and-see, and that just isn’t working this time.”
“I can’t deal with this right now. I need to get ready for my interview. I’m running late,” my dad says, intensity in his voice. “Please. Just try and relax.”
The door opens, and I hear my dad walk down the stairs. I’m not sure what my mom is doing but she doesn’t seem to be leaving the bedroom.
“Daddy!” I hear Gemma yelp from downstairs, one of the kitchen chairs screeching against the floor. “Daddy, can you drive me to school today? Please, please.”
“Gem, I have a meeting. I’m sorry.”
“Daddy!” she whines again, and then the front door closes.
I get dressed and walk downstairs for breakfast, only to find Gemma pouting at the kitchen table.
“Daddy wouldn’t drive me to school today.”
“Gem, he had to be somewhere. Mom will drive you. Chill out, okay?”
My mom walks into the kitchen and hands me a hard-boiled egg and a piece of toast. “You gotta go, Ar. You’re gonna miss the bus.”
I’m almost at the bus stop when I get a text from Kaylan.
Kaylan: Getting a ride w/ cami 2day. See u @ skool.
Cami doesn’t even live in our section of the neighborhood, so I have no idea why she’s getting a ride with her.
So far this day is off to a terrible start—wake up to arguing, listen to little sister whining, eat hard-boiled egg on the way to the bus, ride bus alone.
No thank you, Monday.
I’m covered in negative, gloomy thoughts; a storm cloud is resting on my head. So I think back to camp and Pres and Mindfulness elective.
I try to focus on each step, feel the ground beneath my sneakers. I smell the air—crisp and a little damp.
I feel the soft cotton of my chunky red sweater against my skin.
I’m not so sure this is working, but it’s not making me feel any worse.
I get to school and walk to my locker, and Ms. Bixhorn makes an announcement over the loudspeaker that they’re interested in adding new clubs this year, and she asks if anyone has any ideas.
“Students should feel free to submit a suggestion, and then the faculty will pick the ones that seem to be the best fit. We only have room for five to seven new clubs this year, but we will reevaluate in January and see which ones have been the most successful. We are looking forward to an engaged and enthusiastic student body!”
I sit down in front of my locker and work on my doodle of the day. Kaylan and Cami walk in together, but I pretend I don’t see them. I’m not mad or anything. I just kind of want them to say hi to me first.
I keep doodling and then three hundred light bulbs go off in my brain at the same time.
It feels so bright behind my eyes that I have to blink to get my head to feel normal again.
This is it. The real chance to make my mark.
We could have a Mindfulness Club and help others who experience the same wandering thoughts that I do. I feel like it’s on the tip of everyone’s tongues, and now’s my chance to make it happen.
Can it be my broken bad habit and my make my mark at the same time?
I guess I can’t really decide if I’m making my mark yet anyway. I don’t even know if my club will be picked or if anyone will sign up.
Too soon for that one.
Kaylan plops down on the floor and stares at me, like she knows I’m thinking of something, and she waits for me to tell her what it is. But I don’t. I can’t, not yet, anyway. I need to keep it locked away in my mind until I figure out exactly how I want to approach it. And I mean, what if it doesn’t pan out? And then I’ve told her and everything? It’ll be an embarrassing failure.
“OMG! Comedy club!” Kaylan announces. “It’s gonna be great. We can perform at school events and assemblies, and then maybe even travel around to nursing homes and stuff, and make people laugh. I’ve been thinking about this all summer.”
“I love it, Kay-Kay!” I hoist myself up off the floor and readjust my backpack straps, about to walk to first period. “But you may be the only funny one in our school. Can anyone else even tell a joke?”
“Other people are funny,” June says. “What do you call a group of disorganized cats?”
I shrug. “No idea.”
“A cat-astrophe!” She slaps her leg. “See! Funny.”
I force a smile. “Good one.”
The rest of the girls all have first-period classes in the B wing, so they stay behind to wait for Amirah.
I start walking to the A wing, and then I hear whispering behind my back. But when I turn around to see what’s going on, they all stop talking.
It’s probably about nothing, but it still feels like something. Like my dress is halfway sticking into my tights, and I didn’t realize.
But I’m not even wearing a dress.
I start to feel a little guilty that I didn’t tell Kaylan my idea. But the thing is, it’s not fully formed yet. It literally just came to me. Kaylan’s been thinking about this comedy thing for a really long time.
When I see Ms. Bixhorn on the way to lunch, I pull her aside and tell her I have a really good idea for a club.
“Okay, wonderful, Arianna. Please fill out a sheet in the main office. I will review all of them and then get back to you if it seems to be a good fit
.” She nods like there’s nothing more to say and she has to get going.
“I will, but I really think it’s a good idea, and I really think it will add so much to our school, and I really hope you will pick it!” I scrunch up my body tight, like that will make my case stronger. I regret saying really that many times.
“Wonderful. Thanks, Ari.” She walks away, a math textbook tucked under her right arm and her eyeglasses on the top of her head.
I gotta be honest here—I wanted a more enthusiastic response.
When I get to lunch, all the girls at the table are talking about their ideas. I’m not sure why I thought Kaylan and I were going to be the only ones passionate enough to create a club.
“Oh, I definitely want to do the coloring thing,” M.W. says. “I got so into coloring this summer. I bought every book in the bookstore. I even went to the bookstore owner about starting a coloring club, but it never got off the ground.”
Then Kaylan starts going on about the comedy troupe and everyone tells her how great it sounds.
“Advice club,” Cami says, rubbing her lips together. “I want to have a club where people can come for advice. Like an advice column, but in person, ya know?” She does a slow head nod, like she’s überproud of herself for this one.
“Not to burst your bubble, Cam,” June starts, picking the crust off of her egg salad sandwich. “But, like, advice columns work because they’re anonymous. So an advice club would be super awk, because it’d be face-to-face. Ya know?”
Cami ponders this for a second. “Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe the person giving the advice would be behind a curtain? Kind of like a priest sort of thing.”
“Cami, you’re Jewish. What do you know from priests?” Amirah laughs her deep laugh and then takes a sip of water.
“Well, I’m half-Jewish.” Cami shakes her head. “I’m just saying.” She looks down at her brown lunch bag and starts unpacking everything. “You guys, give me time to figure this out. You’re so quick to shoot down my ideas.”
“Well, we need to figure it all out before you tell Ms. Bixhorn. You want to give it the greatest chance of success,” Sydney adds, peeling an orange. “If it seems like it’s only half thought out, they may not even put it into the hat. We’re looking out for you, Cameron.”
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