Drum Roll, Please

by Lisa Jenn Bigelow

  She set both notebook and pen on the floor beside the glider and put out her hand for my book. I handed it to her. Adeline pulled back her arm as if to hurl it off the balcony into the trees, but at the last second she set it on the floor with the other things. “There,” she said.

  “I guess the rain is sort of beautiful,” I admitted. “It makes everything extra green. It’s different back home. The buildings and roads get even grayer than normal. And the water feels clean when it’s falling, but then it stirs up all the oil and crud on the ground.”

  “That’s true,” said Adeline. “Though I like that, too—not the crud, but the little rainbow swirls on top of the puddles. You’re right about the colors being more intense. I picture Marquette in the rain, all its old red brick buildings hanging over the harbor. It’s like someone took a photo of it in the sunshine and ran it through a color copier, the way the colors get deeper and darker.”

  “You know what I love?” I said. “Riding in a car in the rain at night. All dry and warm while the rain drums on the roof and leaves streaks on the windows. And the lights—the streetlights and the headlights—they’re burning all around, like stars, reflected in the windows and puddles. It makes me feel like I’m flying through outer space or something.”

  I stopped. Adeline was staring at me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m not usually such a blabbermouth.”

  She shook her head. “Naked mole rat feet aside, you really are a poet.”

  “No, trust me, if I say anything remotely poetic, it’s a fluke. I wouldn’t know how to begin writing a song.”

  “You could go to a songwriting workshop,” she said. “It’s lots of fun.”

  “I don’t think so. I wouldn’t even know what to write about.”

  “That’s the beauty of it. You can write a song about literally anything. Yellow submarines. Oscar Mayer wieners. Little red Corvettes. The circle of life.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Pruny feet.”

  “You could!” said Adeline. “But what you said, about driving in the rain at night—that is song-worthy, my friend.”

  “No. I couldn’t just make up something. I know I couldn’t.”

  “You do it all the time,” she argued. “You’re a musician. You create music.”

  I shook my head. “Drummers support. They don’t lead. They don’t write songs.”

  “That’s ridiculous. What about Don Henley? Neil Peart? Your old friend Sheila E.?”

  “Fine. I don’t lead. I don’t make songs materialize out of thin air.”

  “It’s not so much materializing as digging a hole to China with a teaspoon,” Adeline said.

  “Because that sounds like so much fun,” I said. But a smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.

  “Except when it’s pure magic and it really does seem to come out of thin air. Like a line about streetlights becoming colored stars. That’s amazing, Melly,” she said in a coaxing voice.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “You think it’s so amazing? It’s yours, no strings attached.”

  Adeline didn’t answer. Instead she stood and stretched, draping herself over the railing. She squinted up at the sky. “I can’t tell if it’s still raining or if it’s just dripping from the trees.”

  “I haven’t heard thunder in a while,” I said.

  “Me neither. I almost hope it keeps raining a while longer, though.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Like I said.” Adeline settled back onto the glider. Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought she sat a little closer than before. “I don’t want camp to go by too fast.”

  Right then, neither did I.

  Eighteen

  The rain cleared up by the end of dinner. Blair and Poppy strung clotheslines between the trees in Treble Cliff. Everyone clamored for space. A lot of us ended up hanging our dirty socks on random evergreen branches. “Ugliest Christmas trees ever,” Toni said, and I had to agree.

  All week I’d heard murmurs of a dance party Saturday night, but now that the time had come, the murmurs became a roar. If preparations for the open mic were excruciating, they were nothing compared to this.

  “Why didn’t I bring a dress?” Olivia moaned as she rifled through her suitcase, flinging clothing behind her like a puppy digging for a bone. “Or at least a skirt?”

  I didn’t say anything because what could I say? Even if I had a magic wand to poof the perfect outfit into existence, I had the feeling it wouldn’t make Olivia any less anxious. It wasn’t until coming to camp that I realized how much I normally depended on Olivia to be cool and confident. Back home, she made it so easy to follow her lead. I was happy to play backup for her. But here, where she should’ve been in her element, surrounded by musicians as passionate as she was, she seemed completely off her game. And it turned out Olivia-off-her-game was not fun to deal with. Our roles were reversed, with one small problem: I didn’t know how to lead.

  As she sulkily settled for jeans and a T-shirt with a silver star on it, I said the only thing I could say. “You look great.”

  Shauna wore a Western shirt with pearly snap-together buttons, jeans, and cowboy boots. I waited for a cowboy—excuse me, cow woman—hat to pop from her suitcase, but instead she French braided her hair into two thick pigtails.

  Toni wore a shirt with a stick figure holding a microphone. Olivia squinted to read it. “‘I’m big in . . . big in . . .’”

  “‘I’m big in Lilliput,’” Toni said.

  Shauna burst into laughter. “Toni, are you sure you want to wear that shirt to the dance?”

  Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “Yeah, Shauna,” Toni said. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s a city in Norway. It’s like saying, ‘I’m big in Japan.’”

  Shauna wiped tears from her eyes. “No, no, no. Lilliput is not in Norway,” she said. “It’s a made-up place from this old book Gulliver’s Travels. The people there are all one inch tall.”

  “Possibly the only place in the world Toni would qualify as big,” I said with a giggle.

  Toni sighed. “That explains why my dad had such a goofy look on his face when he gave it to me. Stupid English teacher humor.”

  “Do you want me to see if I have something else you can wear?” Shauna asked. “You could probably wear one of my shirts as a tunic.”

  “Nope,” Toni said. “I may only be four foot, eight inches, but all the more reason I’ve got to stand by every one of them. Now, where’s my glitter?”

  I settled for clean jeans and a relatively unwrinkled T-shirt with two drumsticks that said, “This is how I roll.” Cheesy, but at least I’d been in on the joke from the beginning.

  “Ugh, my stomach is Butterfly City.” Olivia moaned. “I’m going to barf. And if I barf, I can’t dance. And if I don’t dance, there is absolutely no way Noel is going to kiss me.”

  “Is he going to kiss you?” I asked, startled.

  “I don’t know! Maybe.”

  I couldn’t explain why the possibility was alarming, but it was. Did I think once she kissed Noel, I’d somehow lose her for good? That was silly. They could spend the next week glued to each other, but she’d have to come home with me at the end.

  Still, this week the ground had splintered between us. I hoped once we returned home, the cracks would seal up. But what if Olivia kissing Noel widened them into a canyon that couldn’t be crossed?

  “Just don’t barf when he kisses you,” Toni said, “and you’ll be good.”

  The dining tables had been cleared from the floor of the lodge. The overhead lights were off. Drums and guitars glinted in the stage lights. The windows were open, and the funky smell of wet ponchos and soggy sneakers had begun to fade. Damon and his posse ran up onstage and started their set with “Livin’ la Vida Loca.” Everyone began bouncing.

  In many ways, it was just like our first night at Camp Rockaway. The same place, the same people, the same kind of upbeat music. There was one key difference: this time I wasn’t
nervous. My friends drew me into the melee, Shauna stomping and clapping, Toni bopping around like she was on a pogo stick, Olivia twirling and whirling like a dandelion seed on the wind. I felt dizzy in the best possible way.

  When Olivia leaned in to my ear and said, “I’m going to try to find Noel,” I was neither surprised nor disappointed. Because there were Adeline and Candace and the rest of Treble Cliff. There were Blair and Poppy and the rest of our counselors. There was a whole group of little kids starting a conga line. I wasn’t alone. I was the furthest thing from it.

  The evening flew by. It didn’t seem right when Damon announced, “Time to slow things down.”

  The band plunged into the gentle reggae beat of “Three Little Birds.” You couldn’t have cleared the dance floor faster if you’d set off a stink bomb. Most kids ran for the punch bowl, but some of the older campers trickled back in, pairing up. I leaned against the wall and watched. I didn’t feel bad that I didn’t have anyone to dance with. It was enough to enjoy the music.

  “Hey.” Adeline leaned against the wall beside me.

  “Hey,” I said. “Where’s Yasmina?”

  “Out there.” Adeline nodded at the dance floor.

  “Ah. Yeah. Olivia, too.” I could just make out her dark hair against the white of Noel’s shirt as they spun slowly around.

  “We could go out there,” said Adeline teasingly. “If you wanted.”

  I couldn’t tell if she was serious. All the couples on the dance floor were boy-girl, except for some little kids who were mocking the whole thing, and a pair of high school boys who were clearly boyfriend and boyfriend, at least for camp. It was one thing to dance the fast songs with your girl friends. Slow songs were something else. I didn’t know how to slow dance anyway.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, trying to match her light tone. “You’re wearing sandals, and I’d step all over your toes. Seriously, it’s for your own good.”

  She shrugged. “That’s okay. I’m worn out, anyway.”

  As the band segued into another slow song, Adeline slid to the floor and pulled me down next to her. Even when I was sitting beside her, she didn’t let go of my hand.

  “Hey,” I said, pretending my heart wasn’t threatening to rocket from my chest, “I heard we need a buddy for the field trip tomorrow. Do you have one yet?”

  “I don’t,” she said, shifting her fingers for a more comfortable grip. “Do you?”

  “No. I thought you might be partners with Yasmina.”

  “And I thought you might be partners with Olivia.”

  “She’s going with Noel,” I said.

  “Ah,” Adeline said. “They’re getting pretty serious, huh?”

  “Apparently. She’s liked boys before, but nothing this bad.”

  “Camp’ll do that.”

  We watched the dancing couples, through one whole song and then another. They held each other as if they were glass. I imagined I could see inside them, to their pulses fluttering like red moths. They rocked side to side, awkwardly orbiting each other, seemingly unaware that anyone was watching. Could I ever be that brave?

  As Damon announced the final song, Olivia hurried over. Right away I let go of Adeline’s hand. I felt like I’d been caught doing something . . . not wrong, exactly, but weird. Weird for me, anyway. Other girls held hands sometimes, and it was no big deal. But that was them. I didn’t come from a touchy-feely family. Olivia and I had never been touchy-feely friends.

  “Melly, have you seen Noel?” Olivia asked.

  I shook my head. “I thought you were with him.”

  “I was, until he said he had to go to the bathroom. But it’s been, like, ten minutes, and he hasn’t come back. I can’t find him anywhere! Help me look. Please.”

  I stood. “I’m sure he’s somewhere. Come on.” To Adeline I said shyly, “See you later?”

  Adeline nodded. “Tomorrow.”

  My own little moth burst into flames.

  Olivia and I wove between the couples on the dance floor. We split up and paced the perimeter in opposite directions. The last notes died away, and the fluorescent lights flicked on in one jarring moment that left everyone blinking. Noel wasn’t anywhere.

  It wasn’t until the counselors had rounded up everyone, lining us up in our units to return to our campsites, that he skulked back into the lodge from outside with a couple of other boys. As soon as she saw him, Olivia splintered from our group, but Poppy called, “Olivia, over here, please.” She had to return with her questions unanswered.

  “Why would he do that?” she asked as we hiked to Treble Cliff. “Why would he leave, when he knew I was waiting for him?”

  “Maybe the dance ended sooner than he was expecting. Maybe he missed the announcement about the last song.”

  “Maybe. Argh! Now I’m going to be awake all night worrying he’s mad at me.”

  I shook my head. “Why would he be mad at you?”

  “I don’t know. But if he was happy, he wouldn’t have lied, would he? He said he was going to the bathroom, but he came in from outside! He wasn’t even in the lodge.” Her voice spiraled up and up.

  “Tomorrow’s the field trip,” I said. “You’ll get to spend the whole day with him. It’ll be great. Just wait and see.”

  Olivia looked like she didn’t believe me. I couldn’t blame her one bit.

  Nineteen

  We woke the next morning to a knock at our tent pole and Poppy saying, “Up and at ’em!” Toni groaned, which Poppy took as an invitation to pull back a flap. Sunshine poured in. Toni shrieked like a vampire in daylight and burrowed deeper into her sleeping bag.

  “Put on your swimsuit under your clothes, and grab your beach towel,” Poppy said.

  Shauna sat up. “Are we going to Lake Michigan? Are we going to Sleeping Bear Dunes?”

  Blair walked up behind Poppy, yawning loudly. “You’ll never find out if you don’t get out of bed in the next ten seconds. The vans are leaving at eight o’clock sharp, whether or not we’re on them.”

  “What about breakfast?” I asked. Any extra energy I’d gotten from last night’s punch and cookies, I’d burned off dancing.

  “‘What about coffee?’ would be a better question,” Blair said.

  “We’ll eat on the road,” said Poppy. “Now hop up! We’ve got a big day ahead.” Our counselors turned and left to rouse the next tent.

  There were bags under Olivia’s eyes. “I feel horrible,” she whispered as she crawled out of bed, clutching her stomach.

  “Horrible like you need to go to the infirmary?” I asked. “Is it your period? I bet they have Aleve.”

  “No. Horrible from last night.”

  I tried not to sigh. “It’s going to be fine. You’ll find Noel when we get down to the parking lot. I’m sure last night was just a misunderstanding.” There was only so worried I could feel on Olivia’s behalf. I was going to spend the entire day with Adeline! I couldn’t wait.

  Towels draped over our arms and around our shoulders, we marched to the parking lot. It was the first time I’d set foot in it since arriving at camp. It was weird being back. I felt a pang. I wasn’t ready to leave. But instead of my mother’s car and dozens of SUVs and minivans filling the space, there was a fleet of rental vans. I relaxed, satisfied we weren’t leaving for good.

  When all the units were assembled, Damon called for everyone’s attention. “Okay, rock stars. Today, you’re going on an adventure outside of camp. Think of it as an opportunity to recharge your creative batteries.”

  Everyone cheered. Adeline caught my eye, and we shared a smile. I remembered holding hands with her the night before, and my heartbeat kicked up a notch.

  “A couple of safety things before we head out. As you probably know, everyone must have a buddy for the entire day. If something happens to you, heaven forbid, your buddy will help you. Boy, girl, I don’t care—but you need to stick to each other like superglue.”

  “Even in the bathroom?” a little kid asked, to hoots of
laughter from his friends.

  “Thank you for making the inevitable bathroom joke,” Damon said. “Your buddy can wait outside—and check to make sure you’ve washed your hands. Now, one more thing: these vans will serve as your posse for the day. There’s too many of us to travel en masse, so the counselors and campers you ride with are the people you will spend the day with. Make sure you end up with people you can stand. Clear on this? Great. Go find a buddy, and we’ll load up the vans.”

  Olivia didn’t need any encouragement. She raced across the lot to the Bass Cliff boys.

  “Excited?” Adeline asked me. The purple straps of her swimsuit peeked out from under the straps of her dazzlingly white tank top. She wore a floppy, battered hat, the kind a fisherman might wear. One week and a major rainstorm in, and she looked just as put-together as she had when she arrived.

  “Shauna thinks we’re going to Sleeping Bear,” I said. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Adeline said, “but it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “No.” I beamed back. “It absolutely doesn’t.”

  Damon called, “Two spots left in Van One! Where’s my final pair of buddies? Okay, Van One’s full. Seat belts on, everyone. Van Two! Who’s ready? I need twelve campers in Van Two, on the double.”

  Just then Olivia hurtled back into view, her ponytail frazzled, her face blotchy.

  “Olivia! What’s wrong?” I said.

  “It’s Noel.” Tears welled in her eyes. “He changed his mind.”

  “What? Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know.” She gulped. “He said I was too clingy, that I never leave him alone! Why would he say that, Melly? He’s the one who’s been asking me to play all week. If he didn’t want to be around me, he didn’t have to ask.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, hugging her. “It doesn’t make any sense to me either. He sucks.”

  Olivia stepped back and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. She took a deep breath. “It’s okay. I can deal. I just don’t get what I did wrong.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. He’s a jerk.”