Not Now, Not Ever

by Lily Anderson

  I stripped off my running shoes, quickly stuffing my old socks inside before they could funk up the room. “You’ve met her before?”

  “No.” She held up her folder and wiggled it at me. “But it said in here that she was a Messina alum. So you can just tell, you know?”

  I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and dragged it toward the bed to search for fresh socks. “The counselor who picked me up from the train station told me that half of the RAs went to the same high school. Is that a bad thing?”

  “Oh. You’re not from here,” she said. “From your shirt, I’d guess you’re Californian? Unless you just hate Oregonian sports teams. It’s always seemed to me that fan loyalties are more related to familial and societal influence than actual proximity. It’s not like the players are actually from the states they represent.”

  I glanced down at my Warriors shirt, uncomfortable with how much it telegraphed about me. “I don’t have anything against Oregon teams.” I shook out a sock and tugged it on. “But, yeah, I’m from California. You’re local?”

  She addressed her sheets, tracing the stripes with her nails. “Not exactly. I’m from Florence. It’s on the coast.”

  “No way,” I blurted, the nerd quadrant of my brain clicking faster than the “don’t geek out at strangers” portion. “That’s where Frank Herbert got the idea for Dune! You guys have the moving sands.”

  “And the largest sea cave in the world.” She smiled, revealing slightly elongated canines that twisted inward. “It’s about an hour away, but…” She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “We still hear stories. The Messina is this giant academy where they, like, play cricket and build nuclear reactors and stuff. You took the IQ test to get in here, right?”

  I thought of the paper-and-pencil test I’d sat through back home. I’d been alone in a classroom at the community college for almost two hours while the proctor ignored me and graded papers. After I’d spent weeks drilling through AP guides, trying to commit all of the information to memory, the test had ended up being mostly patterns.

  “That’s only half of the test that the Messina kids have to take to get in,” Leigh said. “They only take ubergeniuses. But their school helps Rayevich sponsor the camp, so a bunch of their grads come back to be counselors.”

  I hadn’t given much thought to the other schools sponsoring the camp. The Onward website had made the Messina seem like any other bourgeois private school.

  “Having an ubergenius for a counselor ups the odds on us winning, doesn’t it?” I asked.

  “I think everyone gets one, so, no, not technically. And since everyone here passed the test to get in, we all qualify as geniuses, too. The girl who checked me in said that every team has to have an equivalent median IQ, but we don’t get to know what it is. It’s a Messina policy.”

  I shrugged. I was cool staying in the dark on everyone’s IQs. I didn’t even know my own. After years of having Isaiah lord his Mensa membership over me, I was kind of shocked that I qualified as a genius, too.

  I knew I was smart, but I’d only pulled a B minus in geometry.

  “As long as they don’t ask me to play cricket, I’m fine,” I said. “All I know about it is that a sticky wicket is a bad thing.”

  I lifted the package of sheets out of my suitcase. It would be best to get settled sooner rather than later. As I wrenched open the plastic, Leigh leaped off her bed and bounded toward me in two skips. She wasn’t much taller than Meg-Margaret the RA had been. The top of her electric hair barely made it to my shoulder. Up close, I could see that her face was covered in clusters of zits and a slathering of pinkish foundation.

  “I have to be super blunt with you, Ever,” she said, wringing her hands in the hem of her T-shirt. “I need to agree, right now, that we’re going to be besties. I can’t do a month of drawing a line down the center of the room and calling our friends back home to talk smack. At best, it’s Nick at Nite hijinks, and, at worst, it’s a Berlin Wall situation.” She paused, rolling her eyes up at the low ceiling. “And I don’t have, like, a ton of people in Florence to call. Very few. Basically none.”

  I realized with a pang that my phone was full of numbers I couldn’t call. Anyone I talked to outside of camp would have to be fed some lie of corroboration. Ever Lawrence didn’t have any friends. Just a backpack full of sci-fi novels, a couple of protein bars left over from the train ride, and hella cool hair.

  An image of Beth popped into my head. Last week, she’d been wandering from room to room with her hands folded against her stomach and her neck lifted high. She passed through the kitchen, tilting her face toward the sliding glass door to catch her reflection.

  Gwendolen doesn’t walk like me, she’d said when she saw me and Ethan staring. A good character starts in your bones.

  I adjusted my posture. Ever Lawrence had never had a grandmother who smacked her with a hairbrush for slouching. My shoulders hunched in freedom.

  “We can totally be besties,” I said to Leigh. “I’ve never been to camp before. You can help me not make a total fool out of myself.”

  Her mouth quirked to one side, and for a second I thought of my little brother rolling his eyes at me from across the dinner table. “Did you not hear all of the crap I spewed at you? All I can do is make you less awkward by association.” She took the sheets out of my hands, shaking the packaging onto the floor. “And help you unpack. We need to get settled before we can win.”

  I let her help me make my bed. Ever Lawrence didn’t care about having hospital corners on her sheets.

  4

  Forty-eight people hadn’t seemed like a lot when I’d been praying to get a spot on the camp roster, but having everyone jammed onto the lawn outside of the residence hall was overwhelming. I knew from the Onward enrollment packet that only rising seniors were allowed to compete and that there must have been an even number of boys and girls. But all of the faces jumbled together into one mass of new. Tall, short, thin, fat. Some in Tshirts like me and Leigh. Some in ties or dresses.

  The counselors formed a single file line at the base of the wide stairs that led to the dining hall. All of them were wearing shirts representing their colleges. Cornell was whispering to a towering guy with a scruffy lumberjack beard and a UC Berkeley shirt. The two of them broke into giggles, and a dark-haired girl from Bryn Mawr shushed them.

  There was a single speaker mounted to a tripod at the top of the stairs. It buzzed to life as a bald middle-aged man in a brown Rayevich T-shirt patted a live microphone.

  “Welcome, students!” he said, baring a gap-toothed smile at the crowd. “My name is Wendell Cheeseman. I am a professor of American history and an associate dean here at Rayevich College, and I am happy to be the director of this year’s Camp Onward.”

  The counselors led a lukewarm applause break, giving Wendell a moment to wipe the sweat off his large forehead with the back of his arm. His pit stains were rapidly traveling toward his belt.

  “For those of you who skipped the history portion of your welcome packet,” he said into his microphone, pacing the top stair in long strides, “let me give you a brief lesson. It is, after all, what I do best.” He paused, possibly hoping for a laugh, which didn’t come. “In nineteen seventy-seven, a collection of professors from Rayevich and the University of Oregon decided to turn their attention to secondary education. They opened the Messina Academy for the Gifted, an institution that would go on to foster the brightest minds in Central Oregon.”

  I heard someone cough. Glancing around, I spotted the hipster ghost standing alone, his arms folded tightly over his chest. From the look he was giving Wendell Cheeseman, I guessed someone was going to get the crap haunted out of them later.

  “Do you see that guy?” I whispered to Leigh. I stretched my neck to the side, using my hair as a pointer.

  Leigh tipped her head, scratching her nose in the ghost’s general direction before glancing back up at me. “The one who looks like John Cusack? Or John Lennon. There
’s something very John about him.”

  I’d never considered what made someone Johnish before. But it suited the hipster ghost. “Kevin” or “Bob” would have clashed with the sharp slant of his nose.

  “I saw him using a typewriter outside of one of the closed residence halls,” I said. “I’ve been trying to figure out if he’s a nerd or if he’s straight-up haunting the school.”

  “Either would make sense here,” Leigh said, leaning around me again. She sucked in a breath. “He’s gone!”

  I turned fully around. The slice of grass where John the Hipster Ghost had been was empty except for a few slices of sunlight.

  “Ooky spooky,” Leigh said. She ran her palms over her arms with a shiver. “Unless he just went to the bathroom.”

  “It became clear to the founders that only a small number of students could benefit from the Messina,” Wendell Cheeseman’s voice boomed. I turned back to the stairs, pretending to look engaged. “There were other gifted children all over the West Coast who weren’t able to receive the same quality of education. The founders returned home to Rayevich and created a summer seminar program that would bring together both schools’ mission statements. Camp Onward would bring students such as yourselves the best of Rayevich and the Messina Academy.” He wiped at his face again in two quick slaps. “An uncompromising commitment to quality education for the gifted in a small community of liberal arts scholars. This utopia of academia is represented not only by yourselves but by our collection of counselors. Every year, Camp Onward proudly hosts Messina graduates and current Rayevich students to lead our teams for the Tarrasch Melee. They will guide you through each area of study and be your coaches as you enter into the competition phase of our seminar. Each team will have a representative from both schools.”

  I looked down the line of bored counselors. One of the girls in Rayevich gear had the most beautiful box braids I’d ever seen. They were impractically long, swishing around her waist in clean, black ropes. I patted my own hair, reminding it that braids that nice meant unending scalp pain and having to sleep in a satin cap.

  “Who do you think we’ll get?” I asked Leigh.

  “She’s on our floor,” she whispered, giving a low point toward a girl standing between Meg and Lumberjack Beard.

  The girl was about a head taller than Meg. Her hair was unnaturally orangey red and cut into a severe bob. The Stanford logo stretched to breaking across her chest. She nudged Lumberjack Beard and I caught a glimpse of a tattoo on her inner elbow, a tiny blue box.

  “Jesus,” I giggled to Leigh. “It’s like the Internet took a poll of the perfect nerd girl and wished her into existence. Busty redhead who goes to one of the top schools in the country?”

  “Huh. Can we give her a TARDIS tattoo and a Care Bear nose?” Leigh said, tapping her chin in fake thought. “I bet she has a Harry Potter tramp stamp.”

  “And is adorkably clumsy.”

  “And she thinks that hair color makes her look like Black Widow.”

  We both smothered our laughs into our hands as Wendell Cheeseman started listing off our seminar topics. My stomach rumbled. I really hoped that this recitation of the welcome folder would wrap up soon.

  “Each of you will receive your study packets after lunch at your first team meetings,” Wendell said. “But remember, there is more to this experience than the Melee. You will also make new friends and expand your horizons. No matter who leaves with the scholarships, all of you will always be Mudders at heart.” He spun on his heel, revealing the bold yellow writing on the back of his T-shirt as he shouted, “Hey, bud! Do you mud?!”

  The counselors in Rayevich shirts raised their fists over their heads and shouted, “Muck yes!”

  Wendell peeked over his shoulder, the microphone in his hand drooping slightly. “Now, everyone. Hey, bud! Do you mud?!”

  Leigh arched an eyebrow at me and mouthed, “Muck yes?” as the rest of the campers called back in various degrees of enthusiasm.

  “That’s right!” Wendell called. He reached behind himself and yanked open the door of the dining hall. “And now, we feast!”

  *

  “Originally, Eugene was called Skinner’s Mudhole,” Leigh explained, as we helped ourselves to the buffet of sandwich ingredients. “Feast” had definitely been an overstatement. It was more like someone had robbed a Subway for its sweatiest meats and veggies. “So Rayevich’s mascot is a mud monster. It looks kind of like a golem.”

  “That explains why they don’t have any sports teams here,” I said, heaping shredded chicken onto my plate. It was the only thing that looked like it might have been carved from a real animal. “It’d be hell of awkward to have to dress someone up in a mud monster mascot costume.”

  “‘Hell of,’” Leigh hummed, as though savoring the taste of the words. She cocked her head at me. “A deconstructed form of the colloquial ‘hella’?”

  “I guess?” I frowned. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

  “You don’t have to. I was just trying it on.” She reached for a pair of tongs and threw a heap of sprouts onto her plate, mostly missing her slices of whole wheat. “Tell me if I end up using it wrong?”

  “Will do.”

  The line slowed as we approached the condiments table and the people up ahead started going to town on a variety of spicy mustards. Nibbling on a piece of chicken, I took in the rest of the dining hall. It was somewhere between Hogwarts and a ski lodge. Instead of the folding tables that populated my school’s cafeteria, Rayevich had long hardwood tables with low polished benches that matched the exposed beams in the ceiling. The counselors had all been granted dibs on lunch and sat at the farthest table in front of a giant picture window. Wendell Cheeseman seemed to be attempting conversation with the girl from Bryn Mawr, who was edging closer and closer to a guy in an MIT sweatshirt.

  A cluster of girls vacated the condiments table and the line inched forward. The hipster ghost was hovering near the drinks table. There was no plate in his hands and he didn’t appear to have any interest in helping himself to the bounty of bottled water and organic sodas beside him. Leigh followed my gaze and bounced on her toes.

  “Oh,” she breathed. “A ghost at the sandwich feast. How very Shakespearean.”

  John the Hipster Ghost watched a couple of guys grab water bottles next to him. At least, I thought he was watching them. It was hard to tell. His hair mostly hid his eyes from view.

  “He isn’t eating,” I said.

  Leigh’s face scrunched in thought. “And no one else seems to be noticing him. The only logical test is to check for corporeality.” She thrust her plate at me. “Hummus, if they have it, please. Otherwise, light mayo!”

  “Wait, what?” I squawked at her back, staggering to keep hold of both of the plates as the line started moving again. “Light in calories or quantity?”

  I didn’t get a reply.

  It was impossible to lose track of Leigh in the crowd. Her hair operated as her own personal follow spot, keeping the rest of her in focus as she wove between other campers. She squeezed between two people at the beverage table and palmed a can of soda, holding it low against her leg. Her wrist flicked almost imperceptibly as she skirted the table. Before I could think to shout to her, she was standing in front of the ghost and cracking the tab.

  It was like watching a bomb go off. Everyone within range dove for cover. Heads turned all over the room as Leigh screamed. The cola splatter had covered her face and shirt. She thrust the can at John the Hipster Ghost as she swept liquid off her cheeks. The counselors were on their feet, rushing around the tables toward her. John was saying something to her. She pressed her hand to his chest, shaking her head and gibbering at him.

  The Perfect Nerd Girl counselor reached them with a wad of napkins in her hand. John took one to dab his face. He had to comb his hair back to reach the drops caught in his thick eyebrows. As one of the girls from Rayevich swept Leigh toward the bathroom, the Perfect Nerd Girl patted the top of John�
�s head. He jerked away from her, swatting her hand away. He shook his hair back into place and glanced across the room. His eyes accidentally caught mine and held. His lips curved into a sheepish smile.

  Did Ever Lawrence smile back at strange hipsters? Elliot Gabaroche wouldn’t have. If I’d been in the cafeteria at home, I would have looked away before one of my friends started catcalling to the guy making eyes at me. For some reason, they believed that humiliation was the gateway to romance.

  But Ever Lawrence didn’t have a crew of nosy loudmouths.

  I smiled back at him.

  The person behind me nudged my elbow and I stumbled to take the open space at the condiment table. I dressed my own sandwich in a daze and found hummus for Leigh. I decided against getting a drink, since the table was being sopped up by counselors. The Perfect Nerd Girl was leading John toward the grownup table. Wendell Cheeseman forced a barking laugh as he encouraged everyone to go back to their lunches by shouting, “Mangia, mangia!”

  I found an unpopulated corner of the room and sat down. The counselor with the box braids appeared with a WET FLOOR sign and started navigating people around the spill. Lumberjack Beard wheeled a yellow mop bucket out of the kitchen, his face contorted in disgust.

  Leigh skipped out of the bathroom and collapsed across from me at the table. Drops of water clung to her hair. She beamed at me as she took a bite of her sandwich.

  “That was hell of effective,” she said. “It would have been better if they bought brand-name drinks. Coke is the most carbonated soda on the market.” She scowled at her sandwich. “This hummus is way too salty to be brand name. Who buys generic hummus?”

  “So,” I said, taking in her dripping hair and stained clothes. “You’re an insane person.”

  “Don’t be ableist. I already told you, Ever, I’m awkward.” She took another bite of her sandwich. “And awkward people can get away with anything. No one’s going to think, Oh, she shook up that soda. They’re going to say, Oh, that poor weird girl had an accident. And now they’ll discount everything else I do all summer. Which will be useful to us when we enter the Melee. People want you to be one thing. If I’m weird, then people will forget that I’m also a genius who’s here to win.”