Not Now, Not Ever

by Lily Anderson

  I hadn’t told her that this was my first real date. I was afraid that she’d start joy-screaming again and the whole plan would completely unravel.

  “Back to the trenches,” I said as I wiped up the last shred of lettuce. “I’ll take the towels back to the bucket.”

  He pushed in the bench and met me at the head of the table. Instead of handing me his towel, he gave mine a tug, pulling me an inch forward. He placed a kiss on my cheek and a towel in my hand.

  Beaming, I dropped the towels off and dashed down the dining hall stairs. My fellow campers were clumped together in the quad sans counselors. Bryn Mawr stood alone under the oak tree on the green, her hands on her hips as she spoke in a carrying voice.

  “Today’s event is a three-mile run around the interior of campus, following the directions given to you by the counselors along the way. Each counselor will hold a different color straw, which you will collect as proof of your route. The first person with every kind of straw across the finish line,” she pointed at a line of bright blue painter’s tape stretched across the pavement in front of the residence hall, “wins. Obviously.”

  “Why are we bothering with this crap?” Perla asked loudly, as I joined my team at the edge of the grass. “They should be looking for my binder, not making us run a footrace.”

  “Why do you care?” Kate asked. “Do you even want to go here?”

  Perla looked stricken. “Here? In the middle of nowhere? Are you kidding?”

  “I’m going to regret asking,” Jams said, rubbing his forehead. “But then why do you want to win the Melee? Winning means going to this school.”

  “No,” Perla said sharply. “Winning means being the best.”

  Kate made a sputtering whinny of disbelief.

  “I’m glad we still have the Cheeseman events,” Hunter blurted. “If none of us can study, at least we might win for the extracurricular stuff.”

  “But should anyone else even bother to enter this one?” Leigh asked. She covered her mouth with her hand and fake whispered, “Ever does this for fun.”

  “Because only one person can be good at running?” Perla asked, tilting her face so that her nose was literally in the air.

  “Yes,” Kate said in a sarcastic flat line. “That’s obviously what Leigh meant. How astute of you for picking up on that deep subtext.”

  Perla gave a disgusted sigh and, without any counselors to stop her, stormed off.

  “After the breakins, she called her parents and begged to go home,” Kate said, watching as Perla joined her friend at Team Three. “They said no, but I’m holding out hope that they’ll change their minds. Her snoring is so much worse when she’s been crying.”

  “Team Six lost someone this morning,” Jams said. “One of their guys quit. I heard Hari and Cornell talking about how his parents came to pick him up after breakfast. They didn’t think the camp was safe if people could break into the rooms.”

  “The same thing happened with one of the girls on the floor above us,” Kate said. “Team Four or Five? Someone was talking about it when I was in the shower this morning. I guess this girl’s parents came to get her because they were pissed that Professor Cheeseman didn’t call everyone’s parents to let them know what was going on here.”

  Leigh sniffed. “The burglars didn’t bust down the doors. Either they had a master key or they had a lock pick.”

  The hair on my arms stood on end. How had the burglars gotten into all of the rooms? Leigh and I were pretty consistent about locking up behind us. But if anyone got locked out, the counselors must have master keys to let them back in.

  So, had someone gotten ahold of one of the master keys, or had someone with a master key abused their power?

  “Perla has a point, though,” Galen said. He barreled ahead as the rest of us scoffed. “Why haven’t they found the binders yet?”

  “When would they have time to look?” Hunter asked. “They’re stuck babysitting us.”

  “And it’s not like all of the binders have to be together,” Brandon said. “If it were me, I would have taken the pages out and dumped a little in different garbage cans, so that none of them would be overly full. No one would notice if there was some garbage in every can on campus…” He made a face and smoothed his hair over his eyes. “That was too specific, wasn’t it?”

  I patted his arm. “Hopefully, you’re too smart to have just blurted out your entire evil plan.”

  He smiled. “More like I’m too lazy to have an evil plan.”

  “That does make sense, though,” Hunter said, combing his hands through his hair so that all of his muscles flexed against his shirt. “I don’t think we’re going to see the binders again, guys. No one here would be stupid enough to hide them where they could be found.”

  “Even if they did, how would we even redistribute them?” Kate asked. “It would take so much time, and you couldn’t guarantee that they’d end up with their original owners.”

  “And anyone who still needs to read full pages out of the binders is going to get crushed next week,” Leigh said. “At this point, we should be working mostly off of flash cards.”

  “All right!” Bryn Mawr called. “If you’re running, line up behind the blue line!”

  Hunter flicked his eyebrows at me. “Or trying to beat Ever in this race so we have a shot at getting the Cheeseman scholarship.”

  Leigh raised her arms over her head. “Release the beast mode!”

  “Beast Mode, Beast Mode, Beast Mode,” Galen, Hunter, and Jams chanted. Kate and Leigh joined in, pumping their fists over their heads.

  “We need a chanting intervention,” I said, but my voice was drowned out.

  Brandon leaned over and swept a kiss against my cheek. “Good luck, Beast Mode.”

  I won, riding high on a wave of hormones and spite.

  I really hated that nickname.

  27

  I touched each of the pockets of my shorts with quivering fingers. Debit card. Cell phone. Dorm key. Tube of organic beeswax lip balm that Leigh had fished out of her backpack and thrust at me, insisting that it was better than the plain ChapStick I normally wore.

  I was going on a date. I was running away while running away. I was about three seconds from freaking the hell out, because I really couldn’t gauge my own ratio of excited to scared.

  The last two days had been unbearably long, but dinner tonight had taken the cake. I’d picked at a bland helping of spaghetti, running through the plan that Brandon and I had made in snippets, when the counselors weren’t paying attention to us.

  Sneak out of the residence hall separately, after dinner but before lights out.

  Meet behind one of the closed residence halls.

  Catch our ride at the Rayevich College sign on the corner of College and Hillview.

  Attempt not to get caught, but especially not by any of the Rayevich counselors, since Brandon had no blackmail on them.

  I was curious what he had on the Messina counselors. My money was on pictures of the Perfect Nerd Girl’s real hair color or Lumberjack Beard’s chin.

  “You have my number in case you need me?” Leigh asked, hugging her pillow to her chest.

  “Yes,” I said. I had dutifully inputted her number into my contacts that morning. It felt like a friendship upgrade. I could imagine sending her texts once I got home, of ridiculous, non-genius-camp things that happened, and she’d probably send selfies of her inquisitive face and links to her current favorite mindfulness meditations.

  Was it weird that I didn’t have Brandon’s phone number? Maybe it wasn’t weird now, but it would be next week when we left. How did you ask for someone’s phone number after you had already gone on a date with them?

  “Are you going to be warm enough in shorts?” Leigh asked.

  I tugged at the frayed hem of my cutoffs. “I only have shorts. That’s why I’m wearing a sweatshirt.”

  I wanted to be more annoyed with her for fussing over me, but it was nice to be able to release som
e of the pressure that had been building inside of my head. Every time Leigh asked me to double-check for my debit card or the time or which side of the sign Brandon and I were supposed to wait on, it made tonight feel real and exciting, instead of just being a list of things that could get me thrown out of Oregon.

  I had never really fantasized about my first date, but if I’d been pressed to picture it, it probably wouldn’t have taken place mid-Bunbury. I would have imagined Beth worrying over my clothes and getting overly emotional before I reminded her that it wasn’t that big of a deal. My mom would have demanded that I text her selfies so she could check my hair—which, as per always, she would recommend that I get braided. My dad would have handed me twenty bucks so that I could pay for myself, because boys “got ideas” when they started spending money to spend time with you.

  None of my parents would have approved of my cutoff shorts.

  “It’s seven forty,” Leigh said, reading from her phone. “Time to go.”

  She got to her feet and wrapped her arms around my middle, giving me a brief, oddly strong hug. “Have fun, Ever. For real.”

  “For real?” I echoed with a laugh. “I will.”

  Getting out of the residence hall and across the quad was the most dangerous part of this mission. As I trotted down the stairs and out of the lobby, I mentally ran through the series of excuses I had planned, in the event that I bumped into any wandering counselors: My phone is in the dining hall. I need to puke and the bathrooms are full. One of my contacts fell out!

  The night air hit me in a blast as I slipped through the glass doors and into the quad. I quickly pulled my hood over my hair. There weren’t a ton of other black girls at camp, and I was definitely the one with the biggest hair. I didn’t need anyone peeking out of their windows and ID’ing me. The sun was in the process of very slowly setting, but the streetlamps were on, spilling orangey pools of light at intervals. I skirted around them, clinging to the more shadowy parts of the concrete.

  The closed residence hall was a dark block erupting out of the grass. With one last look across the quad, I ran around the building. There was a long hedge, another streetlamp, and Brandon, biting the pad of his thumb. He was in the same clothes he’d worn all day, but his hair was freshly combed, making it tidier and spilled-molasses glossy.

  His smile was immediate and beautiful as he threw his arms around my waist and caught my lips in a kiss that went on long enough that I started to wonder why we were even bothering to leave campus. We could totally make a fort behind this hedge and live in it until the first Melee skirmish.

  What an impetuous boy he is, my brain quoted dazedly. I like his hair so much.

  “We gotta go,” he said. “She’ll leave us behind if we’re late.”

  He clasped my hand and together we sprinted off the grass and up the sidewalk, into the parking lot. We had to squeeze between two Toyotas to make it to the scrubby pine trees that separated the lot from the winding front drive. Pine needles pricked my legs and clung to my sweater as we wove between trees. Up ahead I could see the massive posts on the back of the low, wooden Rayevich College sign, and the glint of a silver car.

  I slid to a stop. “Wait.”

  He dug his heels into the dirt, spinning around to look behind us. “What? Did you see someone?”

  “No, I forgot something. Name three baroque composers.”

  He turned back to me, his eyes wild. “What?”

  “You promised, Brandon,” I reminded him. “Three composers or I can’t get in the car.”

  “Bach. Handel.” He grabbed two fistfuls of his hair and made a low groan. “Monteverdi?”

  I shrugged and pulled one of his hands out of his hand. “No idea. Sounds right.”

  “Oh my God.” He gaped at me. “That was evil.”

  I kissed his cheek, just under one of his wide eyes. “You need to study more.”

  “You need to run.”

  The headlights on the silver car turned on as we rounded the giant sign. There was a shunk of car locks. Brandon dove for the handle of the back door and held it open for me.

  I slid in, peeling back the hood from my head and feeling more than a little awkward as I clipped the seat belt. Brandon closed the door behind himself and said, “Hey, Harper. Thanks for the pickup.”

  The driver turned to face us, flipping back a sheet of icy blond hair. A pair of rose gold glasses rested on top of her pert freckled nose. She peered over the top of them. “Hey, B. Are you going to introduce us?” Her eyes flicked back at me, unreadably blue.

  “Harper, this is Ever. Ever, this is Harper. We went to the Mess together.”

  I swallowed, my eyes caught on the corner of the back window, where the NPR logo and a dark green Dartmouth sticker were side by side.

  If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated, sneered Oscar Wilde.

  With a jolt, I realized that I’d been in this car before.

  “Holy shit,” I blurted, catching the blond girl off guard. “Are you Cornell’s girlfriend?”

  One of her sandy eyebrows twitched. “Please don’t define me by my partner. I’m Harper Leonard.”

  “Sorry. Hi. It’s nice to meet you,” I said.

  “Likewise.” She took another glance at us in the rearview mirror before putting the car in gear and making a U-turn up the drive.

  I took Brandon’s hand and tried to resist the urge to watch the Rayevich sign fade behind us.

  “How’s camp?” Harper asked.

  “Oh, you know,” Brandon said. “Genius kids stirring up shit and the administration overreacting by punishing all of us.”

  She laughed, a surprisingly twinkly sound, like a tiny set of bells was trapped in her throat. “They never learn. You trap that much IQ in one place and someone is bound to go rogue. Cornell said that the dean in charge was kind of a sitting duck.”

  “Associate dean,” Brandon corrected. “Yeah, he’s pretty ineffectual. Doesn’t show up much.”

  “But you aren’t the one who decided to go on a study material rampage?” she asked.

  Brandon scoffed. “Nope. I was actually having a good time before someone broke into all of the dorms.”

  “I bet you were.” She looked directly into the rearview mirror, her eyes smiling and inquisitive. “Do the others know that you’re going on a date?”

  “Ixnay, Harper,” he hissed.

  “The others?” I echoed, momentarily unable to imagine anything except a long line of genius school girls in matching uniforms—all private school kids have uniforms, right?

  “Our friends,” Harper said, guiding the car smoothly around a corner. Long stretches of brown field and power lines whipped past us. I’d nearly forgotten how remote the college was. “B, doesn’t everyone think it’s suspicious that you’re friends with literally half of the counselors at camp?”

  “No one knows,” Brandon said.

  “I know,” I said. “And I have wondered…”

  “Well, a few months ago,” Harper started, seemingly delighted to elaborate, “we all got an email from the principal at the Mess, asking for candidates for the Onward counselor positions. They ask all of the alumni of a certain age every year, and normally we all say no because we’re busy and don’t live here. But then Brandon told us that his parents had enrolled him this summer. And then Meg didn’t get the internship she wanted and I agreed to do inventory for the comic book store and Trixie and Ben were looking to get a new apartment at the end of summer anyway—”

  “Trixie and Lumberjack Beard live together?” I asked Brandon. “Like together together?”

  “You couldn’t tell?” he laughed. “They are terrible at hiding it.”

  “They’ve been together for almost three years now,” Harper said. “They started dating a month or so after me and Cornell. The time line is kind of wobbly. It was an odd period in our lives.”

  “Huh,” I said, counting back the years in my head. “So, is the
re something in the water at the Mess?”

  Brandon frowned. “No. It’s Eugene. We don’t even have fluoride in the water.”

  “You know two different couples who went to college together and stayed together.”

  “Trixie and Ben go to different colleges,” he said with a shrug. “They live in the middle.”

  “It’s okay, Ever,” Harper said. “If we ever forgot how abnormal we are, we have Meg to remind us. She likes to quote the statistical probability of relationships that start in high school…” She trailed off and made a soft clicking sound with her tongue. “Which is not a great first date conversation. How about some music?”

  Coffeehouse acoustic guitar and throaty female singers played us on and off the freeway and into Eugene proper. There were people wandering in and out of restaurants and packs of cyclists cruising through the streets. It looked sort of like midtown Sacramento, which put me at ease. We turned a corner and I was startled to see the Amtrak station.

  “Are you shipping me home?” I asked Brandon quietly.

  He tightened his grip on my hand. “Not a chance.”

  Harper pulled to the side of the street, next to a warehouse, and opened the glove compartment. She passed back another coral envelope, identical to the one our escape plan index card had come in.

  “Two tickets to the nine o’clock showing of the Roland Emmerich classic.” I thought I detected a hint of air quotes in her voice. “I will pick you up in front of the Minor at midnight.”

  “Thanks, Harper,” Brandon said. “I owe you big-time.”

  She waved him off. “Just don’t tell Cornell until after camp is over. I can’t promise that he wouldn’t report you. He gets so sanctimonious about rule breaking.”

  We got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, fingers locked together.

  “Eugene, Ever,” Brandon said, inclining his head to the street. “Ever, Eugene.”

  “Would it be embarrassed if I called it Skinner’s Mudhole?” I asked.