What It Was Like

by Peter Seth

  So I went into breakfast and brooded all the way through the meal – if she wanted to ignore me, fine. Oh sure, we were attracted to each other last night, but I was also sure that a lot of guys were attracted to Rachel, came on to Rachel, fantasized about Rachel. So if she was wary, perhaps she was right. She didn’t know me from Adam. I would have to be patient . . . and have some kind of a plan.

  The meals in the Mess Hall were a lot of things: loud was one of them. Four hundred-plus people eating in one huge, barn-like building make a lot of noise. Kids are noisy, and counselors trying to control noisy kids are noisy. Add to that the clanking of glasses and silverware, the drumming feet of the hustling waiters and waitresses, the mind-numbing inanity of eleven-year-old boys in deep discussion, and you get the idea. Especially first thing in the morning.

  “You shouldn’t eat that. They put saltpeter in the food.”

  “What’s saltpeter?”

  “It’s this stuff they put in the food so we can’t have sex.”

  “You can’t have sex anyway! You’re eleven, you dork.”

  “But even if I wanted to.”

  “Who would want to have sex with him? He’s eleven and ugly!”

  “And mental.”

  “Look who’s talking? The human zit!”

  “Peter who? From Bunk Twelve?”

  Then Stewie finally yelled for all of them to shut up so we could all eat just one meal in peace.

  And the food itself? Well, let’s just say that every meal featured a fruit punch they called “bug juice.” Pitcher after pitcher of bug juice. Sometimes it was red, sometimes orange, sometimes even green (lime, a/k/a “Mooncliff Moonshine”), but it was always bug juice.

  Sometimes I wish I could get lost in those silly memories. My memories of Camp Moon-shak and the trivialities of life there that seemed so . . . trivial, now seem so significant and precious. They are my refuge. So if I might be, shall we say, unsure of myself right at this moment, as I sit behind bars, on that particular morning after the first night we met, when I walked out of breakfast onto the sunny flagstone porch of the Mess Hall, in the clear, warming air of morning, and saw her waiting for me as if it were the most completely natural, inevitable thing to do, that’s when I knew that she felt the same way too; something was going to happen between us.

  She was sitting on the low wall on the Girls’ side, with two of her campers sitting beside her, but her eyes were on mine as I came out the Boys’ door. She had a smile that said: What took you so long?

  I walked over to her, as Steve McQueen as I could. Which wasn’t much, I admit, but I didn’t scare her away.

  “Hi,” I said to her, trying to keep my voice normal. “How did you sleep?”

  She hesitated. I don’t think she was expecting me to say that. “Oh . . . I had crazy dreams.”

  “All dreams are crazy,” I said.

  “Some more than others,” she answered back. I liked this flirting.

  “What do you have this morning?” I asked. Her eyes were even bluer during the day.

  “We have kickball!” she said, faking enthusiasm for my amusement. Or was she really enthusiastic? I liked trying to read her.

  “A girls’ sport? I’ve never played a girls’ sport.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing,” she said archly. “Girls’ sports are the best. How about you?”

  She squinted in the sun, looking up at me, tilting her head.

  “Arts and crafts!” I intoned.

  “Both of them at the same time?” she laughed. “That is a challenge.”

  “Hey, I’ll make you a lanyard,” I offered.

  She smiled and shot back, “I’ll see your lanyard, and raise you an ashtray.” Which made me laugh. I liked that she liked to play. But as if on cue, she was called by a chorus of her loving campers –”Rayyy-chlllll!” – waiting for her at the bottom of the steps, down from the porch.

  I just looked down at her, and she looked up at me, and we smiled. We said nothing because we didn’t have to.

  “Later,” I mouthed.

  She let herself be dragged away by her girls.

  “Save me!” she yelled back to me as they pulled her in the direction of the Girls’ Campus.

  “I will,” I said, knowing that she probably couldn’t hear me. But perhaps she could feel me. In any case, I should have learned right then that I’d have to, as my Mom used to say, “make do.” Make Do with the amount of time, whatever it was, that I had with Rachel. Something or somebody always seemed to be pulling us apart. That was a hard lesson to learn, and one that I always fought against. If only they had just left us alone. . . .

  So as I walked back to the bunk to watch the Doggies clean up for Inspection, I thought about Rachel, and I could think about her all morning. Of course, through this whole thing/experience/ordeal, I spent much more time thinking about Rachel than actually being with her. The ratio is pretty alarming when you think about it, but really, what we do most during our waking hours is talk to ourselves continually, back and forth, remembering and imagining and reliving, all the stupid/monumental/trivial/tragic things in our lives: this inner monologue is our life.

  ≁

  From then on, my goal for the summer changed. Oh, I still wanted to be a good counselor, have a hassle-free summer in the country, and walk away with a decent chunk of change at the end – all those things – but suddenly my life became all about seeing Rachel. Nothing else really mattered. I mean it was the obvious thing to do.

  I learned her bunk’s schedule so I could make it my business to run into her at various times during the day. (All of the bunks’ schedules for the week were posted in the Main Office.) Fortunately, because she and I were counselors for the Inters, our paths could cross more often “naturally,” whenever our kids had a co-ed Evening Activity, like that first square dance. But that wasn’t enough for me. There was never “enough” for me: I had to see her more.

  I had a free period that next afternoon and devised a plan to cross Rachel’s path “accidentally.” (Yes, counselors occasionally were treated like actual employees, with some of the benefits of real workers, so we had a free period each day and a day off each week. Mine was Wednesday.) I found out that Rachel’s bunk had boating first thing that afternoon, right after Rest Period. So during the Rest Period, I signed out a rowboat from Captain Hal, the old, beer-bellied head of the boating program, who really didn’t care if I ate the boat, as long as I checked it out properly. Under the supervision of his suspicious red eyes, I moved the colored tag for Rowboat #4 on the Big Board from one hook to another hook, and stepped uneasily into Rowboat #4. I got control of the oars and pushed myself away from the other boats along the dock. Carefully, I rowed out to the far end of the lake. Then I stopped the oars and waited.

  I brought a book with me, but I couldn’t concentrate on it. My mind kept wandering, going over every word Rachel and I had exchanged and every look she had given me, even going so far as to imagine how she might be as my girlfriend. I know it might have been premature, but I couldn’t help thinking what I was thinking. I mean I had had girlfriends before, in high school, but no one very serious. The girls I really desired never seemed to like me (except as a “friend” or homework helper), and the girls who liked me just didn’t seem to be all that desirable. If that sounds borderline silly and frustrating and futile, all I can say is that most human relationships are that way, so far as I’ve seen. That’s why this sudden spark with Rachel seemed so promising, so surprisingly real.

  I pulled my Mets cap down over my brow, reclined carefully across the rowboat’s seat so that I could prop my feet up, and I drifted. As I settled in, the up-and-down movement of the water rocked me uneasily. I thought of Rachel’s dark hair swinging and bouncing as she square-danced, how she radiated joy and vitality. Marcus said that she teased a couple of guys every summer, but I didn’t pay t
oo much attention to that. He was probably just jealous; no girl as fine as Rachel would ever show any interest in him, that’s for sure. No, I could tell from the way that she looked at me, with those x-ray blue-blue eyes of hers, that she definitely liked something in me. It wasn’t just my imagination. I definitely felt something from her. Definitely . . . something . . . definitely . . . something. So many scenarios to imagine . . . so many possibilities.

  “Hi.”

  I guess I must have fallen asleep, but I don’t think I flinched too obviously when I heard her voice. I sat up quickly and saw Rachel in a rowboat with two of her campers at the oars, bobbing on the lake, right next to me. They were all wearing these huge orange life preservers and had big grins on their faces.

  “Oh, hi,” I stammered out, trying to retain my cool.

  “Looks like you fell asleep,” Rachel said with a sly smile.

  “No!” I lied, trying to salvage my dignity. “I was just lying there, thinking –”

  “Thinking with your eyes closed?” she asked sharply.

  I regained my balance in the boat and shot back, “I do lots of things with my eyes closed.” Which made her snicker and made the little girls giggle.

  Rachel looked at me for a moment, x-raying me, and said, “I thought it was you out here.”

  “No,” I said coolly. “I simply drew you to me.” And, for a change, she didn’t know if I was serious or not; she was the one who was stopped in place. The little girls giggled louder, whispering to each other, and rocked their boat a little.

  “Stop it!” Rachel snapped at them. “Remember what Captain Hal said about moving around in a boat?” The girls stopped moving, obeying her instantly, gripping their oars.

  “What did Captain Hal say about moving around in a boat?” I asked her.

  “I have no idea,” she whispered to me. “But probably not to do it too much.”

  I liked the way she joked. I liked the way she looked, even in a life preserver over a Mooncliff T-shirt over a bathing suit. She had nice, smooth thighs.

  “What are you reading?” she asked me.

  “Gatsby,” I said simply, and waited.

  She said nothing at first, but the pleased look on her face said everything. Gatsby was the perfect bait and the perfect hook.

  “I’ve read it,” she said. “Twice.”

  “Try the short stories,” I said.

  “I have,” she said.

  “Can we go now??” one of the little girls whined, but before the words were out of her mouth, Rachel turned on her and spat out, “Be quiet, brat!”

  Both little girls were instantly silent, with wide, scared eyes.

  “After the stunt you pulled,” continued Rachel, sounding very adult. “You shouldn’t be allowed out of the bunk at all!”

  She let them sit and listen to her words ring out on the open water. I was quite impressed by her command over the girls – I wished the Doggies listened to me so automatically – and by the quickness of her temper.

  Rachel turned to me and winked.

  I played along, saying, “Oh, come on, Rachel, be nice to these girls. They’ve been rowing so hard, you can see the beads of sweat on their poor little foreheads.”

  That really made the girls giggle.

  One of the girls, a pudgy one with a mischievous smile, said, “Rachel said that ‘boys are toys.’”

  This made both little girls burst into laughter as Rachel objected.

  “Hey, you two!” she said. “Did I tell you you could talk?”

  “‘Boys are toys’?” I repeated thoughtfully. “You think that’s true?”

  “It is for some boys,” she said back with that sly smile. She was very pretty, and, yes, she knew it. It was going to be a challenge to get close to her and yet not give her the upper hand.

  “How about if I race you lovely young girls back to the dock?” I offered, and they accepted faster-than-instantaneously as I knew they would. With a shriek and a clatter and a big push of their oars, the little girls started to row vigorously.

  “Row! Row fast! Come on – before he’s ready!” Rachel cheered them on as I hustled around in my seat and took up my oars. They splashed me and splashed themselves as they rowed like demons away from me and across the lake. As soon as I began, I had to stop rowing to keep my copy of Gatsby from sliding off the seat and into the bilge water in the bottom of my rowboat, but then I started rowing medium-hard.

  “Don’t let him win!” shouted Rachel as I started to catch up to them.

  “Here I come!” I yelled, pulling hard on the oars, getting my back into the stroke. I probably splashed more water than I should have, rowing furiously, but I could barely keep from laughing.

  “Keep rowing!” Rachel yelled. “Pull together! Now – pull!!”

  Over my shoulder, I could see Rachel urging the little girls on. They were churning up the lake with their rowing, but not moving too straight.

  “I’m gonna catch ya!” I hollered fake-menacingly. “I’m an irresistible force!”

  Of course, at the end, I let them win and let them tease me –”Nyah-nyah-nyah! Slow poke!” – when we got onshore. We were all soaking wet, exhausted and laughed out. But Rachel knew that I had let them win. (It was a good move on my part; girls love it when you’re nice to little kids or animals – and don’t say, “Same thing.”) And for the rest of the summer, all the girls in her bunk loved-loved-loved me; that is, up until things started to happen.

  Unfortunately I was late for archery with the Doggies, which annoyed Stewie who couldn’t go on his free period until I got there. And in my rush, I forgot to move my boat tag on the Big Board, which led to a perpetual evil eye from Captain Hal for the rest of the summer. But it didn’t matter when compared to the sense I had that Rachel and I were on a good path, a good trajectory. I had just left her, and I couldn’t wait to see her again.

  ≁

  After dinner every night there was Free Play for about an hour, when they let the kids roam around and do pretty much what they wanted until Evening Activity. One night I was assigned to supervise the distant volleyball courts. Not that I knew anything about volleyball; it was just my turn. I didn’t even have time to tell Rachel where I was going to be after dinner.

  Jerry and Dale were watching me as I waited on the front porch of the Mess Hall for her to come out. Dale reminded me, “You’re on volleyball, right?” so I couldn’t just stand there and not move.

  “Right,” I said. “Volleyball,” and walked down off the porch. She and her bunk still hadn’t come out. Fortunately, a couple of the Doggies – the Fat Doggy and the Doggy With Braces – liked to follow me around, and they could occasionally prove useful. Like at this moment.

  “Wait by the Girls’ door,” I ordered them. “And when Rachel Prince comes out with her bunk, you tell her that I’m covering the volleyball courts, OK?”

  “We know who Rachel is,” the Fat Doggy said. “You don’t have to say her last name.”

  “Just go!” I yelled, and they took off. These two kids couldn’t find their own underwear if it was wrapped around their heads – which it sometimes was, courtesy of the Doggy Bully – so I didn’t hold much hope for their finding Rachel and giving her my message. I went to Jerry’s H.C. Shak where the volleyballs were kept, filled a duffel bag with balls, and made my way to the courts.

  Sunsets were especially beautiful at Mooncliff. No matter how hot it got during the day, things cooled off in the mountains by dusk. The light seemed to soften everything, and the mountains seemed lusher and puffier. In all this lovely nature, it seemed a waste of time, not being with Rachel.

  I sat down on the bench next to the volleyball courts and unzipped the bag of balls. No one, not one kid, had come down to play. Of course, the volleyball courts were in a fairly obscure part of the campus, but still, I felt stupid being there. I wanted to be
with Rachel, period. It was something I had never felt before, like a force building within me. I recalled saying to Rachel on the lake that “I drew you to me,” and how she reacted to that. Maybe I did draw her to me. I had always used my brain for schoolwork and abstract things; maybe I could use my brainpower in the service of something for my real inner self.

  And no sooner did I concentrate, no sooner had the thought formed in my mind, than there she was, walking with the two Doggies and a few girls from her bunk too. She had a big smile on her face, a princess with her escorts.

  “You sent your slaves to fetch me,” she said. “Did I have any choice in the matter?”

  “Not really,” I said cheerfully.

  “May I sit down then?” she said formally.

  “Yes,” I said, standing up and making a sweeping gesture to the empty space next to me. “By all means! Simon says you may sit down.”

  “I’m sorry they exiled you out here,” she said taking her place on the bench as the kids fought for the duffel bag at my feet. They pulled out all the balls, which went bouncing across the court.

  “I’m not . . . not anymore.”

  “You know I would have found you, eventually,” she said moving right up next to me, as she dodged one of the volleyballs that came our way. I reached out and deflected the ball away from us, and her arm touched my arm. I didn’t move as our skin touched; neither did she. I felt like our first kiss could happen at any time, that I could just turn, put my arm around her, and kiss her, but I held back. I actually should have kissed her; she was so beautiful, and right there. But it wasn’t the right time, not with all these kids around.

  “I couldn’t wait for ‘eventually,’” I said.

  So instead, we sat there and talked. I got her to tell me about herself, about past summers at Mooncliff, and about her life at home. I let her talk because it seemed to relax her, and I liked to watch her – she was so animated and engaged, so lovely even as she was grieving about her situation.