by A. Destiny
It was kind of weird that this guy knew that.
“Okay,” the boy said, taking a deep, shuddering breath, “that sounded kind of creepy.”
“Gotta agree with you there,” I said, but I couldn’t help but smile at him. How was it possible that his anxiety-flushed neck was so cute?
“I’m just—” He stared down at the fiddle in his arms, as if he was begging it for a bailout. “I like your family’s music. And I swear I’m not a stalker in any way.”
“Other than stalking my grandmother all the way to the Camden School,” I teased, “from . . .”
“Connecticut,” the boy said miserably. “Which, yes, is very far away. Okay, I guess I am a creepy, long-distance stalker.”
“Aw, sweetheart,” Nanny assured him, “you’re a fan. I’m flattered. Don’t let Nell make you feel self-conscious. She thinks fiddling is about as everyday as making toast.”
“But it isn’t!” the boy insisted to me. “Without your grandma and your parents, there’re all these Appalachian songs that would have just disappeared! But they recorded them and even made sheet music for them so they’re preserved for history.”
I didn’t respond. What are you supposed to say when somebody tells you something that, of course, you already knew?
Before my silence got too awkward, Nanny jumped in.
“Well, bless your heart,” she said to the boy. “That sounds like a speech you’ve made before.”
“To my dad,” he admitted. “He wanted me to stay up north this summer. You know, be a lifeguard and play baseball like my older brother. He’s, um, not exactly a music guy.”
“Maybe you should try different music,” I murmured.
I heard another stifled snort come from Annabelle, who was standing just behind me.
“What was that, Nell, darlin’?” Nanny asked, smiling at me.
“Oh, nothing,” I said while Annabelle grinned.
“So what’s the difference between a violin and a fiddle anyway?” she asked. “I’ve always wondered.”
“Oh, there’s no difference, really,” Nanny said. “A violin is a fiddle and a fiddle is a violin, especially when you’re feeling fancy.”
“But all violin-playing is not fiddling,” the boy pointed out. Fiddle music is so alive. And it’s so connected to a place. To this place. I still can’t believe I’m here.”
Then he turned to me.
“So,” he asked me, “are you taking your grandma’s class too?”
“Not exactly.”
I glanced at Nanny. You can explain this one, I telegraphed to her.
Throughout this whole exchange, Nanny had been beaming, giddy to be at Camden with her granddaughter, even if her granddaughter was a bit on the sulky side.
But when I challenged her like that, her smile suddenly faded, and it was as dramatic as a dark cloud obscuring the sun.
My heart gave a guilty lurch.
Here’s the thing about Nanny. She rarely misses an opportunity to tease me. She never lets me get away with being a brat or a drama queen (or as my parents like to call it, being fifteen).
But she also adores me. More than anything. Maybe even more than music. She would do just about anything for me.
And she could clearly see in my face what I wanted from her.
Or rather, what I didn’t want.
I didn’t want to be Anne of Green Gables anymore. I didn’t really want to be Nell Finlayson of the liner notes either. And I definitely didn’t want to spend my summer (okay, half my summer) helping fiddle students scratch out “Britches Full of Stitches” and “The Irish Washerwoman.”
I’d been saying as much for weeks. But for some reason, this was the moment that Nanny finally heard me; this moment when I hadn’t said a word.
Shooting me a wistful look, Nanny told the boy, “Nell was going to assist me in my class. But . . .”
I held my breath.
“But I think there’s been a change of plans,” Nanny finished.
I don’t know why she did it.
Maybe she was taking pity on me because I was invisible to the opposite sex and looked like a raisin next to my glamorous new roommate.
Maybe she didn’t want to hear me sulk all summer.
Or maybe she was finally starting to understand this fact about me: I may have played the fiddle since I was three. I may have played passable backup on the Finlaysons albums. I may even have had musical talent, or whatever.
But I didn’t have the Joy.
I squeezed Nanny’s hand, thanking her for finally getting this. Then I turned to the boy to explain.
“It’s just that . . . music isn’t really my thing.”
“Even though you’re basically a professional?” he said with an incredulous laugh. “Even though you’re a Finlayson?”
“Well, I don’t have a choice about that stuff,” I replied. “Do I, Nanny?”
“I guess not,” she replied. “It’s our family business. I don’t think it would have occurred to us not to involve you kids in it. To us, that was as important as teaching you to read.”
The boy’s face went slack and his eyes went dreamy—half-incredulous, half-longing. You’d have thought Nanny told him I’d been raised on a diet of candy and rainbows or I was the reincarnation of June Carter Cash.
Rather than disappoint this guy with the truth, I decided to squirm my way out of the conversation entirely.
“Speaking of reading,” I said, way too brightly, “I just remembered I left my e-reader in the van. I need to go get it before it fries in this heat. My camera’s in there too. Annabelle was just going to help me, right?”
“Well,” she said, “actually, I’ve kind of run out of time. I want to do a smudging ceremony in our room before lunch.”
“A what?” I asked her.
“See, it’s all about good energy . . . ,” Annabelle began. She launched into a convoluted history of “cleansing” a room with a tuft of burning sage. Again, I only understood snatches of what she was saying:
“. . . sacred Native American ritual . . . the perfect meeting of earth, wind, and fire . . . and let’s not forget about the importance of feng shui . . .”
As much as I liked Annabelle, I could tell we were going to have a lot of late-night conversations about the meaning of life and other “deep” things I knew nothing about.
I was also pretty sure our room was going to stink after she’d filled it with sage smoke.
When Annabelle finally paused to take a breath, Nanny nodded politely and said, “That’s . . . fascinating, dear.”
And the boy?
Snort.
Now he was trying not to laugh. He passed his hand over his mouth as if to wipe his giggle away. But his full lips still twitched and his eyes looked squinty and sparkly behind his glasses. They were also directed, not at Annabelle, but at me! I had a feeling he knew exactly how squirmy I felt listening to Annabelle’s unintelligible feng shui talk.
“What’s your name, anyway?” I asked him. It sounded more blunt than I’d intended, but it did a good job of distracting him from silently mocking me.
“Oh, right,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m Jacob. Jacob MacEvoy.”
“Well, it’s so nice to meet you,” Nanny said, reaching up and patting his shoulder. He was only a few inches taller than me, but he positively towered over my tiny grandmother.
Then Nanny gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before hustling off to the lodge. The kiss felt an awful lot like a good-bye, even though we’d just arrived here.
“Sure you don’t want to join me for the smudging?” Annabelle asked me as she, too, turned to leave.
“Um, I’d better get my stuff out of the van,” I said, trying to look as if I’d pondered the opportunity for more than half a second.
And then it was just me and the boy—Jacob.
“Okay, well,” I said awkwardly, “see you around.”
“If not in fiddle class,” he replied. Was that a smile tugging at one c
orner of his mouth?
“Uh, right. Not there.”
I felt like there was more I should say—but I had no idea what. So I just gave him a limp wave that made me feel more raisinish than ever. Then I headed back to the parking lot.
That was the moment when I should have felt elated, like a bird out of its cage. I’d been freed from endless hours in Nanny’s classroom.
Although, when I thought about it, Nanny’s classroom was actually pretty cozy. It was a little cabin on the fringe of Camden’s campus. The vaulted ceiling was paneled with knotty pine planks, and there were faded, flowery curtains in every window. They fluttered in the breeze of the many ceiling fans, which made it seem like they were dancing to the students’ music.
Ah, the students, I thought. That’s the best part of this deal. All those terrible renditions of “Scarborough Fair” and “An Irish Jig” that I won’t have to listen to over and over and over.
Even if one of the students had already proven himself to be pretty good.
And even if he did have that intriguingly imperfect nose. And lips that were just a little too red and pretty for a boy’s. And ropy muscles in his forearms that rippled when he played his violin.
I reached the van and popped the rear door open. Of course, the first thing I saw was my fiddle case. It was a battered wooden case, painted black-cherry red. It had been my grandfather’s before it was mine. It was covered in old travel decals from Mississippi Delta, Sarasota, and Mobile. Seeing it there, waiting for me, gave me a hollow feeling in my stomach I couldn’t quite identify.
Was I feeling guilty for bailing on Nanny’s fiddle class?
Or was that empty belly a sign of . . . regret? Once again the image of Jacob’s face flashed in my head.
“Oh, please!” I muttered to myself. I shoved the fiddle out of the way and instead grabbed my camera case, my backpack, and my bulging suitcase. “I’m just hungry.”
I slammed the van door and hurried back toward the lodge. At least, I tried to hurry.
My overstuffed suitcase’s wheels sank into the gravel of the parking lot and refused to turn. I ended up having to shuffle/drag it until I reached the grass, which made it only slightly more rollable.
Free as a bird? I thought as I dragged my heavy load up the hill. Maybe not quite.
Chapter Three
Inside the lodge, the sign-in table was set up in the lounge, a dim, cozy space that hadn’t changed even the tiniest bit since I’d started coming to Camden as a kid. The elaborate quilts, God’s eyes, and yellowed photos on the wood-paneled walls—they were all there. The chairs and love seats were still saggy and faded, with afghans tossed over their worn spots. Massive ceiling fans whirred lazily.
The lounge milled with students lugging suitcases of their own and clutching sheaves of registration forms.
I stepped up to the rustic-looking table at the front of the line. The table was, of course, handmade by Camden students out of wood from local poplar trees (according to a little gold plaque embedded in the table’s edge). Behind it sat a white-haired lady who lit up at the sight of me.
“Nell Finlayson!” she chirped. Her voice, throaty and warbling, made me think of a puff-chested mama bird. “I’m Dorothy Teagle, the director of Camden. I’ve known your grandma for years and years and years. Oh, we’re so excited to have you back. You know, I remember the last time you were here. You had that silky blond hair hanging down your back. So pretty.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. Reflexively I smoothed down my current hairdo, which was decidedly not blond and not silky.
“Just fill out these forms, honey.”
Mrs. Teagle handed me a clipboard.
“And don’t forget, lunch is in twenty minutes in the dining hall, which if you recall is here in the lodge, just down the long hallway.”
I leaned against a wood-paneled wall, inhaling the sawdusty scent of it. Then I started ticking off answers to the multiple-choice questions.
Are you:
vegetarian?
gluten free?
dairy free?
I’d had a fast-food cheeseburger and a chocolate shake on the drive up to Camden, but on impulse I checked “vegetarian” on my form. Nanny probably would have said I’d done it to be ornery.
I knew laundry service cost extra, so I checked “no” on that, wondering how often I could get away with slipping my clothes into Nanny’s laundry bag.
I also checked “no” for the two-day camping trip midway through the session. If anything felt more claustrophobic than staying at Camden for thirty days, it was sleeping in a musty-smelling tent for two of them.
I filled in the last few blanks.
Food allergies? Shellfish.
Animal allergies? Not unless you count a deep loathing of spiders.
Then I went to hand my clipboard to Mrs. Teagle. But before she could take it, Nanny swooped over and snatched it out of my hand.
“Ah! Where did you come from?!” I said.
“I was waiting for you,” Nanny said, scrutinizing my form. “I thought you might want to sit with me at lunch, it being your first day and all—”
Nanny stopped short and frowned.
“Vegetarian?!” she said.
“I’m . . .” I flailed for a reason for my choice. “I’m just trying something new. Why not?”
“I can think of a few reasons why not,” Nanny said. “Starting with your love of fried chicken. And buffalo wings. And pepperoni pizza . . .”
I sighed heavily as Nanny returned to my form.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “I see you didn’t check off anything here, where it asks what class you’re taking?”
“I didn’t sign up for one,” I said with a shrug. “You know, because . . .”
“Because you were going to be my assistant,” Nanny provided. “Now you’re not. You didn’t think you were going to just sit on your fanny all month, did you, young lady?”
“No, of course not!” I said. “I just . . . didn’t have a chance to figure out my plan B yet.”
“Plan B, eh?” Nanny said. She shuffled through my sheaf of papers until she found the class catalog. She skimmed a fingertip down the list of offerings. “Here’s a B. Basket weaving. How do you like that? Or, oh, look! They have a class called Bears and Dolls.”
“Nan-ny,” I said. I didn’t roll my eyes because Nanny hates it, almost as much as I hate it when she uses the word “fanny” in public. But in my head, I was really rolling my eyes. “It doesn’t have to start with B.”
“I know that,” Nanny said. “So just pick one. Looks like pottery and quilting are full, though. They always go the quickest.”
“What about your class?” I asked. “Is it full too?”
We found her class listing and saw that there were a couple of openings.
“That’s because they’re scared of me,” Nanny said with an evil grin. “Everyone knows I’m a tough cookie.”
“Believe me, Nanny, I know,” I said. I took the catalog from her. “There are a ton of classes here. I better focus.”
“All right,” Nanny said. “I’m going to head to my cabin.” Camden put all the teachers up in a row of adorable, tiny cabins near the lake. As she opened the door next to the sign-up table, a sweet, green-scented breeze washed over me. The doorway framed a slice of ridiculously blue sky, wildflower-dotted grass, and a stone wall that just begged you to sit on it and write a poem. Before the door swung shut, I heard a snatch of music—a man and a woman, singing an a cappella duet in clear, sweet voices. It was a song I knew (of course), one about a young couple who fall in love and have one blissful month together. Then the boy goes off to the Civil War and dies with his love’s name on his lips.
That was what usually happened in these sepia-toned songs—the whole better-to-have-loved-and-lost thing.
I’d always wondered if it were really true—that it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I hadn’t loved anybody yet. At least, not in the way songwr
iters and musicians went on about it. Clearly, love—real, feel-it-in-your-bones, swoony love—was just another version of the Joy that I couldn’t imagine feeling.
But, I thought as my gaze fell back onto the course catalog, maybe this is my chance.
Maybe there was a class here at Camden, hidden in this list among the teddy bears and baskets, that would just feel right; the kind of right I’d never felt with music.
I bit my lip as I scanned the list of classes.
Knitting sounded about as exciting as algebra class. Paper Making? Snore. Beading would feel too much like counting down the minutes, bead by clickety bead.
That’s when I saw it—the perfect class. In part, this was because nobody would expect me to take it, any more than they’d imagine me becoming a vegetarian.
That must have been why Nanny had skipped right over it, even though it was right there on the first page of the catalog, between Bears & Dolls and Broom Making.
The class had everything I craved. It was as solid and earthbound as music was ephemeral. And it definitely didn’t look like it was going to be boring.
There was space in the teen division of the class. So I checked the box.
Folks, we have a plan B, I thought, feeling a little giddy. And it’s called Blacksmithing.
Chapter Four
There were two vegetarian tables in the dining hall. They were marked by cardboard signs emblazoned with big green Vs. I thought the signs were mortifying, but as people started to find their places at the big round tables—adults gravitated to one of them, kids to the other—I could tell they were proud of those green Vs. Even smug.
As I stood next to the table, I bit my lip and placed a hand on my growling stomach. I was the kind of hungry that would never be satisfied by a salad.
My yearning for protein was only made worse by the aroma beginning to waft out of the kitchen—salty, earthy, and greasy in the best way.
Fried chicken.
