Summer at Meadow Wood

by Amy Rebecca Tan

  Day 51—Sunday

  I found Chieko in the archery hut after dinner. She sat tilted back in a chair, so the two front legs didn’t touch the ground, a book in her hands and her eyes glued to the page.

  I knocked on the half-open door, so I wouldn’t scare her.

  She didn’t even look up at the sound. She just held out her hand in a wait gesture while she got to a good stopping point in her book. She was like Carly that way, and Jamie, too. I realized right then that I seemed to really like people who really liked books. I wondered what that said about me. Maybe I should try reading more.

  “For the record,” Chieko said when she was done, closing the book around her finger, “you found me busily cleaning arrows and organizing equipment.”

  “I did?” I asked.

  “Yes, you did. I was so focused on my archery work I didn’t realize you were standing there waiting for me.” Then she leaned toward me and coaxed, “Right?”

  I caught on. “Yes. Right. So focused. The hut’s never looked better.” Which was a gigantic lie. The shelves were stuffed with mismatched arrows and torn boxes and broken pieces of bows. There were wrist guards, rolled-up paper targets, and safety booklets piled on top of each other like a trash monument that just needed one quick puff to send it toppling over. The table was still littered with the box and packaging materials that came last week, and the one window was caked in layers of smudges and handprints. The hut was a disgrace, and Chieko had only one full day left to get it into shape.

  “So,” she said, “to what do I owe the great honor of your presence?”

  “I need your ankle,” I answered.

  “What?”

  “Just give me your ankle a sec.” I walked toward her and reached out for it.

  “Not without a trade,” she countered. “Give me an elbow.”

  “Chieko,” I groaned. “C’mon. Give it.”

  She stuck her leg out at me—she was wearing sneakers but no socks—and returned to her book.

  I pulled a black Sharpie out of my pocket and told her, “Now don’t move.”

  “Good God,” she replied, but she held still for me.

  I hunched over her ankle and carefully drew a fancy capital E in front of the R that was already on her skin, trying to size and space it just right so it would match. I moved beneath the letters then to ink something else, my hand shaking a bit as I tried to control the thick tip of the marker. I moved back to see how it looked from a distance, then leaned in again to add to the E so it would look more like calligraphy. Then I let go of her leg.

  “Okay, I’m done.” I sighed heavily, hope brewing in my gut. “What do you think?”

  Chieko closed her book slowly, slid it onto the crowded tabletop, and pulled her leg into her chest to get a close look.

  “E R?” she read.

  “Uh-huh.” I nodded enthusiastically.

  “Emergency Room?” she asked incredulously. “That’s a terrible tattoo. And why is there a skinny pointer finger underneath it?”

  “That’s not a finger.”

  “It looks like a finger,” Chieko said.

  “It’s a candle.”

  “It looks like a really creepy finger.” Chieko shuddered.

  “It’s not a finger!” I yelled. “I’m not a professional artist, you know.”

  “Clearly.” Chieko showed no mercy.

  “And it’s not Emergency Room. The ER stands for Eleanor Roosevelt, and the candle is for something cool Brenda mentioned when we were talking about Eleanor,” I explained. “Apparently she’s a real fan of hers, too.”

  “Everyone should be a fan of Eleanor,” Chieko replied. “What did Brenda say?”

  “She said that, at Eleanor’s funeral or something, a good friend of Eleanor’s described her as someone who would rather light candles than curse the darkness.”

  “Hmmm.” Chieko twisted her ankle from side to side as she examined the new design, tossing her long blue-black bangs out of her eyes with a quick flick of her head. She straightened her leg back out and examined it from there, biting her bottom lip and not saying a word.

  I waited.

  After a full minute of silence, she said, “So, since I can’t undo my tattoo, I should change it into something else? That’s what you’re saying?”

  “Yeah.” I explained, “It works perfectly. You said Eleanor Roosevelt is your soul sister, and half her initials are already on you. Add the candle—a good candle, by an actual artist—and it will be like the spirit of Eleanor is with you all the time.”

  “Say it again,” Chieko said.

  “The kind of person who would rather light a candle than curse the darkness,” I repeated.

  “Of course. Definitely.” She looked at her ankle again and squinted a bit, maybe imagining a professional version of what I’d tried to draw. “So . . . try to do something good instead of wallowing in the bad that already happened,” Chieko thought aloud.

  “That you can’t undo,” I added, thinking of Earl and of my parents, of the darkness that had already happened and the new beginning—the light—we’d have to make now.

  “Huh,” she said with one quick bob of her head.

  “Yeah.” I copied her bob.

  “Well.” Chieko stood up from her chair and pushed it back against the wall, then faced me. “My work here is done, young one. The student has become the master.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re brilliant. I’ll do it—your idea. It works.”

  A smile hijacked my face and I felt seriously proud.

  “Although we all still need our small moments of cursing the darkness. It’s a great release—the cursing,” Chieko assured me.

  “Okay, fine,” I relented, “but after the cursing—”

  “Yes, after, then it’s candle-lighting time.”

  I folded my arms in front of my chest in satisfaction and said, “Words to live by.”

  “No—words to cheer by!” Chieko became suddenly animated. “Where’s that cheer, huh? Instead of bananas and screaming over who has more spirit, we should have candle-lighting Eleanor cheers.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that, Chieko.”

  “What? If there were Eleanor cheers, I would actually join in and scream along with the rest of you bozos.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” I told her.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” she agreed.

  I turned toward the door. “Gotta go to Brenda’s real quick and then visit Vera.”

  “Wait, there’s something I have to tell you.” Chieko straightened her posture.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going back on the archery team. When school starts again, my junior year. I’m gonna compete.”

  “Yay! What made you change your mind?” And then I smiled and answered my question before she could. “Wait, I know: ‘You must do the thing you think you cannot do,’ right?”

  “Wrong,” she shot back at me. “I’m just crazy skilled at archery. It would be cruel to deny the team my excellence.”

  I smiled even bigger and then she did too, her eyes bright and happy.

  I walked straight to Brenda’s cabin from the archery range. She had scheduled this time for me to call my mom to ask for two more weeks at camp. If anyone had told me back in June that I’d want extra time at Meadow Wood, I would have laughed in their face.

  I figured the biggest problem with staying at camp would be figuring out how to get home. The bus ride on Tuesday was already arranged and prepaid, so once we missed that, I didn’t know what the options were. I knew Holly was driving herself back to Vermont and the kitchen staff would be flying back to England. Brenda lived at camp year-round, so she was already home. I’d meant to have a solution ready before I called my mom, but I still didn’t have one.

  Brenda swung open the screen door just as I lifted my hand to knock.

  “I need to meet with the girls in Aster, so I’ll be gone about a half hour. The office is yours. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.�
�

  “But only call your mom. And your dad, too, if you need his permission. But not Angel.”

  I hadn’t thought about trying to call Angel even once since Earl caught me.

  “I know,” I said. “I wasn’t going to—”

  “Good luck,” Brenda said again, and walked out.

  I lowered myself into Brenda’s chair and pulled it all the way into the desk so my stomach was pressed against the smooth wood and I was forced to sit up straight and tall. I gazed at the phone. My palms felt clammy. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

  I picked up the phone, dialed, and held my breath as it rang.

  “Hello?”

  I let my breath go. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Vic. Honey, how are you?” Her voice changed and she asked, “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “Good.” She let out a sigh.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  It was quiet for a heartbeat, and then Mom started to cry. Really cry. High-pitched sobs and short gasps for air flooded my ear from miles away. I pictured her at our kitchen table, a cup of tea gone cold in front of her, tissues balled up and dropped to the floor. She sounded so sad. And alone.

  “Mom—” I started.

  “I’m so sorry,” she interrupted me, her voice crumpling. “I really messed up, Vicky. I messed up everything.”

  My mom hadn’t called me Vicky in years, not since I turned eight years old and told her I wanted to be Vic and only Vic from then on.

  I swallowed, then asked, “With Darrin?”

  “With everything.” She blew her nose. “And Darrin—he was a mistake. And he’s over. That’s over.”

  “So Dad’s back?” The words were out of my mouth in a flash.

  “No, honey. It’s not that simple.”

  I felt stupid for sounding so eager, for sounding like a little kid.

  “We still have a lot to figure out, your dad and me. We’re having a hard time. But we’ll work something out, okay?” my mom said. “I promise.”

  I nodded even though I knew she couldn’t see me.

  “And I’m so proud of you, honey. All the farming you’ve been doing with Earl—he told me how helpful you’ve been. And the money you sent—thank you, but it’s your money. We’ll open a savings account for you once you get home. You should always have your own money. For emergencies.”

  “Carly has one. Because of babysitting.”

  “You’ll have one, too. You deserve it.”

  “Mom, I wanted to ask you something.”

  After I explained the situation to her, all she wanted to know was if I really wanted to stay and if it really meant a lot to me. When I said yes to both, she agreed she’d try to make it work. She needed to talk to Freddy first, because he shouldn’t have to stay unless he wanted to. She was right about that. She also needed to figure out the logistics of getting me, or us, back home.

  Then she said something that really surprised me.

  “Who knows? Maybe I could drive up for the last day or two and join you. Maybe that would be good for me, for the three of us, to spend the time together.”

  It didn’t make sense. A few months ago, my mom couldn’t wait to get rid of us, but now she was talking about leaving her home to do dirty unpaid work with Freddy and me at Meadow Wood?

  I didn’t believe it.

  I knew she wouldn’t come.

  But maybe it was enough that she thought of it. It showed that she was trying.

  And right now, maybe trying was enough.

  Day 52—Monday

  “This is bizarro,” Chieko announced, walking into our room with a stack of letters in her hands. “You each got mail with the same handwriting, and they all say ‘BUS LETTER’ all over the envelope.”

  “Carly!” Jaida A and Jaida C screamed at the same time, then rushed at Chieko.

  “What’s a bus letter?” Chieko asked as the Jaidas grabbed the mail out of her hands.

  “I forgot about the letters!” Jordana said. She had moved out of clinic and back into our cabin yesterday but still wasn’t allowed to do much. “And I’m not allowed to read. And I’m not allowed to write,” she reminded herself aloud, panic rising in her voice.

  “What’s a bus letter?” Chieko asked again.

  “We’ll help you. Don’t worry,” Jaida C said right away.

  “But you’re not on my bus, so you won’t be able to read to me. And you can’t help me write my bus letter to you.” Jordana was becoming distraught.

  “You can get anyone on your bus to read to you,” Jaida C said. “And Jaida A will help you write my letter and I’ll help you write Jaida A’s and Vic’s and Chieko’s.”

  “Carly’s not even here and she still did this—she’s the best!” Jaida A said, clutching her letter to her chest.

  “WHAT ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH IS A BUS LETTER?” Chieko shouted.

  The room went silent as we stopped in our tracks and stared at our counselor, her arms raised in total frustration.

  Jordana took center stage by answering in a clear, calm voice, “It’s a letter. That you read. On a bus.”

  Chieko’s arms dropped to her sides in total surrender. “Good God,” she muttered.

  “Except for Vic,” Jaida C said, turning to me. “You’re gonna read your bus letters here, right? After we’re gone?”

  I had told them about the after-camp-close-up plan. “Maybe I’ll bed-hop. I’ll read your letters on each of your beds, to make it more . . . authentic.” I looked at Chieko so she would note the use of a higher vocabulary word.

  “You guys are total ding-a-lings,” Chieko said. “I’ve got more mail duty. I’ll be back.” She rolled her eyes at us and left the bunk.

  When she returned a half hour later, she found us all sitting on our beds bent over stationery, furiously scribbling six-, eight-, ten-page letters to each other. And to other friends outside our bunk. And to favorite counselors. And to camp sisters.

  “It’s your last rest hour of the entire summer and this is how you’re spending it?” Chieko couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “You look like you’re all cramming for midterms.”

  No one even looked up.

  The letters had to get done.

  But I had to admit, the bus letter tradition always confused me.

  A stack of bus letters from your closest, dearest friends was definitely fun to whip out and read when you were stuck on a boring, hot, hours-long bus ride. In the letters, we retold private jokes and memories and went on about how much we would miss each other until next June, and we wrote our phone numbers and addresses in huge print to remind each other to use them. But writing them was a complete drag. Instead of spending our last day enjoying each other’s company, we all spent the day alone, isolated like little islands of deep thought, writing until our hands cramped and our fingers went numb.

  It kind of made no sense.

  “So, you’re wasting your last bit of time together by writing about how much you’re going to miss your time together?” Chieko summarized, pity clouding her voice.

  It obviously made no sense to her, either.

  But still, I was going to write her one.

  “How about the last Roses and Thorns? Is everyone’s thorn writing these endless letters right now?” Chieko prompted.

  “Yeah,” we all answered in unison without lifting our heads from our papers.

  “And your roses?” Chieko continued. “Would that be knowing you’re all getting a special stack of letters tomorrow?”

  “Yeah,” we all echoed back again.

  “Fantastic,” Chieko said. “The last Roses and Thorns of the season—done.” She made a big check mark in the air and left the room, shaking her head at us.

  But that night, when the lights were out, and I was trying to close my mind to sleep, I saw Chieko at work on something under her covers with the light of her cell phone, which I guessed she felt she didn’t need to hide anymore. There was too
much of a steady scratch sound for her to be reading a book. I was pretty sure she was writing a bus letter.

  And I was pretty sure that it was for me.

  Day 53—Tuesday

  For the first time all summer, I woke up before the bugle all on my own. I dressed and brushed my teeth and made my bed, knowing I was the only one in the cabin who would have to do that this morning. Everyone else would be ripping off their blankets and pillows and stuffing them into their duffel bags for the trip home. I had heard from Brenda, who had heard from my mom, that Freddy couldn’t wait to move into a “real” cabin at Meadow Wood, which he probably considered a luxury hotel compared to his tent at Forest Lake.

  I opened my cubby and pulled out a black Sharpie marker. On the inside of my cubby door, I wrote Vic was here and drew a candle next to it, which came out a lot better than the one I drew on Chieko’s leg. Then I closed the cubby door and left the marker out for my friends to use.

  I left the cabin without a sound. The chill of the morning was already fading, the sun inching skyward. I walked up the hill and rounded the corner behind Brenda’s cabin to check on the garden.

  There were tomatoes ready, so I picked them carefully. I helped myself to Earl’s bandanna, which was hanging by the hose right where I left it, and wrapped the tomatoes inside. I put them on the windowsill where I knew Brenda would find them, and then walked back over to a row of raised beds. I sat on the edge of one, careful the splintering wood wouldn’t stick me through my shorts, and watched the plants wake up with the sun.

  I noticed the tomato plants by the back of the garden, how they weren’t growing as well as the others because the berry bushes blocked some of their sun. Earl said it was a mistake he wouldn’t make again next summer. He had never grown tomatoes before, so he didn’t realize how much direct sun they needed. He said it was trial and error and that making mistakes and learning from them, adjusting to the results, was usually an okay way to go.

  I thought about mistakes. I thought about glaring monumental mistakes, and I thought about smaller ones that build on each other, like beads on a string.