Before she lost her attention for good, Alice decided to share her news. ‘I’m staying for the summer. Not here,’ she said quickly, before her mom could think she was imposing, ‘but at camp. I’m co-directing with Briar. The first session starts in two weeks, so I can stay here, or I can get a hotel…’
Her mom didn’t look up. ‘You can stay here. I’ll be busy with work, but you can take care of yourself, can’t you?’
‘I can,’ Alice said.
While she should have been proud of her independence, instead she felt a pang of longing for Susan, who would have happily welcomed her into the Elwood home and taken care of her. But Alice would never see Susan, would never be welcomed into her house, again.
It was only when she stepped out of Freddie’s car and into the swampy air of early summer that Alice fully understood why she had offered to co-direct. She felt the pull that this land had on her so intensely, so suddenly, that it forced her to recognize that it had always been there, buried under years of bitterness. The familiar scent, a unique mixture of moss, smoke and the hydrangeas Susan had taken such care to cultivate, was overwhelming, and Alice stood there for a long moment.
She knew now that she couldn’t have come back to the US without coming here, a place that somehow still felt like home to her, even if it was a fanciful thought.
Then, Briar emerged from the trees. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, looking at Alice once more as if she were a ghost.
Freddie closed the trunk. ‘Do you want me to park somewhere else, or…?’ Then he seemed to notice who Briar was addressing. ‘Er…’ he started, glancing at Alice awkwardly.
‘You hired me,’ Alice said, forcing herself to look Briar in the eye. ‘So I’m here.’
Briar stared defiantly back at her and Alice was reminded that Briar had won every staring contest the two of them had ever had. She looked away, and Briar pounced at the show of weakness.
‘Obviously, I wasn’t being serious,’ Briar scoffed. ‘I had a moment of insanity, but it’s over now. You can leave.’
If Alice had thought about what arriving at camp was going to be like, she supposed she could have seen this coming, saved herself the trouble, and flown back to London. But, as with most things having to do with Briar, she had stubbornly refused to think about it.
‘I’m just trying to help,’ she said finally.
‘Come on, Briar,’ Freddie said, slinging his duffel over one shoulder. ‘It’s what Susan would’ve wanted.’ Something flashed across Briar’s face at his words, but without waiting for her response, he started through the trees on a path leading towards the cabins.
Briar opened her mouth and then closed it, narrowing her eyes at Alice. ‘You can just pack up and leave for the whole summer with no warning? What about yourDPhil?’ She pronounced the word as though it was a curse. ‘And don’t you have a girlfriend?’
‘I talked everything through with my advisor, there shouldn’t be any problems.’ She tucked her hair behind her ears, looking up at Briar pleadingly. She ignored the girlfriend question. Briar didn’t have to know that Alice hadn’t dated anyone in years. ‘It’s all sorted.’
Briar huffed, seeming unconvinced, but turning down the same path as Freddie. Alice followed, not expecting Briar to say anything else. But, after a moment, she continued in a jarringly upbeat tone, ‘We’re in pretty good shape already, there’s not much to do. Really, it’s thoughtful of you to volunteer, but we’re doing just fine.’
‘Uh huh,’ Alice said as they emerged in the clearing at the center of camp, where the mess hall and the director’s cabin sat on either side of a flagpole. A feeling of déjà vu struck her, as though she’d had this conversation with Briar in this exact place before. She’d only been here for a few minutes and her mind was already playing tricks on her, trying to marry the Briar in front of her with the years of memories this place held for the two of them and coming up short of any logic. Alice was always disconcerted when logic failed her.
Briar stopped in front of the director’s cabin, gesturing to the door. ‘Well, if you’re set on staying, make yourself comfortable.’
Alice squinted at the door, confused. ‘You’re not staying in the director’s cabin?’
Briar smiled blithely. ‘No, I am. But we’ll have to share.’
Alice stared at her, feeling as if she’d walked right into a trap. By the look on Briar’s face, she was enjoying this.
‘Look, I should have apologized at the funeral, but it didn’t seem like the right time. I’m sorry, and I get that you’re mad—’ Alice started.
‘I’m not mad,’ Briar said, cocking her head in an infuriating way. ‘What would I have to be mad about? We had a fight a billion years ago and, honestly, I don’t even remember what it was about. It’s irrelevant now.’ She paused, looking Alice up and down. ‘There’s just the one cabin, so you can stay or you can go. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m gonna go check on Sierra, so I’ll see you later. Or not.’ She turned on her heel and headed in the direction of the lake, leaving Alice alone.
If Briar thought she could drive Alice away with some passive aggressive comments, she was wrong. Alice knew that what she’d done had earned her a million more passive aggressive comments, or worse, but it wouldn’t be enough to get her to give up on helping Briar. And now that she was here, breathing in the same humid air, remembering waking up to the sounds of birdsong, sleeping to the sounds of a cricket chorus, and everything in between, she didn’t want to leave. These woods had always had an addictive quality – that was why she’d come back every summer. Before Alice had left for good, camp and Briar had been the two most constant things in her life.
Alice opened the door to the cabin, half expecting a booby trap of some kind, but it was only the dusty hallway from her memory. At the end of the hall was the camp’s sole landline, where campers and counselors could call home. The door to the right led to the director’s office, where Alice had spent hours mediating conflicts between campers or catching up with Susan over tea. The door to the left led to the director’s bedroom, which Alice had never been in.
Opening the door, she found a cozy room with, mercifully, two beds. Alice put her bag next to the smaller one, an action which seemed to unlock a latent exhaustion in her. She collapsed on the bed, thinking she’d just rest her eyes for a moment. She hadn’t slept well in her childhood home, maybe because it was where her insomnia had developed in the first place. But here at camp, after a car ride with the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows, her eyelids were heavy.
‘Hey, wake up.’ A voice cut through what was shaping up to be a beautiful dream about the forest floor.
‘Wha…’ she groaned, blinking and finding Briar looming over her. ‘Where am I?’
‘In my bed,’ Briar said drily.
