“This is goingrealwell so far, am I right?” she says.
“It’ll get easier,” I say, telling her what I’ve spent the last hour telling myself, walking through the woods, burning off all the frantic, angry energy that had been building up all morning, almost bursting forth after a few minutes in that cabin. Damn if I didn’t see my brother everywhere in there, the way I’d wake up in the morning to half his arm, hanging down from the top bunk. The way the bones of his spine would show through his green camp t-shirt; he was always too thin. This little cough he’d get when he’d lie in bed at night, a bad ragweed allergy I never got. His insistence on flushing both toilets every time I took a shower, how he’d shake his skinny arms over his head in victory while I shouted my frustration. The time I got food poisoning from eating a bad hot dog and he sat up with me all night, helping me change my clothes twice, as gentle and quiet ashe always was.
It’s fuckinghard. It’s harder than I imagined.
“I’m going to guess that was aboutyour brother.”
Oh, she has a lot of fucking nerve, reading my mind like that. “We don’t talk about my brother,” I say, forcefully. “You need to understand that. You and me, we don’tevertalk about my brother.”
She stands, uses her hands to brush at the backside of her jeans. “If that’s how you want it.”
“That’show I want it.”
She shrugs, then heads back down the path, like she’s not bothered at all, and this is so annoying to me that I have to grind my teeth together. It’s been this way since she got in my car this morning, her strange blend of sarcasm and sweet that sets me right on edge. She’s got this way about her, this woman. She comes to apologize and I’m the one feeling sorry. She crosses a line and I’m the one who comes off looking like a hothead. I give her a ring and she looks like I’ve slapped her.
“Probably I am going to need help making that bed,” she says, still walking ahead of me. “I think I pulled a muscle attempting thefitted sheet.”
“Fine.”
She stops on the trail. I stop too, right behind her. A strand of her hair blows back toward me, and I breathe through my mouth.
“Listen,” she says, not turning to look at me. “I get it that you hate me—”
“I don’t,” I say, but she holds up a hand before I get it all the way out.
“But I’m nervous too. I’m doing the best I can with zero information, and I just saw a bug in that cabin big enough to lift free weights, and I’m pretty sure this lunch is going to have things that make me uncomfortable, like out-loud prayers or singing or food served from a Crock-Pot, and you are really terrible at small talk so I’m assuming I’ll be doing the heavy lifting down there. So it would be great if you could—you know. Cut me somefuckingslack.”
Then she’s off again, head held high, and it’s a beat before I can get my feet moving again after her.
When we come to trailhead that leads us out to the lodge, I have to pause again, take a deep breath. What I know about the next six weeks is more than what Zoe knows, but it’s limited too. I know there’s three other potential buyers. I know we’re each going to give a presentation at some point over the next six weekends, but I don’t know when. Mostly I don’t know how I’m going to handle being here, doing things I’ve done dozens of times before but without my brother by my side. I turn to look at Zoe, who’s stopped to wait beside me, her eyes downcast toward her boots. They look new, stiff, the kind you’ve got to break in. I’ll bet her feetare feeling it.
“It won’t be food out of a Crock-Pot,” I say. “Camp’s always had better food than you’d expect. Lorraine’s a good cook, and I’m guessing she’ll have done the meal for a group assmall as ours.”
“Okay.”
“Can’t say for sure about the praying or the singing. And I’ll kill that bug later, if it’s still there.”
“Thanks.” It’s almost funny how we both inhale at the same time—the same steeling, deep breath to getready for this.
But neither of us laugh.
When we step onto the lodge’s porch a few minutes later, I can hear the clamor inside, the excited voices of reunion. Beside me, Zoe smooths her hair, straightens her shoulders, and when I open the door for her, she—I don’t know. Shearrangesher face, I guess, a slight cock of her head and a wide smile, her eyes bright and searching, as if she’s genuinely excited to meet a roomful of people she’ll be lying to for thenext six weeks.
In-fucking-credible,I think, simultaneously disgustedand impressed.
The main floor of the lodge looks exactly the same—a large, wide-open space with long tables and benches set around the thick, dark-stained wooden posts that we all used to dream of climbing to reach the high, timbered ceilings. All the walls are painted cream, except for the one facing east, which is made up of floor-to-ceiling windows, giving a full view of the lodge’s heavily treed backyard. During predawn breakfasts, you’d see the best, most kaleidoscopic sunrises of your life through those trees. Upstairs, in Lorraine and Paul’s apartment, it’s the same wall of windows, like living in a treehouse. I’d like a few minutes to take it in, to adjust to the wave of nostalgia and pain that had hit me in the cabin too, but there’s nowhere for me to run here. It’s only seconds before we’re enveloped into the group, a flurry ofintroductions.
I know two of the three families here, or at least I know one member of each, former campers who had been here around the same time as me. There’s Hammond Dwyer, who’s now married to a former Redskins cheerleader named Val; they have three little girls who look like they walked out of a Gap ad. Hammond’s all right, I guess, but he did hang Aaron’s stuffed monkey from his bunk one time, so I don’t have 100 percent positive feelings. Sheree Talbot—Sheree Hamilton now that she’s married—was a camper three years behind me and Aaron; she’s a school principal and her husband Tom is a minister who works with low-income kids in the city, and their little boy is wearing a bow tie. Then there’s the new-to-me competitors, Walt and Rachel Coburg; they own a farm nearby and have left their five kids home with grandparents, and the only thing I can think is whether all the kids have the same carrot-colored hairas the parents.
It’s a lot, meeting and re-meeting all these people, the kids running around, me trying to stay close to Zoe so I can keep one ear on whatever she says, making sure we don’t have any mishaps with our stories. But it’s too chaotic for much real conversation, or maybe it’s that Zoe seems to know how to direct the chaos where she wants it to go—Oh, I love your top,she says to Val.What part of the city do you do most of your work in?she asks Tom.I’m obsessed with baby goats; there’s a whole YouTube channel!she exclaims to Rachel, when conversation turns to animals on the Coburg farm. By the time we sit down for the meal Lorraine and Paul and a few camp staffers are bringing in, I realize with a start that I’ve barely said anything at all. I’m dead weight, a dark contrast to this light, open friendliness she’s put on, unlike anything I saw from her onthat first day.
I clear my throat, shift slightly on the bench—but I don’t get any more comfortable because I’ve brushed my leg against Zoe’s and she jerks, instinctively, away from me.
I think Lorraine notices.
“Let’s join hands and give thanks for our meal,” Paul says, and Zoe’s eyes slide toward mine, a trace of a smile there.Out-loud prayers. It’s barely a second, but it’s a second where we’ve got something between the two of us, a shared secret no one in this room knows. Of course, Lorraine doesn’t noticethat—she’s got her head bowed and has joined hands with Paul on one side, Sheree on the other. When Zoe’s hand fits into mine, her skin cool and soft, I don’t even notice who’s on my other side. I don’t noticewhat Paul says.
I only try to make this look natural.
