“Wait,” says Rachel. “It’s agaywedding?” Oh, man. Points off for the Coburgs, if I know Paul and Lorraine.
“It’s a wedding,” says Lorraine, her voice like ice. I look over at Rachel, who’s wearing an expression of mild displeasure, and catch Zoe’s eye. She’s looking back and forth between Lorraine and Rachel, her brow furrowed, same as it was earlier today, when I’d told her about us sleeping in the same cabin. I fucked up, back when I met her, saying the Dillards were “traditional.” She’d obviously gotten an idea in her mind about what that meant, and I’m guessing her version sounded more like Walt and Rachel.
“Zoe, I could bring my wedding scrapbook next weekend, if you want to seeit,” says Val.
“Oh,” she says, a single syllable of disinterest before she corrects. “Yeah, of course. I love scrapbooks. They’re so…you know. Creative! Helpful, really. I’m always looking at…things like that. Wedding ideas, that sounds great.” I press my lips together, suddenly fighting the urge to smile. I get the sense Zoe’s never looked at a scrapbook in her life.
“I think it’s pretty bold, what you two are doing,” says Hammond, something in his voice I recognize. Something I don’t like.
“What’s that?” I say, and even I can hear the edge in my response. Noncompetitive environment, my ass.
Hammond shrugs, the picture of casual nonchalance. “Looking to take on a business like this now. I’ll bet any one of us here could tell you how tough that first year of marriage is, whew! Adding a business to the mix? Don’t think Val and I could’ve done it.”
“You’resoright, baby,” Val says, and Zoe coughs. “It’s a real adjustment, even if you’ve been living together first. Do youlive together?”
“No,” Zoe says, at the same time I blurt, inexplicably, “Yes.”
“Well,basicallywe live together,” Zoe corrects. “But I have my own place.” When I look at her, her cheeks are pink. Does she know how to fakeblushing? Jesus Christ, she’s good.
“I think what matters is the foundation you’ve got,” says Tom. “A couple can get through anything with a strong foundation.”
I stand from the bench. “Lorraine, I think I’ll take Zoe back to our cabin for a while, if that’s all right.”
“Oh, sure,” Lorraine says. “But we do have a group tour scheduled…”
“She needs to rest. She faints easy,” I say.
“I donot,” she snaps. That one’s not a fake blush, I’m pretty sure. It’s a bit…splotchier. Angrier.
“Oooh, Zoe,” says Val, clasping her hands together. “Maybe I need to bring one of myotherscrapbooks for you, hmmm?” She looks meaningfully toward her kids.
Shit, even I’m not dumb enough to miss that. “She has low blood sugar,” I say. “Nothing else. She doesn’t haveanything else.”
“Anything else like a baby?” says Rachel. I like her least of all.
“I don’t have a baby. Or low blood sugar,” Zoe says. “Lorraine, your foodwas delicious.”
“Thank you, honey,” Lorraine says, but she’s watching us with a look that says she knows every single thing. It’s the same look she gave Aaron and me and our bunkmates when we thought we were being secretive about our toilet-papering plans for the lodge when wewere thirteen.
“Maybe they want some alone time?” says Sheree, raising her eyebrows. “That’s how it is before you’ve got kids todistract you!”
“We can go on the tour,” says Zoe, her voice flat. “I’ve never felt less like fainting in my life.”
“It’s a long tour,” I say.
She turns to look at me, and there’s a too-long pause for this audience, something crackling in the air between us that’s definitely not the need for alone time. But still—there it is again, inconvenient—me noticing how beautiful she is. In this light her eyes look all gold, the dark brown around the edges shined right out.
“Well,” she says, one of her eyebrows arched up. “It’s a good thing Ilike walking.”
* * * *
By seven that night, I can’tdo it anymore.
All through the camp tour, Zoe smiled, laughed, asked questions, chatted with everyone. When we’d stopped to rest by the swimming hole, she’d braided one of the Dwyer girls’ hair. Later she’d taken out her phone and shown Rachel and Walt the baby goat YouTube channel. She’d asked Tom all about his work out in Shaftesbury Park, had found out all about Sheree’s night-school master’s program, the one she finished before she became a principal. When Paul and Lorraine stopped to point out parts of the camp—the line of blackberry bushes planted alongside the camp’s storage warehouse, the small zip line that’s suspended amid a thick canopy of trees, the various clusters of bunkhouses—Zoe listened, or at least I think she did. She’s got this thing she does, when she’s listening: she sets one arm across her stomach, palm facing up, then rests her other elbow there, setting the tips of her fingers on her full lower lip. Sometimes she taps, a little, on that lip.
It is fucking irritating.
At dinner, it’d been the same, except for one notable exception: when Lorraine had turned to Zoe and asked whether I’d yet told her much about Aaron.
