Either way, Zoe and I look like we’re on the most awkward first date ever, a slice of space always between us, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, my hands clasped loosely between my knees. When Paul looks over his shoulder at us and waves, Zoe waves back, and I do something completely insane.
I put myarm around her.
All right, it’s not aroundher, it’s basically my arm across the back of her chair, but a line of my forearm is grazing her back, and Zoe—because Zoe is fuckinggame—scoots her chair closer to mine, and sets a hand on my knee.
I feel that hand like it’s a thousand pounds, a new weight I’m going to carry while I’m here: the addition of physical affection with her. When Val claps her hands together and Hammond moves off to the side, the presentation beginning, I can barely think for the first minute, so attuned am I to the heat of her palm, the way her index finger taps a little as she listens, as if my leg is the natural replacement for her bottom lip. She wears her ring—myring, the one I bought for her the day before I picked her up the first time—on the same hand that’s touching me.
Up at the front, Val flashes a picture on the screen, a group shot from the early days of the camp, most of the campers in short white shorts, tube socks pulled up, green t-shirts. Before I’ve got the chance to process much, she flashes another, from the next year, and the next, again and again until she reaches a group shot that looks recent, Paul and Lorraine a little grayer, the campers all wearing green t-shirts again, but the more relaxed uniform requirements in clear evidence. I’m in some of those pictures, I’m sure I am, and so is Aaron, but mercifully Val’s cycled through them so quickly I don’t have much time to look for our faces, and when she finally pulls up a slide with the first and last photos side by side, I’m glad that they either predateor postdate me.
“If we take a look at these photos,” Val says, “we can see how much Stanton Valley Campground has changed over time, and I’m not just talking about the tube socks. When I look at the history of this campground, I notice something different.”
“More girls,” Zoe whispers, and I look over at her, then back up the screen—and, yeah, in the first picture, there’s maybe a dozen girls, all in the front row. In the second, it’s closer to evenbut not quite.
“Historically, sleepaway camps catered primarily to boys and young men, stemming from the nineteenth-century focus on male self-reliance. Sleepaway camps were an opportunity to foster independence, strong bonds between men, a separation from the domestic influence…”
Zoe taps my kneecap harder, looks up at me, and raises her eyebrows.Told you so,she’s telling me silently, and fuck, she is right as all hell, because this presentation is really, really good.
Val starts with statistics about how many girls across the country attend sleepaway camps, about how coed camps consistently see lower enrollments from girls, while single-sex camps for girls thrive. Then she’s got quotes from psychologists on why single-sex campground environments can be more empowering for girls and young women, particularly camps that allow them to explore fields that are historically targeted at young men in schools—science, math, physical activity. She’s got examples of single-sex campgrounds all across the country, graphs that show their profitability and their success rates in aiding the mental and physical health of campers. She’s got a design plan that looks professionally done, a link to a website that she tells us has gone live today so we can learn more, and maybe the most effective thing of all: Hammond doesn’t say one goddamn word.
“Hammond and I are raising three girls,” she says, and here I recognize the way her voice changes—a higher pitch, maybe a slight drawl added in, closer to that voice she used when sheaww-ed at me and Zoe last weekend. She’s got one hand over her heart, and uses the other one to gesture to Hammond, a small wave of her hand that he answers by moving to the back of the room. “And my”—she begins again, clearing her throat—“ourgoal is to make sure they can be whatever they want.”
“A ballerina!” comes a small voice from the back, and all of us turn in our seats to see the oldest in a black leotard, pink tights, her blond hairin a tight bun.
“A pilot!” comes another, and there’s the youngest, dressed in what looks like a miniature Amelia Earhart costume.
“The president!” says the last, wearing a business suit and a flag pin, and it seems like everyone is clapping and chuckling, Val’s final words on how a campground like hers could make this possible getting lostin the shuffle.
On my leg, Zoe’s hand is squeezing. “Damn,” she breathes, and finally I answer oneof her asides.
“Yeah.” That presentation was so good that for a secondIeven think the all-girls campground would be the best idea, and if Lorraine’s face is any indication, she does too; she’s rushed over to hug the Dwyer girls and is praising their performances. I don’t miss the self-satisfied look on Hammond’s face, like he wants a fucking cookie for marrying so far out of his league. Maybe Zoe can give him one of thosesoy sauce ones.
Up at the front, Val is waving off praise from Paul, shutting the cover of her laptop, and looking pleased. Right now I’d like to get a look at that wedding scrapbook, see if I could get some of her magic by osmosis.
“We need to get up,” Zoe says, still sounding as stunned as I feel, and she’s the one who wasn’t dumb enough to underestimate Val. When she takes her hand from my knee and stands, I feel the loss of contact everywhere—my shoulders, my stomach, my legs. It’s strange, this feeling. All weekend I’ve known there was some new closeness between Zoe and me, some sense that we’d really shown up to do this thing together. But that small, innocent point of contact—my arm around her chair, her hand on my knee—while we watched this thing unfold? Somehow, it’s the first time I’ve really felt we’re onthe same team.
It’s a jumble of polite congratulations and questions in the room, most everyone circling around Val and the girls, who at first cling to their mother in thrilled pride and, I’m guessing, a good deal of giddiness at being up late. Zoe handles the praise for us both, and is kneeling down to compliment the ballerina on her twirling style when the youngest of the Dwyer girls moves away from her mom andlooks up at me.
“Hello,” she says, reaching out a hand for me to shake in a gesture so mature that I imagine she’s practiced it with her parents. I take her small hand and shake it once. “Did you like our presentation?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, keeping my voice serious to match her grave expression. It’s not too hard since I still feel punched in the face by Val’s star turn up there. “I likeyour costume.”
“It’s not a costume. It’s myuniform.” Her little-kid voice is so proudly assertive.
Beside me, Zoe rises from her crouch, laughing softly.
“Right, that’s what I meant to say,” I add. “Ilike your uni—”
“Miss Lorraine said you got a sister like mine,” she says,cutting me off.
I smile down at her in confusion. “Oh, no. I don’thave a sister.”
She shakes her head, strokes her small hand over the white scarf she’s wearing. “Miss Lorraine said you were in your mom’s tummy with your brother, like meand my sister.”
Nothing’s changed in here; everyone’s still talking. There’s still the sounds of chairs being dragged back into place, of the other kids running downstairs now that the evening’s over. But it feels like a full minute where I hear nothing at all, where I’m just looking down at this little girl’s face. I’d thought she was the youngest of the three, but that’s not right. She’s a twin, like me and Aaron were twins, not identical. Like her, Aaron was always smaller; my dad used to joke that I took up all the real estate so he couldn’t get any bigger, a joke that used to make me laugh but later made me sick with guilt. I was taller, broader, sturdier, healthier.
Ilived; he died.
I watch the little girl’s eyes track to her twin. “That’s Olivia,” she says to me. “She’s going to bethe president.”
