Rod Wilson’s pretty face. The dumb pink Whittaker keychains. The mutual shock. My sad attempt at an Irish exit.
‘Honey, I don’t know that anything’ll get that out.’
Rebecca crosses her arms and takes her merry time analysing the stain that is testing my patience. ‘Kendra! Would you have a look at this?’ She waves an arm, multicoloured bead bracelets and bangles clinking down her wrist.
It is exactly five seconds before a gaggle of moms is taking turns peering at the crime scene. Muttered suggestions of Tide and homemade bleach solution fill the air. Rebecca squints, clucking her tongue. The only grandmother at camp, and so the de facto momma hen of the bunch, the other moms have made room for her without question. She nods, looks up at me, and says, ‘Baking soda and water, and then vinegar and water. That’ll do it.’
The moms hum in acknowledgement, exchanging various forms of affirmation and knowing smiles. Everyone defers to Rebecca’s judgment here, something I’m quickly learning as renter of her guesthouse for the summer. She’s here dropping off her grandson but, in my eyes, Rebecca is very host mom. A divorcée sporting curly grey hair and leather strapped sandals with that special loop for your big toe, she’s got a foreign tea collection and a garden she’s asked me to add my lavender to so I can keep ‘farming’ and ‘feel at home’ (she’s right, honestly, I need it). This isn’t the only bit of knowledge she’s imparted to me, the most recent being a keratin hairspray she insisted I borrow and, considering she was very right about the keratin spray, I’m willing to believe this stain remedy will work magic.
‘Thanks, guys.’ I heave a sigh, tucking a stray hair back into my ponytail. It’s already starting to give in the way it normally does, where the bottom part of my hair pooches out and the ponytail collapses. The aggressive heat hanging in the air doesn’t help. At least something hasn’t changed from Oklahoma.
‘Oh, sure!’ one mom chirps. Kendra, I think, the first person Rebecca called to the scene. She has on a baby-blue zip-up yoga jacket and matching leggings. She is so put together for eight a.m., and I’m immediately envious. ‘What’s your name, again, love?’
‘It’s Jordan.’ I muster a smile. It’s not been the smiliest of mornings, but once today’s chai’s been downed, it’ll get better. I take a sip from my Stanley. Ah, refreshing, icy goodness. Stains won’t stop me from chasing my one true love.
‘Kendra.’ She beams. ‘I take it you’re new to Whittaker?’
‘Just here to help out for the summer.’
‘Of course,’ Kendra says with a solemn nod. ‘I’m sure Roddy will appreciate the help. He’s so swamped with his own daughter and school out for the break, you know. It’s wonderful they’ve called someone else in this year, especially considering … well, I’ve heard camp is capacity.’ She shakes her head, sending her blonde waves into motion. Her voice has the air ofyou have fun with that. ‘It’s usually just Rod and Benny.’
That hits ratio, I remember from the training module. One counsellor to every ten campers. So when camp opens up to ten extra kids, another counsellor is in order. Thirty lacrosse kids, myself, Rod, and our boss. I’ll definitely have fun with that.
‘Iloveyour shirt, by the way,’ adds Kendra. ‘So cute!’
I move to thank her – I’m pretty proud of the pink tie-dye I managed to whip up on the coach shirt before moving out here – but she’s already bounding over to the other moms, all of whom are crowded up by the bleachers of the midsize soccer field we’ll be using for the summer, courtesy of the park district. They’re doing an awful lot of turning, giggling, and ‘oh, you!’ shoulder-slapping.
‘Clear it out, guys!’ Benny’s voice comes from over the fray, exasperated, and I catch sight of his six-foot-tall frame shooing moms from the field and into the check-in line. ‘Let him breathe, please! Let’s get your kids checked in!’
Yikes. That’s my cue to head down to check our campers in. Stanley in hand, I adjust my pink-framed sunglasses and pick my way through the mom crowd to the check-in table, where I see the source of the drama for myself.
My new co-coach is setting up goal nets for the kids, crouched down at the end of the field, where he’s got his camp T-shirt sleeves all rolled up, a baseball cap perched backward on his tousled near-black hair. I find it kind of cheeky irony that this is a professional lacrosse player propping up nets for ten-year-olds, but that’s beside the point. I cannot even blame the moms. This is worth the shoulder-slapping. Man Crush Monday, here we come.
‘Oh, good. You’re just in time, Jordan.’ Benny’s entire body basically relaxes with relief. ‘First day’s the worst. We need to make sure we have the kid on the roster, double-check the health information the parents gave us, allergies, medications, everything, and then deal out a camp T-shirt. Sound like a plan?’
I nod, setting my tumbler down on the table. ‘Perfect. Pop a squat right here?’
‘Yep. Computer’s logged into. You start loading up the health portal, I have the roster on paper.’
Benny is 100 per cent not the sort of person I would expect to be the boss of a summer camp fixture. He’s not much older than we are, with a degree in athletic training from UVA and a black-brown semi-mullet of ex-hockey player hair. When we first met up yesterday, he explained the lacrosse–hockey pipeline to me, and the path from his grade school ice-hockey years to college lacrosse. I suppose there isn’t much for a high school athletic trainer to do over summers, anyway, so summer camp makes enough sense. Yet even after our formal lunch meeting, I’m still working on registering that he’s my boss.
‘Rod’s a popular figure ’round here,’ I remark.
‘He keeps them coming.’ Benny smiles primly at the first parent in line. ‘Name, please?’
As he types and I scroll, I ask, ‘Was that part of the motivation for y’all starting the summer camp?’
‘Sort of. He does well to serve as a big name, obviously, but it’s certainly more than that.’ Benny waves a kid in and beckons the next parent. ‘It was his idea, you know. I just run the operation ’cause I have the time.’
His idea. Interesting.
As we wrap up the last of the check-ins, Benny has me head towards the field and start wrangling the kids. I think the last time I did this was in high school, for a student athlete mentorship programme or something equally exhausting that we volunteered to help with at the elementary school. The third-graders would run laps around us while we resisted the urge to tear our hair out. Call it nostalgia, but something similar fills my chest as I take in the kids scattered about the field in their various groups and cliques. Also, fear. Kids are terrifying, and sometimes very, very mean.
‘They’re not as mean as they look,’ a smooth baritone reads my mind.
I turn so quickly I almost knock my glasses right off my own face, and I push them back up with my right index finger, trying to regain my bearings. This time, there’s nowhere – and no reason – to run. Rod crosses his arms, calculation and the barest trace of surprise flashing across his deep brown eyes as he takes me in, from my ponytail to my neon Brooks. ‘So this is why you’re in Whittaker?’
‘You weren’t made aware?’ I manage with a gulp. Meet hiseyes, damn it. I attempt to gaslight myself into believing I did not, in fact, run from this man unprompted at a gas station.
