Roger had just walked in from the radio station. “On Duty. I have it tonight too. Basically, you stay up until the counselors have signed in from their night off.”
“You mean I get to work my ass off all day in the hot sun, taking care of forty-eight eight-year-olds, and then stay up past midnight to make sure a bunch of drunk twenty-somethings sign in after a night off?”
“Well put,” Roger said.
“I guess it won’t be awful if we do it together.”
“That would be great, but I’ll be across campus on the boys’ side.”
“The two of us stuck in the same hole, yet alone. Here’s a thought—doesn’t anyone worry about us walking around like zombies from lack of sleep?” I asked.
“But aren’t you guys up late drinking with the Bergers’ minions every night?” Maggie asked.
Maggie had declined Mindy’s invitation. She told us, “Idon’t want to hang out with the ladies. After all, I brought my husband here with me.”
“But I’m in bed by eleven,” I said. “I need at least seven hours of sleep in order to function. Having a cocktail before bedtime helps me unwind and fall asleep, just like having coffee with you in the morning helps me start my day. Tonight, I won’t be under my covers until almost 1:00 a.m., and that gives me only five hours, and that’s if I fall asleep right away.”
I tucked in the last of the Cub bunks and looked at my watch. It was 9:00 p.m.—cocktail time. I could almost feel the bubbles from the tonic tickling my nose and my lips puckering from the lime. I swear I was salivating, just thinking of the gin & tonic I wouldn’t be having. Camp had turned me into a lush.
I climbed the creaky wooden stairs to my OD post, a musty two-room shack. Each room was lit with a single bulb hanging by a thin wire, and ominous shadows appeared on the walls. A small wooden table in the middle of the main room had been carved with initials; a heart with STEVE& AMY’84 caught my eye. I wondered if their love had prevailed.
I decided to do something that reminded me of my summers in the bungalow colony, when my girlfriends and I would trade stationery and then write letters together. I pulled out the flashlight I’d bought from the camp website and placed it in the middle of the table—instant lamp. Then I unwrapped the fanciful paper and a pack of colored gel pens. I was going to write letters to Zelda and Hazel. All the other campers got letters from their mothers, and I wanted my kids to get one too. I hoped they were getting mail from their dad.
The notecards had dragonflies across the top and bottom, but the best part was that the envelopes had one flying acrossthe front. I had a thing for dragonflies. I started my letter to Zelda with a bright blue gel pen, her favorite color.
Later, I walked the perimeter of Girls Camp, beaming the flashlight in front of me. There was a porch light outside the OD shack and a spotlight emanating from the roof of the middle cabin; otherwise, it was completely dark and silent. I stopped to look up at the glittering stars.
Inhaling the sweet smell of the summer night, I shivered. There was a clean, fresh chill in the air. I went back inside, put on my hoodie, and started Hazel’s letter with a purple pen.
As I addressed the envelopes, I heard laughing. It was midnight. Yawning, I peeked out the window to see a stream of raucous drunken women leaning into each other, staggering toward me. On the porch, I said in a stage whisper, “Keep the noise down, the campers are sleeping.”
“Oh good, Lori’s on tonight,” a tipsy counselor said as she hurried past me and lunged for the bathroom door. “Some of you can be real bitches.”
Who were the bitches, and what bitchy things did they do?
A line formed to sign the clipboard acknowledging their return. The stench of sweat, weed, and alcohol was pervasive. I took a step toward the open screened window.
“I hope everyone had a good time,” I said.
“It sucks for you that you have to wait up for us,” Genie said.
“It does. I’m missing out on sleep without any of the fun.”
By the time I noticed that two signatures were missing, the counselors were gone. It was 12:15 a.m., they were due back by midnight, and I just wanted to go to bed. But I waited another fifteen minutes in case they showed up. I hated to get anyone in trouble. I appreciated how hard the counselors worked—they needed to let off a little steam. While waiting, I wondered who the bitch was. It couldn’t be Abby or Maggie; they hadn’t sat OD yet.
It dawned on me that no one had mentioned what the protocol was if a counselor didn’t sign in. Should I notify Bethany, the Bergers, or call the police? At 12:30 a.m., I packed up my stuff, turned off the light, walked to the office, and slid the roster through the mail slot. I decided the prudent thing to do was knock on the Bergers’ door to let them know that two counselors hadn’t signed in. If something happened to the women, the faster it was reported, the better the chances of finding them.
I heard a car behind me. I turned to see it pull up in front of the office, and the two missing counselors got out. Seeing me, they ran over.
“Lori, can we sign in?”
“Sorry, I waited until 12:30 for you. I don’t have the sign-in sheet anymore. But you saved me from waking up the Bergers to let them know you weren’t accounted for.”
“Wake up the Bergers? What in the hell for?”
“I didn’t know where you were, if you were in danger . . .”
“I can’t believe you were going to get us in trouble for being a few minutes late. You’re such a bitch.”
