By the time we get to Friday, I’m so beat, I can barely keep myeyes open long enough to marvel at the sunset, all purples and pinks and magical hues. My limbs are sore and my eyelids are heavy. But as I walk up from the waterfront, I try to remind myself there is no place I’d rather be.
My walkie comes alive at my hip and I hear Meg’s voice boom through the speaker. “Goldie, can you get the mail? I’m dealing with a barf situation. Over.”
“Copy,” I say into the mic. I head to the office, which is right in the middle of camp, near the traffic circle and the gazebo. The wooden door is shut tightly, and when I push it open, I expect to be blasted with central air conditioning. It’s one of the only buildings on campus to have it, and Pat, the receptionist who has sat behind the front desk for decades, usually keeps the place at a cool sixty-six degrees. But the room is stale and musty, with barely a breeze floating through.
“AC on the fritz?” I ask Pat. She’s older, mid-sixties maybe, with cotton candy hair that’s been dyed blonde. She always wears bright pink lipstick and high-waisted khaki shorts.
Pat looks at me like she’s about to faint. “Hasn’t been working all week,” she says, nodding to the thermostat mounted on the wall behind her. “The electrician came by this morning and said it needs to be replaced.”
I squish up my face. “When are they gonna fix it?”
Pat groans. “When an asshole parent complains!” She covers her mouth and laughs. “But you didn’t hear that from me.”
I smile at her and grab a stack of letters and envelopes from one of the bins at her feet.
“Thanks, Pat,” I say, and head outside where it’s ten degrees cooler.
---
After dinner, all the Ramblers gather in a circle in front of our cabins as Meg reads out the evening activity options from the highlighted papers attached to her clipboard. Ava’s bunk is sent to go fishing with Levin on the barge. Imogen’s cabin is off to a dance party in the studio. And Bloodroot is going on a starry night walk up to Creepy Cliff.
Jordie grabs at her sister Bianca’s hand, and I wonder if the Cantor twins are nervous, scared of the dark or the woods. I watch Ava closely, but her face shows no signs of empathy. She ruffles the hair of one of her campers and sticks out her tongue, making the girl laugh. Soon Meg rallies our bunk to stand and follow her toward the trail. I fall in line, hanging in the back with Jordie and Bianca.
“Why is it called Creepy Cliff?” Jordie asks.
“Because some older kids once thought it was fun to scare campers like you,” I say in my besteverything’s going to be finevoice. “There’s really nothing creepy about it.”
“Well, it seems scary,” she says as we get closer to the mouth of the trail.
“That’s why we have headlamps,” I say, tapping the one strapped to my forehead. “And you have flashlights.”
“Why can’t we do this during the day?” Bianca says, fiddling with a small flashlight that I’m pretty sure is covered in Swarovski crystals.
I forgot how many questions kids have. Always wanting to know why the sky is blue andis your red my red?We asked a million, too, always deploying dumb thoughts to bug our counselors,to annoy them into submission. It worked on everyone except Meg, no surprise.
“It’s the best time to see the stars. Bet you don’t get skies like this back in Palm Beach.”
The twins shrug and exchange a look. “Dad doesn’t really let us out much at night,” Bianca says.
Jordie nods. “He’s totallyparanoid,” she says, putting a snotty accent on the final word. “That’s what Mom always says.”
“ ‘Someone’s always watching!’ ” Bianca laughs, clearly pretending to be her mom.
“Your dad thinks someone is watching you?”
Jordie shrugs. “Like I said. Paranoid.”
“Why don’t we catch up with the others?” I ask, realizing we’re about twenty feet behind the rest of the cabin.
They sigh but speed up, following Meg up to the cliff. The terrain starts out flat and damp, getting colder as we duck under a canopy of trees. We’re guided only by the beams of our flashlights. But soon the branches give way and the trail becomes an incline, so it feels like we’re climbing a staircase to the sky. The moon is full and bright and the stars blink back at us. I click off my headlamp and whisper into Jordie’s ear. “Turn off your light, pass it on.” She looks at me with concerned eyes, but I nod eagerly, wanting to show them the magic of this place.
She whispers to the next girl in line, and soon all the flashlights are off and it’s only us and the moon and the stars. The girls hush, enamored by the moment, and I sigh, letting my heartbeat steady.
“Wow,” one girl whispers.
Meg keeps leading us forward, and soon the girls start talking again, their chatter dampened by the vastness, the awe. I’mcomforted by the sounds of campers, by Kelly and her well-meaning probing, asking the new girls what sports they love and if they prefer Christina’s chocolate chip or blueberry pancakes. By Fran, who everyone knows loves theater and wants to land a starring role in the camp musical even though those are reserved for older kids. I listen as they get to know each other and form inside jokes and point out how the stars look so much bigger and brighter here than they do at home in Philadelphia, in Boston, in Manhattan.
Ten minutes later, Meg stops and turns around, her face calm and smiling. “Here we are, girls. Creepy Cliff.” She extends her hands above her head and motions toward the vista, a full blanket of stars just over the edge, falling into darkness. “And now... cookie patrol!”
