“Twice a day. Morning and afternoon.”
Cal was quiet, thinking it over. “How come we can’t use it?”
“I dunno. You gotta be a camper, I guess.” It hadn’t really occurred to me that I had access to something no one else in Roxwood really did.
“What are you doing this summer, anyway?” I asked.
“Connie usually figures something out by the time school ends.” We didn’t talk about his mom much, but it freaked me out that he called her by her first name, even at nine. He never said why. But he didn’t tell me much about her at all.
“Maybe you can come to Alpine Lake,” I said. “I can introduce you to Ava and Imogen and all my friends. You’d love it.”
Cal perked up. “Really?”
“Ask your dad,” I said.
I didn’t think anything of the conversation that night, not after we jumped off the swing set and raced home. Not the whole next morning either. But when I saw Cal at recess the next day, he was sullen and quiet.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I can’t believe you told me to ask my dad if I could go to camp.” Cal toed the dirt, blinking fast.
“What do you mean?”
Cal stood up and turned his back. “It’s for rich kids,” he said. “Spoiled out-of-town brats who like to play country and leave their garbage on the trails. That’s what my dad said.”
“That’s not true!” I yelled, curling my fists by my side. It couldn’t be. That’s not who my friends were.
“If it’s so great, why do you think no one else from Roxwood goes there?” Cal asked. “Why areyouthe only one?”
I didn’t have a response. All I knew was that I loved camp. I loved my friends.
“It’s because you go for free,” Cal said. “And no one else wants to spend time around people who make us feel like Roxwood trash.”
That’s when I lost it, pushing Cal into the dirt. He brushed himself off and lunged at me, but by that time a teacher stepped in the middle of us and sent us both to the principal’s office.
We never spoke of it again, not after Cal gave me a peace offering—half of his turkey sandwich. But I never forgot the words he’d recited from his dad,Roxwood trash.
CHAPTER 27
Now
The sun bounces off the lake and I sway back and forth in my lifeguard seat on the dock. The air is breezy and I glance up. Clouds sail by, the sky a swath of blues and grays. I shiver and curse the fact that I didn’t swim out here with a sweatshirt, like some of the other lifeguards did, fluttering their feet like kids with a kickboard as they held hoodies in the air so they wouldn’t get wet.
I scan the waterfront and watch Levin in the head guard chair, his dark hair nearly blending into the lap lanes. Imogen’s standing knee-deep in the shallow end wearing an oversize crew neck, focused intently on some of the younger kids scrambling on the rocks. Behind me, a boat whizzes by, dragging an inflatable tube, and I hear Ava’s deep, gravelly laugh echoing across the lake. I straighten my shoulders and avoid the nagging feeling that I’m left behind, left out. How can that be true when I’m right here? I’m right in the middle ofeverything.
But I know I’m not. Because Ava and I have barely spoken since the kids arrived. It’s easy to get swept up in thecampof it all. To not see someone for a day or two if your schedules aren’t aligned, or if they’re on homesick duty, taking care of weepy campers during rest hour. People forget being a counselor is a 24/7 job. It doesn’t bend to your needs, or stop when you get tired. The only time wehave “off” is sacred and bookmarked. It’s all we look forward to—those two nights and one day a week where our time is ours again and we’re free to collide and combust and explode in all different directions because we’re finally given what we came here to find: freedom.
In a few hours, we’ll have our first night off since the kids got here. It’s all anyone could talk about at lunch, plans whispered in the dining room, shared on the soccer field or by Mom’s woodworking shed. It’s a thrill, the construction of it all. But those free periods, those exquisite hours of euphoria... that’s also the time where you have to give yourself over to real life and remember that things outside this bubble exist. Things likeHeller McConnell is dead. AndCal was here—with Heller’s ID badge.
Maybe that’s why I’m dreading a night off.
Levin blows his whistle three times, long and loud, a signal for everyone to get out of the lake, that the period is over. It’s also our final swim session of the day, so I jump off the chair and shoo the kids away, back toward the beach. It only takes a few minutes before everyone is loaded onto yellow school buses, ready to be whisked back up to upper camp, a treat only the older kids get to enjoy. Smaller kids walk to build strength, Stu likes to say.
I climb on last and don’t bother to take a seat for the quick ride. But as we go over the first speed bump, someone grabs my hand. I turn to see Ava in the seat behind me, her hair wet, hugging her skull. She pulls me down to sit on her lap. Imo’s next to her and they both have devilish grins on their faces.
There’s no hint that there’s anything off between us, and something settles deep inside my core.
“Do we dare?” Imo asks.
