When I opened my eyes, I saw Cal standing in front of me, his arm slinked around a girl I didn’t recognize. He had a big smirk on his face and smelled like weed and whiskey. His pants hung low on his hips, too low, and he looked skinny, like he hadn’t eaten dinner—or lunch. I pushed aside my instinct to worry about him. He hadn’t wanted me to for years.
“Hi,” I said.
He nodded to the girl he was with and she looked me up and down before heading inside Truly’s.
“Does Goldie Easton like to party now?” he asked, slurring the words. I watched him sway back and forth, pitying him in a way I hadn’t since his mother died. He was like a stranger.
Before I could answer, Imogen and Ava busted through the door, their hands clasped together, laughing like crazy. “Imo stole a glass,” Ava said, holding it up high above her head. “Souvenir!”
Cal clocked them and a look of recognition came across his face.
“No way. You must be Ava and Imogen.”
Ava stopped laughing then and looked at Cal with a concerned, curious expression. I could sense her taking in his faded, baggy jeans and the too-small winter coat. I could tell she was making up her mind about him, filing him away as no one important. No one to care about. “Our reputation must precede us, Imo.”
Imogen laughed and fumbled for the Truly’s glass, but Cal’s face stayed stoic.
“Great to finally meet the people who made Goldie think she was too good for Roxwood.”
We all got quiet then, and I wanted to melt into my shoes, to disappear completely and pretend like we never left my bedroom floor.
“Interesting you say that,” Ava said, a smirk forming on her full lips. She stepped toward him so they stood eye to eye. She didn’t flinch. “Because one day, Camp Alpine Lake is going to buy the rest of this shithole town and run the pieces of trash like you straight out of it.” Ava grabbed hold of my hand and started walking. “Come on, Goldie.”
Cal stood there in disbelief, bewilderment in his eyes.
I wonder if he expected me to stand up for him, to tell Ava she had no idea what the people in Roxwood were actually like. But I didn’t. Because in so many ways, I believed her.
CHAPTER 43
Now
“Did you hear how they’re going to break color war this year?” Tommy asks.
Most of the counselors are moving slowly thanks to last night’s adventures at Truly’s. After I came back in from the alley, from Cal, someone handed me a tequila shot. I tossed it back and winced before the booze started to numb everything.
It was James’s birthday and he kept buying more and more drinks, sending them around the bar until it was time for us to head back to camp. The whole night ended with him pissing himself on the bus. Poor Craig had to clean him up and shove a breath mint into his mouth when we pulled into the traffic circle so his group leader wouldn’t notice. But we all knew he’d never get in trouble.
Stu and Mellie ignore these kinds of things, especially when former campers like James are involved. Kids whose parents spent a hundred grand sending their kids here year after year, kids who are desperate to sendtheirkids here in a few decades. Those are the cash cows. The lifeblood. You don’t fuck with lifeblood.
Now Tommy’s standing in front of me in line for the fruit bar. He stabs a strawberry with his fork and takes a bite out of it.
“Where’d you hear about color war break?” I ask, grabbing a banana. Stu and Mellie always try to keep the start of color war ahuge secret, but it inevitably slips out once someone like Tommy starts blabbing about it.
“Overheard a bunch of the group leaders talking about it by the coffee machine,” he says, nodding over to the hot bevvy area. “I hear they’re going to do it after booth carnival instead of movie night.”
“They did that when we were Ramblers,” I say, more for my own memory than his.
Tommy smiles. “Fuck, that was fun.” Then he leans in so close I can smell the booze from last night on his breath. “Sometimes, I swear I wish I were still a camper. Shit was so much easier, you know?”
I look at him with his thick red hair and a smattering of pimples spread out along his nose. What kind of hardships has Tommy Eisenstat faced, really? He was a varsity lacrosse player in an affluent New York City suburb and is headed to Tulane in the fall, where he’ll undoubtedly double major in premed and beer pong. If he manages to graduate without tanking his GPA or getting involved in some hazing bullshit, he’ll go off to med school and land a sweet residency alongside his father in Mount Sinai’s cardiology program. He’ll work for a few years in the city so he can meet a wife, and then decamp for private practice in New Jersey, where he’ll live five minutes from where he grew up, have babies, and send them to Camp Alpine Lake as soon as they turn eight. He’ll tell his pretty little wife, “That’s where I used to fuck that movie star Imogen Wexler.”
But I don’t say any of this to him. Instead, I peel my banana and look toward my kids.
“Gotta go.”
On my way, I grab a slice of toast but before I can slather it in butter, Meg tugs on my elbow and pulls me off to the side.
“You can’t have toast without...” I start to whine, but when I catch a look at her face, I shut my mouth fast. Her eyes are darting around the room and her pale neck is covered in red, like she’s super nervous, like something’s wrong.
