“Chug on three?” Ava asks.
We all nod and I can hear Meg laughing at us in the counselor room.
“One,” I say.
“Two,” Ava calls.
“Three!” Imogen finishes. Together we throw our drinks back and set the water bottles down on the floor, erupting into a fit of laughter. When I can finally breathe again, I look at Ava and Imogen, the three of us huddled together in this empty cabin, our favorite cabin, wearing mascara and going-out tops, thick platform sandals strapped to our feet. This is what I always dreamed of. The three of us together, getting ready for a night off as counselors. I wish my insides weren’t cramping from dread, that I could get excited about spending a few hours in Roxwood. But I can’t. Not when I know most of the town hates me.
“Come on,” Ava says. “Let’s go.”
We scramble to our feet and hold hands as we rush to the buses, waiting to deposit all the Alpine Lake counselors into Roxwood. Ava finds us a seat in the back near Dale and Tommy, who make whooping noises as we strut down the aisle.
Imogen sticks her tongue out at Tommy and grabs his baseball hat as she passes. She wears it backward as we cram into one seat. “Fight me for it, asshole.”
“I’m gonna hit that later,” Tommy says to whoever’s listening.
“You wish!” Imogen calls.
Ava pushes her knees up against the seat in front of her and laughs in her deep, hearty voice. Then she looks up, her eyes alert. “Truly’s?” she asks.
My stomach drops, but Imogen claps her hands in front of her face and bounces in the seat. “Yes yes yes yes yes!”
Tuesday nights off are for Truly’s, the dive bar in town. And Thursdays are for West Lake, the questionable sushi place that serves sake bombs and doesn’t card. The routine is tradition, which means it’s sacred. But all I want to do is run.
Ava must see the reluctance on my face. “Oh, come on, Goldie. Don’t pull thatRoxwood suckscrap on us tonight.”
“I know,” I say. I roll the words around in my mouth, wondering how many ways I can sayI’m scared. “I don’t want to see all the losers from my high school tonight.” I’m buzzed now, and I try to find an explanation. “What if camp were in New York and I was like, let’s go to the one bar where all the dicks from your health class hang out? And you thought you never had to see them ever again, but, hey, you do! And it’s on a night that’s supposed tobe fun, but then turns to shit. Huh?” Ava and Imogen stare at me with their mouths open. After a second, they break out into laughter.
“Oh my god, Goldie, you kill me,” Ava says, wiping her hands across her face as the bus rolls out of camp. She waves a hand in the air. “As if we havehealthclass at Excelsior Prep.”
I elbow her side, which makes her laugh harder.
“This is totally different, though,” Imogen says, draping her legs over my lap. She pulls our heads in toward one another. “This is camp.”
I’m not going to win this one. Because in their minds Roxwood is an amusement park, a facsimile of a real town. Even after all this time, they don’t get that this place is my whole world—and that I’d rather be anywhere else. Best to grit my teeth and sidle up to the Brits to get them to buy me drinks. To hide behind them and blend into the background, out of sight of whoever else is at the bar.
But as we careen toward Main Street, a bubble of hope forms in my chest. Maybe it’ll be a good thing to show the people from Roxwood High that I fit in at a place like Alpine Lake, where, let’s be real, they’d allkillto go if they could. I tilt my chin up and remind myself I’m not who they think I am. Not that anyone would believe that after New Year’s Eve.
---
The bus deposits ninety-four Alpine Lake counselors in front of Town Hall at the end of Smith Street at 8:05 p.m. Everyone knows we have until midnight to get as loaded as possible. That’s when the buses head back to camp. If you miss curfew, you either walk back or hitch a ride with Bart’s Taxi Service, which everygirl in town knows is a major no-no. As I step down from the bus, I’m reminded how much we stick out here in Roxwood.
The glitzy tops and platform heels that seemed totally appropriate for a night out back in Bloodroot are obvious and impractical here in the casual lakeside town. The people I grew up with only own T-shirts and flip-flops, fleeces and cargo pants. The international counselors’ accents ring out loud as they take swigs from flasks. The older ones, Meg and her crew, head off to the marina, where they can rent a fishing boat for a few hours. The straight-edge counselors make their way to Grandee’s for famous maple creemees. But everyone else, even those of us who are underage, walk the few blocks to Truly’s.
There’s a big wooden sign out front that displays the name in red script, set against silver and gold stars. The tables are sticky, the floor is coated in sawdust, and the walls are covered in New England memorabilia that makes it feel kitschy, like it’s meant for tourists. Newspaper clippings proclaiming Roxwood’s minimal greatness sit in chipped frames behind the bar. Every year, the Alpine Lake counselors compete to see who can leave the most ridiculous trinket in the place, tacked to the wall or hanging from the ceiling. Winner gets to drink for free on our final night off. That accolade went to Imogen last year when she pinned her rejection letter from Juilliard’s summer program to the wall.
There are no bouncers here. No ID checks. Just a bunch of old dudes with silver beards and missing teeth pouring two-dollar beers and three-dollar well shots in plastic cups behind the bar. As long as you don’t puke, they’ll let you stay.
“I’ve been dreaming of this place for ten months,” Imogen says, wobbling in her heels.
“No one in Manhattan knows how to make a proper vodka gimlet,” Ava says.
“You’re joking, right?” I say.
Ava looks at me with those wide blue eyes and plants her palms on my cheeks. “My golden girl, you cannot see the magic of this place like we can.”
Imogen nods solemnly next to her, and I fight the urge to say something mean and bitter about what a shithole this place is in the winter, when everything freezes over and everyone takes their frustration out on the easiest punching bag. Or how that punching bag was me.
