“You come here often?” he calls back, though he stays dutifully turned around.
I can’t help the laugh. “I can’t pee if you’re talking to me.”If you’re making me laugh.
“I’m surprised a city girl like you can pee at all in the great outdoors.”
“You don’t know everything about me, Eitan Moreno. I spent many a summer at camp in Wisconsin, peeing in the woods, canoeing, cleaning up goat crap.”
“Ruby ‘Goat Crap Cleaner’ Hirsch. I like it. We should put it on a t-shirt.” There’s a tiny, traitorous flutter in my heart with that ‘we.’
“Indeed,” I say, barely keeping a lid on my feelings. “Now, shush.”
Finally I manage to get a stream going, orienting myself on a slight downgrade because I’m a woman of many smarts.
Eitan leads the way back. The group has gotten rowdier by the minute, everyone greased with booze, and the ghost stories have devolved into sexually charged drinking games.
I wring my hands together. “I’m actually pretty tired. I might just go straight to bed.”
He checks his phone. “It’s not even 9 p.m.”
“I’ll just read, or count sheep, or check a star wheel.”
Deep spots Eitan and waves him toward her. “I might as well go to bed too.” He sighs.
For a second, my brain fails to do the math and imagines Eitan and I going to bed in the same place. In a six-foot by six-foot tent, mere inches between us. I shiver. Talk about a scary story.
“Good night, Moreno.”
Eitan’s eyes catch mine in the moonlight.I like you.“Night, Ruby.”
Calliope snores like an old man.It’s like sleeping next to the ocean, and not in a good way. I poke my head out of the tent not long after dawn, any hope of sleeping in evaporated. The air outside is crisp, a thin layer of fog sitting on the woodchipped ground.
Skip spots me immediately. “First up!” he declares. “Which means you, lucky duck, get to help me with coffee and campfire eggs. Best eggs on God’s green Earth.”
I’m starting to think he indiscriminately adds ‘campfire’ to the beginning of very plain and normal dishes. Though coffee does sound divine.
“What can I do?” I ask.
Skip sets me up with the largest aluminum percolator I’ve ever seen and a set of industrial oven mitts. He’s already got the fire going, so I just need to sit beside it, listening for a hiss.Act quickly or you’ll burn the coffee, and I can’t be held responsible for the mob that will create, Skip said in an uncharacteristically somber tone. The rest of Camp Goldberg rouses slowly, coming out of their tents with pillow seam marks branded on their cheeks and bruise-like bags beneath their eyes.
“Morning.” Calliope sits down next to me, holding her head in her tattooed hands.
“Rough night?” I laugh.
“Actually, don’t speak,” she whispers. “Your voice is too loud.”
An angry hiss bubbles from the belly of the percolator. I don my mitts and remove it from the fire. Skip jogs back towardus. “Just in time!” he pronounces. We pour out portions of the gritty, bitter coffee into small stackable tin cups.
The flaps of Pen’s tent part, and she emerges, scenting the coffee like a bloodhound. Her hair is in rollers, for some reason, and two gold patches line the space beneath her eyes. The sun streaming through the tree canopy has yet to make a dent on her frown; it’s been chiseled into her face. She gestures urgently for coffee and gulps it down in two sips.
Josh comes up behind Pen and locks his arms around her waist.
The caffeine seems to cure something in her. “Good morning.” Pen turns around in his arms and kisses him. It’s so easy for them, being in love.
“Morning!” Skip bellows.
Eitan startles me, coming out of nowhere and pouring his own coffee. His hair is especially ruffled, the most adorable bedhead I’ve ever seen. He’s also watching Pen and Josh, probably as in the dark about their relationship as I am.
I glance at Calliope. “What a lovely day for purgatory,” I say under my breath.
