Cammie’s groan is quiet, but not enough to be drowned out by the water. I chuckle to myself while I take my things into a stall I deem a safe distance from hers and pull the curtain closed.
For a couple minutes, it seems like that’s the end of it—that we’ll each go on about our business with no more interaction. As I’ve just reminded her, she doesn’t want to interact with me anyway.
So I nearly fumble my shampoo bottle when Cammie calls out, “Listen, West…”
I go still under the spray of water as it hits the back of my neck and shoulders. When I don’t hear anything else, I give the most hesitant “Yeah?” uttered in human history.
She doesn’t sound much more self-assured when she finally continues. “I’ve wanted to talk to you about something, which I guess begins with saying I…I want us to talk again in general. Like, to be on speaking terms, because I get the sense there’s some stuff we need to talk about at some point. And I know I’ve given you mixed messages about what I want from you, or for us, but I’ve decided—final answer—I’m…open. To friendship, or trying it, at least. If you’re not opposed.”
Did she do this on purpose? Lure me in here with the ol’ fear-of-showers ploy, then challenge me to not make a Thing out of the objectively weird activity of simultaneous bathing, then wait until I’m as trapped as possible—shampoo-covered head and all—to force a conversation about our friendship?
More likely she’s flying by the seat of her pants right now. The pants dangling over the shower curtain a few yards from where I stand.
I finish rinsing the suds from my head before answering. She can afford to sweat just a little.
“Ishouldbe opposed, given the circumstances under which you’ve decided to have this chat—”
“Don’t you go making it weird, Weston—”
“I think if we surveyed a hundred people,Family Feud–style, ninety-nine would agree thatyouare the one responsible for the present weirdness. And the hundredth just misunderstood the question.”
“Okay, fine, but are you opposed or not?” Cammie asks, sounding awfully impatient for someone who plans to be showering for at least another ten minutes. “Because there wasa part two to what I wanted to discuss. Pending part one going well.”
The snap of a bottle cap punctuates her sentence. I turn my water off, cutting the background noise in half, and wrap my towel around my waist before replying at a less shout-y volume. “I don’t know if I’d say it’s gone well, but—”
“West!”
A smile curves my lips, part amused at myself but a bigger part happy just to be here, smelling Cammie’s apple shampoo as it permeates the increasingly steamy air, feeling a semblance of the comfortable dynamic I’ve missed so much.
“I would love to try friendship again, Cam. Please proceed to Item Two on your shower confrontation agenda.”
“I—Okay, great, yes. That’s good to hear.” I’m certain her face is bright red right now, and it only makes my smile grow while I continue to dry off and get dressed in my dinner clothes. Cammie’s next words come out in a rush, like she’s exhaling the confession in one go.
“I’ve been working on something behind my mom’s back. Something more than a few surprise party guests.”
I pause in the middle of opening my shower curtain. She can’t see the flat look I aim in her direction, but I’m sure she hears it in my voice.
“Yeah, no shit.” Despite the surface-level sass, I feel a knot of worry somewhere deep in my gut. I wonder if I’m about to wish this revelation had come before I opted in to potential friendship. Still, I soften my tone when I press, “What is it, Cammie?”
I could have been given a hundred guesses, and I seriouslydoubt I would have gotten to the truth, which she offers with barely a space for a single breath.
“I’m trying to find my dad.”
This time, my shampoo bottle does escape my grasp. I scramble to catch it, the clatter of hollow plastic across tile absurdly loud, and toss it into my shower caddy with its better-behaved friends. Then I stand in astonished silence, wishing there was a simple response to what Cammie just dropped.
“You’re…What do you mean by ‘trying’?” is the best I come up with.
Amid intermittent splatters of water, bottles opening and closing, and a whole fruit salad’s worth of soapy aromas wafting out from her stall, she proceeds to tell me about Dr. Alex’s journal from her first year in Italy, with all the friendships, flings, relationships, dramas, adventures, and pictures contained within. How she found it, and her list of all the initials of its characters, which she’s cross-referencing with the help of Dr. Constantini’s list and some other names she’s combed from her bootleg version of his files. I have to lean against the tile wall by the doorway, overwhelmed by the whole tale.
“I know it’s possible he’s not still in this area—I mean, there are a lot of variables here that could be totally off. But I have more to work with now than I ever have, and in a way, I feel like Ineedto know more than I ever have. So…” She pauses, letting what sounds like a bucket full of water crash to the tile floor, and it’s an effort not to let myself consider what on earth she’s doing in there. In the subsequent quiet, her soft voice concludes, “I have to give it a shot.”
I’m gritting my teeth against the impulse to declare the whole thing a terrible idea—to encourage her to have an honest conversation with her mother, grown-up to grown-up, and get the answers.
But on the other hand, I’m not Cammie. She and I have always operated differently, and I can’t know what it’s like to be in her position. I grew up with double the father figures, after all. Dad and Pops had me a few months before Dr. Alex had Cammie, and I was very much planned for. Even though they’re separated now and that’s all complicated, I’ve always known I have two parents who wanted me, who love me and are there for me. I can’t imagine how it would feel to know one half of the duo who made me fled the scene before my life had even begun.
Still…how does this end in any way except with Cammie’s heart getting broken?
“I don’t know about this one, Cam,” I hedge, once again recognizing the strangeness of discussing this while only one of us has clothes on. I try to block that thought out and refocus on the issue at hand. “It sounds like it could be really hard on you, whether you find him or not. And what happens when your mom finds out? Surely you couldn’t keep it from her forever, or even if you tried, he might reach out to her. And then—”
