Page 5 of Summer Camp with the Mountain Man

“Oh geez.” I can’t even stop my palms from covering my face. I’m most definitely on the cousin’s side of this family rivalry. “She’s not a real girl? As in she’s a boy?”

“What? No! JP don’t swing that way, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Nothin’ but poonani for Giovanni. You know what I’m sayin’?” He puts his fist down once he realizes I will not be bumping it.

“So she’s not a real girl because she’s a robot? This is unbelievable, you’re paying the Terminator to have sex with you after getting fired for the umpteenth time from your own company, while I’m shaping the minds of the future leaders of the world and I can barely keep my head above water. Fine, yeah, future leaders is a stretch, most of my students will be lucky if they make it to books without pictures but still.”

“Eww, who the hell would want to read those? So you’re like a sculpting teacher for kids?”

The teeth on this man are easily the brightest part of him. The elevator certainly doesn’t go to the top floor.

“Just a regular teacher for kids, running the family campground for the summer, until we have to sell it off to get out of debt. So shame on you for paying to boink a robot. What kind of example are you setting for the young minds I’m busy sculpting?”

“For the record, Tulip isn’t actually a robot, she’s just a regular whore.”

“I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” I say, pointing at the door. “Your campsite is 14. Go.”

“Damn, talk about PMS. Hang on, you said you’re gonna have to sell this place? You know, I’ve got a preposition for you.”

I’m guessing he means proposition, and why do I feel a slap of epic proportions bubbling just beneath the surface? Come on, out with it, my hand is tingling already.

“I need a future wifey, you need a little moolah, I think we might be able to help each other out.”

THREE

Cade

There’s really no need for me to be on the job site today. Aside from the fact that the materials don’t come in for a week, I’m having trouble focusing on anything other than the girl I met on the pier yesterday.

Then there’s also a small part of me that’s avoiding the reunion.

The rest of the family’s arriving at the campground today and I’ve been wrestling with the idea of holing up in my hotel the entire time. Not serious wrestling, more like pudding wrestling in sumo suits because no part of me is looking forward to this. There is absolutely no argument that would make me want to stay at the campground site I booked.

Except my hotel has no vacancy. None of them do, it’s Fourth of July weekend and I’m stuck with a bunch of wingnuts. Maybe I can camp out on Dad’s old island. I guess that’d be a little awkward if he’s inside playing Boggle with his new family. What do I do if they invite me in? I don’t know how to play Boggle.

I would have loved Wildwood Adventures if it was here when I was a kid. The fact that I get to add something to Cedar Spring Lake, it’s filling that void that’s been left since the last time I was here, thinking I’d be back again the next summer.

Moving halfway across the country to stay with Mom’s family wasn’t exactly on my Boggle card. Hey, maybe I do know how to play after all. Or is that Bingo?

I’ve been chasing this feeling since I was ten years old. The vibe here is just different. Lake life in the mountains, where everything is beautiful but slightly rugged. Even the platforms for the rope course I’m building, it’s not just on a hillside, it’s a rocky hillside full of cliffs and jagged boulders, all overlooking the pristine water.

The clash of worlds always made me feel more normal. Mom’s family are the hard-working type, build things with your hands, put some sweat equity into it. Except for Georgie who squealed like a girl and thought his forehead was bleeding the first time he sweat on the job. Dad’s side of the family were the type to pay someone to sweat for them, and preferably do it out of sight as to not startle the children.

Visiting either side of the family never felt like me, but coming here, where high class meets the untamed wilderness, I always knew I’d found my home.

I swear I see me in every little boy who races by, eager to climb another obstacle course or hop on the next ride. I used to love the Ferris Wheel, especially at night, just after the sun went down when the lights of the town had all flickered on. You could still see the last of the sunset lighting up the mountain ridge over the lake.

I wonder if I ever rode it at the same time as Rayne. Did we pass each other on the pier and not know it? I wasn’t into girls yet. It wasn’t until my last summer here that my cousin Meredith’s friend became anything more than another annoying girl I had to share the island with. Something tells me I wouldn’t have ever found Rayne annoying.

She’s quirky in a way I’m not used to. It’s refreshing.

In towns like this, the women I meet are typically more reserved. When we go out, it’s to fancy restaurants that have more forks than I could possibly use on a meal. The napkins have a higher thread count than my bedsheets. The menus make me fake a work text so I can look up foie gras only to puke in my mouth and look up the nearest fast food joint as soon as we’re out of there.

Rayne’s not that.

She took a bite of Springy Dog from my hand and skipped off, tripping over her own feet with bbq sauce all over her face. And looked sexier than anyone skipping down a dock with bbq sauce smeared on their face has any right to look.

She’s who I always hope to meet, knowing women like that don’t exist. It wouldn’t matter if they did because I’d have no time to date them. In a month or two I’d be onto the next job in the next town I could never afford to live in.

When you do what I do for a living, essentially building decks for people rich enough to make the impossible possible, it grants you temporary access into a world you have no right walking around in.