3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows (8 page)

“What?”

“Modeling camp. It’s only half an hour away. I looked on the map. I can pay for most of it from babysitting. It’s just a day camp, nine to four Monday through Friday. And it’s only for two weeks. Several real supermodels went there.”

“Modeling camp?”

“Yes.” Polly broke her toast into pieces with her fingers.

“What is modeling camp?”

“It’s where you … you know, learn to be a model.”

“Or just look like one,” Dia muttered.

“What?” Polly asked.

“Nothing. Where did you get this idea? Are your friends going to model camp?”

“No.” Polly had told her mother several times what Jo and Ama were doing for the summer, but she must have forgotten. “I found it on the Internet.”

“Why?”

“Why did I find it?”

“I mean, -why -were you looking? Do you seriously want to be a model?”

Polly broke her toast into smaller pieces. Going into this conversation, Polly had had a feeling that her mother wasn’t going to be one hundred percent supportive. Dia was always saying how she was a feminist and how Polly was too. Dia didn’t like celebrity magazines or most TV shows because she said they were degrading to -women. Polly did like those things, and she was secretly worried she wasn’t a feminist.

“Well, I think it could be interesting,” Polly said quietly.

Dias face softened a little. She took a long sip of coffee. “Do you think you have the right look for it? Aren’t models supposed to be really tall?” she asked.

“I’m still growing,” Polly said. “I could be tall.”

“Polly, I’m five two. You’re taller than me, but you’ve never been tall.”

Polly wanted to ask about her father, Was he tall? But she was afraid it would only hinder her chances.

“Some models aren’t tall. Like … hand models.”

“You want to be a hand model?”

“No. Well, I don’t know.” Polly was an inveterate nail biter. She made her hands into fists.

Dia sighed. She looked tired. “You don’t have enough to do this summer, do you?”

“No, it’s not that. I just thought that this could be … interesting.”

“Polly, modeling is not interesting. You are interesting. You are too interesting for modeling, in my opinion. Do you really want to be judged just on how you look?”

“I think there’s a lot more to it than that,” Polly said. “It’s like … acting, actually.” She went back to work on her toast. “And you learn about fashion. Which I’m pretty interested in. And it said on the Web site you can learn about photography and fitness.”

“Polly, you are getting crumbs everywhere.”

Polly abandoned her toast and tried to dust her hands off carefully over her plate. “Please, can I please go? I can take the Metro there and back on my own. You don’t need to do anything.”

Dia sighed again, more loudly this time. “I don’t know,” she said, but she got the look of resignation Polly was aiming for. It used to take longer to get Dia to the resignation stage, but Polly had refined her technique.

“I’ll think about it,” Dia said.

“Okay,” Polly said. She was smart enough not to allow herself any expression of triumph. I’ll think about it meant yes. Maybe meant probably. No meant it would take some more work on Polly’s part to convince her.

“Why aren’t you eating breakfast?”

Polly stuck one of the mangled bits of toast into her mouth. “I am.”

•••

Jo woke up that morning -with a kissing hangover. Her lips felt swollen, her cheeks felt raw, and her conscience stung a little. She had heard about this kind of hangover before, but she had never had one.

“Joseph, you’re on flatware this shift,” commanded Jordan, the pimply, solitaire-playing assistant manager who wouldn’t have hired her. He liked to send her into the kitchen to load and unload the silverware whenever one of the dish-washers failed to show up.

Jo nodded distractedly at him and veered toward the kitchen, train of thought unbroken.

“Hola, Hidalgo,” she said to the fry cook, -who was standing at his locker.

It wasn’t like she had never kissed anyone before. She’d kissed Arlo Williams several times at parties. He had been more nervous than she was.

Arlo s kissing -was different, though. It didn’t cause the swelling or the stinging. Kissing Arlo was maybe like drinking one beer, -whereas kissing …

Wait a minute. Jo -winced. Kissing … -whom? What-was his name?

Oh, my God, did she really not know his name? Had he told her and she’d forgotten? No, she -would have remembered it. Had she told him hers? Had she really landed a severe kissing hangover and never even bothered to introduce herself?

Wow. She couldn’t help thinking of Ama. What would Ama say? She didn’t want to think about that. She pictured Bryn, whom she’d see later at the dinner shift. Bryn would understand. He was gorgeous, Jo would say, and that would be explanation enough. In fact, she was a little bit excited to tell Bryn about it, because Bryn -would be excited about it too. Maybe Jo wouldn’t mention the fact that she didn’t know his name. That was kind of a hoochie move, even for a person like Bryn.

Jo began unloading the clean silverware from the night before. She mindlessly sorted the pieces in the cart, glad it was still early and no one else was in the kitchen. She was happy to have some time to herself. She was grateful that her mom had still been asleep this morning -when she’d left the house for a run on the beach and then a swim in the ocean. She’d snuck into the outdoor shower to clean up and dress for -work and left without being seen.

“Did he tell you?” Those were the only-words her mother had said to her on the ride home from the bus the night before. Jo had nodded and that had been it. Jo had gone to bed not thinking about her mother or her father or -what he’d told her. She’d fallen asleep thinking of kissing on the bus.

She shut the door to the giant commercial dishwasher -with a bang and a shudder.

So she had kissed a stranger. So she didn’t know his name. Everybody-was allowed a random, possibly misguided kiss once or twice, weren’t they? There weren’t any real consequences to a kiss.

No, there weren’t. And besides that, it was over and done. She was never going to see the guy again in her life, and maybe that was for the best.

“Ama, you ought to loosen up a little.” That was what Jared had said to her after breakfast. Now, hours later, Ama was still thinking about it. Jared wasn’t the first person to say that to her in her life. Jo had said it. Polly hadn’t said it outright, but Ama suspected she had thought it. Grace didn’t say it. The other kids in her accelerated math class never said it. Her parents didn’t say it and her sister certainly didn’t.

What did it mean, anyway? What was so good about being loose? Could you get perfect grades if you were loose? Could you master four languages? Could you get into Princeton or get a full scholarship through medical school?

Maybe looseness was one of the many things Ama couldn’t afford, like movie candy and Seven jeans. Maybe being loose was like hiking—only an idea, and from a practical standpoint, completely useless.

Over the dying embers of the postdinner campfire, Ama sensed Noah looking at her. Her face burned, but she couldn’t look back. She pictured her hair. I would smile at him if my hair wasn’t this bad. I would talk to him. Definitely.

“We’re going to be -working up toward the final rappel,” Dan, the bearded guy, was telling the yawning group. They had hiked eight miles through dense forest, and Ama had a pain and a blister for every one of them. “It’s three hundred fifty feet, give or take, so we want to get you guys comfortable with the ropes and the gear, and also with that kind of height.”

Ama raised her hand. Dan looked over at her. “Ama, you don’t need to raise your hand here.”

Ama pulled it down, embarrassed. It wasn’t the first time she’d been told that, either. She cleared her throat. “What’s a rappel?”

“It’s the safest, fastest way to get down a cliff or a steep mountain face. We secure your rope to the top of the rock, and your belayer feeds you the rope as you go down. We ask that you take it slowly,” he said, looking meaningfully at Jonathan, -who was reckless.

Ama held her own hand so she wouldn’t raise it again. “What’s a belayer?” she asked.

“Your belayer is your trusted partner. He or she makes sure your rope is secure and lets it out slowly as you descend. Be nice to your belayer, -whoever he or she may be. He holds your life in his hands.”

Ama felt a stab of terror. Had she been nice to anyone? Whom here could she trust -with her life? She pictured herself catapulting down the mountain to a painful death.

“The rappel is kind of like your final exam,” Maureen explained. “It’s a big part of your grade. We want to start with some climbing tomorrow to make sure you’re all ready for it.”

Ama felt her ears ringing. Her hand was halfway up before she could retrieve it. “What do you mean grade?”

“Your grade for the course,” Maureen said.

“Your grade for the course? You get a grade for the course?” Amas voice was anything but loose.

“If you’re taking it for high school credit, as most of you are. We’re required to give you a grade. It’s not my preference, but that’s how it is.”

“So you get a grade from this and it goes on your transcript?” Ama persisted.

“If you are getting credit, yes.”

“Can you take the course for credit but not get a grade, you know, just get a pass, like you get in gym?”

“No, Ama, you can’t. You get a grade.”

“And you have to throw yourself off a mountain to get a good one?”

“We call it rappelling,” Maureen said patiently.

Later that night Ama lay in her sleeping bag and worried. The night air -was humid and made the fabric of her sleeping bag feel slightly damp against her skin. Absently she watched the shadows passing over the orange nylon walls of the tent, -wondering if they represented man or beast or teenager.

What if her first grade in high school was an F? How could she live that down? She couldn’t. She couldn’t even imagine what her parents would say.

In normal circumstances, Ama loved grades. She loved the concreteness of them. She was the kind of person -who felt disappointed when a teacher said “Don’t worry, you won’t be graded on this.”

She mostly loved grades because all the grades she got were As. She loved As. She loved the way they looked, the straight and pointy aspect of them in contrast with the weak curves of Bs and Cs. But how could she possibly get an A in this? She couldn’t. It was wrong for her. She was -wrong for it. What if her first high school grade -was a B or, God forbid, a C? Or -worse! It could easily be -worse! Ama could barely breathe at the thought of it. What -would Esi say?

She thought of the rappel. And how it -was only going to get-worse.

Around midnight, she guessed, Carly snuck into the tent -with a boy. Ama froze in her sleeping bag. She didn’t dare lift her head.

“Don’t-worry, she’s asleep,” Ama heard Carly-whisper.

“Are you sure?” the boy asked.

Ama thought it sounded like Jonathan. Carly -was back to Jonathan.

“Yeah, she always falls asleep early.”

No, I am not asleep! Ama felt like shouting. How can I sleep when my first high school grade is going to be an F? She squeezed her eyes shut as she realized, to her disbelief, that the two of them -were climbing into Carly’s sleeping bag together, giggling. She wished she had sat up and said something right away, but now what was she supposed to do? She lay there motionless, barely breathing.

“Did you hear her going nuts over her grade tonight?” the boy, probably Jonathan, said. “Dude, that girl is so freaking uptight. How do you share a tent with her?” He said something else, but softer and mumbled, so Ama couldn’t hear it. She felt the pulse of outrage and tingle of humiliation climb all the way up her scalp.

Ama badly wished she was asleep. Or really anywhere else in the universe. She hated this place.

She heard the zip of Carly’s sleeping bag and Carly giggled again. Ama heard more giggling and -whispering.

“She’s not that bad,” Ama overheard Carly say.

Jo stretched out the time it took to get home from the restaurant that night. When she walked through the front door she felt like she was walking into a different kind of house. She heard her mother vacuuming in the living room and knew that her dad wouldn’t be coming home that night or Friday night or any night. She tried to keep those thoughts away but there they were.

Just because her father -was coming for no nights this summer instead of ten or twelve, it made this a different kind of place. It turned this house into her mother’s place and turned Jo into an article of custody.

There was so little—ten or twelve nights—that made this anything like a family house. The slightest nudge and it came apart. So then, what was the big deal? What was the big difference? What did it really matter? An idea had changed, maybe. A classification had changed. But nothing that was real had been lost.

“I’m only sorry you’re there in the middle of it,” her aunt Robin had said when she’d caught Jo on her cell phone during her break at the restaurant that afternoon.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” she’d told her aunt. “I am fine.” There was no being “in the middle of it.” There was no middle. Her dad was in one place, her mom -was in a different place. There was nothing new in that.

She went to her room and picked up her dirty socks and emptied her garbage can. She carefully folded her Surfside T-shirt and left it on the top of her dresser for tomorrow. She stared forlornly at the single handprint she’d made on the window. She was going back to being a tourist here.

After Ama completed this letter she crumpled it up and tossed it into the cooking fire. Even Ama had her limits. Anyway, what was the point? They wouldn’t hit another mail drop for five days.

As they began the day’s endless, pointless hike, Ama stared suspiciously and unwaveringly at the ground. She had to keep a very close eye on it, because it was always coming up with a new way to make her stumble. For her grade, she was supposed to be looking at tree types, but she didn’t dare. She’d have to learn to recognize them by their roots.