Camptown Ladies (32 page)
Authors: Mari SanGiovanni
She looked at me with a flicker of hope in her eyes, searching mine for a different answer as she said, “I’m sorry that I can’t love him more than you.”
“And I’m sorry, but I do,” I said.
At that, Erica backed off, just as I had needed her to. She nodded her head slightly before opening the door to her truck, and got inside. When the door shut and she pulled away, I fought the urge to chase the truck like a wild dog, biting at the tires to stop her from going. And now that she was moving away from me, I wanted to tell her how I feared my heart might stop beating if I gave her up, and I knew that my brother wouldn’t want that, so could she please come back?
My other choice beyond chasing the truck like a junkyard dog was to let myself cry, but since I was no longer hidden by Erica’s truck, this was as impractical an option as chasing a flatbed down a dirt road. Greg Brady’s monster wave was long gone and it was me washed up on the shore, beached with a mouthful of sand, bathing suit ripped and spun around backward, and a crusty starfish stuck to my left boob (the big one), like an aquatic version of a Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction.
What a mess. When I looked up, I realized I had been seen long before the truck drove away, since Uncle Freddie had a bird’s eye view from the roof. Since he was alone up there, I wondered if he’d cleared the workers off the roof to spare his niece an audience for what may have been her worst day in her life. Before he leaned back over his spot on the roof, he looked down at me and nodded as if he had heard my thoughts, and said, “
Abbiamo can’t scegliere chi amiamo.
” I repeated this phrase over and over so I would remember it, and later, when I was home and could cry alone, I looked up the translation and found nothing was ever so true:
“
We can’t choose who we love.
”
The Dove Gaio Mangia was proving to be a continued success, especially after one of the first gay boys to visit the camp (who
sported a porn name) turned out to be a freelance journalist, and wrote an article for Out And About Travel. As Lisa’s luck would have it, the article was picked up by the Associated Press and spread to at least a dozen newspapers.
If a Lesbian Builds It, Will They Come? By Johnnie Rocket
Camptown Ladies and its “sister” campground, Camp Camp, is probably the last place you would expect to find a four-star Italian restaurant, but that is exactly what I stumbled upon after joining friends at a campground that openly caters to a gay clientele. The campground’s owner, Lisa Santora, self-described “dykecoon,” runs the camp along with the rest of her colorful Italian family.
Santora’s idea was simple: “I wanted to create a campground that was plush enough for the gay boys, while remaining rustic enough for us more hardy gals.” Add to this, all the warmth (and volume) you would expect from an Italian family welcoming their guests—Santora has come through on her promises.
Upon arrival, Santora took us on a tour to show off the amenities. For the boys of Camp Camp, this includes bathrooms with marble sinks, a never-ending supply of plush, Ralph Lauren towels, and complimentary facial products. There is even a shower area large enough to host four of your closest friends. Lisa laughs when I ask about this and says, “I wanted to remind the boys of their high school gym days, when you had to pretend you weren’t looking.
”
Camptown Ladies women’s bathrooms feature a more rustic approach; with water-saver toilets and empty towel bars curtly labeled “Camptown Ladies is an eco-friendly Camp. Please provide your own towels.” Among the other charming oddities, there stands a Jenga-like tower of wood and beside it is a plaque dedicated to an aunt’s recent passing. Santora’s father stands guard over the wood and cheerfully admits to a rumor that his sister, known to the camp as Aunt Aggie, was “taken out” by the woodpile, which makes campers hesitant to buy the wood, and encourages them to bring their own.
He also explained that his sister’s widower (affectionately called Uncle Freddie, by everyone at camp) has recently joined the construction crew, despite being in his seventies. Uncle Freddie can usually be found teaching Italian songs to the other crew members on the rooftops. The crew is lead by a female contractor—hired, according to Lisa Santora, not for her talent but strictly as “eye candy.”
Other amenities include a Camp Store, which is comically segregated with a boy side and a girl side, and a built-in pool where the boys gather to gossip and work on their fabulous tans, and some of the ladies meet to do early-morning laps. Most of the women prefer to hang out at the weed-fringed pond, where you will find pairs of mommies closely monitoring their children’s every move, a place that Lisa Santora has dubbed Micro-Management Beach.
Every Saturday morning there is a fly-fishing tournament, mostly for the ladies. It’s called “A Rottweiler Runs Through It,”because the women are encouraged to bring their dogs but asked to leave the children back at the campsite. Lisa Santora holds all the fly-fishing records, and she teases her brother Vince: “Despite his supple wrist, he never could get the hang of it, even though he’s forced to fly fish because he’s petrified of worms. Go figure.”
The boys have made the refurbished teen rec hall the It place to go summer clubbing when the restaurant magically transforms from food to frolic. The gay boys, some in drag, have been known to put on impromptu shows, laden with Abba and Bette Midler songs. The lesbians (and a fair amount of straight folks) are lured here by the food but stay to watch the show, hauling beer coolers on wheels, with small children hitching rides. Teenagers watch the show from the safety of the woods.
Lisa Santora offers a pass for non-camping visitors to experience her restaurant, Dove Gaio Mangia (Italian slang for: “Where Gays Eat”). If camping is not your thing, I strongly suggest purchasing a One Gay Pass, as the restaurant should not be missed. Authentic Italian cooking is served up in a beautifully decorated dining hall—the work of flamboyant friend, and self-appointed event coordinator, Eddie Stella. The food is so heavenly, and seconds and
leftovers so strongly encouraged, that you will quickly forgive the lesbian-style customer service. There is none; it’s strictly buffet-style and clean up after yourself, or be chastised openly by chef Lisa.)
Be advised to get there early, as the restaurant has two sittings every evening and word has leaked out in town that this is the best place in the tri-state area to get an all-you-can-eat, four-star Italian dinner for $8.00 (or whatever you chose to donate)—and kids always eat free. Santora offers a Double-Dyke-Discount for any family sporting two mommies. Nobody seems to mind the discrimination, and she says she does it because most male heads of household have higher incomes. Lisa’s answer to anyone who may brave a rare complaint? “I tell them they should go to f***ing Disney World, where it’s straight except for once a year, and that here, every day is Gay Day. Next year I’m considering having a straight week, with a parade where the straight couples can pull their kids on their Coleman coolers, and the gays can stand and wave at them from the sidewalks. It’ll be awesome.”
The morning after his date with Erica, I watched Vince as he sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. He was laughing his way through the Camptown Ladies article; grateful he only got hit with the worm comment. When he finished reading it, he looked at me and said, “You look like crap ever since you spent that night with Lorn.”
“And you kind of look happy.”
He put down the paper. “Don’t worry, I’m being realistic. I know this may not work.”
“Knowing that doesn’t stop you from being crushed,” I said, and Vince nodded and we both sat in silence.
Finally, he asked me, “What’s going on with you and Lorn?”
“I ended it. Being with her was just sad.”
“Because you still love her,” he said.
“Because I don’t.” I excused myself from the table, before he had a chance to give me details about his date with Erica.
The next few weeks, Erica and Vince were scarcely seen at camp. When Lisa would ask Vince how things were going, he would decline to answer. But I saw the old, cheerful Vince was gradually coming back and I was both worried and happy for him, despite the fact that I had barreled through the same turnstile to Depression-land just as he was exiting, and all because of the same woman.
When Vince was not off the campsite with Erica, he was spending time with Katie’s little boy, Buddy. Vince had become fascinated by the shy little kid and would trek once a day to the far side of the camp to Katie’s trailer to see if he could borrow her son.
Vince would invent goofy games that reminded me of the games we used to play in our backyard when we were kids. Vince circled the entire camp with the child riding in the back of his red wagon while Buddy pretended Vince was a horse. I recognized this one particular game as Lisa’s since Vince’s bad coaching of an English accent had Buddy yelling out warnings to the campers that a bubonic plague had hit camp, and that after a fortnight they would be allowed to line up for rations of beans and towels. To Buddy’s delight, a few of the campers played along and shouted back to them, “When will this plague be over?” and “Tell me sir, how can a guy get some extra beans?” Vince coached Buddy to yell back to the Mayor, “No extra beans! Your wife says you eat too much!” On Buddy’s second pass by the camp store, Lisa ran over to hand the boy a long, thin tree branch with instructions to use it on his Vince as a horse whip, but Katie put an end to that after the third lap.
Since Vince and Erica were never at camp together, I worried if Vince sensed there had been something between us. If they were avoiding camp, I was pathetically hopeful it was Erica that was controlling this, that maybe she knew I wasn’t strong enough to face seeing them together. Every morning I braced myself to see them together, and was grateful for every day that I was spared the sight.
I tried to find joy in the return of my brother’s boyish smile and the bounce that was back in his step, and most days I could. But I would also get up in the middle of the night and wander down the hallway at the condo to see if my brother had come home. I usually found his door left open and that his bed had not been slept in, and my heart would ache at the thought of them together. I was grateful they never stayed together at the condo, but that didn’t stop me from staying awake night after night, staring at the ceiling, knowing they were together. She was his first, I would remind myself. But then the thought would creep in as I slept: was she, really?
While I was no longer assisting Erica with any construction projects, my Uncle Freddie was becoming a roofing expert. It was common to see him do Erica’s signature moonwalk and he had gotten so skilled at it that she even let him walk along the new clay tile roofs, when she never let me do that. When I watched him, I had no idea if the pit in my stomach was worry that a man in his seventies was walking high on top roofs, or simply that the roof walking reminded me of her. Everything reminded me of her. Just reading a random reference to California in the newspaper would send me into a funk, as I remembered all the celebrity house projects we’d worked on together.