The Lost Summer (10 page)

I bit my lip. It tasted like the cherry Chap Stick I always kept in my pocket. “He left us—my dad,” I explained. “A few years ago, for another woman.”

At this revelation I stopped, not because I was afraid of what Ransome would say, but because I was afraid of what
I
would. Despite a year of weekly therapy sessions, in which my mother's shrink made me draw stupid pictures (like I was a four-year-old who couldn't use her words) and talk about my birth (like I could remember), this was still the point of the story where my voice became bitter and strange, even to myself. I didn't want to cry in front of Ransome.

“Jeez. That's hard,” he said, exhaling. “You know my parents are divorced,” he added.

I did know. Everyone at Southpoint knew Abe. And while there was no one left who remembered Ransome's mother, we all knew that Abe was divorced and had essentially raised Ransome on his own.

“It's not easy, ya know?” Not far away, the others were talking loudly, oblivious to the conversation going on on the hood of the car. Still, Ransome lowered his voice. “I kind of know how you feel. Everyone thinks the reason my mom left my dad was because he was in love with Marjorie.”

It turned my heart cold to think of Fred and Marjorie and Abe caught in a love triangle. They were different. They were camp parents. They were supposed to live by a higher code.

Ransome turned his head to look at me, maybe to see if I had heard the rumor too. I hadn't. “That wasn't the reason?” I asked.

“No,” he said, almost defensively. “They were just always fighting about money. . . . But just knowing people thought that, that they were
saying
it . . . People forget they're not just camp directors or bosses, ya know? They're my family,
my real
family.”

I nodded slowly, chewing on the inside of my cheek. Ransome's voice was steady, no signs of cracking, like mine did when I talked about these things.

“I can imagine,” I said.

Ransome was quietly staring up at the sky.

“Are they looking?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The others. Winn and Buzz and them.”

I lifted my head to see that Buzz had everyone's full attention. He was telling a story and gesturing wildly with his hands, which had Winn and Lizbeth clutching at each other in spasms of laughter.

“Nope,” I said, lying back down. “They're not looking.”

“Good,” said Ransome, and then his mouth was on mine.

Completely startled, I met him with stiff lips and clenched teeth. It took my brain a second to register what was happening. Then, realizing that Ransome was actually kissing me, my mouth gave way, opening to his.

The inside of his mouth was warm and tasted like beer and mint. As I moved my head, he lowered the weight of his upper body across my chest. One of his hands was tangled in my hair. My body reacted to his movements instinctively, but my mind was going haywire. Was this seriously happening? Could I really be kissing the one guy in the world I had spent
years
of my life fantasizing about? That didn't happen in the real world. It happened in movies and romance novels.

Holy crap. I was making out with Ransome.

Our weight must have shifted, because suddenly the hood beneath us thumped. We sprang apart and peeked at the ledge to see if the others had noticed. For a split second, Winn inclined her face in our direction. I was sure she'd seen us, but she quickly turned back to Buzz.

Flustered, I lightly pushed Ransome away and sat up straight, pulling my hair from its mussed ponytail and tying it back up. He sat up too, and we looked at each other, speechless for a moment. . . . Busted. A smile cracked on both of our faces, and he chuckled.

“Maybe we should get them,” he said, the smile still crinkling the corners of his eyes as he nodded toward the others. “It's getting close to eleven, and we have to take y'all home before we get back to camp.”

Ransome offered me his hand as I pushed myself off the car. Again the hood made the pop-pop-thump sound, and we both laughed, although I could have done without the auditory reminder that I was not a waif.

Before he released my hand, Ransome gave it a tiny squeeze. He jogged to say something to the others about the time, but I lagged behind, tugging at the bottom of my shirt and trying unsuccessfully to slow my racing heartbeat. Turning so that no one could see me, I mouthed “Thank you” silently to the woods.

* * *

“Um, y'all . . .” I said shakily once we were out of Buzz's car and walking up the gravel road to the Mansion. Despite the fact that Buzz had had to gun it on the curvy country roads to get us there before curfew, we'd arrived back at camp on time and in one piece.

Part of me knew I should wait to tell Katie Bell first, but I couldn't hold it in. The effort might have killed me. “Ransome kissed me,” I said.

“He did? Really?” The surprise in Winn's reply struck me as odd. I thought she'd caught us up at the point.

But Lizbeth burst, “I knew it!” as if there'd been some speculation.

My head was swimming. “We were talking, and he just kind of . . . laid one on me.”

“Wow,” Winn replied slowly. “That doesn't sound like Ransome. He must really like you.”

“I don't know,” I said. I was still in shock. “I hope so.” Understatement.

We'd reached the back stairs to the Mansion by that point, where the porch light was on for us. My stomach worked itself into a new set of knots as we tiptoed into the house. I was terrified Fred would smell the beer on our breath. I couldn't bring myself even to imagine disappointing Fred and Marjorie. It'd be like dropkicking Mother Teresa. So when we stuck our heads in the office door to let Fred know we were home, I stayed toward the back and let Winn do the talking. All clear. She was a pro.

“Good night, girls,” Fred called after us, switching out the lights in the office. “Get some sleep.”

Winn, Lizbeth, and I looked at each other with wide eyes and giggled as we quickly shuffled out of the house, wondering how much more Fred knew than we thought he did.

I could have stayed up talking about Ransome all night, but at the Bath, Winn and Lizbeth whispered “Good night” and headed for their beds. I retreated to my cabin, where privately (or semi-privately, in a cabin full of eight- and nine-year-olds) I could replay my kiss with Ransome until I drifted off into a deliriously happy sleep.

T
he first thing my tired eyes saw the next morning was Ruby's upside-down cherubic face inches from mine. Standing at the head of my bed, she was studying my face intently, perhaps to check that I was still breathing.

“Wake up, sleepyhead!” she cried with that tiny hint of a lisp that was usually adorable, but was, at the moment, incredibly annoying.

I groaned and shut my eyes again. “Ruby,” I said hoarsely, “what time is it? Shhh. Get back in your bunk until Reveille.”

She giggled. “Reveille already blew, silly. You missed Flag Raising!”

I shot up in my bed, fully awake now. “What? What time is it? Really, the bugle already blew?”

“Yes,” Ruby said impatiently.

Sure enough, all around me, my campers were already straightening their shoes under their beds and stepping into the cleanest shorts left in their trunks.

“Are you sick?” Melanie, who also stood by my bed now, asked suspiciously. Since the spider eggs in the chin incident, she and Ruby had been inseparable. Kind of like Katie Bell and I had been once upon a time.

“No,” I said, swinging my creaky body around to stand. From the beer at the bowling alley, my brain felt a couple sizes too big for my head. It didn't matter, though. Once my initial alarm at having slept through Flag Raising subsided, the memory of the previous night's kiss seeped through my body like warm water. Brief as it had been, it was the best kiss of my life.

I wanted to kick my legs, grab Ruby in a bear hug, sweep Melanie into a waltz around the cabin, and tell the girls they could have the day off of inspection, because their counselor had officially kissed the love of her life last night. I also thought of running to tell Katie Bell, but the way we had left each other at the Bath the day before stopped me. Instead I sat on the edge of my bed and let the dizziness fade as the girls cleaned up and dressed for breakfast.

Finally, I raised myself from the warmth of the bed and went to my trunk to find something to wear. As I reached for a bathing suit, I remembered it was Field Day.

The campers didn't know yet because it hadn't been announced, but that day was one of the biggest at camp. At breakfast they'd be divided into the East and West Teams, according to which side of the cabin they lived on. The teams would compete in a day of relay races and field games, ending in a swim meet and, just before sundown, a mini-marathon. The team that accumulated the most points throughout the day was pronounced the winner. At ceremonies on closing day, that team would select one girl, usually a cubby, who had most embodied the Southpoint spirit at Field Day. She received the Spirit Award, and her name was stenciled in either green or white (Easts were green, Wests were white) by the crafts counselor on a plaque that hung over the Mess door for future generations to admire and revere. Last year it was Pookie. The year before it had been Winn.

I fished out the one-piece I normally wore on Field Day, an old swim team bathing suit cut for speed rather than style, then quickly reconsidered at the thought of Ransome swinging by the swim meet on a ski boat. I pictured him waving from behind the wheel, and instead shimmied into a black bikini.

After breakfast, while the campers were at a special Morning Gathering, where Marjorie stressed the importance of teamwork, perseverance, and a positive attitude, the counselors were busy setting up games and outfitting for the day. Every Field Day had a theme, and the counselors costumed accordingly. The previous year's had been the Olympics, in celebration of the summer games going on in some faraway country. The counselors had wrapped themselves in togas made from bedsheets and towels. This year it had been declared by Nan, the oldest counselor, who'd been at Southpoint for as long as I could remember, and Winn, that we would be Gladiators—of the red, white, and blue spandex– wearing American variety. Thanks to Hulk Hogan and a brilliant television executive,
American Gladiators
had made a comeback that summer. Because, really, what could be more fun than mixing steroids, baby oil, and padded helmets?

We had scoured our trunks and the camp costume bags, which were stuffed with moldy polyester costumes and Salvation Army finds. And when we reconvened at Cabin Five before trekking together to Death Valley, each counselor who walked up in sweatbands or a unitard drew a new wave of laughter. I cracked up when Lila approached, grinning, in nothing but a turquoise blue leotard, white kneesocks scrunched over her ankles, and tennis shoes. When Pookie came up in a sports bra emblazoned with the Gladiator name stealth, and a permanent marker tattoo that said i ª jousting, it was all over. We looked back and forth at each other and doubled over, laughing so hard we were dangerously close to peeing our spandex pants.

Still slightly delirious from the night before, everything seemed funny to me—or almost everything. There were two things bothering me. One, I still hadn't smoothed things over with Katie Bell. And two, I'd been trying to shove to the back of my mind since breakfast, but it wouldn't stay put: maybe I was crazy, but I couldn't shake the feeling that Winn was ignoring me.

She hadn't come by my table at breakfast like she normally did, and when I looked over at her now to share a laugh over our ridiculous outfits, it was like she wasn't seeing me
on purpose
. She was focusing a little
too
intently on the person in front of her, turning her back to me, or angling her face so that I was just out of sight, so that she
couldn't
see the hilariously huge silver belt I'd cinched around my waist (the black bikini set aside for later), or the boxing gloves and knee pads I'd dug out from the back of the sporting equipment locker. When I did catch Winn's eyes, once, she turned quickly, her blond ponytail flashing. Even the overly loud laughter she was sharing with Sarah, Lizbeth, Caroline, Lila, Pookie, Marge—anyone and everyone but me—felt forced and punishing, a sure sign that she was mad at me.

Quickly, the fun I was having dressing up for my first Field Day as a counselor was slipping away and being replaced by a heavy nauseating feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Nan and Winn conferred on the cabin porch over a piece of paper. “Okay,” Winn finally shouted.

Nan put two fingers in her mouth and whistled above our talking. “Are we all here?” She did a quick head count.

“When the bugle blows,” Winn said, still avoiding my gaze, “we'll all run down to meet the campers. Except for me and Sarah. We'll come back to the dock to get ready for the lake events.” She looked at Sarah and nodded.

I frowned, confused. I was a swim counselor too. Without thinking, I raised my hand. “Winn, do you need me to help at the dock?”

Her eyes met mine for the first time that day. “No, we got it, Helena,” she said. “Just go down with the counselors, and they'll show you what to do.”

Puzzled, I glanced around to see if anyone else had heard the condescension in her voice, but the bugle blew. The counselors gathered their lances and shields, improvised from brooms, hockey sticks, pool noodles, and trash can lids, and headed down the path toward Death Valley.

Winn ducked into her cabin, so I hung back, waiting for her to come out again. When she did, I caught her by the elbow. “Winn, is everything okay?”

She slid her sunglasses from her head down over her eyes. “Of course,” she said quickly. “Everything's fine. Why wouldn't it be?”

I wasn't sure, and was opening my mouth to say so when she said, “I'll see you down at Death Valley,” and turned to shout something to Nan about the tug-of-war rope. I had been dismissed.

“Chew! Chew! Chew!” the girls chanted from both sides of the sideline.

As they screamed at the top of their lungs, Rachel, a tall knock-kneed girl from Six East, stood in front of me spewing chunks of saltine crackers. If she could swallow the crackers, manage a whistle, and tag Katie Bell, the last person in her team's relay line, before her opponent, the Easts might win this event and pull ahead. So she focused and puckered.

I bent closer to Rachel's mouth and heard a sharp whistle. Nodding, I tapped her on the shoulder, and she wheeled toward Katie Bell. Rachel slapped her hand, and Katie Bell was off. As she skidded to a stop in front of me, I smiled, but Katie Bell didn't smile back. Her face was a freckled mask of concentration as she lunged for the last two crackers on the plate I held out. Cramming them into her mouth, she chewed with determination. Her eyebrows strained toward each other, crinkling the skin at the bridge of her nose. All of Katie Bell's energy was focused on winning this event. Finally she managed to swallow the gummy mass and pull her lips into a circle, but when she blew, all that came out was the sound of rushing air. I bent closer to listen for even the vaguest notion of a whistle. Nothing.

She was flapping her hands now in frustration. Still no sound but the tacky smack of her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she swallowed and tried again. Her frantic eyes met mine for a half second, and as they did, before I registered what I was doing, I tapped her on the shoulder.

The look that flickered across Katie Bell's face was a combination of surprise, disapproval, and gratitude. I nodded to clear her for takeoff, and as I did, a thin whistle escaped her lips.

Katie Bell arrived at the finish line two steps ahead of her challenger, where she flopped victorious and out of breath on the ground. Her team went wild, jumping up and down. A beaming Katie Bell got to her feet and went to join them.

As a counselor I was supposed to be neutral, but
I
wanted to jump up and down and hug Katie Bell and cheer until my head hurt from screaming so loud too.

I also wanted to pull Katie Bell aside and tell her that I'd kissed Ransome last night. Whatever frustrations had surfaced between us yesterday outside the showers, I wanted them to be gone. I needed to tell my best friend about this. Still, it wasn't until after the egg toss, while the counselors were adding last-minute buckets of water to the mud pit beneath the tug-of-war rope, that I had a second to steal Katie Bell away from her teammates.

“Hey,” I whispered excitedly as I quietly pulled her aside.

“Hey,” she replied. “Why are we whispering?”

I laughed, not realizing I had been. “Sorry. I just want to tell you something.”

Katie Bell perked up. Even if she was still harboring irritation from yesterday, she would always be a sucker for a secret. Glancing around, I pulled her farther away from the other campers and counselors gathering for the tug-of-war.

“Ransome kissed me last night.”

“Really?”

I nodded, laughing. “Can you believe it? I'm so . . . freaked out! I mean,
I made out with Ransome
.”

“That's awesome, Hel,” said Katie Bell. But she was a bit more underwhelmed than I'd expected. What was with everyone? Could
someone
be giddy with me, please?

“Are you excited?” Her question was clunky and wooden, and the obviousness of the answer annoyed me.

“Well, yeah!” I said. Of course I was excited, although the smile had started to wilt on my face. “We drove out to this point that overlooks the whole lake, and we were talking on the hood of Buzz's car, and—”

Distracted, Katie Bell glanced over at the tug-of-war pit. The rest of the cubbies were starting to line up on either end, and Winn was walking up to retrieve Katie Bell for the Easts.

“Shhh,” Katie Bell said quickly. “Here comes Winn.”

“It's okay. She knows.”

Katie Bell's eyes flashed to my face. “You already told her?”

“Yeah,” I said, wishing I hadn't told Katie Bell that. I started to explain that Winn was there when it happened, but she was right in front of us.

“Katie Bell, we're ready to start. You coming?”

“Yeah,” said Katie Bell quickly. Then to me, “We can talk about this later, right?”

“Yeah. Of course,” I assured her, reminding myself that we were in the middle of Field Day. “Have fun. Get muddy. Just don't even
think
about dragging me in.”

Every year, a few counselors, usually the cubbies' favorites, got dragged into the mud after them. The mud pit was a fun, if disgusting, experience that required a shower before being allowed into the Mess for lunch.

“Don't worry,” Katie Bell said in a tone that wasn't mean, just . . . indifferent. “I won't pull you in.”

She jogged to take her place at the front of the rope and, when the whistle blew, dug her heels into the ground. The Wests made short business of the Easts, and Katie Bell was true to her word. She didn't pull me into the mud, but as I watched the other counselors get dragged into the chocolate-brown slop, I knew I had kind of wanted her to.

It took
forever
for the other counselors to leave the riflery range that night. When I'd gotten there, Ransome had looked straight at me, and a nervousness that had been weighing on me since that afternoon lifted.

Ransome hadn't come by the swim meet that day like I'd imagined. Because of that, I'd worked myself into a state of panic and paranoia that maybe he hadn't meant to kiss me the night before at all. Maybe it had been a freak accident. He'd fallen onto my face, and I'd assaulted him by sticking my tongue down his throat. Or worse, maybe it was a bet. Or a prank.

We'd just been talking about our own prank on our way to the range—the mattress-on-the-floating-dock idea I'd had the first night. Winn was a COD, thankfully, but Pookie and I had gone with Sarah, Lizbeth, and Caroline out there after Taps. They were debating whether to pull our prank now, or whether the guys would be expecting that and we should wait another week to heighten the suspense. So it felt entirely possible that Buzz and Nate and the other Brownies had put Ransome up to kissing me at the overlook as part of the prank war. They could have orchestrated the whole night just to make a poor little JC think a Brownie demigod actually liked her. Sick, sick people.