Truth or Dare

Lunch With The Director and Inevitable Pain

                                                                                                                Lydia

I had lunch with the director every Wednesday I'd spent at camp since my first week my first year. He had gotten to know me when I worked at the camp store to pay my way the first year when my dad was a bit low on money. He came in every day, ordered a diet coke and a pizza pretzel and then would stand by the counter and talk to me if the place was slow. That Wednesday he invited me up to the Big House to have lunch with him.

I only had to work there for a week to fulfill my payment requirement, so the second week I was pretty shocked when I walked into the mess hall and was told I was wanted up at the Big House. I wasn’t an official head yet, just a trainee, so I thought that I may have done something against the rules or been caught sneaking out and I was in trouble. But when I got there, he had ordered pizza and handed me a plate. This was the start of our weekly lunches.

This week we were dining on a local pizzeria's pepperoni pizza, even if pizza was for dinner that night. The director didn’t see a problem with repeats and neither did I when it came to pizza. "So how's the Prank War going?" he asked me as soon as I sat down in his office and grabbed a slice.

"You're not supposed to know or ask about that." I said.

"I'm aware, just like you're supposed to be eating corn dogs in the mess hall right now." He quipped. "Now come on, spill. I was a head too once, back in the day. Was even a lead for a year. Not that I could ever compare to you, the youngest camper to ever make it into the heads. Not to mention one of the only new campers to ever make it among their ranks."

"I hate corndogs." I took another bite of pizza. "I guess since this is off the record and everything. The girls have been winning all week, the boys got one up on us last night when they stole back their bandana's with a very clever stunt on their part, but I also got my stuffed dog back so I still think it's in our favor."

"And the week before?" he asked. "You didn't mention anything about that. In fact last week, you didn't mention anything about the heads at all besides that Dani girl."

"Dani is no longer among our ranks. And I didn’t mention the heads or the War last week because we were in an alliance against a common enemy last week." I said. The director wouldn’t get me in trouble for what we did to Dominic the prior week, or anything we did this week. In fact, I didn’t think he'd get us into trouble at all. "Some problems arose with Dominic."

"Again? Do I need to call him up here?"

"No. We've been doing a pretty good job of handling it." I assured him.

"Like setting him out adrift in the lake?" the director raised an eyebrow.

"He wasn't drifting in the lake, he was on the shore of the island. Perfectly safe and sound. And I had nothing to do with that, for the record."

"And what about off the record?"

"Well off the record, if he didn’t want it to happen he should have woke up when the water hit him the face on the canoe ride out there." I shrugged. "He got what he deserved."

"Lydia, while I don't like Dominic all that much either, that stunt wasn’t safe."

"Not now, I don't need a lecture. I have enough to deal with without you telling me how much stupid stuff I'm doing."

"What's going on, Lydia?"

"This place is supposed to be where I'm the golden child for once in my damn life. And now there's a whole cult of people who would like nothing more than to remind me of exactly how worthless and powerless I am to everyone else. As if I didn’t know that at all already." I laughed and stared down at my pizza. "I've survived a lot this year, Hank. A lot. My ex boyfriend tried to run me down with his car because I left, I had extreme depression, I was bullied for sending said ex boyfriend to jail for trying to kill me. Camp Pinewood is my escape. But this year, this year I just can't seem to win."