2 Camp Nowhere
Training camp was the first great financial drain.
In the months preceding, Aunt Caryn, who lived with us, had generously paid me for babysitting the twins. My mother added what she could, and Ms. Hall had worked out payment arrangements with some of the girls for the remaining balance.
The practice retreat was a compound of cabins sprinkled around a wooded lake. The cabins each contained two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchenette. Four girls shared each cabin. My cabin mates were Dani, Ashleigh, and Erin.
On the arrival date, Dani and I were the first of our group to reach our lodging. Talking nonstop, we clumped across the wooden porch and wrestled our overstuffed bags into the entryway. With a plop, the luggage, and other bags, dropped to the floor while we stared around at the rustic paneling and gabled ceiling.
There was a scattering of chairs, a couch, and a few tables. A television was in one corner. Taking up most of one wall was a fireplace, which there would be no use for since the temperatures would soar into the hundreds this month. The kitchenette opened to the main room, and a faint scent of lemon cleaner permeated the air.
Retrieving our belongings from the heap on the den floor, we ventured into one of the identical bedrooms and began to unpack. Dani set up her iPod dock on the dresser, and after a quick scroll through the device, popped it on and adjusted the volume.
In the mirror frame over the dresser, Dani slid a photo of herself and Cole, wistfully eying the glossy printout. “I’m going to miss my honey.”
More than once, I had wondered how I was going to get through two weeks without Jared. “I know what you mean.” Giving a drawer a yank, I suddenly jumped back, shrieking an explicative. “Please tell me it’s dead,” I implored to my best friend.
Cautiously, Dani inched closer to inspect the contents of the drawer, finding one gargantuan—dead—spider. “It is,” she assured. Removing the entire drawer, she carried it to the adjoining bath and gave the arachnid a proper sea burial.
“You don’t think he has any surviving relatives, do you?” I knew my voice shook as I asked. Before Dani could either tease me about possible live ones under the bed, or comfort me that they had all starved in the cabin, voices and the slam of a door announced the arrival of our cabin mates, and the comfortable peace of the house shattered.
“Hey chickadees, what’s shaking?” Erin breezed into the room and began scrolling through the iPod. “Hey! I’ve got this one—now he is one fine specimen!” Clicking through to the song jacket, she perused the lead singer with a hungry stare.
With barely a hello, Ashleigh disappeared into the other room, setting the pattern for the rest of the stay. Ashleigh seldom spoke a nice word, and when she did, it was to Erin. Erin bubbled with congeniality towards all.
The mornings began early with breakfast, a hike, and exercise. There was a light lunch around noon, followed by an hour of free time. Then, a few hours of learning moves and routines, after which, the rest of the day, and night, was our own. After the afternoon practice, most of the girls swam or tanned. In the evenings, we gathered in groups at various cabins to watch movies or play music.
I loved every second of every day despite the sore muscles and initial sunburn.
Four or five nights a week, I talked with Jared on the phone. Cell phone reception was nonexistent, which was no bother to me because a wireless bill had never worked into the family finances. I had a prepaid for urgent calls and emergencies. However, for Dani, Ashleigh, and Erin, it meant the one landline phone in the cabin had to be shared four ways. This became a problem, particularly between Dani and Ashleigh.
Erin was the only one of us four without a steady boyfriend, and she seldom jockeyed for phone time. I generally used my calling card at off times, like when Ashleigh was in the shower and Dani was otherwise occupied. But Dani and Ashleigh both seemed to want the phone each evening at the same time, and their calls with their boyfriends were extremely lengthy.
“What kind of hillbilly hole in the backwoods place is this?” Ashleigh raged one evening, slinging her head of springy curls around as she glared at the room’s occupants. After stamping around for several more minutes, fuming as Dani who was on the phone with Cole studiously ignored her temper tantrum, she yelled, “Would it kill them to put a cell tower up? What kind of place doesn’t even have internet?”
Erin sat cross-legged on the couch eating popcorn, and she arched one mocking eyebrow my way. Choking back my giggles, I focused on the video we were watching. The last thing I wanted was to be seen making fun of Ashleigh. The girl had the moods of a monster.
The relationship between Dani and Ashleigh worsened, to the extreme that they never missed an opportunity to cut the other down. Not only that, but they relished the opportunity to rag on each other. Dani left hair in the shower drain, or Ashleigh didn’t clean toothpaste from the sink. As things got uglier, Erin and I did what we could to smooth the arguments.
It was no surprise, that at the end of the stay, when goodbyes were said, and parting hugs were exchanged, Dani and Ashleigh had none for each other.
***
“I missed you babe!” Jared enveloped me in a bear hug and planted a hard kiss on my mouth before pushing me at arm’s length and letting out a whoop of admiration. Immediately upon my return from camp, I had surprised him at a local plant farm where he worked in the spring and summer.
His appreciative gaze quickly gave me the once over, then more slowly, roved the second over. Time in the sun each day, in addition to coloring my skin a light caramel shade, had added gold and copper streaks to my hair. Hours of practice and exercise had defined my calves, and toned my thighs. The glint in his eyes made me feel, for the first time in my life, truly stunning.
“What time are you through here?” Making the inquiry, I tried to ignore the flush of embarrassment heating my cheeks, and the way my pulse was racing, following his forward perusal.
“I’ve got two more deliveries to make.”
“My mother’s cooking supper. Do you want to come over? We could go out afterward?”
“Alright by me, babe.”
Arlette and Jared had hit it off from the first introduction, more than a year ago. Maybe because the same charm that had ensnared me worked equally as well on the women of any generation. Aunt Caryn called him wonderful, and the twins said he was the coolest.
That evening, he rang the bell, bearing three roses, one each for me, my mom, Aunt Caryn. For the twins, he brought daisies.
Aunt Caryn was absent that evening on a date. The rest of the group regaled each other over dinner with interesting happenings over the last few weeks. Arlette told about a patient that had cracked her head on a diving board, stayed in a coma for almost a week, before thankfully coming out of it, seemingly fine. The little girls were enthralled by Jared’s experience with a Copperhead, which had crawled out of a delivery of begonias and into a customer’s pool. I told them about Ashleigh hurling a half carton container of yogurt Dani’s way, which ultimately ended up splattering Erin and me too.
The twins ate most of their dinner and asked to be excused to watch television. With permission granted, they scampered off, and within seconds, the shrill sound of animated characters could be heard from the next room.
“A little boy came into ER several weeks ago with a snake bite.” Arlette expanded on the subject of snakes. “I believe he was bitten by a ground rattler. He was really sick, but he made a full recovery.”
“My brother stepped on a Copperhead,” Jared said. “Luckily, he had boots on, so the fangs didn’t pierce them.”
“Snakeskin boots?” I inquired, looking for a laugh, and was rewarded accordingly by their chuckles.
Arlette frowned as she sipped her tea. “I didn’t know you had a brother, Jared. How old is he?”
Jared redirected his attention to his almost empty plate. “Nineteen.”
“Is he in college?” Arlette inquired politely.
I knew, from a brief experience, this was not Jared’s favorite subject. The only other time he had ever volunteered any information about his brother, had been to explain why there were two smiling little boys in the many framed photographs displayed around his house.
Jared’s brother, Bren, was older than him, by two years. When Bren was fourteen, he had run away from home, leaving behind a short note, two distraught parents, and a brokenhearted little brother. Jared had briefed me on the story, but the emotional impact I had deduced on my own. Caught up in the discussion at hand, he had most likely brought the subject up without thinking.
Intercepting on his behalf, I explained to my mother, “Jared’s brother ran away five years ago.”
Clearly taken aback, Arlette apologized, “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Jared replied. “He went to live with some relatives at first. We really don’t know where he is anymore.”
Arlette expressed her sympathy again, and I was struck by the similarity of the situation. All three persons at the table had lost an older brother in different ways. Arlette’s brother would never return. Jared’s might, someday. Mine did, on occasion.
Reflectively, my thoughts went to Dal, my older brother. During the divorce, two years ago, he had remained with our dad to finish his senior year of high school at the school he had attended all along.
After dinner, Jared barred my mother from the kitchen, and orchestrated the cleanup himself. The small girls cleared the table. Jared and I loaded the dishwasher and then put away the food. His chivalry bought us an extra hour before curfew that night.
“I’m impressed. You sure know how to play her.” I complimented him once we were in his truck and on our way.
“Who? Your mom? She’s not so bad.”
“Yeah,” I expelled on a derisive breath. The streetlight whipped by, and I settled back into the seat, fumbling for my safety belt.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
I had never confided to him about my mother’s screaming tirades, lengthy lectures, or guilt trips. The times that I had lay curled into a tight ball, in my bed, after my mom went off about some stupid, trivial something, and screamed for five minutes straight. ‘If you are too stupid to put the utensils handle side down in the dishwasher, you are too stupid to drive. Give me your keys!’ Or, ‘only a little tramp would stand in the driveway, in broad daylight like that, and kiss her boyfriend. Do you want the neighbors to think you’re a tramp? I sure don’t want them to know I’m raising a little tramp’. But my mother could be as nice and sweet, as she was mean and hateful. Maybe it had something to do with the weird hours she worked. Maybe it was just loneliness. I didn’t date much, and had never seemed interested in any man, in the years since the divorce.
“You want to go to Will’s? That’s where everybody is tonight.” Jared broke into my hurtful recollections.
“Yeah sure,” I replied, eager to see the gang.
Jason had work. Dani and Cole didn’t show. It was Will and his new girlfriend, and me and Jared. The four of us ended up in the game room, at Jared’s house, playing pool for hours. When the other couple took their leave, we settled on the futon.
“I really, really missed you.” His voice was husky, and his eyes were shadowy in the dim lighting.
“I missed you too,” I declared softly.
“It was a very long week…”
I was melting beneath his burning look, and I let myself fall against the cushions when he closed every inch of space between us.
“A very long week…” I sighed the agreement on an unsteady breath.
“Kiss me…” Instead of simply taking my lips, he hovered above me, propped on his elbows, his mouth barely touching mine, and he moved his chin in a feather brush as he growled the command.
My heart pounded. My eyes remained hypnotized to his. Automatically, my head raised the fractional bit needed. It seemed before my mouth touched his, his was already on mine in a crushing kiss.
He’d always worn his hair as long as he could get by with and still conform to the school dress code, but now that it was summer, he hadn’t cut it. My fingers forked in the shaggy layers, and clenched in the silky strands.
I loved him. I loved him so much my heart ached with it at times like this.
“Love you, Ty…” His whisper was soon enough a breath against my ear before he eased away.
And I felt like the luckiest woman in the world because he loved me back.