Camp (11 page)

Aunt Helen seemed to work hard at ignoring her husband and Patsy at the party table, where we made sundaes. Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream. Marshmallow topping. Chocolate syrup. Whipped cream in a can. Nuts. Colored sprinkles. Maraschino cherries.

Girls giggled as they sprayed Redi-Whip like shaving cream. They built their concoctions—the bigger, the better— crowning mountains of ice cream with syrup and nuts. Pure joy. I wanted that: joy without
what if
. What if my mother saw me eating this? What if I poured on extra syrup, took more nuts?

“Hey, Patsy,” Rory said, sucking whipped cream off her fingers. “Mmmm. Yummy. Want some?”

“Go sit down, Rory. I’m not fooling with you now.”

“Who’s fooling?”

“I think you’ve got enough there in your dish, young lady,” Uncle Ed said. “Sit down and eat.”

“But I just thought Patsy might like this, Mr. B. And a cherry too. A nice big juicy one.” Rory ogled Uncle Ed as she pulled a cherry from its stem with her teeth.

“See, that’s what I mean, Ed,” Patsy said. “That’s the behavior.”

“Wait a minute. You’ve been talking about me?”

“What Patsy and I talk about is none of your business, young lady. But I’ll tell you this: You clean up your act, or no camp store for a week.”

“Come on now, Mr. B. You wouldn’t take that away from me,” Rory said, drawing out each word. A smile played at her mouth. “Not a nice man like you.”

“I sure would. And you keep this up, I’ll take away rest hour privileges too.”

“Ah, come on, Mr. B. Just because I’m on to you, you wouldn’t deny me privileges. Just ’cause I see what’s going on here. Such a nice, handsome man like you, you wouldn’t want me to be sad now, would you?”

“Keep going, Rory, and you won’t have to worry about privileges. You keep up this inappropriate behavior, and I’ll send you home.”

Yes! Keep it up! Send her home!
I wanted to shout.

Rory’s smile grew in defiance. “You just try and kick me out of camp, Mr. B., and you’ll see how fast other parents get wind of what you did—sending me home for no reason at all, no reason except maybe … maybe I turn you on. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what this is about. Scary thought, though. A girl your daughter’s age. Your daughter’s friend, in fact. Maybe you want to do pretty Patsy and me at the same time. How does that sound, Mr. B.?”

We clustered in silence around the table, Rory’s words more seductive than ice cream. “What’s she saying about Patsy?” Aunt Helen called, giving up on the bear.

“Nothing, dear,” Uncle Ed said, his voice as sugared as sundaes. “Nothing for you to concern yourself with, Helen. Just Rory talking nonsense, that’s all.”

Rory slammed down her bowl. I watched whipped cream topple to the table as if in slow motion. “You call that nonsense?” she said. “Well, I gotta differ with you there, Mr. B. Ask anyone. Go ahead. Anyone with eyes can see you’re a ladies’ man. And just wait till I tell my parents. Why, you won’t even know what hit you when the word gets out and you start losing campers. Yes indeedy. Great first season, huh, Mr. B.?”

Aunt Helen marched to the table. “What’s she talking about, Ed?”

“Nothing, Helen. She’s finished. Aren’t you, Rory?” Uncle Ed’s red face belied the calm in his voice. “Because I’ll tell you this: This is your last warning. You clean up your act or I
will
send you home, and I’m sure you don’t want me to do that.”

“You don’t know anything about what I want.”

“That’s not so. I know you don’t want to get kicked out of camp. But one false move, Rory, and I’ll do it.”

Rory lowered her head, then spoke in a voice filled with sadness. “Please, Mr. Becker. I'm sorry. Please don’t send me home.”

“Okay, gals,” Patsy said. “Y’all finish making your sundaes and go on enjoy ’em before they turn to mush.”

I took three scoops, one of each flavor, and every topping on the table—including marshmallow, which I don’t even like. To hell with
what-ifs
. I grabbed a spoon and joined Donnie on the bear rug.

“Watch it now, girls,” Aunt Helen said as she handed out napkins. “No drips. Right? Heaven only knows how to clean a bear.”

“Very carefully,” Jessica said. “Very carefully. Get it?”

Everyone smiled but Rory. She sat strangely silent, head bowed, shoulders hunched.

I ate my sundae and thought about what might happen to her at home. How could a father abuse his own daughter?

Chapter 8

An Eye for an Eye

S
ometimes during rest hour, Erin and I visited Nancy in the head counselor’s cabin, and sometimes we went to the boathouse. Erin brought whatever treats her mother had stashed in her latest care package: candy hidden in a stationery box, gum sealed up in envelopes, cookies tucked into T-shirts.

“You know, parents send stuff like this all the time,” Erin told me the first day she showed up with snacks. She handed me a Sugar Daddy. “My mother hides the good stuff so it’s not obvious. You know, ’cause we’re really not supposed to have food in the cabins.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Yep. No junk food allowed. Except on visiting day, when everyone eats like crazy. But tell your mother she can still send whatever you want. She just has to make sure her care packages don’t look like they’re filled with food.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I popped the Sugar Daddy into my mouth. Care packages. Someone would have to care about you to send them. I shut my eyes and savored the sweet Sugar Daddy.

Erin and I headed to the boathouse separately the day after the ice cream party. Why give Rory a chance to sneer at our friendship? Why risk Robin seeing us?

“Better not let your cousin know we’re meeting today,” Erin said, lagging on her way out of breakfast that morning. “I mean, Robin’s getting as bad as Rory, always putting her nose into everyone’s business and sticking with Rory as if they were glued together. No offense, but it’s hard to believe you’re related.”

So Erin noticed it too—how Robin and Rory had become buddies. How could Robin be the same girl who used to invite me to her birthday parties? And why did she seem to hate me now?

Erin and I sat on the boathouse floor that afternoon, our backs to canoes racked against the wall. I tried to tuck my legs to the side rather than cross them. Patsy would manage to sit like a lady, I was sure. My mother too. They would assume the perfect pose no matter how hard the damp floorboards pushed against their limbs. I wriggled to find comfort and poise, then gave up. Why chafe my thigh when my mother wasn’t there to see me? I crossed my legs as the story about Rory and her father burst out. “But don’t tell anyone,” I said. “Donnie said no one’s supposed to know.”

“Well, actually, I heard that rumor last summer,” Erin said.

“But doesn’t it bother you?”

“I don’t know. Guess I don’t think about it much or I would’ve already told you. I mean, why should I even think about that? Why think about something that might not even be true about someone I hate to think about in the first place?” Erin paused to stare at an army of ants working its way up a paddle. “But what I do think about,” she went on, “is what Rory did to you. And what really makes me angry is she gets away with it. And she’ll do it again and again till someone stops her. So maybe that’s what we ought to be talking about. It’s time for revenge, I say. Don’t get mad; get even.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe we should get her before she tries anything again.” Erin twirled a pigtail with her index finger. “It’s like I told Nancy: I’d rather eat worms than cave in to Rory all summer.”

“So what can we do?”

“Give her a taste of her own medicine. That’s what I say. Make Rory suffer for a change.” A smile crinkled Erin’s face, visible in the thin line of sunlight that snuck through the boathouse door, which we always left cracked open. She threw a playful punch at my shoulder. “We’re smart. We’ll think of something.”

“But last night, when Uncle Ed threatened to kick her out of camp, you should have seen her.”

“
What
? He did
what
?”

I told Erin what had happened the night before.

“That’s great. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me sooner. So how’s this? We get Rory to do something really bad when your uncle’s around. Maybe at the Saginaw social.” She twirled her pigtails until I thought her hair would spring from her head. “Holy moly! We could get her sent home.”

“I don’t know. You didn’t see how Rory looked when Uncle Ed said he’d kick her out.” I surprised myself with this hesitation. Of course I wanted Rory kicked out. Sometimes I still wished she would drown in the lake. Every time I looked at her now, I imagined pushing her off the float and waiting for the snapping turtle to strike. But even so, I didn’t want her to suffer at the hands of her father.

“Listen, Ame.” There it was: my nickname, the bridge to friendship. Best friends for the next six weeks. Maybe getting even with Rory wouldn’t be wrong, no matter what might happen to her. After all, she had threatened Erin and the others when they left my initiation. Maybe it was my turn now to do something for them: help them go after Rory. An eye for an eye. That old Hammurabi Code I’d learned about in social studies.

“Listen,” Erin said again. “We need to make a plan. The Saginaw social’s coming up. Whaddaya say we get our gang together tomorrow at rest hour and work it out?”

“What gang?”

“You know: you and me, Donnie, Fran, and Karen. The ones who turned on Rory during that stupid initiation. And Paula too, from my cabin. We’ll meet here in the boathouse. Rory’ll never find us. You and I are the only ones who use this place. So tomorrow then. I’ll spread the word. Rory watches you more than me, so I’ll get everyone here. You just show up during rest hour. Okay?”

An eye for an eye. I couldn’t say no.

“Leave it to Erin,” Donnie said when she caught up to me on the way to the boathouse the next day. “She’s right. Don’t get mad; get even. And it’s about time we get even with Rory.”

Getting mad I could handle. But getting even? When I thought about Rory’s father, I still really wasn’t sure. A chill worked through me although heat pushed down on us again, reminding me of the weather on the morning I’d left for camp. My father in his T-shirt: “Think I’ll turn on the air conditioner. Maybe a little air’ll get in here.” My mother holding him back: “We’ll be gone before it cools down.” Why did my father always hand her the reins? Was it her looks, her perfect figure? Something to do with sex?

I gagged at the idea as I tried to flick my mother off my shoulder.
Two wrongs don’t make a right
, my mother whispered in my ear as Donnie opened the boathouse door. Was my mother telling me not to go after Rory? Would she say I had gotten what I deserved: punishment for being me, for not being pretty like she was? For not being sexy like Robin, like Rory? Sure, they might not have attacked me if I had big hair and polished nails. Yet it was my mother who wouldn’t let me use rollers; my mother who told me I couldn’t wear polish if I still picked at my cuticles. I heard her voice again:
Two wrongs don’t make a right, Amy.

Whose code held the truth, my mother’s or Hammurabi’s? And what about the Takawanda code? The law of the jungle: Eat or be eaten.