Camptown Ladies (2 page)

“You and Vince haven’t spent my share, right?” she asked.

“No. Dad helped me set it up in a money market for you. He said you’d want it eventually. He’s known you a bit longer.” Lisa is two years older than me. “His actual words were: ‘Even an earthy-crunchy bulldyke from Maine can find a use for a few million dollars.’”

“Not from Maine anymore! Ready? Wanna guess?”

I didn’t.

“I’ve decided to buy a campground in Rhode Island, and you’re gonna help me run it!” She sang out this news with that typical “Ta-daaaaa” sound in her voice, waiting for applause.

“No,” I said.

“Marie, it’s gonna be great! Remember all the fun we used to have camping? The smell of the campfire and the pine trees—”

“I remember a giant hawk dismembering a baby bunny on a picnic table. We were too afraid it would go after us if we made a run for it, so we had to stand still and watch it eat the thing.”

Lisa laughed, “I tried to use the remains to get out of dissecting a frog in science, but, no go. Hey, remember all the cool nights by the campfires, the dappled sunshine through the trees, the chocolate and marshmallow s’mores, the hot dogs, the barbeque chicken—”

I said, “My stomach is still on the bunny, but I do remember that really creepy guy who hung around the campground and exposed himself every time we spun around the playground Round-A-Bout.”

“That was hysterical,” Lisa said.

“Not really.”

“You have to admit his timing was amazing. Hey, remember the nights hanging at the teen rec hall?”

“Yeah, except there were no teenagers, just a bunch of us nine- to twelve-year-olds hanging around trading crumpled Star Wars cards.”

“Mmmm, Princess Leia,” Lisa said. “Don’t forget, I got to touch my first boob while camping. Ahhhh, Jennifer Litwieller. I called her Jennifer Tit-Sweller after that, remember?”

“Yeah, she loved that,” I said.

“She only let me touch her once, but it never would have happened if our parents hadn’t taken us camping.”

Lisa had that Woodsy The Owl tone in her voice now, like she was teaching something important:
Remember kids, your best chance
to touch a boob before you turn twelve is behind a skanky teen rec hall while camping!

Lisa was on a roll. “And remember the time we made Vince pee right inside the rec hall because we didn’t want to leave all the fun to walk him to the bathrooms, then he ratted us out to Mom and Dad? And you tried your first cigarette, there too.”

I said, “Those are reasons enough to buy a campground.” I had thrown up from the cigarette and wiped the evidence off my mouth with a climbing ivy plant that turned out to be poison sumac. My lips burned for weeks. Good times.

Lisa continued with a irritating wistful high-pitched tone to her usually husky, matter-of-fact voice, “It’s a sweet little spot in the woods in southern Rhode Island, with 250 sites, a man-made pond, a few old cabins, but I plan to build some more, and a huge log recreation hall attached to a camp store. The website pictures look pristine. I told the woman I would have a deposit to her by the end of this week.”

“The website?” I said, sitting up, feeling the sharp grit of potato chip crumbs grind into my elbows. “You mean you haven’t even
seen
it?”

“Of course I saw it! I just told you, the pictures are sweet! There’s even a golf cart to make campfire wood deliveries! Oh, and in the back of the camp store, I might even put a gift shop.” By “gift shop,” I knew she meant “bar.” Anytime we ever went to a hotel she would scan the lobby and say, “Ooooh, look! A gift shop!” and make a beeline for the bar.

Lisa continued in her disturbing cheerfulness. “The owner was honest with me that the whole campground needs some updating, but I was glad to hear the buildings needed some work, since I want this to be a bit of a project, you know? Leave my mark on the place. It’ll be fun! The biggest thing is all the roofs need fixing or replacing, the electrical, too, maybe the plumbing, but, I have the perfect name to go after the dyke clientele.”

I said, “Well, it all makes sense now, I mean, since you already have the perfect name.”

Lisa shouted into my ear, “Camptown Ladies!”

Then she proceeded to screech her song into the phone:

“
Camptown Ladies sing this song,

Dildo, Dildo!!!

Camptown Lezzies, eight inches long,

All the Dildo, Gaaaaaaay!
”

Two

Camptown Ladies & Camp, Camp

Lisa had rented a three-bedroom condo for us to share, one town away from the campground, and I was once again reminded how simple it was to make life-changing decisions when you are wealthy. She had done a good job with the condo, aside from the freakishly décor-free environment in the living area downstairs, bare except for a wide screen TV and huge couch to watch Patriots football. The only other sign of life was in the kitchen, which was fully stocked with Italian cooking supplies, and the largest set of chef grade cooking pans available in the free world.

Vince and I were both in such dire need of a distraction, we would have agreed to any of one of Lisa’s wild ideas, and within two weeks, Vince had hired a realtor to sublet his California apartment, placed all his things in storage, and I had closed up my own house in the Hollywood Hills. We were running late and Lisa had planned to meet us at the camp but still my brother and I wasted ten minutes to rock, paper, and scissor our way into getting our rooms decided (we played six rounds until he finally got his way).

Now I was in a condo in Rhode Island, showered and changed, my clothes all put away, and I was waiting outside for Vince. My brother could take longer than a teenage girl to go anywhere. As I waited, I thought about how perfect Erica had been for him. She was smart and strong, and she met his strict “knock-out” requirement. She was so strong, that when we first met, I didn’t doubt for a moment she was a lesbian. OK, it was mainly since Erica had advertised her contractor and decorating company in the Pink Pages to get gay clientele. Erica turned out to be an ace contractor and carpenter,
who, despite her petite size six frame, could work side by side with a crew of three to sledgehammer down a non-load bearing wall in a matter of minutes. When I found out about her strategy to get gay clients, I accused her of being a “Thespian” (a straight chick acting gay)—and I realized in many ways she was the complete opposite of my now ex-girlfriend, the re-closeted actress Lorn Elaine, who had made a career of pretending to be straight.

Erica and I had formed an unlikely business partnership when I first moved out to California, one that was built from hiring her due to my extreme boredom and my inheritance of a ridiculous amount of money from my dead grandmother, which made boredom affordable. Erica certainly didn’t agree to work with me from any skill I had that she lacked. I was basically her chief bottle-washer; assistant of all things needing to be nailed (Lisa would say, except women). Most often I was what Erica called her Homo-Depot runner.

I laughed at this memory as I kicked the tires of my old car to see if they were still up for the ride after all this time stored in Dad’s garage. Lisa had coordinated getting the car over to the condo for me.

I yelled for my brother. “Vince! What the hell are you doing in there? Let’s go!”

He poked his head though a window in the upstairs bedroom and yelled back, “Settle down! The neighbors will know the lesbos have moved in!”

“I wouldn’t worry,” I yelled back, “no lesbian would wear a shirt that girly!”

He laughed, walked away from the window, and I heard something smash.

“Oops,” he said.

If it was Lisa’s statue of Martina Navratilova . . . Vince was toast.

I got in the car to distance myself from the scene of the crime. My plan to move out to California had been a simple one after inheriting the family money. I would use my nonexistent career as a screenplay writer to somehow meet (and permanently bed) the elusive actress Lorn Elaine. When I managed to actually pull this off through a freakish series of events starting in Jamaica (a totally
implausible story; maybe I should write it up some time) I soon realized that, while other people do it all the time, being a wealthy girlfriend of a Hollywood actress is not really an occupation.

Plus, being with a closeted girlfriend doesn’t typically offer up boatloads of opportunity to be out together in public, since this makes more likely the chances of a paparazzi attack. Lorn’s career was going well, and I had just come to terms with the fact that my ridiculous dream of being a screenplay writer would likely not pan out in my lifetime. (It turned out that writing my screenplay in order to meet Lorn had been the sole reason for me wanting to be a writer . . . whoops.) So, I decided to do what many wealthy people do—buy myself a career instead.

Rich people do this all the time. They start fundraising organizations, rescue children in far-flung places in the world, build houses for the needy, open soup kitchens, and for a while I thought about doing something similar since my sister could make some damned fine Italian Wedding Soup and various other savory items in the kitchen, including homemade wine, which could turn quite a profit for a good cause. But instead, I made the slightly less noble offer to buy into Erica’s successful contracting and home decorating business, which catered to Hollywood’s elite. Along with the bargain, I had led my brother Vince to the girl of his dreams, and I was convinced there was no better girl for him than Erica, as in
All My Children
. . . that is, if Erica would have him.

Working as a contractor’s nail assistant was a job I grew to love, which surprised me as much as my little brother’s ability to nail a girl as damned near perfect as Erica. It was the variety of the job I loved. One day I would be fetching nails, the next day we were courting prospective movie star clients at ridiculously expensive LA restaurants.

“Price of doing business in Hollywood,” Erica would say as we ate $50 salads, which barely covered the center of our plates.

The next day, I would be holding my breath, as Erica would be walking like a ballerina on the clay tiles of a Mediterranean style roof overlooking the property that overlooked Spielbergs’ pool. The day after that, she would teach me how to rip out a septic system
she felt wasn’t being done right by the sub-contractors we hired. The following day we would be firing somebody. On those days, I kept a safe distance, like when watching a train wreck. She never fired someone who didn’t deserve it, and she never fired anyone who didn’t try their best.

Until she fired me.

“Vince!” I yelled. We were really late now, if you could possibly be late to a campground.

Finally, he came running out the front door, hopping down the steps.

“Keys?” I asked him, and he made a face and had to go back in the condo again while I rested my head on the steering wheel and waited again. We were supposed to be at the campground an hour ago. Still, it was hard to get angry at him; he’d been fired by her too.

I remembered Erica and I had been working together for several months, when she vaguely confessed things weren’t going well with Vince, though he had not mentioned a word about this to my sister, or to me. I had known only that Vince was head over heels in love, so I feared for my brother’s heart. Her confession came while we were splitting a mediocre LA version of a mozzarella and tomato sandwich on the marble dust-covered floor of a rock star’s mansion. It had been a big job for us, and the place had reached the stage where we didn’t want to break and leave for a real lunch, unless we needed to court the next wealthy Hollywood resident for our next project.

Since we’d lined up several projects, we could relax that we were booked for at least the next six months while we dined alone in our paint-splattered clothes on the mansion’s floor, a comfort level we both preferred to the swanky cafés beneath the Hollywood Hills. Maybe it was this comfort level that made Erica confess, “I’m not sure your brother and I are going to make it.”

I had been in mid-bite.

“Of course you will,” I said, with my mouth stuffed, “you’re perfect for each other.”

Actually, not true. He may have been my brother, but Vince was still a guy. Generally speaking, it was Erica that was perfect. Smart,
successful, and annoyingly attractive in a tool belt, even with her hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. God knows, I didn’t look good on the job.

She’d stared at me, waiting, I assumed, for a more convincing answer. We ate in silence for a while, and I finally laughed uncomfortably and said, “I bet the two of you will be together long after Lorn and I split.”