Camptown Ladies (21 page)

The weather had started to lose some of its chill and we were all taking a break in the middle of the day. Although Camptown Ladies was officially open, it was so early in the season that only a few of the diehard regulars had come back to their trailers, and there was not one gay camper in sight.

Aside from the contracting issues that sat squarely on Erica’s shoulders, we discovered the regulars needed nothing from us except for us to switch the electricity on, and take their payments for the season. Since we had never turned the electricity off, and we certainly didn’t need their money, this left an Italian family too well prepared with too much time on their hands after officially opening the camp gates for the very first time. (The gates were always open.)

To address the critical issue of our boredom—and, more importantly,
to comfort each other with drinks—Lisa had called a meeting at the end of the work week at the condo. We had to face the fact that the expected caravans of gays had not arrived on glitter-filled buses named Priscilla, or dyke-filled Subarus named Argo (after Xena The Warrior Princess’s horse). The evening would also signal the end of my avoidance of both Vince and Erica and my stomach churned at the thought of sitting around a table with both of them, one in particular. Then, luckily, Erica took a pass on the meeting.

Then, later, not so luckily, I felt cheated that she wasn’t coming.

But now it was midweek, and I’d decided to avoid Erica’s construction crew by sitting in a lawn chair I had dragged over by the fishing pond and watching Lisa expertly fly-fishing on the other side. I comforted myself with the knowledge that the less I was around Erica, the less my thoughts about her in P-town seemed an issue. But there were two things that bothered me. Why did I feel the need to avoid her, and why had I almost completely stopped thinking of Lorn?

Lisa had chosen fly-fishing as a way to spend her downtime since the few regulars at camp were merely scattered trailers of retired folks who barely did more than sit on their trailer porches and flee at the first sign of a nip in the evening air. Since schools were still in session, we had to face the fact that Camptown Ladies might remain quiet for another month or two.

I had been distracted by the rhythmic whoosh-whip sound of Lisa’s fly-fishing line and hadn’t noticed right away that behind her, at the edge of a campsite, a little boy had been secretly watching her. When Lisa looked over at me, I nodded toward the patch of trees behind her and she spotted him as he ducked behind the trunk of a terribly skinny tree. He thought she couldn’t see him but the width of the tree barely covered the width of his head.

Lisa called out gently to him without turning around. “I have taught so many boys to fish, if you want to learn.”

She was being truthful. While we were growing up in our middleclass neighborhood, both the dads and the moms had to work several jobs to keep their houses in a town were taxes were getting out of control. Our dad was the only one who taught his kid to fish, and
right after that, Lisa taught all the boys in our neighborhood. She worked as a busgirl at an ice cream shop to earn the money to buy herself a fishing pole that summer, and later she got so good that the adult fisherman would sometimes ask her what she was using on her lines. She had a great casting arm, but her real secret had been to dip her flies in Mom’s meat marinades overnight, and sneak them out at the crack of dawn to hit the pond.

The little boy stayed behind the skinny tree, his body exposed on both sides. She kept fishing as he peeked at her and she called out, “If you change your mind, I’ll be happy to teach you,” but he was attacked by shyness and ran back into his campsite.

Since my mission in life was avoiding Erica, I got to witness this for the next two days, until the little boy called back a confession that he didn’t have a fishing pole. The third day, Lisa stood a child’s fishing pole next to his tree, and when the little boy showed up, he stopped short at the tree, in shock. Lisa called out to him, “That’s your pole if your mom and dad say it’s ok.”

“My Dad doesn’t live with us,” the boy said, as he grabbed the pole. He crept toward the water’s edge, holding the pole as if it were a gun about to go off. Lisa didn’t waste any time and began teaching him. He was shy at first, but he so badly wanted to fish that he got over it and asked a million questions; I was sure he knew the answers to some of them. They stayed fishing side by side for some time until a panic-stricken young mother came running out of the woods.

“Buddy! I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“The boy lady is teaching me to fish!” He said as Lisa chuckled under her baseball hat and adjusted her football jersey so the mom could see she had breasts.

Lisa said, “It’s my fault. He’s been watching me fish for a few days, so I coaxed him out with this extra pole I had kicking around.” Lisa had bought that pole at a local bait shop, and the price tag was waving from a string on the grip like a tail.

“That’s very nice of you, but Buddy knows he’s not supposed to leave the campsite without telling me, and is never to come to the pond by himself.”

Lisa said, “Yeah, Buddy, you shouldn’t do that.”

The woman said, “Say goodbye to the nice lady, your lunch is ready.”

Buddy tried twice to put down the pole, but couldn’t do it. Finally he said to Lisa, “Can I keep it?”

“Buddy, that’s not polite,” his mother said.

Lisa said, “If your mom says its ok.”

Buddy looked up at his mom like his very life depended on her answer, and Lisa said to her, “There’s no hooks on his, it’s completely safe.”

The woman said, “Buddy, what do you say to the nice lady?”

“Thank you!” And with that, he ran off, clutching the pole in hand, in case the boy-lady changed her mind.

“Thank you,” the woman said, and Lisa nodded at her before setting another perfect cast whipping in the air just inches above the surface of the pond. A fish made a dive for the fly and missed. The woman watched a few more casts before she followed her son toward their campsite. The woman turned around, hesitated, then asked, “Would you like some lunch? It’s only peanut butter and jelly, but I have some ice cold beer.”

Lisa smiled in my direction, her back still toward the woman. “Got any Fritos?”

“I have a kid. Of course,” the woman said, laughing at her.

Lisa packed up her fishing things and I watched her head toward the trailer, wondering why she stopped short before going in. She gave a victory fist in the air, looked over at me, and pointed to something at the back of the trailer. There was a sign indicating the woman was a past Hilary Clinton supporter. This sign would not have meant much to anyone else, but to Lisa, this meant she should make a lewd motion as if she was spanking an invisible woman’s ass over her knee. Then she took off her cap, folded it in her back pocket, and disappeared inside the trailer to attempt fishing on dry land.

Later, I busied myself by helping Eddie finish the last of the interior sanding on the logs on the recreation hall. Lisa’s dog, Cindy-Lu, was hanging with us, as if she instinctively sensed that this would be the place where food would be served, so she needed to make this her territory. Eddie, Cindy-Lu, and I were all cast in a creepy blue color from the draped blue tarps over the roof, and
Eddie’s constant whining was being drowned out by Erica’s scolding voice in my head telling us about how we were doing everything backward. But even Erica knew that at this point we had no choice. If we waited for the roofs to pull everything together, it would be down to the wire if our promotional handouts in P-town worked and campers arrived with the warm weather.

Erica was not around since the clay roofing tile shipment had finally arrived. Although Lisa wanted the crew to start on the rec hall, Erica finally convinced Lisa it was more important to get at least a few of the bathroom houses in shape first, which meant she was deep into the camp, working her way to the front with her new Italian crew.

Lisa showed up about an hour later. Since she wasn’t gloating, I knew she had struck out, but she was grinning.

“How was lunch?” I asked.

“Delightful,” Lisa answered, “but, she’s in the middle of a divorce—to a man, no less, not that there is anything less. My gaydar must be on the fritz. I can’t figure this woman out.” Lisa liked to figure people out in ten seconds or less, and if she couldn’t, it irritated the crap out of her.

“What else did you find out?” I asked.

Lisa said, “That she was so hot I left a slug trail all the way from her campsite.”

Eddie moaned, put his hand to his stomach, and gagged to show his offense. In case we still didn’t get how much it grossed him out, he clarified, “I feel like I just barfed, ate it, and barfed again.”

Lisa said, “Like that isn’t a regular Friday for you.”

Later, at the condo, Lisa was updating Vince on the events of the day as we prepped for our evening festivities.

“So then she made me a cute little peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a side of Fritos, and looked damn hot doing it, too—even though peanut butter was not what I wanted her spreading. If you get my meaning.”

Vince said, “No, Lisa, I didn’t get your meaning.”

“Enough,” I said, as the doorbell rang. “Mom and Dad are here.”

If I could have pressed the rewind button after opening the door, I would have. Then maybe Erica would not have heard me gasp like a total ass. She was dressed casually, but somehow managed to make jeans and a simple T-shirt gasp-worthy.

“Oh. Did I scare you? I rang the bell,” she said.

“You said you weren’t able to make it.” I answered.

“I decided I could come. Is it OK?”

This might have been the only time I ever heard Erica ask if something was OK, and it puzzled me. Erica was of the taking variety, not the asking variety.

“Of course,” I said and stepped aside, since she was not making her way inside until I did.

Erica greeted Vince and he seemed happy to see her until she walked past him to the kitchen and his sad puppy face flashed back. This was a face I needed to remember when I did something dumb, like gasp at the sight of her. I thought for the hundredth time, how did this damned switch get flipped, and, more importantly, how do I switch it back off?

Mom and Dad arrived next and we all assembled at the kitchen table. Lisa had fixed a tray of assorted olives and chunks of extra sharp provolone cheese and opened a bottle of dry red wine. There were several backup bottles lined up on the counter like doomed prisoners waiting to get their corks popped. A bottle of red wine never fares well when there are more than two Italians gathered.

“Mmm. That’s some strong-smelling cheese,” Dad said, and dug in to the pile.

Lisa said, “You know what they say . . .”

“Don’t,” I warned, with little hope.