Don't Ever Change (21 page)

“Mom’s like that desk,” I start to say.

“I’m gonna stop you there,” Courtney says, then grabs my hand and hurries me downstairs and into the kitchen.

“Teach us how to cook something,” Courtney tells our mother, first pulling a skillet off its hook, then reaching into the dishwasher to grab a rubber spatula, flex it back and forth.

“
Girls
,” my mother says. “Don’t make a mess before dinner.”

“Really,” Courtney says. “We need the skills. To usher us into the next phase of our lives.”

“We want to learn, Mom.”

“But something easy,” Courtney clarifies.

“Rice-on-your-owni,” I offer.

“Pasta prima donna,” Courtney suggests.

“Now we’re cookin’ with sass,” my father shouts from the other room.

“Okay, rice, pasta, we can do that, we can do that,” my mother says, already browsing through cabinets and drawers. “This is going to be easy,” she says, happy again, pleased to be needed, buzzing around the kitchen, talking and teaching, while we learn a few things.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

MY GROUP STARTS
the morning with Jan, the archery coach, who teaches the girls how to hold the bow and aim like Katniss, and not surprisingly they love it. They chant “Curl Powder!” every time they fire an arrow, whether or not it lands anywhere near the target. It feels like as good a time as any to sneak off and find Foster.

I’ve just crept away through some trees when someone taps my back: Alyssa.

“Bull’s-eye,” she says.

“Target’s back there,” I say, turning her around.

“I want to come with.”

“You don’t know where I’m going,” I say. “Maybe I’m going to Steven’s office to pick up some field trip slips.”

“And maybe you’re
not
,” she says, seeing right through me.

“Alyssa, try not to know me so well, okay?”

“You’re going to find Foster.”

“What did I just say?”

“I want to see Corey,” Alyssa says. Her eyeliner is especially flawless today. She’s wearing lip gloss and a light bronze powder too.

“I’m starting to feel like your pimp,” I say, then cover my mouth. “Oh God, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“So Foster’s your boyfriend?”

“I thought you knew everything. What do you think?”

Alyssa considers it for a second. “I think he’s not.”

“Well, is Corey
your
boyfriend?”

“Hell yeah,” she says, and fist-pumps the air.

“I never had a boyfriend when I was in junior high.”

“And you don’t have a boyfriend now.”

“Actually, I
do
. His name’s Elliot, he’s in a band, and they’re on tour this summer. They played Brooklyn last night.”

Alyssa nods, a little impressed. It feels so satisfying that for a second I consider letting her tag along with me just to drive home what a cool counselor I am, how I can have Foster
and
Elliot—and maybe Corey too, if I tried. But then Seth walks by and waves, and it reminds me that I need to try and care more about impressing other counselors than impressing campers—even the supercool thirteen-year-old ones.

“Please go back,” I say, clasping my hands together in a begging gesture. “The group really needs you there.”

“That’s, like, ironic,” Alyssa says, “coming from you.”

“What a mean thing to say.”

“I just want to go with you.”

“I’ll let you do anything else you want,” I tell her, immediately regretting making a promise like that. The Sunny Skies Handbook would definitely classify making open-ended promises as bad, bad, bad.

“Can you take me to the party Friday?”

“What party?” I say, acting clueless.

“You know what party.”

“I don’t know, maybe . . . okay, fine,” I lie.

“Yessssss!” she shrieks, jumping up and down.

“Now go, go, go.” I give her a little push.

“Wait,” Alyssa says. She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a thick, folded stack of pages and hands it to me. “I told them to each put their names in the top corner like in school.”

“How’d you get these?” I ask, astonished.

“I told the girls it was for the zine thingy.”

“And they just . . . gave them to you?”

“Duh.”

“Holy shit.”

“She means, ‘Holy cow,’” Foster says suddenly, from behind me.

“Oh fug,” I say with a smile.

“Hi, Alyssa,” Foster says.

“Bye, Foster,” Alyssa says, and skips away.

Then Foster and I are alone together, strolling out along the sports fields. A stray soccer ball rolls our way, and Foster kicks it back. A counselor jogs by wearing an orange puffy vest, smelling like the bottoms of canoes, and nods at us. “Foster, Eva,” he says.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” I say.

Somehow Foster looks distinctly better than he did yesterday, which was already better than he looked the day we kissed. Is this how it’s going to be? Steadily rising cuteness, going up and up and up, like some graph problem from Mr. Laskin’s trig class? I recall some deluded routine I used to rehearse, alone, facing my bathroom mirror: “I’m sorry, I just can’t start dating someone right before I leave for college. I’d love to, really, but I can’t.”

“Where should we go?”

I shrug. I look at his wet, slicked hair, his damp basketball shorts, and get an idea: “Pool bathroom?”

Foster shoots me an admonishing look.

“I caught Corey and Alyssa making out in there,” I say, and then, briefly forgetting who I’m talking to, laugh out loud.

“It’s not funny,” Foster tells me, his demeanor changing into some sort of Camp Protector.

“Isn’t it, though?”

“Do you want to get fired or something?”

“Not necessarily,” I say.

“And we’re cussing around eighth graders now?”

“It’s
Alyssa
, she’s down.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“She’s like my co-counselor.”

“She’s your CIT,” he says.

“Foster, you know how they say rules are made to be broken?”

“Don’t do that, Eva. Don’t be . . . flippant.”

I try not to let that hurt, just keep things light, so I lean in close, raising his clipboard to shield us, and sweetly sing “Boom Chicka Boom,” like it’s a love song. Like it’s
our song
.

“Did you hear what I just said?” Foster waits for me to stop singing and then, when I do, he shakes his head and walks off toward the cafeteria.

Usually I’m the one taking everything too seriously, because I like the idea of being thought of as a Serious Person. But it feels good not to be the uptight one walking away annoyed and let down when the other person doesn’t get the gravity of the endless importance of being super intense all the time. So maybe, in the smallest way, this is a step forward, a sign of progress. I’ve got my eyes on the Big Picture, while Foster’s still caught up worrying about the Little Picture. It’s basically Life Camp versus Summer Camp. I guess we’re on different wavelengths.

And that’s the thing about wavelengths—they’re not waves. You can’t ride them alone; you have to ride them together.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I’M DYING SO
bad to read what the girls wrote I’m barely able to make it through the day without peeking. When I get home, I dash upstairs and toss my cell phone across the room and lay the pages out in front of me on the bed.

There’s a soft knock on the door—one of those respectful parental knocks.

My mother wants to know if I want a “going-away” dinner, like a bon voyage thing. But who would come? Not Shelby, she hasn’t called in a while. Not Michelle and Steph, they’re not so in love with me lately. Foster, probably.

Zack, maybe. Because yesterday, on a weird impulse, I texted him hi and he texted back, im gonna call u.

Then, later that afternoon, he actually does. I’m too unprepared to answer, so I let it go to voice mail, then immediately check it. It’s him inviting me to the movies, and more importantly, he sounds genuinely happy to be inviting me, about the prospect of seeing me. Throughout the whole message he maintains this genuinely happy-seeming attitude.

But near the end, after leaving his phone number—silly, because I obviously already have it—and asking when’s a good time to call back, his voice changes. The vibe gets vaguely serious.

“Eva,” he says, “you’ve been such a good friend to Shelby, and such a good friend to me, too. I know the two of you are close, but I hope that doesn’t make it awkward for us to hang out.”

Then there’s a pause, and in a lower, smoother tone, he says, “I always liked you.”

There’s Reading Into Things and then there’s just Reading Things, straightforwardly interpreting signals that are right there in front of you. I don’t have to study Zack’s voice to understand the subtext of it—I just have to listen to the words he’s literally saying out loud. It’s all there. I’m not inventing anything.

The summary of his message is this: first Zack’s genuinely happy, then he’s vaguely serious, then he’s something else: he’s hitting on me. He even mentioned that if I need a ride, he can pick me up—maybe on his motorcycle, maybe not, he didn’t specify. Either way, he’s clearly moving on from Shelby—the best-looking, most together girl of all my high school friends, the one who’s had sex a million times—to, quite possibly,
me
. Me: who isn’t going to fall in love with him, who isn’t going to try and date him because I’m not really dating before I leave for college, and even if I was, if I
wanted to
, it’d be with Foster. Or, I guess maybe Elliot.

Is it too crazy to imagine that Zack might be into me? And that, because I’m not some candidate for a long-term relationship, he might want to have sex with me?

I don’t have to want it to happen to still be turned on by the idea.

There’s hoping for the best, and then there’s just hoping.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I STAY UP
all night scribbling notes in the margins of the girls’ pages. I use two different pens, a green and a purple, because those feel like nonthreatening, nonjudgmental colors. When I like something, I circle it; when I love something, I underline it three times. And when I don’t like something, or even hate it, I draw a question mark next to the sentence and write the word
WHY
.

I wake up in full-on workshopping mode. I organize follow-up questions, design writing exercises, and even sketch out a suggested list of related reading materials, as well as drafting a mock table of contents, where I number each piece in a potential order. For a second I wonder if I’m going a little overboard, but it’s only for a second, and then it passes and I’m excited again.

“I’m inspirational!” I scream as I pass by the open bathroom door where Courtney’s brushing her hair.