Don't Ever Change (7 page)

“Is this about speed?” Elliot asks. “Or more about order of importance?”

“I’m just trying to get to know you super, super well,” I say.

“Okay but that takes time, Eva.”

“We don’t have time, remember?”

“I’ll call you from the road,” Elliot says. “I’ll call you all the time if you want. I’ll call you now.”

Elliot picks up his phone and calls mine, and it rings and rings but I don’t pick it up because this is stupid—Elliot’s sitting right in front of me, and I don’t want to play any games of postponement. Elliot calls me again, though, and this time he turns his body around so he’s facing the wall and he’s sighing, saying to himself, “Why won’t she pick up, is she mad at me?” And for one minute it’s actually cute and makes me smile, so I finally pick up on, like, the seventh ring.

“Hello, who’s this?”

“This is Elliot.”

“Hi, Elliot, how’s Akron, Ohio?”

“It’s industrious. How’s Los Angeles, California?”

“Glamorous, but I miss you,” I say.

“Wait, you do?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m sure I will when you’re gone, and I’m sure I’ll tell you when we’re on the phone.”

“I miss you too.”

“When are you coming back?”

“At the end of summer. Like August 28 or something.”

“That’s only three days before I leave,” I say.

“That’s kinda sad,” Elliot whispers.

Elliot and I don’t say anything after that; I just sort of lean forward and slump my chest on his back, my head on his shoulder. This isn’t like a love story really, because no one’s in love yet, but it is a sad story because maybe we could’ve been in love if there’d only been more time. I also don’t have enough details yet to tell the story, and for a character to fall for someone this fast won’t seem real or realistic and then Mr. Roush will think I’m still a fake.

Then Elliot grabs my arms and pulls them around him, and though it’s an awkward way to sit, it’s also comfortable. We’re just quiet for a while, and I guess I’m getting to know Elliot like I’m getting to know my new roommate, Lindsay, through these small random stats. Elliot is a guitarist and singer in a band; he’s nineteen and he graduated from Westlake High last year; he likes extra mustard on his sandwiches; he’s leaving for the whole summer; and he’s going to miss me. My dad says Patience Is a Virtue, but whenever I ask him what the other virtues are, he just shrugs and says, “Oh, they’re all virtues, Eva,” so that doesn’t help. But I can tell I’ll have to be patient with Elliot, because I’m sure sweet boys are virtues too, and I’m almost sure now that Elliot’s sweet.

We play Super Mario Kart and I win, and then we watch the news, which is something Elliot does every night at eleven because his mom’s a senator’s aide and these are more stats for my file. We kiss every once in a while, nothing long and wet, just like open-mouth and soft. We even kiss during the news, during some story about a missing ten-year-old girl. My mind wanders from thinking about Elliot’s lips to thinking about how scary it’d be if I lost a girl. Elliot says the news is sexy when he’s with me, and then I tell him I
do
wish he’d brought his guitar because no one’s ever played to me before and now I’ll have to wait all summer for a serenade. Elliot says it’s okay, he’ll just play me something over the phone.

By the time Elliot and I go downstairs, the whole house is dark and Courtney’s and my parents’ doors are both shut. I walk Elliot to his car. I don’t know quite what to do because this is already another good-bye; there’ll be a ton more coming so soon.

“Don’t go on tour,” Elliot jokes.

“But my band needs me,” I say, playing along.

“I’ll think of you when I’m wiping up snot and skinned knees,” he says.

“And I’ll think of you when I’m . . . shredding.”

We hug and kiss some more, so much that Elliot eventually opens the door to his backseat, and without stopping, we maneuver our way in. Now I know I full-on like him, that I’m seriously going to miss him, and his fingers are so strong and calloused from playing guitar that when he kneads them up and down my back, it feels like he needs me. Just as we’re starting to fog up the car, the McNutt family’s dog across the street launches into a frenzy of barking, followed by our porch light flashing on in three short flickers, which is Courtney’s signal for warning me when Mom and Dad are up.

Elliot and I separate. We catch our breaths.

“Are you a good writer?” he asks.

“I’m trying to be,” I say.

“I bet you are,” Elliot says. “You should write about me.”

“I should,” I say.

Then Elliot drives off and it’s sad, but what’s the point of crying when I guess I barely even know him, and other than the fact that I’m a writer, he maybe barely even knows me?

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WHEN I WAKE
up on the first day of camp my first thought is:
I hate camp
. And my second thought is:
I’ll just quit
. I go downstairs and try to convince my mother to call in sick for me, but not just sick for today, sick for the whole summer—sick for life. She won’t do it, though. I ask my dad next, but he just says, “Work shall set you free,” and then Courtney reminds him that’s something the Nazis used to say, and then everyone goes silent. I beg Courtney to call for me, and she says she’ll do it but she wants a hundred bucks, like,
right now
, so I give up.

She agrees to help cut my jeans into shorts, though, since it’s scorching outside, while I put on Johnson & Johnson’s SPF 45 and what feels like ten pounds of Sunny Skies apparel. I also pack a lunch, because who knows what they’re going to try to feed me there. I grab my clipboard and pen on the way out and drive to camp so distracted I can barely pay attention to the road. Jessica Avery. Alexis Powell. Lila Kissling. Jenna Litvak. Zoe Weisberg. Maggie Lamar. Renee Sprout. Rebecca Lovey. Billie Westerman. Right now they’re just names on a roster, but those are my girls, with Alyssa Barber as my CIT. What do they look like, what do they sound like, what do they want? My brain goes blank.

When I get to camp, it’s like a crazy carnival shit show, with kids running everywhere. I assume I’m going to get some alone time with my group at some point, but the first day is all games and getting-to-know-yous, and suddenly we’re mixed up and separated.

“Where am I supposed to go?” I ask a girl counselor, and all she does is point and walk away.

“What are we supposed to be doing?” I ask a boy counselor.

“What do you mean?” he says. “You’re doing it.”

I grab another counselor by the arm. “Can I just follow you?”

“You’re lost,” he says, turning his Dodgers hat around backward so he can squint at me better.

“So lost.”

“What’s your name?”

“Eva.” I watch him flip through pages on his clipboard. “Kramer.”

“Foster’s friend,” he says without looking up.

“Yes!” I say. “Exactly.”

“I’m Booth.”

“Help me, Booth. I’m not afraid to ask for help.”

“It’s the first day,” he says, showing me how on the monthly schedule, today’s block simply reads
FIRST DAY
. “No big deal, always a little hecky.”

“
Hecky
,” I repeat. Everyone gets it but me, and I’m not into conspiracy theories, but it feels like they want to keep it that way. It’s annoying.

“Upup,” he says, pointing behind me, “there’s an easy one.”

Upup
?

I turn around and see a huddle of five campers struggling over a knotted jumble of jump ropes. Each one yanks in an opposite direction, groaning, to pry theirs loose from the pile.

“See ya,” Booth says before strolling away, leaving me to spend the next ten minutes helping kids loop and unloop tangled ropes. At least it’s ten minutes gone.

I want to just be with my girls, but they’re all spread out in different clusters, and I keep getting stuck with various rotating groups of
interlopers
who I’m hesitant to bond with, because what if there’s only so much bondage this summer and what if it’s wasted on them? So instead of participating in the team-building exercises, I pass most of the day playing the game I often play in classes I don’t really care about, and that game is Minimum Effort.

The only goal’s to test the limit of how much you can get away with
not
doing and, if possible, find a good hiding place. From ten to eleven thirty I dodge dodgeball, sit out soccer, and avoid the deep end, the shallow end, and the poolside changing room altogether. I help push the canoe out, but I don’t get in. As a concession I organize the lanyard string in neat rows on the table and sit at the head, scissors in hand, Eva Scissorhands, helping boys and girls cut pieces.

At noon there’s a camp sing-along, but I only mouth the words because I never finished reading the camp packet, so I don’t know the lyrics. I make sure I’m peeing during the ropes course, peeing during lice check, even during most of lunch. If I can’t pee I at least pretend to, sitting on the toilet, reading graffiti. I don’t go anywhere near the horses, and I don’t pet the bunnies. I linger at the lost and found station, even though it’s the first day and nothing’s been lost yet. I sign a list volunteering to stay at camp with future sick kids on future field trip days.

I let the littler ones from the younger groups climb on me, pull my arms, braid my hair, and assault me with questions:

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Are you going to college? To be a doctor, a teacher, an actress?”

“Do you know any famous people?”

“Are you a camp counselor all year long?”

“Will you be a camp counselor forever?”

I tell them I have zero boyfriends, that I’m going to write novels and a bunch of other things, that I know one girl on a Nickelodeon show because we had the same geometry tutor, and that I’m not really a camp counselor. That I must be magical like Mary Poppins because I was never even here today.

“Go ahead,” I tell them, “check. There’s no evidence of me anywhere.”

No one knows who Mary Poppins is.

I barely get ten minutes alone with my girls.

I never see Foster once. I even try looking through my glasses for a change, sneaking peeks when a Foster-shaped polo shirt or pair of cargo shorts jogs by.

At three as I’m heading home, I call Michelle and then Steph, but neither of them is off work yet. I call Elliot, but he’s on his way to Tempe and doesn’t pick up. I squeeze the steering wheel a little tighter as I dial Courtney’s number, and when she finally answers, I vent to her how I screwed up majorly, that I can basically never go back. She reminds me about Roush.

“What about the open door and the walking through it?” she asks. “What about an open
mind
at least?”

I try to visualize what the worst camp counselor looks like, but all I can picture is me. Then I try to visualize what the best camp counselor must look like and nothing materializes—I don’t even have a reference point.

I drive the rest of the way home in a daze, rolling through who knows how many stop signs while trying to picture this ideal dream counselor, who doesn’t even exist. Courtney’s waiting for me when I walk in. All she does is hand me a photo of myself—eleven years old, smiling, my arms linked with some girls I used to be best friends with at Camp Hollywoodland—and I’m, like, completely comatose.

I go upstairs and collapse in my room, wondering how to bounce back. I may have never been Teacher’s Pet, but I’m still a Star Student. I don’t have to necessarily ace this summer, but I absolutely have to pass it. Tomorrow it’ll just be me and my group. Jessica, Alexis, Lila, Jenna, Zoe, Maggie, Renee, Rebecca, Billie, Alyssa—I repeat the names a dozen times, like I’m cramming for a Civil War exam.

Later I check my email. Lindsay’s written.

Hey gurl, sweet 2 meet. Wanna chat? Roomies, yay
.

I forward it to Michelle and Steph for deeper analysis and then keep studying my names.

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HarperCollins Publishers

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