Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet (9781940192567) (18 page)

I could not deny these things, so I didn't.

“Whatever,” I said, hoping that Doug had the brain cells to remember a message. “Can you just let Jackie know that things aren't so good here.” Dramatic pause. “The nurse told me I have a thyroid condition, and I need to leave camp right away. It's rather severe. Jackie needs to come get me ASAP.” Across from me, Cambridge went on with her charades. She begged me to cry—to sob like I had yesterday in the mailroom—but I knew where this was going.

Doug laughed. “Your thyroid? Nice try, Bethany.” The bass quieted. “Your mom paid so much money for that place! What is your problem?”

“Will you just tell her?”

I tried to listen for Jackie in the background—her voice or laughter. Maybe she was asleep or driving. The more closely I listened, the more slurpy, sniffling noises I heard. Wet sounds. Maybe Doug had a cold. “Are you writing this down, Doug?”

“You know,” he replied and his voice seemed caught in the bottom of his throat, “I'm even going to miss you too. I mean, I'll miss her more, but you, you were always with her, and you always said this crazy stuff that made us crack up. She really did want you to lose weight,” he said. “She used to talk about it all the time. How she wanted you to find some guy who would appreciate you.” He sucked back some serious snot. “God, you were always so hungry, Bethany.”

Cambridge looked at me confusedly.

“Doug. Why are you saying this? Where is my sister?” This definitely wasn't funny anymore. “Put her on the phone, Doug.”

“She left,” he said. “I don't know where she is. She said she's done with me.”

“What? She left? Left you where?”

Beneath his words, now softer, I heard him laugh. “On the side of the road in California. She kissed my cheek and everything. Before she drove off she gave me her phone. Told me to keep it. This is the first time I actually answered it.”

I was silent. Dead silent.

Doug sighed. “Your thyroid's OK? You were just bullshitting, right?” he asked. “I'm sure Jackie will pick you up in five weeks, but I don't know where she is now,” he said, and his voice sounded like an old man's. “She was so happy you were at Utopia. She knew you'd love it. Do you love it?”

Maybe because he sounded so sad and so lost and so nostalgic, I lied. “It's not that bad,” I found myself saying. “This is a dream come true.”

“Well, if she comes back,” said Doug, “I'll be sure to tell her you called.”

Cambridge lunged for the phone, probably to tell Doug what we'd both figured out: Jackie wasn't coming back. For any of us. I held the phone above my head as Doug's words clattered around the café. “Just hang in there,” Doug bartered as Cambridge clawed my arm. “Forget about that diet too.” He was quiet for a beat, and even Cambridge looked at the phone I held like a torch above me. “It's a fraud …” The phone beeped three times. Low battery. “My mom gained everyth—”

“Well, that ends that,” I said, clamping it shut. “Phone's dead.”

Cambridge dug at the syrupy residue cemented to her glass. “What is it with your family and cell phones?” she asked. “Your sister gives hers away. One hits you in the face.”

Damn right.
How weird that Jackie's journey had somehow paralleled mine. Maybe at the exact moment Hollywood's phone hit my face, Jackie slapped hers in Doug's hand. I was done with fat camp. She was done with him.

“Do you think your sister's OK?” Cambridge asked.

I thought long and hard about that. When I replied, “Absolutely,” I meant every syllable. After all, dumping Doug wasn't proof that Jackie'd gone crazy. It was proof that she'd finally come to her senses. “But I don't think she'll be picking us up.”

Cambridge aimed a finger at a row of computers whose sign cautioned FOR LIBRARY RESEARCH ONLY. “Tell you what,” she said. “Let's research our predicament. Check the Internet. Reference a few books. Certainly we aren't the first girls to run away from fat camp.”

Cambridge steepled her hands. “There's always a precedent.”

While my fellow fugitive roommate combed the Internet and electronic card catalogue for precedents, I opened the e-mail that had just wadoomped into my inbox like a scroll from a carrier pigeon.

From:
[email protected]

To: Bethany Stern

Subject: Quake

Bethany~

I woke up at six with the earthquake and was worried about you. Are you feeling better? Did you ever unfreeze your computer? I hope so. I should have stayed and talked more yesterday, but I had some business to take care of. If you need help, I live in Poindexter, 10B. It's located on the North side of campus, near the bookstore. You should stop by.

Olive

32

RSVPs

“Who's with you?”

I worried this might happen. Once Olive stuck her head out her Poindexter dorm and learned there were two of us, she hesitated. “This is Cambridge,” I said as gently as I could. “My roommate. She, um, she ran away too.”

Thankfully, Olive opted for C. U. P. hospitality. “Must be Guantanamo over there,” she said, ushering us in. Once inside her room, Cambridge presented Olive with the shot glass we'd bought at the bookstore—along with our new wardrobe of C.U.P.-branded gear and a phone charger—on the way over. “For your troubles.”

“Thanks,” replied Olive. “But I don't drink.”

Olive wore the same blue dress as yesterday, but she'd changed her dimple piercings to emeralds. Her dorm room was about the same size as the one we'd shared with Liliana, only somehow she had scored a single. The girl had a thing for plants. In heavy ceramic pots, hanging in baskets from the ceiling, blossoming from plastic jugs over her headboard and desk, various types of foliage crept and curled. Her dorm smelled smoky, leafy, and moist, a tang underneath it—maybe fertilizer. In the window, she'd hung an Indian tapestry, making the place dark and cool.

Cambridge and I inched out of the doorway, but hadn't fully entered her room. There was something sacred about it.

“How'd you manage a single?” Cambridge asked, checking out the Post-it notes stuck up and down Olive's walls.

“The university keeps assigning me roommates, but they never last. One couldn't stand that I smoked cigarettes,” Olive said, and then lit a long brown one to prove it. “Another one didn't like all the wildlife, and the last one was moody, period. She said I snored.”

Cambridge pulled down a paper. “Usually, you have to be an athlete or bipolar to bunk alone. I'd count my blessings if I were you.” She examined the Post-it. “These are good. Are you an art student?”

“No, I'm studying horticulture. I'm trying to learn how to tattoo for extra money, because my financial aid got cut. I'm on academic probation now.” She sucked on her cigarette until the tip glowed. “So what's up with the camp mutiny?” she asked, eyeing us both. “I mean, are your parents coming to get you?”

I looked at Cambridge's red shoes with the white laces. I willed her to speak for me—to say something intelligent in her prep school words and make it appear we knew what we were doing, but she only asked Olive for a smoke.

“Well,” I began, “that's not really an option. Our camp counselors have no clue where we are, but our parents don't either. You see, Olive, how should I phrase this?” My eyes rested on leaves of a fern tickling her head. “We're screwed.”

Cambridge piped up. “We're looking for a ride, preferably one that would take us across the country, but we're not real particular.”

Sitting at the chair in front of her desk, Olive pulled her bare feet under her and picked at her toes. “I don't have a car on campus,” she said. “We aren't allowed. What about a bus? San Francisco has a huge Greyhound station, you know. You could probably mooch a ride from a student into San Francisco. Some go on the weekends, so you might have to wait awhile.”

Cambridge plopped down on Olive's rumpled bed. “That's a good idea, Olive. Do you think we could. If we …” Cambridge smiled diplomatically. “If we could crash here with you. Just for a night or two. ”

I tried to look pathetic. “Or longer.”

Our “maybe” hostess flicked her cigarette in an Aquafina bottle, where it sizzled. “Oh, I don't know,” she said. “The last thing I need is more illegal activity in my dorm room, and I'm pretty sure harboring minors is illegal.”

Cambridge blew a fluttering smoke ring. For a nonsmoker, she was a natural. “I'm not a minor for much longer.”

“But I am,” I volunteered. At least I was being honest. “For two more years, anyway.”

Cambridge twisted sideways and unzipped the new California University of the Pacific fanny pack we'd just purchased at the bookstore. “We'll pay you,” she said, holding a fifty between two fingers.

Even though Olive looked at the bill the way I have leered at a plate of crab and cheese wontons, she said, “I can't take money from you. You're kids.”

Cambridge tapped the Post-it. “Just imagine I'm paying you for a service you haven't rendered yet.”

“And what service is that?”

“Say I wanted this tattoo. How much would you charge me?”

“Cambridge!” I blurted.

“Relax,” she said. “I'm speaking metaphorically.”

Olive shook her head. “I've only practiced on fruit anyway.”

“Say I trust you.”

Olive rolled her eyes. “Hundred bucks.”

Cambridge dropped the bill in Olive's already outstretched hand. “Then consider this a down payment.”

When Olive's fingers closed around the money, she sighed dejectedly. “You can stay for a little while,” she said. “Only until you find a ride. And you need to be actively searching!”

Even though she accepted the money halfheartedly, she still accepted it, which meant we could stay. It took every ounce of restraint not to scream with joy. Olive had two whole beds and a laptop! She had a dorm fridge and a Tupperware container of brownies!

Our hostess slid the cash into the pocket of her blue dress. “But I have two conditions.”

“What conditions?” I asked, hoping they involved eating all her brownies and using her computer.

“First, I have to go out tonight, and when I do, you guys need to stay here. Don't answer the door or leave the room. Got it?”

Cambridge's eyebrow arched. “Where do you have to go?”

Olive twirled her dimple rings. “The drama department is having a par—” She stopped. “Gathering. It's extremely important I attend.”

When Cambridge suggested, “Why don't you bring us with you?” it sounded almost rational. Even Olive appeared to consider it. For three seconds.

“Not a chance,” she replied, latching her front door. “You girls are locked in. I have Rock Band on my computer and movies on demand. Have at it.” She paused in front of her closet, looked at us hard, and said, “And now for the second condition,” and then swung open the closet door.

When I saw the red lights suspended from the metal poles and the strange plants and vines winding around the bottom, I full-on gasped. Where normal people lined their shoes, glass terrariums and clay pots were piled high. The smell of dirt was suffocating. “You have to promise me you won't say a word about anything you saw here,” Olive instructed. She aimed a water bottle and began spritzing her plant life. “Not one word. Promise me.”

“I swear,” I said.

A few flies could have set up camp in Cambridge's mouth. “No trouble at all,” she replied mechanically.

“Swear to me,” urged Olive.

“I swear,” repeated Cambridge, but it came out more like a question.

33

PRODUCT PLACEMENT

RE: OLIVE'S FOREST.

For much of the afternoon, I ignored it. So what if the nice hippie had an emerald city growing in the dorm closet? Perfectly normal. She'd said she was studying horticulture after all. Extra credit, I assumed. And the people knocking on her door? Wanting the brownies she kept stored in the Tupperware container on her desk? Maybe Olive had a lot of friends and a weakness for Betty Crocker. No harm in that. For much of the day, I used her computer and pretended all sophomores had rain forests blossoming next to their bathrobes. And when an Internet search of her local flora confirmed what any half-witted troglodyte already knew, I zipped my mouth. She agreed to let us stay, so why start in with questions about her gardening club? Bad manners. Instead I resolved to take her advice and find a Greyhound bus out of town. Only when I gingerly lifted a chocolate square from the Tupperware bin, Olive snatched my wrist. “Do you have thirty-four dollars?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Sorry,” she said, spritzing a poppy plant behind my ear. “No freebies.”

“Thirty-four dollars for a brownie?”

Spritz. Spritz. Spritz. “Thirty-four fifty. To be precise.”

I couldn't stop myself. “Jeez, Olive. What do they have in them?”

Olive twirled her dimple piercings. “Just a vitamin supplement. I'm selling them to, uh, raise awareness.”

“What kind of awareness are you raising?” Cambridge's inquiring mind wanted to know.

“Um, environmental.”

Cambridge dragged on her cigarette. “Environmental? Must be quite the supplement for people to dish out that kind of money.”

Olive nodded. “My brownies, um, make people not tire so easily if they, you know, want to study all night.” This girl was a born saleswoman, no?

“And exactly what ingredient does that kind of enhancing?”

Olive counted her cash. “Just a little something I discovered in the woods.”

By the way she turned from us, we both knew Olive was done talking about it. So I went back to the Greyhound website. It took a bus twenty-two days to get from San Francisco to Baltimore, Maryland. TWENTY-TWO DAYS?! We could walk faster. The good news was I'd return home around the same time fat camp ended anyway. I could simply pretend I lost weight. “What, Mom?” I could say. “You don't see a difference?”