What It Was Like (12 page)

I didn't talk to her until after breakfast the next day on the Mess Hall porch where I waited for her. She ran to me, smiling back tears of joy.

“I missed you so much,” she said softly, into my neck. I felt her sweet breath.

“You have no idea,” I murmured.

We kissed just once, because there were people nearby, but it was better than nothing.

“I saw you last night,” she said. “But they made us go straight to the –”

“I know, I know,” I said, standing close to her.

“I really don't like to be apart from you,” she said very simply, as if she were reading my thoughts. And that was
exactly
what I thinking at that moment.

“I bought you a present,” she continued.

“
You're
my present,” I said.

“No, you'll
like
it,” she teased.

“All I want is you,” I insisted.

She really liked when I said that.

“When are you free?” she purred.

“When we get our asses out of here,” I said, meaning all of Mooncliff.

“No,” she giggled. “I mean
today.
”

“I don't know,” I said. “This afternoon,
if
Sid shows up to take the Doggies to tennis.”

“Well, that's when you'll get your present,” she said. “I mean your
first
present. Your
real
present is gonna have to wait until tonight.”

It turned out that my first present was an “I Fell In Love at the Baseball Hall of Fame” T-shirt, with crossed baseball bats inside a big heart, and the second present was private . . . and fantastic.

≁

The last days of the Mooncliff summer were like a roller coaster – intense, fun, and chaotic, all at the same time. You wanted desperately to get off and yet it all seemed to end too soon. Regular activities came to a halt as the schedule was filled with special events and the preparation for them: the Scavenger Hunt; the Awards Dinner; the Masked Ball; the Burning of the Lake. The campers' empty trunks were delivered back to the bunks, and we had to start packing up the kids' stuff to be shipped back to their homes. Some Doggies had Arts and Crafts projects to complete. The Doggy Bully and the Smart Doggy wanted to finish some Red Cross swimming badges. And not only did I have my Bunk 9 responsibilities, Dale started to lean on me for extra things to do. Eddie from the Bronx somehow got poison ivy in both his crotch and armpits and was laid up painfully in the infirmary for several days, so I wound up watching Bunk 7 at times when I should have been off. Dale also put me charge of the Inter section of the Scavenger Hunt.

“I want you to do this for me. I want to beat Estelle, bad. The other guys are nice enough, but they're, y'know,
cretins
,” he said. “That Dolin dude! Couldn't find his own ass with two hands and a
map
! . . . OK?”

I couldn't say no.

But for Rachel and me, the last days meant the same thing: When would we get to see each other next? When would we get to be alone? And any delay, any obstacle started to cause some friction between us. Not to mention the fact that our days at Mooncliff were numbered, and who really knew what was going to happen after that.

“I
waited
for you after lunch,” she said. “I got Sara to let me off, and you weren't there!”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “But I got roped into setting up the Mess Hall for the Awards Dinner tonight.”

“Then why didn't you tell me?” she asked. “I would have come and helped you.”

“How was I gonna tell you?”

“Send one of your kids!”

“To Girls' Campus??”

“That's not where I was waiting!”

She could become angry quickly, and only more so in these last tense days.

“Once we're back home,” she said. “You're going to abandon me. I know it.”

“Are you serious?” I shot back. “You're the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“You'll go off to college, to Columbia. You'll be in the City and forget about me.”

“And you'll be home. You'll go back to Eric.”

That stopped her. Maybe I shouldn't've brought it up, said his name, but I couldn't help it. I was worried what would happen when Rachel was out of my sight,
even in the future
,
 
and I couldn't un-hear what that girl said: that Rachel still loved him.

“What are you talking about? That's ridiculous,” she said in amazement.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “But I have to ask you –”

“Don't you trust me?” she said, her eyes penetrating me. “I told you that is all over. It was a joke! Over a long time ago! I love you completely – with all my heart. I told you that. I'm telling you that right now! And if that's not enough, I don't know what else to say –”

“OK, OK, OK,” I said, putting my arms around her. “You don't have to say anything else.”

And I silenced her with a kiss.

“All I want is you,” I whispered. “I know what's good . . . and we're good. Right?”

She nodded and nuzzled against my chest. I was good at calming her down. I think that was one of the reasons she liked me. She needed calming. On the one hand, she loved being headstrong and willful. She was a spoiled, rich, pretty girl; I knew that. But I could tell that she was also scared: Scared of what waited for her at home. Scared of how her parents' troubles might overwhelm her own life. Scared of fitting back into a high school that she didn't like in the first place. And scared, I guess – I
hope
– of losing me.

At the Awards Dinner, the Doggies won a couple of honors. The Smart Doggy won an All-Around Camper Award, the Doggy With Braces won a Most Improved Camper, and the Doggy Bully won a couple of sports awards. They gave me, along with several other people, a rousing Hero's Hurrah for saving the Redheaded Doggy. (It really seemed to burn Jerry that I got such a nice ovation. I guess that some people in the Shak liked me.) But in the “gag” awards at the end of the evening, the Senior Girls who had cooked up that segment gave me –
are you ready for this? I shouldn't even say it
– a copy of the Mann Act. It got a big laugh from the counselors and another slow burn from the Crew Cut, along with disapproving looks from Harriet, Estelle, and Stanley.

“What's the Mann Act?” asked Rachel when I saw her for just the briefest moment on the crowded porch after the dinner ended, way too late for the kids.

“It's a joke, and actually wrong,” I said, being bumped by somebody. “I never took you across state lines.”

“Let's move it, people!” sang out Jerry, clapping his hands. “Nighty-night!”

“Nighty-night!” I said to her softly. She had two tired girls hanging on her, so I just let her go with a smile.

“See you tomorrow,” she whispered.

“No!” said one of the girls to Rachel. “You're helping us pack, Rachel.”

“
All day
!” said the other girl.

Rachel looked stricken as they dragged her away. “Someday this will all end,” she joke-mourned.

“That's what I'm afraid of,” I said as the Doggies pulled me in the opposite direction.

≁

The whole next day I spent helping the Doggies pack their trunks. What a pain. Everything annoyed me about the day, especially the incessant squabbling among the Doggies about who-belonged-to-what. At one point, I wound up tearing a big
Archie
annual
 
comic book in half, Solomonically declaring, “I now pronounce you
both
Jugheads!”

Sid had disappeared someplace, so I was left to fill out all the trunk tags alone, which were color-coded for where the trunks had to go: Westchester (red), Jersey (orange), Manhattan (green), Long Island (blue), etc.

There were also these Camper Performance Reports that we were supposed to hand in every week, commonly called “the B.M. charts” because there was a column to be checked off, indicating whether said camper had a proper bowel movement that day. I am not kidding about this. That was in addition to all the activities that were supposed to be listed, along with a wide column for special achievements. Anyway, I hadn't kept up with the B.M. charts since Stewie left, and now I had to finish them off to hand in to Dale, who had to hand them in to Jerry. No paychecks were to be released until all the B.M. charts were handed in. So I had to sit in my bunk and make up stuff to finish them off while the Doggies packed and fought and packed and fought.

“What did we do last Wednesday night?” I called out, racking my brain for something I probably wanted to forget.

“The Haunted Campfire!” the Smart Doggy answered promptly.

“Right!” I said, quickly writing down the same thing on all ten charts spread out on the bed before me. I could get them finished before . . . before
what
? Rachel was stuck with her bunk too. There was no place to go. There was so little time left, and I was far from where I wanted to be. I should be with Rachel, getting the most out of the last days of Mooncliff and planning our first days back in the real world. Instead, I was calculating and recording the bowel movements of nameless children whom I would never see again after Thursday.

The two days before the Burning of the Lake on the last night of camp, Dale came to me with a proposition that changed things.

“How'd you like to work Close-Down?” he asked me.

Close-Down was three days of work after the campers left, closing everything up in Mooncliff that needed to be closed, putting away what needed to be put away, and essentially reversing everything that we did during Orientation. I knew about Close-Down because the other counselors had mentioned it. It was excellent pay for a few days' work and was a plum that Dale, who was in charge, handed out to his favorites.

“Me?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I was thinking that sometimes we weren't so fair to you about some things, so I thought if you wanted to work Close-Down, I'd be happy to use you.”

“Wow,” I said. “Let me think about it, but
yeah
, I could use the money! Thanks!”

I started to think about telling Rachel, about calling home and telling them that I'd be a few days late. Then I thought of something else.

I shouted after Dale as he was walking away, “Dale! How will Jerry like that I'm working Close-Down?”

Dale turned and smirked, saying, “Jerry don't run Close-Down.”

I was excited to tell Rachel. On the one hand, it would postpone our getting together right after camp, but on the other hand, it would give me a lot more money for the fall; money that would help us all through the autumn and beyond.

But when I told her, I didn't get the response I was hoping for.

“That spoils all my plans!” she said, her blue eyes literally darkening.

“What ‘plans'?” I asked her.

“Everything!” she said. “You don't understand. My parents won't let me go out with you until they meet you –”

“Fair enough,” I commented.

“But they're not living together anymore,” she continued. “So to get them together to meet you is not an easy thing. I've gotten them to agree to meet you at our beach club the day after we got home.”

“Your ‘
beach
club'?” I said, trying not to sound derisive. I already knew about their beach club from Sharon Spitzer.

“And now that's all gone for nothing!” she said, right in my face.

“I'm sorry, Rache',” I said, “but don't you see? Getting offered Close-Down is a
good
thing. I just can't turn down that much money for only a few days' work.”

“How much are they paying you?” she asked.

I told her.

“Is that all?” she said, raising her voice. “To hell with the money! I can give you that out of my birthday money, for God's sake!”

That was a bit of a jolt to me: I knew that we came from different “worlds” (towns, income, family situation, etc.), but her disparaging comment about how much I was going to earn for Close-Down made that fact “real-er” than it had ever been before. And, truthfully, it was annoying; I'm not rich and spoiled.

“Well . . . I'm sorry,” I said without feeling apologetic. “But it's a lot of money to me, and I can't turn it down. It's only a couple of days, and then I'll be able to buy you –”

“I don't want you to buy me anything!” she cut me off.

I tried to reason with her.

“Why didn't you tell me you had things set up with your parents?” I asked her.

“I didn't want to tell you until it was set,” she answered. “I just got off the phone with her this morning, and it was not particularly pleasant. But I did it because I want things to be right for us when we get home.”

“So do I!” I said. “That's why I can't turn down the Close-Down money. You don't realize it now, but I'm doing this for us.”

She looked at me and said bitterly, “Why are you trying to spoil the last days of camp?”

We argued it all around again, with no different conclusion. We were both very stubborn people, but I wasn't going to give in. I had already promised Dale, and as I said before, I could use the money.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “But there are certain things I have to do.”

She turned and walked away from me, but I couldn't play her spoiled, rich-girl games, not every time. There were certain things on which I had to take a stand, at least at the beginning.

The last night of Mooncliff was the Burning of the Lake ceremony. It was the crowning ritual of the summer, symbolizing the end of blah-blah-blah, to be renewed next summer with more yak-yak-yak. Even though I knew that this was to be my one and only summer at Mooncliff – there was no way that Stanley would re-hire me even if I wanted to come back – I nonetheless felt a pang of emotion, thinking about the past eight weeks. Even though I'd had more than my share of trouble here, this place would always be special to me because, trouble or not, it was where I met Rachel.

Of course, the Burning of the Lake was not an actual fire. It was a fireworks show, set out on the swimming area floats and some rowboats that had been moved into position around the lake that afternoon. There was a big cookout with burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, and unlimited pitchers of bug juice, spread out in the setting sun on the hillside sloping down to the lakefront. Everybody brought a white Mooncliff T-shirt for friends to autograph with the green Magic Markers that were spread around in #10 cans. The P.A. system played Motown and Beatle songs, and everybody was pretty mellow, with the food and the scene and the sense of it all ending.

When the sun was almost completely down, the last of the light dying on the lake, Jerry tapped his microphone, and he and Harriet began the ceremony of the Burning of the Lake. With some fake-Indian drums thumping behind him as torches were being lit one by one, Jerry, wearing a very impressive, slightly ridiculous feathered headdress that hung way down his back, commenced reading the text of the ceremony. It was a corny hodge-podge of an “Indian legend” about the purification of the Spirit of the Lake to sanctify our memories and cleanse our souls for the challenges of the Harvest Season. (It was also a big fat commercial for Mooncliff, subtly urging all the campers to be sure to tell their parents that they had to come back next summer, to complete the Great Cycle of Nature or something like that.) The “text” was solemn and silly, but taking it semi-seriously was part of the fun. I looked down at the Doggies sitting on their blankets, faces just visible in the glow of the torchlight, and they were all absolutely enraptured. “
Many summers ago, when the Earth was still new
 . . .”