What It Was Like (5 page)

“Don't let him win!” shouted Rachel as I started to catch up to them.

“Here I come!” I yelled, pulling hard on the oars, getting my back into the stroke. I probably splashed more water than I should have, rowing furiously, but I could barely keep from laughing.

“Keep rowing!” Rachel yelled. “Pull together! Now – pull!!”

Over my shoulder, I could see Rachel urging the little girls on. They were churning up the lake with their rowing, but not moving too straight.

“I'm gonna catch ya!” I hollered fake-menacingly. “I'm an irresistible force!”

Of course, at the end, I let them win and let them tease me –”
Nyah-nyah-nyah! Slow poke!”
– when we got onshore. We were all soaking wet, exhausted and laughed out. But Rachel knew that I had let them win. (It was a good move on my part; girls love it when you're nice to little kids or animals – and don't say, “Same thing.”) And for the rest of the summer, all the girls in her bunk loved-loved-loved me; that is, up until things started to happen.

Unfortunately I was late for archery with the Doggies, which annoyed Stewie who couldn't go on his free period until I got there. And in my rush, I forgot to move my boat tag on the Big Board, which led to a perpetual evil eye from Captain Hal for the rest of the summer. But it didn't matter when compared to the sense I had that Rachel and I were on a good path, a good trajectory. I had just left her, and I couldn't wait to see her again.

≁

After dinner every night there was Free Play for about an hour, when they let the kids roam around and do pretty much what they wanted until Evening Activity. One night I was assigned to supervise the distant volleyball courts. Not that I knew anything about volleyball; it was just my turn. I didn't even have time to tell Rachel where I was going to be after dinner.

Jerry and Dale were watching me as I waited on the front porch of the Mess Hall for her to come out. Dale reminded me, “You're on volleyball, right?” so I couldn't just stand there and not move.

“Right,” I said. “Volleyball,” and walked down off the porch. She and her bunk still hadn't come out. Fortunately, a couple of the Doggies – the Fat Doggy and the Doggy With Braces – liked to follow me around, and they could occasionally prove useful. Like at this moment.

“Wait by the Girls' door,” I ordered them. “And when Rachel Prince comes out with her bunk, you tell her that I'm covering the volleyball courts, OK?”

“We know who
Rachel
is,” the Fat Doggy said. “You don't have to say her last name.”

“Just go!” I yelled, and they took off. These two kids couldn't find their own underwear if it was wrapped around their heads – which it sometimes was, courtesy of the Doggy Bully – so I didn't hold much hope for their finding Rachel and giving her my message. I went to Jerry's H.C. Shak where the volleyballs were kept, filled a duffel bag with balls, and made my way to the courts.

Sunsets were especially beautiful at Mooncliff. No matter how hot it got during the day, things cooled off in the mountains by dusk. The light seemed to soften everything, and the mountains seemed lusher and puffier. In all this lovely nature, it seemed a waste of time, not being with Rachel.

I sat down on the bench next to the volleyball courts and unzipped the bag of balls. No one, not one kid, had come down to play. Of course, the volleyball courts were in a fairly obscure part of the campus, but still, I felt stupid being there. I wanted to be with Rachel, period. It was something I had never felt before, like a force building within me. I recalled saying to Rachel on the lake that
“I drew you to me,”
and how she reacted to that. Maybe I
did
draw her to me.
 
I had always used my brain for schoolwork and abstract things; maybe I could use my brainpower in the service of something for my real
inner
self.

And no sooner did I concentrate, no sooner had the thought formed in my mind, than there she was, walking with the two Doggies and a few girls from her bunk too. She had a big smile on her face, a princess with her escorts.

“You sent your slaves to fetch me,” she said. “Did I have any choice in the matter?”

“Not really,” I said cheerfully.

“May I sit down then?” she said formally.

“Yes,” I said, standing up and making a sweeping gesture to the empty space next to me. “By all means! Simon says you may sit down.”

“I'm sorry they exiled you out here,” she said taking her place on the bench as the kids fought for the duffel bag at my feet. They pulled out all the balls, which went bouncing across the court.

“I'm not . . . not anymore.”

“You know I would have found you, eventually,” she said moving right up next to me, as she dodged one of the volleyballs that came our way. I reached out and deflected the ball away from us, and her arm touched my arm. I didn't move as our skin touched; neither did she. I felt like our first kiss could happen at any time, that I could just turn, put my arm around her, and kiss her, but I held back. I actually should have kissed her; she was so beautiful, and
right there
. But it wasn't the right time, not with all these kids around.

“I couldn't wait for ‘eventually,'” I said.

So instead, we sat there and talked. I got her to tell me about herself, about past summers at Mooncliff, and about her life at home. I let her talk because it seemed to relax her, and I liked to watch her – she was so animated and engaged, so lovely even as she was grieving about her situation.

“I can't believe my parents actually forced me to come back here again,” she said. “I was supposed to go on a teen tour this summer. To Europe! After they promised I could! But because they're going through this
divorce
I had to be nearby. I am once and for all finished with the Moon-shak. I feel so trapped! You cannot believe how I'm just bursting to get out of here.”

“Well,
I'm
glad you came back,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, looking away from me into space, then looking down. “Well . . . you never know what's going to happen.”

I took her hand, making her look at me, and said, “I
 
know one thing that's going to happen.”

She drew a slight breath.

“Don't you feel it?” I continued. “That you and I are –”

She put her finger up to my lips to sssshh me. “Don't let's get ahead of ourselves,” she said softly.

I took her hand away from my lips and held onto it. “That's OK,” I said, agreeing with her. “I'm not worried.” I don't know why I was saying such things to her. Looking back, I guess I said them because I was able to . . . because I
felt
them. Before my brain intervened with its usual doubts and second thoughts, I just said what I felt.

The outside world had pretty much disappeared. We had moved into what we later came to call The Zone: everything except the two of us faded away into some kind of out-of-focus, irrelevant unreality. The only real thing was Rachel-and-me, together-as-one, in The Zone.

“You're not like most of the guys that Stanley hires,” she said. “You're not –”

“A dumb jock?” I finished her sentence.

“I wasn't going to say that,” she said, pushing her arm against mine. “I was going to say that you were different, but there's also something very familiar about you.”

“I'll take that as a compliment,” I said.

It seemed like the most natural thing in the world, to open up to each other.

“Some people say that I'm spoiled,” she said, looking down, playing with one of her fingernails. “And they're probably right, to some extent. But I don't really care. They don't have to live
my
life:
I
do. Everyone expects me to be one way, this perfect princess way, but I'm not that way at all. I just want to live the way
I
want to live. Is there something wrong with that?”

“No,” I said. “Not at all,” encouraging her to continue.

“I am a very good daughter,” she insisted. “At least I try to be. But my parents expect me to go to college and marry some nice, rich doctor and live in the suburbs and have babies and join a country club, and I'm just not going to do it. Does
everybody
have to be the same? I mean, is that some kind of
rule
?”

“Not if you don't want it to be,” I said. “If that's what you want.”

”Finally, what other people say really doesn't matter all that much,” she said, carefully brushing an ant off the bench. “People will say just about anything, so you have to be ready to ignore everybody and just listen to yourself.”

Our conversation opened up, just like a flower in one of those time-sped-up films.

“Go on,” I urged her.

“People expect you to be one way when you're really another way inside,” she said.

“Some people have to put up fronts,” I agreed. “To
hide
what's really inside.”

“Because they're secretly ashamed of who they really are, and that no one would ever fall in love with them, or care about them.”

“So everyone is, on some level, pretending to be someone they're really not,” I added, following her train of thought.

“The potential for misunderstanding is incredible, isn't it?”

“It's a miracle any two people get together at all!”

“Yes,” she smiled bitter-sweetly. “An absolute miracle.”

She was so lovely and fragile even as she was trying to seem strong and self-assured. She was certainly beautiful and confident, but I couldn't help but see something wounded, something secret inside her, deep inside her. Something a little dark and vulnerable that I thought I could reach. I wanted to say the right thing and keep her interest.

“My parents fight some,” I said, trying to sympathize with her. “But I don't think they'd ever divorce each other.” I didn't say:
Who would ever want either of them if they left each other?
But that's what I was thinking.

“
And
,” she said. “It's a bigger deal, kind of, because I'm an only child –”

“Me too!” I practically shouted.

That was a very big moment of connection for us.

“So you understand,” she said, clutching my arm.

“The tug-of-war?” I said. Which made her nod her head vigorously.

“It's hard to think that they were once in love,” she said. “The way they treat each other.”

“People do stupid things all the time,” I said. “I want no part of it. I believe in
negative learning.
”

“‘Negative learning'?” she repeated.

“Yeah,” I said. “Learning what you
don't
want in life is as important as learning what you do want.”

“And what
don't
you want?” she asked me.

“Right now? Anything that keeps me from getting closer to you,” I said. With no fear or embarrassment. I just said it. And she looked back at me, dreamily, in The Zone. I don't know why I was so relaxed with her. Speaking to a girl this pretty, normally I would have frozen up or tried to be too clever. Instead, I was just myself, my ordinary self, but that seemed to be enough for her.

The bugle call ending Free Play sounded from the P.A. system, startling us back to reality.

“So,” she said, “I'll see you later tonight, and we can –”

Her words instantly pleased me until I remembered something.

“No!” I interrupted her. “Dammit! My kids have something tonight with these Eagle Scouts from town, knot-tying or something, and then I have O.D. right after that.” (“O.D.” was short for being “on duty” which meant that a counselor had to stay on duty outside the bunks in Inter Circle, or wherever they put me, and make sure that the kids were all safe and sound until midnight when their actual counselors came back for curfew – 1:00 AM on Fridays and Saturdays. The average counselor had O.D. every three or four days, and we were always trading O.D.s, depending what you had going on any particular night.)

“You're right,” she said. “I forgot. We're doing this pajama party with the Lassies. Estelle had us doing party favors all afternoon. And you're really on O.D. tonight? That means I won't see you until tomorrow.”

The thought really seemed to displease her; I liked that.

“That's OK,” I said. “We have tomorrow.”

“But I want to talk to you more
now
!” she said.

I liked that she had that slightly unreasonable streak in her. Rachel wanted what she wanted more than most people did. Some people might call it being willful, or self-indulgent. But in this case, since what she seemed to want was me, it was perfectly fine.

But before we could say or do anything else, Harriet was right there, at the edge of the courts, ordering everyone back to their bunks.

“Let's go, campers!” she shouted in a husky voice. “Back to your bunks!” She clapped her hands and looked straight at me.

“Boys!” she narrowed her gaze and ordered. “Let's take it back to your side!”

Just then the Fat Doggy grabbed the duffel bag of volleyballs and ran away with it, only to be chased by the Doggy With Braces and a couple of Rachel's girls.

“Hey! Wait!” I yelled at them, torn between having to go after my kids and wanting to stay with Rachel.

“Uh, Rachel,” rasped Harriet. “Wanna collect your girls?”

“Time to go,” Rachel said softly and got up from the bench.

She took a couple of steps away and turned back to me.

“Why didn't you kiss me?” she asked, making slits of those blue-blue eyes.

Before I could answer, she quickly turned and was gone with her girls.

She left me speechless – which is very hard to do – and falling in love too. Which had never happened before.