“Nice guy,” said Gwen. “But what about Joe?”
“Ohhhh! Jooooe!” the girls chorused.
Latisha gave a hoot. “They’re gonna go off behind the cabins and kiiisss!” she said.
Gwen just smiled at her and looked mysterious, but the girls were still giggling and grinning.
“Well, are you?” Estelle asked.
And when Gwen raised an eyebrow, Estelle said, in a hoity-toity voice, “Are you going to go behind the cabins and make love?”
Now the girls really hooted.
“Joe is just a friend of mine, like all the other guys here are friends. We just met,” said Gwen.
“She going to!” Latisha stage-whispered, and the girls went laughing and giggling to the showers.
There was an incident Wednesday night that almost got Pamela’s cabin mate, Doris Bolden, dismissed from camp.
She and Pamela had a particularly difficult girl in their cabin, a nine-year-old named Virginia, who was living in her third foster home, and had a vocabulary that would have shocked a sailor. When somebody displeased her, her first reaction was to clobber them on the head or the back, or make a quick jab with her elbow.
Doris had warned her that there would be consequences if she physically attacked another child again, but that night in the showers she knocked a girl down for using her towel, and when Doris grabbed her, she’d yelled, “Get your hands off me, nigger.”
Pamela and Doris’s girls had come down early and showered with us, as the girls in cabins eight and ten had cleanup duty in the dining hall that evening. So Gwen and I saw the whole thing. Punishment had to be swift and sure.
“Get dressed, Virginia,” Doris had said. “You and I are going for a walk.”
Gwen and I didn’t think much about it. I thought that Pamela would probably get the other girls to bed, and then Doris would take Virginia for a “cool down” and discuss what had happened in the showers.
Back in our own cabin we went through the nightly ritual of confiscating the food that Ruby and Mary—the usual culprits—had sneaked out of the dining hall in fists or pockets, promising that if they got hungry, the food would be right there in our metal lockbox waiting for them. They didn’t have to steal, only ask.
Mary insisted that Josephine say her prayers at night, and Ruby and Estelle said theirs as well. I asked the other girls to keep a respectful silence while they prayed.
Then we had a few stories while lying in our beds with the light off—made-up stories and tales about what had gone on during the day—when suddenly there came the most terrible far-off scream… then another and another, followed by loud sobbing.
I think the entire camp was on alert. If we heard a disturbance, our first duty, we’d been told, was to check for fire, and if there was no fire, we were to keep the girls in our cabins until there was word over the sound system as to what we should do in an emergency.
Gwen and I were on our feet instantly, staring through the screen door, but there was no smell of smoke or hint of fire. There was, however, the sound of running feet and a flashlight coming from the direction of the camp director’s cabin, another coming from Jack Harrigan’s.
The screams came again, then we heard Doris Bolden saying, “Hey, be quiet now,” and finally, as we all gawked, our girls gathering behind us at the cabin door and windows, we saw Doris and Virginia and Connie and Jack all coming back from the campfire circle, Virginia crying loudly. They dropped Virginia off at Pamela’s cabin, but Doris was escorted to the camp office.
When we’d got our girls settled down again at last, Gwen and I whispered together outside our cabin, trying to figure out what could have happened.
“You don’t think Doris would hit her, do you?” Gwen whispered.
I shook my head.
Obviously, however, something terrifying had happened. It wasn’t until the next day that we found out. Pamela told us.
As punishment for pushing a girl down in the shower, Doris had taken Virginia out to the campfire circle. She’d told Virginia that she was to sit alone on a log and think about how she could control her temper in the future and that Doris would be back for her later.
Doris had not actually left. She had gone back in the trees to keep watch over her, but Virginia had panicked, terrified at being alone at night. She would have preferred “getting smacked,” she’d told Connie between sobs.
In Connie’s office Doris had been lectured and almost let go. The whole idea of camp, Connie had said, was to get city kids in tune with nature, not to scare them with it, and with that punishment, she had set Virginia back even further than she’d been when she came.
But because Doris was well liked by the other little girls and had not actually left the child alone, it was decided that she would stay here on probation and apologize to Virginia, which she did. She had gone back to their cabin, Pamela reported, where Virginia was still sniffling and, in front of the other girls, had told Virginia that she had made a serious mistake in making her think she was alone out there in the dark, that she would never have left her alone unwatched.
Doris assured her that it would not happen again but that if Virginia continued to hit other girls, she would have to sit in the director’s office for a long time-out and would miss the next movie as well.
That seemed a fair punishment all around. Doris kept her job and her dignity, Virginia received the apology and the warning she deserved, and the rest of the assistant counselors got a lesson in discipline.
“It’s like walking a tightrope,” Tommie said. “One step to the left, you’ve gone too far. One step to the right, you haven’t been assertive enough.”
“It’ll take every single bit of patience I’ve got,” said Gwen.
“And you’d better not have your mind on anything else, because you need to concentrate totally on your girls,” said Pamela. She sighed. “Maybe that’s a good thing. It’ll keep me from worrying about Mom and what she’s up to.”
Nobody spoke for a moment. Then I asked, “So what’s going to keep us going for the next two weeks?”
This time Elizabeth and Pamela both grinned. “Friday night,” said Pamela. “Assistant counselors’ night out!”
5
* * *
Gerald
Gwen and I tried not to have favorites among the Coyotes because they were each needy in a different way. Kim needed all the reassurance she could get, and Ruby seemed to sail through the week without any particular problems as long as she got hugs now and then. But Latisha was mad at the world and took it out verbally on anyone who was handy.
“What you looking at, girl?” had been her first comment to Estelle the day we arrived, and of course Estelle had issues before Latisha even opened her mouth.
“Not you, that’s for sure,” Estelle had said, and the way Latisha bristled, we were prepared for flare-ups between the two.
But Mary and Josephine were my own little case study, as Gwen put it. I couldn’t figure out why Mary felt so responsible for her sister—doing things for her that Josephine could probably do herself. At our first staff session I talked to Connie Kendrick about putting one of the sisters in another cabin.
“Better not,” Connie said. “We had to pull a lot of strings to get them here in the first place, and they finally came on the condition that they not be separated. We take what we can get, and these two kids really needed a break from home.” She winked at me. “Of course, they don’t have to stick together like Siamese twins. There’s no reason you can’t be creative.”
So at breakfast on Thursday, as Mary led Josephine to our table, I said, “I can’t decide which of you two girls I want to sit beside most. So I’m just going to have to sit between you, and then I’ll have one of you on each side. Lucky me!”
Mary paused a moment, then smiled and, letting go of her sister’s hand, allowed me to slide between them on the bench.
“Mission accomplished,” murmured Gwen, and I caught her smile from across the table.
Later that m
orning, as Jack Harrigan led the kids on a nature hike and the assistant counselors tagged along, G. E. came up beside me. His real name, he’d told us, was Gerald Eggers, but his friends all called him G. E. And I wondered sympathetically if that was because he was shaped like a hanging lightbulb, smaller at the top than the bottom—narrow chest and shoulders, heavy legs. He had a terrific voice, though. If you closed your eyes and listened to him, it was only his voice that was important.
“So how’s it going?” he asked. “This your first time being a counselor?”
“Assistant counselor,” I answered, and nodded. “You almost need a degree in psychology to know what’s going on with these kids.”
He chuckled. “First time for me too. But you seem a natural with the kids. Thinking about teaching somewhere down the line?”
“No. Psychology, actually.”
“Yeah? I’d like to work with children. I was thinking about pediatrics, but I doubt I could get into med school. So I suppose I’ll go into teaching.”
Elizabeth and Pamela moved up behind us then, and G. E. went on ahead to walk with Ross and Craig.
“Guess who Gwen’s pairing off with,” Pamela said. “Joe.”
“What do you mean, pairing off?” I asked.
“He had his arm around her back there.”
I gave a quick glance behind me. Joe Ortega was giving Gwen a shoulder massage. “Good for Gwen,” I said, grinning.
“Where do you suppose we’ll go tomorrow night? What’s in town?” asked Elizabeth.
“Richard says there’s a place that has line dancing and a lot of the counselors hang out there on their night off,” Pamela told us.
“I’m ready for a break,” said Elizabeth.
“A Ross break,” said Pamela.
“I saw him first,” said Elizabeth.
“No, you didn’t,” said Pamela. “He’s mine!”
There was an hour of music after the hike. Whenever there’s a special program, the assistant counselors get some time off, seeing as how we don’t get paid. It’s a chance to wash our underwear or call home or just nap. But I decided to go for a walk by myself. I wanted to take in the scents and sounds of the woods without a bunch of chattering kids around me, so I set out for the overlook.
I was halfway down the path when I heard someone say, “Mind if I join you?”
I turned to see Gerald walking briskly up behind me.
I really didn’t want him along. I didn’t want anyone along, actually.
“Or did you want to be alone?” he asked, looking at me uncertainly.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him to go back. “Oh, I was just trying to get away from the noise of camp—give my ears a rest,” I said.
“I know what you mean.” And then, unsure of himself, he said, “But if you’d rather I didn’t come…”
Oh, for Pete’s sake, don’t be so wishy-washy! I thought. “Of course not,” I said, and walked on. He gave a little skip to catch up.
Isn’t it strange how just the slightest mannerism can turn you off? That little skip, and I knew for certain I could not feel romantic about Gerald Eggers in a million years.
“Penny for your thoughts,” said Gerald.
I sighed and closed my eyes. He wasn’t just in my face, he was in my head.
“Thinking about this summer, that’s all. This’ll be the longest I’ve ever been away from home,” I said.
“Homesick?”
“Not really. I’m just hoping I can hold out another two weeks. Kids can sure be exhausting. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a mother and be around little children all day.”
“I think you’d make a great mother,” said Gerald.
“That’s a long way off,” I said. I was beginning to get bad vibes.
“I had a cousin who married at eighteen, and she’s really happy,” said Gerald. “She’s a great mother, too.”
“Good for her,” I said.
“I guess that’s the first thing I look for in a girl,” Gerald went on. “How she gets along with kids tells me what kind of mother she’d make.”
I stared straight ahead. Was this a test? Oh, brother. Was this guy looking for wife material at the grand age of fifteen? If I said I loved children, would he propose? Ask me to wait for him while he worked his way through grad school?
I found myself suddenly babbling on about school and how I’d be entering tenth grade in the fall and how long I’d been on the newspaper staff and what had happened during our production of Fiddler on the Roof and how my dad was marrying my seventh-grade English teacher—anything to change the subject—and then I realized it might sound as though I were trying to impress him, show him I was the kind of girl he wanted to marry. My jaw snapped shut.
He glanced over at me. “Get a bug in your mouth?” he asked.
“No, my foot,” I said. He gave me a quizzical smile.
We’d reached the end of the path and were facing the low stone wall, the overlook beyond. It was a gorgeous day, and the taller trees were spreading their shadows out over the ones below. All the assorted greens of summer were stretching before us, and beyond the trees the blue and purple layers of hills grew fainter and fainter in the distance. If I couldn’t be alone, why couldn’t Richard have followed me up here, or Andy or Craig?
And then I felt an arm around my waist as Gerald edged in closer to my side. Yikes! He was going to propose! He’d get down on one knee and pull a gold-plated ring out of his pocket—one size fits all—and… I moved away and went over to lean my elbows on the stone wall.
“Sorry,” said G. E. “I guess I moved a little too fast.”
The third reason not to like him. I swallowed. “I’m really not looking for romance this summer, Gerald,” I said.
I heard him sigh. “Let me guess,” he said. “You’re about to give me that ‘I like you as a friend, but…’ line.”
“And?”
“Well, you aren’t the first girl who’s said it.”
“Maybe you come on a little too strong too fast,” I said.
“So if I slow down, do I have a chance?”
It just seemed that everything Gerald said made it worse. He seemed so desperate, as though he had to pin down the rest of his life—his love life, anyway—in case he never got another chance.
“Maybe sometimes it’s better to make a girl worry a little that you won’t like her,” I said.
He gave a small laugh. “That’ll be the day.”
I wanted to get back to camp. Even sitting on my bunk flossing my teeth seemed more exciting than continuing this conversation with Gerald. I started back along the path. “Sometimes it’s nice just to be friends, G. E. You don’t have to make it anything special,” I said. “Okay?”
“The story of my life,” Gerald said morosely. He put his hands in his pockets, and we walked along in silence for a while.
I thought of a girl I knew back in junior high who didn’t have a lot of friends and finally stood in front of a train. It didn’t exactly help to tell someone just to forget about having somebody special. There wasn’t anyone special in my life just then, but I felt pretty sure there would be someday. Why was Gerald worrying about that now?
“Well, thanks for being honest with me,” he said when we got close to camp again.
And that’s where I lost it. “G. E., listen to yourself! We’ve not even been here a week, I hardly know you, and you tell me you’re looking for a girl who’s good with children. I’m not thinking that far ahead! I’ve got a lot of living to do, and so do you. Be a radio announcer or something. Be a singer!”
“I am a singer,” said Gerald. “How did you know?”
I was so relieved to have something else to talk about that I actually smiled. “Because you’ve got a great voice. You’ve got the best-sounding voice of any guy here. I’ll bet you sing bass.”
He grinned a little. “I do. I sing with the madrigals at our school.”
“See?” I said. “You just need to get reacqua
inted with your good points. G. E., meet Gerald. Gerald… G. E.” He laughed, and so, finally, did I.
When I got back to our cabin, I faced a drama of a different sort. The Coyotes were back from the music program, and Gwen was having a face-off with Estelle. Gwen’s voice was loud: “I don’t care what you thought Latisha was saying about you, girl! If you’ve got any complaints, you bring them to me. You don’t go dumping someone else’s stuff on the floor.”
“She got my shoes!” Latisha was shouting. “She done something with my shoes!”
“Have you got Latisha’s shoes, Estelle?” Gwen demanded.
Estelle was just begging for a fight, I could tell. Tossing her long black hair behind her, she thrust her face forward, scrunched up her eyes and nose, and said, in a mocking voice, “No, I don’t have her stinking shoes, smelling up the place.” And then she muttered, “Those nigger-smelling feet.”
It took both Gwen and me to pull Latisha off her and get the girls separated.
“She think niggers smell, she ought to smell her own shit,” shouted Latisha. “Her shit smells worse’n anybody’s, all that dog food she eats.”
Now it was Estelle lunging for Latisha. This time I took hold of her and kept her back. Kim was cowering on her bunk, about as far away as she could get, and Mary had Josephine on her lap and was rocking her back and forth. Ruby simply watched from a top bunk, swinging her legs.
Don’t get stuck on the language here, I told myself, remembering the advice in our handbook. Focus on the feelings behind the words. Estelle had prejudice, Latisha had attitude, and Latisha most of all wanted her shoes back.
I gripped Estelle by the shoulders and looked her square in the eyes. “Where are Latisha’s shoes?”
Estelle tossed her head again. “Out there.”
“Out where?”
She pointed and I went to the door to look. Latisha’s sneakers, the laces tied together, had been tossed up over a sign strung above the road outside the cabins. An arrow pointed up the hill toward the dining hall. Latisha’s sneakers hung down over the “c” in “Office.”
Gwen and I looked at each other. “Why did you do that?” she asked Estelle.