“Falling into a guy’s arms is so the way to start summer camp,” Torie said. Last summer her hair had been blond. This summer it was black. Really black. Pulled back tightly into a ponytail. “You know what I’m saying?”
“Uh, actually, no, I don’t,” I said. I tried to sound like I was joking, but it came out sounding snippy.
“Yikes, girl,” Caryn said. She was tall and slender with golden brown hair and eyes the same brown shade as her hair. “Be cool. Just because you couldn’t trust your partner—”
“Would you have trusted Sean?” I interrupted.
She shrugged. “Maybe. He seems different this summer.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know. We talked for a bit when we first got here. He seemed”—she shrugged again—“nicer than I remembered.”
“Still, we can’t overlook what he did at the end of last summer,” Liz said. She was a true friend, completely understanding where I was coming from. “I mean, how can you trust someone who would blatantly cheat and then admit it?”
“I don’t know,” Torie said. “I think there’s something admirable about admitting in front of everyone that you did something you shouldn’t have. You know what I’m saying?”
I’d forgotten that Torie had the habit of ending every comment with, “You know what I’m saying?”
“No, I don’t,” I said. I also hadn’t remembered that most of my responses to Torie’s questions were the same thing. We were so out of sync. “Admitting you did something wrong doesn’t change the fact that you did something wrong. It doesn’t make it right.”
“So ask for another partner,” Caryn said.
I looked at the four other girl counselors who were sitting at the far end of our table. Eight girl counselors. Eight guy counselors. Would any of the girls be willing to trade? I didn’t think so. Not when it meant trading down. As I’d overheard my mom tell Aunt Linda when she divorced husband number two to marry husband number three, you’re supposed to trade up. (Mom didn’t like her sister’s husband number three nearly as much as she’d liked her husband number two.)
“It’s only a week,” Liz said. “It’s not like you’ll be partnered for the whole summer. I say just suck it up and endure. After all, summer camp is about roughing it. Sean will be a true test of your survival skills.”
So much for Liz giving me total support. I wanted her to be PO’d, not meekly accept my situation. A leader was supposed to have strength of conviction. Plus, having to work with Sean was going to put a major damper on my flirtation opportunities.
“Easy enough for you to say. I noticed that you weren’t in any hurry to separate yourself from your partner.”
She gave me a huge grin. “Trent Smith. He’s totally terrific: tall, dark, handsome, and remarkably strong.”
“I don’t remember him from last summer,” I said, absently moving what looked to be orange worms, but was supposedly macaroni and cheese, around on my plate. Camp food was not exactly gourmet fare. I always looked forward to the nights when we toasted marshmallows on a fire or made s’mores. Even hot dogs roasted over an open fire tasted like heaven compared with what was usually served.
“I heard Trent’s family recently moved to the area. He was a counselor at a campground in Orlando.”
“What campground? Disney World?” I asked.
“I don’t think so. Orlando is more than simply Disney World, you know.”
“I was kidding,” I said. Geez, had everyone lost their sense of humor? “Although wearing a Mickey Mouse costume might be preferable to our camp counselor getup.”
“No kidding,” Torie said.
She failed to follow that statement with her usual. Probably because she knew that we all knew what she was saying.
When we were finished eating and had put our trays in the dishwashing area—was I ever grateful washing dishes wasn’t my job—we headed outside. Amazon Edna and Long-haired Ed were already out there, holding clipboards and talking. Edna was scowling. When she saw me, she deepened her scowl. She crooked her finger and wiggled it.
I glanced around. Just as I feared, she was crooking it at me. This had bad news written all over it. I swallowed and walked over. I tried really hard to look confident, to not let her know that my knees had started shaking. My internal cheerleader was chanting, You go, girl! Take charge!
“Yes, ma’am,” I said respectfully when I arrived. I’d learned early on that politeness was a shortcut to an adult’s good side. Besides, I’d answered question four—Do you respect your elders?—in the affirmative.
“I like freethinkers,” she said. “People who don’t conform.”
Her words were so unexpected, so filled with praise that I couldn’t help but smile. Here was clear evidence that changing up the uniform had been the way to go. I couldn’t wait to tell Liz—maybe now she’d stop doubting my ideas.
“But—” she continued.
Oh, here it comes, I thought. The reason behind the deep scowl.
“Counselors have to be able to follow orders. Mutiny can’t be tolerated.”
“But the uni—”
“You are partner one,” she said, interrupting me before I could explain how hideously unflattering the uniforms were this year. “Sean is designated partner two. You were supposed to fall back into his arms. Not the other way around.”
To my disappointment we weren’t discussing the uniform. Bummer. It was so much easier to explain.
“But I didn’t trust him,” I blurted. Surely she could understand that. How could you let yourself fall when experience had taught you that the net wouldn’t be there when you landed?
She nodded sagely. “That was obvious, but the quickest road to trust comes by building a bridge of common experiences.”
Amazon Edna had quickly morphed into Yoda. I was certain she was trying to make a point, but she was going about it in a convoluted circle.
“Tonight you and Sean will be on evening shift dishwasher detail,” she said.
She’s kidding, right? Here I was, on my first day of CIT training and I was already being punished? This was so unlike me, I just stood there, gaping.
Before I could sputter a response, Edna walked off. I assumed she was on her way to break the good news to Sean.
I was left standing in front of Long-haired Ed. I considered suggesting that he tell his twin to chill, but question seventeen on the application—Do you play well with others?—was haunting me. I’d answered yes to that one, too. Of course, I hadn’t planned on being asked to play well with Sean.
“So, you and Edna are twins,” I said instead, trying to sound like I was really interested. Maybe if I could get on his good side, he’d convince Edna to lighten up.
He laughed really loudly. For such a skinny guy he had an authentic Santa Claus belly-laugh going. “Check out snopes.com, and you’ll discover that’s an urban legend,” he said. He patted my shoulder. “Maybe you and your camp partner can figure out the truth.”
He walked off. And I was left with the realization that this entire week was going to involve people trying to hook me up with Sean.
Maybe a better name for the camp would be Camp Final Destination. Because being here was quickly turning into my worst nightmare!
Chapter Five
If Edna broke the news about our dishwashing assigment to Sean, it wasn’t obvious. As a matter of fact, he’d walked out of the dining hall after lunch, whistling like he didn’t have a care in the world. Then Edna had blown her own whistle—which was so much better than the clanging of the iron triangle.
Back in the main hall, she’d quickly jumped into a lecture on trust and its importance in our jobs. Again with the trusting ourselves, trusting each other. When we became experts in that regard, we would have no difficulty at all getting the campers—and their parents who were paying for camp—to trust us. We needed that trust to be successful as counselors.
I wanted nothing more than to be successful, but being paired up with Sean was
like being paired up in chemistry class with the one guy who didn’t understand chemistry. No way was your project going to get an A.
“We seem to have some trust issues in our group,” she announced, and everyone swiveled his or her head around to look at me. Even my best friend.
Great! Just great! Not exactly the kind of attention I wanted.
“So we’re going to learn by building trust,” Edna continued. “Slowly. Everyone, find your designated partner and stand in front of him or her, facing each other.”
It was with a great deal of undisguised reluctance that I trudged toward Sean, who trudged toward me. Only I was probably scowling, while he was smiling. He could only be in a good mood because he hadn’t crossed paths with Edna yet and was still ignorant of our punishment for not playing by the rules.
“What are you grinning at?” I snapped.
His eyes widened. He glanced over one shoulder, then the other. He looked back at me and pressed both hands to his chest. “Are you talking to me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Forget it.”
The piercing whistle sound echoed between the trees surrounding the camp. I looked at Edna. She was holding a stopwatch in her raised hand. “All right, CITs. I want you to stare into each other’s eyes until I tell you to stop. Go!”
I jerked my attention back to Sean. “She can’t be serious.” I started to feel very nervous. Was I going to fail every exercise? But it was either that, or stare Sean in the eyes. I don’t know why, but that scared me more.
“Based on the fact that we’re washing dishes tonight, I think we can safely assume she has no concept of joking.”
“She told you about our punishment?”
“Yep. Stop staring at my nose. I don’t want to have to wash dishes tomorrow night, too.”
I took a deep breath. Chill, I told myself. This isn’t a big deal.
Then, I slowly, reluctantly, lifted my gaze to his. He had such blue eyes. A deeper, richer blue than my own. How could someone with such beautiful eyes be such a jerk?
“Why do you think she’s making us do this?” I asked.
“The dishes?”
“No. The staring.”
“I don’t know. It’s got something to do with trust. That seems to be one of her favorite words.”
“So I noticed. Maybe she’s the one with trust issues.”
“Could be.”
“Ed says they’re not twins.”
I wasn’t sure why I was yammering except that it kept me distracted, prevented me from really noticing the depths of his eyes. Eyes are windows to the soul, my grandma had always said. I really didn’t want to look into Sean’s soul.
“Why would they be twins?” Sean asked.
“That’s what Torie said.”
“Yep, and there are bears in the woods,” he said sarcastically.
Before I could respond to that tacky reminder of last summer’s makeover interruption, Edna finally yelled, “Time!”
I let out a deep breath and turned my attention to Edna. I’d gotten off easy. Fifteen seconds tops, staring into those eyes. Eyes that made me wish I could trust him, made me wish I liked him, because honestly they were nice to look into….
“Did you feel the connection?” Edna asked. “Gazing into someone’s eyes forces you to truly notice him—or her. Take a step toward your partner.”
“Define step,” I mumbled, wondering if easing forward the length of my big toe could count as a step.
Apparently, Sean interpreted step to mean the length of his foot. And he had large feet. He was suddenly a lot closer to me, the toes of his hiking boots practically touching mine. I wanted to take a giant step back, but his eyes held a dare, like he was challenging me, knew he was encroaching on my personal space, and if I stepped back, he’d win.
I can’t explain how I knew all those thoughts were going through his head. But I did. And I wasn’t one to back down. Call me stubborn, but there you have it. I stood my ground.
“All right,” Edna called out. “Take each other’s hands.”
Sean wiped his hands on his shorts like maybe he was nervous and like he seriously thought I was going to follow Edna’s order. Maybe he thought I was going to do as instructed because I was rubbing my sweating palms on my shorts, too. Not that I was going to hold his hands, but it gave me something to do, as I tried to figure out how to get myself out of this situation. Usually I was good at strategy. It was the reason my name was etched on three plaques hanging in the main lodge, along with those of my team members from the past three end-of-summer Capture the Flag games.
“Anyone not holding hands will spend time in the jail,” Edna announced like some drill sergeant.
I should explain that the “jail” is this little shed with bars on the windows. I think it might have once been an outhouse. It’s really small and all dilapidated-looking. And it smells funny. The door doesn’t even close properly. It hangs at an odd angle, so it’s not like anyone can seriously be locked inside. It’s more of an embarrassment thing.
I’d never spent time there, but Sean had. Last summer he and some guys had been the ones cutting up and causing our canoe to turn over, spilling all of us into the lake.
“Been there, done that,” Sean said grumpily, grabbing my hands before I could protest.
Something, almost like an electric shock, traveled through me. Holding Sean’s hands was nothing at all like taking hold of my brother’s hand and leading him through the Six Flags theme park toward the roller coaster.
“I’ve never done it,” I said, trying to wrench free. But he was holding on too tightly.
“Trust me. You don’t want to.”
Trust him? How could he even utter those two words to me after what he’d done?
I was going to pull really hard, but I noticed people were beginning to look around. Probably wondering why Edna was standing still with her hands on her hips and a disgruntled look on her face. She was getting PO’d. If I wasn’t careful, I really might not pass CIT training. And that would be horrible. I wasn’t in the habit of not achieving my goals. That was part of the reason I was still so mad at Sean about last summer. He’d thwarted me. For some reason, I just couldn’t find it in me to forgive him again.
But with a sigh, I accepted that Liz was right. It was only seven days. I could endure his close proximity for that long.
I just hoped there wasn’t going to be a lot of touching going on, because his touch really unsettled me. I stopped struggling and nodded at Edna. She nodded back. Ed smiled. What was that about?
“All right,” Edna shouted. “Stare into your partner’s eyes again…. Now!”
“Not my chin,” Sean said.
“Why not? I got lucky before.”
“Yeah, but when your luck runs out, I get punished.”
I was looking back into his eyes. “For what it’s worth, I thought Edna overreacted to our situation this morning.”
“Most definitely,” he said.
We were quiet for a couple of seconds. I was amazed at how loud quiet could sound. And how much I liked looking into Sean’s eyes. And holding his hands. I needed a distraction.
“This is totally weird,” I finally said.
“I don’t know. I kinda like it. You’ve got really pretty blue eyes.”
Not as pretty as yours…but I wasn’t about to say that! “A compliment?” I asked instead.
“We could trade compliments if you want, while we’re standing here doing nothing.”
“We’re not doing nothing. We’re staring. That’s something.”
“You’re trying to change the subject. We were discussing compliments. I give you one. You give me one. That’s how it works.”
“No way. That’s not how it works. Compliments don’t mean trade-offs.”
“You sure?”
“Definitely.” Besides, what kind of compliment could I really give him? Although being this close to him, staring into his eyes, seeing his face in my peripheral vision, I was beginning t
o realize what had changed about him. He didn’t look nearly as young as he had last summer. He looked not just a year older but a lot older. A little more rugged, even.
Were more than his looks different? Was he the kind of guy that a girl could now trust? Could fall for? And if he was, was I in danger of falling for him?
“Time!” Edna yelled.
Thank goodness! My thoughts had started traveling a path they had no business being on.
Sean let go of my hands as though they’d suddenly ignited. I wondered if the same unsettling thoughts had been going through his mind.
I immediately stepped back and lowered my gaze. It seemed to me that an excellent exercise at this point in time would be trading partners. Shouldn’t we be switching around constantly so we learned to deal with all types of people, not just one person?
Maybe I should discuss that strategy with Edna. I mean, this was her first year at the camp—she was new. She might appreciate some helpful advice. Besides, it would allow me to prove that I’d answered question seven—Do you like to help others?—truthfully.
Edna gave us a little more advice about looking a person in the eye when we talked to him. Touching someone. Offering comfort. Connecting. It was all about connecting and easing into another person’s personal space without invading it—like welcoming someone into your house. Then she told us to get settled in, and we’d start seriously learning in the morning.
Gosh, if all this hadn’t been serious stuff, I wasn’t certain that I wanted tomorrow to come. What was next? Hugging your partner? Still, I couldn’t get away from Sean fast enough.
Liz, unfortunately, seemed in no hurry to get away from Trent. They were still gazing into each other’s eyes, and she had this really silly grin on her face. Come to think of it, he had a goofy grin, too.