"Yeah, well, anyway," I continue, "Lam answered my ad, only he said he didn't have a car. He said he could drive me, but I had to provide the car. Kind of kooky, I know, but it was the only offer I got, so I accepted."
"You mean you rode to West Virginia with a complete stranger? That's crazy! You're not supposed to do that. You could get raped!" Stephanie Berry says, and everyone agrees, including me, even though at the time it had never occurred to me.
"So where did you find a car?" Banner asks.
"My parents' garage, where else?"
This gets a laugh.
"This is another thing you should never, ever do. It isn't cool, okay? Never take something that doesn't belong to you."
"Yes, Mother," all the girls say at the same time. Then they all laugh.
"Yeah, well, it's not so funny when you end up in juvie for stealing a car, okay?"
"You were in juvie?" I don't know who asks me that.
"Yeah, and believe me, that's one place you don't want to ever end up. It will scare the hair off your head. There are some girls in there that would just as soon kill you as look at you. You take a carton of milk they wanted, and they'll try to knife you for it, and don't think they don't all know how to make weapons out of anything there, 'cause they do—shoelaces, shoes, a shirt, a plastic fork or spoon, whatever." I shake my head. "But that's another story. Back to stealing my parents' car. You see, it was an old 1949 Volvo. My parents never drove it. My dad just liked to work on it now and then. When we lived in Kenya, he had to leave it here in the States and he could never work on it, but when we moved back—"
"You lived in Africa? How long? Did you see any giraffes? Did you go on safari?" The questions come from all over. I was thinking I would tell them a story and they'd be so bored they'd all fall asleep, but the more I talk, the more excited they get. It makes me feel like I've led an interesting life.
It seems like it takes me hours to tell them how Lam and I stole my parents' car and drove down to West Virginia, and how the car kept breaking down, so by the time we got to the bridge, the festival was over, but we jumped, anyway—a day late—and got put in jail for the night and fined a thousand dollars each, and my parents had thought I had been kidnapped or something, until they found the missing car, and how Lam and I had so much fun on that trip, and how we both base-jumped together, holding hands, and how we just instantly hit it off, and how by the time we returned home to the police and our parents waiting for us, we were madly, deeply in love.
"Did your parents really have you put in juvie for stealing their car? Their own child?" Ashley Wilson asks when I finish the story.
"Yeah, but not that first time. The first time I took their car they just grounded me, but the second time I took it to go—well, never mind where I took it. The second time I took it, they called the police and said I stole it, and I got put in juvie, and it was the smartest thing they ever did."
"Why?" Everyone wants to know.
"Because when you break the law, you should pay the price. Breaking rules hurts a lot of people, not just yourself."
Okay, so I'm only just learning this bit of advice, and basically I stole this line from the ILs' lecture to me earlier, but still, better late than never.
"You should pay the price, otherwise ... otherwise you'll just keep breaking the rules until you get into even worse trouble, the kind of trouble you can't ever get out of," I add—this only just occurring to me.
"Like getting pregnant when you're only a teenager," Ashley Wilson says, only she's not snarky when she says it; she sounds kind of sorry for me.
"Yeah, exactly," I say. I rub my belly, and my baby kicks me, as if to say, "Yeah, thanks a lot, Mom."
Chapter Thirteen
MY BEDTIME stories are very popular with the girls in my cabin, and I don't have any problems with them getting ready for bed anymore. Even Ashley Wilson is less of a pill, so that's going well, and surprisingly so is my dance class. It's always the same group of girls who come, so there are only about fifteen of them, but we have fun. Right now I've got them making up dances about how they feel about being overweight, and even though the songs they've chosen are sad and their stories are sad, they seem to be having lots of fun making up the dances and performing them for each other. Several of the girls have asked me if they can perform their dances for the whole camp. That gave me the idea of having a talent show, and I've even asked the ILs about it. They said they'd discuss it and let me know. So that's good, and my dulcimer is coming along so-so. But Lam and I aren't speaking. I'm not sure why, except that I'm never around and neither is he, and when we do meet, kind of by accident, he's just like, "Hi, how's it going? How's the baby?" And I'm like, "Yeah, going fine. Baby's fine. Getting close to delivery time, though." When I say this last bit, Lam just nods and stares down at his feet. Then after a few seconds he says bye, and we just go on our way, and I'm left kind of worrying about us and the baby. I've done nothing to prepare myself for this delivery. I don't want to think about it. I'm praying for some kind of miracle where maybe I just pass out and the baby comes out of me, and then I just get up and walk away and everything's fine, no pain, no mess, and off I go. I have those few things my mom got me before she left—the car seat and crib—but I don't have diapers or baby bottles, and since all of my friends are guys, they aren't about to throw me a shower or anything. Still, I figure, just in case Lam and I do decide to keep this baby, I should have something prepared, but the longer I put off thinking about it, the more I think giving it up is for the best. It all just wasn't meant to be.
***
Lunchtime at camp is also the time when they hand out the mail, and every camper and counselor loves to get mail. The only mail I ever get is from my sister, Sarah, and it's not really mail, or at least not really a letter. She sends me articles, like the one about how it costs a million dollars to raise a child to the age of eighteen these days, or she sends these stories about struggling single mothers, and the importance of the first three years of a child's life, and how those early years mark a kid forever. I know what she's trying to do, and it's working. I'm scared. I don't want to read the articles, but they're hard to resist. I end up reading them out loud to my baby, and I ask it what it thinks. "You think Lam and I can raise you? Are you worth a million dollars? I bet you are. Do you think Lam still loves me? Do you? Do you love me, little baby?" The baby is smart. It lies very still and says nothing.
Anyway, when the FIL calls my name to pick up a letter, I figure it's another struggling-mother story from Sarah. I pause a second and consider not even getting the letter. I mean, all right, already, I know how impossible it is to raise a kid. I get it. Do I have to keep reading about it? This time, though, it's from my parents! I'm so excited I can't even open the envelope. I wait until my afternoon break, when I'm alone with Ziggy in the break hut, to read the letter.
"You want me to leave?" Ziggy asks when he sees me hesitate with the envelope.
I shake my head. "No," I say. "You open it, will you? I'm just—I don't know, maybe it's just another lecture about the baby or something. Maybe it's just them writing to tell me how ashamed of me they are."
Ziggy eyes me a second, and I shuffle over to the couch and ease myself down.
"Okay," I say. "Go ahead and open it."
Ziggy tears open the letter like it's a Christmas present. He unfolds the paper and reads:
"Dear Elly,
Well, we made it! Not much has changed here in three years. Only the children's faces, but not even all of them. Remember little Catha? She's still here, and she asks about you. She's eight years old now, if you can believe it.
Your dad and I have been so busy getting adjusted to the old routine again, and to tell you the truth, it's worn your dad out. I wish he'd take a break every now and then, but you know your father.
We're living in a new home—simple but adequate. You'd hate it. I think you were right not to come with us this time. You made the right decision, Elly-belly.
So how are yo
u? How's the baby? I do hope you've made up your mind to let Sarah and Robby care for the child. You know they'd be wonderful parents, and then you could finish school, go on to college, and start a career. You'll be seventeen in a few months, and a senior in high school. I know that feels old, but it's way too young to have a baby. Yes, I know we've discussed all of this before, but I hope now that we've all calmed down, my argument makes a little more sense.
How is Lamont? And his parents? I hope you've been keeping out of trouble. I hope..."
I hold up my hand. "Stop."
Ziggy lifts his eyes from the letter and looks at me. "What's wrong?"
I wipe at the tear running down my cheek. "Blah, blah, blech," I say. "It's the same old thing. 'I do hope you've made up your mind to let Sarah and Robby care for the child'—blah!" She sounds so formal, so—so impersonal. Who is this woman? I'd rather her yell at me instead of this bullshit stuff.
Ziggy comes and sits down beside me. He puts his arm around me, and I lean on his shoulder, and there's no zinging feeling, because I refuse to allow myself to feel that way about Ziggy anymore. I'm married—I think.
"The thing is," I say, "I am going to give the baby up. I've decided. I haven't told Lam this, but with the way things are between us lately, what else can I do?" I lift my head off Ziggy's shoulder. "It was stupid of our parents to make us get married. It's killed all the romance, which is probably exactly what they wanted to happen. I mean, we were so hot for each other, and now, overnight, we've both just gone cold. I don't know what happened."
Ziggy removes his arm from my shoulder and shrugs. "Maybe you just liked the thrill of doing something your parents didn't like. Now that you don't have to sneak around or screw in the back seat of a car or anything, it's not so exciting."
"Okay, first of all, we never screwed in the back seat of any car. I'm not cheap like that, despite what everybody, including my parents, think." I pause because I can't think of a second of all, and then I think about Lam again. "I guess maybe you're right," I say. "It's not thrilling anymore. Lam isn't thrilling. He's tired and boring these days, and since I'm not on drugs or drinking or anything, I can't pretend I'm still so in love with him." I draw in my breath and cover my mouth.
Ziggy leans toward me. "What? What's wrong?"
"I can't believe I just said that. Why did I say that?"
"Say what?"
"That I was pretending to love him. I did love him. I do love him—don't I?"
Ziggy shrugs. "Don't ask me."
"Maybe I just don't know what real love is. But my feelings weren't just because of the drugs, were they? We had fun. We had so much fun, base jumping and riding up to Sunday River to go snowboarding, and hot chocolate after his hunting trips, and hanging out in his parents' basement just listening to music and getting stoned. We could always talk about anything, but now it's always about the baby and the future and wondering if he loves me."
While I'm talking, Ziggy stares down at his high school ring and twists it around and around on his finger. He looks so deep in thought, and I wonder what he's thinking about, but I'm uncomfortable asking him, so I don't. I just stop talking for a second, and he looks up.
"What?" he asks.
"I guess I need to talk to Lam about all this, not you. I'm boring you."
"Hey." Ziggy squeezes my hand. "You're never boring me, but yeah, you should talk to Lam. You're about to pop that baby out any day now by the looks of things."
I grab the letter, which Ziggy left on the coffee table, and stash it in the pocket of my dress. I tell myself that when I get back to my cabin, I'll toss it out, but I don't do that. I shove it inside my pillowcase and decide to forget about it, only deep in my stomach, behind the baby somewhere, is this burning hole full of all kinds of unhappy feelings that need unscrambling, but I'm too messed up to deal with them right now. I wish I could see my parents and explain myself in a way that would make them understand me, but they always act like they've already got me all figured out, and I don't know how they could. I don't have me figured out yet, so how could they? And anyway, the parts about me I do know, they've got all wrong. I mean well. They don't get that, but I do. I don't mean to screw up my life, and their life, and everybody else's.
***
It's my night off, and even though I ought to go into town and get some supplies in case the baby comes—like, I don't know, some diapers, and maybe some extra Kotex or something for me—I don't. I stay home and wait for Lam. I wait and wait, but he never comes. I fall asleep. When I wake up, he's there getting ready for swimming, and I realize I've missed breakfast, and I didn't report back to my cabin like I'm supposed to on nights when I have off.
I climb out of the bed. "I'm so late. Your parents will kill me."
"Chillax, Elly. What can they do? Fire you?"
He sounds stoned.
"And where were you last night?" I ask while I'm still struggling to get across the mattress. I feel like a turtle flipped over on its back.
"Here. I played Ping-Pong awhile after dinner, then I came back here and you were asleep. I didn't expect you to be here."
"Yeah, well, it must have been like five in the morning or something, because you forget I gotta pee every five seconds, and every time I got up to pee, you weren't here."
"Yeah, I was. I heard you get up, but I was too tired to say anything. I was on the couch." Lam points to the couch, and I see a rumpled blanket and his pillow lying there. "Like I said, I didn't want to wake you."
Finally I make it out of the bed. I go over to where he's stashing his towel in his duffle, and I grab his arm. "Lam. Are we okay?"
He shrugs. "I don't know." He doesn't look at me. His blond bangs hang down in his eyes, and he doesn't brush them away. He pulls out a pair of flippers from his bag and examines them for cracks.
"What's happened to us?"
He shrugs again. "I don't know. Maybe it's this camp. It's the schedule. We've got completely different schedules. I think my parents must have planned it that way."
"Yeah, and if they meant it to break us up, which I think they did, well, they're winning."
Lam looks at me when I say that. "Oh, yeah?"
This time I shrug. "Well, aren't they?"
He scowls, and he looks real young all of a sudden, like he's four years old. "It's not their fault," he says finally. "We can't just blame them."
"What—"
Before I can ask him what he means by that, there's a knock on the door, and it's Gren. She blushes when she sees us, like she's seeing us naked and doing the nasty or something. That girl is the blushingest, shyest person, or non-person, I've ever met.
"Oh, sorry." She closes the door.
I go open it again, and there she is just standing on the stoop, looking at her feet. "Did you want something, Gren?"
"Oh, uh, the Lothrops want to see Lam, and you're supposed to be at the crafts hut, and I was sent to find out if you're okay."
"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. Thanks, Gren." I turn back to Lam. "We'll talk later, right?"
"Right," he says.
Chapter Fourteen
EVERY FRIDAY night the camp does something special. Most camps have cookouts with s'mores and marshmallows and wieners and potato chips and all, but at this place, the something special doesn't usually include food unless it's fruit. One time it was Christmas in July, and we watched Christmas movies and had secret Santas, where we gave handmade or nature-made presents, and another time we had a camp-wide swim meet and water-ballet show, but this Friday of the fourth week of camp, it's skit night, and all the campers are going to put on skits about camp life, featuring imitations of their counselors.
We meet in the main cabin, where there's a real stage and everybody sits on the floor, except me and the ILs and Lam's grandma, who's in her wheelchair. I'm surprised to see her here, and I wonder how she gets up the mountain with her chair and all. She catches me looking at her, and she squints at me the way Rufus does. I wonder what the ILs have been telling her ab
out me.
I see kids hanging all over the counselors, sitting in their laps and leaning on them like the counselors are their most favorite people in the world, and I want this for me. I want kids in my lap, too, but I don't have a lap, and I'm sitting up high in a metal folding chair. A few of the campers do come sit by me and talk to me, but it's not the same. Besides, sitting high up on a chair feels dorky, like I'm an adult, like I'm one of the ILs.
The first skit starts, and the kids are really funny. They've got Leo down pat. A boy named Bob Hart, who's a natural class clown, anyway, plays Leo. He's got on the whole tourist getup, and he's darting around pretending like he's taking pictures of the campers, and kids are coming up behind him and sneaking peeks at his back, and one kid gets his head stuck under Leo's camp shirt and he's flailing about, but Leo doesn't even notice. He just keeps taking pictures. Everybody laughs, and I check to see how Leo's taking it, and he's laughing, too. Then there's Jen, and they've got her always blowing her lifeguard whistle. "Walk! Walk!" she shouts.
They even have the guts to imitate the ILs. The boy imitating the FIL is wearing the FIL's "Life is good" apron and pretending he's demonstrating how to make bread, because the ILs teach "how to cook healthy" classes here. It's a riot, because every few seconds the girl imitating the MIL interrupts the demo to translate what the FIL has just said into something far more complicated. I look over to see how the ILs are taking it, and they're both laughing. I have to admit it, they really care about these kids and this camp. It makes me wonder if maybe the MIL used to be fat. She's big boned, and I can see her as maybe once having a weight problem. It makes me, for just a teensy second, feel compassion for her. The FIL looks just like Lam, except he's kind of balding and old, so I figure he's always been thin.
So here I am laughing my head off and the baby is kicking, so I figure it's laughing its head off, too, and then along comes Ashley Wilson, and she's got a pillow stuffed under her Camp WeightAway shirt and she's waddling across the stage. A kid comes up to her and says, "Gee, looks like you're going to have a baby. How old are you, anyway?" Then Ashley Wilson says, "I'm twenty years old, see, and I'm married, see, so get your face out of my business, see." The kid slinks off, and everybody in the audience laughs. Then Ashley Wilson picks up the dulcimer I'm still working on in crafts, and it really is my dulcimer, so it looks pretty bad, and as soon as she picks it up, everybody laughs again, and my feelings get hurt, but I see the kids sitting around me watching me, so I laugh, too. I wonder if they all just think I'm a total asshole or what? Then Ashley Wilson sits in a chair, which takes a good minute, since she's imitating pregnant me, and a guy in swim trunks and flippers with a camp lifeguard hat on, obviously meant to be Lam, comes creeping across the stage behind my back. I'm trying to sand my dulcimer and talk to a camper at the same time and messing up royally, which gets a laugh, and so does the way the boy is creeping along behind me. He's like a cartoon, with his arms bent at the elbows, and his hands like claws, and he's trying to cross on tiptoe in those flippers. When he reaches the other side of the stage, there's a girl waiting for him. The girl's face is made up so her cheeks are bright red, and when Lam reaches her, he takes her hand, and she giggles. They both look at me and leave the stage. Everybody's laughing except me, and the ILs, and the old bat in the wheelchair. I guess Lam and Gren wouldn't be laughing, either, except when I look around, neither one of them is here. I see the MIL start to stand up, but before she can do anything, another skit has begun and it's all funny again, so she sits down, and the moment passes, but I'm just sitting there too stunned to laugh. What did I just see? And what did it mean? Is Lam creeping behind my back with that blah Gren girl? Gren? He's cheating on me with Gren? He's cheating on me? And we're about to have a baby? And we're married? Gren?