When he reentered, Mrs. Kaplan had her back to him. She was removing a file folder from a cabinet behind her desk. Uncle stood in front of the desk, conspicuously holding the empty leash in his hand. When she turned around and saw the leash, she realized that not only was there a dog on her premises, but it was not tethered. The smile left her face, and her mouth formed a Gothic O. She started to say something, thought better of it, and didn’t. Instead, she sat down, opened the file, and began studying it. The file was all about me, Margaret Rose. Considering that this was only my ninth day at camp, the folder was quite full.
Uncle continued to stand, waiting for Mrs. Kaplan to look up again. “May I be seated?” he asked.
“Please,” she said, sweeping her hand toward the right chair, one of two that faced her desk.
Uncle sat down, quickly got up and moved the chair four inches, sat down, got up and moved it again in the opposite direction, and then did it a third time. “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Rose?”
“The sun,” he said. “It’s shining in my eyes, and you are a dark shadow.” Uncle meant every word.
Wearing her patience like a body stocking, Mrs. Kaplan said, “Suppose you take the other chair.”
“Good idea,” Uncle said, and moved that chair once before settling down. With a fussiness as elaborate as it was deliberate, he inched his bottom toward the back of the chair. He steadied his gaze on the woman sitting across the desk from him and waited until only the sheerest shroud of patience remained. Then he folded his hands in his lap and said, “Now we can talk.”
In more ways than one, Alexander Rose resembled a set of Matryoshka nesting dolls. He was short and squat, he had many fully formed layers beneath his roly-poly outer shell, and deep inside was an innermost self, a core that was solid and indivisible.
In an unconscious effort to create as much distance as possible between them, Mrs. Kaplan leaned back in her chair and slowly turned the full force of an uppish smile on him. “We see, Mr. Rose, that you are not this child’s parent.”
“That is correct. I am her granduncle.”
“You must mean great-uncle.”
“Great or grand, they mean the same: I am the brother of her grandmother.” Mrs. Kaplan was not sure if great-uncle and granduncle were interchangeable, but she decided to let his remark go. She would check it later. Uncle said, “At the moment, though, since Margaret’s parents are out of the country and unable to tend to her, I am in loco parentis, in the position of a parent.”
Mrs. Kaplan replied, “We know perfectly well what in loco parentis means, Mr. Rose.” But as soon as she said it, she regretted it. This interview was not going well. Best to get to the matter at hand. “Yes, it was in your capacity as guardian of Margaret that I called you last night. As I mentioned on the phone, Margaret refuses to participate in any of our activities. She says, ‘I prefer not to.’” Tapping the folder, she said, “We have here a report from Gloria, Margaret’s camp counselor.” She lowered her head, put on her glasses, and began reading aloud. “On Monday—
Margaret did not take a copy of the words to our camp songs when I was passing them out. I did not force a copy on her because I assumed that like a lot of our other girls, she had learned the words from our tape. Then on Tuesday, our karaoke and sing-along evening, she did not sing with the group. When I asked her why, she said it was because she didn’t know the words.”
Mrs. Kaplan raised her voice slightly while reading the phrase because she didn’t know the words. She looked over her reading glasses at Uncle and waited until he indicated with a nod that he had caught the significance of her emphasis. She continued, “On Wednesday—
Margaret did not show up for origami class. When I went to her cabin to fetch her, she refused to attend. When I asked her why, she said that she preferred not to. Margaret failed to create a design to paint on a T-shirt. She said that she preferred not to. Then in the afternoon when we were to paint the T-shirts, she said she couldn’t because she didn’t have a design. I suggested that she do something spontaneous—an abstract, maybe—and she replied, ‘I prefer not to.’”
Uncle folded his hands across the expanse of his belly and cocked his head a little to the left, his supreme listening mode. He waited.
Mrs. Kaplan took off her reading glasses and laid them on top of the open folder. “That brings us to the events of yesterday. The girls were scheduled to go tubing on the lake. Everyone but Margaret boarded the bus. Everyone waited, and when Margaret did not appear, Gloria went to Meadowlark cabin to look for her. She found Margaret still in her bunk, not ready. We had to leave without her. A little later, we personally went to her cabin to have a talk with her.”
Mrs. Kaplan waited for a response from Uncle. None came. She cleared her throat and continued. “Our visit yesterday elicited a remark from your niece, Mr. Rose, that was so uncalled for that we were prompted to phone you last evening.” She again waited for a response from Uncle, expecting him to ask what awful thing I had said, but Uncle asked nothing. In truth, he did not want to possibly have to agree with Mrs. Kaplan that something I had said was truly uncalled for. When it became clear that Uncle would not ask, she continued. “Your niece has become increasingly unreachable.” She put her glasses back on, took two pages from the folder, and handed them to Uncle. “You will find that Louise Starr, our camp nurse, agrees. You may read her reports.”
She handed Uncle Alex the forms. The first report said that I, Margaret Rose Kane, was neither anorexic nor bulimic nor suffering from preadolescent depression. In conclusion, I find her simply uncooperative. The second report again eliminated the same things—bulimia, anorexia, and depression—and upgraded me from uncooperative to incorrigible.
Uncle Alex was not a rapid reader, and he took the time to read the reports twice before laying the sheets back down on the desk. He slowly pushed them toward Mrs. Kaplan. He said nothing. Mrs. Kaplan closed the folder, removed her glasses, and rested her hands on the cover. “What do you have to say about those reports, Mr. Rose?”
“Nurse Starr has a very nice handwriting,” he replied.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Yes, it is all I have to say. Not all I can say.”
“Please feel free to tell us what is on your mind.”
“Well, Mrs. Kaplan, I can tell you that I understand. You see, I, too, once lived under a monarchy. I, too, preferred not to, so I emigrated.”
“We would hardly call our community here at Camp Talequa a monarchy, Mr. Rose.”
“And that, Mrs. Kaplan, is because you are the queen.”
“We deeply resent that remark, Mr. Rose.”
“I’m sure you do, Mrs. Kaplan, but with all due respect, your camp here has a surprising resemblance to the camps in my old country. You require blind obedience. So did they. You demand conformity. So did they.” Uncle then waved a hand toward the folder. “You have your spies. They had theirs. And you have—”
“We have happy campers, Mr. Rose.”
“And so you should, Mrs. Kaplan. And it is for that very reason that I want to remove an unhappy one.” He stood up. “Now, if you’ll please tell me where I can find Margaret Rose, I will get her, and we shall leave.”
Mrs. Kaplan protested. “We have procedures, Mr. Rose.”
“Start the procedures.”
“There are forms to be signed.”
“Bring them to me. I will sign them.”
Mrs. Kaplan resisted. Uncle insisted. Finally, Mrs. Kaplan called over to the main house and asked Gloria to come to the office. As they waited, Uncle asked Mrs. Kaplan for a refund.
“A refund, Mr. Rose?”
“Yes, Mrs. Kaplan. It is my understanding that all the fees were paid in advance. I expect you to deduct from my refund the eight and a half days Margaret Rose has spent here plus something for your administrative costs.”
“But surely, Mr. Rose, you know that we are at a total loss.”
“Surely you have a waiting list. Most p
laces do.”
“Of course we have a waiting list. Certainly we have a waiting list. We have a long waiting list. Our waiting list is as long as that of any camp in the Adirondacks. But at this late date, there is no way we can sell the space that was to have been taken by Margaret. Our supplies have been ordered with a certain number in mind. That number includes Margaret Kane.” She pulled a sheet from a file drawer and thrust it at Uncle Alex. “Read your contract. No refunds after June twenty-first. There will be no refund, Mr. Rose.”
“That being the case, Mrs. Kaplan, I would appreciate some lunch and a ride back to Epiphany.”
“We can allow lunch, Mr. Rose. But a ride back to Epiphany is out of the question. We cannot tie up a bus and a driver to transport two people all the way to Epiphany.”
“Not a bus, Mrs. Kaplan. A van.”
“We have no van, Mr. Rose.”
“Do we have a car, Mrs. Kaplan?”
Mrs. Kaplan gritted her teeth. “Yes, we have a car, Mr. Rose.”
“That will do nicely,” he replied.
Mrs. Kaplan pushed a sheath of papers across the desk and handed Uncle a pen. “We are a business, Mr. Rose. A ride back to Epiphany is all we can afford. Time is money, Mr. Rose.”
“Time is not money, Mrs. Kaplan. Time wasted is often time well spent. Money wasted is merely redistributed.” Uncle signed the papers with a flourish and then took a plastic bag from his jacket pocket. From the bag, he took a rag and said to Mrs. Kaplan, “If Margaret Rose comes while I’m gone, please tell her that I’m burying the rag. She’ll understand what it is that I am doing.”
“And just what is it that you will be doing?” Mrs. Kaplan demanded. Uncle explained that he was training Tartufo to be a truffle dog. “Tartufo means truffle in Italian, Mrs. Kaplan. The rag is soaked in truffle oil. I will bury the rag out in your woods and have Tartufo retrieve it.”
“We do not allow dogs on our premises, and we have no chocolate in camp. Certainly no buried chocolate.”
“The truffles of which I speak are underground mushrooms, Mrs. Kaplan. A natural food.”
“Whatever,” Mrs. Kaplan said. “But of this I am certain: There will be no dog loose in our woods. I repeat: No dogs in our woods.”
“Whatever,” Uncle said with a smile, replacing the truffle rag back in the bag.
That is when Gloria came into the office. Mrs. Kaplan told her to help Margaret Kane collect her belongings and bring them to the office. She did not introduce Uncle, but as Gloria turned to carry out her orders, Uncle introduced himself. “May I ask,” he said, “what kind of sandwiches you had for lunch today?” Gloria told him there had been tuna and bologna. With a childlike delight, he exclaimed, “That’s what I guessed. To myself, I guessed sandwiches, and I guessed tuna and bologna.” To Gloria, he said, “We’ll take two tuna each. That’ll be a total of four. With lettuce. We prefer whole wheat bread. Toasted.”
Turning to Mrs. Kaplan, he said, “Toasting helps to keep the bread from getting soggy.” Again addressing Gloria, he said, “I’ll bet you had chocolate chip”—he glanced mischievously at Mrs. Kaplan and corrected himself—“some kind of chip cookies for dessert, and I’ll bet you have a couple of those left, too.” Gloria looked toward Mrs. Kaplan for a quick check before nodding. “And milk?” he asked. Gloria nodded again. “We’ll have two containers of milk, please.”
Mrs. Kaplan picked up the phone. “We’ll call the kitchen with your order to save time.”
Uncle waited until Gloria left, and then, holding the plastic bag in one hand and the disconnected leash in the other, he spun around, examining the four walls of fake paneling. “Yes,” he said, half to himself, “tuna and bologna.”
Uncle shrugged and smiled at Mrs. Kaplan. And she knew that Mr. Alexander Rose had gotten everything he had come for: the sandwiches, the ride back, and, most of all, me.
two
Jake the handyman was assigned to drive us back to Epiphany. I recognized him because he had been called to Meadowlark cabin three times. The first time was to exchange a bunk mattress—mine. The second time was to make a shower that wouldn’t drain, drain, and the third time was to clean up a mess. Each time he came, he shuffled in, fixed what he was supposed to, and left without saying a word. He seemed borderline autistic, which would be Asperger’s disorder, or mentally retarded, which would be fragile X syndrome. Both disorders are known to occur more frequently in males than in females. Because of his mental problem—whatever it was—I wasn’t certain that he recognized me. I also wasn’t certain that he should be driving a car. Uncle didn’t seem worried. Of course, Uncle was hardly one to judge. His lack of driving skills was in the court records.
We were being driven through the Adirondacks, which according to the brochure is “the beautiful setting of Camp Talequa, where campers have at their disposal the pristine riches of Mother Nature plus the convenience of our camp facilities, the warm companionship of fellow campers, and the friendly guidance of experienced counselors.”
—the pristine riches of Mother Nature
On the first evening, after everyone’s parents had departed, we were sprayed with insect repellent and invited into Talequa’s pristine riches to hear Mrs. Kaplan give her Welcome, Campers talk.
—the convenience of our camp facilities
The camp was divided into eight cabins. Eight girls in each cabin. Each cabin had a bird name. Each cabin door had a picture of its bird. There was: Hummingbird (the youngest, all eight-year-olds), Nightingale, Bobwhite, Cardinal, Oriole, Robin, Blue Jay, and Meadowlark. I was to be a Meadowlark. We were all twelve years old.
Being an only child, I had always had a room of my own, so I went off to my assigned cabin curious about what it would be like to share night-breathing with seven other girls.
That first night, our cabin counselor, Gloria Goldsmith—we were to call her Gloria—put slips of paper numbered 1 to 8 into a bowl and told us to pick one. The number on our paper would be the order in which we would choose our beds. All the cabins were alike: two bunk beds along each of the long walls, one bed on either side of the window. The bathroom—two shower stalls, two toilet stalls, and four sinks—was against the short wall in the back, opposite the door.
By a small margin, the best bed was the top bunk by the window farthest from the door. The worst, the bottom bunk closest to the door. But there was not much difference among them.
Of the eight Meadowlarks, I was the only one who had never been to a sleep-away camp before, and Berkeley Sims was the only one who had not been to Talequa before, although she had been to one camp or another every summer since she was nine years old. The other six all knew each other. This would be their third year at camp, their third at Talequa. They knew the songs, the schedule, the counselors—everything. They were the Alums. There were other alums scattered throughout the camp, but the Meadowlark Alums had made rooming together a condition of their coming to Talequa.
Alum Ashley Schwartz got #1 and picked the top bunk away from the door. I got #2 and picked the other top bunk away from the door. The third top bunk went to Alum Blair Patayani, and Berkeley Sims, the other new girl, got #4. She picked the remaining top bunk.
Gloria assigned us a cubby nearest our bunk and reminded us that there were to be no showers after ten and that lights-out would be at ten thirty. Beds were to be made every morning before we left the cabin. “Any questions?” she asked. There were none, so she left to do some paperwork.
Gloria was hardly out the door before Alum Ashley Schwartz asked Berkeley Sims and me to switch beds with Heather Featherstone and Alicia Silver. Alicia had drawn a lower bunk by the door, and Heather had drawn the lower under mine. Berkeley agreed to switch and immediately started climbing down from the upper bunk. Ashley then said to me, “Heather will help you move your things.”
And I replied, “That won’t be necessary.”
Surprised, Ashley asked, “Why?”
“Because I’m not switching.”
Heather
asked, “Why?”
And I said, “Because I prefer not to.” That was the first time I said it.
—the warm companionship of fellow campers
The morning after bed selection, I went to breakfast with the seven other Meadowlarks. Berkeley Sims and I sat next to each other on one side of the table, and the Alums crowded together across from us. They seemed curious about Berkeley and me.
Berkeley was also an only child. Her mother and father were divorced, and her father sent her to camp every summer to use up most of his custody time. She had been to tennis camp when she was nine, to waterskiing camp when she was ten, and to cheerleading camp last year. Alicia Silver said, “You’ll like Talequa better. It’s not just one thing. It’s crafts and nature study and some sports, like swimming.” The other girls nodded in agreement. In one version or another, they all said the same thing: that Camp Talequa offered variety.
Berkeley’s history made mine seem boring. I told them that my parents were still married—that summer they still were—and that my mother was a professor in the Psychology Department at Clarion State University and that my father was the registrar. Blair Patayani said that Clarion State was where her mother and father had gone to college and where they had met. The girls all seemed friendly enough.
I was curious about Berkeley, the other new girl. Having grown up with two parents who worked at a university, I knew that Berkeley in California was the home of a campus of the University of California, famous for sit-ins and very liberal political views. My father did not approve of sit-ins or liberal political views. My father did not approve of California, except for the fact that it had given us Ronald Reagan, who was the president of the United States at the time. My father loved President Reagan.
“Is Berkeley where you were born?” I asked.
“Where I was conceived,” she answered.