Camp Forget-Me-Not (20 page)

“Not anymore!” Her eyes lit up, and for the first time since she’d lost her job, she looked truly happy.

“Can you do the job online? From home?”

The joy drained out of her expression, and she cast a worried glance my father’s way. A deep foreboding filled my body, my stomach full of lead.

She held my hands and squeezed. “I can’t, sweetheart. I’m going to have to move to Italy.”

“So you’re leaving me?” Memories of all the times she’d left me for business functions and conferences returned with a vengeance. I was ten years old again, asking a nanny when Mom would come home. Only this time, she wouldn’t.

“No, honey, no.” She brushed away my tears and pressed her forehead to mine. “But you’ll have to move with me, unless—”

“Unless what?” I blurted, resentment burning in the back of my throat. I jerked my head to the side. “They invent a teleportation device so you can commute to our apartment every night? It’s not like you came home before I went to bed anyway.”

My mother rocked back on her heels and stood, her eyes darting again to my father.

“Yes, ah, about that. Milan isn’t going to be much better. In fact, with the demands of the job, you might be more on your own than ever. Not that I won’t make every effort to be there for you as much as possible.”

“But your job comes first.”

My workaholic mother flinched, her eyes closing in guilt. It was unfair to call her out like that, especially since I knew she loved me. If only she didn’t make it so hard to remember that.

“May I speak now?” My father’s deep voice rumbled to my right, and I jumped. I’d been so focused on Mom, I’d forgotten to weigh his X-factor in this equation.

“Of course, John.” Mom sagged against the desk, her linen dress wilting along with her.

His knee bumped mine as he angled toward me, a tattoo of a heart with the initials JLMSRAT flashing on the inside of his wrist as he moved. His new family, I supposed, given that it included their initials—all but mine. “Kayla, there’s another alternative to you moving out of the country.”

“Like what?” I crossed my arms over my chest, hurt and confusion making it burn. “Summer ends in a month. It’s not like you can keep paying for me to stay at camp.”

Dad’s sincere expression startled me. In the few times he’d appeared in my life, he’d always looked vacant. As though he were absent, even when he’d been present.

“No. However, when camp’s over, I can offer you something better. A home. With me and Laini. And the kids.”

A buzzing sound filled my ears, blotting out whatever he said next. As he jabbered on, I began to shake. Moving in with him would feel like living with a stranger. I didn’t know him, and he sure as heck didn’t know me. As for Laini and the “kids”, they were just a picture on my computer. If I lived with them, I’d still feel alone. And worse, an outsider. Yet would I feel any more a part of my mother’s new jet-setting life if I followed her? I didn’t even speak Italian. I was finally figuring things out at camp, feeling like I mattered, and here were Mom and Dad, about to rip away that new confidence. Would I go back to the meek, insecure follower I’d been? So invisible that I couldn’t even see myself?

“So even though I haven’t been around much over the years,” Dad’s voice suddenly pierced my frantic thoughts, “this is my chance to make it up to you. Since the wedding last year, Laini’s been after me to include you in our lives. Plus New Jersey isn’t that far from SoHo.”

I snorted, quieting my father and making my mother lower her nail from her trembling mouth. In the distance, the sound of a ball connecting with a bat sounded followed by faint cheers and a few boos. But that was life. Full of winners and losers.

It took all my willpower not to say what I wanted to: if New Jersey was so close to SoHo, how come he rarely visited? And if this was Laini’s idea, did Dad even want me at all?

But once again, the words swam in my head before sinking below my conscious will to say them. I’d always been afraid to speak up to Dad, accuse him of neglecting me, afraid that if I did, even the occasional birthday card would stop all together.

“Look, Kayla. I know I haven’t done right by you, and this is my chance to make it up. Will you give me a shot?”

My breath came in short gasps, and I gripped the arms of my chair, moisture beading on my forehead. In all the years that I’d longed for my father, hated him and loved him, missed him and forgotten him, I’d never imagined this. He was offering me a place to live. But would it be a home? How did I know if Dad’s family would accept me?

I wobbled to my feet. “I need to think.”

My mother snagged my hand when I reached the door. “Honey, I’m not saying you can’t move with me to Italy. Your father and I just wanted you to know that you have choices.”

“And that we both want you,” my dad surprised me by adding. He stood and held my other hand, his large shape blotting out the sun streaming through the blinds.

“The problem is I don’t know if I want you,” I shocked myself by saying, the words bubbling up and out of my mouth before I could stop them.

I yanked open the door and bolted outside.

“We really need for you to think about this, Kayla,” Mom called behind me. “We’re going to check into our hotel and pick you up for dinner, but then we’re going to have to figure out a solution.”

Dinner? As in eight hours? I sprinted faster, wishing I could run from the impossible decision altogether.

I stumbled over my flip-flops and fell as I neared my cabin, my chin banging the ground hard enough for me to taste blood. Four hundred and eighty minutes to decide the rest of my life. Impossible.

I dusted the dirt off the scratches on my knees and glanced between my cabin and the Munchies’.

“Cause we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl,” sang a voice I recognized from the other cabin. Emily. And suddenly I knew where I needed to be.

“Hey, home girl. What up?” Emily peeked at me, then continued applying a layer of lime green toenail polish. After a last sweep to her pinky toe, she met my eyes, and a line appeared between her brows. She waved at her boyfriend, nicknamed Bam-Bam, who I’d caught leaving the cabin just as I arrived. “Do you need a tampon?”

A half-laugh/half-sob escaped me. I shook my head and glanced around the otherwise empty cabin.

“Here, sit down.” She steered me to her cot and caught me in a tight hug that released the emotional storm raging inside. My chest convulsed, and tears poured down my cheeks.

“Is it Nick?” She passed me a tissue, then the box. “Never trust those slick athletes. They’re only after one thing. An endorsement deal.”

I blew my nose and dabbed at my eyes. “It’s not him.” It amazed me that Nick had been my worst problem until this morning. Now my entire world had shifted on its axis and I felt like I was about to fall off.

Emily brushed back the damp strands from my temples. “Then tell me. The girls are at swim class, and I don’t need to pick them up for another twenty minutes, unless you want to go down and watch the new lifeguard. His abs are enough to make you forget everything else.”

Despite myself, I laughed. The lifeguard was hot, but not a blip on my radar today. “No. It’s my parents. They visited today.”

Emily’s smile flashed in brilliant shades of white enamel and pink gum. “That’s wonderful—” She stopped herself at my sniffle. “I mean horrible. How dare they? Showing up unannounced. Bringing you care packages that never have the right candy. Interrogating you nonstop about camp and friends. Offering you a lame meal in some townie restaurant.”

“It’s not like that. My mom got a job in Milan.” Damp flooded down my cheeks again. How could she have accepted a position without talking it over with me first? She always said we were a team. That it was us against the world. Only now it felt like it was just me.

“As in Italy?” Emily’s eyes glowed. “I once got chased for five blocks by a pack of rabid local men when I was there. If I hadn’t ducked behind a hanging salami, who knows what would have happened?” She shuddered, but her smile grew wistful. “The boys there are
molto bello
. Kind of like your Nick.”

“He’s not mine.” I shredded the tissue in my lap. “There’s no chance of that, even if I wanted it. If I move to Italy, I won’t be coming back to camp as a counselor. No more CIT program for me.”

Emily rubbed my arm. “We hire overseas counselors all the time, and besides, you’ll still be a U.S. citizen. And did I just hear you say ‘if’ you move to Italy? Is there another option?”

“Yes.” Tears welled again when I thought of option two. “My dad, who I’ve only seen about five times in my entire life, just offered to let me move in with his new wife and her five kids.”

The screen door banged open, and Alex burst in, her hair dripping, a towel wrapped around her hips.

“Emily. I need to get more sunscreen and—” She looked from me to her counselor. “Am I interrupting something?” she added, then plunked down on the bunk beside us.

I shook my head. I liked Alex, and I didn’t mind her being here.

“Long story short,” spoke up Emily, “Kayla can either move to Italy with her mom and be chased by gorgeous boys on her way to school every day or she could live with her dad’s new family and fight with her five stepsiblings for bathroom cabinet space.” She offered Alex and me some candy. “Tough choice.”

Alex snorted. “I’ll take option one please.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “It’s not like that. My mom is starting a big job, which means more trips away from home. I’ll be alone even more than I am now. Plus, I’ll be in a foreign city where I don’t even speak the language.”

“
Hai bisogno di imparare a parlare italiano
.”

Alex and I looked at each other, then Emily. “What the heck was that?” Alex popped a bubble and offered me a piece from her pack.

Emily huffed. “See, that’s exactly what I mean. I said that Kayla needs to learn Italian. Especially the swear words. Those will come in handy when she has to duck behind a salami.”

“Why do I feel like I’m missing something?” Alex laughed, and I joined in, feeling a bit calmer.

“Just a story about how irresistible I am to Italian men, but that really goes without saying.” Emily fluffed her tangle of blonde curls and batted her eyelashes. “It’s a curse and one of the reasons I cut up my passport.”

“One of the reasons?” Alex began, then shook her head. “Forget it. Let’s focus on Kayla.”

I smiled in gratitude. My invisibility cloak disappeared around these two.

“My dad doesn’t really want me. He’s barely remembered I was alive until now. Plus, he said his wife asked him to invite me to stay.” I scooted back on the bunk until my shoulders rested against the rough, pine-planked wall.

Alex’s twined her clammy fingers in mine. “He sounds like my dad. Totally self-centered.”

“Maybe he reformed,” Emily put in. “People change. Maybe he really does want to make it up to Kayla.”

I turned the idea over in my mind, imagining a life with a real dad, one who cared I existed. A part of me felt excited at the possibility, but thinking about it made my head spin, like stepping out of the shadows into bright light.

“Even if that was true,” I said, “what if his wife doesn’t really like me or her kids hate me? I’ll feel just as lonely there, or worse, than I would alone in some Italian apartment.”

“Why are you so sure people won’t like you, Kayla?” Emily asked out of the blue.

“Huh?” Her question felt like it needed translating.

“You’re kind, smart, fun to hang out with, and loyal.” Alex smiled and squeezed my hands. “I’ve never understood why you don’t see those things about yourself.”

“Because I’m not,” I blurted, the words coming from a dark place that could only be the truth. As I saw it anyway.

“But you are.” Emily bobbed her head hard—a rapid affirmative nod—that didn’t budge the bangs she’d sprayed into a vertical, ninety degree angle. “Anyone that doesn’t like you is the problem. Not you.”

I shook my head, disbelief overriding the hope their words gave me. “No one really knows me.”

“And whose fault is that?” Alex dropped my hand and pointed at me. “You hardly ever give your opinion or say anything around the Divas. How could they know the real you? I wish you’d been at Emily’s seminar yesterday. It was all about the importance of speaking up. We just don’t do enough of that.”

Emily snorted as she shoved her headband back into position.

“Well, maybe I am the exception,” Alex added with a laugh. “But she shared some great quotes.”

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud,” Emily intoned, her chin raised. “That’s Coco Chanel, by the way, the woman who singlehandedly revolutionized the powdered chocolate industry.”

“If you change that to fashion, you might have it right,” I laughed. Coco was a fashion icon, and I’d read that quote before in her biography. Somehow, I’d never thought about it in terms of myself. But she was right. It was courageous to speak your mind out loud.

I needed to find a way to do this and soon. The whole world was moving forward without me. If I didn’t want to be left behind, I had to let people know what I wanted.