Camp Payback (12 page)

“Sistas before mistas, am I right? It was good for you to take a day away from camp.” She held up her hand for a high five. “Sometimes, a girl just has to ditch the boy drama.”

And the family drama, I thought. It felt good not to be judged or criticized. To be somewhere I fit in. Belonged. Maybe here, I could be good enough.

“Come on.” It was Siobhan dragging me now. “I’ve still got to color your shoes into brown oblivion. You sure about this?”

It was no secret in my cabin that my parents were massively cheap as a method for teaching gratitude. No doubt Siobhan knew I went clothes shopping once a year. Anything I ripped, lost, or grew out of wouldn’t be replaced. My sewing skills wouldn’t save the tennis shoes.

“Totally sure.” I had to stop myself from dancing in place while she applied the marker. “My acting debut is worth crappy sneakers.”

Although attending a new school in the fall meant people wouldn’t know me and I’d be judged by what I wore. Ink-covered shoes were never a ticket to popularity. Javier’s work boots came to mind, and I felt a pang for everything he’d been through.

“So what do we do?” Siobhan asked a few minutes later, slipping her glasses on to peer around the set before the cameras started to roll.

We’d followed Cassandra out to Main Street, which had been turned into an old-time town, complete with spongy foam covering the road to make it look more like a dirt street. The director—or whoever it was filming this scene—paced in front of a camera on a dolly, talking to three people at once. Mic booms ringed the small section of street that had been altered to look historically accurate. The signs had been taken out of the shop windows. Trash barrels and mailboxes removed from against the storefronts. Old-fashioned dark green awnings had been installed over a bunch of windows. But for the most part, downtown Waynesville had already looked pretty historic, with the brick sidewalks and low buildings.

“I don’t know.” I couldn’t take it all in fast enough. I’d left my normal life and stepped back in time. “Do I look okay?”

“Um.” Siobhan studied my face. My hair. “Yes. How about me?”

My eye went to her bracelet—the Secret Camp Angel lanyard Emily had made.

“We have to take these off.” I started unknotting mine while she slid hers off her child-sized wrist.

“Good catch.”

“And your glasses have to go.”

Siobhan smiled at me, her heavy frames lifting higher on her cheekbones. “You’ve got a knack for this.”

“Ready, girls?” Cassandra walked over in her high-heeled boots, careful on the spongy material covering the street. “This should be a fairly straight forward shot. The director is going to film one of our principals walking out of a storefront with a crowd following behind her. You’re part of the crowd.”

“Why are we following her?” For the first time, I noticed a young woman with a small entourage off to one side of the set. She wore nicer clothes than us—as if she was a richer woman in the 1800s. She had leather boots with her skirt, the buttons showing when she moved. A white petticoat beneath made the clothes hang better. A wide-brimmed hat shielded her face as a makeup artist dusted powder over her nose.

“She has convinced you all to join her in protesting the conditions in the gold mine,” Cassandra explained, moving extras around by the shoulders as if they were oversized chess pieces. “We just need a couple of quick shots to suggest the building momentum of the movement.”

“Is this a true story?” I asked when Cassandra moved me where she wanted me—on the top step of a storefront.

“No.” She seemed to see me for the first time, her eyes meeting mine. “It’s historical fiction but very plausible for the time. When lode mining started, it was extremely dangerous.”

“Thanks for choosing me.” I was a gratitude machine today, feeling the love for Emily, for Siobhan, and now this total stranger who’d given me the chance to be someone else for a day.

Cassandra smiled at me, her lip piercing winking in the sunlight.

“Sure thing. Just remember to look sort of grim and determined, all right?”

“Got it.” I would use the same expression I wore whenever Vijay headed my way.

My game face. My “payback is hell” look. At least, that’s what I was going for.

“Places!” The pacing director stood still now, his attention on us.

A thrill shot through me. I looked across the store steps toward Siobhan and winked at her, though I wasn’t sure if she could see me with her glasses off.

The blonde actress with the big-brimmed hat came our way and took her place in front of us as if she’d done this a million times. Another girl walked into our little scene with her. She had a hat on, too, but no petticoat.

“Quiet on the set!” the director yelled.

I thought I might hyperventilate. Not that I was nervous. I just loved the idea of becoming someone else. Of creating art in this massive joint effort.

“Action!”

I strode forward with my group, elbows swinging. Jaw set.

The camera moved with us. I could sense it in my peripheral vision, but I didn’t look that way. I stormed up that sidewalk like my life depended on my grim determination. I was going to be the best extra in movie history.

And then I did it again and again and again. Siobhan and I marched up that street at least twenty times before the shot was declared finished and everyone took a break for lunch.

“So fun, right?” Emily greeted us later at the extras tent, her beret gone and a dirty straw sun hat in its place. “We haven’t done our scene yet, and you can be in it, too. We just have to rush toward a saloon in a big group because we’ve all heard someone found gold.”

“See what I’ve been working on?” Trinity stood next to Emily in the buffet line, still wearing her camp clothes—denim cut-offs and a purple T-shirt. She flipped her sketchpad toward me. “I’ve got a lot of touchup work to do…”

“Oh, wow,” I breathed, reaching out to touch the paper where she’d drawn the scene outside the storefront. Both Siobhan and I were in it, right behind the two actresses. The other extras were less distinct. “That’s incredible.”

Siobhan joined me, her glasses back in place. “You must have had a good angle.”

“I sat straight ahead of you in a lawn chair behind one of the catering trucks.” She pointed out the lopsided green seat. “I could see everything.”

“It’s great.” And I didn’t just mean the drawing. I was loving the day. The cool experience of being in a film production.

“I figured it would be nice to remember our five minutes of fame after we go home.” She took back the sketchpad as we moved forward in the food line.

My cabin mates talked excitedly about the upcoming scene outside the bar. My heart, on the other hand, had just taken a nosedive, ending up somewhere around my shins.

Five minutes of fame? Ha. I was used to fame in the most negative way possible. But now that I had a taste of people seeing me in a good way, I never wanted it to end.

“What do you want?” Piper studied a tray full of sandwiches.

“It’s not on the food cart, that’s for sure,” I muttered. Grabbing an egg salad on wheat bread, I decided to use the rest of my time meeting everyone I could and learning more about the film business. I’d come to camp to have fun, not regrets. So I might as well enjoy every second before my five minutes of glory were over. For once, I got to play one of the good guys. My summer of payback was finally paying off. If only it didn’t have to end.

Javier

The camp van rolled up to the curb about an hour after I’d finished in the kitchen, just as it was starting to get dark. Helena had chased me out early, insisting I find something to do besides cook. As if I would just stroll out to a bonfire with these kids and join them for a chorus of “B-I-N-G-O.” Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

The Fourth of July had been a good reminder I didn’t belong here. Besides, the next time I saw that Vijay dude, there would be hell. I’d barely kept my temper in check, and I was close to losing it on the dude completely. This was a road I’d travelled before with jerks in other foster homes looking to mess with me, and I knew where it ended—a group home, a discipline record, and no chance of being with Mom when she got paroled.

So, for now, I watched Alex from a safe distance on the porch of the administration building while she stepped off the mini-bus with the other kids who’d made the trip to a local film set. I’d expected her to be the first one out, laughing and talking with her friends. But she came out last, and she looked…sad?

Head down, she scuffed along the sidewalk beneath the light of a security lamp. When her friends slowed down to wait for her, asking her something, she shook her head and the others hurried ahead. Probably going to the beach for the ghost story marathon they were having tonight. Even the counselor chaperones were jogging toward the cabins.

“Hey.” I called to her before I’d meant to. Hell, before I’d even decided I should. My heart rate spiked, the traitor.

But then one corner of her mouth lifted, a slow smile curving her lips. Crap. Seeing her smile and knowing I’d put it there made it impossible to do anything besides walk toward her. “Hey, yourself.” She picked up her pace, going off the path onto the grass. Her eyes drifted down as she got closer, zeroing in on the book under my arm. “What are you reading?”

A mischievous light danced in her eyes as we met near the trees that separated the administration building from the beach.

“A gift from my Secret Camp Angel.” I flashed it in front of her. “Look familiar?”

She folded her arms, trying to give me her best poker face while the night birds chirped and sang. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’ll bet you don’t.” I tucked the book into a camp mail slot outside the building where I could pick it up again in the morning before breakfast. “I’m sure there are plenty of other campers who know me well enough to hunt down a copy of
Traditional Venezuelan Cuisine
for a gift.”

She made a point of studying her nails. “There are probably tons of kids who are psyched to have a talented chef working at camp. Maybe someone is hoping you’ll make more arepas.”

I laughed. For the past few days, I’d been brooding over what had happened on the beach. Blaming Vijay, Alex, and myself. But when I had seen her thoughtful gift, I knew I had to see her again. Maybe I’d judged her too quickly. I hated it when people did that to me.

“That’s a pretty good acting job. They must have loved you on the film set.” I pointed toward the trees, thinking I should walk her down to the beach before we got caught alone.

Her expression shifted, the glow in her eyes dimming somehow.

“I wish it hadn’t had to end. I’ll tell you more about it sometime.” She gave me a crooked smile, a half-hearted effort at best. “But first, I’m so sorry for what happened the other night.”

I shrugged. When I’d seen the book she’d left me, I’d forgiven her. “You wanted revenge, and you got it. I get it. Only next time, leave me out of it.”

She touched my arm. “I wasn’t playing games. I wanted to be with you, not because I wanted to get Vijay back for being a jerk.”

It was tough to follow her conversation when she was touching me. Two heartbeats slugged my chest before I forced myself to take a deep breath and step back. My heel jammed into a tree trunk.

“It doesn’t matter.” Even if I had forgiven her, it didn’t mean we could be together. We might have more in common than I’d thought, but our worlds were too different. We were separated by more than rules in my employee handbook.

“It matters to me.”

The fierceness in her voice shouldn’t have surprised me. I knew this girl was a fighter. The fact that Alex fought for me—something only my mother and Helena had done before—was killing me.

“Alex, we can’t be together.” Line in the sand, damn it. I wasn’t stepping back over.

“What’s stopping us?” She looked behind her, her gray hoodie slipping as she moved. The thin, lace strap of a tank-top was the only thing covering her smooth shoulder. “I don’t see any counselors. No Gollum. No obnoxious ex-boyfriends.”

Exactly why I needed some distance. I had control issues of a whole other kind around Alex.

“I used the computer lab today.”

Her eyes went wide. “You can do that? Campers don’t usually have electronics hour until Sunday.”

“Helena says it’s cool as long as I’m not in there when campers are. After I got your gift, I wanted to read your parents’ blog. Know more about you.”

Emotions passed over her face in quick succession. Relief. Surprise. Anger. “Excuse me?”

“I read the
Wholesome Home
archives.” My chest tightened up, remembering the scroll of endless happy family stories where the problems went about as deep as separation anxiety in toddlers. Of course every story that featured trouble had also featured Alex.

I could relate.

But Alex’s problems were nothing compared to mine. She’d never gotten stitches in her hand for punching a window or gotten thrown out of a foster home for fighting with another kid who’d messed with her mother’s picture. Those were my issues. Ones I’d been trying to control. I was a work in progress, according to Helena. Alex’s family wouldn’t begin to know how to deal with someone like me. Especially if I was dating their daughter.

“What does that have to do with us not being together?” She clenched her hands at her side, her whole body tense.

The sound of a twig snapping nearby answered before I could.

Signaling for her to be quiet, I looked. Listened.

In the distance, a flashlight bobbed toward us. I didn’t have time to think. We were about to get caught.

I waved for her to follow me, and she did, quick and quiet on my heels. I wasn’t just worried about what would happen to me if I got booted from camp. Now I worried about what would happen to Alex back in her “wholesome” home if her dad found out she’d been sneaking around with a guy like me. Or what they’d do to her at that school I’d also looked up. The one with the bars on the windows.

The flashlight swung in an arc closer to us.

“Who’s there?” Gollum’s unmistakable voice called.