She's Not There (9 page)

“Please have a seat.”

He looked us over, his eyes lingering a moment on my wet T-shirt.

“Been swimming, Mrs. Everett?”

“Yes.”

He put on half-glasses and turned on his computer. “Now let us speak about…” He hit a few keys. “Your daughter's name?”

Joe said, “Suzie. But before we start filling anything out, we'd like to know—”

“Susan?”

“Suzanne.”

I looked at Joe. Always full of surprises, one of the many reasons for my liking him as much as I do. Dr. Irwin keyed in our daughter's name.

I said, “This is a very spartan camp.”

He glanced over his glasses at me. “Yes, it is. No frills. Exercise, diet, and excursions throughout the island—both hiking and biking.”

“You have a gym, then? For exercise when you're not biking and hiking?”

He was back to his computer. “No, we don't. We follow the program used by the United States Army with new recruits. Modified, of course, although teaching through discipline, as with the Army, is our main drive.”

“Is swimming part of the program?”

“Of course.”

“Where is the pool?”

He smiled. “Our pool is the Atlantic Ocean, right down below the cliffs.”

I said, “You mentioned discipline. What sort of discipline?”

“Discipline that replaces sloth with self-esteem. Discipline that includes orders to be followed rather than benevolent advice. Tough love, as some would call the method. Since teenagers are impervious to advice, after all.”

Joe cleared his throat. That meant,
Poppy, if you're thinking of arresting this character for child neglect, get some substantial proof first
. He said to Irwin, “How much cash are we talking here, Blair?”

The camp director rolled his eyes ever so subtly, he clicked a few more keys and he said, “The season is ten thousand. A discount of course for siblings. One month, August, would be six thousand.”

“You're talking dollars, I take it.”

Irwin smiled again. “Yes. We're quite exclusive, unlike most camping facilities.”

“How many girls here?” I asked.

“We try to stay at around two dozen. Twenty-six at most.”

Exclusive to the tune of pocketing around $250,000 for the summer. His overhead was negligible.

“People pay that much?”

“I assure you, it's a bargain when you consider the fact that a girl who is overweight will come home to you after a summer with us in a weight range suitable to her height and frame.”

Was a parent supposed to believe something so patently absurd? I said, “The condition of the girls we just saw leaving for their hike didn't seem to reflect any weight loss.”

He held his hands out, palms up. “Mrs. Everett, the camp has been in operation just half a month. Ten
weeks
will show the effects of our efforts. Of course, the girls who are only here for a month—as would be the case with your…”

I drew a blank. Joe said, “Suzie.”

“Yes. Suzie. Your Suzie would be started on a routine that she and the other one-month girls will be expected to follow for the rest of their lives, reinforced by attending camp each summer during their high school years. We make an exception for a few college girls; the parents often beg us. They don't want them to lose the ground gained. The ground lost, actually.”

He smiled, pleased with his clever pun, and studied his screen.

“We do have a cancellation, as it turns out. I will be happy to take down information on your daughter, and then you can fill out an application form and mail it to me with a deposit.”

I said, “Do many of the parents come to see your camp before they register their daughters?”

Another smile, entirely condescending. A man with a large repertoire of smiles, like all con artists. I wondered how many kinds of frowns he'd be able to muster once I crossed him.

“Block Island is a bit off the beaten path. Registration normally takes place on-line or by mail after the parents see our advertisements. And, naturally, many of the girls are sent here through recommendations that come to their parents via word of mouth.”

Joe said, “From last year's camp?”

“Yes.”

“What is the return rate?”

“Excuse me?”

“How many campers are here who were here last year?”

“I don't have those figures immediately available.”

“And you've run other such camps?”

“Certainly.”

“Where?”

“My credentials are in the application packet, which I will be happy to send to you once we receive a fifteen percent deposit to hold Suzanne's place.” A new smile. Victory grin. “I'm sure you would like to discuss privately the possibility of your daughter's becoming part of our regimen. Do that, then feel free to get back to me.”

He began to rustle a stack of papers. He didn't bother to stand or put his hand out, but we were dismissed.

Joe and I got up. I said, “I heard a rumor. I heard that a camper died here.”

His face darted upward to mine. Now he did stand. He puffed out his chest. “I work very hard to maintain high standards regarding our admissions policy. Unfortunately, two days ago a girl who was on a trip with her house to town—to the library—managed to sneak off. The counselor in charge of the trip was, of course, sent packing. As it turned out, the camper had brought an illegal substance with her from home and apparently ingested too much of it. I'm sorry to say she overdosed. All of us here at Guinevere—the staff and the campers—are understandably distraught. None of us really had gotten to
know
the girl—she was a loner, as is so often the case with that element—but I take full responsibility for not recognizing her weakness during the application and acceptance process. She was from a family with an impeccable portfolio, sad to say.” He pressed his fingertips together as if in prayer.

We left. Blair Irwin knew we wouldn't send a dog to his camp.

As the ragtop bumped along out of there, the first thing Joe said was, “Haven't ever seen a tie before on this island. Ever.” The second thing: “The son of a bitch.”

“He's perpetrated a fraud. People like that can zero in on the weakest-willed with incredible success.”

“This has to be an illegal operation.”

“I doubt it. It's for children, after all. Anyone who wants to open a camp probably has to meet a requirement that says you should be able to sign your name on a dotted line. And then, if no inspector appears, you can do whatever you like.”

I told Joe about my assistant, Delby. “When Delby went looking for child care, she found out you could be a hooker with a sixth-grade education and a history of schizophrenia and still get a license to run a day-care center.”

We drove back toward the road that had led us to the camp and soon after we turned on to it we came upon two of the campers hitchhiking. Escapees. One of them wore a hat. The other one had a towel over her head. The sun was high in the sky. It was hot. Joe stopped.

“Where're you girls heading?”

The one in the hat said, “Anywhere. Town.”

Her friend filled us in. “We, like, just escaped a forced march.”

I'd had that right. Joe said, “Hop in.” He looked at me. I had to get out and flip up my seat.

They climbed in, squeezing past the flipped-back seat with great difficulty. The ragtop sank noticeably. The girl in the hat said to me, “I guess
your
diet works.” She was smiling, though, making a joke.

I introduced myself. “My name is Poppy Rice and this is Joe Barnow.”

The hat said, “I'm Christen. This is my friend Samantha.”

Samantha tried to say hello but couldn't because she burst into tears. Her friend put her arm around her. “It's okay, Sam. We'll go buy a couple of Cokes and have a burger.” Then to us, “She's never been away from home before. We don't even have phones. Cell phones are against the rules. So we all chipped in and bought one, but the girl that's in charge of hiding it is on the hike. We're going into town mostly so we can call our parents.”

I said, “How old are you two?”

“I'm sixteen. Sam's fifteen. A
young
fifteen to boot.” She looked at her friend. “Please don't cry, Sam.” Then she said, “Another reason we're going to town is because we had a bowl of gross white water that was supposed to be Cream of Wheat for breakfast, and we've both run out of supplemental rations.”

Joe said, “What are supplemental rations?”

“Food our friends mail to us from home. We sent out an alert the day we got here.”

Joe and I had brought some oranges. I took them out of my bag. “Would you like a couple of oranges until we get to town?”

Samantha's tears stopped. I peeled the oranges for them, broke them into sections, and passed them back. That's what Delby would do for her girls even though, unlike the campers, they were under six years old. It seemed like a good idea. Christen and Samantha were both big and tall; the oranges wouldn't make much of a dent. But the purpose of snacks, according to Delby, is to distract from whining and/or tears. After I'd passed a few sections back, I wanted to tell them to take the time to chew the oranges, not just swallow the pieces whole. But they'd no doubt heard that kind of thing before. And who was I to tell someone how to eat an orange?

Oranges devoured, Samantha's tears started again. She said, plaintively, “They're all going to be staring at us in town. Laughing at us. Besides their … their verbal abuse. I mean,
really
staring at us because of Dana.”

Joe said, “Who's Dana?”

They didn't answer. And then he remembered, bit his lip when Christen said, “The girl from camp who died.”

Joe said, “I'm sorry.”

Christen—the hat—said, “She wasn't in our house. We're Lancelot, she was King Arthur. So we didn't really know her too well. We still feel, like, rotten, though.”

I shifted away from Dana Ganzi. “Who exactly is going to be laughing at you?”

“Everyone. Tourists. The kids that hang out at the postcard stand.”

Joe said, “Then come use my phone. I'll be happy to make you some hamburgers.”

The girls put their heads together and whispered. Then Christen said, “Are you sure you don't mind, miss?”

I turned. “No, we'd like the company.”

We had a barbecue lunch. While Joe got the grill going, the two girls called home. Christen wailed to her mother about having to go to the bathroom outside, and lumpy mattresses, and how the food was horrible and not nutritious. She said, “Ma, I
have
stuck it out. Like, for two weeks. I've had it.” Then she told her father that she'd just had her first piece of fruit besides bananas since she'd left home. There was a long pause. In a quiet voice she said, “I know bananas are good for you, Dad.” She'd lost any hope of getting bailed but she played her trump card. “Irwin called you about Dana Ganzi, right?” Christen listened for quite a while. Then she told her father she had to go and hung up. She looked at us. “Irwin basically slandered Dana. She never took any drugs, right, Sam?”

“No. The girls in King Arthur said she just wanted to find a place that had live music.”

Christen handed her the phone and Samantha had a try. The ray of hope in her eyes dimmed as soon as the phone was answered at the other end. She said, “Hello, Myrna. It's Sam.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered to us, “Our housekeeper.” She told Myrna to tell her mother when she came home that the camper who died didn't die of a drug overdose. “She left camp because the counselors don't watch out for us so Dana went into town alone. Nobody really knows what happened to her, Myrna. Tell my mom that her body was found in the middle of the road.” A pause. “I'm not exaggerating. I know he told her.…” She waited and then gave up just as her friend had. She said goodbye.

But Samantha didn't have a chance for another round of tears because I made an announcement. “Joe, those burgers sure smell
good
.”

It worked. Anticipating the taste of grilled beef distracted them. Delby, I'm learning. I had a cheeseburger, Joe had two, and so did the girls. It pained them to say no to yet another, but they said no. They were hungry but they weren't about to go on a binge. And they didn't say much else, at least not to us. Instead, they chatted with Spike, who knocked off a cheeseburger of his own. They told him how much they missed their own pets and they scratched his chin. Homesick. Punished. Because they didn't wear size eight jeans. I watched them. So much trouble to be a teenager to begin with. Both girls had on expensive sneakers, the kind you can only get in places like Neiman-Marcus. Special editions. They were from families with money, as Joe and I had assumed when Irwin quoted his rates with such panache. Families who would try anything to get their fat girls skinny.

I said, “Are you kids okay? I can see you're unhappy. But I mean healthwise.”

Christen said, “We don't have rickets, if that's what you mean. But we're a lot worse than unhappy. I can deal with unhappy. We're miserable. We're pitiful, too, in case you hadn't noticed, but I guess not as pitiful as Dana.” She made eye contact with Samantha. “Should we tell?”

“Yes.”

Christen petted Spike a little bit more and then she stopped. “We lied. Dana did buy stuff in town once in a while, but only pot. From that kid who sells the postcards. But she wasn't any kind of addict. She'd bribe a counselor to take her in to the harbor. Then she'd hang out at the Club Soda—she really did like listening to bands. I think she handed her pot around there. I mean, nobody at camp ever saw her smoke. She bought it so she'd have some friends. A lot of kids'll do that, right, Sam?”

“A lot. People don't mind your being fat if you have something to offer.”