The Order of the Poison Oak (3 page)

“He
might
be gay,” I said, barely able to keep my balance on the rock.

“He’s not!” Min said, so loudly that it echoed in the little cove.

In the silence that followed, waves lapped against the rock, which was weird because the water had been calm before and I hadn’t heard any boats go by.

“So what’s up with Mr. Whittle’s nose hair?” Gunnar said, obviously changing the subject on purpose. “Does it drive you guys as crazy as it does me?”

I didn’t say anything, and Min didn’t either. She shifted uncomfortably, but I don’t think it had anything to do with the uneven surface of the rock.

“Min,“ I said softly, “it doesn’t matter what Web is. I just think he’s cute.”

She looked over at me. “He’s not gay.”

Okay, now I was annoyed. Here I’d been all mature, trying to move on and everything, and she wouldn’t let it rest.

“You don’t know that!” I said. “There’s no way you can possibly know if he’s gay or not!”

“Who cares?” Gunnar said. “What difference does it make who’s gay?”

This was a good question. Why
did
Min care so much? She had always had a competitive streak, especially with me. And a few months before, we’d both broken up with people at almost the same time. Did she not want me finding someone new before she did?

Suddenly, Min stood up. “I need to go check on my kids.”

She hopped back down to the beach, but before she disappeared into the darkness, I couldn’t resist saying, “He
could
be gay!” I know it was snotty, but Min had been being bitchy, and she’d been bitchy before I’d been snotty. Besides, I
was
only sixteen years old.

She turned around to face me.

“He’s not gay,” she said, neither bitchy nor snotty, but like she was just stating a scientific fact.

Frankly, it sounded to me like a dare.

Chapter Four

The next day, the real camp schedule began. In the morning, the kids all got to pick an “individual activity” for the week, like woodworking or kayaking. For this they divided up into activity groups, each of which was led by a team of two counselors, and sometimes an adult. For the first week, I had arts and crafts (how gay is
that?).
It went okay, probably because it was twelve girls and Blake, the least monster-y of my kids, after Trevor. Unfortunately, then I had to meet up with all my kids together, first for lunch, then for our daily “all-camp activity” (that day, it was sack races and tug-of-war on the marching field). As expected, my kids were little hurricane-monsters again, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to control them.

After that, the kids had a couple of hours of free time until dinner, but we counselors didn’t get a break, because we still had to supervise them. I had lifeguard duty with Em down at the swimming area.

“Hey,” I said, joining her on the beach. Neither of us bothered sitting in the actual lifeguard’s chair, which was unbelievably uncomfortable. “How are the allergies?”

“I’m fine with the tree pollen,” she said. “I just didn’t know I’m also allergic to eleven-year-old girls.”

“What do you mean?” It sounded like Em was having a hard time with her campers too, but I wasn’t about to come right out and say what I really thought, not after the lackluster response from Min and Gunnar the night before.

She looked at me, sitting next to her on the sand. “They’re little shits.”

“Your kids?”

“Really?”

“Oh, please. I never would’ve gotten them to sleep last night if I hadn’t put valerian root in their hot chocolate.” Valerian root is this herbal supplement that puts people out.

“You didn’t really!” I said. “Did you?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Really?”

“No, not really. I’m lying.”

“Oh. Wait. Which is it?”

“I did it. I was telling the truth the first time. I was lying when I said I didn’t do it.”

My head was swimming—which I now realized was pretty typical when you were talking to Em.

I laughed. “So you really think your kids are ...

“Little shits?” Em said. “Abso-frickin’-lutely. Aren’t yours? They sure looked like it at lunch.”

“Well, yeah, but . . .“ But what? My campers
were
little shits. It just felt funny saying that out loud. Them being burn survivors and all.

“So say it,” Em said.

“What?”

“Say your kids are little shits!”

I laughed again. That’s when I realized something about Em. She reminded me of Gunnar. She had the same kind of quirky nature where you were never quite sure what she was going to say next. Plus they both knew the scientific names of things.

Suddenly, Ian stepped up next to me on the beach. He jammed his foot down into the sand, which happened to be right where my tube of sunblock was sitting. It was uncapped, so white sunblock squirted out, gooping up my leg.

“Oops,” he said. “Sorry” He wasn’t sorry at all. He’d done it on purpose. But I would have felt weird yelling at him. What exactly was I going to say?

But Em didn’t hesitate. As Ian was turning away, she stuck her foot out right in front of him. He tripped and went sprawling over the sand.

“Oops!” she said to him. “Sorry.”

I admit it. Now I
really
liked Em.

* * * * *

For one hour every afternoon, we counselors were supposed to take turns operating the camp store, located in a tiny room in the lodge, just off the cafeteria. Basically, it sold candy, soda pop, a few toys, some clothing, and toiletries like toothpaste that eighty percent of the kids had left at home. I knew Gunnar was in the camp store that first week, so I visited him on a break from lifeguarding.

“Hey,” I said.

“Huh? Oh, hey, Russ.” He’d been reading a paperback, and even though he tried to hide the cover with his arm, I caught a glimpse of a bare-chested man embracing a woman in a frilly dress. Strange, I thought: Gunnar was reading a romance novel. But I decided not to embarrass him by pointing that out.

Instead, I put a dollar on the counter and reached for a candy bar. But Gunnar said, “You don’t want that.”

“Why not?” I said.

“Because it’s not fit for human consumption.”

“Why not?”

“Four words: hydrogenated palm kernel oil.”

“Hydrogenated what?”

“It’s real nasty stuff,” Gunnar said. “They take this cheap vegetable oil and add an extra hydrogen atom to make it stiff. It sticks right to your arteries. It’s even worse than hardened bacon grease.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll have one of these.” I reached for a different candy bar.

Gunnar still wouldn’t take my money. “Oh, no, there’s palm kernel oil in almost everything these days. At least all the cheap stuff.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Just give me a can of pop.”

He stared at me with a disgusted look on his face.

“Now what?” I said.

“You know they don’t even use sugar in pop anymore? They use this stuff called high-fructose corn syrup. It’s made out of corn, but it’s completely unnatural. Our bodies have no way to handle it. It’s one of the reasons why Americans have gotten so fat.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “You know, your salesmanship skills leave something to be desired.”

“Hey, I’m only looking out for your health.”

I decided to change the subject. “I wanted to ask you something. What do you think of Em?” The wheels in my head had been turning. I figured Gunnar wanted a girlfriend and Em reminded me of him, so why not try to hook the two of them up?

But Gunnar wasn’t ready to switch topics. “If you’re hungry and you want my advice, go get an apple from the kitchen. The corporations still haven’t figured out a way to screw up a piece of fruit. Well, except for the pesticides. Be sure and wash it good.”

“Fine,” I said. “But I still want to know what you think of Em.”

“The counselor? She’s okay.”

“I really like her.”

“Do you realize there’s not a single healthy food item in the whole camp store?” Gunnar said. “I mean, would you look at the ingredients in these Doritos?”

“I think you’d like her too,” I said.

I had Gunnar’s attention at last. “Wait a minute. I know what you’re doing.”

“What am I doing?”

“You’re doing the matchmaker thing!”

“What? No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are! Why else would you care what I thought of Em?”

Gunnar had me. I figured I might as well come clean. “Well, so what if I am?”

“So I already told you! I’m giving up girls!”

“You were
serious
about that?”

“Darn right. Russ, you’ve been there all these years. You know how I am around girls. I always screw it up. It’s humiliating.”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“There is no ‘but.”’ He thought for a second, then said, “Do you remember when I asked my parents for that theremin for Christmas?”

A theremin is an electronic instrument that you play by moving your hands around these two metal antennas. It makes the weird
woo-woo
sound you hear in old science fiction movies.

“I remember,” I said.

“I’d never wanted anything so much as I wanted that theremin. And do you remember what happened that Christmas?”

“You didn’t get it.”

He nodded. “My parents got me a synthesizer instead. They said the music shop said that a synthesizer could do everything that a theremin could do, plus other stuff. I’d never been so disappointed in my entire life.”

“Gunnar,” I said, “what does this have to do with—?”

“I’d dreamed about that theremin for
months.
And I didn’t get it! I couldn’t afford to buy one myself, and it was forever until my birthday. I couldn’t bear the thought of wanting anything that bad for so long again. And what if I asked for it for my birthday and my parents got me a xylophone? I knew I wouldn’t have been able to handle that disappointment. So I made myself stop wanting that theremin. I
willed
myself to not want it. And I did.”

“No, you didn’t!” I said. “I see your face every time we hear a theremin in a movie or whatever.”

“Yes, I did!” Gunnar said firmly. “And it’s the same thing with my wanting a girlfriend. I don’t want to be disappointed by not getting the girl ever again. And now I won’t be.”

“Gunnar—”

But at that exact moment, a couple of kids barged into the camp store.

“We’ll talk about this later,” I said. It was time for me to get back to lifeguarding, anyway.

“There’s nothing to talk about!” Gunnar said. Then he turned his attention to the kids, who were already reaching for candy bars.

“You don’t want that,” I heard him say.

The good news was that none of my kids threw up that night. The bad news was that I almost did. Almost every one of my kids had some salve or ointment that he had to put on at night (even Julian had zit cream). Most of those ointments smelled strong enough by themselves. All together, it was like sleeping in a medicine chest. But I sure as hell couldn’t
say
anything. It wasn’t like it was these kids’ fault that they had to put on all those creams.

Still, I was plenty happy when the kids were finally all asleep and I could get out into the fresh night air. I knew the other counselors were gathering around the fire pit on the beach, so I went down to join them.

I saw Min sitting on one side of the campfire and I thought about sitting next to her, but I was still a little peeved by the way she’d acted the night before. So I decided to sit next to Otto instead. I’d seen him around, but I hadn’t really talked to him since he’d been my partner during counselor orientation.

“How’s it going?” I said, plunking down next to him.

“Oh!” he said. “Good! You want a marshmallow?” He and the other counselors were roasting them over the fire.

“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Here, you can use my stick.”

I took the stick, poked a marshmallow with it, and aimed it at the fire. The other counselors were having little conversations all around us, hut I couldn’t think of anything else to say to Otto.

“So what do you think so far?” he asked.

“Of camp?” I said. “Well, you didn’t tell me they’d keep us this busy.”

“It gets easier. The kids are just testing you.”

“I guess.”

“What?” he said.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t think I’m very good at this counselor thing.”

“Can I give you some advice?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure.”

“It’s just that I was watching you at lunch.” What in the world? Had the whole camp been watching me and my kids at lunch or what?

“I kind of think you’re letting them walk all over you,” Otto went on.

“I guess,” I said. “I just hate to yell at them.” I checked my marshmallow, but it wasn’t even singed. I was still too far from the fire, so I stuck my stick farther in.

“Why?” Otto asked.

“Why what?”

“Why do you hate to yell at ‘em?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Okay, so this was really awkward. I didn’t want to yell at them because they were burn survivors. But I didn’t want to say that to Otto, who was a burn survivor himself.

“It’s okay, you know. They won’t break.”

“What?” I said, fiddling with my stick. “You mean my kids?”

“Sure. Remember what Jean and Ryan said? Burn survivors just want to be treated like everyone else. Maybe your kids can tell that you’re nervous around them.”

“But—”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. Which told me Otto was right. I felt like I couldn’t come down on them. But just because you feel something, that doesn’t mean it’s right.

“So you think I should just go for it?” I said. “Be a real hard-ass?”

He laughed. “Within reason. You know, I think I’m the only kid in my whole school who loves it when teachers are hard on me. But I do, because then I know for a fact they aren’t giving me special treatment. That they see me, not just my scar.”

There was this kind of awkward silence. “So,” I said, “you like it up here .. . ?“ I’d been going to say with your own kind,” but I figured that sounded really stupid, especially given what he’d just said about people seeing beyond his scar. Fortunately, my abbreviated half sentence happened to sound like a complete sentence—like that’s what I’d been going to say all along.

“Oh, sure,” Otto said. “But I miss being home too.”

“Yeah? Friends?”

“And parents. You?”

“Well, my two best friends are here. So I don’t really miss anything.” On the contrary, I thought. It was a relief to be away from a hometown where everyone was whispering behind my back. I didn’t ever want to go back.

“No girlfriend?”

Girlfriend. Otto was asking me if I had a girlfriend. Which wasn’t any big deal. Except that fully answering that question meant telling him that I didn’t have a girlfriend and I didn’t want one. That I was gay.

“No,” I said. “No girlfriend.” I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell him the truth. It’s not like I was ashamed or anything. It’s just that one of the reasons I’d come to this camp was to get away from being The Gay Kid for a few weeks. If I told Otto the truth, he might keep it a secret if I asked him to. Then again, he might not. He might tell the whole camp—and then I’d be right back where I’d been during the school year.

“Your marshmallow,” Otto said.

“Huh?” I said.

“I think it’s on fire.”

I pulled my stick back from the campfire. Sure enough, the marshmallow was in flames. This time, I’d been too close to the fire.

“Here,” he said, reaching for the bag. “Have another one.”

“No,” I said, standing. “I want to make sure my kids are still all asleep.”

* * * * *

That night, before turning in, I stopped by the shower house to use the bathroom. I could hear water dripping in the room beyond the toilet area, like someone had taken a shower not long before.

I was washing my hands at the sink when a voice said, “I thought I heard someone out here.”

I turned.

It was Web. He was standing in the doorway to the showers. And of course, the only thing he was wearing was a thin white towel around his waist.