Things I Can't Forget (7 page)

When he hops off the Great Oak porch, I say, “And you want to get a camp karaoke machine?”

“Just wait until next week.” He winks. “Maybe I’ll do some Mariah Carey.”

But the funniest thing—the sweetest thing, is that Matt plays guitar, accompanying six different singers on six different songs. My favorite is when an eight-year-old girl named Lizzie sings “Jesus Loves Me” in the purest voice, and when she gets scared and I think she might run off the stage, Matt sings along with her as he strums his guitar.

Leaning against a tree, as bugs chirp around me, as warm wind rustles the branches, that’s when I know it for real.

I want him.

wednesday, june 6 ~ week 1 of 7

Before my arts and crafts lesson, Megan calls me into Great Oak for a “counseling session.”

“I understand you had problems getting your fire started?” she says. “And the talent show nearly didn’t start on time because of it.” She taps her whistle on her desk, eyeing me.

How did she find out about my fire problems? Did Matt tell her what happened?

“That was the first time I’ve ever had to start a fire without help before.” I clear my throat into my fist. “But I got it going. All the kids enjoyed dinner.”

“That’s not what I heard. I heard they ate nearly forty-five minutes later than scheduled and were starving.”

Maybe I ought to tell her most of the kids were either:

1. reading in the cabins;

2. having a water fight;

3. talking about members of the opposite sex;

4. flirting with members of the opposite sex; or

5. searching for critters for the Critter Crawl, which Parker is still trying to get banned.

Only a couple of the boys complained and, well, boys are always hungry.

“I will try my hardest not to let it happen again.”

“Eric has offered to coach you, so next week you’ll be co-counselors with him. Parents pay a lot of money for their children to come here, and we have to give them an excellent week, or the regional conference will blame me, understand?”

She wants that Bible education job bad.

“I understand.”

She taps her whistle on the desk some more. “You can go.”

I swivel around to face her again. “How did you hear about what happened?” I ask softly.

“I heard from Andrea. I believe Matt told her.”

I nod and leave the cabin, holding my nose so it doesn’t start running, because I want to cry.

Matt told Andrea about my cooking issue? The backs of my eyes burn as I head toward the art pavilion.

How humiliating. I get where Megan’s coming from, but she said it herself: the conference hired me for my artistic skills, not for my camping abilities. How could she expect me to be Camp Counselor Extraordinaire after three days?

I got the fire started! The kids scarfed their burgers and lemonade down like warriors after an epic battle. They loved it!

I can’t believe Matt blabbed to Andrea.

My eyes are still burning as I step into the pavilion, where thirty campers are waiting for me. Using the most cheerful voice I can muster, I explain that we’ll be doing decoupage today. Decoupage is where you use clear paste to glue bits of paper to any ole piece of junk, to decorate it. You can use crepe paper or construction paper. Newspaper and magazines work great too. I have piles and piles of junk and magazines.

“Decoupage is a chance to show who you are as a person,” I explain to the campers. I hold up an old glass Coke bottle covered with pictures of footballs from sports clippings. “What do you think the person who made this likes?”

“Sports!” a boy calls.

“Coke!”

“Football!”

“The Titans!”

When the kids have stopped yelling their thoughts, I muse, “They might be very patriotic.” I turn the bottle from side to side so everyone can see it. “Coke and football are totally American, right?”

“Right!” a bunch of laughing kids yell.

I hold up the music box I made and lift the lid. The campers go silent. It took me a while to repair the speakers, but now it plays “Moonlight Sonata” and the little ballerina slowly spins in wobbly circles. I covered the wood in pictures of white flowers cut from various newspapers and magazines.

When the music stops, I say, “What do you think the owner of this music box likes?”

“Gardens,” Claire says.

“The outdoors?” replies a boy.

“Music!”

“Art!”

“Life,” says Sophie. “Being alive.”

I give her a small smile. “Moonlight Sonata” is one of Emily’s favorite pieces. And the ballerina reminds me of being little. Some white flowers symbolize innocence, but white lilies mean death. To me, the music box is a symbol of the day I went against my beliefs and helped a friend, going against God.

“Is it about beauty?” Claire asks. “The person who made the box loves beautiful things?”

“That’s what’s great about decoupage,” I say. “You can make something that says something on the outside, but maybe only you understand what it really means inside. To you, you know?”

I look up from the music box I decorated to find Parker standing in the doorway.

I set the box down and clap my hands a few times. “Okay, everybody, start looking for an object that most defines you!”

The kids scramble away from the picnic tables to dig through my boxes and crates of junk I hauled here in my trunk.

With a smile on her face, Parker navigates past the kids, seeing what they pick out. Holding my nose again, so I don’t cry, I watch her make her way across the pavilion.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I’m on my break.” She picks up the music box I made using decoupage. “This is incredible,” she says, turning it over in her hands.

“I can get you started on making something,” I tell her, slipping my paint brush behind my ear. I lead her over to my milk crates full of junk just begging for a makeover. I love going to yard sales and finding piggy banks and cracked bottles and dusty vases and even scratched records. I love painting new life into them. Part of me wants to tell her this, but it also feels too personal.

This week had started out great, and now I’m back to where I was. Can I trust anybody here? Yes, this is a job, and yes, it’s important, but did Matt have to sell me down the river?

I shut my eyes for a sec, praying to God, and then focus on Parker, remembering how she called me judgmental and nasty on Friday night. Then I remember how I thought about college and how I need to figure out my life so I don’t stay lonely. But if I open myself up to new people, like I have with Matt, and then they go and betray me, is it worth knowing people at all?

Will told me that everyone left Parker, and now she’s standing right here in front of me.

“Pick something out,” I tell Parker, and she sorts through the junk until she finds a tiny wooden box.

“I could put earrings in here,” she says.

“Sure.” I hand her a pair of scissors and sit her down near the toppling stack of magazines with the kids. “Cut out anything that you think looks cool and then we’ll decoupage them to the box.”

“Decoupage?”

“It’s like a clear glue.”

Parker licks her lower lip as she clips pictures: roses, dogs, kittens, lips, a softball glove. She cuts out words: him, me, run, fly, you, touch, kiss.

When she’s done I show her how to layer the words and pictures on top of each other, and then use patches of cloth and velvet to give the box some texture. I test out
kiss
next to
him
and
me
.
Kiss
him
seems more interesting.

“I had no idea you were so artistic,” she says, watching me arrange her words.

I use my fancy scissors that cut shapes to make a red felt heart. “Thanks.” I still haven’t gotten over what she said on Friday. But I’m going to try. “I’m sorry I upset you the other night,” I say quietly. “Um, what I wanted to say came out wrong. I worry about people.”

“You worried that we’d all have sex and get pregnant?”

I touch my throat. “One thing generally leads to another.”

She cocks her head, thinking. “Yeah, sometimes…”

“I’m not sorry I said what I said, but I could’ve explained what I meant better. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you before, you know, um, when your mom left.”

Parker’s eyes meet mine. She plays with a long strand of her messy hair.

That’s when Megan appears in the art pavilion and lightly toots her whistle. “What are you doing, Kate?”

“Showing Parker how to do decoupage.” I wipe my hands on a dishtowel.

“Shouldn’t you be working with the campers, not another counselor?”

“I’m available if anyone needs help—”

“Shouldn’t you be working with the campers?” she repeats, making my face flush. A few campers notice me getting reprimanded and look from me to Megan and back to me again. Nothing like your boss embarrassing you in front of everybody, eh?

“Yes,” I say quietly, and move to observe Claire and Sophie decorating vases, but I feel like I’m in their way. That’s the thing about art. You can’t force it. You can’t tell someone else how to do it. You can let them watch you, you can show them examples—like I just did for Parker—but you can’t do it for them, or it’s not their art.

Art can’t be shared in that way.

I spend the rest of the art session moving around and watching the campers, feeling like a nagging cough that won’t go away. Parker finishes her little jewelry box, and looking pleased, she sets it to dry on the picnic table in the sun.

“Thanks for helping me,” she says.

I nod slowly and start collecting paint brushes so I can wash them in the rusty sink.

“I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,” she adds.

I lift a hand. “It’s okay. I should’ve been working with the campers.”

Parker scrunches her eyebrows. “Megan’s not very understanding sometimes if you ask me.”

I don’t respond.

“It’s like, everything has to go exactly her way. She’s like a crazy OCD perfectionist or something.”

“Isn’t that redundant?” I ask.

“In her case it fits,” Parker says with a laugh. “She lectured Will ’cause she didn’t like the consistency of the homemade ice cream the other night. And she yelled at me after I refused to participate in the Critter Crawl.”

It makes me glad she’s not specifically targeting me.

Parker goes on, “Everything has to be perfect or Megan loses it. Carlie’s right. Megan is doing everything she can to make sure she gets that job. Either that or she wants to impress Eric baaaaad.” She makes a kissy face and kissy noises.

I start to smile along but then I wonder if I would be just as bad as Megan if I was in her position. Would I go out of my way to make sure that everyone does their job exactly right and follows all rules no matter what?

•••

Following Parker’s lead, I decide to take an afternoon break while most of the campers are doing field events with Brad and Andrea.

I hope someone knocks Andrea down during the three-legged race or hits her in the head with a whiffle ball or something. I clench my eyes shut, mad at myself for being so mean.

I carry my sketchbook up and down the trails, wishing I could calm down enough to draw, but it’s not working.

Breathing in and out, I storm up the path into the clearing where the basketball court is and find Matt squatting on the asphalt beside a pile of wood planks.

“Kate,” he calls out, waving a drill.

I ignore him and decide to go back to Cardinal for my break. There, at least, I can sit beside the box fan and cool down a bit. I secure my sketchpad under my arm and stride off.

“Kate!” I hear him yelling.

Ignore, ignore, ignore, like the times Paul Markwald would taunt me at school, calling me the Jesus Freakazoid. You’d think the one place I’d fit in is a Christian camp. It’s like, the older people get, the more they change.

I feel a tug at my elbow and stop walking. Matt turns me to face him.

“Want to help with my Bonzo Ball court?”

“Bonzo what?”

“A game I invented.” He points over his shoulder with his drill. “Wanna check it out?”

I gaze at the planks of wood. I catch his eye for a sec, then shake my head. “No, thanks.”

His forehead crinkles. “You okay?”

My eyes start to burn again. “This job is harder than I thought it would be.”

He nods quickly. “It is, but you’re getting the hang of it pretty fast. You’re smart.”

Is he lying? I narrow my eyes at him.

“What happened?” he asks quietly, sliding a hand onto my shoulder. It feels warm.

“Megan got upset with me for taking too long to feed the kids last night. ’Cause I had problems starting my fire…” His face doesn’t change from concerned to guilty, like I expected it to. He just looks concerned. “Why did you tell Andrea about it?” I whisper.

He lifts a shoulder. “Because I was impressed.”

“What?” I ask, surprised.

“You impressed me last night. You got your fire started and made dinner for twenty people. There’s a reason why new hires are paired up with the most experienced counselors, you know. This is hard work. And Brad’s been camping for forever.”

“So you told Andrea about it?”

The corner of his mouth lifts into a mischievous smile. “I might’ve been bragging about my Crisco Cult. You proved it works!” I playfully smack his forearm, and he keeps on smiling. Then it fades. “Did something happen with Andrea?”

“She turned me in to Megan for not doing a good job at dinner.”

He shuts his eyes and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I intended to happen…”

I touch my lips. What if I hadn’t asked Matt about what happened? What if I had just assumed the worst about him?

“Hey,” Matt says softly. He reaches out a hand, as if he’s going to touch my jaw, but then stops. He quickly drops his hand, and I see his Adam’s apple shift as he swallows. “You all right?”

“What’s up with this Bonzo Ball game you’re inventing?” I ask, changing the subject.

He gently slaps his drill against his palm. “I thought you weren’t interested.”

“Need some help?”

The biggest grin appears on his face. “C’mon.”

It takes us about five more minutes to finish building the Bonzo Ball court, which turns out to be a wooden pen of sorts. The pen has eight sides and comes up to the tops of my shins. The pen is about fifteen feet in diameter. Standing inside it makes me feel kind of cramped.

“So what I’m thinking is,” Matt says, picking up a rubber ball and tossing it in the air, “is that we play dodgeball inside this wooden enclosure, but you only go after people’s feet. Like, you hit the ball at their legs, and they can slap it away and try to hit someone else. If you get hit in the legs, you’re out, just like in regular dodgeball.”