Camptown Ladies (34 page)

“Don’t drag me in there to see a friggin’ football game.”

“No, much better! Hurry, before a stupid kid comes in to buy candy or something.”

She dragged me by my arm into the store, which was empty. Mom had made a Wal-mart run for supplies as we were out of black licorice again. I saw the cause of my sister’s excitement. The installation of the widescreen TV had been completed high on the wall in the back of the store, and as luck would have it, Lisa had found the movie
Desert Hearts
on cable. Except for the danger of someone walking into the store, it might have been the perfect distraction, but I’d watched this movie before with my sister, and she watched it like a football sport announcer—if a football announcer narrated a sex scene. As Lisa’s
luck would have it, the famous sex scene was about to begin, and off she went:

Just then, we hear a man outside rushing toward the camp store with two very young kids in tow as he says to them, “I have to stop in and check the score!”

This sends Lisa diving for the remote, desperate to shut off the
TV before the kids get an eyeful of tits, just as the guy runs into the store, looking totally confused to find the TV shut down.

Lisa flings the remote back onto the counter as she says, “Damn! Cable went out just as there was a touch down. But it looks like there’ll be a big spread.”

I lose myself in a belly laugh that doubles me over the counter.

Twenty-Eight

If a Lesbian Falls In The Woods, Does She Make a Sound?

Erica came back as promised to check on the crew. She had changed into a thick cream-colored sweater in anticipation of the cool night air. The light color set off the warm hue of her skin and the light shade of her eyes. I was working with Lisa at the Dove Gaio Mangia, when Erica scanned the hall before spotting me. I looked away from her and busied myself with the buffet table, but Lisa had witnessed the exchange.

Lisa was not someone who ever looked worried. She was too strong an influence on the world around her to have irrational fears that she could not make anything bend to her wishes. But even from the distance from the buffet table to the kitchen I could plainly see the worry on her face.

Without Vince around to help, and Mom convinced she would be needed to supervise Dad (we agreed, a wise choice), it took Lisa and I until nightfall before we had the restaurant shut down for the evening. Tonight, with the impending bonfire, there would be no amateur drag show, and the silence of the hall when we closed down was eerie. I shut down the fog machine and watched as the white cloud lowered closer to the floor until it crawled along the floor, spilling off the edges and dissolving into the damp grass and gravel around the hall.

The rest of the campground was quiet too. Most of the campers had already gathered in the field and set up lawn chairs and blankets, so the campsites were dark without the usual dotting of small campfires. Lisa was unusually quiet, and that was the most eerie of all.
Even Lisa’s little Min Pin, Cindy-Lu, trotted along without once reminding the chipmunks who was boss in these here parts. Lisa’s silence seemed to be rattling her as well.

Finally, Lisa broke the silence. “You know, even if it doesn’t work out with them—”

“I know,” I said.

Still, she cautioned me needlessly, “Remember Hanni,” she said, futilely. I remembered that every day. “Except maybe for that little boy, Buddy, Vince has only loved two people outside of his family.”

“I know.”

The open field was alive with everyone at the camp. Erica was instructing the crew to make last-minute adjustments to the woodpile, which towered majestically in the moonlight. Dad, aka Woody, stood closest to the tower, looking prouder than he had at his kids’ college graduations. I knew my sister and I were both hoping that he wouldn’t have second thoughts as the lighter approached.

“Why don’t we stay on this side,” Lisa said. We were on the opposite side of the field that Erica was on. Not waiting for an answer, Lisa laid a blanket on the cool, dewy grass, and Cindy-Lu immediately claimed it as her own, ready to watch the show. Lisa and I joined her, and Cindy-Lu opted to sit on the end of Lisa’s knee instead, looking like a little bird perched on a building.

With the preparations for the fire, Erica had not yet spotted us directly across from her. Lisa had given her instructions to light the fire at 8:30 sharp, regardless of whether we had finished closing the restaurant, and the crew prepared under Erica’s instructions to do just that. She made a group of campers move back a few feet before passing the lighter to Dad to do the honors. Dad stepped a few feet closer, then stopped. Lisa and I both held our breath, but were both relieved when he handed the torch to Uncle Freddie instead of Dad.

Lisa snorted, “Whew, I thought he was going to take the lighter and run for it.”

When Uncle Freddie lit the wood and the flames quickly licked
up the tower, I got more mileage over the joke about Dad forever hearing the Screaming Of The Limbs, and Lisa snorted with laughter, slapping hard at my knee. I wondered if Erica would hear Lisa laughing, but the crowd was cheering and clapping as the bonfire climbed to its full height, and she had not spotted us yet.

Erica was looking past the crowd for us, and I could see she was disappointed, believing she had to light the fire without us. She had a blanket laid out, and she stayed on one edge, leaving the rest of it open as she stared over the fire and the crowd. I saw her look over to the Dove, where the tiny white lights cast a twinkling glow in the blackness of the night. I thought Erica looked distressed now, and I wondered if she too was thinking about our kiss on that roof. Warmth spread within me, aided by the blazing bonfire. I saw her eyes lower to the large empty side of the blanket next to her, and she shifted herself to the middle. She looked up then, across the bonfire, and her eyes finally met my stare.

Lisa was saying something to me, but I couldn’t hear her over the pounding in my ears, so I just said, “Uh, huh.”

Across the fire, I could see Erica’s breathing quicken, her sweater rising and falling as she stared at me, unblinking, unsmiling. Someone in her crew broke her stare by directing her attention to a piece of the fire that had crumbled out of the stone formation, but people were seated safely back and she assessed no danger, so she waved him away. Her eyes snapped back and stayed fixed on me.

Despite witnessing her breathing, there was a coolness in her gaze, an indifference that hurt as much as not having her, and when she finally looked away, I felt a sharp stab in my chest, and the pain increased with each minute she chose not to look back at me. This was worse. Much worse. What did I expect? Isn’t this what I wanted her to do? I had asked her to leave this alone and move on, but with every second I felt her trying, the heat of the fire was suffocating me.

My eyes burned in fair warning, and I knew I couldn’t fall apart here. I stood up, and lied to my sister, “The smoke’s getting to me.”

“You wimp, it’s not that bad, but we can move back if you want,” she said, starting to get up.

I put my hand on her shoulder to make her stay put. “I just have to go,” I said, knowing my voice betrayed me as I walked away.

I was comforted by the darkness that swallowed me, relieved by the blindness of the black night as I bolted from the fire in the fastest walk I thought I could get away with that would not cause attention from others, beyond my sister. I didn’t want to walk in the direction of the camp where there might be a few latecomers strolling to the bonfire, so I turned toward the woods. I glanced back only once, and told myself that nobody could see me over the brilliance of the bonfire, and walked on. Maybe I even ran a little.

When I reached the edge of the woods, I felt tears chilling my cheeks, wiped them on my sleeve, and saw that away from the fire the moonlight had lit up my white sweatshirt to a luminous neon blue. I wondered again if I could be seen by the campers, but was comforted by how blinded I was when I left the light of the fire. When I was at last convinced I was completely under the cover of darkness, I let myself think of Erica, of her with my brother, of how much I loved them both, of how selfishly I did not want them together—and I let myself cry as I could not have done anywhere else in the world. Not at the campground, not in my bed at night at the condo. I cried violently, a long and indulgent cry, until I was left struggling for air. But as quickly as I let myself go, I had to stop myself so I could breathe.