Don't Ever Change (29 page)

IT’S THURSDAY, ONE
in the afternoon, and I can’t understand it.

“Are you
sure
it isn’t Friday?” I ask Alyssa. She’s holding her face in the high, wet arc of the drinking fountain, letting it splash all over her like a shower. “It’s Friday, I know it.”

“
Thursday
,” Alyssa tells me.

“Thirstday, Frieday,” I say, and stick my head in the water too.

We’re walking toward archery—nine sunburnt girls and a dripping CIT and me—when Rachel, the camp activities coordinator, comes up and tells me Steven wants to see me in his office. She tells me that she’ll be taking over my group and supervising our bow-and-arrow safety lesson, and that I should go now.

“Now, Eva,” Rachel says.

Her voice is sunny but stern, like she’s trying to convey something serious without seeming too serious. I assume I’m in trouble. Maybe the girls do too, because they cling to my legs, begging me not to leave. I have to physically pry them off, which for some reason makes Rachel look away.

I walk across to Steven’s office at the center of camp. I don’t feel nervous, I know what to say in these situations:

I did my best.

I’m trying to do my best.

We all like to think we’re basically doing our best.

Steven greets me at the door and ushers me in with a hand on the middle of my back. We sit. He asks if I know why I’m here, and I say I do.

“It’s about Christy,” I say, sitting up straight in my chair.

Steven’s confused. He flips through some papers. His face says,
What Christy? Who’s Christy?
I worry for a second that I’ve switched the names again, that Christy is actually Katie, and that’s when a man and a woman, holding hands and Sunny Skies packets, come into the room.

“Eva,” Steven says, “this is Mr. and Mrs. Powell. Mr. and Mrs. Powell, this is your daughter’s counselor, Eva.”

Apparently they’re Alexis’s parents, but that seems impossible because they’re both extremely fit. Not skinny but muscular, toned. And they’re tan; maybe too tan.

I say hello and they say, right off the bat, “Alexis loves you.”

“She
really
loves you,” Mr. Powell says.

“She does,” Mrs. Powell agrees.

“Well, I love Alexis,” I tell them. Once I hear myself say it out loud, I know it’s not a lie.

They want to know if I’ve noticed their daughter’s weight problem.

She’s a little fat, but I don’t say that. Instead I say, “Yes, I’ve noticed it.”

The Powells look at each other, give a collective sigh. Then the mantra begins, like a family slogan, and it speeds up into a chanting march:

She’s got to get on that horse. She’s got to get on that horse. She’s got to get on that horse. She’s got to get on that horse.

I smile while they talk and consider whether it’d be too straightforward to point out that not only does Alexis Powell
not
want to get on that horse, but that she basically shits blood whenever she gets near that horse, that she breaks into tears just
thinking
about a horse.

“And she needs to play
all
of the games,” Mr. Powell says.

“Especially the ones with running or climbing,” Mrs. Powell says.

They go on like that for a while, listing everything Alexis should be doing, and all the various reasons why she should be forced to do them.

Then Steven interjects. He tells me that this is what camp is for, this is what camp’s all about: to shape Alexis Powell, literally and figuratively, until she’s a skinny little thing and not a fat little thing.

“But this isn’t fat camp,” I say.

“You should always be promoting health,” he says.

“But this is summer camp. This isn’t some, some,
concentration camp
.”

“What did you just say?”

But I don’t have to say it again. I’m told to leave the campgrounds immediately, because I’m fired—and with only three weeks of summer left.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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WHEN I GET
home, Courtney’s sitting silently at her desk—something she never does —her body stiff, her eyes locked on the computer screen. I notice too that her room’s not the tornado it’s been the past few weeks, full of clothes and bags in a state of mid-packing; right now it’s almost tidy and smells of sandalwood and shower products. Courtney’s wearing a damp towel twisted around her head like a terry-cloth turban. She hears me enter and tilts her head in my direction, causing the towel to loosen, slip down the back of her neck, and fall to the floor. But Courtney just leaves it there; that’s how I know something genuinely bad has happened. Maybe something even worse than what’s happened to me.

“What is it?” I say.

“Someone in the Amsterdam program died. I guess yesterday.”

“What do you mean they died?”

“It was an accident,” Courtney tells me. “This girl had an allergic reaction. Something she ate.”

“Are you
serious
?”

“Yeah,” Courtney says.

“Well, that’s not the program’s fault, right? I mean, it’s not like she was in a dangerous situation. That’s not, like, Amsterdam’s fault or anything,” I say.

Courtney puts her head in her hands and breathes in an overly focused way. When she looks up, her face is a mess, on the verge of losing it. I walk over to her and bend down and grab the towel. When I hand it to her, she doesn’t take it; I keep my arm extended anyway, the towel an inch from her head, basically hanging next to her hair. Still she won’t take it.

“You’re going to go anyway, though, right?”

“I don’t think so,” Courtney says.

“You have to,” I say. “This shouldn’t have even happened.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at camp?”

“Like, this wasn’t some normal thing,” I say.

“What time is it?” she asks, glancing around for a clock. Then she puts it together: “You got fired, didn’t you?”

“But no one
else
has died! It was a food allergy. Accidents happen.”

My arm’s still out, but it’s beginning to shake.

“Hey,” Courtney says, “I’m sorry you got fired.”

How can I be sad for myself when I’m so, so sad for my sister?

“You
have
to go,” I say, my voice breaking. “We
both
have to go.”

“Not anymore.”

“Yes.”

“Eva, just drop the stupid towel.”

“Fine,” I tell her. “I’m dropping it.”

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HarperCollins Publishers

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AT THE TABLE
my parents don’t know which daughter to be more devastated for, so we all sit and eat quietly, no puns, no jokes, no laughs. But after dinner my sister has plans and leaves, so my parents zero in on me.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I say.

“But did you do anything
right
?” my father asks.

“No,” I say. “Nothing.”

“That’s not true, Eva,” my mother says. “You stood up for that little girl. You didn’t let her down. You did your best.”

“My best?” I say. “My best?” I repeat. “Nowhere close.”

“You did your
burst
then,” my father says. “Your bust.”

“I could’ve gotten a warning at least,” I say. “They didn’t have to, like, throw me right out.”

“They had to make an example out of you,” my mother says.

“Usually you
like
being the example,” my father says.

“Why don’t you just go back down there and explain yourself? You’re a very smart girl,” my mother says.

“Mom, I’m just smart. I’m not
very
smart.”

“Well, you’re smart enough to know this job doesn’t really matter anyway,” my father tells me. “You’re leaving soon. This was only a temporary position; you didn’t want to be a professional camp counselor. In a way it’s better. Absolutely okay.”

“All jobs matter,” I say. “Everything matters.”

“Not
everything
matters,” he says.

“That’s vague.”

“That’s the vague of the vorld,” my father tells me.

Then my mother pivots straight into Preservation Mode, asking about my various possessions and how many of them I want to take east with me, and maybe having things from home will help me adjust more smoothly? There’s a lot to sort through. She digs out an unused suitcase from the hallway closet and assaults me with suggestions of items I could fill it with: used textbooks, jeans that don’t fit, scratched CDs of bands I don’t listen to anymore, group photos with friends I barely know, high school yearbooks, holiday socks, tampons. None of it’s coming with me to Boston, but I do appreciate the urge to clean house, get rid of extra baggage, and not be misrepresented by old stuff you don’t want around anymore.

My mother anxiously discusses packing strategies until some instinct or thought process prompts her into feeling like she has to drive to the store this second. I don’t bother asking for what.

A half hour later she’s back, loaded down with shopping bags. Courtney pulls up a few minutes after.

“Home again, home again, jiggity-jig,” Mom says, pulling out packs of diet soda and Weight Watchers frozen dinners and paper towels.

Around nine there’s a Hitchcock movie on, one I’ve already seen, where Jimmy Stewart loses his mind because there’s a murder. No one else in my family’s seen it, so they all watch it silently, shushing me every time I try to say something. When it’s over, Courtney vents how stupid and staged it was.

“Too Hollywood,” she says.

But I wish it was more Hollywood. I wish everything was a lot more black and white.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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TODAY I DON’T
know what to do with myself. I check if Lindsay’s online, but she’s not. I call Foster, but he doesn’t pick up. I heard Steph’s in Waikiki, but I almost don’t believe it. It’s ninety-five outside, so the air conditioner’s on in every room.

I can’t help wondering who my girls are with right now and what they’re doing—and if it’s more fun than what they did with me.

I need company, so I text Shelby even though I know it’s not my best idea. She always replies faster when I ask her nicely if she’ll trim my bangs. A half hour later she’s at the door, with haircutting scissors, hair clips, a smock, but no smile.

“So, how’d you get
fired
?” Shelby asks, hungry for gossip. “And don’t give me some Eva Answer.”

“How’s this for an Eva Answer: I wanted to make a little girl happy, and everyone else wanted to make her sad.”

“Perfect. No one gets fired from being a camp counselor,” Shelby says. “Unless they did something seriously messed up.”

“I
may
have referred to my boss as a Nazi.”

“Or that,” she says.

“Foster hasn’t called or texted since it happened, though. I think I really let him down. Or maybe he’s not that mad, I don’t know. But if he never calls again, I’ll just assume he hates me now.”