The Camp (3 page)

It slowly came to her, what she’d do, how she’d get him back. She stabbed at the icon for pictures then scrolled through to Bandon and the beach, among the rocks. She shaded the image on the screen with her hand. There he stood, bare chest firm, athletic legs ascending until they disappeared into the fringe of his cutoff jeans. Ellen clamped her eyes shut and brought up the image of them kissing and caressing each other to the rhythm of the rising tide as it crashed against the boulders. She actually thought she could feel the sand shift as she remembered.

She’d felt his passion, sensed his urgency, and done nothing. Broke from his embrace, laughing as she danced away among the logs and rocks and boulders. And now it had all come crashing down. She opened her eyes and looked at her phone. She knew what she had to do.

She grabbed a strap and slung the pack on her back, retaining the phone in her hand. A surge of adrenaline pumped through her body as she imagined the picture she’d send him. Her mantra of loss turned to one of hope.
 

Steven guided the aging Subaru out of the Pizza Plus parking lot, glancing at his watch in the process.

He let out a groan as he pulled into traffic. “Ah, shit.”
 

David leaned forward from the back seat. “What’s up?”

Boyd leaned back deeply into the front passenger seat, pressing into the headrest. He turned just his head until he could look David in the eye. “He just remembered ending it with Ellen.” He laughed. “No more pussy.”

Steven shot him a quick look. “Shut up, man.”
 

He hit the blinker, checked the mirror, and changed lanes.
 

“I’m late. My parents set a curfew and they’ll be all over me when I get home.”

David turned his head, taking in his two friends. “My folks did away with a curfew for my senior year.”

“Yeah, well, lucky you.”

Steven dropped off his friends and it was another twenty minutes before he pulled into his own driveway.

Ellen entered her house like a ghost, but her mother noticed her anyway. Ellen she ignored her greeting, however, so as not to attract her attention. She visited the bathroom and then went immediately to her room, locked the door, and dropped her backpack next to the computer desk. Squatting down, she retrieved her cell phone from the big pocket then pursed her lips as she surveyed the room.

Pink, her mother’s idea of feminine. Nothing had changed much since she was in the seventh grade except the addition of the computer and the desk that housed it. The walls were bare. She couldn’t understand the obsession with singers like Justin Bieber or rock groups or actors. She was obsessed with Steven and would have posters of him on her wall if she had any.

When she stood, it was to face her computer. Reaching down, she propped her iPhone against the keyboard and tried to gauge the angle necessary to capture the center of the bed. Bending down, she tried to look through the tiny viewfinder. Finally frustrated, she stomped over and placed her pillow where she would sit on the edge of the bed, walked back to the camera, pressed the icon, waited for the simulated shutter click, and then snatched up the phone.

“Not bad.” she carefully set the camera in place and moved to the center of the room.

She’d applied fresh makeup and ran a brush through her hair in the bathroom. Now, she carefully peeled off her sweatshirt, careful not to allow the material to brush her face, and letting her shorts puddle around her feet.

The air in the room seemed cool on her bare skin and she suddenly felt awkward and embarrassed by her nudity. She’d never seen herself naked. It was an in-between thing, like when she got into her pajamas or she changed into her gym clothes. But even then, she kept her underwear on.

She closed her eyes and imagined how Steven would take one look at the pictures and want her back, pictured him running to the phone. She opened her eyes, resolute and single-minded, moved to the bed, tossed her pillow to one side, struck a pose, and stared across the room at the little camera. Then she closed her eyes and pictured Steven again.

Her cell phone came with a seven second delay from the instant the picture icon was touched to the moment the simulated shutter signaled that the photo had been taken.

As if in a tennis match, Ellen went back and forth between desk and bed where she would pose and wait for the shutter to click before crossing the room to bring up the picture.

Finally, she sat in her computer chair and ran through the montage of bad pictures. Her turning around, legs crossed—that would never do. Lips kissing at the camera—that was stupid. Then she froze.

“Perfect.”
 

Her breasts were accentuated, her head was just inside the frame. She was smiling. The tops of her thighs were at the bottom of the frame, slightly parted. Perfect, perfect, perfect.

She hooked the phone to the computer.
 

The rough material on her cheap office chair irritated her bare bottom, but she was totally engrossed by her nude image on the screen and how it would get Steven back.
 

Nothing left to do but compose an email.

David walked past the aisles of books, totally bored. Library science sucked. Then he saw Steven on one of the short couches, hunched over like a mad scientist, and decided to see if he could sneak up on him. When he was standing directly behind him, David was surprised that his friend hadn’t heard him—he must be really engrossed in something.
 

He peeked over Steven’s shoulder. “Holy shit,” he blurted.

Steven whirled around at his friend’s outburst, shot daggers at him with his eyes. “Shut up and sit down.”

David practically sat on his friend’s lap in order to get another look at the image on the cell’s screen. He mouthed the name ‘Ellen’ and Steven nodded. David pulled out his cell and in a techno-moment was looking at the photo of Ellen on his own phone.

Neither boy noticed the figure standing behind them until a hand reached down and snatched Steven’s phone. David instinctively let his phone drop between the cushions of the couch.

Chapter Four

In her small Craftsman home in South Medford, Oregon, Dorothy Stulov— fussing about in the kitchen and preparing her daughter’s favorite desert—set the oven to preheat. Cooking was the only activity that set her at ease, made her feel comfortable, reminded her of better times.
 

When she first arrived in the United States from her native Ukraine, it was to work as a domestic cook. She was 28 and wanted more than anything to become a US citizen. Her boss sponsored her and after ten years she took the citizenship test and passed.

At 38, she was still a beauty, and at a dinner party she catered for her boss, she attracted the attention of a young CEO who swept her off her feet. They were married shortly after. It seemed like a fairytale for a peasant girl from the former USSR. But for CEO Alex Dormer, she was a trophy wife. Within a year, she was pregnant, and almost as quickly, divorced.

He moved her across the country to Medford, Oregon, bought her a house and told her never to use his name, or attempt to see him. That he wanted nothing to do with her or the child on the way.

She uncovered the dough for the baklava and began combining the ingredients she’d laid out.

She’d cooked for several restaurants but her culinary abilities were more suited to a household, and jobs never lasted.

It was while she was pregnant, during one of her visits to the free family planning clinic, that an orderly befriended her. He convinced her to attend night school and become an Emergency Medical Technician.

But it was not to be. Her thick accent and poor English reading skills dashed her chances at a passing score on the qualification exam. Luckily, one of her instructors referred her for a job working at a medical supply house.

She mixed the chopped walnuts with a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon, tasted it, and added a pinch of nutmeg and salt. Then she set the water to boil.

It took twelve years for Dorothy to become manager at the supply house. But it was worth the work and the wait. Medford Medical Supply catered to every ambulance and fire department in the Rogue Valley. They were established and now, so was she.
 

Little Ellen Stulov flourished under her mother’s watchful eye. Dorothy made sure that her little darling was dressed in all the current fashions. When Ellen was ready for elementary school, Dorothy enrolled her in classes with a speech therapist so that she would have no trace of a Russian accent, like the one that Dorothy herself never lost. Ellen had a computer, a smart phone, and when the time came, she’d have her own car. Things were going so well until one day everything changed.

She turned the heat down on the water, added sugar and honey, and stirred. Then she brought the mixture up to a simmer, moved to the counter, and began to oil the pan with long, slow strokes, coating every inch of the surface. Turning, she stared at the syrup and lost herself again in her memories.

Dorothy had always been a sounding board for her daughter. Ellen turned to her with every thought, impression and tidbit of gossip from school. But that all stopped during her first year of high school. Ellen became sullen, quiet and never wanted to confide.

During a parent-teacher conference, she learned that her daughter had become an introvert. Her peers thought she was ‘out of it,’ plain and simple. But then she met Steven. One year ahead of Ellen in school, he was the star quarterback. Ellen’s relations with this man-boy were always kept secret. All Dorothy knew was that her daughter was happy.

Ellen was a junior going with a senior and no longer ‘out of it.’ Instead, she became the envy of most of her classmates. She wore his jacket and a ring on a chain around her neck.

Dorothy broke the dough into four parts. Pressed each on the counter in turn, pulling it over her knuckles until it was translucent. Then she placed the first layer in the pan, and again brushed oil on it with long, slow brush strokes. Then another layer and more oil. She wondered about Ellen and Steven, how he had changed her daughter’s life, how Ellen was now new and different. Dorothy sprinkled the walnut mixture with a flurry of cinnamon. How alive and open her daughter had become. Especially when she was mixing with her peers.

Dorothy was rocked out of her reverie by the ringing of the phone.

Wiping her hands on her apron, she crossed the kitchen, picked up the phone.

“Hello.”

Her ruddy complexion paled and she pinned the phone between her head and shoulder as she untied her apron.

“You can’t just tell me over the phone? I see. Yes, I’ll be right over.”

Dorothy pulled into faculty parking lot as she had been instructed. She was met at the main entrance to the office by a teacher and escorted into the vice principal’s office.

A stern-looking woman rose as she entered. “Mrs. Stulov, thank you for coming so promptly. Please have a seat.” The woman immediately launched into a speech before Dorothy could say a word.

“I have to tell you up front that the activities your daughter is involved in are not completely unknown to the school or staff.”Dorothy was no shrinking violet, and had waited politely as long a she could.
 

“Miss Stafford, exactly what has Ellen done? And where is my daughter?”

Without a word, the counselor slid a cell phone across the desk, pressed the icon for camera, and then for photos. Up came the image of Ellen stretched out across her bed, totally naked.

Dorothy slid the camera back.

Miss Stafford picked it up. “This phone belongs to Steven Huff.”

Without a word, Dorothy stood.
 

“I’d like to bring your daughter in at this time.”

Ellen’s mother inhaled deeply. “That will not be necessary.”

The vice principal placed both hands on the desk and leaned forward. “It is the policy of…”

She was cut off by a sharp gesture. Dorothy’s hand slashed through the air and she cut off the vice principal with an emphatic, “Enough!”

Miss Stafford came around the desk. “Fine. Then I need to inform you that Ellen is automatically suspended for nine days, due to her poor judgment. But until the two of you meet with me in this office so that I can be sure that she understands the seriousness of this stunt, she will not be allowed to return to school.”

She softened her tone and touched Dorothy on the shoulder.

“Please, Mrs. Stulov. I think we should discuss this here and now with Ellen so it doesn’t get out of hand.”

“I believe that this matter is already, as you say, out of hand.”

Miss Stafford leaned on the desk with one hand and pressed the intercom with the other. “Please bring Ellen Stulov to my outer-office.”

Without a word, Dorothy, her back ramrod-straight, marched out the door.

Ellen was pulled out of class. Without having to be told, she knew that someone other than Steven had seen her picture.

She had never seen her mother like this before and followed her in silence as she walked out of the office and down the hall toward the parking lot.

They climbed in the Subaru Forrester without a word. When her mother didn’t start the car, Ellen wasn’t sure what was going to happen. Once home, she could lock herself in her room. This wasn’t fair.

“Are we just going to sit here?”

Her mother swiveled her head without turning her shoulders to look directly at her daughter.

“You have not slept with Steven.” It was a statement, not a question.

Ellen turned to face her mother and leaned against the passenger door.

“That is none of your business.”

Dorothy started the car, still facing her daughter. “Everything about you is my business. And I know you have not.”

Ellen’s voice rose an octave as she decided to tempt fate. “How the fuck would you know?”

“Do not be impertinent and do not use that word when speaking to me.”

Dorothy guided the Subaru out of the parking lot and down a side street, knuckles white as she gripped the steering wheel.