Abby peed in these woods. She trampled these flowers. Here she scratched at a mosquito bite. Here she scratched at the same mosquito bite until she bled.
The spot on the campground where she first saw him was hidden from view by pine trees, but I found it from the way the branches grew sparser there and how the ground gave way, as if I’d seen it in pictures. Or, more, as if she were handing over this memory so it didn’t have to be hers any longer. So now it could be mine.
He was on his motorbike, which you could hear way out in the trees, a sawing sound that made it seem like the whole forest was under siege. None of the girls in Abby’s group out picking wildflowers knew what the noise was, or where it was coming from, until there he appeared atop that speeding, screaming machine. He sailed over a hump of tree roots and skidded to a solid stop in the clearing, front tire braking inches from a girl’s toes.
“This is private property,” one girl said. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I live here,” Luke Castro said. As he said it, I remembered. Luke Castro from school did live somewhere around here —I was pretty sure.
The glare from the sun, or from her memory, made it so I had a hard time looking directly at his face, but it was him, the same guy from school.
He was checking out Abby in her camp-issue tank top. Out of all the girls there, he eyed her and only her— because she was older than the others, because she’d gathered up the most flowers, or simply because she had on the tightest shirt.
“I live down the hill, that way,” he said.
He gestured out into the trees, though none of the girls knew where that could be, or what direction. Was it toward Pinecliff or away from Pinecliff? Near the train tracks or far from them? The counselors hadn’t taught the girls how to judge direction by the sun or to use a compass yet, and Abby should have figured out how to make this a teaching moment. But she couldn’t care less.
Abby had come here to train to be a camp counselor. On her application, she’d written that she loved kids. She didn’t actually love kids; she’d wanted an excuse to get away from Jersey for the summer. She had no idea how much she’d hate kids after just the first week, after all the yelling through megaphones; eating slop, or trying to; burning through her arm muscles rowing those canoes.
Right then she wished the girls would just wander off into the woods and entertain themselves with twigs and pinecones or something so she could have a moment alone with this stranger here.
But the girls were telling Luke to get off camp property, and he did, with one last glance at Abby.
These girls couldn’t know what was communicated in that glance and in Abby’s. The Hey, the Hey yourself. The What’s up with all the weeds? The Oh my God, don’t even ask . The What’re you doing with these losers anyway?
T h e No freaking clue, I’m sooooo bored. The Yeah? , the Yeah. The Then maybe you should come out later and hang with me.
Luke Castro rode off, his motor buzzing in the trees all around them like he could come crashing back and run them over at any moment, crushing toes this time, leaving carnage. But he didn’t come back, not that day.
All Abby remembers is how she said, under her breath, “Who was that?” And how she had no idea she’d find out soon enough. She’d find out.
— 7 — SHE wanted to show me another memory of hers before I left the campground that night, something more about Luke.