“That’s right. Have fun wrangling Cabin Twelve all by yourself.”
Janis stormed off and Lisa was left standing outside the mess hall with a group of young campers staring right at her. She flashed them a forced smile and walked back inside to get some lunch. She kept that same smile on her face all day, taking on the role of two counselors until the camp leaders could shuffle someone around to help her. Janis had stormed right to the head counselor’s office and demanded she be moved to another cabin. Lisa was sure Janis had told some lie about her to make it easier. But, what good would it do to go tell them the truth? At least now she wouldn’t have to be reminded of how bad a friend she was every fifteen minutes for the rest of camp.
Later that evening, as the campers were eating dinner and watching the camp improv group, two other counselors, Tara and Lydia, sat down beside Lisa with a hungry look in their eyes like they always got when gossip was floating around camp.
“I heard she called you a bitch. Is that what happened?” Tara whispered.
“No, I told you. She called her boyfriend gay,” Lydia added.
“She did? Why would she do that?” Tara asked.
“Will you two shut up?” Lisa said, her whisper a little louder than theirs. “It’s not a big deal. She’s just jealous.”
“I heard your boyfriend’s been spending all his time with a gay guy,” Lydia said. “Is that true?”
“They’re like best friends,” Lisa defended. “He’s my friend, too. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“Do they hang out without you?” Tara asked.
“Of course.”
Then Tara and Lydia quickly shot each other a look and turned back to her with sad eyes.
“Are you okay?” Lydia asked.
“Damn it. Will you two listen to me? My friend Sol is gay. My boyfriend Clark isn’t. I know, because he’s my boyfriend. So drop it and please stop listening to Janis.”
“Just let me ask you this,” Tara said. “Do you have sex?”
“That would be none of your business.”
“Just answer the question,” Lydia ordered.
“We’ve come close a few times.”
“Oh, no,” Tara gasped, shaking her head.
“You poor thing,” Lydia added.
Lisa gave them a blank stare and then fixed her eyes on the performance stage, pretending they weren’t beside her. Janis had gotten to them first—probably to everyone first—so now Lisa was the girl at Camp Elizabeth with the gay boyfriend, no matter how much she denied it. Gossip works that way. It makes fools out of everyone but the source. Lisa was relieved, though, that Janis hadn’t told them about the essay. Maybe that meant she hadn’t completely lost her oldest friend for good.
That night, she lay awake for a while after lights-out, following a firefly that had found its way into the cabin as it floated and hovered above her. She wondered if Clark was at Solomon’s. She couldn’t help picturing them together. Janis and the other counselors had somehow etched it into her brain like a drunken tattoo—something that should’ve never been there, but was impossible to erase. And no matter how many times she convinced herself that it couldn’t be true, she still kept coming back around to the possibility that it could.
NINETEEN
SOLOMON REED
The day before they finally put water in the pool, Solomon called Lisa hyperventilating. Since she’d gotten home from camp the night before, he was hoping she’d come over and convince him that going into the backyard wouldn’t make the world end. And as he listened to her calm voice reassuring him, he felt a pang of guilt for kind of liking it. Maybe this was just his version of getting better, of accepting that sometimes he needed help. He’d missed her, especially the way she took charge of things. If he couldn’t be in control, he knew she could, and without her, things were starting to get weird.
“You hear about the van?” Solomon asked a while after he’d calmed down. “That thing is part of my home now.”
“Your dad can’t fix it?”
“I know my dad,” he said. “And the look on his face when he’s out there taking that motor apart tells me he doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing.”
“That’s hilarious,” Lisa said.
“It is, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t matter that much to Clark,” she said. “I think he just wanted another reason to hang out with you.”
“You think so? Because I’m in such high demand socially, right?”
“What did you do while I was gone? Besides taking a van apart.”
“Same ole same ole,” he said. “TV, games, watched a movie or two.”
“Clark said you started Lost again.”
“Yeah. We’re on Season Two. I think it’s better the second time.”
“I wish you guys had waited for me.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I can jump in, I’ve got a good memory anyway.”
“Sweet. So, tell me I can do this again.”
“You can do it, Sol. You’ve been waiting months for this pool and all you have to do now is remember how that water will feel as you’re gliding through it.”