“Of course it does,” she snapped. “I’m a fucking genius.”
Brandon’s black and white Chucks crunched through the grass toward us. He held a brown paper bag of popcorn close to his chest—his third. Not that I was keeping count.
“What’d I miss?” he asked as he collapsed next to Jams.
“Perla said something insightful and then ruined it by continuing to talk,” Jams said, scooping up a handful of fresh popcorn and stuffing it in his mouth. A fun-size Snickers flew through the air and bounced off his shoulder.
Brandon picked up the Snickers and unwrapped it. “Pretty standard.”
“Whatever,” Perla said. “I didn’t come here to make friends.”
Hunter giggled. “Even you have to know that makes you sound like a reality show villain.”
Perla sneered at him as she unwrapped a fun-size candy bar and dropped the foil on her blanket. “I’ve been going to college summer sessions since I was nine. Princeton, Berkeley, Yale. I’ve tried them all on, stuck on teams with people like you.” She popped the candy into her mouth and chewed as she continued, “I pack to a science. I study alone. If there’s a talent night, guess what? I’m gonna skip it because it’s extraneous bullshit.”
“What does a nine-year-old do at Yale?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity. I tried to picture my little brother at an Ivy League school for the summer, but it wouldn’t compute. He would be so tiny next to all of those ivory towers.
“Algebra and creative writing, mostly,” Perla said, nostrils flaring. “So, sorry, but I used up all my camp BFF energy like five summer institutes ago. I’m here to get my scholarship and go home where it’s actually summer. And I literally could give a fuck about how that makes you feel about me.”
“Then why come to movie night?” Galen asked.
She let out a short sigh and threw a glare over her shoulder at the counselors. “Meg wouldn’t let me bring the kettle corn up to my dorm.”
The pocket of my hoodie buzzed. I reached in and pulled out my cell phone. Beth’s picture stared back at me, her button nose scrunched in response to the camera being aimed at her.
“Who’s that?” Leigh asked. The bright light of the phone’s screen threw bluish shadows on her face as she peered over my shoulder.
“My stepmom,” I said. I hopped to my feet. “I’ll be right back.”
“Bring more kettle corn!” Kate called after me.
“And some sour straws!” Hunter added.
I gave them a thumbs-up as I jogged to the edge of the field. Behind me, I could hear Jams’s voice saying, “Hey, Perla. I’ve been meaning to ask you: Who is John Galt?” Holding in a snicker, I pressed the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Hi, sweetheart,” Beth’s voice echoed. She didn’t believe in holding phones near her face. She said the screen made her skin greasy. She was perpetually on speakerphone. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I? I’m on my way home from rehearsal. I wanted to say hi. We miss you.”
I slipped inside the heavy glass door of the lobby. The warm sugar smell of the kettle corn machine filled my lungs like airborne cotton candy. “I miss you, too. I haven’t had a decent breakfast in days.”
“Poor darling. We had Snoopy waffles this morning. They didn’t taste the same without you. Also, I forgot to put the cinnamon in.”
I smiled into the phone as something cold ricocheted around my ribs. “I found the sweatshirt you packed for me. I’m wearing it now.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re warm, if hungry. It’s about ninety-two here right now. I’m running the air conditioner for all it’s worth. You know how the theater swelters in the summer. And tonight was my first time wearing my wig.”
“They’re wigging you?” I asked, walking up to the small concessions table that the counselors had put together. I shook out a sandwich bag and started filling it with candy. “But your hair is basically the same length it was the last time you did Earnest.”
“Oh, the director has very firm ideas about the duality of Gwendolen and Cecily. We’ll have identical wigs in different colors. Big Gibson girl buns. It’s exactly like wearing a fur hat stabbed into your head with bobby pins. They’re a little much, if you ask me. But no one did.”
The fact that I wouldn’t see Beth on stage this summer hadn’t sunk in before. I’d known it logically. Thinking about Earnest was what had inspired me to leave home to begin with. But Beth had never played Gwendolen without me in the audience. Would Woodland recycle her costume from the last time? Or would they do something kooky—like set the play in the Old West or feudal Japan or something else that would piss off the subscribers?
I wondered if she’d miss me quoting lines with her. The show would go on, because it had to. The saying said so. But still, it made me sad to know that I wouldn’t be there.
“Costumers,” I said faintly.
“Costumers,” she agreed with a laugh. “But everything is the same here. Your father is deep into this new case and Ethan continues to hate baseball camp until it’s time to come home.”
“Has he hit a ball yet?”
“I don’t think so. But he stopped getting hit by them, so that’s a start.” I could hear the whir of the car engine as she accelerated. I pictured the on-ramp out of Woodland, the fast-food restaurants disappearing in the rearview mirror as the car hurtled onto the tiny two-lane freeway toward home. “Don’t let me keep you. I just wanted to hear your voice. I know that this is practice for next year, when you’re off at college.”
College, not the academy.
I doubted whether my mother or father would ever truly understand why I’d lied and come to camp. To them, it would always be a betrayal of trust. The very idea of Rayevich was familial treason. But it was possible that Beth would understand, someday, that this was practice for both of us. I had to try on the idea of being something beyond a Gabaroche or a Lawrence. I had to try on this choice before I made it.
“It’s only three weeks,” I murmured.
“I’m already planning your homecoming dinner,” she said. “How does pork belly from Thai Canteen and white mint chip gelato from Hot Italian sound?”
I thought of the congealed mac and cheese I’d had for dinner an hour ago. “Amazing.”
“I thought so,” she said. “I’ll let you go. I love you, sweetheart.”
“Love you,” I whispered, holding the phone too tight. “Love to Dad and Ethan.”
“Kisses!” There was the faraway mwah, mwah, mwah sound of air kisses and then the road noise disappeared.
I dug my thumb into the Power button, watching as the screen blinked into blackness. My reflection stared back—lips pulled down in the corners, eyes too glossy, a pucker above my nose.