Rachel and Fiona fed and washed the horses. Rachel’s mind was on one thing now, and that was the thing she wouldn’t discuss. She knew that Fiona was sensitive enough to think Rachel’s quietness had something to do with Fiona herself—maybe something minor Fiona had said or done—but Rachel didn’t have the emotional energy to clarify the reason for it.
All morning, they led girls and bored horses around the fenced-in arena. Rachel and Fiona took the horses out for a longer trail ride during lunch. In the afternoon, Rachel taught older riders how to jump over bales of hay. They fed the horses again before dinner.
Over spaghetti and meatballs, Helen observed, “You’re so quiet today, Rachel.”
“I’m just tired,” she said.
And at lights-out, much to the girls’ disappointment, she skipped roses and thorns in order to make it to the computer lab faster to call her mom.
Since she hadn’t heard anything yet, she knew things were more or less the same. But as she dialed the number, she felt a strange sense of hope bubble up inside her.
“Any news?” Rachel asked as soon as her mother answered.
“Hey, hon,” Denise said. “He’s stable. But he hasn’t woken up.”
“What does that mean, ‘stable’?” Rachel asked. “That sounds sort of good?”
“They have him hooked up to life support because his heart is too weak to work on its own.”
“Oh,” Rachel said. She twirled the telephone wire around her finger. “Do they think it will start working again?”
Her mother paused on the other end of the line.
“Mom?”
“No, honey,” she said. “They don’t.”
—
Rachel was standing outside the computer lab as Fiona came down the hill toward the staff lodge.
“Hey, hot stuff,” Fiona called. “Wait up.”
Rachel didn’t move. Her arms were wrapped around herself, the summer breeze chilling her.
Fiona approached and looked into Rachel’s face as she got closer. Rachel felt on the verge of crumpling, and tears were pooling in her eyes, like they would spill over if she moved just an inch, and all control would be lost.
“Come here,” Fiona said, and took her friend into her arms. “That’s it,” she said to Rachel, stroking her hair. “Let it out.”
—
Later, they sat down at the base of their favorite tree—the huge elm in the center of the flag lawn—and Rachel told her everything.
“How did you guys find out?” Fiona said.
“She called my mom. She thought we should know.”
“Wow,” Fiona said. “That was nice, I guess.”
“I don’t know why everyone keeps saying that,” Rachel said. “He’s my dad. Of course I should know.”
A few British counselors passed by, noticing Rachel and Fiona.
“All right, girls?” one of them asked.
“We’re fine,” Fiona said in an overly cheery voice.
After the Brits went into the staff lodge, Rachel said, “I feel sad but like that’s not how I’m supposed to feel.”
“I don’t think there’s any ‘supposed to’ here,” Fiona said, making air quotes.
“He cut me out of his life. Him dying doesn’t change anything now.” Rachel wiped away a rogue tear. “It should be just like any other day.”
“Yeah, but, it does change things,” Fiona said. “Death is not just not talking to someone. It’s more real than that. It’s final. You know?”
“I guess,” Rachel said. “I guess until now I thought they were the same.”
The girls stood and went into the staff lodge to find themselves some beers.
—
By the end of the day on Wednesday, only Sarah had been asked to the dance, by Danny Sheppard; the rest of the girls in Rachel’s tent were dateless.
So on Thursday, Helen went ahead and asked Mikey herself. He seemed confident but mostly clueless in regard to girls; Rachel had noticed how he kept looking at Sheera at flag raising and free time without saying anything to her. He didn’t ask Sheera to the dance, and so Helen, with her flirty smile, plucked him up first.
Helen was parading her dresses around the tent at bedtime, deciding which she’d wear to the dance the following night. She held a red polka-dot dress against her skinny body. “Should I wear this one?” she asked, and then held up a hot-pink tube dress. “Or this one?”
“Mikey was my canoeing partner the other week,” Sheera said. Rachel could not tell if Sheera’s tone was genuinely innocent or meant to challenge Helen.
But Helen didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah,” she said. “I heard it was ’cause he didn’t have a choice.”
—
For hours on Friday, the girls primped in the bathroom with curling irons and straighteners, blue eye shadow and glitter lotion, perfume that smelled like cotton candy. Helen had never straightened her hair before, so Sarah did it for her—first blow-drying Helen’s wet curls upside down, then drying each section with a paddle brush, then mechanically clamping and gliding the straightening iron over the entire head of blond frizz. In the end, Helen’s hair was sleek and at least two inches longer, with a severe part down the middle. She wore the hot-pink tube dress.
Sarah borrowed the red polka-dot dress, which was too tight over her chest, and Sheera wore a simple black dress that fit her well. Rachel also was wearing black. As the girls began to leave for the dance, Rachel slipped a Poland Spring bottle filled with vodka—left over from their most recent night off—into her tote bag.
“You can never go wrong with an LBD,” Rachel said to Sheera as they left the tent.
Sheera looked back at Rachel blankly.
“Little black dress?”
“Oh.”
“I mean you look great.”
“Thanks,” Sheera said. They chatted about their real lives as they walked down to the basketball courts where the event was taking place. They were both from New York. They were both from single-parent homes. Sheera went to a charter school in the Bronx that was near the magnet school Rachel had attended.
When they got to the courts, Top 40 music was playing from a set of speakers, and clumps of boys and girls were standing separately, not yet dancing. “Promiscuous girl,” the song went, “you’re teasing me. You know what I want, and I got what you need.” Rachel and Sheera had fallen behind, and the rest of the girls from their tent were already standing on the courts with one another, shuffling their feet and pretending not to be waiting for their dates to approach.
“Don’t you want to go out there?” Rachel asked.
“Okay,” Sheera said, though she hesitated for a moment. Of course, Rachel knew, if Sheera had wanted to go out there, she already would have politely exited their conversation.
Sheera walked toward the dance and then turned briefly back to Rachel, waving, like a younger girl leaving her mother on the first day of school. Rachel felt sorry that, up until now, she hadn’t tried to get to know Sheera.
She saw Fiona then, standing with the counselors from her section in a simple white halter dress made of linen. Very preppy, probably from J.Crew.
“Look at us,” Rachel said as she approached. “The devil and the angel.”
“That’s fitting,” Fiona said, and hugged her friend. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” Rachel said.
“No word yet?”
“No.”
“Keep me posted?”
“Of course.” Rachel stood back to appraise her friend. “You look great,” she said, meaning it.
“Really?” Fiona said. She looked down and straightened out the skirt of her dress.