She pulled the door open easily; nothing was ever locked at this camp. Yonatan looked behind them before they walked into the shed. No one saw. But they could so easily have gotten caught, at an event where the entire camp was present. That was part of the fun.
She closed the door and pushed him up against it. He responded eagerly, grabbing her whole head of hair in his hands. He kissed her tenderly, but in response, she pushed her mouth hard against his, biting his bottom lip.
“Ow,” he said.
She didn’t apologize but kept kissing him—more aggressively than she normally kissed—and reached into his pants. It was larger than she had expected, and the discovery thrilled her.
“You’re so big,” she said into his ear, biting that too. “I want you to fuck me like an animal.” She was a petite girl, and sex hurt her easily.
He pulled away and looked at her. She could tell that she was more than he could handle. She was a handful, especially now, and his face reflected it: surprise and apprehension.
“Rachel, I don’t know if we should.”
“You don’t want to fuck me?”
“I do, I do.” He kissed her once, tender again. “You just…you seem not okay tonight.”
“I’m great,” she said, and took his hand and put it between her legs.
They held each other with their hands, grinding and moaning. She wanted to feel only the physical, and her whole body ached with it, with the buildup toward something better than the now. She wanted to feel him inside her, and she wanted it to hurt.
She was pushing her underwear to her ankles, about to take him in, when a light from the outside cracked into the dark shed. The door creaked, and Rachel first saw only the outline of two younger people as she opened her eyes. Two young outlines holding hands.
Rachel pushed away from Yonatan as he scrambled to tuck himself back into his pants. She pulled up her underwear and straightened her dress.
“What are you doing?” Rachel said to Helen, standing in front of Yonatan to shield his nakedness from the girl, though it was, of course, too late.
Helen had dropped Mikey’s hand. The two children stood there waiting for the adults to say something else.
“Mikey,” Yonatan said, putting on a deep counselor voice and stepping out from behind Rachel, “go back to the dance.”
“We weren’t—” Mikey began. “We were just…” He trailed off. Helen looked as if she was about to cry. As both counselors took in the desperation in her eyes, Yonatan seemed to realize that this moment was no longer his.
“Mikey,” Yonatan said more sternly now. “Come with me.” He guided Mikey out of the shed to return to the dance, saying something hushed to the boy as they walked away. Mikey turned back to offer Helen a helpless glance.
It was hard to tell if Helen was the type to tattle. She was so very much a girl still: a girl who was leaving a dance to fool around with a boy, yes, but still a girl. The look of shock and fear on her face suggested that what she had seen was far beyond her own desires and perhaps even beyond her own understanding. They had probably escaped to the shed only for the excitement that came from sneaking around. They were probably just going to make out. Yonatan, a grown man, had literally been holding himself in his hands. What, for this girl who thought playing four square counted as foreplay, who didn’t need to wear a bra yet, could be more earth-shattering than that?
“Helen,” Rachel said. “Please just do one thing for me.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” Helen said, shaking her head back and forth as if she could shake the memory right out of it.
“Me neither,” said Rachel. “But especially, please, please don’t tell Fiona.”
Helen wiped a rogue tear away. “Does she like him?”
Rachel nodded. She thought of Fiona’s arms around her under the oak tree. Fiona asking Rachel if she wanted her to come for the phone call. Fiona, whom she was still hiding from. Fiona saying she couldn’t handle anyone seeing her naked.
“Of course I won’t,” Helen said.
They walked back to the basketball courts in silence. Fiona, finally seeing Rachel, rushed toward them.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Fiona said to her friend. “Should we go somewhere?” Fiona noticed her sister’s stricken face and put on her own forlorn and sympathetic expression. “Did she tell you?”
Helen panicked, unsure what she was supposed to say or what exactly Fiona was referring to, and looked to Rachel for support.
“Give us a minute,” Rachel said to Helen. Helen did as she was told, ambling unsurely toward the group of girls her age.
Fiona put an arm on Rachel’s shoulder. “Do you want to talk? What can I do?”
Rachel shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “I just want to dance.”
7
John and Amy Larkin drove up Route 22 for Visitors’ Day. It was a clear, sunny morning, and Amy was surprised by how tired she was. As they drove, she realized that she hadn’t been up before ten since they’d dropped Helen off at camp three weeks earlier. Her body should have still awoken at six like clockwork given all the mornings over all the years making breakfasts and shuttling the kids to school. But every summer, once the kids were gone, she could not stop sleeping. She’d hear John’s alarm go off, roll over, and fall back asleep, only to reawaken some hours later to the late morning sun drenching her in its warmth. She wouldn’t get up right away; sometimes she would spend another hour in bed just watching the sun fall through the window. On these late mornings, she felt like a girl waking up in her mother’s bed—too small to have this thing all to herself and yet luxuriating in the feeling that this was a special occasion, that this could not happen on just any morning.
Her days were spent alone, planting flowers in the garden at home and then, later in the afternoons, driving to the community garden in town, where her vegetables grew, to harvest her cucumbers and tomatoes. Dinner was usually something simple, like a piece of salmon and a caprese with heirlooms and buffalo mozzarella. Sometimes John came home on time. Sometimes he did not tell her until the last minute that he wouldn’t make it for dinner. It had been like this on occasion when the kids were around, but it happened even more when Amy was the only one home. She never told him that this bothered her.