It lands like a smack. Crazy church camp? We’re not crazy! Not even a little. In fact, we’re pretty modern by Christian standards! But I like Anna already, and I don’t want her to write me off.
She’s moved on to explaining evening activities, but I’m tuning out. Was it cowardly to not mention that Holyoke is my camp? It’s just that . . . telling people you’re religious can make them assume a whole list of things about you. Like you’ve rolled out a scroll of all the ways you see the world. My dad always says: try to let it go if people judge you that way.
I know he does that himself. The truth is, there’s theological disagreement within the church—between Methodist ministers, even. My dad comes home from state conferences looking wind-battered, even though he’s been inside all week. His hair is mussed, shirt collar askew, skin dry. I imagine him in conference room sessions, frustrated and fidgety. I imagine him up late in his hotel room, jotting down notes as I hear my mom say on her end of the phone line, I know, babe. But just keep speaking your heart—that’s all you can do.
We wind up at the lodge, and the porch beams creak in welcome. Inside smells like camp dinner, a not-unpleasant mix of starch and seasoning, with vegetables somewhere beneath it—green beans, maybe. With almond slivers, I bet.
“Behold,” Anna says. “The mess hall. Standard.”
It is standard—long tables in rows, a tall ceiling. But at Holyoke, we call this space the fellowship hall.
Ha. We have fellowship. They have a mess.
Anna has a bouncy walk, long arms swaying. It makes her look young. And happy. I think my walk must look like shuffled feet in funeral procession. “Our chef gets in the zone during dinner prep, so now is not the time to introduce you. I’ll be right back. Wait, are you allergic to anything?”
I shake my head, and she leaves me at the end of a hallway, which is lined all the way down in framed photographs. The end picture, nearest me, is from last year—all the campers and counselors, with the year printed at the bottom. In it, I spot Anna beside the same threesome in the photo above my bunkmate’s bed. My bunkmate, Keely Simmons, is sandwiched between the two boys—one with glasses and a wide grin, the other slim and smirking—with her arms slung over their shoulders. They look like they belong to one another.
I follow the pictures down the hall, watching the present-day recede and the hairstyles lift. Still, all the campers are alike in their comfortable smiles, in the easy way they pool together on the lodge’s porch. At the end of the hall, I find the first few years of camp. In them, Rhea’s hair is jet black, her skin smooth. Thirty years ago. There are three blank spaces on the wall nearby, like missing teeth in a big grin of frames.
“Sorry!” Anna reappears with heavy footsteps. “Whelan had to yell at me for interrupting his process, but I got the goods.”
“The goods” appear to be two massive cookies. They’re crammed full of chocolate chunks, oatmeal, some kind of nut—and that’s only the ingredients I can decipher.
I nearly unhinge my jaw taking the first bite, and it’s everything at once: sweet, salty, nutty, crunchy. My mouth waters in demand for more.
“What is that?” I stuff another bite in. “That crunch . . . Is it . . . ?”
“Crumbled-up potato chips. Secret ingredient. Whelan calls them First-Week Cookies. He keeps them in a secret jar. Big ones for counselors and staff, smaller ones for the kids.”
“He only makes them the first week?” That’s not acceptable. I will be needing more of these in the immediate future.
“Nah. But we need them especially now. You know—first-week blues. Homesick kids or exhausted counselors, all the summer breakups. That kind of thing.”
The walnuts scratch against my throat as I cough. Could she just tell I got dumped? Are the hippies clairvoyant?
“You okay?”
I manage to swallow, my eyes watering. “Yeah. Just . . . apparently trying to eat this thing whole.”
Anna’s laugh is a quick, happy bark. “Totally understandable.”
“So,” she says, back to her tour-guide voice. “Rhea’s office is at the other end of the hall, on the right. Bryan’s is on the left. Have you met Bryan? That’s her son. He’s a therapist too. He lives in town with his wife and kid over the summer, but he’s here a ton of the time.”
Anna walks me down another hall to a big reading-and-rec room. Beaten-up leather couches square off, facing one another. There’s a deer head mounted over the fireplace, sun-faded maps tacked up on the walls, and a few time-thinned Persian rugs. Old board game boxes are stacked on the shelves beside books—slim early readers on the lowest levels, thicker novels up higher. The piano my mom mentioned stands upright on the far side. On top of it, a globe, a brass trophy, a framed Michigan state flag.
“This is nice,” I say, noticing floor cushions near the worn-in couches. The room looks like Ralph Lauren designed it twenty-five years ago, using East Coast antique stores and a tight budget.
“Yeah, Rhea knows how to make resources go the distance. She spends all her free time on grants and stuff. Sometimes for the whole place, like specific projects or objectives. Sometimes for individual kids. She’s basically who I want to be when I grow up.”
As we walk out, I run my hand across the knit blanket on the back of the couch. It’s every color of green—near-black forest fading into palest honeydew.
“I made that,” Anna comments.
“Seriously?” I turn to look at her in a slightly new light. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks. Rhea taught me my first summer. Knitting can be good for anxiety.” She mimes moving two needles. “These days, I do whole sweaters.”
And here I thought the hippies were around the lake growing marijuana or something. But no. They eat really great cookies and knit?
Near the rec room, Anna opens a door labeled “Maintenance.”
“This,” she says, “is the counselor meeting room. AKA the Bunker.”
The room is small and wallpapered with notices, pictures, Post-its, neon flyers. A frayed plaid couch lines the back wall, and several tall bookshelves hold binders and bags of snack food. In the corner, a table and chairs have manifested straight from the 1970s: pale orange seats with metal legs.
“We do quick updates here or just hang after lights-out. One counselor stays in each cabin after nine o’clock, but the other two get free time after that. If we’re not too tired, which sometimes we are.”
Next, we visit the nurse’s office, which is a small building right off the lodge. We’re greeted by a nurse named Miss Suzette, the howls of a middle-school camper, and a TV blaring political commentary. Anna introduces me over the clamor.
“Nice to meet you, Lucy Hansson.” Miss Suzette swivels toward the kid, who is whimpering with dramatic flair. “You’ll have to excuse Chase here. He is dealing with his discomfort vocally.”
“Hey! That stuff you put on burns.”
“I know, baby.”