Elaine Wolf - Camp

“Don’t you worry, Nancy,” Rory answered from several places in front of me. “We’re welcoming her all right.”

Nancy sidled beside me and rested a hand on my shoulder. “You doing okay?” she asked softly, inviting confidences.

I didn’t see where Erin came from, but there she was, zooming in behind me. “Not to worry, Nance,” Erin said quietly. “I’ll take care of her.”

“Thanks, Erin,” Nancy said. “I knew I could count on you. And now you ladies will have to excuse me. I’ve got to supervise lunch for the younger girls. Can’t let Jody do all the work over there.” Nancy motioned to the Bus 1 campers, sliding onto picnic benches on the other side of a narrow road. A small woman dressed like Nancy—same black Bermudas, same white shirt—scattered bag lunches on wooden tables propped on sparse grass. “You’ll meet Jody later, at camp,” Nancy told me. “She’s our head tennis counselor. Do you play?”

“Actually, yes. It’s my favorite sport. So why don’t I go over there and meet Jody now? I could help with the younger kids.”

“Bad idea,” Erin said, then lowered her voice to a whisper, as if suddenly aware someone might catch her talking to me. “Don’t even think about it.”

Nancy patted my arm. “That’s very thoughtful. But Jody and I will have those little ones settled down in two shakes. And you seniors’ll be boarding again in a minute. Not enough picnic tables. You get to eat on the go.”

“Peanut butter and jelly or bologna?” Aunt Helen dipped into cartons on the ground by the bus and pulled out a lunch for each of us as we got back on. “And no changing seats now, girls. Just sit where you were so we can get this show on the road.”

“Anything to drink, ma’am?” I heard Rory ask, her words drenched with respect now.

“Of course, dear. Once everyone’s in, you’ll get drinks.” My aunt scanned the campers waiting to get on. “And please, everyone call me Aunt Helen. We’re family for the summer.”

Erin stood in front of me, but she didn’t turn around. She hadn’t spoken since her warning in the bathroom line. Rory had made it perfectly clear: no conversations until after my initiation.

I said the word to myself and swallowed hard. Initiation. Initiation. I shivered despite the heat.

My first letter from camp set the pattern for the start of that summer. The big lie: Camp is great. If I had told the truth, my mother would have said it was my fault, and my father would have felt guilty for sending me.

The letter wasn’t all lies: Camp was beautiful, the land having been tamed only where necessary for buildings, sports areas, and meeting places. I noticed the trees, their clean scent of pine, the moment we went through the gates. Girls belted out We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here as the bus rolled past the gatehouse and down a long pine-needled path to the recreation hall, where Uncle Ed and Pee-Wee Bassen, the athletic director, welcomed us with cabin assignments and lemonade. Uncle Ed winked at me when I lifted the icy pitcher. I shuddered, picturing how he always acted with my mother and remembering how he often reminded us that my father went to City College while he got to party and play ball at Penn State.

Aunt Helen hardly greeted him at the rec hall, but Robin made up for it, hugging her father as if it had been years since she’d seen him. “I promised my daughter here, Robin, a great summer,” Uncle Ed said when he introduced himself. “And I know you’ll all make that happen.”

Pee-Wee led us to senior camp. With her squat body and slapdash haircut, she looked like someone who had always been chosen first for a sports team and last at a dance. “When you get to your cabins, ladies, start getting organized,” she said. “No lollygagging now. And as soon as all the campers are in, we’ll ring the dinner bell. So let’s go, Takawanda!” The girls took up the cheer:

We marched ahead. I looked for Erin. She walked with a group at the front of the pack while I straggled near the back.

I glanced around to get a sense of where I was. Athletic fields, tennis and basketball courts, blacktop areas for volleyball and badminton. I noticed a perfectly mowed spot with a flagpole in the middle. We passed what I later learned was junior camp, its clean white cabins clustered on two sides of a meadow. The path on which we walked grew wider as we approached the dining hall, built lakeside as if whoever designed Takawanda had started with that structure, choosing the best site for mealtimes.

I followed the girls along the water’s edge, on a moist earthen trail sprinkled with pine cones. The path took us to senior camp, where six brown cabins with peeling green shutters sat in a clearing. Girls dropped arms from around each other’s waists and raced for their summer homes.

I found Bunk 9, angled next to Bunk 10 as if these two cabins had been an afterthought, tacked up on the last spit of cleared land. Patsy held the door for me. “Well, let’s see now.” She dazzled me with her platinum blond hair. Not exactly my image of a camp counselor, this Marilyn Monroe look-alike with a thousand-watt smile. “You must be Amy. It’s right nice to meet ya.”

I set my bag on the only unclaimed bed, next to Donnie’s, at the far end of the cabin, and looked around the room I had silenced with my entrance. Six beds in a row with the counselor’s against the opposite wall; trunks all over the floor; and pine walls graffitied with reminders of past summers: liz was here, 1951. alice, 1957. betty and connie, friends forever, ’60. A construction paper job wheel, posted by the door, showed our names on an inner circle, our chores on an outer: bathroom; first sweep; second sweep; clothesline; trash; dining hall. While Rory was in the bathroom, Donnie told me that the names rotate each week, giving us at least one turn at every job. I found my name lined up with “dining hall.”

“I’ll make sure you meet the kitchen boys, Amy,” Rory said at dinner that first night. We sat in the rear of the dining hall, Patsy at the head of our table with me to her left, next to Donnie.

“Yes indeedy. The kitchen boys,” Rory announced, clapping Jessica on the back. “But first, more cake!”

Everyone took seconds. Everyone but me.

If they serve sweets, don’t eat too many. I heard my mother as if she had squeezed between Donnie and me. Hundreds of miles away, and her voice played in my head. I tried to shut her off.

“More cake!” Rory said again. “Enjoy it now, ’cause after tonight, seconds’ll be hard to come by. Yes indeedy. Just ’cause Mr. Becker’s real good-lookin’ doesn’t mean he won’t be stingy to the bone like that last guy who ran this place.”

“Rory!” Patsy’s voice drew us to attention.