Chapter 9
Alice
The rain came the next day. And it didn’t stop, no matter how many reverse rain dances the kids performed.
As Alice headed out to deliver more ponchos to the campers braving a short hike with Sierra, the phone rang.
For a moment, she considered leaving it, since it was almost certainly a parent she didn’t want to talk to, but it was part of the job.
‘Hello, this is Alice speaking.’
‘Alice!’ a voice boomed from the other end. ‘It’s Tom. How are you?’
Alice frantically ran through the list of British campers’ parents in her head before realizing she was talking to Briar’s dad.
‘Oh, Mr. Elwood,’ she said, wondering how she had ended up having to speak to the man twice in the span of a month. ‘I’m on my way out at the moment, but I’ll let Briar know you called.’
‘She’s been avoiding my calls,’ he said jovially. ‘Maybe you could deliver a message for me?’
‘Um, I guess?’ Alice said distractedly, thinking about the kids in the rain. ‘I don’t have a pen and paper or anything…’
‘No matter. Just let her know the appraisal came back, so she’ll have to call the estate agent for next steps. Then she can cut me out as the middleman, since she clearly doesn’t want me involved anyway.’
‘I think I can remember that. Appraisal back, call the estate agent— Wait,’ she said, comprehension finally setting in, ‘is Briar selling Susan’s house? Is that why she keeps disappearing?’
‘No, no,’ Tom said, ‘she’s selling the land.’
Alice frowned. ‘Well, you can’t exactly sell the land without selling the house, can you?’
‘The camp, dear,’ Tom said.
‘The… camp?’ Alice echoed blankly.
And suddenly everything made sense. Briar’s cagey responses when Alice had asked her where she’d gone to, her insistence on just pushing through for the summer, and why Briar was even here in the first place. She was making moves to sell the camp.
Alice felt stupid for not realizing sooner.
Logically, something would have to happen to the camp now that Susan was gone.
It shouldn’t have been surprising, yet Alice was blindsided by hurt.
Camp had always been the part of her life where her emotions came to the surface, and that was happening acutely now.
Tom was still prattling on about something, so Alice interrupted him. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go. I’ll give Briar your message.’
She stomped out to meet Sierra and the campers at the flagpole.
‘Thank god,’ Sierra said, taking the rain ponchos from Alice and distributing them to the campers. ‘Kids, are you ready to see some worms?’ The campers cheered and Alice found herself jealous of their ability to enjoy themselves despite everything.
‘I’m coming too,’ she said to Sierra, because the last thing she wanted was to be alone with her thoughts. That had always been the best thing about camp – everywhere you went, there was a friend. Even if some of them stabbed you in the back.
They trudged down the trail, Sierra and Alice taking the lead. As Sierra had promised, there were many worms for the campers’ viewing pleasure and not much else.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sierra muttered, seeing Alice glare at a particularly gross-looking worm. ‘You love worms. They’re composters!’
‘Decomposers,’ Alice corrected. ‘And of course I love the worms. I’m just in a foul mood.’
‘Couldn’t tell,’ Sierra deadpanned, earning herself a glare even more scathing than the worm’s. ‘Is it something other than…’ She trailed off, gesturing around them.
‘Briar…’ Alice closed her eyes for a second and almost tripped over a rock. Right. She was not on the sidewalk in London; she had to pay attention to where she was walking. ‘Briar is planning on selling the camp.’
She had expected a dramatic reaction, a gasp or a string of curses, but Sierra just said, ‘Oh. Yeah.’
‘You knew?’ Alice asked, feeling even more betrayed.
‘No, I didn’t know,’ Sierra said. ‘But it was obvious, right? At least to me. Susan’s not here anymore to run things, and Briar doesn’t want to. She could hire someone to take over, sure, but would it be worth it? Would it be the same camp, without Susan?’
Alice tucked her wet hair behind her ears irritably. ‘But what about the campers who come every year? Susan died, so they just have nowhere to call home anymore?’
Sierra looked at her pityingly. ‘That’s how death works. People lose things. Their lives change, and nothing is ever the same. Did you think we could all just go on like Susan was still here? She’s not.’
It was the first time Alice had heard Sierra sound genuinely emotional since Susan’s death, and it made her want to cry or scream into her pillow about how unfair everything was.
‘We can’t just give up,’ she insisted, not willing to let go of her anger. If she did, she was sure something far worse would surface. ‘This isn’t what Susan would have wanted.’
‘What she wants doesn’t matter anymore,’ Sierra said simply.
‘That’s not true!’ Alice said, her voice pitching up. She paused to collect herself. ‘This is her legacy, her life’s work. I hope when I die no one decides to burn my research because cataloguing it all is too difficult. This camp is Susan’s mark on the world.’
Sierra didn’t seem to have anything to say to that. ‘It’s crazy how well Briar still knows you,’ she said instead.
Alice almost stopped in her tracks. ‘What?’
‘I just never would have pegged you as someone to get so emotional over this. Over anything, really. But no wonder she didn’t tell you. She must’ve known you’d flip out.’
Alice took three deep breaths, willing her steely resolve to rise to the surface again. ‘Please don’t tell anyone about this,’ she said. ‘I don’t want Briar to know that I know.’
Instead of taking her anger out on Sierra, who didn’t deserve it, she made a hasty excuse that she’d forgotten something back at camp and abandoned the hike. She felt like one of the worms: soft, exposed, and in danger of being crushed.
Alice wanted to talk to Briar about it, like two mature adults. She did. But every time she saw Briar in the following few days, one or both of them was in a terrible mood. And what Alice didn’t want was a confrontation. If she’d wanted to fight with Briar, she’d have stuck around ten years ago.
Alice was hiding in the office, going over the next day’s activities with Sierra and Freddie, when there was a sudden bang from the bedroom.
‘That didn’t sound good,’ Sierra said. Alice crumpled onto the desk.
‘It can’t be too bad,’ she said, pulling herself back up and forcing cheer into her voice for the sake of her employees. ‘Surely it’s something we can fix?’
When they went into the bedroom, the AC unit that Alice had half-expected to have smoke rising from it looked harmless. She pressed a furiously blinking button, and the unit stuttered to life again. Ice cold air washed over her face and Alice smiled.
‘See, that’s—’ Alice started, but was interrupted by another terrible clanking noise. Harsh air shot out, covering her with dust. She coughed out a mouthful, turning back to Freddie and Sierra.
They wore twin looks of disgust.
‘Er, maybe Cook can help?’ Freddie tried. ‘I’ll fetch him, shall I?’
‘Typical man,’ Sierra said, watching him rush out the door. Alice stood there, blinking and holding her arms out, trying not to get dust everywhere. The urge to scream nearly overwhelmed her. ‘Let me get you a towel.’
Alice was able to wipe most of the mess from her clothes and the floor. Her hair, however, was a different matter.
‘Shit,’ she heard Briar call over the rushing water of her second shower, ‘I thought Sierra was just messing with me. The AC is seriously out?’
Alice stepped out, wrapping a towel around herself and padding into the bedroom. ‘Yes. I had a go at fixing it. Let’s just say I have a newfound appreciation for circuitry.’
Briar snickered. ‘Of course you thought you could fix it.’
‘I was willing to try,’ Alice said crossly, grabbing her old, puff-paint-laden camp shirt out of her bag. Maybe it would serve as a signal to Briar of where her priorities should be. ‘I wasn’t just going to give up,’ she continued, while Briar stared at the shirt.
‘Are you actually going to wear that?’ Briar said disbelievingly. ‘It’s ripped.’
‘I’m going to wear it,’ Alice said, with as much dignity as she could muster while fishing a pair of Soffe shorts out of her bag, ‘because I love camp.’
She thought she heard Briar mutter, ‘The lady doth protest too much,’ as she headed to the bathroom.
‘I’m having an amazing time,’ she continued loudly. The shirt did, in fact, gape at the armpit so significantly that it was a bit indecent, but there was no way she was admitting defeat at this point. She marched out into the bedroom, her head held high.
‘You are?’ Briar asked, raising her eyebrows as she spotted the armpit tear and then glancing away.
It was the first time Alice had fully caught Briar noticing her body, and she flushed.
She remembered suddenly that this was the shirt she’d been wearing when they’d kissed, when Briar’s hands had traced up her sides to where the hole was, had made it even bigger in her eagerness to get closer.
‘Could’ve fooled me. After we taught theater together, I could have sworn you asked Sierra about the criteria for joining witness protection. ’
‘And then I went on a walk to see the worms, and I remembered what’s so sacred about this place.’
Thinking about the walk immediately soured Alice’s mood even further, reminding her how thoroughly she and Briar were at odds over the place she loved the most.
‘God.’ Briar rolled her eyes before collapsing onto her bed dramatically. Her legs were on full display, and it was impossible for Alice to not look. ‘Not the fucking worms. Not again, Alice. I won’t be subjected to another lecture on decomposition.’