Chapter 4
Briar
The first morning waking up at camp was always strange.
The first morning waking up at camp without her mother was unsettling.
For a full minute, Briar thought she was in a dream.
Surely those wood-paneled walls weren’t the ones she remembered from her childhood; the deep, sleepy breaths that Briar would have recognized anywhere didn’t mean that the best friend she hadn’t seen in ten years was sleeping in the same room.
That would be too bizarre to contemplate.
Briar hadn’t expected Alice to show up the day before.
It wouldn’t have been the first time Alice had left her without so much as a goodbye.
And yet, seeing Alice climbing out of Freddie’s car, the hazy sunlight glinting off her pale shoulders, suddenly Briar was transported back to the summers of their youth.
The memories took root as an ache in her chest.
Briar decided in that moment that she would have to accept Alice’s presence. She could tolerate Alice being at camp, so long as she knew better than to rely on her and prepared for the moment that Alice ran away again.
She got up, stretching her arms above her head, bracing for the day ahead.
Enforcing rules and delegating tasks had never been Briar’s strong suit, and the new hires would be a challenge.
She’d been accepting any application that had come in, and she hoped that there were a lot of smart, driven young adults out there who just happened to need last-minute plans for the summer.
After getting ready, she found Freddie and Sierra waiting outside the director’s cabin.
‘All I’m saying,’ Sierra continued, not giving Briar a second glance, ‘is that it would be really funny if we convinced people that you’re my son.
’ Briar sighed. It was camp tradition at this point for the two of them to come up with an elaborate fake backstory for the campers.
Susan had never put a stop to it, not wanting to stifle their creativity.
‘It’s just not practical,’ Freddie argued, running a hand through his hair and looking genuinely distressed. ‘I mean…’ He gestured between the two of them hopelessly.
‘What?’ Sierra demanded, putting her hands on her hips and surveying him critically. ‘You could be a light-skinned Latino boy. And who’s to say your father isn’t as pasty as you? Or wasn’t, God rest his soul.’ She crossed herself.
‘There’s also the fact that I’m Welsh and you’re American. And that we’re the same age,’ Freddie argued.
‘I’m two months older,’ Sierra corrected him, flipping her purple-tipped hair over her shoulder.
‘Guys,’ Briar interrupted. ‘Do either of you have the list of staff arriving today?’
‘Right here,’ Freddie said, shoving a piece of paper in her direction without looking away from Sierra. ‘What if we just convince everyone that we’re secretly dating?’
‘Pfft,’ Sierra said. ‘No one will believe that.’
‘I don’t know, Fred, have you been practicing your straight voice?’ Briar asked, skimming over the list.
‘Of course, babe,’ Freddie said, his voice becoming huskier and several octaves lower. The effect was ruined by the slant of his hips and his combination of jean short-shorts and a crop top.
Briar stared blankly at the names, knowing she needed to do something but not having any idea of where to start.
Once the counselors arrived, they would need to be assigned tasks to ready the camp for the summer.
Everything felt equally important, and the number of things left to do seemed impossible.
Freddie came to her side. ‘I know some of them. They’re all good kids. And a good contingent from the UK this year.’
One of Susan’s more unconventional notions was the idea that the British education system was missing necessary outdoor education. Apparently, when Briar’s parents had met at St Andrews, her father hadn’t known a frog from a toad.
Upon receiving an inheritance of twenty-five acres in Virginia’s north-west corner, Susan had opened the camp with her English husband in tow.
Briar’s dad had never fully adjusted, but her mother had been determined to raise the next generation of British schoolchildren differently.
Camp Lakeside advertised itself as both a natural and cultural immersion, with half of the campers and counselors hailing from the UK and half from the US.
‘Good.’ Briar turned to see Alice walking out of the cabin, clipboard in hand. ‘Now, let’s focus. What needs to be done this week before the campers arrive?’ Alice scribbled a list as she spoke.
‘Cabins and communal spaces need to be cleaned, the archery range set up, program equipment accounted for and moved to the right cabins, trails cleared, and the dock checked. And I know there are some repairs that fell to the wayside over the past few months with Susan’s diagnosis…
’ Briar opened her mouth to interject, but Alice turned to Freddie.
‘Can you go around and make a list of those for me?’ He nodded. ‘Anything else?’
Briar chewed at the inside of her cheeks to keep herself from butting in.
Of course, Alice would be good at this. She had always been good at everything.
It didn’t matter that she hadn’t been at camp in years.
When faced with the challenge of having to organize and deploy a small army of twenty-somethings, Alice’s brain was ready.
Briar’s, on the other hand, just drew a blank.
‘Someone needs to contend with Cook,’ Sierra said drily.
Alice wrote it down. ‘That’ll be me. Wouldn’t subject anyone else to it.’
Briar crossed her arms, trying to push down whatever feeling was coiling in her stomach as she watched Alice take the lead. She couldn’t decide if it was annoyance or something far worse that struck her when Alice got that familiar glint in her eyes. ‘And me?’
Alice blinked at her. ‘Oh! Um, you should welcome the counselors. You’re good at talking to people.’
Briar found it difficult to ignore the implication that she was bad at everything else.
The counselors arrived over the next hour, with Briar directing them to the assigned cabins Alice had written down. There were familiar faces among them, since many of them had been campers when Briar had been a counselor, but others she didn’t recognize at all.
After the counselors had settled in, the group gathered around the fire pit for the first-night bonfire.
Briar wondered if she should address them.
Susan hadn’t been much of a rousing speechmaker, but she was known to say a few words at the start of the summer.
She decided against it, since Alice and her clipboard hadn’t told her to.
‘Hi, all,’ Alice called, standing on a log for added height.
‘Um, I just have a few announcements before we get started.’ She cleared her throat awkwardly, glancing down at her hands.
‘I’m Alice, I used to work here, and I’ll be co-directing this summer with Briar, who you probably all know because she hired you. ’
‘Yeah, no duh,’ someone called from the crowd. Alice’s head snapped to whoever spoke, clearly thrown at the prospect of being heckled.
Briar stepped in. ‘Alice has graciously offered to help me this summer after the passing of my mother. I know she was important to a lot of you, and if you want to talk about it, you can come visit me in the director’s office at any time.’
Briar waved at Alice to continue.
‘Counselors drinking alcohol is only permitted when there are no campers on the premises, tonight being one of those nights. When sessions are taking place, I would ask you to please refrain. When in doubt, don’t go all out.
’ Alice’s smile froze on her face as no one laughed at what was clearly intended to be a joke.
‘Finally, as most of you know, at Camp Lakeside the staff members go by nature-related nicknames.’
‘Unless your mom gave you a built-in camp name from birth,’ Briar said. ‘You can just call me Briar.’
‘And mine is Violet,’ Alice continued. ‘Not for the flower, but for Cortinarius violaceus, a violet-capped mushroom that grows in these woods. There’s some interesting research suggesting that the group originated in Australasia, but this particular species diverged in very recent history, about 3.
9 million years ago.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Anyway, what was I talking about?’
Briar took over. ‘You all should spend some time thinking of a nickname for yourself if you don’t already have one. And now, we’ll let the assistant directors introduce themselves.’
‘Hi there,’ Freddie said, waving. ‘I’m Freddie, but my camp name is Moss.’
‘I’m Luna,’ Sierra said.
‘Great,’ Alice said. ‘Well, that’s basically… everything. Briar, do you want to do the honors?’
Briar pulled a lighter out of her pocket and stuck it beneath a scrap of newspaper peeking out from under the logs. It took only a few moments for the kindling to catch, sparks popping into the night as the fire grew.
Sierra and Freddie passed around cups of cider and the fixings for s’mores and Alice made her way over to Briar, plopping herself down on the log next to her. The air was still humid, even as darkness settled in the woods; the only respite was a weak breeze.
‘Not a bad first day,’ Alice muttered, almost inaudible over the chatter.
Briar considered pretending she hadn’t heard her, but after a long day of conceding to Alice, her petty streak won out. ‘Yeah, you seem to have things sorted. At this rate, you won’t even need me.’
‘That’s not true,’ Alice said. ‘You just have a lot on your plate. And I’m here if you want to talk.’
Briar accepted a cup of spiked cider from Sierra, nodding her thanks, and Alice did the same. As soon as she had moved on, Briar said, ‘I have friends, you know. And siblings. A long list of people I’d talk to before I’d talk to you.’
Alice looked at her in that knowing way, and Briar felt like she was being cut open like one of her fungi. ‘But would you be honest with them about how you’re feeling?’