Chapter Four
Oliver
A petite woman hanging out of a car’s trunk is not the first thing I expect to see when I pull into the gravel parking lot at Camp Brower, but I’ve never been to a summer camp before. Maybe that’s the norm.
As I walk down the dirt path toward the lodge, the source of an enormous racket, I shake my head to rid myself of the image of the woman I just met. I tried really hard not to stare, but she didn’t give me much else to look at before she finally wiggled her way out of the trunk. Lithe, tanned legs, frayed shorts, and a soft-looking t-shirt. A beautiful face crowned with hazel eyes and short, wild brown hair.
She’s practically the exact opposite of the ex-girlfriend who dumped me like yesterday’s trash. Reese and I nearly stood eye-to-eye because of her affinity for sky-high stilettos. The nameless girl didn’t even come up to my shoulder. Long, blonde, and curly versus short, dark, and straight. Reese almost always had on eyelashes that put the fuzziest spider legs to shame and her signature red lip. The nameless girl didn’t have a lick of cosmetics on her.
I really need to learn her name.
Purely because I feel bad for calling her “the nameless girl” in my head, and not because I want to get to know her better. I’ll only be here a few days to “get out of my funk,” according to my mom, and then it’s back to Virginia.
The cacophonous noise gets louder the closer I get to the lodge, but I can’t clearly make out any of the words that are being sung. If you can call this scream-shouting singing. I quietly pull open a door, and the full force of the song hits me like a bag of bricks. They’re screaming—singing? Scringing?—that this song is “much too quiet,” but if they get any louder, they’ll wake every sleeping creature in the forest. Mom and Dad are easy to spot near the back of the room, singing along with the room full of teenagers and a few scattered adults. Their eyes brighten immediately upon seeing me, and Mom turns toward a hallway that leads farther away from the noise, waving a hand for me to follow.
I slip in, unnoticed by anyone but my parents, and hurry down the hallway as the song reaches an ear-shattering volume.
Mom motions me into a small office, and she and Dad follow me in. She grabs me around the waist in a hug, pressing her face into my chest.
“I’m so glad you made it, Oliver!” Mom pulls back with a smile that makes the laugh lines around her eyes and mouth stand out even more. She looks a little rosy, possibly from a sunburn, but also possibly from the exertion of that song that’s finally winding down.
“It’s good to be here, I guess?” What else can I say when it comes to the place that—now that the screaming is over—is sort of saving me from my messy life back home? No job, no girlfriend, no house…maybe getting lost in the woods isn’t such a bad idea.
“Well, your dad and I are happy you made it here safely. How was the flight? The drive?”
“Long, on both counts.” I chuff a laugh that is void of humor. I was squished on the flight to Salt Lake City, thanks to booking last-minute tickets, and spent most of the time reaching out to old contacts from my masters program. I was bumped and jostled in the rental car as I drove over washboard roads. I stretch my arms behind me and my body protests like it’s not done reliving the physical journey it went through.
“I have one of the lodge rooms set up for you. It’s not very big, but at least you’ll have your own space. I can show you where it is once the staff meeting ends and the youth head back to their cabins.”
I lift one shoulder. “I don’t mind waiting. Finish your meeting, and then you can show me the room.”
An old-school landline rings on the desk. Dad picks it up and turns away, speaking quietly into the receiver. His head bobs along to whatever the person on the other end of the line is saying. Mom gently places her hand on my arm and leads me toward the door so we don’t interrupt the phone call, but before we can leave, Dad calls out to her.
“Linda, will you grab Landon for me?”
Mom nods and continues steering me back toward the main room, where the singing has ceased and the girl from the parking lot is now talking to the group. Mom leaves my side, heading over to one edge of the room, where she taps a man—Landon, I guess—on the shoulder and quietly says something to him. He stands and Mom slips into the seat he vacated, leaving me at the back of the room with no idea what to do. I nod an acknowledgement to the guy as he passes me on his way back to the camp office.
Unsure of whether I’m supposed to follow Mom to one of the tables, or go back to the office to wait with Dad, I settle for the middle ground and lean against the back wall of the large room, my attention going back to the woman from the parking lot right as she says, “No purple.”