Chapter Four #3
But everything changed on the first day of camp.
I was paired up with Buckeye for the trust fall exercise, and when he caught me, the feeling of his hands on my back was like returning home after a long trip.
I still had all of his handwritten letters in a box that I kept under my bed, Polaroids of our tanned faces pressed against each other, matching pendants around our hemp string necklaces, the memory of singing the chorus to “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, while lying on our backs in the field staring up at the full moon.
He wrote things in those letters like I can’t imagine loving anyone as much as you.
I feel like I was born to meet you. I want to grow old with you.
Was that really him? We didn’t even last a year. It felt childlike now, to think he was my one true love, the one to grow
old with. I got back on the bicycle, just as my agent texted me a simple You’re so talented, this is just one shitty director. Don’t stress. I’ll get it sorted. But for now, you need time off anyway.
Put your phone away for two days and let’s talk Monday. I’d been with Jeff for years. He’d never led me astray. How could I put my phone away, though? Should I also cut off my arm?
But I dutifully turned my iPhone to greyscale and placed it grimy-face down in the wicker basket, under the box of berries
and bag of cheese. I could control this. I’d have to let it go and be present, right?
I saw very few people on the ride back to the rental house.
When I exited the trail and pedalled up the driveway, I had grease stains on my legs and a good baseline tan, and perhaps
enough calm to deal with my mother. But as I skidded to a stop and hopped off the precariously high bike seat, I saw right
away that her grey RAV4 with the Science: Fixing Things That Prayers Can’t bumper sticker was nowhere to be seen. Just Rocco, leaning against the side of the limo, while Val, Marlon, and Kris loaded
food and towels into the side door. I put the bike back on the porch as Katie banged through the screen door.
“Where were you?” Katie asked, as she pushed the cooler with one leg through the door in front of me. This, too, was a ritual.
Her turning the anger that should be aimed at our mother onto the one who was present—me. Usually I would nag her right back
and we’d get right into it, but it was Kate’s weekend. I picked up the cooler and walked down the steps toward the car.
“I just needed some exercise. I knew it would take you guys a while to get ready. And I’m ready now!” I handed Marlon the cooler and pulled my collar aside to show my bikini strap. I’d put my bathing suit on under my dress when I woke up that morning.
“Funny timing, your little sojourn.”
So she was going to push it.
“Sometimes you and Mom do better without me there, you know that. That’s a cute outfit.”
She frowned. “Sometimes I need you there to back me up.”
“Katie Marie, did you actually stand up to her?”
“Well, maybe I would have if you’d stuck around.”
“I would’ve made it worse. You know that.”
“That’s an easy out for you.”
“Look, Katie, our objective this weekend is to have a good time, to celebrate you and Sarah. I thought it was the best solution.
What can I do to help you shake this off? Are you sunscreened up?” I pulled a tube of lavender sunscreen from my purse and
emptied a swirl into my hand as she turned around so I could get her shoulders, just as she did when we were kids. I was gentle
as I applied it, and then turned her around and dotted her nose.
“I love you, Katie, you’re going to have an amazing day. I’m sorry I left you with Mom, I really thought it was the right
thing to do.”
She rubbed the lotion into her face. I hoped her anger was fading.
“You know how much I hate when someone leaves in a tense moment. Sarah says she’s noticed it’s a real trigger for me.”
Sarah and Katie, when left unattended, can talk in therapy speak for hours on end.
I find it equal parts annoying and enlightening, and ultimately better than when Sarah insists on reading my tarot cards.
Through Sarah, I have learned that I am hypervigilant as a trauma response, my ambition is due to my sense of over-responsibility for others, and that I was a parentified child.
But sometimes I just want to be a bossy older sister who knows right from wrong and likes to advise others?
Plus, my ambition is the reason we’re staying in this very nice Airbnb right now.
“Again, I’m sorry, you ready?” Marlon pumped MGMT’s banger “Kids” on the car stereo, and I think I heard Rocco audibly sigh.
Kate nodded. We got in the car.
“So where is Mom?” I tried to make my question sound emotionless.
“She’s meeting us later, for dinner. She’s checking into her hotel and seeing some birds first,” Katie said in a voice that
made me ask no further questions.
At first the limo seemed festive and on theme. In the daylight, everyone around us in family sedans and RVs, it felt strange,
like when you walk home from a party in a silver tube dress, holding your heels, while everyone else is wearing jeans and
T-shirts. Katie had on giant sunglasses and kept her head down while she texted for the entire drive to the beach. Hazel was
watching TikTok videos, Val and Yasmine, both wearing platform sandals, bright white bikinis, and fancy Turkish towels as
wraparounds, were mixing drinks into several giant water bottles. Marlon and Kris had fallen asleep in a cuddle pile in the
back as soon as the car pulled out of the driveway. I sent Katie a meme of a cat riding on top of a horse. Not a glance.
As we pulled up to the park gate and were idling in line, Hazel passed around an iPad that played the dance moves we had to learn for the wedding.
It was still weeks away. I’d learned the first few moves.
I then made the mistake of filming myself doing them and was horrified to learn what it felt like to be the audience for your own moving body.
How do people just observe their own flailing arms and legs and slack-jawed-concentration faces on screen?
A true nightmare. Actors are the bravest people on earth, I’d decided.
My solution to this was to insist on being behind the camera instead.
How do so many ordinary people do this on TikTok every day and make it look desirable?
I haven’t the patience or the ability to control my facial expressions.
Once we got through the crowds, the beach at Sandbanks Provincial Park was admittedly gorgeous. It was still early enough
in the season that it wasn’t rammed with crowds either. We walked up the sand dunes until we found a nice quiet spot to nestle
on our blankets. I longed for how the weekend was supposed to feel when I knew I’d be returning to work on Monday, like a
little gift of time to unwind. Instead it felt a little like I was at the top of a long staircase, hovering and about to fall
down. I stripped down to my suit and tiptoed around in the shallow water at the shore, squishing tiny stones with my toes.
The water was freezing. I hadn’t warmed up enough to swim, but I was hoping for a baptism effect, to bring me back to the
ground and the present. I kneeled in the water, waving my hands around under the surface.
Kris walked up and stood beside me. His leg skin was so pale it was almost translucent. “Hey,” he said, and before I could
respond, he dove into the water and swam out. Just like that. When he surfaced, he gave a shout that sounded like exhilaration
and everyone on the shore clapped.
I thought of my apartment in the city. It was a jumping-off place; it wasn’t meant to be lingered in. It wasn’t home. I wasn’t
attached to it, or to most of the objects in it. The best thing about it was Marlon and Kris next door. Being a camp teacher?
This was the kind of job you do at nineteen.
I went back to the group and pulled my journal from my tote bag. I thought about all the things I would like to experience
in the summer, and in my life, generally.
I wrote a list:
More moments in the day where I’m not mentally at work
More bike rides
Walks in the forest
More swimming in lakes
More time to read poetry and sketch out ideas for the film I really want to write
More starry night skies and campfires and drive-in movies
More connections with people
More love, generally
Rest
Rest? I was writing from my heart, not editing as I went. I was thinking I needed rest? I couldn’t remember the last time
I was forced to rest. Even during the first year of the pandemic, I wrote and wrote on deadlines, and then was back in Zoom
writing rooms and on set as soon as they allowed it.
I composed a text to Ben, while Katie and the group danced in my periphery.
Since you did save me from death by hoof trampling, I should hear you out re: how I might take over your theatre camp. Send
deets?
After I pressed send, the weight of being fired lifted from my body and the sun on my skin felt like I was warming to all
the possible new pathways ahead. I put my towel down on the hot sand and snuggled under the shade of Val’s giant rainbow umbrella.
I fell briefly asleep. Until my phone buzzed.
I’d be delighted! Six weeks starting next Monday. You get your own cabin. In addition to the modest pay, you’d get my undying (professional!!) devotion for at least 5-7 years with an option to extend. To parrot one of your own lines of dialogue, Please say yes!
I felt a little buzz of excitement in my chest. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done anything impulsive. The group finished
dancing and scattered around me on their towels, popping open drinks and reapplying sunscreen. Marlon scooched under the umbrella
beside me, smelling of gin and banana-scented sunscreen.
“Why are you smiling to your phone?” Marlon teased, trying to grab it.
“I might have just done something insane.”
“Sex insane?” Kris asked, cuddling in beside Marlon.
“Not Elise’s brand.”