Chapter Ten
Later that evening, while sitting in the car before I left for my solo movie evening, I sent Ben a text. It killed me to send
a second when the first one hadn’t been returned, but if we weren’t really dating, the rules of dating didn’t apply. I could
send seven more texts if I wanted to. What’s the deal with you and Dave? We went to camp together back in the day. Seems like you also have history.
I stopped at a roadside chip truck on the way to the movies, my first non-union-crew hot dog consumption of my adult life.
Delicious.
French fries taste better from a truck, it’s science, I texted Marlon, with a photo of the perfectly entwined squiggles of ketchup and mustard on top of the best hot dog I’d
ever had in my life. He texted back: I think “Cassie” might be a secret genius. She just told me about her PhD thesis on Beckett while I was fixing her Christmas
ornament prop.
Any new Ben news?
Only that he’s nice to literally everyone. No one hates him, and we’re days away from wrapping. I’ve never known a lead actor
to accrue zero enemies!
I immediately wanted to confess Dave’s thoughts about Ben’s trustworthiness, but I’d have to explain who Dave was.
It was a longer conversation. I eavesdropped on the families sitting around me on the red picnic tables beside the truck.
I flirted with dogs. I stared up at the slowly darkening bright blue sky.
I hadn’t taken myself on a date in years. I’d forgotten how nice it felt.
I parked in a free lot with a stunning view overlooking a park and walked through the small downtown strip. The rep theatre
was beautiful, with an old-fashioned marquee sign and posters advertising a Canadian film festival. If I ever made enough
money off the film life, I could live in this town and be perfectly content. Everyone in the theatre looked retired or soon
to be approaching those years. Unlike at city theatres, the popcorn was stale. But it cost the amount that it should, so it
all evened out. I turned off my phone when I cozied into my theatre seat, not wanting anything to interrupt my commune with
director Kelly Reichardt’s genius. Later, as I wandered back down Main Street to my car, the night air had grown cold and
I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt tight around my face, my muscles contracting. I turned off airplane mode on my phone and
pocketed it, hearing the pings of texts. Ben? Could be. I kept it in my pocket until I got to my car, sustaining the dopamine
thrill of possible missives. In the city on a dark, quiet street, I would call someone or fake a phone call for safety reasons.
But this was another freedom of a small town.
It was ten. Even if the day on set went over, Ben was likely off the clock and able to reply. But the only messages were from
Marlon with more set gossip, and a link to an Instagram for a woman I’d never heard of with the words Maybe He’s Just Private
or Does He Have a Dark Side? The account was for a casting director named Miley. At first I didn’t understand why he’d sent
it, but then realized that every second photo posted included Ben. They were cozy, intimate photos, in all sorts of places—a
hotel rooftop bar in Chicago, a beach in Malibu, many various Toronto hot spots, red carpets. When I clicked to his account
from hers, his Instagram was more run-of-the-mill for an actor—press clippings, Deadline links, step-and-repeat pics. But
every once in a while, there she was. Mostly in group photos but nonetheless present.
Is this Ben’s non fake girlfriend? I asked.
Unsure, but will find out dirt.
I was no longer high from the small-town summer walk to the car, or the romantic date with myself at a brilliant movie. I
had to accept that Ben and I were just fake dating. The kiss had been contextual. He was going to be my coworker in less than
a week anyhow, right? That’s never advised. I sat warming up my hands by the heater vent and searched Spotify for the Modest
Mouse record Dave and I had been obsessed with at camp. The moon was full, and it lit up the sky. I barely needed headlights.
As the town thinned out and Lake Street turned to County Road 10, I scanned the ditches for the shiny flicker of animal eyes.
I lowered the windows; even though it was chilly, I wanted to smell the country air. There was popcorn in my teeth and I almost
missed the driveway again, but I was inspired.
The first time I heard the album was an hour after I met Dave at an outdoor bus depot in Huntsville. It was basically a corner
store where you could wait on a bench for a bus to and from cottage country and the city. The bus pulled over and dropped
the two of us off. I’d been staring at the piece of paper with the Mason Street Bus Depot, 3:15 on it, very nervous that I would miss my stop.
I sat right up front and told the driver that it was my stop before we’d even left Toronto.
“Don’t worry, kid, I don’t let anyone get stuck in North Bay.
” I felt stupid for treating myself like a ten-year-old without a guardian, but it was the first time I’d ventured anywhere on my own.
I’d spent days picking my first-day-of-camp outfit—baggy but not too baggy jean shorts, a white tank top, white converse sneakers, my favourite black hoodie.
I choose this outfit because I read in a magazine that blue jeans and a white shirt was classic and sexy on everyone, male or female.
My hair was long and brown, wavy, to my shoulders.
I had picked clothes that made me look more relaxed than I was.
Dave, on the other hand, must have already been seated in the very back, looking casually unconcerned.
He walked leisurely off the bus, as though he’d been travelling alone all his life.
We were the only two counsellors who didn’t yet have driver’s licences, and we also lacked the kind of parents who felt it their duty to drive their adult-aged kids to camp.
At the time I felt cool, independent, getting on the bus alone, though I’d yet to really travel anywhere but downtown Toronto to bang around the Eaton Centre or see an occasional concert.
I knew about the camp because Mrs. Butcher, my Theatre 101 teacher in university, had passed along a brochure and said they were looking for counsellors.
I found out in April that I’d gotten the job. I was very proud of myself. I hadn’t told anyone in my family that I’d applied.
They seemed bewildered by my sudden summer-long absence, especially Kate. But I made Marlon promise to look out for her.
I was nervous about how I’d be in charge of a tent of four ten-year-old girls.
What if they were a nightmare? (I ended up loving them so much that two of them still send me holiday cards.) When I wasn’t shepherding my kids to swimming or meals, I was to be an apprentice to a woman named Marsha who was teaching the writing workshop, and then Dave and I would teach improv and monologue performance together.
Dave had been hired to be the apprentice to Marsha’s husband, Steve, who taught directing.
In my mind Marsha and Steve were very famous and acclaimed, and now I understand that they had made a few short films and that Steve taught Intro to Cinema Studies at the northern campus of a university.
Working at the camp was either fun for them, or maybe they’d gone as children and wanted to give back.
Nancy ran the day-to-day details of the camp, but Marsha and Steve were its artistic heart.
I felt proud to be the writing counsellor; I’d been printing off scripts in the school library and studying them.
I was prepared to talk about Rosemary’s Baby and Welcome to the Dollhouse and Pretty Woman and Thelma I prepared a fevered defense of them.
I hadn’t noticed him when I boarded the bus, but when I got off, it was just the two of us, standing on the side of the road
next to the convenience store. He was quite tall and was carrying a hiking backpack like I was, but also a guitar case and
a camera bag. On the guitar was a sticker that read Sub Pop Records. I stood on the lookout for Nancy, the camp director, who said she would be driving a red Honda Civic and wearing a T-shirt
with the camp logo on it. Dave sat down on his pack and started reading from a paperback, Christine by Stephen King. I’d read it. I said so. He blushed when I said hi and asked if he was also going to camp. “Yeah. I don’t
remember you. Must be your first year? This is my third year, second as a counsellor.”
“What’s it like?”
“It’s amazing. It’s my favourite place on earth. Are you nervous?”
I remember thinking that he wasn’t asking the way boys often ask that question, like they are hoping you’re a bit scared,
and they can tease you for it, or perhaps make you even more nervous. Or sometimes they asked so that they could be a big
protector. But he seemed genuine.
“A little. Not to teach writing, I feel confident about that. But you know, meeting the other kids and stuff.”
“Don’t worry. Everyone is really kind-hearted. It’s like an oasis away from the cruelties of regular life. They’ll love you!
Are you a theatre kid?”
“I guess? No one ever uses that term as a compliment.”
“Those people suck. Being a theatre kid rules. Like, would you rather throw a ball around like a terrible metaphor for the useless distractions in life, or pursue truth and beauty on the stage? Or film?”
I was a bit speechless, but managed to utter: “I’m going to make movies, too.”
“I can tell. I could see it in the way you walked off the bus and took it all in. You have a camera’s eye. And I’ve only known
you for five minutes but I can tell, you’re sharp. You’re one of us!”
“Who is us?”
“You’ll see.”
I had never been so honest with a stranger before. Later he told me that when I got off the bus, he noticed that I was cute,
but in a weird way that he’d never seen a girl be cute before. He had the thought, I bet that girl is going to be my muse. He said that he was stunned that I just started talking to him, and that he mostly didn’t like people but that he liked
me right away. I didn’t admit that I started talking to him because I was nervous to be standing alone on the street in a
town I’d never been to.
By 5 p.m., it seemed that Nancy was late. I had a flip phone but no signal. He had a signal and a new iPhone, but no minutes
left on his data plan. “I think we should hitch,” he said. “Camp isn’t really far away.”
“But this whole scene, us meeting, then deciding to hitchhike, it’s the start of a horror movie, right?”
He laughed. “Come on. I’ll protect you.”
“With what, your acoustic guitar? You gonna sing Nickelback covers until the killer tires of us? Plus, what if you’re the
serial killer?”
“Do I look like a serial killer?”
I took a step back and considered the question.
He was tan, wearing a T-shirt for the band Modest Mouse, had a hoodie tied around his waist. He was wearing jeans every boy seemed to have that year, and a pair of white converse sneakers like mine.
A brown leather wrist band. His hands were kind of rough-looking but his nails were clean.
“Maybe?”
“OK, let’s sit for fifteen more minutes. Nancy is often late. I’m going to play you my favourite song.” He brought out an
MP3 player and offered me earphones. I put my pack down and sat on it the same way that he was. He pressed play and then grinned
at me. The song was “Float On” by Modest Mouse. I had to close my eyes to concentrate on listening, to pretend he wasn’t staring
at me expectantly. I loved the song immediately. I opened my eyes again when the song was coming to a close, and he was still
staring right at me. I blushed, handed him back the earphones.
“I loved it,” I said shyly.
“I had a feeling you might. What’s your favourite song?”
I decided to be very honest.
“I feel like I should say Fugazi or Sonic Youth, but if I’m honest, the song I love to sing more than any other is from the
play Hair. It’s a cappella, and it goes—” I took a deep breath, but he started singing before I could.
“ ‘I met a boy called Frank Mills, on September 12th right here . . .’ ”
He had a beautiful, deep alto singing voice. I belted it out in a girlish soprano, mimicking Shelley Plimpton in the Broadway
cast recording. We sang the song all the way through, so loudly that the cashier in the corner store came out to give us a
look while we were finishing the final line.
I knew I had a crush right then because my whole chest felt warm and my toes were tingling inside my too-hot sneakers.
Later he told me that he knew it, too. But in that moment we heard Nancy’s loud bellow from the parking lot across the street: “Hey kiddos! Let’s go!
Sorry I was late, the lineups at the Fresh Mart we’re so long, and—” Nancy basically didn’t stop talking all the way to camp.
I sat in the back seat, staring at the passing trees, and occasionally the back of Dave’s head in the passenger seat, his beautiful wavy dark hair.
When Nancy’s story got particularly long-winded, he looked back at me and winked.
It was the happiest I’d possibly ever been in my entire life up to that point. The summer only got better from there.
But my happiness now, in my thirties, didn’t have to rely on a crush. I knew that. Too much had happened between Dave and
me as kids, but perhaps it was the foundation for a rekindled friendship, to rebuild trust. But we could never start from
the ground up again. He could never sweep me away now, knowing what I know about his ability to just up and leave, no explanation.
When I got back to the cabins, Dave’s windows were dark, but his truck was in the lot. No flickering of video games. No dog
sounds. The firepit had some recently glowing embers. I poked at it with a stick like a CSI actor investigating a crime. How
long had it been? He probably had a solitary ritual here at night that I’d been interrupting. But it was cold out now; I shivered
from my new post as a light stalker.
If Dave didn’t want to bring it up, if he wasn’t going to, then I would let it be. I sat outside on the porch, staring up
at the moon, trying to take one satisfying photo of it. Impossible. I sent Katie and Marlon an attempt: the moon out here is wild. I know it looks like a tiny dog’s butthole here but trust me, it’s big. If I could write poetry,
I’d have a missive about this very moon.
I heard a trickling sound. Maybe the sound of a tiny stream I hadn’t noticed? Then it got more pronounced. I opened the cabin
door; water rushed over my feet. A flood.