Summer
“Licking salt off my hand is going to help how, exactly?” I stare down at the shot glass, already dreading tomorrow morning.
“Here’s to bad decisions!” My best friend Dolly clinks her glass to mine, licks the side of her hand, tosses back the tequila and sucks on the lime in one fluid motion.
She slams the shot glass down on the black laminate high top with a resounding crack, raising her fists in victory and drawing the eyes of every man in this north of nowhere bar as she swipes the backs of her fingers over her plum-colored lips.
“Yeeeeeehawwwww!” She yelps, shaking her head while sucking air through her teeth. “That’ll wake ya up in the mornin’ boys, won’t it?”
Dolly draws attention wherever she goes, with legs to her neck, a jet-black Uma Thurman circa Pulp Fiction bob, and a face that could launch a thousand bar fights. But here in Ompotomic, Michigan, where they are more bears than people?
Every guy here must be thinking they’re not in Kansas anymore.
Neon beer signs and horrible fluorescent lighting give everything in here an odd green glow, and there is clearly no regular cleaning schedule for the restrooms.
And don’t get me started on the floors. It’s like walking on the sticky side of duct tape.
“What are you waiting for?” She rounds her mouth, squinting one eye at the trembling tequila shot I’m holding a few inches in front of my lips.
“Christmas?” I suggest, screwing up my mouth on an unsteady exhale.
“Well, Santa’s coming down your chimney right now.
” She smiles, easing the glass toward my lips.
“Lick, swallow, suck,” she says on a snort.
“That’s not always the right order, but with tequila it is.
You’re the one who wanted a reckless summer before we start adulting for real next year. Don’t pussy out on me now.”
She tosses a wink at the two ruddy-looking farmers sitting at the table next to us, as I shake my head, looking up at the bowing, water-stained ceiling tile above our table.
She’s right, I did ask her to join me in one last frivolous choice before we head in our different directions this September.
That choice turned out to be Camp WanderLust, a wilderness adventure park in the wilds of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where she’s been a counselor since our freshman year at Michigan State.
She said it’s been taken over by some new high-adrenaline adventure type, and this will be the last summer for kids to attend. There was some nostalgia there for her, so I signed on, making her promise me she would sweep my cabin twice a day for spiders.
Besides, getting as far away from my ex as possible in a place with limited to no cell service made Dolly’s proposition more appealing.
Still, I’m a fish out of water here, and I haven’t even gotten to the camp yet. The only stars I’ve ever slept under are the ones my nightlight used to project on my ceiling when I was a little girl, and my idea of roughing it is staying in a three-star hotel with no room service.
And I know there will be spiders but Dolly can talk me into almost anything.
Lick, swallow, suck, I repeat in my head, doing my best to emotionally prepare for my first tequila shot.
I do a mental countdown, 3, 2, 1, curl my toes inside my cowboy boots, take a swipe of the salt from my hand with my tongue, and go.
I immediately know this is going to be a night to remember.
Or forget.
Holy shit.
My gag reflex kicks in, nearly expelling the shot all over Dolly’s black AC/DC tank top before she shoves the slice of lime between my bared teeth.
“Suck!” she yells, delivering a smile to the farmers again, who haven’t taken their eyes off her since we sat down.
I do as I’m told, desperate for anything to replace the taste of the poison in my mouth, as sweat breaks on my forehead and my upper lip, while a wave of heat cascades and prickles over my skin.
“Oh, my gawd,” I choke out through the burning in my throat, fumbling my attempt to slam the shot glass onto the table like she did. It clicks against the laminate in a sad roll onto its side spinning toward the edge, where Dolly catches it on a laugh.
“Not sure I’m cut out for a reckless summer after all,” I hiss, as the liquor reaches my stomach, and bile tickles the back of my throat.
How am I here? I didn’t even own a backpack or a pair of hiking boots before last week.
I like manicures and lash extensions and body glitter.
Don’t get me wrong. I respect the boho, quirky, ‘I just never fit in’ girls and the darker emo version of such as much as I support the Botox, IG, bikini wax crowd. I’m an equal opportunity queen supporter.
You do you, I’ll do me and may we never disagree.
“You did good, girl.” Dolly rubs my back as I drop my head between my legs like they teach you to do when you think you’re going to pass out.
“I almost threw up all over you,” I mumble to the floor, trying to distract myself by counting the blobs of gum flattened on the sticky black linoleum.
Blood rushes through my ears, into my head, warming my cheeks as my liver sucks up the alcohol, making the world wavy around the edges.
Just as I’m starting to feel pleasantly woozy, dread returns, as my Dolly shouts, “Who wants to buy us two more?!”
This little honky-tonk bar erupts with excited male voices, as my stomach lurches, and I grip the edge of the high top, pulling myself upward. Walking on the wild side with Dolly is nothing new. You know that friend you always seem to be with when trouble comes calling?
Yeah, that’s Dolly.
But for all her craziness and tough love, she has a gooey soft center and is my ride or die, one hundred percent.
We met in kindergarten when Bobby Malloy was teasing me about my Hello Kitty backpack with matching shoes and lunchbox.
She showed up in her black combat boots and Slenderman t-shirt and took him down with one punch, and we’ve been yin and yang ever since.
Willie Nelson’s slow melodic drawl streams from the ancient jukebox on the side wall.
An older couple probably close to eighty, wearing matching polyester baby-blue wranglers and plaid snap-up shirts, spin and side-step on the small dance floor, alongside a handful of thirty-something women holding each other up, eyes glazed, with the one in the center wearing an “I’m the bride, again” satin sash.
The drive up to Ompotomic took twelve hours, six am to six pm, and when I got here, I crashed before the sound of Dolly banging on the door to my room at the bed and breakfast woke me from a dead sleep.
The Black Swan B & B is the best this town can manage, which isn’t saying much, but for one last night of luxury it’s better than nothing.
The room was a pleasant enough surprise, with a squishy soft queen-sized bed, a bathroom with one of those white cast iron clawfoot tubs, and a good view of the wooded mountains that will be my home for the summer.
Plus, nary a spider web was found even under the bed. And, trust me, I checked.
Dolly knows the town well from her years at the camp and she told me there’s only one place where a couple of girls could kick back and have a little memorable fun.
And that’s how we ended up at One Horse Earl’s, dressed like cowgirl strippers. Dolly can talk me into almost anything. Including the most uncomfortable pair of Daisy Dukes ever created.
Every head turned when we walked in. I wanted to go hide in the corner, but instead Dolly draped her arm around my shoulders and sashayed us to a table in the center of the room under a spotlight that should be pointing toward the dance floor but surely got knocked off-kilter in some chair throwing brawl.
But, for all my uptight reticence, and the foul-tasting shot, I am having fun. Letting loose in a town where you know no one, and anyone you might get to know you’ll never see again, has a certain freeing effect I hadn’t expected.
“Here you go.” The smiling waitress nods toward a couple guys slugging back long necks at the bar as she slides two whipped cream covered shots in front of us.
Outside of some White Claw and overpriced craft beer on occasion, I’m not much of a drinker, but seems tonight that’s going to change.
Dolly nods, holding up one of the shots to our benefactors. One of them nods in return, clearly eye fucking her from across the room, while his friend with a clean-shaven head and dirty t-shirt looks away, more annoyed than interested.
“You get first dibs.” Dolly tosses back the shot, while I opt for a fake first taste, as my brain starts to buzz. “Why wait? This place has got v-card punchers of all shapes and sizes, ready and willing to serve. You know what I say, the best way to get over an ex is to get on top of someone new.”
“God, no. Not tonight.” I shake my head, blowing my long bangs from my cheek, as Dolly tips the bottom of my shot glass upward.
With a hard swallow and a swipe of my hand over my mouth, I take in the selection of men in the small space.
I push the toes of my…well, Dolly’s…cowboy boots together, along with my knees, wondering if my summer goal of losing my virginity is such a good idea after all.
The night before I left my parents’ house in Bloomfield for our camp adventure, I spent the night bingeing on rice crispy treats and Red Vines, watching all the classic summer virginity losing movies I could find.
My mom always told me she wanted to be Kristy McNichol or Tatum O’Neal when she was a teenager. Over the years, she made me watch The Bad News Bears a hundred times and Little Darlings a hundred more.
Now, here I am, a twenty-one-year-old virgin about to play out her own summer camp cherry-popping story, but from what I can tell, there’s no Matt Dillon in this crowd.
It’s not that I’m disinterested in sex. I have…urges.
My ex-boyfriend—slash implied fiancé—Greg would probably beg to differ on that, but I trusted my gut thank goodness, and after I found out he was skimming my bank account to support his CS’GO addiction, I found the courage to get off that ride.