Chapter Twelve

twelve

Jessie

It's week two, and the main event is the Great Chickawah Scavenger Hunt. Each cabin will work together to follow the clues, and the winner gets a prize—usually an ice cream party. This year, it'll be a cocktail party with appetizers and drinks created by Cooper. The campers seem excited, but it's a lot of work for me to set up, since the clues require the use of a compass and a map. We'll see how many of them remember the orienteering skills Nathaniel taught them all those years ago.

As I walk through camp, I say hi to a group playing kickball on the lawn, then head toward the lake, where another group is lounging on the swim dock.

"Hey, Jessie!" one man shouts, waving.

I smile and wave back. "Hi, Mike! How's it going?"

"Awesome!"

I try my best to learn every camper's name on the first day. It's more difficult with a new group each week, but it's important that they feel recognized as individuals.

At the north edge of camp, I place the second clue—the first one will be given to each cabin leader tomorrow morning—and use my compass and map to figure out what direction to head next. I count off my paces, place the third clue in a hollow stump, and continue. My earbuds are playing the Les Misérables tenth anniversary concert: Colm Wilkinson and Judy Kuhn from the original cast, plus the legendary Lea Salonga and my personal favorite Javert, Philip Quast (don't even get me started on the travesty of Russell Crowe in the film version).

Then I spot Hillary sitting on the small hill overlooking the camp, scribbling in her notebook. Maybe brainstorming more ideas to make the camp profitable? At first, I was overwhelmed by all the potential changes she suggested. But while she was in town with Cooper, I reminded myself why I'm doing this: for Dot and Mr. Billy. When Hillary returned, I sat her down and said I was ready to listen.

Already this week, we've started offering private sailing lessons, custom picnic packages, and a singles mixer. I can't stop imagining what it'll be like to surprise Dot and Mr. Billy with an unexpected bonus on the last day.

"Hey, Hillary!" I call, taking out my earbuds and walking toward her.

She startles and holds the notebook to her chest. "Oh, hi, Jess. How's it going?"

"Good. Just working on the scavenger hunt," I say, motioning to my compass.

Her eyes light up. "I always loved that!"

"We were good at it," I say, smiling.

"Well, you were. Do you remember the year Tommy Flanagan got lost?"

"Oh yeah. He was bragging about his orienteering skills all week—"

"But then he ended up at the totally wrong end of camp," Hillary cuts in.

"And no one found him until morning—"

"And he kept saying—"

Together, we wail: "My compass! It's broooooken!"

We descend into a fit of laughter that reminds me of the teenage hilarity you leave behind when you enter adulthood. Hillary and I were always getting reprimanded for laughing during serious activities like flag ceremony—all I had to do was catch her eye and we'd crack up.

"Now that I think about it," Hillary says, "it would be terrifying to be lost in the woods overnight. Poor kid."

"Yeah, Nathaniel and Lola must have been beside themselves. Safety, safety, safety was drilled into our heads during counselor training."

Hillary's smile falters, and I wince, then clear my throat. "What are you up to?"

"Just sketching," she says, showing me the page—a pencil drawing of the scene below us: rolling hills, pine trees, lake.

"I love that you still do this!" I say, smiling.

She hesitates. "Well, I don't. Not in years, I mean."

"Really? How come?" I'm surprised; when we were kids, she was always drawing something in her sketchbook or creating incredible Sharpie tattoos for the girls in our cabin.

"At some point you have to grow up," she says, with a self-deprecating shrug. "Stop spending time on things that don't move your life forward, as my dad would say."

Her words sting. As if I haven't grown up, moved forward. I know that's not what she means—she's talking about herself, not me—but I had my own conversation with my mom yesterday. She kept asking me if I was going to get a "real job" now that the camp is closing. Neither of my parents has ever understood how much this job means to me. That it's not just a job—it's my identity.

But as Dot would say, my parents aren't camp people. They don't get it.

"Uh, yeah," I say stiffly. "I'll let you get back to it."

"You should put the final clue in that big maple tree down by the stream," Hillary says.

"The one we used to climb?"

She nods. "Put it up high. It'll make it more fun."

—

I continue setting clues until I arrive at the last one, which tells the group that finds it that they're the winners. Holding it in my hand, I stare up at the maple tree, which has grown since the last time Hillary and I climbed it.

Grabbing the lowest branch, I heave myself up. It's been a while since I've climbed a tree, and I scrape my knee and palms on the rough bark. But eventually I get to a good spot and tie the final clue to a branch.

Before climbing down, I sit on a thick limb and look out at the lake's shining blue waters to the east and the green roofs of the cabins peeking through the trees to the south. The wind carries the faint sound of laughter and conversation.

My mom's words come back to me: Are you going to get a real job now?

My chest constricts. What's more real than waking up before sunrise to make fifteen dozen pancakes for breakfast because the cook isn't feeling well? Or taking a group of campers out on a clear night to show them the constellations? Fixing a broken tent in the middle of a rainstorm during our annual backpacking trip is real. Wiping the eyes of a frightened new camper after a night of ghost stories around the fire is real. Calling an anxious parent to reassure them that their child is doing just fine is real.

And when it ends, a huge part of me will go with it.

Tears fill my eyes as memories roll through me. I'm still sniffling when I hear a sound below and look down.

It's Luke and his dog, out on a walk.

I freeze, hardly daring to breathe, hoping he'll leave without noticing me. Over the past few days, he's been slightly more sociable—eating his meals in the dining hall, though he doesn't talk to anyone—but he's hardly a paragon of compassion.

He's passing beneath me when a breeze rustles the leaves. His dog looks up—maybe she caught a whiff of my scent?—and gives a soft, surprised bark, which makes Luke look up, too.

"What the…?" he says, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.

"Hi," I say, giving a sheepish wave.

"Are you all right?"

I force a bright smile and wipe my damp cheeks. "I'm great! Just hiding something in the tree."

"As one does."

"It's for the scavenger hunt tomorrow."

"Okay."

I expect him to walk away—in fact, I kind of wish he would, since I'm sure he can tell I've been crying. But he shows no sign of leaving, so I begin my descent. I'm clumsier going down than up, especially with an audience, and my cheeks warm with embarrassment.

When I'm six or seven feet from the ground, my boot slips, and I gasp. But Luke is right there, his shoulder coming under my butt, his hands gripping my thighs. The contact of his palms on my bare skin feels like static electricity.

"Easy there," he says, his voice muffled.

I give an awkward laugh. "Thanks. I got it now."

He backs away, releasing his grip on my thighs, and I lower myself to the ground. Luke's dog comes over to me, so I go down on one knee to pet her, which conveniently lets me delay making eye contact with Luke. My thighs are still tingling from where he touched me; I don't remember the last time I shaved my legs, and I hope he didn't notice the fuzz. Not to mention the fact that he had my entire weight resting on his shoulder and I'm a "solid gal," as Nick once said.

"How long have you had her?" I ask Luke. Scout is so sweet, with her gentle brown eyes.

"Since she was around two years old," he says. "She was my uncle's, but he…"

He pauses, and I look up. His blue eyes meet mine for a half second before darting away.

"He died. Someone needed to take the dog, so—yeah. It was hard on her, losing him."

"That was good of you," I say, straightening up. "I'm sorry about your uncle, though."

He scratches at the light stubble on his jaw, like he'd rather not be talking about this. "Yeah, well. It is what it is. You heading back to camp?"

I nod, and we start walking together, Scout trailing after us.

"Is she okay?" I ask Luke after a minute or so, remembering how he had to help her up the stairs to his cabin. "Seems like walking is difficult for her."

"Arthritis in her hips," he says. "The vet said she could do a hip replacement, but with her being so old, it didn't seem fair to put her through it."

"That makes sense," I say.

We fall silent again, but it's a comfortable silence, which surprises me. Luke, aka William Lucas Duncan, aka The Man, is being…not awful.

The afternoon sunlight filters through the trees, and the leaves crunch softly beneath our feet. I sneak a glance at Luke, remembering how Lola said he looked like a young Paul Newman, how Nathaniel called him Cool Hand Luke. Yes, there's a resemblance—not just the striking blue eyes, but the straight nose, the full lips, the hint of a dimple in his chin. His forehead is creased, and there's a deep frown line between his eyebrows. But there are also laugh lines around his eyes, which means he must smile sometimes, even if I haven't seen it.

Scout comes up to us with a stick in her mouth, and I look away from Luke, hoping he didn't notice me staring.

"No, Scout, I'm sorry," Luke says quietly to her, then to me: "She loves playing fetch, but running isn't good for her hips. All she can manage are slow walks."

But she keeps pleading with those liquid brown eyes, and Luke eventually sighs and takes the stick.

"Just a little," he says, and tosses it a few feet away. Scout lumbers after it, then trots back to Luke, the stick in her mouth again, her tail wagging proudly.

We continue walking, and every so often, Luke tosses the stick for Scout.

"How's the writing going?" I ask.

I've seen him when I've walked by his cabin—usually out on the porch with his laptop, scowling like he wants to reach through the screen and strangle someone.

He grimaces. "Not great."

"Really? How come?"

"My publisher is going to drop me after this book," he says. He throws the stick again for Scout. "Even if it does well, which I'm sure it won't, because they aren't going to put any money into advertising it. Sometimes it feels like there's no point in finishing. I thought about trying to get out of the contract, but this may be the last book I ever get paid to write, so I don't want to just give up."

I'm taken aback—not only by what he said, which explains his gloomy attitude and desperate need for solitude this summer, but because this is the most I've heard him speak since he arrived.

"That's…wow. A lot."

He gives a short, grim laugh. "Yeah."

"Why would your publisher drop you? I had the impression you were, like, this super-successful big-time author. I remember Nathaniel and Lola being so proud when they heard about your book deal."

He shrugs. "I did get a good-sized deal, yeah. Five hundred grand total, for the three books."

"Damn," I say, impressed. It's a sum of money I can hardly imagine.

"Except my first book bombed. Only sold around ten thousand copies."

"Ten thousand seems like a lot to me," I say.

"It would've been okay if they'd given me fifty thousand or something, but those numbers didn't come close to justifying the advance, not to mention what they spent on publicity and marketing. Because of that, they didn't advertise the second book at all. It did even worse—sold less than a thousand copies."

I go silent. Even though I know nothing about publishing, it's clear that isn't good.

Scout returns with the stick, but this time Luke doesn't toss it. Instead, he takes a leash from his pocket and attaches it to her collar—we're getting closer to camp, and I'm guessing this is because I made such a big deal about not letting her bother the other campers.

"Anyway," he says, "now I'm stuck writing the third book in a series no one cares about, knowing my career is ending. I'm struggling to get any words down, and what I do manage to write is just…blah. It's due after Labor Day, and every day feels like it brings me one step closer to my execution." He shakes his head. "Sorry, I'm being melodramatic. Most writers never get published, right? I'm glad I got a shot at it, at least."

"We have something in common, then," I say. "For both of us, this is our last summer doing what we love. Your last summer writing. My last here at camp. And it's not melodramatic. It does feel like walking to an execution. I know I'm not going to actually die—"

"But an essential part of you will," he finishes.

He holds my gaze, and something passes between us. A sense of solidarity. Like we see and understand each other.

"At least you got half a million bucks out of it, right?" I say.

His mouth twists in a sour frown. "Well, I lost most of the money."

I try to contain my shock. How do you lose that much? Does he have a gambling problem or something?

Beside me, his entire body has gone rigid, his jaw clamped tight, the line between his eyebrows so deep it looks carved from stone. Better not to ask for details.

"I'm sorry," I say instead, weakly.

He rolls his shoulders, releasing the tension. "Just another reason I need to finish the book. I don't get more of my advance until I turn it in."

We've almost reached his cabin, and I find myself slowing down. I'm not ready for our conversation to end. There's something intriguing about him—maybe because he's so closed off. He's like a locked door to a forbidden room; I'm dying to open it and look inside.

"What will you do after this book is finished?" I ask.

"Probably go back to teaching."

"You were a teacher?" I say, perking up. "What did you teach?"

"Junior high English."

I smile and motion to the dog. "Hence naming your dog after Scout Finch."

"My uncle named her," he says, "but yeah. We both loved that book."

Silence descends between us again as we walk up to the cabin and stop.

"Well," I say, "good luck with the writing."

"Good luck with the scavenger hunt," he says.

I expect him to go inside, but he leans against the stair railing and folds his arms, staring at the ground. His posture—the slump of his shoulders, the slope of his neck—reminds me of something.

He's like a lonely camper, the kind that isolate themselves because they feel out of place. Yes, my soft heart is coming into play again, but I can't help it. It goes against all my years in this job to walk away from someone like that.

So I blurt out, "Do you want to join a team? For the scavenger hunt?"

"I know where the final clue is," he reminds me, his lips twitching like he's holding in a smile.

"Oh yeah," I say, smacking my forehead. "But you're welcome to join any of the activities—oh! We have the camp musical next week. Would you like to help?"

"At what point in our interaction have I given you the impression that I'd like to be on a stage singing and dancing?"

I roll my eyes, but I'm secretly thrilled he's at least engaging in the conversation—it's a huge improvement over slamming the door in my face.

"I don't mean perform—we could use help with the writing."

"I'm behind in my own writing," he says, but there's not much weight behind his words. Almost like he wants me to talk him into coming.

"You need to take a break occasionally, right?"

"I suppose."

"Also! We're having a bonfire on Friday night—you should come."

He narrows his eyes. "Are you going to keep bugging me until I say yes to something?"

"Yes. You don't have to talk to anyone at the bonfire—just hang out and watch. Don't writers like observing people?" I'm pleading; I probably look like Scout when she wanted to play fetch. "Come on. I'll save you a seat."

He gives me a long look, his expression unreadable, and something warm unspools inside my chest. The deep groove between his eyebrows relaxes then, just a bit. "I'll think about it."

I grin triumphantly, taking that as a win, and say goodbye.

When I get a few yards down the path, I turn and look back. Scout is slowly making her way up the stairs to the cabin, Luke supporting her hind legs. But I swear there's a hint of a smile on his face.