Chapter 2
Is He Hot?
The day after Ahrun’s hook-up with Jamie, I avoided him, forgoing our usual lunch table to sit with Babs and Shazzer. The talk at the table was of the mysterious Joshua. According to Babs (who always seemed the hotbed of gossip), this would be his third year at camp and he had some things to take care of back home and couldn’t arrive with the rest of us for training.
“But is he hot?” I asked Babs, glancing over at Ahrun’s table. Ahrun gave me a sad little smile and raised his chocolate milk in salute. I ignored him.
Babs frowned. “The girls who know him didn’t exactly mention his attractiveness rating.”
“That means he’s not hot.” Shazzer said with finality.
That night I had trouble falling asleep. Everything, from my sleeping bag to my pj’s, felt damp. I tried flipping my pillow to the cool side, but even that felt wet, and I could just picture what the humidity would do to my hair in the morning. It wasn’t that I was necessarily upset about Ahrun hooking up with Jamie. It was that I was hoping for more from this summer job—it had started off so promising. And now all the guys at camp were either taken, taken but still open to cheating, or not my type. The surrounding room was filled with the sounds of my coworkers’ snoring. I flipped my pillow again. I miss air conditioning was my last thought before I fell into a fitful sleep.
At lunch on Sunday—I slept in and missed breakfast—Ahrun deigned to join our table again.
“Do you want a chocolate milk?” he asked, rising from the table.
“I’m not thirsty,” I told him.
He shrugged and sat back down.
“Ferg,” Shazzer said as she dug into a salad.
“Yes, Shazz?” he replied, his eyes opened wide, the picture of innocence.
He really is good-looking, I thought, noticing he had a touch of freckles sprinkled underneath those baby blue eyes. Though he’s still too short for my taste.
“I heard you hooked up with Katie last night.” Shazzer stuck a forkful of salad into her mouth and chewed, her eyes on the Irishman.
Ferg started cutting his meat. “So?”
“Don’t you have a girlfriend back home?” I tried to keep my tone light and not accusatory. I focused on Ferg but I could feel Ahrun’s eyes on me.
“So?” he repeated.
“Is Katie your type?” Shazzer asked. I couldn’t help glancing over at Katie’s table. I studied the back of her head, which was facing us. She was broad, but not overweight, not overly tall but tall enough to tower over Ferg. Her short hair was cut at an angle in the front and the lower part was shaved. All in all, she was a decent looking girl, although Ahrun claimed that she was quite demanding as a boss. I could condole since she often acted like she was in charge of all of us, not just the lifeguards.
Ferg pointed his fork at Shazzer and I. “Ever heard of camp goggles?”
I looked over at Ahrun. He was pushing his food around his plate. “No,” I replied.
“But you’ve heard of beer goggles.” Ferg slurped his water. “Like when you get drunk and hook up with a girl you’d never talk to sober?”
“That’s terrible,” Shazzer replied as Ahrun got up, leaving his tray on the table.
“I’m not saying whether it’s right or wrong, I’m just saying it’s a fact of life. Camp goggles are like that: you’re stuck with the same people all summer, and you end up hooking up with people that you wouldn’t in the real world. Trust me, I’ve been here for three years and I know how it works. If you don’t get new blood every summer, it can get a little incestual.”
“Gross,” Shazzer replied as I added, “Ew.”
Ferg shrugged. “Incest is best if kept in the family.”
“They should rename it ‘Camp Cesspool’,” Shazz offered.
Ahrun returned brandishing a white milk. “They were out of chocolate,” he stated nonchalantly. I was annoyed that he acted as innocent as Ferg about their hook-ups. I wonder what their significant others back home would think if they knew what had transpired last weekend. Cheating was still cheating, even if you’re on a different continent. Not that I would know.
I felt a movement under the table as Ferg looked up. “Katie’s coming over here,” Ahrun murmured under his breath. He must have kicked him under the table.
“Well guys, this conversation has been stimulating up till now, but I’ve gotta go.” Ferg picked up his tray and headed toward the garbage can.
“Hey, Tammy, did you have good dreams last night?” Katie asked, sitting down in Ferg’s chair.
So much for camp goggles. It seemed like Ferg was deliberately avoiding Katie. “Not really. I didn’t sleep well at all,”
“Well, it sure sounded like you did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“You totally moan in your sleep,” Katie replied.
“Moan?”
“Moan, like you’re in the middle of an orgasm.”
I could feel my face heat up. “No, I don’t.”
“Actually, you do, Tammy,” Shazzer cut in.
I shot her a dirty look. Jane had been my roommate for two years, and she never said anything about my moaning. Neither had Linda, my freshman year roommate, or my twin sister, for that matter, not that we had ever shared a room. And Corrie would have been the first person to throw something potentially embarrassing at me.
Ahrun began to laugh. “Hey, Ferg,” he called across the cafeteria. “Tammy has wet dreams!”
“Shut-up!” I commanded, wishing I had an unopened chocolate milk to throw at him.
That evening we were having an all-camp meeting in the assembly hall when the mysterious Joshua walked in. He took a seat near the cabin door, away from everyone else. I pretended to be interested in what Denny was telling us as I peeked at him. He had dark hair, and a slight frame that was clad in a white shirt and khaki pants. Oh, great. I had made it a point to avoid guys in button-downs ever since Dallas. It also appeared that Joshua hadn’t shaved in a while—his frowning visage was covered by stubble. Although I supposed the pissy look on his face could have been contributed to jet-lag, I couldn’t say I was immediately overcome with love. Shazzer was right, I sighed to myself. Not so hot. There goes my quest for summer love.
After the meeting, we chose to spend our last night of freedom in the staff cabin, playing Truth or Dare again. Although Joshua claimed that he was in, he kept to himself in a corner of the cabin and didn’t talk to anyone. I felt like joining him. Sometimes the dares could get kind of raunchy: Babs already had to flash Rob, the eighteen-year-old, and Devon, another male counselor, had to lick Mal’s face.
Shazzer focused on Katie, the head lifeguard. “Truth or Dare?”
“Truth,” Katie answered.
“Who is your camp crush?”
Katie didn’t hesitate in answering, “Ferg.”
Ferg shifted his eyes to the rug as everyone in the room’s gaze focused on him. I hoped his sheepish look was due to his guilty conscious.
After a beat, Katie turned to me. “Tammy, your turn.”
Afraid that she was going to ask me who my crush was, or anything even more revealing, I replied, “Um, dare.”
“I dare you to lie on the floor and act like you are having an orgasm.”
Orgasm. Me… right. Nobody needed to know I was a 20-year-old virgin. Especially not Ahrun.
“What are you waiting for?” Ahrun demanded.
I stood up, doing my best to feign like it was not a big deal to fake an orgasm in a room full of near strangers. I laid down with my back on the floor. “Uhh.” I moaned. The room was silent and I could feel my face heat up. Part of me wanted to run for the hills—particularly the one that led back to my own cabin, but the other half was determined to complete my dare. “Oooh,” I tried, recalling the diner scene from When Harry Met Sally. I pictured myself in the middle of ecstasy with the man of my dreams and squirmed a bit on the floor. “Oh yeah,” I added for good measure.
“Lame!” Ahrun shouted. “Tammy you act like you’ve never had an orgasm in your life!” He and Ferg hooted.
“Yeah,” Katie agreed. “You’re more believable in your sleep.”
I sat up and glanced around the room. It seemed the aloof Joshua was the only in the room not laughing at me.
The next morning, as we were waiting for the mess hall to open, I pointedly ignored Ahrun and walked over to Babs and Joshua. They were talking about that teen movie, the one at band camp where the kids use their musical instruments for other, sexually charged activities. Apparently people from England think all Americans act like the characters from American Pie.
“Do you play an instrument?” Joshua asked Babs.
“My voice is my instrument,” she replied.
Joshua seemed unimpressed.
I decided to break into their conversation. “I played the flute for eight years.”
Joshua looked at me earnestly. “Did you ever…”
“No!” I replied adamantly. He shrugged and put headphones on, effectively ending the conversation.
Babs tilted her head at me. I raised my eyebrows in return. Just then, Alex the Russian unlocked the mess hall doors and we started shuffling in.
Babs tapped Joshua on the shoulder. He lifted one headphone away from his ear.
“Do you want to sit with us?” she asked.
“What?” He finally took off his headphones, pulling them down to his shoulders.
“She asked if you wanted to sit with us,” I reiterated.
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
Since this wasn’t Joshua’s first year at this camp, I would have imagined he’d want to catch up with Ferg and the other returning counselors. But Joshua got his food and then sat down across from me. I noticed that he had shaved last night and the bags under his eyes were gone. He wasn’t looking nearly as worse for wear as he did yesterday. In fact, he was actually attractive, if you consider skinny dark-haired boys with bushy eyebrows attractive. Like Morgan. And Dallas.
I got up to grab a white milk from the cooler (Ahrun must have already robbed all the chocolates that morning) and then sat down again. After a few minutes, I finally worked up the courage to ask Joshua if he ever heard the “Down” song.
“Yeah, of course. How do you know it?”
I told him about my trip to England that past January. I heard that song over there all the time, but I’d yet to hear it here in the US. It seemed to me that Joshua would have rather put his headphones back on than carry on the conversation. Oh well, I tried.
Instead of having kid campers that first week, we had senior citizens, as in old people who spend a week at camp to reminisce about being young again. I was in charge of Myra and James—an African American couple who immediately informed me that they’d been married for 38 years—and Eloise, a woman of mixed origin and undetermined age. The first morning I met them, I enthusiastically told them we were scheduled for Arts and Crafts that morning.
“Thanks for letting us know, Tammy,” James replied. “We’ve got an appointment on the porch of the main cabin, though.”
I quickly realized that my senior charges wouldn’t require a great deal of looking after. The pattern remained true for most of the rest of the week: they decided to forgo canoeing and making paper butterflies to sit on the porch of their cabins and gossip with each other. But at least, for that week, the camp staff had a lot of free time.
One of Joshua’s charges for the week, George, organized a volleyball tournament on Monday night. I felt a little on display as the rest of the seniors chose to spectate and not participate. Thankfully, George assigned us to teams instead of having captains pick who they want—which would have been a scenario straight out of my nightmares. Needless to say, I’d never been very sporty and was always the last to get picked in gym class. Babs, Katie, Serge and Joshua were on the same team as me, with Ahrun, Ferg, Jessie, Shazzer and Alex as our competition. As Joshua served, I felt the ball whiz past my ear a little too close for comfort.
“Sorry, Tamara,” he called out.
“What was that?” I glanced back at him, not sure if I’d heard right, given I was nearly knocked out by an errant volleyball.
He grinned at me. “Tamara. Tamara T. Tymes.”
“How do you know my real name?”
He shrugged his shoulders, still grinning. Was the reticent Joshua actually being playful?
“Game on!” Ahrun called pointedly. He looked from me to Joshua with narrowed eyes. I decided then and there that I would help bring Joshua out of his shell, if only to make Ahrun jealous.
“Nice shot,” I told Joshua after a particularly bad serve.
“Whatever,” he replied, raising his eyebrow up as he stared at my cleavage. When he turned away, I subtly pulled my tank top a little lower. He and I flirted the rest of the game, aiming the volleyball at each other and mocking every small flub we made. Our team lost the first three sets, to no one’s surprise.
“It was a good effort, there, Tammy,” Ahrun told me as we headed up to the staff lounge.
“Whatever,” I replied. “I know I suck.”
“That was such a great play, you had, though, Air-ron.” Jamie appeared on the other side of me. I slowed my pace so that they walked up the stairs together. Jamie laughed at something Ahrun said.
Damn him, I thought as I entered the cabin a few steps behind them. Jamie pronounced his name all wrong. I bet she couldn’t shoot a rubber band or make up clever double entendres for getting drunk. And she was gross, all skinny and no boobs. But then again, her red hair seemed to be a universally liked trait by my coworkers, regardless of their country of origin.
Joshua was already in the room, sitting by himself in a corner, as was his habit so far. I pulled up a folding chair next to him in an effort to take my mind off the fact that Ahrun and Jamie had claimed the couch.
“How’s it going?” I asked Joshua.
“Not bad. What’s up?” He met my glance.
“Your eyes are two different colors,” I said, taken aback. One eye hue was a beautiful soft blue, and the other was a deep brown.
“It’s genetic,” he replied. “Everyone calls me Dogboy.” The eyebrow above his blue eye rose. It was pierced, a small barbell going through his bushy brow.
I tried in vain to think of a fitting reply. Instead I blurted out, “Do you have a girlfriend?” I didn’t mean to be so bold, but at the same time I had been dreading the answer.
“I did have one, but we broke up for the summer.” His bicolored eyes searched mine for a reaction.
“Oh.” I played nonchalant by swatting at a nonexistent mosquito.
“You?”
“Nah. And I’m not really looking.” I tried to keep my voice cool and detached even as the thudding of my heart threatened to betray me.
“Oh yeah? This is my third year at camp. I know how these things work. Either you start going steady with someone, you’re already going steady and you cheat on them, or you just hook up a lot.”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t really seen anyone that I’d want to date. Or hook up with, for that matter.” I added defensively.
“Yeah,” he replied in agreement. I didn’t know whether to be offended or not. “Me, I like blondes. Curvy ones.”
I quickly took stock of my own hair, continuously being bleached by the sun, and voluptuous figure.
“But they have to have a certain quality about them. Like a special aura that you can’t explain. Confidence, I guess.” He looked directly into my eyes.
I had a feeling he was referring to me, but that just showed he didn’t know me at all—I had no confidence. So I changed the subject. “Can you get me a copy of the Down song?”
The rest of the week with our seniors continued in much the same fashion as that first day. The last night of camp, Thursday, was scheduled for the talent show followed by the “Senior Prom, 2000.” Again, the seniors seemed mostly disinterested in partaking in the activities, so it was up to the staff to come up with skits for the show. It was tradition for the girl counselors to perform the Electric Slide and we met Wednesday afternoon to practice.
“It’s been a little while. Can someone refresh my memory on how it goes?” Babs asked, unknowingly saving me from admitting that I’d never actually learned it.
“Yeah, it’s easy,” said Mallory, a short, blonde-haired girl, before she hit the button on a boombox. “My sorority does it every year.”
“Mine too!” Jamie squealed.
“So lame,” Shazzer whispered to me. “I take it you’re not in a sorority either?”
“No, my school’s too small to even have them,” I told her as I followed Mal’s lead. Step, cross, step, together. Thankfully, it really was easy.
After we’d run through it a few times, Katie stated that we’d all need to wear black skirts and blank tank tops for the show.
Reluctantly, I raised my hand. “I don’t have a black skirt.”
“You can borrow one of mine,” Mal chirped. “We’re probably about the same size.”
Mal’s skirt was really short. I kept tugging at the bottom of it as I walked up the hill to the mess hall. When I wasn’t readjusting my hemline, I was hauling up the straps of the only black tank I had: a spaghetti-strapped camisole.
“Your outfit looks good, quit messing with it,” Shazzer told me. Easy for her to say in her pencil skirt and thick-strapped tank.
“Between that and these heels, I’m going to fall on my face.”
“You will not,” she said firmly.
“Man, I could use a cigarette right now,” I replied.
“You smoke?”
“Sometimes,” I told her. “Mostly if I’ve been drinking, but every once in a while, when I’m not.”
“Me too!” she exclaimed. “I know they don’t let us smoke on campus, but I have a car. Let’s try to take breaks together from now on, and we can go for a drive and cigarette at the same time.”
“Deal,” I told her, happy to have a smoke buddy again.
“Whoa, Tammy,” Ahrun said when we entered the cafeteria.
“What?”
He eyed my outfit. “Nothing,” he replied. Although I gave him a dirty look, my inner thoughts echoed his leering grin: the white tank and red shorts he was wearing showed off his well-sculpted body.
“Is that supposed to be a costume?” I asked.
“Yeah. Somehow Ferg roped me into being a back-up dancer tonight.”
“Ahrun!” Alex, the Russian cafeteria worker, called. He was already on the make-shift stage, which was really just the corner of the mess hall sans the usual table and chairs.
Ahrun took his place on the other side of the stage from Alex just before the lights dimmed and “Proud Mary” began playing. Alex and Ahrun slowly twirled their arms as Tina Turner’s soothing voice rolled on the river. As the music sped up, a mocha-skinned woman with long hair appeared, gyrating across the stage.
“Is that… Devon?” Devon was a four-year veteran of the camp.
“Yeah,” Babs whispered across Shazzer. “You didn’t know he dressed in drag?”
“No.” I watched as the normally quiet Devon worked his magic, doing a perfect imitation of Tina, swinging long hair everywhere. “He’s beautiful.”
“Love that wig,” Shazzer agreed. Ahrun and Alex, now relegated to back-up dancing, seemed relieved to have the attention taken off of them. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to top that.”
After the talent show—in which I thankfully did not make a fool of myself—the Prom officially began. Most of the seniors went back to their cabins, leaving the counselors to accidentally do their best imitation of a junior high school dance: boys on one side of the room, girls on the other. Ferg and Ahrun sat at the DJ table while Joshua stood behind them. Ahrun had changed into a shirt and tie and Ferg was clad in similar attire. Joshua wore a white button-down over khaki pants.
“C’mon, let’s get this party started!” Mal called. She grabbed my arm to drag me to the center of the mess hall.
“I’m better with alcohol,” I grumbled as I pulled Babs with me, who took hold of Shazzer’s arm. Salt N’ Pepa’s “Push It” began playing. I imitated Mal, who put her arms out almost chicken-dance style, but instead of flapping them, she held her arms straight and then moved them away from her body. The rest of us mimicked her, and even Alex joined us in our gyrations. He bent down so that his torso was level with my thighs, his knees almost touching the floor, still mimicking our arm movements. I stopped moving because I didn’t want to bump into him.
Still holding my elbows out at an unnatural angle, I glanced over at the guys standing next to the DJ table. Ahrun gave me a knowing smile and whispered something in Ferg’s ear. Alex was down near my ankles when Meatloaf began to play over the loudspeaker. The Russian slowly scooped himself up and asked if I wanted to dance. I shrugged and his arms immediately went around my shoulders. The rest of the girls exited the dance floor, leaving me and Alex out there alone, with all of our coworkers watching us. I shot Shazzer the universal help me look. She consented by dragging Babs out onto the floor. Babs gestured with her head over to the DJ booth, but all the guys pretended to be more interested in the music selection than trying to dance with us. Just like in junior high.
My married charges, Myra and James, appeared on the dance floor. I peeked at them over Alex’s shoulder. James wrapped his arms around Myra, and an involuntary smile came to my face. They looked so sweet together. The momentary elation became a pit of sadness when I realized that, besides the Russian, I’d never found anyone to be with for one song, let alone have a dance partner for the rest of my life. The song finally ended and I thanked Alex before heading over to the refreshment table to pour myself some punch, wishing I had something to spike it with. Ahrun put another fast song on, and Devon, still clad in his wig, was now the center of attention on the dance floor.
Joshua appeared beside me. He dunked the ladle in the bowl of punch and then spooned it into a plastic cup. I could see I was on his blue-eyed side.
“Nice dancing,” he told me.
“Did you enjoy it? Must be nice sitting on the sidelines, watching everyone else make a fool of themselves,” I replied.
“I wasn’t watching everyone making a fool of themselves. Only you.”
I didn’t know if that remark was because there was hardly anyone else on the dance floor, or if it meant his eyes were only on me. “Do you ever go out there?”
Joshua took a sip of punch. “Only after several drinks. The kind with alcohol.”
“Yeah, I figured that.” At the DJ table, Eloise, my charge dressed in a leopard pantsuit, was whispering in Ahrun’s ear. I’d barely interacted with her all week and spotted the opportunity to have a conversation with her. Not to mention be near Ahrun at the same time.
“Eloise,” I said as I approached.
“Tamara,” she declared with a heavy accent. She greeted me with a kiss on each cheek. “There’s so many cute gentlemen here. Which one is your beau?” She cast a sidelong glance at Ahrun.
I cleared my throat. “Actually—”
“Tammy, you have chosen someone, haven’t you? When I was a counselor here, over fifty years ago, I had my selection of boyfriends.” She placed both hands at the bottom of my hair and flipped it forward. “A girl of your looks should never be wanting.”
As with Shazzer a few nights ago, my first thought was… If only she knew.
“The Locomotion” started playing. Devon pulled Eloise onto the dance floor and put his hands behind her, forming a train. They made a lap as I held my cup in salute to Eloise, who now had several other girls behind her. Eloise narrowed her eyes at me before tilting her head toward the back of the train. I grabbed onto Katie and became the caboose. As we turned, I could feel someone’s arms around my waist. I glanced behind me, hoping it wasn’t Alex. It wasn’t. It was Joshua.
As the seniors packed up the next morning, I went to the Arts and Crafts cabin to see if Shazzer was around. The cabin was unoccupied, but I heard a noise in the stockroom where Shazz kept the extra construction paper and crayons. I almost called out her name when I heard a distinct sigh. It was no When Harry met Sally, but it was definitely someone in the throes of sex. I fled from the cabin, assuming it was either Ferg and Kim, or worse yet, Jamie and Ahrun. In my distracted haste, I nearly bumped in Joshua, who was carrying a couple of bags and towing a suitcase up the hill.
“Tammy?” he asked.
I tried to nonchalantly wipe my hot face with the back of my hand. “Leaving so soon?” I nodded toward his baggage before glancing back at the Arts and Crafts cabin.
“These are George’s. He asked me to bring them up for him.”
“Do you know where he is?” I asked, grateful for the distraction. “I wanted to say goodbye.”
Joshua looked up, and I turned to see Eloise and George exit the Arts and Crafts cabin. Eloise’s normally perfect updo was tousled and George’s shirt was half-tucked in, half not. Joshua waved back at them as they headed down the path in the opposite direction of us. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think they had gotten into more than crafts in that cabin,” Joshua stated.
“They did!” I burst out as it occurred to me. “I heard someone having sex in there, that’s why I was running out.” Even the senior citizens were getting more play than me that summer.
Joshua set down the bags and grinned at me. “I still don’t know if I believe you.”
I was pleased to have a secret between the two of us. “You don’t have to believe me. I think that speaks enough for itself.” I pointed to the front pocket of the bag, which had opened a bit, revealing a square piece of plastic. I knew enough that it was the wrapper of a condom.
“No way,” Joshua said.
“Told you!” I threw back over my shoulder as I flounced off. I risked one glimpse behind me when I reached the top of the hill. Joshua’s gaze was focused on the retreating George and Eloise. I quickly turned around again as his head swiveled in my direction.