Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet (9781940192567) (21 page)

I exhaled. Looking around, it was quite probable that Olive and I were the only sober people. “So what do you think?” she asked, waving toward the murky water, scores of naked students drinking, laughing, and dancing.

“It's something.”

“You'd be less conspicuous if you took your clothes off,” she observed. “Or at least dance. Just get out there and close your eyes.”

I looked to see if Cambridge had her eyes closed—maybe that was her secret—but she wasn't there anymore. A hollow drumbeat sounded. “Where'd Cambridge go?” I asked Olive. “She was dancing there a second ago.”

“I saw her too. With Glo.”

I scanned the line at the keg. “She's really messed up.”

“Messed up how?”

“She ate your brownies.”

Olive's dimples creased. “She what?”

“You know, your supplement.” I tried to say this as innocently as possible, but Olive knew Cambridge was not after a vitamin surge.

After my admission, Olive—sleek, small-breasted, and narrow-hipped—tensed. Everything about her was irate down to the metallic studs in her nipples. “Exactly how many brownies are we talking about?”

I noticed Cambridge finally. She was standing in the lake, black water up to her bellybutton, her large breasts skirting the water. She held something in her hands that, from my vantage point, looked like a toad. I approached her.

“What are you doing in the water?” I asked. “You shouldn't be swimming in your condition.”

“Relax,” she replied and gestured with the amphibian. “I'm a Mermaiden and even won in a regatta.” So now Cambridge was a mermaid. “Look!” she yelled. “He makes music.” She squeezed the toad and out squeaked a strangled call. Glo stood next to her. He looked skinny and barrel-chested next to voluptuous Cambridge, whose breasts, as far as breasts were concerned, truly were spectacular. “I hear it too,” said Glo. When he turned around, the moon illuminated his butt again, which was white and furry.

“Perhaps we are the only ones,” she replied.

Glo gawked at Cambridge like Tampa Bay had, only his field of vision concentrated on her chest region.

“I love the way you look,” he said to her breasts. “Turn around.”

Cambridge pirouetted while Olive inched closer. “I need to know how many brownies you ate, Tabitha,” said a suddenly serious Olive. “It's very important you tell me.”

Cambridge ignored her. “Take off your clothes, Baltimore.”

The water was now up to Olive's knees. “Tell me how many you had.”

“I'm thinking of a number,” Cambridge replied, “between one and twelve.”

“Eight!” guessed Glo.

“Exactly!”

Out of nowhere, Glo kissed Cambridge. He just slopped one on her, his tongue slipping in and out like a reptile's.

“Oh God,” said Olive, her voice tight with panic. “That's a toxic amount .I shouldn't have left them out. Why did I leave them out?”

I could see Olive clearly: the pink wheels of her nipples, the metal hoop in her bellybutton, and the parallel lines of her hips. She must have noticed the look on my face because she said, “Dammit! That's like three hundred dollars. You two owe me money.”

“Owe you? What's that supposed to mean? What's in those things anyway?”

“It's a cannabis mushroom graft. A hybrid plant I've been experimenting with.” She shook her head. “But you didn't hear that from me.”

“Will she be OK though?” I asked.

Olive shrugged. “She should be in six to eight hours.” We both looked at Cambridge, up to her neck in water, conversing with the toad. “She'll peak eventually, and when she does, you should keep an eye on her. Go to the hospital if she loses it.”

“Loses what?” I asked no one because Olive was gone—wanting to be as far from us as possible.

Back in the water, the toad had escaped Cambridge's grip, and she and Glo dove under to locate him. As I watched their heads dunking and resurfacing, carried by some current I failed to see, I found myself confronting an age-old SAT question.

Person X is wasted and up to her teeth in ocean. Person Y stares at Person X's breasts like flotation devices. As X and Y drift further and further downstream, how long until Person Z gets off her fat butt and intersects their downward vector?

38

SEASICK

AFTER AN HOUR or so, it was clear Cambridge was so altered she couldn't swim out of a teardrop. I probably should have followed her earlier, but I didn't want to be a buzzkill.

After about thirty people asked me why I insisted on staying clothed, varying my answers—scurvy, venereal disease, I really am naked, you are just high—I tried to convince myself Cambridge would be OK. Five leftover cups of beer helped. In no time at all, we could leave this party and make our escape.

Obviously we'd missed the Greyhound I was hoping to take, but I'm sure there were hostels or shelters in San Francisco where we could stay until the next bus. Certainly there were other eastbound vehicles. Trains! I'd completely forgotten about trains. Maybe Glo even had a car, and he could take us to a station.

All I needed to do now was gather Cambridge and head back to Olive's room. Sober her up a bit. The pizza would help with that. I sure hoped it'd still be there. I missed it. All those toppings crowded together, wondering what happened to us. Discs of pepperoni touching Canadian bacon, mushrooms, green peppers …

I was thinking about our forsaken thin crust pizza when I looked up and confronted Miss Marcia's eyes, blinking slowly at me, as if I were a hallucination. Miss Marcia, our Utopia counselor, wearing nothing but her freckles and Pacifica up to her knobby knees. Our eyes locked, and for a second, the moon, the party, even the pizza—everything disappeared. I was back in Utopia with her plastic clipboard, her penned notes on our files. Her breathy rasp on the power walk: “Faster girls, faster.''

She didn't say anything because she, in addition to the guy next to her, looked rather, well, completely blotto. They swayed in the water, pulled by more than a current—that much was clear. She had the vacant look of someone either coming out of or going under anesthesia. Just to be sure, though, I uttered two words that took them both by surprise.

“Say cheese!”

Hollywood's violet cell phone flashed, and Miss Marcia's chemical romance was captured forever. My counselor tilted her head and muttered something to her companion. I don't even think she registered what'd just happened. Either way, she could go find Hank or Belinda, tell them she happened to be at a party, eating psychedelic brownies when she saw me, but in her condition I doubted she was up for it.

Right after her photo op, our counselor turned away, her penny-colored hair falling behind her. She waded out further into the lake with her boy. Miss Marcia was gifting me with a little time.

Lots of people who were not Cambridge floated bareassed in the water with their fun noodles. I walked down the beach, tiny waves uncurling over my flip-flops, searching for her. In the distance, tucked inside the woods, I saw a cabin. I walked faster and faster, knowing instinctively Cambridge was inside of it.

It turned out to be more of a large shed with oars, paddles, life jackets, and other nautical accessories jammed into corners and shelves. Several canoes hung from hooks. In the middle of the floor, a campfire burned, and around it several students contemplated the time/space continuum. One cross-eyed party-goer strummed a mandolin and, next to her, sat Cambridge and Glo—inside a canoe. Cambridge was attempting to paddle the canoe across the cement floor.

“I'm a Mermaiden!” she cheered.

As if it weren't evident enough, when I edged closer, I could see how wonky Cambridge looked. Her eyes were vacant and spacey, even her dreads looked limp. She leaned backward into Glo, but not flirtatiously, more like she'd collapse if he moved. Glo clutched her hair and straightened her, but she swayed again and fell backward into his lap.

“Cambridge!” I yelled. She looked up, but not quickly and not even in my direction.

The mandolin stopped. “Bethany!” She tapped Glo. “It's Bethany.” Glo didn't look happy to see me. He didn't even look pleased Cambridge's head was in his groin again.

“This isn't fun anymore,” she said from his crotch. She slid from Glo's lap and landed hard on the bottom of the canoe. “Something's wrong.”

By the way she studied me, you could tell she was seeing triple.

This was what Olive had warned me about. She was peaking. Then she made a funny noise, crossed her eyes, and I knew what was coming. Seconds later, Cambridge turned a doomed shade of green and vomited all over the boat.

“Oops,” she said. “I think I'm seasick.”

Glo and his other cronies scampered away. Cambridge teetered over to her side, capsized, and barely missed her barf. Her head hit the floor. Then she threw up again and said, “This isn't great.”

Next, the smell. I tried to ignore it as I pulled her up, draped her across my shoulders, and stumbled outside. As soon as my feet hit the dirt, my strength evaporated, and she fell onto the ground. While she roiled on the grass, I confronted the horrid fact that the kegs and campfires and clothing mountain were a thousand miles away. There was no way I could schlep her there, but what other choice did I have? I tried again, but stopped when I heard her retch. She threw up again, her eyes tearing. When she finished, she trembled, looking helpless and small. “My heart feels funny,” she said, and touched a spot on her breast.

“Funny? What kind of funny?”

“Just off somehow.”

This wasn't what I wanted to hear. Calling on strength probably honed at fat camp, I dragged Cambridge through the sand back to the keg lines, trees, and into what had now become a full-on drug-riddled, intensely naked college party. Music thumped from the trees. Games of Beer Pong competed on picnic tables. Girls wiggled like go-go dancers, and apparently the best way to deliver alcohol involved a handstand and someone unplugging the keg tap in your mouth. If Miss Marcia was around, I didn't see her and, at that point, I didn't care. I carried Cambridge toward a circle of guys pounding drums straddled between their hairy legs. I dropped her directly in the center. “She ate too many brownies,” I said, breathing hard. “Please help me.”

As usual, no one even looked at me. I wrenched the curly hair of a drummer. “Look at her,” I said, so someone would. “She said her heart felt weird.”

Drummer boy puzzled for about one second, then lit a hookah. “She seems fine to me,” he said, talking through a huge inhalation. “She's just peaking.” Swwooooosh, he exhaled. “Relax.”

Everyone agreed with the stoner's assessment.

Except me.

Cambridge didn't look right. Her breathing was shallow, and every time I went to pull her up, she fell back down. I couldn't find Olive, and Glo was good as gone. I was so angry that when I said, “SOMEONE HELP ME!” it was loud. And I do mean LOUD. For a second, I was hopeful. No drumming. No strumming. Just my voice. “She's not peaking,” I said, my teeth clenched. “She needs help.”

Cambridge spit sand from her mouth. She flexed her fingers in front of her eyes like she was counting them. Still no one helped, and it was crystal-clear no one would.

I decided to drag her to the highway beyond the stadium, flag down an ambulance, or hitchhike to a hospital.

Pulling her still-naked body through the woods by her wrists, I made it as far as the stadium's turf—I still had to cross the damn field—when I decided I needed a new plan. My arms were weak. My legs felt like I'd done a billion squats, but I had no choice, I had to head back to campus—find an infirmary or something. When my fingers gave out from clenching her so tightly, I let her go and she landed face down in the field. I rolled her over, and she threw up. Again. Then her eyes drifted back in her head, and she made this choking sound. I tried to pick her up but wound up cursing her for being so heavy. This was a terrible time to wish for Google, but I couldn't help it. I wanted an Internet search, an app for drug interactions, slapped in her face. The first time, in an effort to wake her up. I was pissed. Pissed that she'd eaten all those brownies, livid that she was sick. My palm stung with the fact that this girl, my camp BFF, was dead weight. I screamed and dug my fingernails into her arms, pulling her up only to have her flop back down like a rag doll.

Get up. Get up. Get up.

You never know how you're going to react in a crisis, and if you told me I'd scrolled down the ICE contact on Hollywood's phone, I wouldn't have believed you. But that's exactly what I did. I located ICE and pushed send on the blinking lavender phone. I estimated the time to be about three o'clock in the morning.

“Hello,” said a titanic voice.

“This is Bethany Stern. I, um, well. I go to camp with—”

“Yes?” Why did I feel like I was talking to Oz? “Are you calling from my daughter's phone? You're the one who stole it. You've got a lot of ner—”

“I need help. My friend Cambridge ate mushroom pot brownies with grafted acid in them, and she won't move.” I realized I was sobbing. “Tell me what to do. Please. ”

ICE Daddy Home sighed. “Is she breathing?” he asked calmly. Maybe everyone woke up pleasantly in Hollywood. Perhaps dreams were sweeter there. “Bethany, is it? Bethany. Can you tell if your friend is breathing?”

Why I never thought to check was a mystery. I knelt down and closed Cambridge's nostrils. Maybe there was a more artful way to discover if someone was breathing, but this was the only one I knew. She made a wheezing sound, and her mouth opened wide.

“Yes.”

“Feel her pulse.”

“For what?”

“For a pulse.”

“I feel it.”

“Good. What is it?” he asked.

“It's there.”