Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet (9781940192567) (36 page)

Camp ended so soon. Gabe had finished his final project, as he was expected to do. Liliana was managing her diabetes. Cambridge had a tattoo and a headful of dreadlocks. And, except for one minor infraction, I managed to stay at Utopia for—give or take a day or two—eight weeks.

Now our last moments together could've been measured in hours, and still no one wanted to have a conversation about it. Cambridge went on oaring every morning. Liliana sewed like she'd never have to pack up the Singer Deluxe. Even now, in his truck, Gabe totally avoided the conversation and hopped out of his window, opened the door for me, and said, “Let's take a walk,” like nothing would change.

We wandered past the library and the gym, pointing out memories to each other. We held hands and ignored the mathematic certainty that Maryland and New Mexico were nowhere near each other. We sipped chai lattes with skim until we found ourselves by the lake. Trees criss-crossed above us, the wind sailed in and out of leaves. “Hey,” said Gabe, pointing at something wobbling on the water, “isn't that Tabitha?”

I was a little surprised to see her out there in the water, but there was no mistaking all that hair. She rowed Utopia's own Tampa Bay in a canoe. She must've broken into the boathouse and thieved the boat and oars. The couple was about forty strokes from where Gabe and I stood. I wanted to call out to her, but, at the last minute, I changed my mind. This turned out to be a good decision, because when Cambridge stood up on the boat's wooden seat, she happened to be naked. Full-frontal Tabitha Nelson. I guess she decided to take her bra off with Tampa Bay after all.

Beside me Gabe kept quiet—luckily. Maybe he was embarrassed. Maybe he didn't want to interrupt Tampa Bay's romantic gondola ride. I'd like to think that Gabe was quiet because he knew that this was how I wanted to remember Cambridge: naked, fierce, jumping off a boat into freezing water. Water splashed when Tampa Bay jumped in after her. The boat, now empty, bobbed on the surface. Cambridge dove under just as Tampa Bay reached for her.

Poor Simon. He hadn't yet learned how unsentimental Cambridge was, how slippery. He would try to hold on to her, but there was no way. How depressing it was to realize how exceptionally lame and dull my life was before she strutted into it. Yet as much as I fretted over Gabe's pending absence in my life, I didn't worry over Cambridge's. I knew that beautiful girl with the giant boobs skinny-dipping before me would always be in my life. Always. You think I'm being young or hokey or optimistic. Nope. It was like a law that Newton forgot to mention.

Cradled by the water's waves, she floated on her back and watched morning fracture the dark skyline. That's what I mean. Something about that girl made everything within a fifty-billion- mile radius—even the frickin' sun—sparkle harder.

Gabe and I tiptoed away from the scene and wandered back to MontClaire Hall. We sat by the fountain out front until finally I couldn't take it anymore. I had to ask him the question.

“So what's going to happen? When camp ends?”

“I imagine we'll get certificates or something.”

I groaned. “I mean between me and you. Us.”

Gabe sighed. “I have this feeling we'll see each other again. After camp. ”

“Maybe at the reunion,” I huffed, “but not anytime soon. I mean, should we just shake hands or something? Make it anti-climactic? That might be the best thing considering I live in Baltimore, and you live in Albuquerque.”

He kissed my cheek. “If only the map were arranged alphabetically.”

“Gabe!” Why did everything have to follow an equation? “You'll probably never see me again.”

“I will see you again.”

For a mathematician, this guy sure left a lot to chance.

“How?”

Gabe scooched closer to me, wrapped his hoodie around my shoulders. “I didn't want to tell you, but you are such a shit about surprises, so I'll just let you in on it. Tomorrow I'm giving you the most Delilah-Rogers-romance-novel ending you ever imagined.
Verdad
? Remember when you made that wish back in my room on the Fourth of July?”

I nodded.

“Well I'm gonna give you what you wished for. Your happy ending. Liliana helped me plan it. She sewed you a dress too. Something fancy. I'm going to pick you up in
ni modo
. I might even clean it out first too. And then I'm going to drive you—really drive you—to Half Moon Bay, where I will serenade you with my sensual voice. I'm gonna put some clam shells in your hair and build one of those romantic fires and I'm going to ... I'm going to …”

“What?”

“Put on my glasses.”

“You don't wear them.”

“I'm going to borrow
mi abuela's
bifocals so I can get a good, close look at you.”

“And that's when you'll say goodbye?” I whispered.

“Yeah,” he said. “Only it's gonna be better than that.”

I tried to memorize everything about him—his brown eyes that looked full and wet; his two side teeth that overlapped each other; his olive skin; the SPOOGE T-shirt I'd come to know personally; the pale moons of his fingernails; the wallet chain in his back pocket; the shell of his ear; his zigzag hair part; the stubble of his sideburns; his smell; his rocket principles; his voice.

“That's what I'm gonna do,” he said, then stood up to go. “It's gonna be perfect.”

ENTER A NEW DESTINATION

68

BEGINNING'S END

LILIANA MADE MY dress from the bathroom shower curtain and bath mat. She bedazzled the uneven hem and sewed rhinestones along the sleeves. Truth be told, I looked like a regurgitated octopus. The dress was ugly. So very, very ugly. And when I came out to model it, I was afraid everyone was crying because I looked so hideous.

“It's OK,” I consoled Liliana. “It's your first design. You'll get better at it.”

But she told me she was crying because I looked so beautiful. Then Cambridge got weepy because, she said, even though I resembled a toilet brush, she still thought I was awesome. And then I started crying—crying because Liliana's braces were as radiant as the morning sun. And Cambridge's arms were lean and strong. It was the last day of fat camp, people. So I wore the dress, right? I totally wore the dress.

In addition to it being the last day of fat camp, it was also International Freshman Orientation Day here at the CUP. Cambridge informed us of this as, outside the window, a dozen coach buses leaned around MontClaire's circular drive. Apparently the university brought the foreign students in early.

An entire army of international freshmen were unloaded. One after another, buses dumped the students onto the damp grass below our window. It was sunny and a Northern California version of warm outside. Seeing the college freshmen trickle off the buses reminded me that fall was around the corner. On the trees, the tippy-tops of leaves were beginning to yellow and the smell of pencil shavings and ink cartridges lingered in hallways. Soon enough I'd be shoving a label in a red plastic divider. In nineteen days, I'd be in homeroom.
Stern? Bethany?

69

SELFIES

CAMBRIDGE SPREAD OUR curtains wider. “Let's come back next year,” she said. “I'll give my dad another quiet summer with his mistress.” Outside, one soon-to-be-student narrated into a digital camera. Another freshman unlatched a guitar case and strummed a chord we barely heard.

“I think my mom might doubt the camp's effectiveness,” I said.

Liliana tugged at the waistband of my rubbery dress. “She won't,” she said.

Below us, we watched international students open laptops and chat on cell phones. They towed luggage across the lawn and smoked cigarettes nervously in the shade.

“There's always college,” offered Cambridge. “You could come back here in two years.” She elbowed me. “Earn yourself a boxing scholarship.” This was so unlikely, even Cambridge couldn't say it without cracking up. “So maybe a literature one. There is a romantic period, you know.” My roommate, who had walked into the common room eight weeks ago with a hair weave, attempted to tie back her dreadlocks now. With all the bling and beads and knots she had in there, she couldn't squeeze her mane into the ponytail holder, so she relented. “You never know, Bethany. Anything's possible.”

I considered what it might be like to enroll at California University of the Pacific as an actual college student, attending classes and stumbling around the museumlike campus. It was a little foggy for my taste, sure, but it was scenic and spacious. There was room to grow. And who knew, maybe with TJ gone, I'd do my homework for once. College? It was a possibility. Either way, as the international freshmen walked single file to the Student Union Complex, the clock chimed nine times. My fat camp days were officially over.

We left our dorm, and I ventured outside. Campers stood under trees, on stairs, looking thinner, for the most part, and exhausted. Not a single one of us looked the same. Hank, Belinda, and Miss Marcia had a proper farewell for us last night. They didn't weigh us, but we did put on the outfits we arrived in eight weeks ago. Almost everyone of us, including me, had to hold the shorts to keep them from falling down. I stood with Hank and Belinda and shook every camper's hand. When Hank announced, “Bethany Thern, you were the beth captain we ever had,” no one argued with him.

Outside now, the only camper missing was Hollywood, which figured because the first car that circled MontClaire Hall was an industrial-sized, pimped-out, stretch Hummer limousine that no doubt belonged to whatever family member was tasked with picking her up. It stopped gracefully in front of the mermaid fountain, a motor so oiled we barely heard it. After all this time, I still knew nothing of Hollywood's dad except he was punctual—and rich and overwhelmingly important enough to get me back into Utopia in less than five minutes. While Hollywood presumably packed up her gear inside MontClaire, we collectively watched the limo's dark window ease down. An elegant-looking hand appeared then waved.

“I know whose hand that is,” said Liliana beside me.

“Really?”

“
¡Esto! ¡Esto!
Look at the license plate.”

AMRCNVY

“What does that mean?”

Liliana jumped up and down, pointing and gasping. “It's Eugene Gold. It's Eugene Gold.”

Suddenly Mr. Gold's head peered out and smiled at Liliana, an obvious fan. Liliana spread her fingers into a V and Mr. Gold smirked. He looked in my direction and yelled, “Nice dress.” Liliana practically keeled over. I guessed Amber's dad really was influential, considering he was Eugene Gold, America's most heartless judge. For the second time this summer, I didn't envy Hollywood at all. A dad like that? No, thanks. I'll stick with mine.

Speaking of mine, Richard Goodman had taken to e-mailing me almost every day. His e-mails were funny and always included dozens and dozens of book recommendations—none of which involved weight loss. As a super-nifty librarian, he had access to advanced readers copies of e-books too, which meant I got to read Delilah Rogers on my e-reader before anyone else did. He also forwarded me classics. Still convinced I was the storyteller he never could be, he recommended Steinbeck, Toni Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson, Thomas Hardy, Ralph Ellison, and Margaret Atwood and the like regularly. These fat tomes piled on my e-reader's virtual bookshelf by the day.

Finally, Hollywood walked out in a high-powered suit and heels. You'd never guess she spent the summer at fat camp. She pointed her phone at the three of us. “I want to remember the girls next door,” she said. The camera clicked. Her big sunglasses made her head look freakishly small. She took them off to hug me—yes, hug me—and I noticed again how thin she was. When she kissed me on both cheeks, I smelled her perfume. “Subscribe to my feed and follow my blog,” she said. “I'll friend you too.” Me and Hollywood as
friends
? I wasn't sure when that happened, but if I had to guess, it more than likely occurred on scale demolition day. If I wished anything for her, it was only that when she got home, she destroyed her scale. That we all did.

“Let me introduce you to my dad,” Hollywood said, and waved us over to the limo. After eight entire weeks in California, my one and only celebrity-spotting consisted of Eugene Gold.

The
American Envy
judge looked exactly the same in real life as on television, only shorter. Same stubbled chin. Same green eyes. Same infectious grin. Starstruck, the only thing I remembered to do was thank him for saving Cambridge's life.

“No worries,” he said, and he brought me into a hug. “I used to do a lot of drugs too,” he confessed. “I'm glad your friend turned out OK.” Cambridge assured him she was off the psychotropics and offered gratitude again for teaching me how to take a pulse.

“Well, ladies,” he said, opening the door for his daughter, “looks like this place did wonders for you.” He reached inside the immense limo and came out with a tangled bouquet of yellow roses. Hollywood accepted them then folded her skinny self into the car, waving the whole time like Miss America.