Camptown Ladies (36 page)

The girl’s smile faded as she said, “We are trying to end the word retarded.”

Another time, when I made the tragic mistake of inviting Lisa to meet some of my work friends for a drink, she launched into a full-scale anatomy lesson with one of my older co-workers. The evening started out innocent enough. We were all enjoying our
cocktails and getting a little loose, and of course Lisa had targeted the best looking of my straight co-workers: Sharon, a married lady, Catholic, with three children. At first I wasn’t too worried, since I had taken the proper precautions and warned all the women before we ever got to the bar. They’d heard stories about Vince and Lisa, and encouraged me to invite them both. In fact, the women seemed to get a kick out of being openly flirted with by a potty-mouth butchy lesbian who knew no boundaries. It seemed innocent enough, but I kept an ear to Lisa’s conversations, just in case she went to far.

The following is how the evening unraveled:

Lisa couldn’t help herself. Inappropriate comments flew freely from her filter-free mouth, never failing to reach impact against the most damaging targets. That’s why I avoided my sister after my confession about Erica. To limit the risk of running into her the next morning, I avoided the Dove restaurant by taking a long walk around the campground to get a count of still-occupied campsites.

It was early morning, and the thick mist was crawling low to the ground, imitating Lisa’s mist machine after the last dinner seating. When I turned the corner near the safari field, I saw Erica and Uncle Freddie on a distant roof. Instead of approaching, I sat down at the base of a tree so I could watch them undetected. By her pose, hand on her hip, head cocked to the side, I could tell Erica was evaluating Uncle Freddie’s roofing shingles, and by his pose, curled back, head lowered, arm pounding nails with a growing, steady rhythm, I could see he was trying to impress her. He finished and looked up at her, more like the silhouette of an awkward teenage boy than that of an elderly uncle. Erica crouched down to inspect his work. A shiver ran up my back as I imagined the view from above her as she crouched.

For a few tense seconds, my Uncle’s frozen and hopeful pose stayed motionless. She popped back up and gave a quick nod of her head as Uncle Freddie slapped his leg in attaboy recognition of his own accomplishment. By Erica’s tone, I knew she was warning him not to get cocky, and this was confirmed when Uncle Freddie’s wheezy laugh floated across the field.

They talked a bit more and Uncle Freddie said something that made Erica laugh, and I wished I was closer, to hear the sound more clearly. When she affectionately slapped him on the back and left her hand on his shoulder, my throat tightened with the (lately, familiar)
feeling I might burst into tears. Images of last night flooded over me again, leaving me too weak to be on my way, so I leaned back against the base of the tree and let the sight of her pull me further apart.

After Uncle Freddie climbed down from the rooftop, I waited for Erica to do the same. I wondered if she would bother with the ladder at all, as was her habit if at all possible. But Erica didn’t leave the roof. Instead she stood, silhouetted in the early sun, looking over the horizon at the woods surrounding the camp, and then she looked down. I wondered if she thought of our kiss when she was on a roof, but dismissed this, knowing she was on many roofs. Then I wondered if she was checking Uncle Freddie’s work again, but when she crouched low, finally sitting on the roof with her back still to me, she was not checking the roof. She hung her head lower, then cradled her face in her knees. From a distance I could see her back moving sharply and my heart ached, knowing she was crying. Tears filled my eyes, turning her silhouette into a shimmering watercolor painting, against the red sunrise. More than anything, I wanted to go to her.

I wanted to climb the ladder, walk across the rooftop, and lift her face to kiss her until all her tears were gone. But I didn’t allow myself to move a muscle, not even to brush the tears that rolled down my cheeks. I sat on the ground, pulling my legs up just as she was, hugging them tightly with my knees under my chin. Erica, please stop crying, I begged her silently, please. Then Erica lifted her head, as if someone had called out to her. She slowly twisted her body around, until she was turned toward me. Had she felt me? Now she saw me, but neither of us moved. All that space between us, but we didn’t move because there was nowhere for us to go. I stayed watching her, my heart pounding loudly in my chest, screaming at me to get closer to her, until a member of her crew called her away, leaving an empty roof, and my empty heart.

When my brother came back from his weekend, he disappeared shortly after, and I didn’t see him or Erica again for the next few
days. The sickening pain of it took residence in my stomach as I constantly weighed which was worse: seeing her and not being able to have her, or not seeing her, knowing she was with my brother, trying to make a go of it with him—as I had asked. After a while, I decided that not seeing her was far worse, since what I imagined she was doing nearly choked the life out of me.

The camp season was winding down, and everyday another few trailers would be buttoned up for the winter or hauled past the Tap Box Lightly sign at the gate, the drivers giving a series of waves and polite short beeps, which promised they would be back the following spring. Mom and Dad came by only once on the weekends, mainly just for the drive. Uncle Freddie talked about visiting Italy this winter, and possibly staying until there was more work to be done at the camp in the spring.

It was a particularly chilly day and I saw Lisa standing at the gate, talking to one of the year-round renters. She saw me and gave a quick goodbye to the man as he was heading out, and turned away from me toward the guard shack. I was baffled, since there was never any real camp business to do in the guard shack since she’d gotten to know the town and abandoned the idea of posting any security detail.

I realized that Lisa, like Erica, was avoiding me. I called out and she stopped as if she had been caught. She turned and reluctantly walked over to me. She knew by the
what the fuck
look on my face that I wanted an explanation, and when we reached each other, she gave me one.

“I don’t want to know what I know,” she said.

I said, fearfully, “Me either.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but Vince is happy. Maybe happier than I’ve ever seen him,” she said.

“Don’t you think I want that for him?” I asked. “That’s why I stopped it. For him.”

I tried to remember when I had ever seen Lisa look so serious
for so long, but I came up with nothing. And it was more than that: she looked angry. Our eyes locked and she had the same look she had when we’d fought in a pool as pre-teens and both ended up with ripped bathing suits down to our waists, each with our adolescent boobs in full view of our neighbors, who came out to witness the screaming. It would have made the perfect poster for teaching the importance of going for a win/win in an argument.

“It’s not going to work with them,” she said.

I said, “It might. You said yourself Vince is happy.”

“It’s not going to work. Erica just hasn’t told him yet,” she said. “He’s going to be crushed. Again.”