Man Camp (9 page)

Martha imagines the muscles on Cooper’s back working underneath his sweater. She hooks arms with Lucy. “Finally, a man who doesn’t need Man Camp!”

“Sadly, for every one who doesn’t, there’re about six who do,” Lucy says, looking back at the doorman as they board the elevator. “He gets a one-way ticket.”

“A Man Camp lifer,” Martha agrees.

Cooper looks at them curiously. “What did you just say?”

Lucy and Martha lock eyes.
Busted!
The elevator doors swoosh together.

“Out with it,” Cooper says. “What is Man Camp?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

CHAPTER 7

“Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.”

Henry Kissinger

“REMIND ME AGAIN why we’re going to the Guggenheim?” Martha asks, unable to imagine anything less fun to do on Cooper’s last day in town. They are headed uptown on a packed Madison Avenue bus, elbows hooked around a metal pole to keep from bumping into other passengers as the vehicle lurches in traffic. “I get motion sick every time I walk down that huge spiral.”

“We’re going for culture, my dear,” Lucy says. “Don’t you think it’s a little ridiculous that we live here and never go to museums?”

Martha shrugs. She’d been pushing for lunch in the Village or a shopping excursion to Soho.

“Even Cooper managed to make it to the Matisse-Picasso exhibit,” Lucy adds.

“Now, that was a great show,” Cooper says. “Though, if you ask me, it should’ve been called ‘Picasso’s a Little Better.’ ”

Martha laughs and repeats the line, nudging Lucy, as if her friend didn’t hear it or she’d be laughing, too.

It’s not
that
funny,
Lucy thinks, and takes a few steps toward the window to see what street they’re on. Her view is blocked by fluffy parkas and grimy windows, making it hard to read the numbers on the tiny green signs as they whiz by.

All at once the bus bounces to a stop and Martha loses her balance. She swings into Cooper, who catches her with a solid arm around the waist. Neither moves, not even once Martha regains her balance, and she’s reminded of a time in seventh grade when Danny McCormick’s knee found hers under the table and they sat frozen in that position for what seemed like a slow-motion hour, pretending that the contact was neither intentional or remarkable, though at the time an electric current ricocheted through Martha’s body.

“Have you and Lucy ever discussed making Man Camp real?” Cooper asks, acting nonchalant about his arm. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it since you mentioned it. It’s brilliant. Harebrained, to be sure, but full of possibilities.”

Funny you should mention hair,
Martha thinks, wanting to run her fingers through his mop. “I came up with the idea,” she says in a low voice, immediately feeling silly for trying to take credit.

“That doesn’t surprise me one bit,” Cooper says, giving her a smile. “You know, Tuckington Farm has Man Camp written all over it.”

“Seventy-ninth Street,” Lucy calls out, spinning back around to catch her friends pressed together like statues, their faces close enough to kiss. “Almost there,” she mumbles inaudibly.

Cooper lets his arm fall and Martha takes a baby step to one side.

“Would you believe this nut wants to make Man Camp real?” Martha says.

Lucy doesn’t reply.
That nut is my oldest friend,
she thinks.
He’s
my
nut!

“I mean, he’s serious, Luce,” she continues. “He wants to create a real Man Camp at Tuckington Farm.”

Give me a break,
Lucy thinks.

“It’s a great idea,” Cooper says. “And I’m always in need of a few extra farmhands in the spring.” He smiles at Martha. “My ulterior motive, of course, is to get you two down to the farm.”

Lucy glares at his profile.
You’re my backup plan! Why are you
flirting with Martha?

“Besides, can you imagine how much fun it would be to watch city boys become real men?” he asks.

“You might actually be on to something,” Martha says, studying Cooper’s calloused fingers wrapped around the pole in front of her. She wonders if the sense of accomplishment that vigorous outdoor work gives men might not be the relaxation equivalent of what spas do for women. Could it boost their confidence? Give them a jolt of endorphins? “Man Camp might be just what my FirstDate clients need. One date sure isn’t cutting it. What do you think, Luce?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy answers, annoyed that she feels jealous.

“Well, I say the idea has great potential,” Martha says. “Just think, if Man Camp works at the farm, we could franchise it.”

“You might be right,” Cooper says.

Lucy folds her arms across her chest.

Martha becomes giddy with the possibility. “Man Camps could sprout up all over the country,” she says. “We could even have themes: Old Man Camp, Artsy Man Camp, Brainy Man Camp, Gay Man Camp . . .”

“Am I the only one who thinks this is a little on the man-bashing side?” Lucy asks. “To say nothing of an unlikely business venture.”

“Might I remind you that I made a real go of FirstDate, an equally unlikely gambit?”

Cooper’s eyes light up. “This could be a real moneymaker.”

Lucy hadn’t thought of Man Camp as an improved and expanded FirstDate, a way for men to do well with women. Then again, she’d never thought of making it real, period. The biologist in her knows that the promise of improving a male’s chance at mating will always be desirable to him, though she’s not ready to admit that Man Camp could work.

Cooper chuckles. “Come on, Luce. Think how easy it would be. All we need are some counselors and campers. We already have the perfect campsite.”

“Tuckington Farm: home of the manly man!” Martha says, imitating what she imagines would be the voice-over for the Man Camp ad campaign.

Lucy isn’t in the mood to be pitched.

“The three of us would make excellent counselors,” Cooper says. “You two could teach lessons on chivalry and courtship, and I could show them how to plow fields and build fences, which would have the added bonus of helping me during my busiest season.”

“What about the campers, Cooper?” Lucy asks in her dripping-with-patience voice, the one she usually reserves for freshmen with stupid questions.

“Look around you,” Cooper says, his eyes landing on two young men who are seated nearby, chatting away, either oblivious or indifferent to the weary pregnant woman clinging to the handrail above them. “Our campers are everywhere.”

“Just because they’re everywhere doesn’t mean that Man Camp will be an easy sell,” Lucy says. “Who in his right mind is going to sign up for it?”

“Well, obviously we wouldn’t call it ‘Man Camp’ to their faces,” Cooper says, sounding slightly exasperated. “But any guy who’s willing to take dating classes isn’t going to split hairs over this.”

Point taken,
Lucy thinks, but she’s still not convinced.

Cooper’s face grows boyish with enthusiasm. “Think, Lucy, you’d finally get to see Tuckington Farm and we’d be doing a good deed in the process. Those poor sorry sacks need our help.”

Martha jumps in. “Why don’t you bring Adam along? He stands to benefit as much as anyone else, plus it could be a vacation for you guys. Besides, it would be easy to convince him.”

“Are you crazy?” Lucy says. But she hadn’t considered that particular Man Camp benefit before. Presto, Adam might actually learn how to build a fire and chop wood. She pictures him in Levi’s lifting big bales of hay off a truck, his smooth, brown arms corded with muscles.

“You could talk him into it,” Cooper says. “Don’t underrate your feminine wiles.”

Lucy winces.

“All I mean is that you’re incredibly persuasive,” he explains. “If you told me to stand on the West Side Highway for an hour, I wouldn’t even ask why.”

Instead of being charmed, Lucy finds Cooper’s spiel disingenuous and irritating, and considers banishing him to the highway. “What you don’t seem to get, Cooper, is that the men here aren’t like you.”

“Exactly why we need to send them to Man Camp!” He smiles patiently. “There’re two basic traits common to all men. One, we like to please women. Two, we like to please women. Admittedly, our reasons can be less than noble, but I guarantee you if you’re clear with us, we’ll always try to please you.”

Lucy smiles back and sends a clear telepathic message:
You
could please me by not falling in love with my best friend!
But part of her recognizes the truth in what Cooper’s saying: She rarely lets Adam in on her needs because she’s always so busy trying to figure out and accommodate his. If he’s having a tough time with his dissertation (always), she takes care of the domestic chores. If he’s struggling financially (often), she pays his half of the rent or picks up the tab for dinner. If he can’t sleep (occasionally), she runs her fingers through his hair until his breathing grows deep.

They’re almost at One Hundredth Street when Martha realizes they’ve missed their stop. “Whoops!” she says, grabbing Cooper’s hand and pushing through the crowd. Lucy trails a few steps behind.

Once outside, the three of them get their bearings and reassemble themselves: button coats, wrap scarves, put on hats and gloves. They didn’t overshoot the museum by much and it’s a sunny day, windy but bearable, so they decide to walk.

Cooper offers each of them an arm. “Let’s do this, you two,” he says, squeezing their hands snugly between his arm and his body. “Seems to me there’s something in it for each of us.” He looks at Lucy. “Adam becomes a fire-building, engine-repairing, fearless, swashbuckling outdoorsman.” Then at Martha. “Man Camp is FirstDate on steroids and your clients get the intensive training they need, and you make buckets of money. And as for me, I get free labor for Tuckington Farm.”

“Count me in,” Martha says, tightening her grip on his biceps.

Lucy wants to object, not to Man Camp per se but to how quickly everything’s changing. Once an inside joke between best friends, Man Camp is fast becoming the vehicle by which Cooper and Martha are bonding without her. How soon before she becomes the third wheel?
Stop!
she tells herself, realizing she’s on a downward spiral.
You have Adam. You don’t need a backup.
Why are you begrudging your two best friends a little fun?

When they get to the museum, they stop alongside a row of vendors selling T-shirts, hats, and tiny replicas of Guggenheim paintings, one of which catches Lucy’s eye: a vividly colored miniature of Picasso’s
Woman with Yellow Hair.
The woman in the painting has a rapturous expression on her face and her blond, ponytailed head is cradled in her arms; she’s asleep. “I need to go home and take a nap,” Lucy says, unable to come up with a better excuse to leave them alone on Cooper’s last day.

Her friends raise polite objections, but the decision is made. Cooper promises to call her as soon as his plane touches down in Virginia, and Lucy gives him a long hug.

“No sad good-byes,” he says, holding Lucy’s shoulders in his hands. “And please consider Man Camp. If nothing else, it’s an excuse to get together soon.”

Lucy buries her hands deep in her pockets and watches Cooper and Martha disappear into the museum. Then she walks into Central Park, where the cold air is invigorating and her mind starts to clear. As she thinks about creating a real Man Camp, the idea starts to make more sense, especially the part about bringing Adam. She smiles at the thought of having all sorts of strange men together under one wide-open sky. What would a man like the tightly wound software tycoon possibly say to Martha’s klutzy, young chef or to her neurotic brother? And yet, the concept is pretty straightforward. Their goal will be to teach the campers how to be good men without having them feel as though they’re being taught, make them capable without revealing the extent of their ineptitude, increase their masculinity without drawing attention to their lack of it.

The wind gusts and Lucy tucks her head down, watching long-dead leaves lift from the earth. Her feet sink slightly into the thawing ground, reminding her spring is on its way with the promise of renewal and hope.
Soon,
she thinks, addressing a stark elm tree,
you’ll have about three million leaves.
She looks down at the ground.
And then inchworms will make their vertical migration.
Her pace quickens.
And then robins will appear, hopping along after
the worms, and all the other birds will follow, and the frenetic mating rituals will begin.
Lucy closes her eyes and pictures the spectacular aerial courtships of ravens and eagles, the frenzied drumming of grouses’ wings, the jolly come-love-me songs of wrens, chickadees, and wood thrushes.

What might Adam do to woo her? Is Man Camp the place to find out?

COOPER BUYS TWO admission tickets, and he and Martha take the elevator to the top of the museum and wend their way down. Despite first meeting three years ago, they’ve never been alone before and getting a real conversation going without Lucy’s presence is more difficult than either expects.

“You a baseball fan?” Cooper asks, reigning in a ridiculous grin.

“Is that the one with the hoops?” Martha jokes. She starts to tell him about her crazy cat and then stops, realizing that a man whose livelihood depends on the utility of domesticated animals might not think highly of such an ill-behaved pet.

“Cats love me,” he says.

Not mine,
she thinks.

Cooper tells her that dawn is his favorite time of day, and Martha recalls the handful of sunrises she’s seen, always in a bleary-eyed state after a night on the town.