Page 25 of One Last Summer
“Okay, well, I don’t want to speak out of turn because I know I’ve been MIA these last few years,” I said, treading carefully. “So maybe things have changed. But normally when we’ve been up here in the past we just kind of hang out.”
“Um, speak for yourself,” Sam said. “Last year I tried to jog around the lake and had to call Mack to come pick me up after half a mile.”
“It was really hot,” he added, with a knowing nod toward Sam.
“I’m not saying we shouldn’t still hang out, but what if we also did, I dunno, camp stuff. One final week of creating the best Pine Lake memories we can possibly make.”
Stuff that would be fun, joyful, and maybe even scary, I reasoned to myself. Things that would get me closer to what I’d set out to accomplish this week, and further away from moments like this, when there was nothing to distract me from Mack.
“Oh, boy,” Eloise muttered, curling in closer to Linus, who was watching me with a curious look on his face.
“Come on, El, it’s not that crazy,” I said, rising out of my chair. “We’re already sitting around a campfire tonight. That counts. Capture the Flag would be super easy with this many people.”
“Yes!” Nick gasped with excitement. “I have been craving some good old-fashioned Capture the Flag chaos. Linus, you have that silent but deadly energy thing going on. I want you on my team.”
“Um.” Linus looked deeply unsure of himself but nodded. “Sure.”
I twiddled my fingers, my brain now going a mile a minute. “We could kick each other’s asses and complain about how old our bones feel. Losers buy the winners lunch.”
“Well, shit, I’m out,” Sam declared, pointing at her belly with a laugh.
“That’s okay. We’ll need fans to watch,” Trey chimed in. “And refs.”
“Yes! I love it.” I pointed at him, and for a moment I thought of Amaya, teetering on Abe’s desk, staring at me. See? I thought. I’m doing exactly what you wanted.
“Ooh my god, we could do a dessert party!” I spitballed, remembering the magic of the annual late-night dining hall kitchen “raid” for the winning Color Week team.
“Oooh, yes,” Sam said, eyes lighting up.
“I’m sure there’s leftover ice cream from the one we had this summer,” mused Mack. “We just need to dig through the freezers in the dining hall.”
“Truth or dare!” Eloise shouted from her perch on Linus’s lap. “In… the dining hall?”
“Sure.” I chuckled.
“It’s multitasking,” she added.
Something clicked on inside me; I was shifting into project manager mode. This was everything I’d once loved about my job, the spontaneous creativity and hive-mind energy, brilliant ideas birthed out of thin air.
“So we’re cramming every Pine Lake Camp tradition into, like, five days?” Mack asked, and I couldn’t tell if he thought this plan was ridiculous or brilliant.
“Exactly.” I squared my shoulders, giving him a firm nod. I was going with brilliant, no matter what he thought.
“Wow, look at you,” Sam said, giving me a playful once-over. “Getting right back into the swing of things.”
“We could do friendship bracelets in the art barn,” I continued. There was no stopping me now. “Oh! And we have to do wish boats in the lake on our last night!”
“I’m not following,” Linus said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I’ve barely understood, like, half of what you’ve said. It’s like you’re talking in code. Wish boats?”
“You’ll get used to it,” Trey joked. “And the boats are cool. We write wishes on the bottom of little pieces of wood and then toss them in the lake.”
“Excuse me, sir,” I countered, the horror in my voice exaggerated for effect. “Wish boats are way more magical than that.”
“Yeah, there are candles, for Christ’s sake,” Sam said, an impish grin on her face. “Which you light and fit into the top of the wooden boat. And the legend is that if your boat reaches the other side of the lake with the flame still going, your wish will come true.”
“One year I wished for a flip phone and then my parents got me one for my birthday,” Nick said. “So it’s definitely real.”
“Yeah, I mean, I just did this a few weeks ago with campers,” Mack said with an earnest nod of his head. “And I wished for Clara to get her ass up here again, and here she is.”
