Page 6 of One Last Summer
“Do you even hear yourself?” Lydia snapped back as I wiped my hands with a scrunched-up pile of napkins.
I did hear myself. I sounded defensive, panicked, even. This wasn’t me, I reasoned. But when I paused to think about what was me, especially lately, I came up blank, empty—just like the PowerPoint on my screen.
4
“CLARE-BEAR!” SAM’S face was tiny and cloaked in darkness on my phone screen. “I’m just trying one more time to peer-pressure you into coming up to Pine Lake this weekend. I want to wake you up by throwing socks on your face.”
The memory of fifteen-year-old Sam chucking her clothes at me as specks of morning sun snuck in through the cabin windows flashed in my mind. It was a good one that shone brightly in an otherwise hard summer. Things had been raw and unsettled at home before I’d left for camp that year, but nothing could have prepared me for the letter I’d gotten one afternoon from my mom, informing me that she’d told my dad she wanted a separation.
Sam had wandered into the bunk shortly after I’d opened it and found me listening to Fiona Apple on my iPod and sobbing into my sweatshirt sleeves. She’d promptly marched me to the camp store, still in tears, and bought me three packs of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, which we ate side by side, our feet dangling off the edge of the dock that stretched out into the lake.
“You are not going to believe this,” I said, panning the phone to show Lydia behind me, who greeted Sam with a wiggle of her fingers. “But my assistant Lydia is going to hold things down here so I can come.”
Before I could tell Sam the uncomfortable reason why, she shouted, “Shut up!”, her voice crackling through the phone speaker as relief settled across my body. Eventually I’d tell Sam the real reason my plans had changed. But Amaya’s public pronouncement was too raw, too fresh to even discuss.
“I will not shut up,” I said, forcing what I hoped passed for a cheery smile onto my face. “I think I can make it after all.”
“Oh my god, this is the best news. I’ll put you on the group chat. Nick and Trey are flying in on a red-eye from Oakland tonight, so I bet you could ride up with them in the morning. And Mack’s going to be excited.”
Mack’s name was almost enough to distract me from the fact that there was a text chain out there for our group of camp friends, and I wasn’t on it. My constant absence had pushed me outside of our inner circle, and I felt the taste of shame in the back of my throat.
“Mack will be excited to tease me about old camp stuff and accuse me of being a corporate sellout,” I said with a groan. Even though I hadn’t seen him in years, I knew exactly what to expect from Mack, who was both obnoxiously “chill” and always up for anything, including ribbing me. He would have a field day with the news of my boss forcing me to take a vacation.
“Oh, please, you’ve always been on his case, too, with your Color Week captain bullshit. Just because your teams tied and you both couldn’t handle not winning. And you still can’t. The two of you are cut from the same cloth,” Sam teased. “He just refinished the boathouse, by the way.”
“That’s because he lives in the boathouse,” I snapped back, before turning to give Lydia the short version. “He still works at our old camp. He never really left.”
“Oooh, is he, like, a sailor or something?” Lydia said, looking over my shoulder.
“Lydia, ask her about their kiss,” Sam said before changing the subject. “Hey, you never told me if you got the thing I sent you in the mail.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, squinting in thought, trying to remember exactly what was in the pile of mail that had been accumulating on my kitchen table. “What is it?”
But before Sam could elaborate, Amaya draped herself around the doorway to my office, announcing herself with a dramatic wave of her arm.
“Sam, I gotta go,” I said quickly. “I’ll text you later once my plans are final.”
“Time to vacate, baby!” Amaya punched the air like a cheerleader. Well, a drunk cheerleader. Her flaxen hair, normally taut in a bun at her neck, was now loosely draped over her shoulders, and she was still shoeless.
“I thought my micro-thing started tomorrow?” I said.
“Sabbatical,” she corrected. “It’s a time for you to get away and”—she inhaled a long breath and then let it go loudly, a smile spreading across her face—“breathe.”
“I breathe just fine in Boston,” I grumbled. “I like the rotting fish smell of the harbor.”
Lydia made a gagging sound from the couch.
“Clara, I’m on your team here,” Amaya purred as she stepped closer and rested both hands on my shoulders. “You can’t possibly lead a pitch in front of a client when you’re this fried.”
“Totally.” I nodded, because agreeing with her seemed like the easiest way out of this conversation.
“I’ll see you in a week,” she said with a decisive nod.
As soon as she was out the door, I turned toward Lydia.
“I feel like an idiot,” I said, my stomach sinking again. Amaya using me to make a point in front of the rest of our team was one thing. Somehow, her reiterating it tenderly one-on-one made it that much worse. “Have I just been oblivious to the fact that I am currently in my burnout era?”
“Tell me more about this romantic camp kiss,” Lydia said, looking down at her phone. “I need to see a photo.”
