Page 4 of That Summer Feeling

It sounded like she was joking, but she was being onehundred percent serious. Ever since we’d signed up, she’d told me she wanted to use this camp to let go of her bitterness. She had a lot of resentment about the way we’d grown up and how everyone had treated us. This was her second chance at childhood. To her, letting go apparently meant re-creating what Hallie had done for Annie inThe Parent Trap—cutting her hair. In the movie, they did it because they were secret twins about to swap lives. Dara and I were far from twins, and we already lived together. But Dara had been watching every movie and piece of media about summer camp in preparation for this week, and she’d come up with this milestone to prove she’d gotten something transformative from this experience.

That was how people used sleepaway camp in the middle school years. They hid away for a summer and returned as someone brand-new. Since the divorce, I’d cut several inches off my hair and dyed it an even darker brown. I’d also become really committed to wearing oversized T-shirts with frayed jean shorts and combat boots that took ages to break in and still gave me blisters. I didn’t smile in pictures anymore. I smoldered. If anyone from camp saw my social media, they’d think I seemed mysterious and detached. Two words no one who really knew me would ever use to describe my personality. Everything about my life felt like a placeholder: where I lived, what I wore, how I moved through the world. So much had gone wrong in my life that pressing the reset button seemed not only necessary but fun. I wanted something transformative too. Who could I become to a group of strangers who’d never met me? How different could I be?

The twins continued to shower us in special attention as weapproached the main area. We definitely drew the notice of the other campers who had already arrived. There were ten to fifteen adults already there, sitting at picnic tables near the lake, watching the owners of the camp personally escort my sister and me to the sign-in table that sat just outside a tall log building aptly labeledMAIN HALL.

“Michelle will get you all checked in,” Tommy said. “She’s actually one of your roommates! And one of ourcounselors.” He did air quotes as he said it.

Tim leaned in. “You’re in the best cabin.”

“Welcome to the show. We’re Cabin Seven,” Michelle said to me in greeting. I recognized her deadpan tone along with her face. The twins had recently posted the teaser trailer for her upcoming documentary. They’d met her many years ago in an adoption support group, and she’d become one of their best friends. She was a trans woman, born in Vietnam but raised in the US as well, and she’d been on a yearslong quest to find her birth family.

She had on a teal mock-neck tank top tucked into light green cigarette pants, which somehow paired fantastically with the dark red loafers she wore on her feet. She looked light-years more put together than I imagined anyone ever would be at summer camp, and I felt myself kick into turbo mode, determined to impress her as much as she impressed me.

“Hi! I’m Garland! This is my older sister Dara. I can’t wait for your documentary,” I blurted out.

To me, there was no use in pretending I didn’t know things about people when I did, so I went out of my way to say them up front. Michelle seemed to appreciate the honesty, becauseher posture relaxed and her whisper of a smile turned into a real one.

“Sorry if that’s weird. You don’t know me at all,” I continued. “If it helps even the score, I can tell you I’m here on some sort of post-divorce quest for renewal.”

Michelle’s smile broadened as her eyebrows quirked. “I thought I heard someone yelling something about divorce in the parking lot.”

“That was me. I yell about a lot of things.”

“What else do you yell about?” she asked.

“Great question. The price of frozen pizza, for one. What’s going on there?” Her growing amusement fueled me. I loved making people feel at ease. “Let’s see, what else? I yell about bugs, but I also try to be kind to them in case it matters in a cosmic sense.”

Michelle let out a real laugh. She had a sarcastic energy that didn’t seem cynical. It felt like she was laughingwithme, understanding that even though I was telling the truth, I was mostly trying to entertain her. She handed me the paperwork, then directed her attention to my sister. “Dara, you’re next door to us, in Cabin Six.”

Dara cocked her head. Her grand hair-cutting plan hinged on us sharing a cabin. “Garland and I aren’t together?”

“Tim and Tommy split up all the siblings,” Michelle explained. “Even themselves. Cabin Six is right next to Seven. Seven is actually the smallest place here, but it has a slightly closer path to the mess hall and a better view of the lake.” She handed us our keys and a map of the grounds, then snaked her manicured finger along the trail to show us how to get there.

The path wrapped around the perimeter of the lake, as all things at camp did. The layout was so simple we didn’t really need a map, but it would be a nice memento to have. Proof that all of this was real.

Dara and I walked with our gaze fixed on the sky, awed by the long, lean trees that stretched up over us. She said nothing about the cabin situation, which didn’t surprise me. Dara didn’t like to talk about what upset her, and I knew her well enough to know I shouldn’t ask. When the path split, I went left and Dara went right, both of us nodding a goodbye as we entered our separate living quarters.

Cabin Seven had a common area with a two-seater leather couch and a small wooden table and chairs. Just beyond it were two tiny bedrooms with a bathroom squeezed between them. One room had a single bed, and the other had two twins with roughly three feet of space between them.

I’d expected to be staying in bunk beds in one large room, with community bathrooms somewhere else on the property. This was decidedly nicer. Maybe the twins had renovated the cabins to be more adult-friendly? Or maybe this was how some sleepaway camps were. I had no idea either way, but I was happy with the unexpected upgrade.

Michelle had already taken the private room, so I wheeled my luggage into the shared bedroom. Eager to get back to the camp activities, I tossed my suitcase onto a bed to claim it, did a quick refresh in the bathroom, and hurried out of my cabin.

Right before I put my key into the lock, someone yelled out, “Hold on a sec!”

A white woman was running up the path, waving at me.She wore an olive-green sports bra with matching athletic shorts that showed her well-formed legs, and she had on agigantichiking backpack. The top crested above her head and the bottom hit below her shorts. Somehow, she moved as if it didn’t even exist.

When she made it closer to me, jogging up the stairs that led to the cabin, I clocked the curly shock of blond hair beneath her National Parks ball cap. Reckless tendrils were escaping her two short braids. Right as I opened the door again, about to compliment the ease with which she’d just sprinted over, she misjudged her final step. And she fell, right into my arms.

The force of her tumble pushed both of us back. The door swung all the way open, somewhat slowing our journey to the floor. She managed to squeeze me closer and spin us around so her pillow of a backpack caught the ground instead of me.

We landed with a gentle thud, everything inside her bag absorbing our fall. My body was fully smashed atop hers, flush against her matching sports set. My hands got stuck in the space between her body and her backpack. Her own hands had such a tight grip on me in return that the pressure of it almost made me cry. It had been so long since anyone had held me in that way. It made me feel like I was fragile and worth protecting.

Before my tears could form, the woman laughed. Full and deep, looking right into my eyes, her rib cage jutting up into mine as the joy moved through her in staccato bursts.

“You must be Garland,” she said.

“You must be our third roommate,” I guessed. I could feelher shoulders contract as she continued laughing. That was nothing compared to the feeling of our hearts beating in unison, two wild drums of adrenaline.