Page 52 of That Summer Feeling

“By the way, Allison’s gone,” Stevie told me. “I confirmed it with the twins a little bit ago.”

I blew a kiss to the sky. “Goodbye to the past.”

Stevie blew a kiss to me. “And hello to the present.”

Picking an outfit for my visitors’ day with no visitors proved harder than I expected. I’d gone through most of my clothes already. There were only a few options left—my bottom-of-the-bag clothes, packed as suitcase padding, never intended to be worn. One of which was the white sundress I’d put on for the airport on the way to my honeymoon. It was just a dress. I’d thrown it on many times throughout the years. It never had particular significance to me, until suddenly it did. It represented the beginning of the long, winding path that had led me to the very moment I was experiencing.

Underneath it, at the very bottom of the bag, sat my heartbracelet and Dara’s. I wasn’t sure why I’d packed them, only that I thought I needed them with me. Now they both belonged to me forever, beads and twine and memories. Discarded hopes made of dull sequins and cracked buttons. I swallowed back my pang of hurt. Dara was allowed to make her own decisions about her life.

My white dress accentuated every interesting line the sun had marked on my skin. Edges around my swimsuit that I’d missed with sunscreen were echoed in a V down my chest. They were temporary reminders of the permanent changes to my life that had occurred here. The dress looked brand-new on me because I wasn’t the woman at the airport, proud to let the world know I’d gotten married. I was a woman who had nothing to lose and everything to gain. On the precipice of starting her life in earnest. A whole new version of myself.

Stevie changed in the room with me, not bothering to turn her back when she put on a new top. The flash of her skin was something I was allowed to see, and I felt in that moment all the times I’d filtered myself around other women—a laundry list of instances I’d made a point to look around and examine the floorboards with intense interest. For everyone else, it really was to respect their privacy. It had started that way with Stevie too. Now I knew there was more to it. Attraction. Desire. It was a flush to my system to know that when she undressed, I was someone who was allowed to see. She threw on a loose yellow cropped tee—her best color, my favorite on her—and what I’d come to learn was her favorite pair of cuffed jeans.

“You look like sunshine,” I told her.

She glanced me up and down, taking in the white dress. “Then you’re clouds.”

“Blocking you? I’d never.”

That’s Allison, I thought.

“No. Softening me.”

“Fair. I’ll accept it.”

“Good.” She drew me in for a kiss. My bottle rocket. Firecracker. Sunshine. She held it all, and when she kissed me, it gave me strength I forgot I had. I could do exciting things. I could be liked. I could beloved, if I wanted.

Outside the mess hall, the doors were closed with a sign in front that saidDO NOT ENTER (YET). Enough alumni had guessed about visitors’ day that the news had spread through camp with surprising efficiency and speed. We could barely use our real phones here, so word traveled through a good old-fashioned game of spoken-word telephone instead. We knew one another as campers here. Not as anything more. This would be our first glimpse into who and what everyone had left behind.

Dara lounged against the wall of the mess hall, right next to the doors, wearing what I knew to be her favorite outfit: a black tank tucked into ankle-length brown slacks, her long hair hitting her waist. She’d even worn this exact look to my rehearsal dinner, and one of our aunts had gotten really upset, thinking she didn’t look nice enough. But I’d seen my sister and grinned. She looked exactly like herself. Put together without embellishment.

The nice thing about fighting with her—if that’s what wecould even call it—was that we knew no matter what, we could talk again. Fights never meant silence. They were mosquito bites between us, and a lot of times, the less we interacted with the source, the faster the bad feelings went away.

“Think Mom and Dad are behind those walls?” I asked her.

“With confetti and a handmade banner that says ‘We Love Our Daughters’!” she joked.

“Matching shirts,” I added. “ ‘Proud parents of Dara and Garland Moore.’ ”

We laughed. Not loud. Not drawing attention. Just for us. Then Dara took a heaving breath and squared her shoulders. “You wanna fist-fight me in the parking lot or what?”

I grinned. “Are you trying to ask me if I’m mad at you?”

“No, I’m trying to join the Camp Carl Cove fight club, and if they don’t see me tussle with someone soon, they’re gonna think I’m lying when I say I mean business,” she said. “Especially since you’re the one who took me out of balloon tag.”

“I’d hate for you to lose an opportunity like this,” I said. “All right. Stand still. I’m aiming for your nose.”

“Can you go with gut? I don’t wanna get blood on Mom and Dad’s banner.” Her smile shifted to her keenI know you in your bonesgaze. “No grand plan to convince me that love is real if only I’ll let Mason Magnusson toss me over his shoulder like a firefighter and whisk me off to the woods?”

“I think he’s more likely to cradle you like a child. He seems sensitive like that.” Our eyes both found him in the crowd, where he was, no joke, waltzing with Andrew.

“When’s the haircut?” I asked her again. “We don’t have a lot of time left here.”

“Soon,” she told me.

“Attention, campers!” Tim stood atop a picnic table with a microphone in his hand. “Tommy will be opening the mess hall doors soon. Please enter in a single-file line. A surprise awaits you inside!”

Tommy waved his fingers mysteriously, then yelled out, “You heard my brother! Single file! I won’t be stampeded.”