Page 17 of The Chaperones

He looks conflicted about having to camp beside the Bents, or maybe dismayed by the prospect of carrying all that equipment a step farther.

“Power in numbers, right?” Charles jokes. I take the tent off his shoulder and throw it over mine.

I wonder if Charles knows what Lily said to my son, if she’s said something equally cruel to his son. It must be as hard being the only gay couple in this group as it is the only Latina. Well, there are the Diazes, too, but they are so wealthy, they blend in with this crowd. And, conveniently, they didn’t come on this trip.

Suddenly, my son and Lei squeal. I follow their gaze, then jump back and grab onto Charles, when something darts across the center of the campground.

Charles laughs. “It’s just an island fox.”

The fox scurries toward the bathroom and into shrubs beyond. I let go of Charles and put my hand on my chest, feeling my racing heart.

“Not the outdoors type?”

“Is it obvious?”

He laughs again. I like Charles. As close as the boys are, we’ve never become friends. Most of the time, my mother drops Javi off for playdates. And Lei’s never been to our house. I wonder if Javi notices. I wonder if it bothers him.

“Mom,” Javi shrieks. “A fox.”

“I saw.”

“This is the coolest trip ever.”

I try to be swept up in my son’s enthusiasm over the magic of this place. This island is mesmerizing. It’s unlike anywhere I’ve ever been before. Then I imagine a fox, nestling its way into our tent at night, the pile of poop that waits for me in the bathroom.

Cassie’s face hardens as we approach her. Her coldness catches me by surprise until I realize she’s staring at Charles, not at me. Momentarily, it throws me. What would Cassie have against Charles? Why would she be irritated that he’s joining us? Of course. If Charles is camping beside us, that means Raymond is too. There’s always been this silly competition between Cass and Raymond, one she’s denied whenever I’ve asked her about it. Unlike Cassie, Raymond goes out of his way to be friendly with all the parents. He volunteers to cook at every event. He’s even won over my mother, Ita, by recreating the tres leches from her childhood, which he makes for her more often than she should eat it, given her diabetes. And he’s been nothing but kind to me. Still, there’s something about him that has always struck me as off. It’s like on his show. While he’s blunt when he critiques the food, he’s otherwise too warm and overly complimentary. It feels fake. When he’s equally warm in life, it feels fake too. Like he never stops being Raymond Zhao. Cassie says it’s hard to know how to act when you walk into a room and everyone thinks they already know you. Unlike Raymond Zhao, she can walk into a room where half the people are wearing her jeans and they won’t recognize her. Somehow, though, everyone figures out quickly that she’s Cassie Bent. Maybe that’s why she resents Raymond. He loves the attention. And people adore him for it. Cassie tries to hide from it, to shield herself from almost everyone she meets. And people resent her in response.

“We’ve got this,” Charles says, lightly elbowing me.

“If you say so.” I take a deep breath and walk toward Cassie, that hardness persisting on her face, slightly terrifying. She’s my friend. I’m not afraid of her. The thought sends a shiver down my spine. Why would I be afraid of her?

When we arrive at our campsite, Dave is kneeling by our tent. He shows Javi how to use a rock to hammer down the stakes at the corners. I hear a thud as Charles drops the bags from his shoulders and reviews his equipment, looking as bewildered as he did moments ago. His tent still has a price tag on it.

“Not the outdoors type either?” I tease.

He pulls the tag off the tent and stuffs it into his pocket. He rifles through the bag of fabric and poles until he finds a surprisingly thick instruction manual and flips through it, unsure where to begin.

“Hey, man, I got you.” Dave jumps up. He separates the poles from the tent and starts to unfold it. “Grab that corner,” he tells Charles, who seems ashamed by how instinctively Dave knows what to do.

As Charles follows Dave’s instructions, the awkwardness is so intense I can practically taste it. Dave doesn’t notice. To Dave, helping Charles is no different from helping me or any novice. Charles clearly sees this as some sort of male test that he’s failed.

Meanwhile, unattended, Javi wields the rock hammer wildly.

“Cuidado,” I tell him, then hear Juan’s voice telling me Tranquilo. I need to let him be a boy. To talk about poop and squeal at the sight of a fox. To do things that are safely dangerous. I’ve got my first aid kit. I can sew up a laceration or clot a bloody nose.

Cassie tosses our sleeping bags into our tent, then walks over to me and throws her arms around my shoulders. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Cassie is surprisingly affectionate once you get to know her. It’s like a switch. As soon as you’ve passed whatever trust test she’s been secretly implementing, she’s all in. It’s easy to think her guardedness is a product of fame. It’s because of family too—what little I know about her parents’ deaths, her brother, how, like me, she had to grow up too fast and learn how to protect herself. Well, not like me. She didn’t have a baby and an ex-husband at twenty-five. But she learned to not trust first, then backpedal from there. And Cassie trusts me. She knows my intentions are good.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” I say. She keeps her arms around my shoulders but pulls her body away from mine to inspect me.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. There’s just something I need to discuss with you.”

“We’ll go for a walk later?” She squeezes my hand before she walks over to my son and shows him how to blow up his camping pillow. The sight of them together makes me finally understand why I’m so nervous to talk to her. I have no doubt that Lily said those things to my son. At heart, she’s got a mean streak. Maybe all girls do at her age. It doesn’t grow in a vacuum, though. If she knows how to be cruel, she’s learned it somewhere. Dave would be the likely candidate. Yet, as I watch Cassie with my son, how she bops him on the head with the inflated pillow, I know it comes from Cassie. For the first time, I realize there’s something about Cassie I don’t trust. That I’ve never really trusted her, not completely.