Page 22 of Give Me a Sign
“Yeah, awesome,” I sign back, unenthused, still holding my bottle in my left hand.
I spend the whole dinner sitting next to Isaac but feeling so far away.
In the clatter of everyone washing dishes and stacking chairs along the wall, I don’t realize someone is calling my name until a hand gently taps my shoulder.
“Hey, Lilah.” Oliver’s standing there, dressed casually in fitted sweatpants and a plain white T-shirt, with a knapsack hanging over one shoulder. “I hate to be a bother, but do you have a car here?”
“Oh, yeah. I do, actually. What’s up?”
The counselors are all leaving the dining hall to head back to the cabins for the rest of our final night off before campers arrive. I was kind of hoping there’d be another Gray Wolf staff tradition like the lake, but it doesn’t seem like it.
As Simone walks up from behind Oliver, she mouths to me, “Ooh, get it!”
Oliver glances over his shoulder, then back at me for an explanation, but I just laugh it off. “Anyway, you were saying?”
“Right.” He clasps his hands together. “Ben and I are running low on our travel-size toiletries and other things that made more sense to purchase here. Any chance you could give us a lift to a shop tonight?”
“Sure... How about now? Before it gets dark.”My first off-site trip!
“Yes, thank you so much.” Oliver turns and calls out to Ben, who is at the dishwashing station, dumping his meat loaf into the nearby trash. “Ready now?”
“Wonderful! Let’s go,” Ben says. As soon as the three of us are outside the dining hall, he adds, “And can we please find something else to eat? That was horrendous.”
They walk with me back to the cabins so I can get my car keys and glasses from my suitcase. Isaac is sitting in his bunk checking his phone, which is plugged into the wall.
“Where are you going?” he asks when he notices the car keys.
“Store. Want to come?”
“Sure,” he signs, following me outside the cabin where his friends are sitting around the campfire with no flame burning yet. “I can ask Natasha and Jaden, too?”
“Ah, I can only fit five in my car,” I say, holding up my hand to indicate the count.
Isaac isn’t looking at me when I say this, but he sees Oliver and Ben waiting outside the cabin for me. He slowly shakes his head. “That’s fine. Another night.”
“Oh,” I say, watching him walk away. “Okay.”
Oliver leans forward and waves for my attention. “Shall we go?”
“Yes, let me check directions before I lose this sliver of service. I think there’s a Super Mart kinda far away, but there’s a pharmacy and a Mackie’s a few minutes closer.”
“Perfect,” Oliver says, taking a quick peek over my shoulder at the map on my phone. “We’ll follow your lead.”
I’m suddenly relieved that my parents made me clean this old car before driving it to camp. It’s not super reliable anymore. I usually only use it to get to and from school, so I can’t be the one doing all the trips this summer, but I’m sure a few outings won’t hurt.
I put on my glasses, since I’ve been going most of my time here at camp without my usual contact lenses. I let Ben plug in his phone to the stereo so he can play his music, mainly to avoid being judged on my random music choices. They chatter mostof the way to the store, and I do my best to read their lips out of the corner of my eye or through the rearview mirror, but for the most part I sit quietly and let them chat.
It doesn’t take too long for Oliver and Ben to find what they need in the pharmacy, but when I drive us across the street to the Mackie’s parking lot, neither of them wants to get out of the car.
“Let’s just go through there,” Oliver says from the passenger seat, pointing to the drive-through.
“Well...” I say, clasping my hands together, noticing a sudden urge to sign. “I can’t really hear with those.”
“That’s all right, I’ve got you,” he insists.
I carefully drive around the U-bend to the drive-through speakers. As I park, the jumble of noise to my left starts, which Oliver understands perfectly. He leans over the middle compartment to respond, but he’s too far from the microphone for the employee to hear him.
“Sorry, let me just————.” Oliver scooches even closer, hand on my arm, as I turn my head to the side to get out of his way. After placing his order, he asks Ben and me what we want. There’s sometimes a relief to just letting someone else handle social interactions for me.
