Page 59 of Give Me a Sign
“Is that him?” Phoebe asks, hearing the water splashing. “Eh, you do you. Keep flirting. He seems cute.”
“Phoebe!” I say, trying not to let my facial expression reveal my exasperation since Isaac is approaching a few feet away.
“She’s funny,” Isaac signs, clearly picking up on the fact that Phoebe is teasing me.
“Hi,” I say, smiling.
He grins. “I should find my campers. Tell her I say hi.” Isaac looks around to make sure no one is watching before he gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, then dives back into the water to rejoin the boys at the iceberg. Tonight can’t come soon enough.
“Wait,” I say, turning back to Phoebe. “How’d you know he’s cute? Do you know what I look like?”
She holds out a hand, waving it in an oval. “To me, you are a neutral blob of a person.”
“Phoebe, that may be the best compliment I’ve ever received.”
“So what’s up with Isaac?” she asks.
“What about him? I didn’t say anything about him.”
“Uh, yeah, your voice did.”
I can’t get away with anything around her. “Something’s kind of happening there.”
“I knew it.” Phoebe goes quiet for a second. “Yeah, fill me in on all the counselor gossip. I want the after-hours scoop so I’m ready for next summer.”
“You got it.”
Waiting for afternoon game time, some of the staff starts filming counselor and camper testimonials to put in our fundraising video. Isaac’s in charge of recording, lest anyone make the mistake of filming vertically. Phoebe helps make sure everyone says something a little different, so we don’t end up having to edit clips that all say just “I love Camp Gray Wolf” thirty times. Plus, we keep having to reshoot whenever the wind blows someone’s hair over their face.
Jaden’s wrapping up his blurb, focusing on how camp is a great support system. But he’s interrupted when Mackenzie walks up to us. “Um, Ethan says we can’t film videos at camp.”
Natasha shakes her head. “This is for the Gray Wolf page. He already said it’s fine.”
“Yeah,” I say and sign. However annoyed I get with Mackenzie, she’s still my coworker, so I’m still trying my best to be friendly. “It’s to try and raise money for camp next year.”
Mackenzie just slowly nods as she walks away, but she turns back to add, “By the way, the audio is going to be horrible with all this wind right now. Just so you know.”
“Yeah, that’s why we’re just doing the ASL ones right now,” I say. “We’ll delete the audio track.”
“Mm,” Mackenzie mumbles.
As soon as she turns around out of our sight line, Natasha slaps her hands back and forth to sign “Whatever.”
Isaac motions for me to take his phone to record his video. He positions my hands above my shoulders to keep the same height he’d been filming at. “I’ll be fast, don’t worry,” he signs.
I nod, already feeling my arms threatening to shake.
Isaac pulls his staff shirt from his backpack and slides it over his tank top. In a super-exuberant, flawless one-take, he signs, “I love Camp Gray Wolf, why? It’s the perfect place to be myself, as loud, silly, and confident as I want.”
Isaac bounds back toward me, grinning wide.
“Perfect.” I hand his phone back.
“You going to do yours in ASL?”
“Oh,” I say, having not really considered it yet. “Yeah, I think so.”
He slides off his staff shirt and offers it to me. It hangs a bit long, but the frame is cropped, so that won’t be noticeable.
