“I have ideas,” Lucas went on.
“I wrote it,” Nate said as Lucas wandered back to his bunk’s table. “I don’t need ideas.”
“You kind of do,” Janelle said under her breath.
“I’m in hell.”
“He’s eight,” Janelle pointed out again. “And he read your book. That’s nice.”
Nate physically recoiled.
“You’ll have more time soon,” Janelle went on. “It’s just another day or so until the other counselor gets here.”
If Stevie thought that the morning had been an abrupt swing into action, she had no idea what the day had in store. The minute that the trays were cleared from the picnic tables, the entire camp moved over to the green, where they assembled in a ring around the flagpole, said the Pledge of Allegiance, and listened to some announcements. Then all the groups split off and activities began.
It was a good thing that Janelle was the way she was. The art pavilion was ready. In fact, it was likely that in the entire history of the camp, the art pavilion had never been as ready as it was on that morning. Janelle had waited her whole life for this moment, and now it was upon her. These children had no idea what they were in for. They would craft like they had never crafted in their lives.
For a few hours, there was no case, there was no David. There were pipe cleaners and markers and rounded scissors. Stevie had glue stuck on her fingertips and paint on her arms and had helped make half a dozen flapping owls out of paper plates, several beaded necklaces, some kind of thing with paint and feet. During the short periods that the pavilion was free of kids, Janelle was sweeping around, an ecstatic glow on her face, as she was combining her loves of crafting, organizing, and cleaning into one geode of pleasure. Lunch came and went, then the entire afternoon. Soon there was dinner, during which Nate hid behind one of the dining pavilion pillars before vanishing entirely, and then the first day was over.
“I’m going to get set up for tomorrow and talk to Vi,” Janelle said. “Meet you back in the cabin.”
Stevie called David on the way back.
“Finally,” he said. “I wondered where you were.”
“There are so many . . .” She looked around nervously. “. . . little kids.”
“At a summer camp? Holy shit, we need to tell someone about this.”
“Also,” Stevie said, “I have to make sure the head of camp doesn’t notice I’m gone. It may be harder now that kids are here. Kids see things, right?”
“How about I come there? I can kayak over. I was out paddling around on that side of the lake earlier, and there’s a stream deep enough to ride over on. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
This was a good plan. It took a long time to go around the lake, but going over the lake was quick and easy, and there were plenty of places to dock the kayak or whatever it was you did with them. Stevie had a vague sense that maybe this was not allowed, but a vague sense is not a clear, definite sense.
A purple twilight fell over the lake as Stevie sat alone, on the far side of the lake house. She could hear kids singing in the distance, and fireflies floated and twinkled all around her. There was a magical quality to the night already, when David came gliding along the dark waters in a yellow plastic kayak, beaching it (maybe that was the verb) next to her on the rocky sand.
“Pretty good entrance,” he said. “Right?”
Stevie could see at once that he had make an extra effort that night. His hair was tousled, but in a very artful way. He wore a fitted black T-shirt that she had never seen before, and she was immediately certain that he’d bought it just because it fit him in exactly the right ways. He was wearing long swim trunks and flip-flops, but even these seemed to be part of an ensemble. He bent down and whispered low in her ear, “Do you live around here?”
Stevie actually shivered. Her body went loose, like the screws all fell out at once. She grabbed his hand and took him around behind the bunks, weaving out of the way of any lights or people, until they reached her cabin. For one extremely fleeting second, she thought about Sabrina and the others slipping into the woods way back when, the thrill of getting away with something at this dark, warm place alongside the lake. She felt herself understand something about them, and the understanding was deep and profound, and also gone a few seconds later. They had reached the cabin and shut the door. In the next minute, they were on the camp bed. The next thing she knew, there was a firm pounding on the door, and her eyes ached from the light when she opened them. She sprang up, straightening out her clothes. There was nowhere to hide David; the cabin had no closets. So she had no choice but to open the door and take whatever was coming.
Nicole stood on the step, looking grim. She glanced inside and sighed deeply.
“Who are you?” she asked David, who was sitting on the edge of the bed and maybe looking a little too amused.
“I’m . . .” He looked at Stevie, as if she held the secret to his true identity, the one he had never been able to share with the world. “. . . David?”
“David who? How did you get here?”
“Kayak?”
“You need to go, now.”
Nicole waited for him to get up and straighten his shirt.
“I’ll walk you back to your kayak,” she said. “You shouldn’t be out on the lake after dark. Do you have a flashlight?”
“I, um . . .”
“Stevie, give him a flashlight.”
Stevie did so, and David took it with a nervous smile. The two of them were about to leave, when Nicole drew her head back and looked above the door.
“Is that a camera?”
“I’m recording birds,” Stevie said.
She had no idea why she said that. It’s just what came out.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. We need to talk.”
She was back a short time later, alone. Stevie had tidied the cabin in her absence, as if the situation might improve if her shower caddy was in better order.
“I want to be very clear about something,” Nicole said. “I know you are here as Carson’s guest, but if I catch you bringing people into the camp at any time unauthorized, you will be gone, Carson or no Carson. This is a camp. For children. Which means we have a duty of care. I’m responsible for every single person on these grounds. No strangers around the kids. No people kayaking at night on the lake. That lake can be dangerous. This is the one and only time I am going to say this.”
This was all delivered in such a tone of serious, grinding finality that Stevie was humiliated to her bone marrow.
“Yep,” she said. “Got it. Yep.”
As Nicole left, Janelle came in. Stevie could tell that Janelle had heard everything that had gone down, and she looked at Stevie wide-eyed as she shut the door.
“Fun night?” she asked.
“Kind of got busted with David.”
“I know,” she said, sounding maybe a little irritated. “I came back before. You didn’t even hear me. I shut the door and backed out. I saw Nicole coming, but she was ahead of me and I couldn’t get to the door in time. I texted you, but . . .”
Stevie looked over and saw that there were seven texts from Janelle waiting to be read. “Sorry.”
“Can you . . . ask next time? Or tell me? Except, I don’t think there will be a next time, because she just handed you your ass. But you know what I mean. If it were me and Vi, I’d tell you.”