“I . . .” I really don’t want to have a personal conversation about anything with Botts right now. And this is so eighth grade. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you!” Lis says. “You’re the best.”
“You guys are not going to believe what happened,” Talia says the second we get back to the bunk. Actually, the second we get back to the bunk we are swarmed by children who want the Munchkins we’ve brought back, but the second after that, Talia pulls us into the counselors’ room. She sticks her head out into the hallway to see if anyone else is around.
“What is it?” Lis asks, eyes wide. “Tell me, tell me!”
“Craziness,” she says, laughing manically. “Total craziness.”
“What?” Lis asks. “You’re killing us!”
“Janelle hooked up with Lawrence last night,” Talia whispers.
“Okay,” I say. “We were expecting that, right? Are they a thing?”
Talia shakes her head. “No, they’re not a thing! He just hooked up with her because . . . why not! She hooks up with everyone!”
“Did she tell you?” I ask. “Were they here?”
“Yes! They were here! She put up a sheet between our areas at least. But I could tell what was happening. It was way worse than with Jamon. She was super noisy and gross about it!”
“So why is this such a scandal?” I wonder. “Does Allie know?”
“Oh, she definitively knows. And she’s mad. Everyone knows. But that’s not the crazy part.” Talia’s eyes are gleaming. I cannot for the life of me figure out what she is so excited about, but it makes me feel slightly sick.
“Ready?” Talia asks.
“Just tell us,” I say.
“He asked her to”—she lowers her voice—“masturbate for him and she did and used her hairbrush!”
Lis gasps.
We all look at the purple brush that is oh so casually lying on her windowsill.
“And then he went back to his bunk and told Lenny and Max about it,” she finishes.
“How do you know?” I ask.
“Because I saw Max on the beach and he asked me if I saw it! And then he told me about it!”
“Poor Janelle,” I say. I feel sick to my stomach. Janelle trusted Lawrence. They were together, and she trusted him, and he completely betrayed her. Now the whole camp is probably talking about her.
“Poor Janelle?” Talia says. “Poor me! I had to hear the whole thing.”
I clench my fists. “I’m sorry she did it in the room when you were here, and it definitely makes me feel differently about the hairbrush, but it’s not that big a deal. Couples do stuff together when they have sex. They try things out.”
“They’re not a couple!” Lis says.
“That doesn’t make Janelle wrong for doing it,” I say. “She was sharing herself with him!”
Seriously, who cares that she masturbated in front of him? I mean, really. Who. Freaking. Cares? And so she used a brush. Big freaking deal.
People love to talk. People love to judge. But I mean, that’s what couples do. Try to please each other.
But still. This is going to be a problem for Janelle.
“How many people know?” I ask.
“It’s spreading,” Talia says. “And she is so clueless and—”
Talia’s sentence is interrupted by Janelle throwing open the sheet and bouncing inside in one of her trademark tube tops. “You’re back!” she says. “Hiiiii! How were your days off? I can smell the powdered sugar!”
We all freeze.
“Great, thanks,” Lis says quickly.
I don’t know what to do. Do I say something? But what would I say exactly? The very fact that I know is going to make her feel horrible. “It was good,” I say slowly. “How was . . .” I hesitate. “Your day?”
“Totally exhausting. We had soccer, which was a total shit show. Our girls cannot block a ball. But General Swim was fun. It was so hot that I went in.”
I nod.
Eric comes on over the loudspeaker. “Attention, all campers and counselors. Attention, all campers and counselors. It is now the end of Dinner Washup. I’m hungry. Are you hungry? Please proceed to flagpole.”
“There’s lots more, but I’ll fill you in tonight!” she says with a wink. She grabs a sweatshirt off her bed. “Let’s round up the troops!”
Talia and Lis are smirking to each other as they follow Janelle out of the cabin.
I can’t help but wonder—is there any chance that Talia was the one who told everyone? Or that she made it up? Is she pulling a Zoe Buckman?
No. She wouldn’t do that. Would she?
Gavin and I are walking to the Counselors’ Lounge after Milk and Cookies. “What’s wrong?” he asks me.
I sigh. “Did you hear about . . . what happened?”
“I did,” he says. He doesn’t even hesitate.
“I figured. She has no idea that anyone is talking about her,” I say. “I hate it.”
“He’s a jerk,” Gavin says.
“I can’t believe he told everyone. Or Talia told everyone.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Why does anyone do anything?” I ask. I hesitate. “How do we know that everyone isn’t talking about us?”
“Because I am not an asshole. And no one knows. Besides Botts. And he doesn’t know what he knows.”
“We don’t know that we’ve never been spotted. Someone could have seen something. Everyone could be gossiping about us behind our backs.”
“True. But if everyone was talking about us, we would hear it. And we could always deny it. If we wanted to. No one knows what happens between us except us.”
“I guess,” I say.
“And anyway, no one really cares. Even about this brush thing. By tomorrow everyone will be over it.”
But he’s wrong. By the next night, all the counselors in camp know. Or at least it feels like that.
Lis and Talia stand even farther away from Janelle than they normally do at flagpole. Before she was the annoying co-counselor. Now she is genuinely a leper. Allie and her friends are clearly whispering about her on the other side of the flagpole circle.
At dinner, I go to the kitchen to get the lasagna, and then sit beside Talia.
“Ugh,” Talia mutters, taking a bite of her faux–peanut butter sandwich and jutting her chin at Janelle. “She is so gross.”
“She is not gross,” I snap. “Who cares what she does?”
“Everyone.” Talia shrugs. “I’m just glad I didn’t see. My eyeballs would be scarred.”
“He’s the one who’s gross,” I say finally. “Why would he tell his friends?”
“Guys always tell their friends.”
“No, they don’t,” I say. “Not if they’re decent guys.”
“Lawrence is a jerk. She should have known he’d be a jerk.”
My head hurts. “So now it’s her fault that he’s a jerk?”
“You know what I mean,” she says with a shrug.
I don’t. And I do.