At least, I think she does. She’s hard to read. She looks us each over, appraising. She raises one eyebrow when she comes to me, and one corner of her lip twitches up. Is it funny I’m here? I mean honestly, yes, it’s hilarious, but also, no it isn’t. I can do this. It’s just an obstacle course. Hop through some tires, crawl under a net, run up a steep ramp, get across a rope ladder suspended between trees, then go down the slide, hop from rock to rock over the small (but waist-deep and freezing cold) stream, get across the monkey bars and the wire-walk, dive through a tire swing into a sand pit, which you then need to get across for the big finale: the Peanut Butter Pit, a rope swing that hangs over a deep pit. Swing across that, and you’ve made it to the end. The trouble with the rope swing is it stays perfectly still, hanging over the pit—it’s not waiting for you to grab it. You have to jump for it.
So it’s just that. Sure, it’s hard. But so is hitting the high note in “That Dirty Old Man,” and I did that last year.
“If you fall or fail, don’t worry about it. Just get back up and keep going. If you want to skip one of the obstacles completely, that’s all right, too, just run around it. No judgments. I just want to see where you’re all at. But by the end of the summer, you’re all going to be running this, easy.” A few of the new campers turn pale at that. I probably do, too.
“The wire-walk is new,” Hudson whispers to me, excited. Our shoulders are touching and I’m so aware of his body, I feel dizzy. “That’s going to take some crazy balance.” I’m doomed.
“I’m more worried about diving through the tire,” I whisper back.
“There’s a mat under the sand. You can’t hurt yourself.”
“That almost sounds like a challenge. Which, to be clear, I will not be rising to.”
Hudson laughs and Connie glances over at us, that eyebrow raising again.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “We’re not just going to be doing this. We’ll go for hikes, climb trees, and learn how to build tents and start fires. All the good woodsy stuff. But the obstacle course is a challenge. And I want to show you that you’re all up for a challenge—’cause life is going to throw them at you. And maybe swinging across that pit at the end isn’t going to make some asshole stop calling you names, but it is going to make you feel really good, I promise. So, who wants to go first?”
Hudson and a few others raise their hands, and she starts sending us through, one by one. We all watch, but it’s like auditions—this isn’t a competition. I’m rooting for each and every camper. Hudson is the fifth up and watching him move makes my whole body shiver a little. He’s in low-slung beige shorts and a blue T-shirt that isn’t tight but rides up a lot, showing off his stomach and hips. Watching him climb the ramp, then cross the rope ladder, I can see the muscles in his arms working. His calves flex as he jumps from stone to stone. He is the most perfect human specimen I have ever seen.
And I kissed him last night.
No, he kissed me.
What is even happening?
“Randy,” Connie says, and I realize it’s the second time she’s saying it. “You sure you want to do this?”
“It’s Del,” I tell her. Luckily, Hudson is on the other side of the obstacle course now, so he can’t hear. “I go by Del now.”
She nods. “Okay, Del. You’re up.”
I couldn’t train for this in Ohio. I lifted weights and ran track, but the only thing we had at school that’s on the obstacle course is the tire hops—which are first. I get through them easily, and quickly—there’s a pattern to it, like dancing. Crawling under the net isn’t hard, either—just use your body to slither, like a snake—that’s something Crystal makes us do to warm up sometimes. But then comes the ramp, and my training for that was running up the steepest hill I could find—which in Ohio was maybe forty degrees. I looked at the physics of it, though, and it’s not that difficult. Not like Donald O’Connor running up the walls in Singing in the Rain. Just a really steep hill. I can do this, I tell myself as I hop up after the net. Just charge.
So I charge, and it works. I grab on to the top to pull myself the rest of the way, which isn’t great—Hudson didn’t need to—but it’s allowed. The rope ladder isn’t so bad, either, just crawl across a swinging rope ladder slowly and carefully. I’ve helped move lights in the theater at school, and it’s kind of like that, I decide, as it rocks back and forth under me. Scary, sure, but doable. The slide is just a slide, and hopping from rock to rock isn’t actually that hard as long as the stream isn’t flooding over them, and it’s not today. I’m shocked by how well it’s going, honestly.
The monkey bars I should have practiced. There’s a park near me with them, but they’re for little kids and I felt silly going there. I figured if kids could do it, so could I. What I didn’t figure was that it burns! I hang in place from one arm and stretch out the other for the next bar, my own weight heavy and pulling painfully on my arm. I’m sweating, too, so I try to go quickly, or else my hands will slip. One kid before me failed the monkey bars, so it’s not the end of the world, but I don’t want Hudson to think I’m the second-worst one here.
Maybe it IS a competition. But just for me. Win the course, win Hudson. In fact, was the kid who fell one of his exes? How many of them are here? I tried to never pay much attention—George said it made me mopey—so I only half know their faces, like blurry people in the background of a photo of Hudson. I think the guy who fell was one of his conquests. And maybe the one who went first and got through everything but the Peanut Butter Pit.
It goes slowly, but I make it across the bars, and I can feel my shirt sticking to my back with sweat now. If I still had my old, longer hair, it would be plastered across my forehead. When I drop from the monkey bars, my hands clench closed involuntarily, and my palms feel like they’re burning. But I have no time to check. Next is the wire-walk—a wire tightrope, but only a foot off the ground. I didn’t prepare for it at all because it wasn’t here last summer. But I pull myself up onto it by the tree it’s tied to, and focus. The good news is, no one has done this one yet. Everyone has fallen, only Hudson kept hopping back on where he fell, taking another step and then falling again. Everyone gave up after their first or second fall.
But actually, it’s not that hard. It’s not easy, don’t get me wrong. The wire flexes and bounces under me and I wish I were barefoot so I could grip it, but walking a perfectly straight line is something we need to do for chorus choreography. Sway too far to the left or right, and you’ll whack the person next to you with your jazz hands. So I do what I do when dancing, and I focus not on my feet, but the tree at the other end of the wire. I stretch my arms out for balance, and then, not too slowly, I walk.
I make it halfway before I fall, farther than anyone else. But I don’t land on my feet, like they all had. Instead, I tumble, landing on all fours. That’s … not good. I glance up, but Hudson isn’t laughing. He’s cheering me on.
“Come on, Del! Get up! You can do it!” I love him.
I give the wire a look from the ground, then push myself up and move on. I already proved enough. The tire hoop is next—suspended horizontally, four thick ropes holding it in place. This is about tumbling, I remind myself. You just have to jump through the hoop. Then land in a somersault, and ideally roll to your feet and keep moving.