Tea- Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Miles was on top of the snow-tubing hill with Jabari which marked that event as having happened more times than he cared to remember. Adding the fact that it was the seven a.m. session put into perspective the moods of the two staff members.

”It’s always such a drag to come back to this after a weekend like that,” Jabari commented, sullenly having his way with a cup of Swiss Miss. Even though it was a Saturday everyone at Camp Ontanogan had come to refer to the beginning of the week as ‘weekends’ since that was their time off. “Seven in the morning. Do these people have no sense? It’s freezing out there!”

“It’s the parents, man. The kids always look miserable in the morning. Drumming up childhood memories of their parents dragging them out of bed in the morning, I guess.”

“This is how shit like racism gets a foothold, man. Nobody thinks about what they’re doing.”

“I guess I could relate being forced to guard a frozen hill at dawn to slavery.”

“Well, you know what I’m saying, anyways. People gotta think about what they’re doing sometimes.” That was as political as anyone bothered to get at Camp Ontanogan. It was just too early and cold for scholarly debate.

Everything but the temperature warmed up once breakfast got going. The camp was headlong into its recreation season which meant that the entire staff logged hours the same way Miles and Jabari had that morning; by playing safety cop at the B.B. gun range, the ice rink, and an assortment of other un-technical activities. People dropped in at the activities which meant that sometimes a person was sitting on their hands wishing they had brought a magazine and other times they felt like a carnival worker operating the most popular ride at the fairgrounds.

Those days weren’t as rewarding but they also weren’t as draining as being responsible for the safety and education of a specific group. Everyone finished by nine p.m. at the latest and reinvigorated the lounge at the end of the row of crude cabins the staff was getting used to calling home. Sometimes second dinners were made, drinks and games were mostly a constant, and old tapes made innumerable marches through the battered black V.C.R. that sat in the lopsided and cracked faux-cherry T.V. cabinet.

Miles played absently with Sophie’s dusty gold hair while staring intently at nothing. He was looking forward to the days off with her and not in a rush to do anything. Thirty to forty hours crammed into a three day weekend might sound brutal to someone outside looking in but for a group of twenty-somethings still living to experience life, long weekend hours were more than payment for four day holidays.

Miles and Sophie had done everything their surroundings had to offer. They had eaten at every restaurant, browsed every general store, and explored every borough. They went to the bars when the majority had a notion to go and kept to themselves more often than not. Miles wondered whether or not he should worry about not having anything to do for four days. They had been bounding around to cities more often than not and their location was so rural that deciding to go out for anything more than dinner at a Mom and Pop was a logistical ordeal.

Miles had subscribed to Netflix a few weeks before, which was an online movie service where you could get three DVDs at a time and return them through the mail with no late fees. He and Sophie had been watching a lot of movies, sometimes with Scott and Kyra and sometimes not and generally being anti-social when they were in camp.

It struck Miles as he rambled on in the Jalopy of his mind that he and Sophie were being rather anti-social with one another in that aspect as well. They used to spend evenings staring at one another and talking to hear themselves and one another but lately it seemed as though they were just with one another. Fatigue was not an issue as most everyone felt more energized once they got done working a weekend than any time they were paid to be enthusiastic. Familiarity was the closest conclusion that Miles could come to. Even though he and Sophie had spent every night together since the first time, the entire run of their relationship was only in its second full month. Miles had heard people talk of how time seemed to speed up in situations like his to the point where weeks seemed like months and so on but it was a bit too rapid for his taste. He decided to make a conscious effort to slow things down to where they were when he first became fascinated by the cute English girl he met at the coffee service weeks and weeks ago.

“Hey!” After a quick game of foosball, that was. Jabari’s shout had gotten Miles off the couch and facing off with Emma against their favorite opponents, Jabari and Paul. Paul handed Miles a bottle of Coors and clinked it with his before they started.

The game was chugging on when Miles was surprised by a brush against his shoulder. “I’m going to bed,” Sophie said quietly.

“Um, Ok. I’ll be there in two seconds.” Miles immediately regretted saying this in light of his new revelation. And then the conundrum. Miles didn’t know whether to leave his three partners high and dry or snub his girlfriend to see if he and Emma could come back from three behind to beat Jabari and Paul.

Sophie didn’t wait for his answer. When Miles turned to give a better response, she was gone. His sigh was loud enough to illicit a chortle from Paul and Jabari. They were between goals, so Paul ventured to the fridge and came back double fisting for Miles. He held the bottle out and Miles took it with a shrug and promptly drained half its contents.

“Love, it’s a Motherfucker,” Jabari quoted, in his best ‘Old School’ impersonation. Miles smartly shot his team to within two.

The rest of the night slid rapidly toward debauchery. Miles and Emma lost that first game as well as a second. Afterwards Miles challenged Jabari to a round of darts and gained some dignity back by beating him in that venue. The case of Coors in the fridge put up a valiant effort but ended up a casualty by midnight.

Miles had a feeling that he was in trouble, but in his state that was about all he felt until he crawled into bed. It was uncommonly roomy. He realized what was going on but was too inebriated to think it through. Before he realized it the morning had come.

Slamming a scoop of powdered Gatorade in a clean-ish pint glass helped matters as Miles trundled to the dining hall. He sat unabashedly next to Sophie, who acknowledged him with a roll of the eyes, a faint smirk, and a snort. Miles tried to look as sheepish as he could.

“What? You thought I was going to sleep with you all pissed? Thrashing around? Probably wanting awkward, sloppy sex?” Miles grinned. “Forget it. Maybe I’ll sleep with you tonight. You’ll have to be nice, though. Ditching me to play Foos. I shag you entirely too much, I think.” He could tell she was a bit upset even (especially) since she was trying to play it off.

“I’m all yours tonight.”

“You should be so lucky.” Sophie studied her teacup shaking her head. Miles gave up and ate his Sunday scrambled eggs and bacon.

The leathercraft building was never a fun place to be, but twenty kids and their parents hammering metal stamps into wallets on a tabletop was especially excruciating with even the mildest of hangovers. Miles sat at the money box and smiled like a jester while he took bills in and handed out bits of a cow that probably never imagined its earthly remains would end up with the word “MOM” poorly tamped into them. Kyra was his counterpart in the arts and crafts side of the building but at opening it was too busy to strike up a conversation with her. Miles just stared out the window at the grey skies and scanned the walls full of leather projects that the original salesman must have brought to the camp as samples, such was their flawlessness. There were things on that wall that Miles had never seen in the bins behind him, but inevitably someone would ask for the checkbook case or the armband. Such was life. He could have taken those obsolete items off the wall but someone would probably raise a fuss. They might even be on the Historic Registry, Miles thought with a smirk.

From time to time Miles would have to attend to a missing letter stamp or a lesson on the procedures of the station but for the most part he took money and listened to incessant hammering from nine until noon. He and Kyra walked up to the dining hall when the morning was over for the weekly lunch of school-style pizza and iceberg salad.

After they sent the group off there was a brief meeting where comment cards were read and issues were discussed. Miles was then paired up with Gerri, whom he actually had not hung out with in quite a while, to clean a share of the cabins and program areas used that weekend.

“So how have you been, Miles?” Gerri asked, as the two set off toward their first project with a rickety plastic wheelbarrow full of cleaning supplies.

“Good, good. I think Sophie’s a bit ticked at me for playing foosball and drinking all night, but…”

“Yeah, I saw that,” she laughed. “Other than that? What do you think of all this?”

“I could do without the cleaning, but it’s good. Where else can you have four day weekends, even if they are really during the week?”

“Oh yeah. Do you ever get bored, though?”

“All the time.”

“I’m used to being able to ramble wherever. Here…It’s all snowed in all the time. And there’s no open space anywhere.” Miles nodded, imagining what Texas was probably like. The pair continued trudging uphill until they got to their first cabin. “I don’t think I’ve ever cleaned with you before,” Gerri commented. Miles nodded his agreeance. “I like to get this shit done quick.” Again Miles agreed with her and they set to task. The difference in getting a slow or apathetical cleaning partner was sometimes an hour or more. Miles was glad for Gerri’s comment and they did indeed whip through their two cabins and the BB gun room to clock out at just before four in the afternoon.

Miles didn’t know how long he would have to wait for Sophie, but no one was in his cabin when he got back to it so he used the time to take a decent shower and shave unhurried. As he was finishing up he heard someone push open the door and ducked his head out of the cubicle bathroom. It was Scott. Miles saluted him with his razor and returned to the mirror.

When he finished in the bathroom Sophie had not stopped by the cabin so Miles walked to hers. He found her sipping tea and reading a novel.

“Hey sweetie. You hiding out?” Miles kissed her forehead in greeting.

“No, just reading.”

“Oh. Well, do you want to do something, or would you rather read?” She shrugged without looking at him.

“I don’t care.”

“Um, do you want to be alone?”

“You can stay.” She shifted to one side of her tiny bed. Miles sat next to her and watched her read. When she came to a stopping point Sophie bent the page and laid it on her stomach. Miles leaned over and kissed her cautiously.

“I don’t like not sleeping with you,” he ventured.

“I don’t like it when you get so pissed.”

“Oh.” Miles didn’t know what to say. “Well, I won’t then.”

“Just like that?”

“If it means being with you, then of course. I don’t want to do anything to screw this up.”

Sophie harrumphed. “You just get all stand-offish when you drink. Nothing like you are normally.” Miles nodded. He hadn’t noticed that trait, but wasn’t something like that usually pointed out by a third party anyways? He nodded again.

“Ok.” He slid his arm beneath the small of Sophie’s back and she conformed to his embrace.

“Take a nap with me,” she asked.

“Ok.”

“I missed sleeping with you, too,” Sophie admitted once she had curled into Miles. Before sleep took over Miles counted the day as a success but knew he would have to begin watching himself.

Miles spent the next day earnestly reaffirming his devotion to Sophie. What that devotion amounted to was making sure that neither of them had reason to leave Miles’ cabin for anything the entire morning or afternoon. The timid ness he had felt around her the previous day was still with him, to be sure, and probably served him well. Miles hoped it was only in his mind but it seemed as though Johanna was watching any subtle thing he did during the course of the day and mentally scoring his efforts. Sophie had been the one applying the initial pressure to think about the future in a more tangible fashion and he hoped recent events were not causing her to rethink her convictions of what she probably saw as some kind of life together. When Miles was forced to think about their circumstances he was in favor of the Carpe Diem attitude Sophie seemed to have. Just because he tried not to think about it too much did not mean he did want it, or at least the possibility of it, to disappear. His most pervading though, however, was that two months was too soon to be worried about any of it!

Those thoughts and others cropped up from time to time during their first day off together but for the most part the two could enjoy one another’s company without apprehension. Miles and Sophie had a rare shared talent for being able to talk to one another and not needing third parties such as a television or deck of cards to mediate their time together.

“You are not going to become a professional surfer, Miles.”

“I could do it. It doesn’t look that hard. I just need to learn how to surf. Besides, you’re supposed to be supportive of me.”

“Well, being supportive is one thing. Supporting you while you play on the beach is entirely different. Besides, if you’re going to become a surfer then I’ll just follow you to California and become a lingerie model.”

“There you go. That’s what America’s all about! Chasing your dreams!” Sophie rolled her eyes.

“What brought all this on anyways?”

“Paul’s got a surfing magazine and I was leafing through it in the lounge. They look like they’re having a pretty good time. I guess they just go out and surf with their sponsor’s stickers on their board and if a photographer puts a picture in a magazine with that sticker in it, they get paid by the sponsor.”

Sophie cocked her head for a moment and then rolled her eyes. “I cannot believe we are still having this conversation. Miles, my darling, you know I love you more than the moon-“ She saw him blush and could not resist a confirming kiss- “But you can’t even swim very well, from what you say.”

“Well, I would have to practice, yeah…”

“We need to go make dinner. I’m hungry,” Sophie concluded. Miles agreed and they left their nest to search through their claimed cupboards in the kitchen.

When they arrived it was pretty much a typical scene. Whenever Miles wandered into the kitchen during the afternoon hours he realized how dirty that particular building was. None of the staff quarters were particularly clean because everyone was too exhausted after work to bother picking up and no one wanted to do it on their day off, but the communal space they shared was atrocious. What floor wasn’t carpeted was sticky, and what was carpeted, gritty with sand and gravel from the plow that cleared the camp’s roads. There were so many dishes in the sinks that Miles often contemplated throwing them away and starting from scratch. Packaging from all sorts of snacks and impromptu meals was always scattered about the tables and counters and the fridge was more of a catacomb where you could never be sure if the treasure you were searching for was even among the rubble.

Sophie reached behind her box of Special K and found the set of plates and cutlery she had squirreled away for the two of them. With a look of disdain she cleared enough room in the sink to fit a pot under the spigot for water to boil pasta with. Normally Miles would not have cared one way or the other and just washed whatever dishes he needed but he had no choice but to go along with Sophie in claiming and combining cupboard space and hiding clean dishes.

Paul was lounging on one of the couches watching ‘Jackie Brown’ and eating what looked like a microwave burrito that had jumped on a hot sauce grenade. Paul was one of the main culprits as far as a lack of kitchen hygiene went. Miles had seen Sophie throw the same look at the ignorant slob that she had used on the sink and it reaffirmed his decision to take her side on matters of cleanliness. He tried to calm her with a sweet kiss and a hug around the waist but he could tell it was not going to do any good. Miles realized all the good will he had just spent most of the afternoon re-establishing might all be for naught the longer Sophie spent in the lounge. He suddenly had less-than warm feelings toward Paul. The kicker of it was that he did not think Sophie would mind those feelings.

Miles helped where he could but even he was apprehensive of interrupting Sophie’s methods. He started washing dishes because he needed something to calm the tension he felt watching Sophie scowl and cook.

“What are you doing?”

“I just thought I’d wash these. I’m not doing anything else.”

“Don’t do those. People will start thinking they don’t have to clean up after themselves.” For an immeasurably minute amount of time Miles considered trying to explain his actions further but Sophie’s stare at him was quickly converting into the one she had been using on Paul. Miles dropped the sponge and turned off the water.

“What do you want me to do then?”

“You don’t have to do anything.” Sophie turned back to the stove to stir linguine. Miles stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned against the counter. He knew there was something he could be doing but being as the current episode was becoming a regular occurrence he was too exasperated to figure it out.

After what seemed like far too long of an uncomfortable silence save Samuel L. Jackson’s boisterous obscenities dinner was served. Miles was praying someone else would come into the lounge (someone Sophie liked) to ease the awkward triangle of people but that never happened. They ate quietly without a word from Paul. When they were finished Miles washed the dishes and hid them away again, which earned him a hand squeeze from Sophie after she refrigerated the leftovers.

They walked back to Miles’ cabin hand in hand but still in silence. “Do you want to watch a movie?” Miles finally asked once they walked in the door. Sophie nodded.

“I want to take a shower, though. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. Do you want some pajamas?”

“What time is it?”

“Six-Thirty.”

Sophie sighed. “Yeah. Thanks.” She turned to Miles and hugged him. She rested her lips on his neck and they stood static for a moment. Without a word she broke the embrace and went to Miles’ drawers. Sophie picked out her favorite long sleeve T-shirt and pajama pants as Miles smiled at the familiarity of it all and went into the bathroom.

When she came out Miles was already under the covers waiting to push play on the newest movie that had come in the mail. He had done everything he could think of; down to making tea and lighting the favorite candle she had brought weeks ago from her cabin. She smiled at his familiarity and joined him beneath the blankets.

“What are we watching?”

“‘Kicking and Screaming’. Scott suggested it. He’s a huge fan of Parker Posey and she’s in it. I guess it’s about a bunch of kids trying to figure out what to do after college. The parallels are pretty obvious, I suppose.”

“Timely.” Miles pushed play.

As they watched they became more enmeshed in one another and the kitchen incident seemed to fade away as had the drunken foosball tournament from the night before. But although both potential altercations seemed to have been quashed rather anticlimactically, Miles wondered how many of those graces he had left. The wild card was that sometimes Sophie’s brashness had nothing to do with anything Miles did or could even control. Indeed in those very situations it seemed as though anything Miles tried to do to alleviate the situation only made things worse. He sighed and remembered that there were far more good times than rough and to live moment to moment with the whirlwind they had created.

The movie finished barely into the early hour of nine. Neither lover said anything for a long moment as the credits rolled. The key grips were nearly pushed off the screen before Sophie said anything.

“That was pretty good.” Miles nodded. And it had been. “Listen. I don’t mean to get bitchy with you,” Sophie sighed. “It’s little stuff that I shouldn’t get angry about but that makes me even angrier; the fact that it’s no big deal. I mean, you treat me like a princess… No one is ever going to-” Emotion got the best of Sophie and she lost her voice to hitching for a moment. “I love you so much-“ Trying to talk made it worse and she gave in until the tears passed. Miles felt them traipsing in an uncertain meander down his chest. “I just don’t know if I can do this any more.”

That got Miles’ attention in a hurry. “What do you mean?” He felt a lump come into his own throat that he hoped she would abate.

“I don’t know, Miles. If you weren’t…you…I wouldn’t have even been able to go for this long. But I don’t know what you want…Shit, I don’t even know what I want…But I know I can’t do this anymore unless we talk about it. What are we?”

“You know what we are, Sophie. I love you. Why do you think I treat you like a princess? Just to get something from you? You’ve given me everything already. I do it because I love you and you deserve it. Hell, I feel like I should be making up for all the years you never had someone to treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”

“I know, Miles, I know.” Now she was kneading his arm with both of her hands to quell nervous energy. “But what? Am I just going to be some girl you loved when you took some time off to see the country? For that rate, I don’t even know if that’s what you are to me. I want you to be more but there are some times when…”

“Those times are what being in a relationship is all about, Sophie. No one is going to be one hundred percent your perfect ideal. It just doesn’t exist. Those clashes…You work them out and there are less and less of them as time goes on. We really hardly know one another as far as time goes…We talk and we know everything about one another you could write in an autobiography or whatever, but there are nuances that we’ll just have to wait for. But that’s what happens. Those are the final pieces of the puzzle.”

“So do you want to finish the puzzle or just put enough of it together to see what the picture looks like?” Sophie looked into Miles’ eyes with a seriousness he had never seen in hers or anyone else’s. She wanted an answer to her question and she wanted…

“I want to finish it.” Miles realized; more to himself than Sophie. Then he realized something else. “But I want you there. I mean, what I just saw in your eyes…That has to be there. That’s what I love most about you.” The bulbs were flashing one after the other for Miles that night. “That…passion. That you love me enough to not just let things slip away. That you confront me. It’s so hard for me when you do, but nobody else does that. It’s…you.”

“So…You know what staying with me means.”

‘I have an idea.”

“It means one of us gets a green card. Which means one of us gets married. Preferably to the other one. Because Scott’s a cool guy and all, but I don’t think Kyra would put up with it even if it was just for legal purposes.”

“That is the most romantic thing I have ever heard, Sophie Harrison. Was that a proposal?” She stared at him from the corners of her eyes for as long as she could without smiling. “If it was, what would you say?”

“Well, if it was, I suppose I would accept. If it was.”

“That’s good to know. Just in case, I mean.”

“Right.” Miles rolled over onto Sophie to smother her giggles. After a bout of kissing she regained composure.

“You would really?” Miles saw the question in Sophie’s eyes even more than he heard it coming from her lips.

“Yeah. Yeah, Sophie, I would.” She searched his eyes for reassurance and then began making love to him almost before he realized it.

They realized it was time to wake up when the chickadees were too much for them to ignore.

“Did you sleep okay?” Miles asked. Sophie giggled.

“Yeah…Why? We’ve slept together a hundred times; you never asked me that one.” Miles shrugged. “Are you feeling more protective of me, Miles Drake?” Miles grunted.

“Well if you’re going to be like that about it…”

“Sorry, Sorry. Nervousness, my love. Wow. I’m nervous around you. I haven’t felt that since the first time we had tea together.”

“The first time?”

“You were cute. Anyways, it was a sweet question. I love you, you know.”

“I know. I love you, too.” Miles found himself liking the idea that he still had something in him that would make Sophie nervous. “I don’t want to leave this room,” he sighed reluctantly.

“Well…We can at least make tea and get something warm in us before we go. Sophie shrugged off the covers after a binding kiss. She had lost her (his) clothes during the night, Miles saw as she went to the hotplate. He sighed and admired the realness of her. Sophie wasn’t like one of those tarted-up women in magazines or on billboards but Miles had never been with one of those women. He had been with Sophie. He had felt her body and her touch and the love he felt for her was real. That made her the realization of every daydream he had ever had.

Miles pushed the sap aside as Sophie scurried back under the comforter; her feet finally having sent the message to her brain that it was cold even inside the cabin they shared. He whispered a ‘thanks’ while she shivered and they waited for the pot to boil.

Miles took his turn, also naked, and brought steeping mugs back to the bookshelf beside the bed that doubled as a nightstand. When the water and tea came to an agreement of temperature and flavor they were separated and the jaybirds slowly sipped the results. The looks they shared were at the same time shy and knowing. They were old friends staring a new craft together; school kids kissing under a magnolia tree for the first time. And they couldn’t be happier for it.