Chapter 9
The sky was grey but the air was warmer than it had been all season when Miles, Sophie, Kyra, and Scott filed out of a cabin barely built for two. They took Scott’s car because it got the best mileage and after stopping at the first Dunkin’ Doughnuts on their route out of camp they were off and running to
“Oh my god it’s good to be out of camp for a while.” Scott declared with a feral stretch.
“Can you imagine staying there during the summer when you can’t leave whenever you want and have to sign in and out even when you are allowed to go?” Miles pondered aloud.
“That’s not for me. Ok. Well, you girls run into Victoria’s Secret and buy something sexy for us and Miles and I will go to Sharper image and pretend we’re really interested in purchasing massage chairs and electric scooters.” Kyra punched Scott’s arm. Sophie slapped Miles’.
“Hey, I didn’t say anything!” He cried.
“You would have.”
“Sweetheart, I’ve told you a hundred times that I would think you were beautiful even if you weren’t wearing anything at all.” She slapped him again but smiled as she did. Kyra mimicked her.
“Hey!”
“Shut it, Scott. You’ll say something just as dumb sometime when I’m not around. That was in advance.” He shook his head.
“Ahh, come on. Why not get something more to eat? That one Bismark on the way here isn’t cutting it.” They wandered until they saw a Panara and decided on expensive sandwiches for brunch.
Sitting at a high round table with high round chairs with his closest friends on the east side of the country Miles imagined then as a normal double date, a group of teachers or small business owners, nurses or bankers, or a mixture of any of those. The kind of people that worked nine to five jobs and had two week’s paid vacations and ranch houses with Volkswagen Jettas in the driveway.
Sometimes Miles wanted that. Their jobs seemed like ones that no one would take seriously; something that college kids did when they took a year off from school to see the country or something along those lines. Miles realized that these feelings of wanting to grow up and live a normal, boring life were the opposite of what he had been feeling a day or so before. That was the reason for the warring in his mind. Both sides of the job market had good points and bad ones. The perfect solution would be to blend them, perhaps have a real job eight months out of the year and a ‘fun’ job for three or four months with a vacation or two scattered in them somewhere.
“Miles.” He turned to look at Sophie. “Are you having a seizure? You’ve been staring at your sandwich for a frighteningly long time.”
“Oh, sorry. Just wool-gathering. Imagining us all as bankers or something boring like that.”
“Wow. Your fantasies are really…bland. Sorry.” Miles rolled his eyes and continued eating his sandwich. While they waited for him to finish the other three talked about life in a house with ten other people.
“Yeah, Paul pisses me off sometimes. But it’s not as though he does anything specifically. He’s not annoying on purpose. He just…doesn’t do anything.” This was from Kyra, off an observation from Sophie.
“He’s pretty much the only weak link, really though,” Scott added. “We got pretty lucky seeing as how he’s our worst problem.”
“The foreign kids are coming along pretty well. I mean, Sergio and Christopher. Both of their English skills have gotten a lot better over the last couple of months.” Kyra started.
“Yeah, we should get them out more. If I were in a different country for this long I’d have wanted to see a little more by now.”
“Is this their first stay here?” Sophie asked. By that time Miles was finished and he spoke up.
“Christopher was a foreign exchange student in high school for a semester. I don’t know about Sergio, but my guess would be he’s a newbie.”
“How’d you find that out?” Sophie asked.
“I talk to other people. Actually, the two of us get scheduled on a lot of the multi-person stations for some reason.”
“I think they just get lazy with those schedules in the office. They must just change a couple of names around on a master template and distribute it because I haven’t done anything radically different since I got here,” Scott said.
“Maybe they just see certain people as being good at certain things,” Miles offered.
“Or maybe they notice the people who don’t bitch about being put on the shitty jobs.” Kyra rebutted. They all nodded, seeming to see both points as potentially valid.
“Hey. We’re not here to talk about work,” Miles finally said. “Let’s get out of here and spend those miserably tiny paychecks they give us.” The other three laughed and they left Panara for the rest of the plaza.
They ended up in The Sharper Image first because they all wanted to get a free chair massage. After that got old they decided to stick together and after a quick stop in the Yankee Candle store so Sophie could get a Clean Cotton Housewarmer it was off to Borders.
It was never any problem spending most of a day in that store since there was something for everyone. Sophie stayed mostly in the book section; Miles in music. Scott and Kyra drifted from section to section as their moods swayed; sometime together and sometimes not.
Miles wandered through the bookshelves after a while looking for Sophie because he was lonely. He found her in an overstuffed chair in one of the many nooks around the store reading a girly book.
“Hey, darling.”
“Hi!” Sophie was happy to see him but seemed sleepy. Miles knew that was just how she was when she was reading something interesting. “Did you find anything?” She tented the paperback on her stomach to give Miles her attention.
“Nothing I can’t live without. Did you have any luck?”
“Well, I like this one.” She rolled her eyes to her stomach, “But I’m just going to order it online. It’ll be cheaper.”
“Good call.” Miles pressed his palms on the arms of Sophie’s chair so he could lean down to kiss her.
“What was that for?”
“You’ll probably do something cute and irresistible that I won’t be around for eventually. Just banking on it now.”
“I bet you know what I’m about to say.”
“Mmhh. I love you, too, Sophie.”
“No, that you’re cheesy.” Miles helped her up and she re-shelved her book. “But I love you, too, anyways.”
They walked around the bookstore holding hands like junior highschoolers and not caring. When they found Scott and Kyra everyone decided that seeing a movie would be the thing to do.
Miles had not seen a movie in a theatre since he had been in Chicago. The closest theatre to the camp was a half an hour away but for some reason he and Sophie had never considered the option.
They saw a 3-star comedy that did what it was supposed to do but that none of them would be waiting eagerly to purchase in a month.
“Well, it’s way too early to go back to camp,” Miles noted, seeing that the six o’clock hour was more young than old.
“It’s probably about time to eat again,” Scott countered. Everyone agreed that it was indeed precisely that time of the evening.
Dining out was a wonderful event for adults used to eating the same things their elementary school cafeterias had served. Being from Chicago had afforded Miles a diverse palette, but he knew being on the east coast was an even bigger treat for the small-town folks who didn’t have the diversity where they hailed from that they saw in New Hampshire. However, Miles was very appreciative of Bruschetta appetizers and a chicken, artichoke, and smoked Gouda white sauce pizza, which is what the group decided on at the brick-oven pizza restaurant they had chosen.
“Whew,” Miles exhaled when the meal was finished. “Now I’m all sleepy.”
“Well, it’s almost eight. We could head back, I guess,” Scott mused.
“Eh, let’s go to Starbucks first and get some after dinner dessert coffee.”
“Oh, that sounds like a really good idea, Kyra agreed. That settled it. Soon they were sitting in the Starbuck across the parking lot from the pizzeria holding toffee nut, caramel, or mocha coffees, depending on who was focused on.
“I wonder if anybody buys those c.d.’s,” Miles wondered aloud. He was speaking of the compilation discs exclusive to Starbucks that sat next to every register in every store he had ever graced.
“They must. They’re all over. Probably yuppies or whatever that buy four dollar coffees twice a day and think nothing of it,” Scott answered.
“Are there Starbucks in England?” Miles wondered again.
“Yeah, hon, they’re everywhere. In France, people look at them the way I imagine a Mexican would look at a Taco Bell here.” They all smiled at the alliteration.
Pointless conversation and steaming cups of heaven dispensed with another hour. Driving back, Miles felt as though the day had been a rousing success. They arrived in Camp about an hour before today turned into tomorrow.
“Well, day one of four is in the books. Any ideas about tomorrow? It’s your turn.” Miles prodded Sophie as they walked up the road to his cabin.
“At this point it might be another movie day. Let me sleep on it and I might have some fresher ideas for you in the morning.”
“Good, good. Because I would hate to spend all day lying in bed with you,” Miles kidded.
“You should be so lucky.”
As New Hampshire thawed, activities within the camp increased. Miles found himself scheduled for such an activity the following Wednesday, which broke up the week quite nicely, even if it was eight hours he could have been spending with Sophie. Apparently, before summer camp started, there was to be a work weekend where alumni came back to do volunteer work to get the place looking like it did in its brochures. One task a crew would be given was the assembly of a new storage shed.
Miles, Jabari, and Scott were chosen by Dan, the head maintenance man, to procure the lumber for the shed. The job entailed pushing logs that were felled on the property through a huge saw several times, creating rough planks of wood. The three guys were chosen not necessarily because they were especially rugged, but because Dan knew they were three guys that would not complain about hard work. Especially when they had one another for companionship.
“Damn, man. Forget lifting weights. I should tell my old coach about this shit,” Jabari said, rolling a log onto the saw’s track with the help of Scott, Miles and log picks.
“Right? I don’t think I’ve ever broken a sweat here before today,” Miles answered.
“You know why they picked us for this, right?” Scott said. “It’s because we’re Jewish.” They all laughed at the absurdity of that comment. A black guy, a white guy, and a Korean guy walk into a restaurant…
The morning went on like that until they broke for lunch. Scott and Miles went to kiss their respective girlfriends on their respective cheeks before joining Jabari in the lounge for turkey sandwiches and fruit punch.
“You know something, Jabari? I don’t think we’ve spent this much time together since New York. How’ve you been keeping yourself amused all these weeks?”
Jabari thought about the question for a moment. “Emma and I hang out a lot. We both run, so… We go to that gym in New Bedford since we have a free membership through the Y… I take her and Serg and Christopher around since they don’t have cars. Nothing much.”
“Well, we should do something with everyone-“ Miles stumbled with the realization that Paul was zoned out watching VH1 on the couch across the building from the kitchen- “Maybe not something huge. But get out to a bar or go bowling or something.”
“Sounds good to me. I haven’t been to a club since New York, actually. I don’t know that there’s much around here…”
“Ah, we’ll find something. After this weekend.” The three agreed and headed back to the lumber operation.
“I shouldn’t have sat down,” Jabari realized. “I’m all stiff.”
“Well, not me, but I know I’m going to feel this in the morning. Maybe I should start running with you guys.”
“A little Jack will ease your joints.” Miles said. They all nodded. They continued pushing logs through the saw and by the time four o’clock rolled around there was an impressive pile of boards beside the machinery. The trio looked at the fruit of their labors approvingly and walked to the office to record their hours before walking back to staff row.
“There are our boyfriends!” Sophie pretended to gasp. She and Kyra were playing Scrabble on the floor between the two beds.
“Were you worried about us, Shnookums? There’s no need to fear. We’re big, tough lumberjacks now.”
“Lumberjacks who just made an extra fifty bucks on the week,” Scott added.
“Now you’re talking our language,” Kyra said. The guys sat down and the girls dealt them in on a new game. Miles brought out a bottle of wine and they had themselves an evening of Scrabble and vino.
“Ok, ok. Maybe it’s just me, but I think Yahtzee is a blast! We have to get it. I’ll donate it to camp when I leave.” The four of them were deep into a discussion of their favorite board games.
“Well, I like Monopoly, but Scott hates it.” Kyra said.
“How could you hate Monopoly?” Sophie asked.
“That’s my girl.” Miles kissed Sophie’s temple.
“It takes too damn long. It never ends!” Scott cried before draining the remainder of his wine.
“Well, my favourite is Clue.” Sophie said. “Nobody here has that one either. We should get it.”
“We should, but do you know how expensive some of those games are? They start out at around twenty dollars. I think Monopoly is almost thirty,” Kyra answered.
“Really? I don’t think I’ve ever bought a brand-new board game. I always get them at garage sales, or a thrift store or something. Or from my parents.” Miles said.
“This is the lamest conversation ever.” Scott concluded. “Oh no, wait. ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ is awesome. Ok, now it’s the lamest conversation ever.” With that comment Miles found another bottle of wine.
Scrabble gave way to ‘Boundary Breakers’, a game from Kyra’s bag of tricks. The game was along the lines of a more mature version of ‘Truth or Dare’, meaning that there was no daring. One person started a subject such as ‘What I thought about Camp Ontanogan after my first fifteen minutes on site’ and everybody went around the circle and answered. Even for a foursome that was as close as the four people playing it was an interesting game.
“Ok. The first thing you thought when you saw your significant other. I’ll start. I met Scott at another Y camp in Massachusetts a couple of years ago. The first thing I noticed was his smile. It was so big it made his eyes almost disappear. And his voice. I liked it right away. I have a thing with voices. If someone sounds like Fran Dresher it kills me.”
Scott was next. “The first thing I noticed about Kyra was that she didn’t seem to be looking for anyone at all. In that camp, every one was trying to hook up with someone. It’s sort of ironic that the two of us did.”
“Me, I guess? The first thing I noticed about Miles was how courteous he was. I thought all Americans would be pompous, or whatever, but he was really nice to me, even though he didn’t know me at all.”
“Well, this might sound shallow, but the very first thing I noticed about Sophie…and I’ve actually told her this… was that when I went to get a cup of tea on the first day of training during our break, was that ‘the cute English girl’ was at the table. I had to talk to her.”
“Aww,” Kyra sighed. That was the last category of the night. The couples soon retreated to their beds and after a few minutes of kissing and whispering from each corner the only sound heard in the cabin was dream-driven breathing.
“We should go out tonight,” Miles realized with most of the staff relaxing in the lounge the next evening. “It’s early enough yet…” Most of them had recently wrapped up some sort of dinner which put the hour at around seven p.m.
Jabari nodded silently, remembering their conversation at the logging operation during the previous afternoon. There were a few ‘yays’ and no one else vocally dissented so it was as good as settled.
“Who’s going to drive though?” Scott asked.
Miles shrugged. “I’ll drive.”
“Really?” Sophie asked. He nodded. She pushed his shoulder down so his ear was to her lips. She whispered, “Then I am getting pissed and you are getting laid tonight.”
“Oh yeah? How are you going to pull that one off?”
“You’ve got a decent back seat.” Miles reddened. He had not thought of his jeep as a consummation suite.
“Why haven’t we thought of that before?”
“I have.”
“You need to quit talking right now because I’d like to be able to stay standing for a while.” She laughed quietly.
“Oh, knock it off, you two,” Emma gasped. Sophie shot her a feigned look of bitterness.
“Yeah, all right. Let’s do it. I’ll drive, too. We’ll let the girls go wild,” Scott said.
“Cool. Couple hours?”
They all agreed. Back in school Miles would have never considered going to a bar before midnight but then again he usually never got out of bed before noon. The eight of them were hard-wired to get up at seven in the morning on a good day by that point. It was very rare to see anyone out and about after eleven on any evening.
Miles cleaned up the dishes he and Sophie had dirtied and then found a spot on one of the couches big enough for two. Seinfeld was on the T.V. and that seemed good enough for every one. They watched two episodes and then flowed into Drew Carey.
As they walked to the parking lot Miles realized aloud that they could have left two hours ago and not missed anything but rerunning sitcoms.
“Come on, now. We would look like townies if we went to the bar at seven. Going at nine at least makes us look like burnt-out party animals,” Scott shot back. Miles shrugged.
The bar they ended up at was one of the closest to the camp. It was an odd establishment for the area they were living in. Miles had been in a few bars of the same vein in rural Illinois towns, but he never expected such a hick-ish bar to be in New Hampshire. There were antlers and stuffed Pheasants on the wall, a jukebox made up largely of country and classic rock, and a lady bartender with blurry tattoos rendered in prison-blue ink.
Gerry and Jabari tackled the jukebox as Miles and Scott clinked together the first of the two pints of Budweiser they were allowing themselves that night.
‘Gloria’ was soon blaring from the arthritic speakers of the jukebox. The three middle-aged flannel sporting dudes at the bar eyed the newcomers with suspicion as the group pushed three small tables together and sat down. Gerri had a disposable camera with her and soon commenced flashing away. It did nothing for the locals at the bar and within an hour they had headed out the door.
The bartender, however, loved the group. It was probably more money than that bar had seen on a Thursday night in a long time, judging by the crowd they had uprooted.
She did not even have anything to say when Jabari grabbed a Pheasant from the wall and gave it one last flight around the jukebox with a Led Zeppelin soundtrack. He then proceeded to kiss the Elk mount on the wall beside the jukebox and offer it a beer. The moose declined. Gerri caught the best moments using 200 speed Fuji film.
After a few more rounds that they probably did not need they decided to call it a night. A twenty-minute drive put them back in camp at just after midnight. Miles drove his crew up to the cabins and turned back around to park in the lot outside the office.
“How are you doing, sweetie?”
“I’m tired. But…I don’t want to sleep with Scott and Kyra. Can we stay here?”
“I threw my big sleeping bag in the back.” He had parked in an obscure corner of the lot and was almost out of view of the office should they wake up after the office staff showed up in the morning.
“Thank you for driving. That was…good.” They climbed to the back of the jeep and after Miles popped the seat off its rear hinged they had a decent bed.
Once Sophie found Miles under the sleeping bag her tiredness was put on the back burner.
“Hmm. I thought you wanted to go to sleep.”
“I do. But I’m really horny.”
“You are drunk,” Miles laughed.
“Well, seeing as how we’ve done this once or twice before, you shouldn’t feel like you’re taking advantage of me.” She grabbed the uncontrollable part of him and rubbed it against herself. That was all it took.
Miles woke up and had to remember where he was. It was colder than he was used to, that was for sure. Sophie, of course, woke up immediately once Miles began stirring and put out a shivering yawn.
“It’s freezing in here,” she mumbled, and curled into Miles. “Again?” She groggily cried. There wasn’t much hesitation on her part, however.
“I’ve got to be the designated driver more often,” Miles sighed as Sophie did what she knew to do for Miles.
An hour later they emerged from the Cherokee and hoped no one in the office saw them as they walked across the parking lot. Under the assumption Scott and Kyra would still be asleep they went first to the staff lounge to get something to eat. Jabari was sitting on the couch with a huge bowl of honey nut Cheerios watching Fear Factor.
“Oh, my god.” He laughed. “You slept in the parking lot, didn’t you?”
“What are you talking about?” Miles rebuked.
“Man, you’re wearing the same clothes you wore to the bar last night.” Both Miles and Sophie blushed. “The things some of you go through to get some action. I’m almost not jealous.” Jabari laughed to himself and turned his attention back to Fear Factor.
The red-handed lovers split what was left of Sophie’s Special K at the kitchen table.
“You were having a good time last night,” Miles said to Jabari as he and Sophie sat on the couch next to his.
“Yeah, Probably. Did I make out with a moose?”
“It was an elk. And it shot you down.” Jabari laughed his huge laugh. “Oh, my God. We have to do that more often. We don’t need to go to New York or Boston for that shit. That bar was fun.” The other two agreed with him.
“Even Paul was almost normal last night. I mean, I actually talked to him for a few minutes.” Miles added.
“Yeah, man. Sometimes he’s cool. Like, the first couple of weeks, he was fine. But then something just happened. But last night he was all right. It’s weird. Oh well. You’ve got to have at least one odd dude. It would probably be boring otherwise. Just look at the real world.”
“Well if we’re basing it on that, you’re supposed to be much angrier, Jabari.”
“Wha-Man, shut the hell up!” He laughed.
“I mean, you don’t have anything with the African colors on it. A necklace, a shirt-“ Jabari threw a pillow at him. “I’m just saying…”
“Man, if you weren’t Mexican, I wouldn’t tolerate that shit.”
“Right, right. I mean, Si, Si.”
“Oh my God,” Sophie exclaimed. ‘I didn’t think anything could be worse than your English accent. I was wrong.”
“Oh! That’s your girl ripping on you! Sophie!” Jabari leaned his six-and-a-half foot frame over and slapped her five. “She put you in your place!” Jabari was grinning like a kid.
“Yeah, she does that a lot. I don’t know why I put up with it.”
“Uh, dude? Need I remind you you’re wearing the same clothes as last night? I could give a guess as to why you put up with it.”
“Jabari!” Sophie cried.
“Is that the best argument you’ve got?” Sophie only reddened further. “Exactly. You forget we all caught you in Boston. And we were nice then because we were all new to each other. But now I’m going to rip on you if you’ve got it coming. That’s just the kind of guy I am.”
“Ssshhh! I don’t think anyone else knows!” Miles whispered fiercely. It earned him a sock to the arm from Sophie.
“You’re no better. I almost think you’re proud to be getting laid.” Miles shrugged and grinned ridiculously. Sophie smiled back. “Harrumph. You’d better be.” They kissed cordially as not to make Jabari uncomfortable.
“Ooww, you’re so cute,” he mocked.
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