Wish you werent here, p.23
Wish You Weren't Here, page 23
She releases the marker and flashes me a million-watt grin before spinning around and exposing her back. “Good. Then, we’ll start with season thirty-seven; there’s a guy who calls himself ‘the Mayor of Slamtown.’ Now sign my shirt.”
I laugh, uncap the marker, and write the first five words that come to mind. Priya doesn’t criticize me for the brevity of the message. She simply proceeds to pen an entire novel across my left shoulder blade.
“Done!” she finally declares with a flourish.
“What does it say?” I ask, tugging my shirt forward but still unable to see.
“Oh, it’s a list of the first ten dates I’m going to take you on when we get home.”
My breath catches.
“What did you write?” she asks, and I’m once again impressed by her ability to make earth-shattering comments as easily as reporting the weather.
I shrug. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
She doesn’t protest or try to read it backward in the mirror, just says, “Okay. Can’t wait.”
“Come on.” I gesture at the door. We only have a little while before the effigy ceremony starts and entire shirts to fill with messages.
“Age before beauty,” Priya asserts, pushing past me. She skips out the door, and I catch sight of the sentence I messily scrawled along the collar.
I’m glad it was you.
* * *
—
“Tonight, we say goodbye to a wonderful summer.” Pat scans the crowd. In the waning daylight, he’s barely more than a silhouette, but he still manages to drip with gravitas. “It is a tradition here at Fogridge that while the effigy burns, nobody speaks. Out of respect for your friends, your counselors, and the memories you’ve made, I hope you will all honor that tradition. This is a time for reflection. To think about the things you are grateful for and the challenges you’ve overcome this year. When you feel it’s time, when you’re ready, you may head back to your cabins in silence.”
Someone on the edge of the crowd holds up an unlit torch, which Pat takes with a flourish.
“To light the fire this year, I’d like to call up our winning Color War captain and MVP staff member, Flagstaff.” There’s a subdued applause, as most people have already fallen under the spell of Effigy Silence, but I can’t help letting out a small whoop. “And also, next year’s North Star, Amer Pierce!”
It’s not a name I recognize, but the claps and cheers are louder this time as a brown-skinned boy with a bright smile moves through the crowd. The dark outlines of his tightly coiled hair bounce the entire length of his jog up to Pat. Flagstaff claps the boy on the back, and together they dip the torch into the campfire, igniting the end with a whoosh. Carefully, they approach the effigy—ten-foot-tall wooden letters spelling out Fogridge—and hold the torch to the base of each letter until it catches.
The fire grows, tendrils reaching for the stars, and I can feel the heat even from this far back. By the time the last of the untouched straw goes up in flames, I have to take a few steps away from the warmth. A flickering glow illuminates the audience, enraptured by the inferno.
My eyes roam the upturned faces. Lucy and Gia each stand with their group. When I find Lucy, she’s already looking at me. I expect an irreverent wink or finger gun, but she just gives me a small, genuine smile before turning back to the effigy. From my spot, I can only make out Gia’s profile, not his whole handsome face, but it’s enough to see him wipe silent tears from his jaw.
It’s easy for me to think of camp as something that belongs to me. This ceremony always reminds me that my two best friends feel the exact same way. Everyone here feels the exact same way.
TK—the frizz of her hair glowing and creating a halo around her head—stands near the front. Even in seriousness, her face is soft and kind. Pat, beside her, crosses his arms and sets his feet wide apart. It feels silly to love the Zimmermans the way I do. Lucy would tell me that Pat is simply a capitalist pawn doing his job, but I know she secretly loves him. How can you not love the people who gave you a space to be the person you’ve always wanted to be?
Flagstaff grins up at the fire, one hand holding the torch and the other resting atop Amer’s head. My heart feels like breaking just thinking about not seeing his face again. People always say not to meet your heroes, but I think that Flagstaff is a hero worth meeting. I try to psychically communicate my gratitude to him, hoping he can somehow sense it. In fact, I send gratitude to ten years of counselors and specialists. At Strat and her endless enthusiasm. At the long-haired boating specialist, Gamble, who wore jeans that always ended up soaked. At Zebra, the stylish craft specialist everyone had a crush on a few years ago. At Barto and Drell and Seafoam and Twee and Euphrates. At Galahad for bringing Priya and me closer.
Gratitude for Fogridge courses through me. My entire being is a love letter to it, the good and the bad. The sprained ankles and the opening nights. The losses and the wins. Every time the Lazlots stormed the field at Color War. The slight chill of the morning air. Kicking up dew from the grass and feeling it sprinkle the backs of my legs. Every painful and boring moment of a hike, but also the view from the summit.
All at once, finality runs like a chill from my head to my toes. Never again. I never get to come back and do those things the same way. Maybe I never get to come back. Period. I don’t know what my summers will look like. If I’m at Yale, will I give up internships or better pay just to fly back to the West Coast and work here? And after I graduate college, will I get a real job that takes up my summers? Will I even live in California?
One way or another, there will come a day that I drive past the arch, down the dirt road, and never come back.
The thought settles like a lump in my throat, and then I’m crying. Not Gia’s silent tears. Not dignified sniffles. Full-on sobs. I’m not the only one. The people nearby give me sympathetic pats on the back, but it only makes me cry more. How can I say goodbye to this community and this place? How could I have packed up all my things not knowing whether I’ll get to unpack them here again?
I can’t. I can’t.
I can’t.
I can’t.
A soothing hand settles over mine.
Priya stands in front of me. The concern is plain on her face as she pulls me into her, shushing me softly.
“I don’t want to go,” I whisper into her shoulder. Not even her familiar smell is comforting right now.
“We don’t have to go yet,” she tells me, smoothing my hair.
If it’s possible, I cry even harder. My tears soak her shirt, but Priya just continues holding me. People trickle out of the crowd and back to their cabins, but we stay where we are. We are the eye of the storm.
When my weeping slows to the occasional miserable hiccup, Priya steps back. She takes my tearful face in her hands, using her thumbs like windshield wipers. Her eyes sparkle, reflecting the blaze. I can’t believe she’s always been this beautiful and this kind and I thought I hated her.
I’m a fool.
Quietly, she recites an A. A. Milne quote I’ve seen before on social media posts and promotional materials for vacations: “How lucky you are to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
Those words have never meant much to me, but hearing them spoken by Priya Pendley in the glow of the Fogridge effigy changes that.
I breathe in. Lucky for Senior Twilight, for Polaris, for Beauty and the Beast.
I breathe out. Lucky for s’mores, dancing in the firelight, and cozy sleeping bags.
Lucky to have Gia and Lucy.
Lucky to have Priya.
I am standing on my own, not crying. I hold Priya’s hand as the fire goes from inferno to ember. Lucky.
When the fire finally burns itself out, we are two of the last people to walk back to our cabin in total silence, under the watchful stars of the Southern California sky.
And the whole time, I do feel lucky.
39
Epilogue
Three Years Later
It’s dark inside the flimsy paper box. Where the sun manages to cut through the thick coating of crayon on the outside, it casts a dim purple glow.
My body hurts. I’ve been crouched in this same position for hours, but Pat warned me that if I broke the box early and ruined the surprise, he would publicly guillotine me on the last day of camp. And, Juliette, camp does not bring in enough money to pay for years of therapy after these kids see you beheaded.
So, here I am, dutifully motionless, deeply uncomfortable and soaked in sweat as my brain cooks like a scrambled egg.
Still. My heart is racing so fast that I can’t keep the delirious grin off my face.
About thirty minutes ago, the growing ruckus of children arriving at the soccer field began. The noise seems to have passed its zenith and is leveling out to a steady hum. Occasionally, that hum is punctuated by a shriek as the kids spot the paper boxes.
“What is that?” they squeal futilely. “What’s going on? What are those?”
I imagine Lucy recounting the moment later: They kept asking what was going on. Like I knew anything! I know just as much as they do at all times; Pat doesn’t tell us shit.
Suddenly, the sound drops ten decibels. There is a profound silence from the crowd as I hear Pat take the mic. From my position inside the box, his voice is muffled. I worry I won’t be able to hear my entrance line, but there it is, loud and clear:
“Help me welcome this summer’s Lazlot captain—”
I don’t hear him say my name over the adrenaline pumping in my ears as I burst through the paper triumphantly, silently thanking God that I broke the box in one go. There were no test runs and I was afraid I’d end up pathetically trying to claw my way out in front of the entire camp.
I must black out briefly, because the next thing I know, I’m across the soccer field. I seek out my group and, when I find them, scoop up my favorite camper. Arno is a precocious ten-year-old, tiny for his age, except for his abnormally large head. He asks more questions than anyone in the world has answers, and he wears little khakis (often backward) with a button-down every day. I swing him around while he shrieks.
“What the heck?” he demands in a tiny little screech.
“Surprise!” I say, setting his shiny little oxfords gently back down on the grass.
I run to Pat’s side. Now that I’m stationary, my brain catches up to my ears. The thrum of my own pulse fades and I can hear the kids and counselors screaming for me. Strat jumps approximately twenty feet in the air, leading a chant of my nonsense name.
“LUCKY, LUCKY, LUCKY!”
I skim the faces until I find her standing among the specialists. Lucy’s eyes have gone as wide as the mess hall plates. Both hands cover her lower face in shock. Then, she cups her hands around her mouth and screams, “Hell yes!”
I look between her and Pat as he gives her a disapproving headshake. She gives him her favorite Eh, what’re you gonna do? Fire me? shrug. To be fair to her, much worse could have come out of her mouth.
Lucy catches my gaze and ever-so-subtly brings the tip of her index finger to her ear. It’s been a long time since I saw her do that, and it startles a laugh out of me. According to Pat, we can’t play Get Down, Mr. President anymore. Lucy complies, not because she cares about whether it’s camp appropriate, but because Pat warned us that if we do it and the campers injure themselves copying us, Lucy will have to file the incident reports. If there’s one thing she hates more than rules, it’s paperwork.
I give her a little salute, then she points a finger straight at me, and bellows, “THAT’S MY CAPTAIN!” She draws the last word out, pumping her fist in the air. Tears stream down her face. I look away before I get too emotional. Lucy hasn’t been a captain yet, but I know her time is coming. Pat told me that both of our names have been on the short list since we graduated from campers to staff.
I hope when she gets it, she doesn’t tell me either. It’s the only way I’ll be able to live this down. I can already feel her punching me in the shoulder, demanding to know how I could’ve kept it a secret from her. She’ll be even more livid when she finds out that I texted Gia the second Pat approached me for the position.
Gia wasn’t at camp this summer. Not for the first time, I badly wish he could be here to see my reveal, but when he got an internship offer at one of the biggest architecture firms in LA, he couldn’t turn it down. I look for TK, holding up a phone, and wave fervently at the camera. I’d bet good money that Gia is hiding in his office bathroom, glued to that livestream right now.
I’m doing that cornball grin again as Pat uses both hands to signal for silence. He announces the Mariket captain, Howl, who’s new this year and already a BNOC. I’m happy for him, but I can’t take my eyes off the green box. I didn’t think I could be more nervous than I was about my entrance, but as Pat quiets the crowd for the last captain, I am overcome with nausea.
“And our captain for the Dondos, Romeo!”
In one smooth motion, the paper of the box tears, and Priya jumps out. And now I really am crying—just a little bit—as she screams a Dondo chant at the top of her lungs, running back and forth in front of her campers.
She’s dressed head-to-toe in green. Green cat ears, green feather boa, green shirt and shorts under a green tutu. Even the bottom half of her hair, the part that’s normally white, is dyed green. We had to sneak out of our bunks last night (with Pat’s permission, of course) and drive to Party City for cheap spray dye. In classic Priya fashion, she did buy an exorbitantly expensive fancy holographic dye online, but she accidentally shipped it to our apartment in New Haven instead of to the camp office. By the time she realized, not even a rush order would have arrived in time.
She still looks amazing though, because of and not despite the emerald stain on her neck from hours sweating her hair dye off. She sprints toward us, beaming the brightest smile I’ve ever seen from her, setting butterflies aflutter in my stomach. Even after three years.
By the time Priya takes her spot beside me in our lineup, the entire camp is on their feet. I grab Howl’s hand with my right and Priya’s hand with my left. It’s clammy. With her palm pressed against mine, I can feel her heart beating rapidly. She squeezes my hand, and I look in her direction, breathing hard.
She scrunches her nose at me happily, and seeing her like this brings me back to our first summer together. I can barely remember seeing her enormous smile and not loving it with everything I have. I was a different person back then, before I woke up next to her every day in our king-size bed that she somehow manages to take up ninety percent of. Before we opened our letters from Yale and she waited to celebrate until she was sure mine also started with “Congratulations!”
There was a time when I couldn’t have imagined the way Deepika screeched when Priya introduced me as her girlfriend. She had whacked Priya on the shoulder and said, Dear God. If you’re lying, just kill me now. I refuse to live in a world where this is a joke. Once Priya and I confirmed that it was actually true, Deepika hugged me and whispered, I’m so glad you’re finally part of this family, my beautiful girl. She doesn’t deserve you. If you break up, I’m coming with you.
My camp nonsense name started as a joke, but I do feel lucky. I feel lucky for every incredible moment I’ve gotten to spend with my favorite person at my side. I feel lucky that we got to jump out of these silly little boxes together and that we ever got the chance to share this place I love. Maybe it’s my old age (nineteen) turning me into a sap or maybe I’m going mad with the power of being a Color War captain, but I’m confident that no one in the history of the world has ever been as lucky as I am.
I lean in so Priya can hear me over the noise. “I love you,” I whisper.
Instead of answering, she presses into my side and briefly rests her head on my shoulder. She flashes me a heart-melting smile, the kind she saves just for me, before turning back to her adoring fans in the crowd. Priya’s told me she loves me enough times that I could forgive one transgression.
But I won’t. I’m going to give her so much shit for this tonight.
“Fogridge,” Pat says in his deep, booming voice. “I present to you, this year’s Color War captains!”
The three of us raise our interlocked hands and, cheering wildly, race forward into the crowd.
Acknowledgments
I didn’t grow up going to summer camp (I was waaay too poor; we didn’t even have electricity most summers), but I always wanted to. Then, when I was in college, I was summarily fired from a retail position—unfairly, might I add—and in my desperation for a new job, I stumbled upon camp.
It changed my life. I worked at that same camp for the next seven years, even quitting full-time hospital gigs and driving three thousand miles just to relive that magic.
Wish You Weren’t Here is a love letter about home-away-from-homes, inner children, and the wonder of summer. And this love letter is addressed to my entire camp fam (including but not limited to: Josh, Max, and the Clique; Janet; my ropes crew; the icons of Powerhouse; and the Senior Chip girlies). If I tried to list everyone, I wouldn’t have time to write my second book. But if you’ve ever gotten me through a heat wave, done my riddles, or listened to me complain about an authority figure (you know the one) while I belayed, this is for you.
Secondly, this book is not for Elon Musk, but it is for pre-X Twitter. For the writing community that I wouldn’t be published without. For #LGBTNpit, the friends in my circles who celebrated and commiserated with me, the haters and gossipmongers (affectionate) in my DMs, and my incredible beta readers/CPs. It’s for all the authors in the 2024 debut group, who I am so lucky to be on this journey with.
Lastly, I’d like to tell you little stories about some specific people, because to simply list their names out of context wouldn’t do them justice:
